by Jen Carter
Will recognized the woman who answered the door. Just a couple hours ago she had stood in the same place with the same unfriendly expression on her face.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I would like to have a word with Mr. Strath.”
The woman squinted Will. Her sight was getting bad, but her ears were still good. His voice sounded familiar.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. I was here this morning to drop off some books, and there was a mistake. One of the books wasn’t supposed to be sent. May I come in?”
The woman’s lips formed a straight, knowing line. Her ears were correct. He had been there before. She opened the door a little wider. “I’ll see if Mr. Strath has time for you.”
Will stepped into the house, feeling more comfortable in its opulence than he had that morning. The woman walked down the entryway to an intercom at the foot of the stairs, and Will motioned for Chris to join him inside. “Hey, close your mouth and get in here.”
Chris’ mouth never quite closed, but he managed to step into the house. “I need to get into real estate.”
“You need to go sit down on that black chair over there and be quiet.”
Before Chris could follow Will’s command, the unsmiling woman began walking back down the entryway toward the boys. “Mr. Strath will see you now. It’s the third door from the top of the stairs.”
“Can I come?” Chris asked, his eyes wide.
“Fine.”
They followed the woman’s instructions and went straight to the third door at the top of the stairs. Will knocked.
“Come in.” The words were garbled, like the speaker hadn’t used his voice in years.
Will opened the door. Slowly, he and Chris walked into the library, looking around the way Amy had. The hard wood floor looked even darker next to the brightness let in by the wall of windows. They hadn’t expected to see the ocean decorating the far end of the room. It drew their focus away from their purpose.
The man sitting behind the desk tapped his pen against a book. “What do you want?” he grumbled in that same garbled voice.
The demand drew Will’s eyes toward Billy. Chris continued to take in the room—the walls of books, the overhead lights, the statue of Nike in the corner.
Will stepped toward the desk. “Sir, my name is Will.” He extended his hand toward Billy. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Billy ignored Will’s hand. “I’ll ask you one more time. What do you want?”
Will dropped his arm. “I was here this morning with a friend who came to drop off some books—”
“Get out,” Billy growled. “Can’t any one of you people leave me alone?” Every word grew louder than the last.
“Sir, I promise to leave you alone in just a minute. I’m only here to grab a book that was accidentally mixed in with the ones we brought to you. That’s all.”
Billy’s upper lip twitched. He looked at Chris. “And why are you here?”
Chris’ head snapped to attention. “Me? Um—”
“If you can’t answer a simple question in a reasonable amount of time, get out.”
Chris looked at Will. He began walking backward to the door. “Okay. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day.”
As Chris disappeared through the doorway, Billy’s lip twitched again. A snarl seemed imminent, but he kept it from surfacing.
“Sir,” Will said, “If you can just direct me to the boxes of books that came this morning, I’ll pull the book I’m looking for and be on my way.”
After a moment, Billy nodded toward the back corner of the room. “Over there,” he said. “I want to see the book you’re talking about before you take it.”
“Absolutely,” Will said as he walked toward the back corner.
The boxes were hidden behind the replica of Nike. Will maneuvered around the headless statue, avoiding the outstretched wings and kneeling next to the closest box. He took off its top and began unpacking books. As he scanned the cover of each one, he thought about Lizzie’s library. He wondered if all old, rich people had rooms filled with books. It seemed so cliché somehow, and yet, he wouldn’t mind having a library like that himself one day.
Two boxes later, Will found the volume of Renaissance poetry. He packed the boxes again and returned them to their original positions behind Nike. “Here it is,” he said, holding up the book and walking toward Billy. He sat down and placed it on the desk.
Billy took the book in his wrinkled, knuckly hands, turning it over and over. He fanned through the pages, looking at specific ones intermittently. “This isn’t Lizzie’s book.”
“That is why I made another trip out here. To take back—”
Billy waved a hand at Will as if to silence him, all the while keeping his eyes on the book. “You say this belongs to Lizzie’s granddaughter?”
“Yes. There’s actually a really funny story about how many hands that book has gone through in the last—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Billy continued to flip through pages. “And this is all her handwriting in the margins?”
“Yep.”
“So she is a writer.”
“She was. I’m not sure she is anymore.”
“Why not?”
Will stretched back and then slouched in his chair. He laced his fingers behind his neck and sighed. “I’m trying to figure that out. I get the feeling that she’s weighed down by responsibility. Her life is sort of boring now. I have a theory—”
“I don’t care about theories.” Billy placed the book on the desk and leaned back in his chair, chewing on a pen. “Following the path of her grandmother?”
Will thought about the letters detailing Lizzie’s imprisonment in her parents’ house and wondered if that’s what Billy meant. “Sir, I hope not.”
