Before and Again

by Barbara Delinsky

  EPILOGUE

  Six months later, we were still in Devon, still together, still in love. But love was like wrinkles on the faces I made up. They could be frozen, peeled, and pulled tight. They could be moisturized and concealed. They could be minimized by drawing attention to other features, say, cheekbones or eyes. But they were the price of living, and they never fully disappeared. The older the face was, the more we had to work at keeping it smooth.

  Same with love. Edward and I loved deeply. After losing track of that once, though, we were leery of kinks. And they did come. Take the third of October, the anniversary of Lily’s death. Each year since moving to Vermont, I had driven down to Massachusetts to be with her on that day. This year Edward came with me, and much as we tried to be upbeat, the old litany of what-ifs was a shadow that followed us the whole way. We were silent in the car going, silent at her grave, silent in the car returning. It was only later that night, after lying in bed in separate crypts of grief, that I broke down, Edward reached for me, and we began to talk. It was about sharing memories of her and yes, sharing dreams of what might have been, because those dreams were valid and couldn’t be ignored. It was also about sharing the pain of loss, understanding that it was different for each of us and, like crows’ feet, could be temporarily hidden but would never be gone.

  Our minds had owned that. Our hearts were simply slow catching up.

  That was last week. But the very next day, something unexpected happened. I was stunned by the joy I felt, and it wasn’t just an initial pop and fizzle. It lingered, giving each day since a little glow. I might have attributed the glow to autumn in Devon, which was a time of crisp apples, fields full of pumpkins, and leaves every shade of fire, if this glow hadn’t come from deep inside.

  I felt it even now, cradled in the hammock on our back lawn, where the river flowed more slowly now that summer was done, and the scent of drying leaves was strong. It was late Sunday afternoon. With barely two hours of daylight left, the sun slanted low over the dried leaves that littered the lawn. My head rested on Edward’s arm. Behind me, his brow to my nape, he snored softly.

  Slipping the cell from my pocket, I held it high for a selfie, then looked at the shot and smiled. Sweet, it showed two partial heads, Edward’s lone visible eye shut, mine open, his cheek whiskered, mine clear, our jaws lined by a ruff of fall scarves, mine fuchsia, his heather blue. The air held a chill, though I was perfectly warm where I lay.

  Pleased with the moment, feeling strong, I opened Photos and thumbed backward in time through a raft of construction shots. With the bulk of the inside work finished in the main house, the crew had moved on to the carriage house, garage, and mudroom, wanting to frame, roof, and rough those in before snow fell. For the sake of a before-and-after collage, I was documenting it all.

  The shot I was looking for had nothing to do with home renovation. Swiping forward, then backward again in search, I found the one I wanted. It showed a clay piece, certainly construction but of a totally different kind. It wasn’t a bust exactly, certainly wasn’t a lifelike representation of Lily. It was more vague than not, more suggestive than exact, but it was definitely our child, whose life had never been static and whose memory mirrored that.

  I hadn’t been able to sculpt her before. So this was new. But I wasn’t glazing this piece. I planned to bronze her and, after the last of the dust settled on the work in the house, find a special place for her to sit. It wouldn’t be on a pedestal. Neither of us wanted a mausoleum. What we wanted was that Lily mix with our current life, because that life was rich.

  Ten years ago, rich meant money. Neither of us had been rolling in it growing up, which may have been a way of rationalizing the lifestyle we had—and, hey, I’m not saying money can’t buy happiness. When it means having a home, enough food, or medical care? Seriously. But wealth isn’t wealth without family and friends. In that sense, we were rich now as never before.

  Thumbing through pictures from the last few months, I stopped at one of Grace and Chris, and brought it full-screen. I had caught them from behind when they were leaving the courtroom after Chris’s hearing. Chris seemed taller, perhaps simply standing straight, and his arm was around Grace’s shoulder in what could only be interpreted as protectiveness. That was what I loved about this shot. Having learned who he was, he could finally appreciate what his mother had done for him all these years. Moreover, after spending the week with Carter Brandt, who was also in the courtroom that day, Chris seemed neither impressed that the guy was in Congress nor, though he had little say as yet, particularly eager to be in his care. Call me perverse, but that pleased me.

