To start doing hard things.
She’d spent so many years running away, convinced it was what her mother wanted for her—to live a life full of travel where she jumped around and never got close to anybody.
But she was tired. She didn’t want to run anymore. She wanted to settle down. To plant roots.
Did asking hard questions guarantee she could do that?
She’d turned around and now pulled into the driveway of a small cottage. With gray wooden shingles and white trim, it looked like the majority of the houses on the island. The landscaping was immaculate but not flashy. Nothing about the little house was flashy.
The door was a deep peacock blue and the name on the mailbox said Walker.
Her journey had brought her here, with a fistful of questions and the resolve to hear the answers.
She pulled the photocopied article from her bag and looked at it again.
“Okay, Jack Walker,” she said aloud. “Time to start talking.”
But Emily sat behind the wheel of her grandmother’s posh car, staring at the cottage. It was as if a weighted barbell had just been laid across her chest, making it hard to breathe, let alone move.
She thought about her time here, about Hollis, about how he continued to try and do better in spite of his mistakes. He hadn’t quit on Jolie after his life fell apart, and he’d messed up—really messed up.
Emily had messed up too. Her whole life had been a series of small disasters and bad choices, starting with turning away from God.
She reached across the seat and found the book inside her bag. She pulled it out and opened it.
Dear Emily,
Faith is kind of a tough subject for me. It’s hard to explain all the things I feel about God. Mostly I feel like he’s been this true, unconditional friend who’s never turned his back on me even when I’ve made giant mistakes.
I don’t want to force my faith on you. I believe everyone has to find their own way when it comes to God, but at the same time, I want you to know it’s important. When things fall apart, it’s crucial to have hope that there is a way to put them back together.
Faith brings that to you.
And the way to have faith is to trust what God’s said. I always thought it was crazy that God promises so many things to us. (It’s in the Bible. Someday the Bible won’t be super boring, I promise.) He promises he’ll never leave us, and I have to say, when your world feels like it’s crumbling, that’s a really important promise to hold on to.
As you grow up and get older, and probably every time something bad happens, you may want to blame God—you might get mad at him, and that’s okay. Tell him how you feel. I promise he can take it.
But I’ve learned that in those hard times, if you can hold on to him instead of pushing him away, it makes you stronger and more fearless than you ever thought you could be.
I hope you pray. A lot. I hope you go for long walks and hash out your feelings with Jesus. I hope you hold on to what you know in your deepest soul to be true—that he loves you, that he’s got a plan for you, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
And that he’s right there for you, no matter what.
Love,
Mom
The words stared at her—Mom’s handwriting, an instant source of comfort. She’d all but forgotten this letter. She was surprised she hadn’t torn it out and thrown it away.
She was angry with God, and she had been for a lot of years. She blamed him for her mother’s death because who else was there to blame?
Now, sitting in this car, staring at this house, holding this article, she faced an unknown future—one she wasn’t sure she wanted.
But if what her mother said was true, God wasn’t unknown. He was proven. He made promises and he kept them.
Then why didn’t you keep my mother safe?
The words hit her square in the chest.
He was God. Couldn’t he have made it so the car hadn’t started and they’d never left the cottage in the rain that night? Couldn’t he have stopped the car from hitting that tree? Couldn’t he have kept her mother’s heart beating?
If he could do anything, why hadn’t he done that? Why hadn’t he saved the one person who meant more to her than anyone else in the world? Why had he left her so alone?
“I’m mad at you,” she said out loud to the empty car. “I’m mad that you took her from me. She was the only one I had, and you took her. Why?”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she pressed her fists into them, refusing to cry. She stared at the words on the page, wishing her mom were here. Wishing she could ask for clarification, not only on this letter, but on so many of them.
Having her words was wonderful, but what if Emily misinterpreted them? What if she didn’t understand?
She looked back up at the house. “Okay, God. If you’re really here, then can you find a way to keep whatever is about to happen from breaking my heart?”
She waited for a few seconds as if she might actually get an answer, which, of course, she didn’t. She exited the car, and crushed shells crunched underneath her feet. She walked to the door, pausing for a brief moment for a little self pep talk.
She inhaled a deep breath. She’d regret it if she didn’t at least try to piece this all together. She’d spend her whole life curious, and she already knew how that felt.
No. It was time. No more running.
She knocked on the front door before she lost her nerve.
Seconds later, it opened to reveal Jack standing on the other side. “Emily.”
“Hey,” she said. “May I come in?”
He opened the door wider and took a step back to make room for her to enter the cottage.
“Nice place,” she said. And she meant it. The cottage was cozy and charming and so very different from her grandparents’ house. It had a homey feel, like walking into a hug the second you entered.
“It’s actually my aunt’s,” he said. “But she lets us use it sometimes. I think she’s going to sell it, though, so this might be my last summer here.”