Billy took the pen from his mouth and pointed it at Will. “Don’t you let her. You keep her from making those mistakes Lizzie made.”
Will nodded. He sat up straight. “Is there any chance you’d be willing to tell me more about those mistakes?”
Billy didn’t answer right away. He studied his guest and thought about the note Lizzie had sent him from her deathbed. It has been decided that my granddaughters should never know who I was.
“Tell me,” he finally said, “what do you and your friend Amy know about Lizzie?”
“We know that you two met in Paris. We know that you wrote letters to each other when she was in California. We also know that she told her parents she was going back to college, but then she went to Los Angeles instead. And when they found out what she had done, they basically put her under house arrest. After that, you visited her one time, and then she got mad at you, and then she got married. We think she did that to get back at you somehow. We don’t know what happened after that.”
“No one in Amy’s family will tell you?”
Will shook his head.
“Why do you think that is?”
“We don’t know. Something bad obviously happened. Something that had to do with her mom.”
Billy nodded. Then he nodded again as though filling the extra time it took to formulate his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was still gruff, but it had lost its snapping edge.
“Will, Lizzie and I knew each other for a very long time. Over the course of those years—those decades, actually—Eva and I did not often see eye-to-eye about Lizzie. Eva tried to temper her. She tried to protect her. I, on the other hand, indulged her. I’m not proud of all that happened between Lizzie and me. I regret some of the decisions I made. But this I will say: I am not at fault for the hardships faced by Lizzie’s family. When she came to me for help, I did my best to help her.”
Will nodded.
“Someone doesn’t think your friend Amy needs to know what happened to Lizzie,” Billy continued, “and I won’t dishonor those wishes.” Billy pointed his pen at Will again. “But you keep your friend Amy writing. You know enough about the mistakes that Lizzie mad
e early on—don’t you let Amy make the same mistakes that Lizzie made.”
“Sir, that’s the plan.”
Will rose and walked out of the room.
Downstairs, he found Chris sitting in a black leather chair.
“Come on, let’s go,” Will said, pointing toward the front door. “Hey, can you forward me that website you found about Billy? I want to send it to Amy.”
Chris stood. “I didn’t even get to ask him questions about his business experience.”
“Life is funny that way.” He pushed the front door open, and they headed toward Will’s truck. “If you had just cracked open your English 151 book while taking Hollings’ class, you could have been the one to find Amy and help her with all this stuff. Then Billy would have told me to leave just now instead of you, and you could have asked him all about his business experience.”
Chris shook his head at his feet. “No, that’s not true. This would never have been my thing. I just wish I had gotten to find out how he had become a millionaire.”
Will gave Chris a sideways glance but didn’t comment.
Upstairs, back in Billy’s office, the sound of waves crashing against the rocky shoreline filled the air. Billy listened for a long time, musing over the conversation he had with Will.
Sir, that’s the plan, Will had said.
Billy had never much liked plans. He knew, though, they were a necessary evil.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number he hadn’t thought he would ever dial again.
“Eva,” he said when the line was answered. “Tell me about your granddaughter, Amy.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
A
my jumped at the sound of knocking on her door. Instinctively, she threw the notebook that had been resting on her stomach to the floor, caught off guard by the fact that she had fallen asleep, and caught even further off guard by the sound of April at her door.
“Hey,” Amy said, pushing herself up to a sitting position. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. “I think I fell asleep.” She looked at the clock on her nightstand. Four hours had passed since Will left.
“You think? I could hear you snoring from the driveway outside.” April entered the room and sat at the foot of Amy’s bed. “I have something for you.” She leaned toward Amy to hand her a stack of papers.
Amy looked at her sister for a moment before taking the stack. When her eyes fell to the paper, she saw April’s handwriting.
Amy,
There is more to Nana’s story. Will only brought you half of it. This is the second section—one that Lizzie apparently never saw. It’s been in Nana’s closet behind her shoe rack since we were little girls.
I’m sorry I told Will about Jason. It wasn’t my place. I hope this makes up for it.
When you’re done reading this, we need to talk.
Love you,
April
Amy looked up at her sister. She was glad that April had written her thoughts in a note rather than spoken them. It was easier that way. She said, “It shouldn’t be a secret.” As the words left her mouth, she realized that she was talking about both Lizzie’s story and her own.
April stood. “I’m hungry. What do you want for dinner?”
Amy glanced at her alarm clock to check the time. “Miles is supposed to be bringing Thai food over in about fifteen minutes. He always gets way too much, so there will be plenty if you’re in the mood.”