  The resolution of the case was equally satisfying. Given Chris’s age, he had been charged with an act of juvenile delinquency. After studying the psychologist’s reports, statements from Chris’s teachers, and a plea of leniency from Ben, the judge suspended any finding pending a two-year probation, with the understanding that if Chris stayed clean during that time, all charges would be dropped.

  Grace’s case was more complex. She spent several nights in lock-up while Jay scrambled behind the scenes. He did manage to get her released on bail—huge victory there. Granted, the level of bail was high enough to terrify her. And Federal agents watched her day and night. Not that she would have run. Chris was the ultimate pawn. Short term, he was with his father. She knew that any attempt to flee meant she would never see him again.

  If the analogy was to chess, though, she held the all-powerful queen. Her evidence against Carter Brandt was so strong—and Brandt’s desire to keep it hidden so desperate—that he agreed to a deal. Kidnapping charges against her would be dropped and a reasonable custody arrangement agreed to in exchange for her surrendering the incriminating evidence.

  Did she actually hand it all over without keeping any proof of its existence? Maybe, maybe not. No matter that she had Jay on her side, Ben on her side, so many others of us dying to testify on her behalf, she didn’t trust Congressman Brandt. He had money and power, both of which held sway in a court of law, unless one had a weapon against them. I was guessing she kept a little something, just in case.

  That said, old habits die hard, meaning that she did consider leaving town. Well after the legal issues were settled, the notoriety of the case made her paranoid when we left to shop the Manchester outlets or the Hanover boutiques. But Chris wanted to finish high school in Devon; he had become something of a hero among his friends. And besides, she feared that her past would be waiting for her wherever she went. At least here she was assured of a job, relative safety from gawkers, and a solid client base. She often disappeared when Chris was in Washington with his dad, though whether she was out looking for a new home or holed up with Ben, I didn’t know. Our relationship still held secrets.

  I did finally give her raven-black hair, though. I figured she had the right to look the way she wanted after the hell she’d been through. And it wasn’t all bad, that raven hair, especially with a body wave to soften the starkness. Now, I studied the picture we’d taken when that session was done. She was a seriously striking woman. It was a miracle she had stayed hidden so long. Had it not been for the press …

  But I couldn’t go there. I had sworn to put that particular resentment behind me.

  Yes, I received a probation-surrender notice soon after Grace’s arrest, and, yes, I had to appear in court in Boston. But it was different this time. For one thing, my family was there rooting for me, as were not one, not two, but three carloads of friends from Vermont. For another, five years after my initial trial, the attorney general who had made headlines of me was out, and the new one didn’t bother to come to court that day, which gave little incentive for press coverage—particularly after kidnapping charges against Grace were dropped, which made the case against me iffy at best.

  Shanahan was humiliated. Was I sorry? Absolutely not. To this day, I’m convinced that his motivation in filing the probation-violation order was jealousy of Edward, whom I had chosen over him. His vindictiv
eness had caused me emotional and monetary pain. So no, I did not count Michael as a friend. He had proven himself neither reasonable nor loyal.

  Cornelia Conrad, our savvy postmistress, was both. She sat front and center that day in Boston, exchanging smiles with the judge and greeting court officers like the long-lost friends that it turned out they actually were.

  Everyone has a story, my mother remarked after the fact, because Cornelia certainly did. We knew she had been a professor in Boston. What we didn’t know was that her professorship was in law and that she taught evenings. By day, she was a clerk-magistrate in Boston, presiding over probable cause hearings, issuing warrants, and setting bail, any of which promised less stress than the law firm from which she’d come. And for twenty years as a clerk-magistrate, she was fine. Then, one day, she set bail in a domestic violence case, only to have the defendant go home and kill his wife. Cornelia hadn’t been any more responsible than the prosecutor or the defense attorney, neither of whom asked for greater bail. Still, she blamed herself. Soon after, she moved to Devon.