Emily chewed the inside of her lip. “Look, Jack, Marcus told me about my grandmother.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Partly,” she said. “I’m going to talk to her. The job’s almost finished, so it makes no sense to fire you now, especially since she doesn’t have a reason.”
He half shrugged. “I’m sure she has her reasons.” He led her into the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Water, if it’s okay,” she said. Her throat had turned to sandpaper and her mouth was like cotton. Not a great combination for someone who needed to be able to speak.
Jack pulled a glass from the cupboard, filled it from the filtered water in the refrigerator door, and slid it across the island toward her. She took a drink, then followed him to the living room.
“I’m going to get you your job back,” she said.
“I hope so. I’d really like to see it through. I don’t like to leave things unfinished.”
A brief lull stunted the conversation.
“How many years have you been coming here?” she asked.
“I’ve stayed here off and on over the years since I was a kid,” Jack said. “The summers I spent on the island, I spent them here.”
“So you would’ve maybe been here eighteen years ago?” She began rummaging through her purse.
Jack held her gaze. “Emily—”
She produced the folded sheet of paper and handed it over.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“An article about my mom’s funeral.”
His face went pale.
“You implied that the two of you didn’t know each other.”
Jack didn’t respond.
“If you didn’t know her, then why would you travel to Boston for her funeral? You’ve never lived in Boston, right?”
“No, I never have.” He stared at the image on the photocopy before handing it back to her.
<
br /> “It’s kind of strange,” she said. “Do you make a habit of attending funerals of people you admired from a distance?”
“I asked Hollis to let me talk to you about this myself.”
Emily’s heart dropped. “Hollis?”
Jack shot her a look.
“What does Hollis have to do with this?” Please say nothing. Please say you misspoke.
“Nothing,” Jack said.
But she could see it wasn’t nothing. Anyone could’ve seen it. “Talk to me about what?”
“I was going to tell you, Emily,” he said. “I just didn’t know how.”
“Tell me what? That you knew my mother?”
A part of her knew what he was about to say, but that part was silenced by the part that didn’t think she could handle it. It took everything she had not to run from the house, get back in the car, and drive straight to the ferry and off the island—for good.
So much for not breaking her heart.
So much for believing God was really going to be there for her this time.
CHAPTER 42
SHE STOOD IN JACK’S LIVING ROOM, the realization of what he’d just said fresh in the air between them.
“What did you say?” She studied him. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he held her gaze as if it were a life preserver and he were a man bobbing in choppy seas.
“It’s me, Emily,” he said. “I’m your father.”
Emily’s pulse quickened. Jack Walker—the only contractor who’d answered her ad, the man who taught her how to use a sledgehammer, the man who’d been in her house practically every day she’d been on Nantucket—wasn’t just an acquaintance of her mother’s. He was so much more.
He was the man who’d broken Isabelle’s heart. He was the man who’d found out about Emily and taken off right afterward. He was the one who’d abandoned her, without ever giving her a chance to prove to him that she was good enough to be loved.
She turned away.
“Look, I know this is a lot to take in.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said quietly. “That very first day you showed up? Why did you keep it a secret?”
Jack sighed, then slid onto the sofa. “I came here for one reason, Emily—to get to know you. To see what kind of person you’ve become. And I was afraid if you knew who I was . . .”
She glanced at him, and while she didn’t want to feel pity for this man who’d hurt her simply by not being a part of her life, she did. Because the look on his face made his pain obvious.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t have spoken to me at all.”
Emily scuffed her shoe against the wood floors of the small cottage. They needed to be refinished. It was a task that would be easy for Jack, and yet it went undone, likely because he’d spent so much time working on her cottage.
“Shouldn’t you have given me a chance?” she asked, not letting on that Jack had a point. If she’d opened the door that first day and he’d told her this, she would’ve slammed the door in his face. She would’ve kicked him out, gotten back on the ferry, and traveled as far away from Nantucket as she could. It was smart, his hanging around, being charming, making her like him.
Yet it felt like she’d been played. How could she have been so foolish?
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I should’ve been straight with you from the start, but, Emily, I knew what you probably thought of me—”
“How?” She spun around to face him. “How could you possibly know anything about me at all?”
Her eyes had clouded over. Traitors! She squeezed the bridge of her nose to keep from crying.
Was it possible his lie by omission had actually been good for her?
No. A lie was still a lie. And after all these years, that was his choice—to lie.
“Just tell me one thing,” Emily said.
“Anything, Emily.”
“Did you even love her?”
The noise the man made was hard to describe. Not a scoff, but almost, and one that seemed to happen to him, like he wasn’t quite in control of himself. The almost scoff seemed to say, How can you even ask me that?
And yet, how could she not?
Jack leaned forward, forearms on his knees, hands folded in front of him, eyes on the rug under his work boots. “I’ve never loved anyone like I loved Isabelle.”
