Sutton knew the answer without needing any confirmation from Charlotte.
It was what made the acceptance inside of her so easily accessible, even as itdidhurt. Even as she wished she could get lost in this beautiful dream. She justknewthat it wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real. Not for Charlotte Thompson.
And the thing was, Sutton understood that.
She reverently traced her fingers over the backs of Charlotte’s hands again, swallowing thickly at their softness and warmth.
“If things weredifferent…” She trailed off, unable to finish that thought. “In another world, Charlotte. In another world. But you and I don’t live in that world.” She shook her head, cutting Charlotte off with a look when she opened her mouth. “Before we can talk about this, I need you to really think about that. I can’t… Youdidshatter me, Charlotte,” she confessed, the hurt of those old feelings now cut wide open all over again. “And I can’t even entertain the notion of being with you in anyrealcapacity, unless it’s exactly that. Real.”
She slid her hands up to Charlotte’s jaw, cupping it, relishing the feeling of it under her palms.
Charlotte brought her own hands up to cup the back of Sutton’s, her eyes big and unsure, digging right into Sutton’s unprotected heart.
“Darling.” It was all Charlotte said, and even though she had barely moved in minutes, she was breathless.
Sutton understood, though. She understood exactly how Charlotte felt as she stroked her thumbs up, brushing against the softness of Charlotte’s bottom lip.
“I don’t need you to say anything now. Actually, I really don’twantyou to,” she insisted, if quietly. Pleading, as she rubbed her thumb slowly over Charlotte’s lip once more. As if she was memorizing it.
But the true craziness was that she already had it memorized. She always had.
“Please, Charlotte. Ineedyou to seriously think this through before you say any of your pretty words again. I won’t hold anything you’ve already said against you if you realize, as I suspect you will, that you won’t truly be happy giving up the dream you’ve worked for your entire life for me.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I knowI don’t often come to sit down for a chat. I’m sorry about that,” Charlotte murmured as she carded a hand through her hair, tousling it back over her shoulders. “And I know that you don’t blame me for that. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m sorry for it.”
Closing her eyes, she leaned against the seat of the bench.
“I wish you were here. I don’t know what, exactly, I would do differently if youwerehere, but I still wish you were. That’s a part of why I don’t often come to sit here, you know. Because I know that if I did, I’d get so bogged down in missing you. And I knew that would make me feel this—this hurt, of you being gone, all over again.”
She stared intently at the Jane Magnolia tree she’d planted in her yard. The one she’d planted with her grandmother’s ashes; the ones that weren’t buried in the family mausoleum, anyway.
Charlotte hadn’t been aware of any of her grandmother’s postmortem plans. She’d asked once, when Elizabeth had gone in for a hip surgery several years before she’d passed, what arrangements she’d want. It was a conversation Charlotte did not want to have, but she’d thought it was prudent to discuss these things when an eighty-eight-year-old was going to have surgery.
Her grandmother had waved away her question with the response, “It’s all taken care of.”
Which Charlotte accepted and never questioned again. Of course it was taken care of; Elizabeth Thompson was at the helm. She’d had a will and estate plans drawn up with her lawyers since she’d been in her forties, and, according to said lawyers, she’d carefully make updates and reviews as she’d aged, as their family had grown, as new events occurred.
She’d wanted to be cremated. She’d had half of her remains go to the Thompson Mausoleum in Great Falls, where Charlotte was from, and half of them had been given toher, along with the letter.
Which had started:
I know, my dear girl, that you will miss me most of all. Perhaps more than anyone else in our family combined. I know you and I align on the believe that death is the end. I do not believe that my soul exists in my physical remains or in a spiritual afterlife, and I know you share that view. But this is about more than that. This is about you being able to have closure in my passing—something I want you to have.
The family plot is symbolic, a necessity for public image, and an agreement I made long ago with your grandfather for us both to be laid to rest there. Never let it be said that Elizabeth Thompson didn’t keep her word, even in death.
I spent my life trying to make an indelible, intangible change in this country, in the world. I’d like, in death, to make a physical change. I want you to plant my remains, to make a beautiful, physical addition to the world. I trust that you, more than anyone, will respect that wish for me.
Charlotte hadn’t known how much she’d needed that, not until she was entrusted with all of the information. It had given her closure, even though she was of the same mind as her grandmother; she did not believe Elizabeth Thompson’s spirit existed in this Jane Magnolia.
But she had taken comfort when she’d planted it. A visceral sort of comfort, with her hands in the soil, as she’d remembered her grandmother showing her how to garden in her youth. It had been something they’d shared, something before politics and current events and chess strategy.
Maybe the only thing they shared that was relaxing.
Her grandmother had left no instruction as to which plant, exactly, she’d wanted. Charlotte took that as another sign of trust. Her grandmother trusted her to figure that out.
After extensive research, with no outsourcing to assistants for something like this, she’d chosen the Jane Magnolia. Something that was, indeed, a physically beautiful addition to this world. It originated in the South, much like Elizabeth had, but unlike other magnolias, this one was able to flourish in not only the South, but the north. It was sturdy, strong, and versatile.