  That total absence of wrinkles that I had speculated about? Definitely genes.

  A movement caught my eye—a flash of beagle and the rustle of grass. Jonah was chasing a rabbit. The snap of my fingers brought him back, but it also woke Edward. He called Jonah’s name in a groggy voice, which was probably what settled the dog under the hammock again. Did Jonah like it here? Honestly, I think he would have liked it anywhere Edward was. He had become man’s best friend, which wasn’t fair, since I was the one who rescued him in the first place, but there it was.

  The cats, bless them, were all mine. Had we dared let them out, they would have been up here on the hammock, tucked against my body as I was tucked against Edward’s. I had waited until two weeks ago to move them here, fearing either that they would escape through ever-opening doors, or that the construction noise would freak them out. Now, even with kitty condos placed in strategically sunny spots, I knew that if I craned my neck and looked back, two cat faces would be at the glass sliders, waiting for us to come in.

  Edward’s arm around my middle pulled me in deeper. “Feeling okay?” he murmured, still sleepy.

  “Totally.”

  “Why am I so tired?”

  It might have been that being an innkeeper was more time-consuming than he’d expected. The same addiction to the possibility that had made him a successful venture capitalist hadn’t just gone away. It manifested itself in how he had dealt with the hacking crisis with an umbrella approach involving technology, personnel, and client incentive. As soon as the books showed stability, he started seeing other things in town that he could improve. There were three mansions on Cedar that, with renovation, could be turned into boutique B&Bs for large family groups. There was a mountain behind the current ski slope just begging to be developed. There were the elementary school, which needed a new playground, and the high school, whose tech lab was obsolete.

  For all that, his group needed money. So Edward Cooper, as leader of that group, was now, again, heavy into client development. That meant entertaining investors at the Inn, basically putting on full day show-and-tells. Exhausting? For sure.

  But Edward loved his work. I appreciated that. So I gave the exhaustion a different cause. “Uh, maybe because you were binge-watching The West Wing until two in the morning?”

  “Mmm.” His breathing lengthened again.

  I matched mine to it for a bit, but, me, I had slept right through Netflix. Sleep was easier for me these days, now that my probation had ended and the future was free. I still had the occasional nightmare, but with Edward close, they had lessened.

  Still, late this Sunday afternoon, I should have been tired. We’d had two weddings at the Inn this weekend, and although Ronan Dineen was now a regular, I liked doing weddings. I had worked both days. I had certainly earned the right to doze in Edward’s arms before the night air sent us inside. But I was wide awake.

  Raising the phone, I swiped again, landing this time on a slightly hilarious shot of my mother and brother. I had taken it at the cabin, where Liam continued to live, not that he spent much time there, now that his restaurant was open. A marketing team had named it Basquaise, after the simple elegance of the French Basque cooking with which he had grown obsessed. Thanks to cross-marketing by the Inn and word of mouth, its first two months were a huge success. I had pictures on my phone of opening night, of glasses of rustic reds from the southwest of France and trays of Basque-style tapas.

  But the restaurant was closed Mondays. So, on the Monday of this shot, Edward and I had been invited to the cabin for dinner. Liam was cooking the entrée, Margaret baking the dessert. I should have known that one kitchen was too small for them both. Liam was Margaret’s boy, as authoritative at Basquaise as she was at The Buttered Scone. A disagreement over the use of clarified butter had them arguing, which was the moment I snapped my shot—and hadn’t Margaret turned on me then? And what do you find so amusing? she had asked archly. All I could do was to smile, as I did now.