“Then how could you leave?” Emily heard her volume climbing, and she warned herself to keep her emotions in check.
“Guard your heart.”
“I didn’t want to,” he said.
She inched back. “That’s a lie.”
“It’s not.” He looked at her now. “I—it’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t seem complicated to me,” she said. “Either you wanted us or you didn’t. You left, so you obviously didn’t want us.”
“Emily, it’s not that simple,” he said, eyes still fixed on her.
“Then explain, Jack,” she spat. “Now’s your chance. Tell me what happened.”
His gaze hung on hers as an old clock on the mantel behind her ticked off the seconds. His eyes seemed to replay a years-old memory. He had answers to questions she’d always asked. He knew what had really happened that night. He knew why her mother had rushed out the way she did. He might even know what Isabelle and Emily’s grandparents had been fighting about.
But when he looked away, Emily feared Jack, just like Grandma, wasn’t going to share any of what he knew with her.
“Some things are better left in the past,” Jack said. “Just know that I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave Isabelle—or you. I wanted to know you, to raise you, but I . . .”
“You what?”
“I wanted you to have a good life.”
“And you couldn’t have given that to me? A life with both of my parents—wouldn’t that have been enough?”
He shrugged, his eyes red. “Would it?”
“Of course,” Emily whispered. “That was all I ever wanted.” And it was. She hadn’t realized it until she said the words, but it was the truest truth she’d ever spoken aloud.
Jack raked a hand through his hair. “I wanted you to have the kind of life I’d only ever dreamed of. Your grandparents gave that to you. They made sure you had everything you ever needed.”
Emily narrowed her gaze. “But they didn’t.”
He met her eyes.
“Because what I needed were my parents.”
“No, you needed to be taken care of,” Jack said. “You needed a home and stability and the best education. You deserved those things.”
“Who told you that?” Emily asked. “Who told you that was more important than having a parent?”
Jack looked away.
There was still so much he wasn’t saying. What would it take to get him to be straight with her?
“Was my mom on her way to see you that night?”
Jack maintained his floor-bound gaze as he slowly nodded. “I was going to meet you that night.”
Emily wiped a tear that had slipped down her cheek. “So after the accident . . . ?”
“I felt like it was my fault she was gone,” he said. “That you’d really hate me now. I didn’t deserve any piece of her then, especially not one as beautiful and kind and good as you.”
Emily’s hands turned to fists at her sides. “You should’ve tried harder, Jack.” She started for the door, but before she reached it, he stood.
“Wait,” he said.
She stopped but didn’t turn toward him.
“I found this,” he said. “In your mom’s room. It’s the only one there is, and I thought you might want it.”
Slowly she faced him and saw he was holding a small photograph out toward her. She took it. The faded image of her mother and a much-younger Jack stared back at her.
“I loved her more than anything,” Jack said. “I’m sorry I ever let her go.”
Emily willed herself not to crumple the photo and throw it at Jack. Instead, she dropped it on the floor, then turned
and walked out of the cottage, slamming the door behind her as she did.
CHAPTER 43
EMILY PULLED THE LEXUS into the circular drive in front of her grandparents’ cottage, mind spinning.
“Am I supposed to believe you were there for all that?” she said aloud. “What happened to you never leaving me? What happened to you being there when I need you? Where are you now?”
If she’d been angry with God before, her feelings had only intensified after discovering a piece of the truth. When would she find out the rest? When would she ever have all the pieces to make sense of everything that had happened?
Jack said he hadn’t wanted to leave, so why did he? It made no sense.
“Why is everyone lying to me?” A tear escaped, and she angrily wiped it away. She parked the car and drew in a deep breath.
Hollis stood on the porch, leaning against the post and looking painfully handsome. More than that, though, he looked kind. It was obvious from Jack’s comments that Hollis had found out the truth about who the man was—but Emily had to believe he had a reason for keeping it a secret.
And now, simply by meeting his eyes as she turned the engine off, she could see he was worried.
She wanted to collapse in his arms, to draw her strength from him, to finally let herself cry. But she wouldn’t, of course. She was stronger than that.
He met her in the driveway, next to the car, and without saying a word, he pulled her into a protective hug. “Are you okay?”
Emily didn’t want to think about the way any of this made her feel. Thanks to this house in Nantucket, everything—everything—had been dredged to the surface again. How did she get away from it all?
She shrugged softly, aware that her tears were getting his T-shirt wet. Maybe she wasn’t as strong as she thought. “How long have you known?”
Hollis pulled away and looked at her. “Not long, but you have to believe I wanted to tell you. I told Jack I wasn’t going to keep this secret for very long—it was killing me. But he really wanted to tell you himself, in his own way.”
Emily searched Hollis’s eyes for any sign of insincerity. She found none. He would never intentionally hurt her, would he? Still, his keeping this from her stung.
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