James laughed. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
“Don’t tease her.” Helen softened her words with a smile. She turned back to Lucy. “I think I would’ve felt the same way.”
“We could go tomorrow before we head back to London, if you feel well enough,” Lucy offered.
“These couple days have made clear the things I must do.” Helen reached over and grasped James’s hand, which rested on the base of his wineglass. “I know you want me to rest, but I’m ready. Let’s go home tomorrow.”
“Another day isn’t going to hurt, Grams. Do you want to stay, rest by the fire, and see the Parsonage?”
“It’s time to go.” Helen’s tone brooked no opposition.
“Of course.” James glanced to Dillon and Lucy. “You two okay with that?”
“Absolutely,” Lucy chirped. She caught Dillon’s questioning stare as he agreed as well.
The conversation dwindled into light banter as they ate grilled beef medallions with small potatoes and bright fresh peas.
When all the plates sat empty, James cleared his throat and waited for everyone’s attention. “I quit my job today,” he announced.
“You what?” Lucy’s head bounced up.
“I switched departments rather than jobs.” James drummed his fingers on the tablecloth. “I sent an e-mail to the partners requesting a full transfer to the pro bono division. I’m fairly certain I heard Hendricks cheering from Hawaii.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Helen said at the same time Lucy asked, “What made you do it?”
James beamed an acknowledgment to his grandmother and answered Lucy, “I’ve wanted this for a long time, and the reasons to delay were getting weak, if they ever had any true validity in the first place.”
He leaned forward with as much eagerness as Lucy had felt moments before. She recognized it in his eyes as he continued. “This group is doing some amazing work with an NGO in India to secure land rights for women. In one region it simply required a second line on a contract’s signature page. There was no cultural deterrent. It took a year of navigating red tape to add it to land deeds, but now that it’s there, wives simply sign and, BAM! They’ve got the land if something happens to their husbands. It’s changing lives.” James sat back. “I want to be part of work like that.”
He peeked at Lucy, who instinctively reached across the table to grasp his hand. He stiffened. She realized her mistake and hastily withdrew it.
The kitchen door pushed open, saving Lucy from further embarrassment. Bette was approaching with her arms full of dishes. Dillon popped up to help her with the plates, fresh forks, and a domed cake.
“What’s this?” Helen asked.
“Sticky toffee pudding in honor of your recovery. Mum made it for you.” She set it on the table. “She made it for all of you.”
“You’ll join us, won’t you?” Helen waved her fingers to the empty table beside them. Dillon grabbed one of its empty chairs and swung it over for Bette.
“Pieces for everyone?” Bette asked.
At four nods, she sliced the cake. And with three sets of eyes on Bette, Lucy was able to observe the table more closely. The chatter danced among them as Bette passed out generous slices.
Helen’s eyes were light, a peaceful and serene blue. Summer Sky. They were as wide as they had been at Sally Clarke’s; her mouth was poised in a small, almost secret smile, and her hand rested within James’s.
James looked better too. Eyes that had flashed anger at lunch and confusion at the Parsonage seemed quiet now. Although he was probably still suffering from jet lag, the lines around his eyes appeared softened. Lucy smiled as he bit his lip. He did that when he was nervous. She recognized the same gesture in herself and had once thought it serendipitous and special that they shared it.
Lucy’s eyes trailed over to Dillon, who helped Bette with an eagerness and tenderness that spoke of more than a passing flirtation. James was wrong—love can start at first sight and it can last. Watching Dillon and Bette, she refused to believe otherwise.
And Bette? Dillon was right. She was sunshine. She burst with openness and energy and, even more so, with love. And she had dimples. Lucy was honest enough to admit she envied those.
Bette caught her staring and winked as she handed Lucy a slice of cake. Lucy accepted it and sat back and smiled as the afternoon’s sense of isolation melted away in her first taste of sticky toffee pudding.
After her sleepless Dracula night, Lucy stayed with Gaskell and, at the story’s end, flipped back through Wives and Daughters’ good parts. With James in the car back to London, she had determined there’d be no reading aloud. After reading the last sublime scene again, she set the book down and switched off her light. She switched it back on. She picked up her book, put it down again, and decided it was useless. Sleep was nowhere close—so she slipped on a pair of sweatpants and padded down to the Great Room in hopes of finding embers still lit in the fire.
The room was dark except for a single lamp lit in the corner and the glow from the fire. Lucy reached in the bucket, added a log, and nestled into the love seat. She tucked her feet under her and rested her chin in her hand to watch the flames catch.
“Hey.”
James. Lucy searched and found him rising from the sofa.
“I didn’t see you. What are you doing down here?”
“My room was too quiet, but this isn’t much better.” James sat across from her in the flowered armchair.
“Jet lag? Or are you waiting for an e-mail?”
He laughed low and short. “Waiting for an e-mail.”
“They’re in Hawaii. On vacation. And there’s a significant time change. It might take a few days. Dawkins might not even look at his until he returns.”
“All true, but I can’t get my brain to stop. Part of me knows it was right and the other part wonders how badly I’ve burned my bridges.” He leaned back and traced a flower with his finger. “I can’t go back after this. If Dawkins can’t find a way to make it pay, it’s a betrayal, and I’m out. This time I forced his hand . . . I just need to know.”
