She ignored that. “And number two—tell yourself whatever you want, but I know this—I was a fabulous girlfriend, and you really wanted to marry me.”
“Not arguing with any of that.”
“And you still picked that island and Jack over me. Don’t pretend you hate it there. You love it there. You love it and you love Jack, and you don’t want to leave.”
Hugo wasn’t buying it. “You know how hard it is to find a date on a private island, population two men, twenty deer, and a raven who thinks he’s a writer?”
“If you want my advice—”
He glanced around as if looking for help. None to be found. “Not sure I do.”
Piper poked him in the chest. “Find a woman who loves Jack as much as you do.”
“All right…you see the problem with that?” He wasn’t smiling now. Neither was she.
Here was the problem—not that Hugo would admit it out loud—but nobody loved Jack as much as he did.
“Fact is, Pipes—” She hated when he called her Pipes as much as he hated it when she said Hugo was short for Huge Ego. “—I do love it on that bloody little island.”
The forest, the fen, the harbor seals sunning themselves on the shore outside his cottage, the cries of gulls in the morning. Gulls in the morning? In London, growing up, he’d wake up to the sound of the couple in the flat below fighting World War III. And now…seals and gulls and ocean air and sunrises even God woke up early to watch.
“Knew it,” she said.
“I hate that I love it, but I don’t…I don’t deserve to be there.”
“Why not?”
“Because Davey would have sold his perfect golden soul to have taken one step onto Clock Island, and my useless worthless hide lives there rent-free.”
Piper shook her head. “Hugo, Hugo, Hugo.”
“Pipes, Pipes, Pipes.”
“A first-year psychology student could diagnose you with survivor’s guilt from a mile away.”
Hugo raised his hand as if to bat her words away. “No. Not—”
“Yes.” She poked his chest again. “Yes.”
A family of four in matching “I♥New York” T-shirts strolled through the gallery. Piper smiled politely at them. Hugo tried to smile. Quickly they moved on to another gallery.
“It’s not survivor’s guilt,” he said when they were gone. Piper raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “I don’t feel guilty about being alive. Being alive is…well, not my first choice, but because I’m here, might as well stick around. What I have isthriver’sguilt. It’s not just that I’m alive. I’m alive and…God, look at my life—my career, my house, my…everything. Every day I wake up and ask myself, Why am I here on this island and Davey’s in the ground? Why did everything good happen to me and everything crap happen to him? Thank God you dumped me so I don’t hate myself more than I already do.”
“Hugo—”
“No, the end.” He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “No more armchair diagnosing the mental illnesses of modern artists. I know it’s your favorite sport, but I don’t want to play anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”
“Davey isn’t a nerve. Davey is my entire nervous system.”
“You can be angry at me if you want but believe it or not, I actually want you to be happy.”
As much as he didn’t want to believe her, he did.
With a long exhalation, he leaned back against the wall betweenFrankenstein’s Monster,a gentleman’s portrait in top hat and frock coat, andThe Bride of Frankenstein,her hair tucked under a black-and-white parasol.
“Jack’s writing again,” Hugo said. “I am happy. Well, happier. Now I can leave Clock Island with a clean conscience. I can be miserable in Manhattan or bitter in Brooklyn.”
