AJ sighs. “I’m sorry, old mate. These have been long days.”
“They’ve been longyears.This has broken you, AJ. Which is why it’s time to walk away. You cannot change the chapters already written, but it’s up to you how you write the new ones. Don’t let this continue. Especially for the sake of a woman who loves someone else.”
“How can you possibly know sheloveshim?”
He drums his fingers on the table, then he leaves the cottage and returns again, bearing a paper-wrapped package. “I happened upon this when I came into town. Thought it lookedremarkably like your wife, and lo and behold, it saysMerrynright on it. So I purchased it.”
AJ tears off the paper and stares into the face of his wife. His stunning wife with creamy skin set against jet-black hair, rosy lips, and those bewitching violet eyes. The unmistakable mark sits on her jaw, just below her lip. He forgot how much Merryn wore her personality upon her face. He captured all of it impeccably, that artist. That Rupert Covington.There was no doubt in my mind that the man who painted her was deeply in love with his wife.He truly did see her with remarkable clarity—with eyes of devotion.
Does she return those feelings? Oh how she clung to that man at the lodge in Newlyn, and there was something of the old Merryn in her that night. She was strong and confident, grounded and sure, all while standing beside that man…and looking upon AJ with distrust. She fled them both, but perhaps because she could not be with the one she wanted most.
Reality socked him in the gut.I am standing between them.
And that’s when Nigel Brooks begins to sound very logical and intelligent. Very…right. “Nigel, I need to vanish for a time. Don’t search for me.”
“AJ.”
“It’s necessary.”
“AJ, your businesses.”
“Are no longer mine. There’s a reason I sold them to you, Nigel. Enjoy them—run them well. You don’t need me yelling corrections at you. You’re wise enough to helm the ship.” He heaves a sigh. “Thank you, old friend.” AJ stares at the painting, drinking up the sight of Merryn as if for the final time, then he kisses that little mark upon her jaw. He cannot help himself.
Warm tears thicken on his eyes, but he blinks them away and pushes back and grabs the painting. He places it on the mantelabove the fireplace, banks the fire, turns, and leaves Dunn Cottage for good.
Chapter 42
William, 1947
“Marriageisaseriesof sacrifices, isn’t it?” The story sinks into William’s soul, especially told in Merryn’s soft voice. “You have to be willing, over and over.”
She laughs good-naturedly, rocking back on the bench. “I suppose that’s one way to see it. How very unpleasant that sounds. I prefer to call marriage a dance, with complex steps you learn together by watching your partner. Come, let me show you.” She rises, her lovely tulle wrapper floating about her as she holds out her arms. “Dance with me.”
He springs up and takes her hand, and she moves them easily into a dance. Step and retreat, pivot and twirl. He bumbles it, badly. Knee into her leg. Foot on her toes. Nearly dropping her on the spin. “I’m afraid I cannot keep up.”
She taps the underside of his bearded chin with her knuckles. “Never look at the feet. Always look at her face, and you’ll be able to sense what she’s about to do. What she needs you to do.”
William forces his gaze to Merryn’s face and marvels again that his painting has come to life. She’s lovely, and there’s something faintly familiar about her, about her smooth, rich nature that reminds him of polished mahogany. The peace on her worn face is expansive and deep, her smile warm, as if her soul has grown roots and sunk far into the ground, and once anchored, she’s pulled light up from it. “Now tell me about yours. I heard you married a lovely girl from—” Her expression falls. “Oh…Oh no, what is it? Has something happened?”
William turns and moves to the bench so she cannot read his face so clearly. People who’ve found peace enough to stop analyzing themselves have the uncanny ability to see into others with alarming clarity.
She sits beside him and tilts her head a bit. “Do you miss her, Will?”
He breathes in, recalling the scent of Helen, the sound of her voice that has been so clear even through the crackling telephone connection. How warm and welcoming she is—how wide and lovely her smile, especially when directed his way. “Yes.” He stares at his hands.
She wants to ask more—he can see it on her face—but she doesn’t.
“W-w-what’s it like? Losing your memory, that is?”
She squints, gazing into the distance. “Like being a newborn babe.”
“A blank slate, with nothing to mar it.”
She leans down to pluck a weed and toss it aside. “We think of memories as a logbook, but they’re more than that. They give us a framework through which to view our present. Not havingthat is freeing at times. I wasn’t wary or jaded, and I delighted in life as a child does, trusted everyone.”
“That sounds…perfect.” He closes his eyes, but he’s immediately assaulted with images of flying bodies against a night sky, so he opens them again. Memories are involuntary. And the ones a person most wishes to remove…those hold faster than anything.
“But it also left me without discernment, and often without compassion. I was immature as a child is, and feeling my way in the dark which, it turns out, I was afraid of. But then I realized it wasn’t the dark I feared, but being alone in it. So I looked topeopleto ground me in the world. What they said about me, how they interacted with each other…that became my encyclopedia of life, and I let them constantly reorient me. But people aren’t meant to be anchors, even if they offer to be.”