“I know you do,” Lucy whispered.
“I must sound so tight and odd to you. You don’t always have to know things.” James tilted his head. “It’s not bad; it’s just different and it was one of the things I loved about you. You’re so logical, so smart, and your mind is like a steel trap, but it bends around stories and emotions and it has fluidity and color and an expression that I don’t understand.”
“You sound like you understand me.” Lucy couldn’t decide if there was an insult or a compliment in his comment so she skipped over it. “If they say no, will you be disappointed you forced the decision?”
“I don’t want to be fired, but . . . no.” James let out a snort as if his answer had shocked him. “There it is. That’s the truth. I won’t be.”
“Then you have your clarity.”
“I do, don’t I?” James slowly nodded to himself. “I have my clarity.”
Lucy waited a moment while he savored his revelation, then asked, “What made you do it? Did Helen say something more?”
“We didn’t talk this afternoon about anything new. I actually beat her in three rounds of gin rummy and read to her. I’m not particularly enjoying The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by the way. The husband’s disgusting and I’m a little annoyed she likes your voices better.”
“I forgot she wanted to read that.” Lucy grinned. “I refused. It was my reading of The Vicar of Wakefield that got her. I did the parish vicar, Primrose, with particular aplomb.”
Lucy waited and when James said nothing more, she asked again, “So what made you do it?”
“Your comment today stuck with me—that I needed to listen to her. And what you said yesterday—that it was their expectations and not my heart that guided me.” He added in a whisper, “That was hard to hear.” He shuddered. “But back to the job . . . Once I took myself out of the equation and quit whining that my grandmother was
negating my existence, I was left with this sadness. She sounds like she thinks her life was half-lived, don’t you think? That she left some elemental part of herself behind in that garage and is only now recapturing it. I don’t want to live like that.”
James gripped the arm of the chair. “I don’t believe it’s true, not really, but to some degree, she does.” He went back to tracing flowers. “And it got me thinking about what I want in life, what I do for work, how I spend my time—lots of stuff. So I wrote the e-mail and I sent it.” He stilled his hand. “There was something easier about sending it from here too. The strings pull tighter at home and I didn’t want to lose my courage.”
“It’s going to turn out well.”
“It already has, because as you said, I have my clarity.” James sat silently, looking between her and the fire.
After a few moments, he asked, “And you?”
Lucy regarded him and knew that if there was ever to be anything between them, it had to start with honesty. Now. “The postmark from my dad’s Birthday Book was from the Lake District.”
“England’s Lake District? He’s here?”
“Due west.”
“Ah . . . Grams mentioned yesterday that you had planned to go there. You two really were on an adventure.”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Then how . . .?” James stared right through her.
“She collected Beatrix Potter figurines as a kid. I . . . I kept telling her that it was a part of her past as much as it was of mine. She finally relented.”
“Why lie? Especially after that whole watch thing, it seems like she, more than anyone, would understand.”
“I didn’t feel I could take that risk. Again . . . it wasn’t thought out, not like you seem to think I think . . .’cause I don’t think.” Lucy blew her bangs back with a huff. “That came out wrong. What I meant to say was that I didn’t think it through; I simply told her what I thought she wanted to hear, what was most likely going to persuade her, and what would humiliate me the least. There.” She waited.
“And here we are again.”
Lucy held out her hand. “We aren’t going back there and you aren’t going to make me feel guilty. Helen can. That’s her right, but not yours.” She lowered her hand. “All that said, I am sorry I did it.”
James faced the fire and just as Lucy was about to push up from the love seat and go, he asked, “Is he expecting you?”
“We have no communication, you know that. And I’m not sure if it was such a great idea in the first place. I’m relieved it’s over. It’s time for this trip to end.” Lucy pulled at her ponytail. “Did it make you want to laugh? After all I’d told you about my grandfather, his house, my grandmother’s family . . . It was all so refined and perfect, wasn’t it?”
“It sounded pretty wonderful.”
“To me too.” Lucy watched the flames dance. It was easier to talk here in the dim room and the warm firelight. Helen had a point—gothic novels had good fires for a reason. “Most of those details were straight from my dad and I think we can feel certain none of them were true.”
“Don’t say that. You didn’t know. And if you embellished a little, your stories or your father’s, that’s natural. We all want to believe the best of our families.”
“There’s a line, James, and we both know I crossed it. Repeatedly. What have we just been talking about?”
They fell into silence. After a few minutes, the silence no longer fell softly; it came in waves and Lucy wanted out. She uncurled from the chair and pushed herself up.
“You have to go.” James’s declaration cleaved the room.
“I am.”
“Sit. Sit.” He flapped his arm at the love seat. “You have to go to the Lake District. Call me crazy, but I say we leave it all here. We take none of this home.” James sliced his hand through the air, making a cut-off line. “I e-mailed my gauntlet and you’re going to the Lake District.”
“It’s not the same at all.”
“I called my father too. I didn’t have the nerve to tell Grams that yet. He was coming here, but now that we’re heading to London he’ll meet us there. Beat us there, actually.”
