“What do you mean?” I ask.
Paul moves his book around a bit on the table. “I shouldn’t even be discussing it.”
“We already know most of it,” Liam lies, so coolly that it shocks me. “Juliette told us everything.”
Paul considers us both until he sighs. “Something happened between her and Isabelle. There was a shift. And then they had a falling-out—a big falling-out.”
I inch even closer in my seat. “Over what?”
“Over the house.”
“The house?” Liam echoes.
“Once Juliette and I got engaged, we planned on moving into her aunt Nicola’s house, the one that was left to her and Isabelle. Juliette was the one who kept it up, and Isabelle was pretty established in London at that point. We figured we’d buy her out over time. Make monthly payments. But then Isabelle decidedshewanted the house.”
“Did she say why?” I ask.
“She just said she had a right to it, too. And she and Freddie were well set up at the time, at least compared to us. They both had well-paying jobs. They could afford it, while Juliette and I were just barely scraping by. The girls went back and forth arguing over it. I thought they’d eventually figure something out, but they didn’t—or couldn’t. In the end, Isabelle threated to sue Juliette if she didn’t agree to give up the house. And with neither of us being able to cover legal fees, Juliette had to agree. Isabelle bought her out, and that was the end of it.”
I feel an uneasy twinge in my abdomen as our friendly adventure suddenly seems to be changing into something more intense.
Liam looks confused and the smallest bit wounded. “But mum never mentioned her living in Oxford full-time.”
“She never did,” Paul says. “To my knowledge, she only kept the house as a holiday home for a year before she sold it.”
Liam and I glance at each other before turning back to Paul.
“And how did Juliette handle that?” I ask.
“When she realized she truly had to give the place up, she was very much defeated. I tried to pull her out of it. I said we could use the money from Isabelle to buy a place of our own. I’d give up writing and start teaching full-time. But something switched in her after that. She was so hurt and angry, and it suddenly seemed like we had to decide on our future all at once. Mammoth choices were made in the blink of an eye with tempers flaring and hearts pounding. We made our choices...and we didn’t choose each other.”
“Why not?” Liam questions, beating me to the punch.
“Juliette had lived in England for years at that point, and always told me she wanted to stay permanently. That was the plan, and that’s what we built our ideas for the future around. We assumed we’d get married and figure everything else out as we went. But then, after everything with Isabelle, she said she wanted to move back to the States. She said if we stayed here, there’d be a lingering cloud hanging over us and that she couldn’t give her playwriting a real chance unless we were in New York. I wasn’t prepared for that. My parents were here, my friends were here, everything I knew was here, and I think I went into fight-or-flight mode.”
“Meaning?” I ask.
“I dug in my heels. I told her I couldn’t leave England. I couldn’t picture us moving to a city where I didn’t know anyone, and Manhattan was hardly an ideal place to start a family. And then that statement set off a whole new question of compatibility. Juliette said she might not even want children, and I knew that I did. All of this piled up in the course of one heated conversation, and just like that, our world together crumbled. We couldn’t find a middle ground—she wouldn’t stay, and I wouldn’t go.”
I pull Ollie a little closer to me in my lap. Paul twists his pint glass around that’s been untouched since we arrived.
“I was glad when I heard of her success. I followed her career through the papers, and in some twisted way, I felt like I played a small part in it all. I let her go, and she achieved everything I knew she would.”
“And what about you?” Liam asks.
“I went on to lead a good life. I fell in love with and married a wonderful woman and had two fantastic children. I’ve had a job teaching about books and writers for the past forty years. I achieved everything I wanted, too. My dreams were just smaller than hers.”
“And your wife?” I hesitantly inquire.
“She died several years ago. I never told her about Juliette, but I still somehow think she knew. Women have a way of knowing all the things that matter.”
“And you’ve lived in Abinger all this time?”
“I have. It’s just the right amount of quiet, and, of course, if I ever left now, my granddaughter would be furious. As I told you...”
“You have the good sunroom,” I fill in. “Yeah, you can’t just give up top-shelf lighting when it falls into your lap. That’s basically scorning a gift from the gods.”
Paul laughs in his soft, rich tenor. Silence stretches for a few seconds until he speaks again. “After Juliette and I had it out, I wrote to her a week later. I was desperate to work things out and begged her to forgive me. I honestly thought we would move past it, but she had left London before my letter arrived.” He pauses before saying, “I always wondered if things would have been different had she read it.”