  I loved having her here. Six months after breaking it, her hip was almost good as new, and while she had returned to Connecticut to work, she regularly drove back to Devon. She liked the people, she said. Given how busy she was during visits, I believed her. But she also spent time with us. Since the new Margaret liked who she was now, she was more relaxed than I’d known her to be. Maybe it was growth. Maybe it was resolve. Whatever, she was easy to entertain. That said, she declared that she, not Liam, would use the guest room in the carriage house when it was done, if for no other reason than to make sure I was using the pottery studio below.

  Ah. But that issue was still TBD. Clay had been my life once—too much, I wondered in hindsight. I had been a powerhouse wife, mother, and sculptress. But life in Devon was more laid-back. I had slowed down in ways that were good, and I feared that with a studio literally in my back yard, I would regress. And then where would makeup fit in? I loved the people part of that. I loved the Spa, whose scent alone still brought me peace. I loved knowing Edward was right upstairs.

  I also loved Kevin and the pottery studio. Visits there several times a week worked for me. So the first floor of the reincarnated carriage might well end up being a game room.

  For a brief minute, I pressed the phone to my chest and looked out over the lawn to the river. The sun had fallen behind the trees now, barely breaching their denseness, but, if anything, darkness was a better foil for the picture that was already clear in my mind. Lifting the phone, I thumbed forward and tapped into the cause of my glow, studying it full-screen for what had to be the hundredth time.

  At eight weeks, a fetus was pretty amorphous. There was an oversized head and a bean body, together no more than raspberry size. Fingers and toes were visible, still vaguely webbed, but the tail I was told had been there at first was gone. We couldn’t see the sex yet, which was probably good. We weren’t sure we wanted to know. It was one of the things we hadn’t decided. This had happened faster than we’d expected. My mother, who didn’t yet know, would say it was meant to be. In this, I had to agree with her.

  Hard to believe how determined I had been not to do this again. I was frightened. I was grieving. I hadn’t wanted to put myself through the risk of loving and losing again—had feared I wouldn’t survive.

  But I had survived once. This was the message of that night when we cried over my grandmother’s green velvet box. It was also the message of the tumult six months before. I had faced court hearings, the press, and a resurgence of self-doubt, and still I survived. This time around, I’d had better tools. Going forward from here, even more so.

  And then there was the joy. I had forgotten what it was like to see the first image of my baby. Memory of that joy had been lost in sorrow. Studying this sonogram now, putting a finger to the beginnings of a nose and chin, to the indentation where an eye was forming and wondering what color it might be, to the tiny hand whose fingers would fully separate and one day not so far into the
future close around mine, I felt the joy again.

  That still stunned me.

  But the past was like that. We might think we had it pegged, and that it was over and done. We might deny the pain, the fear, the sorrow. Deep down, though, it was there. Like DNA, the past was part of who we were. Only when we accepted that, were we whole.

  There were still times when I felt guilty being happy, but those times were coming fewer and farther between. This picture on my phone, in my hand, was proof of the future, and it held promise.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe thanks to the many, many people who helped me in the writing of Before and Again. Problem is, I don’t know who most of them are! Our lives have crossed, however fleetingly, at one point or another, and something they said or did registered enough to appear in even convoluted form in this book.

  I do know who my husband is. Before and again, Steve helped me with the legal aspects of what you read here. From the bottom of my ever-loving heart, I thank him.

  I also thank Andy Espo and Derek Braunschweiger, for their very basic, very current, and down-to-earth explanation of how a person with evil intent can hack into my computer. This helped me not only in crafting Before and Again, but in protecting my own devices. I will never, ever, ever open an unexpected, unverified attachment again.

  None of those, thank goodness, come from my editor, Leslie Gelbman. Everything she sends is legit and welcome. My very special thanks to her for her willing ear, her wise counsel, and her friendship. We think alike, she and I. Not only has she taken my writing to a new level with this book, but she has made it fun.

  Before and again, I thank my agent, Amy Berkower, without whose care and expertise I would not be working with Leslie and, hence, would not be in this happy place.

  And to all those at St. Martin’s Press, from Sally Richardson on, my thanks for their faith in my work and their undying enthusiasm.