Lucy didn’t reply; instead she focused on the fire.
“James?” She sat back and hugged her shoulders tight. “Can I ask you something without you getting mad? Will you listen?”
His eyes flickered and she continued, “Tonight when Helen said she wanted to leave, you asked if she wouldn’t rather stay and see the Parsonage. You didn’t tell her about your dad coming and you just told me you still haven’t the courage.”
James’s eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing.
She continued, “Why can’t you concede that I might struggle with the same issue? That my mistakes are not as calculated as you seem to believe? Now, I am not making excuses for anything I’ve done. I’ve asked your forgiveness and tomorrow I’ll ask for Helen’s, but is it so hard to see how one can follow a thread and miss a truth?”
James wiggled back into the seat and remained silent so long, Lucy expected he wouldn’t reply at all. Then, finally, “I . . . You’re exactly right. I’m sorry.”
Lucy expected to feel relief or vindication, but his admission was enough. She didn’t want him to feel more pain or even self-recrimination. She tracked back to the issue. “So why’d you call him? Why not take Helen home to him?”
“I couldn’t do it. At home it feels like no one talks honestly, and with what she’s facing, we need that. Going home before we have the truth doesn’t feel right. If we do, we will act as we always have because we know nothing different, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t want it to be that way anymore.”
James leaned forward with aching earnestness. “In a hotel with history and mess, fictional ghosts, and dust bunnies older than our country, I thought we’d have a chance to dig deep and call out something new. That’s what she’s trying to do. And you were right, I was more upset about telling my family what you’d done than trying to understand why you’d done it or even what it all meant. I went about it all wrong, in my heart and in my head.”
“I only wanted understanding. I didn’t need to be right.”
“You have both. And you’re still going to the Lake District. End of story.”
“I’ve never heard you like this. I had no idea you were so dramatic.” A chuckle and a sigh slipped out of Lucy together. “I don’t have a word for you right now.”
“Effusive.” He smiled softly. “And a little repentant.”
We brought out each other’s best. Lucy remembered confessing it to Dillon. She pushed the memory away. “Do I have any say in this? What if I don’t want to go?”
“Don’t you? I mean, I can’t tell you what to do . . . I wouldn’t want to. But one summer and look what regret Grams carries. Whether it’s all true or not, as you said, she believes it. I don’t want that for you and I know you’ll have regrets, too, if you walk away now. You’re here. You need to see it through.”
Lucy whispered, “Thank you,” as the last of the flames died into embers.
“You’re welcome.”
Chapter 27
They talked until the embers cooled and the fire’s glow completely faded to black. When the room cooled, they pushed from their chairs, almost bumping in the middle. Lucy led the way up the stairs and they parted silently at the top, James to the left and Lucy straight ahead.
The next morning, Lucy dressed, packed her small suitcase, and headed next door to Helen’s room. The door was open so she softly rapped her knuckles against the wood and entered. “Have you got everything packed?”
“Dillon just carried my bags to the car. Do you see anything I’ve left behind?”
Lucy knelt and peeked under the bed. “All clear.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lucy felt Helen’s hand tap the top of her head.
She sat back on the floor. There was no way to misunderstand the question. Helen sat on the edge of th
e bed and waited.
“I thought I could get away with it.” Lucy held her gaze, willing herself to be as honest as possible—hard as that might be. “If I made it sound like it was for you, then I’d get my way and you’d never know.” She stood and dusted her hands against each other. “It didn’t feel like that at the time; it flowed out without any thought at all. And that’s probably not a good thing, but when I break it down to give you a real answer, that’s what happened. Stories sometimes flow out of me and the truth never plays a part at all. I’m trying to focus on that now.”
“I understand. I also understand that hope is a hard thing to share.”
Lucy scrunched her nose to stop her emotions. “It is, but I should’ve been honest with you. I didn’t know at first, but I knew in plenty of time—you would’ve understood. And even if you wouldn’t have, I should’ve told you.”
“All those ‘would’ves’ and ‘should’ves.’ Those are tough words. I have a few of them to face myself. Don’t let them build up, my dear. That’s one thing I’m learning now, and it’d be nice if I can give you a fifty-five-year head start.”
“Helen . . .”
“You have such a road ahead of you.” Helen reached out her arms. “ ‘Come further up, come further in,’ okay?”
“Our new battle cry?” Lucy stood and hugged Helen’s fragile frame.
“That’s a wonderful thought and very appropriate. For both of us.” Helen squeezed her tight then held her at arm’s length. “We’ll talk when you get back.”
James walked into the room. “All right, Grams. We’re checked out and Dillon’s pulled the car around.” He took in the scene before him and was clearly, and awkwardly, pretending to miss the moment. “Do you need a ride anywhere, Lucy?”
“My bus leaves after lunch. Bette’s dad will take me to the stop, but thank you.”
James nodded and offered Helen his arm. Lucy followed them out onto the front stoop. On the other side of the car, Bette and Dillon stood in close conversation. He grabbed Bette in a quick kiss then rushed to open the car door. Bette blushed as she caught Lucy’s wink.
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