April nodded, her eyes following Amy’s to the alarm. “I think I will be.” She turned toward the door. “I’m going to water our pathetic little patio garden. And I know you’re going to call Will—you better do that before Miles gets here. Then hide those papers.”
“Before you go, just one question.”
April turned around in the doorway.
“How did you get this?”
“I found it a long time ago, but I never read it. I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t care. When I saw that Will found something similar in Lizzie’s house and you were reading it together, I realized what I had found in Nana’s closet. I still don’t care, but I know you do, so I brought it to you.”
Amy smiled, and her sister disappeared down the hallway. She leaned toward her nightstand and grabbed her cell phone. She found Will’s number and called him.
“Hey,” she said when he answered. “April just brought me another section of Eva’s story about Lizzie. It’s been in Eva’s closet since we were little girls.”
“Are you serious?” Will said.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t she tell you about it before?”
“As with much of what April does, I don’t know.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Miles is coming over in a couple minutes for dinner. Should I call you after we eat? Maybe—” Amy stopped, feeling something different in the air. She twisted around, craning to see the doorway behind her. Miles stood with his arms crossed, and Amy surmised that he had been there a while—at least long enough to figure out what she was doing.
“I’ll call you back,” she said into the phone. As she pressed the off button, she could hear Will’s voice trailing away. “Is everything okay? Amy? What’s—”
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.
Miles continued his silence in the doorway, unmoving, his jaw clenched.
“What?” Amy said. Upon first seeing him, she was worried—caught off-guard and feeling like a child accused of wrong-doings. But as he continued to stare, annoyance itched up the back of her neck. “So you’re going to let yourself into my house, eavesdrop on a conversation, and then get mad at me?”
“Amy, I don’t think you’d be saying that unless you knew that you were doing something wrong.”
She crossed her arms. “I said it because we have different ideas of ‘wrong,’ and I’m irritated that you think you have a say in the way I deal with family issues.”
Miles remained motionless for a few more seconds and then nodded his head slowly, his eyes averted to the window across the room. “Maybe I should just go. I don’t want any part of this.”
As he turned from the doorway, Amy called after him, “You never had any part in this, so yeah, you should go.” She fell backward on the bed, feeling the cushion reverberate against her force and waiting to hear the front door slam. It never did. She heard Miles’ car start outside, and she felt silly thinking that a door might have slammed. She was a door-slammer. Not him.
Her cell phone buzzed as a text message came in. She looked at her phone and read Will’s words: Hope everything’s okay. Talk later? She tossed the phone on the bed and blew a deep breath toward the ceiling.
After a long moment, she sat up and looked at the stack of papers on the bed. There it was. The next section of Eva’s Words. She shook the argument with Miles from her mind and felt her fingers itch to pick up the papers. Instead of reaching for the stack, however, she reached for her phone.
Can you come over? she texted Will.
Within seconds, he responded, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Another text followed a few seconds later. Check out this website.
Amy opened the link embedded in Will’s text and saw an article about Billy Strath. Her eyes grew. She scrambled toward her desk for a piece of paper and a pen.
***
Will wasn’t too far off—in just under twenty minutes, he walked up the driveway to Amy’s house.
Renaissance poetry book in hand, he knocked on the door, somehow feeling as though he had lived this moment before. And actually, he realized that he had. But the last time it happened at the coffee shop, and he hadn’t known what to expect. This time, he did.
When Amy opened the door, he held up the book and said, “I wanted to give this to you before we lost it again.” He handed it to her, and she smiled.
“Thank you so much.” She opened the door further and continued, “Come in.”
Will stepped into the house and closed the door behind him. He followed Amy toward th
e family room. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m sure it will be. When I called you earlier, Miles had just gotten here, and I didn’t know it. He heard us talking on the phone about Lizzie, and he’s not happy with me. So we had one of our thirty-second arguments. I’ll call him later when we’re both not mad, and it will be fine.” She sat down on the couch.
Will sat down on the other side of the couch. “A thirty-second argument?”
“We don’t see eye to eye on this, and we never will. We are both too hardheaded to give in, so why argue? We’ll just drop it and move on once we’ve both calmed down.”
Will squinted at her. “Is that how you always argue? Do you ever get anything resolved?”
Amy looked at the ceiling, thinking. “I don’t know. It’s just easier this way.” She looked back at Will. “So, was Billy awful when you saw him?”
“It wasn’t so bad. I knew what to expect.”
“Thanks again for getting the book. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s done for me—” she interrupted herself with a laugh, and then continued, “twice.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he nodded toward a piece of paper on the coffee table. “What’s that?”
“I’m making a timeline to keep track of everything that’s happened.”
Will picked it up.
Summer 1955: Billy and Lizzie meet in Paris
Fall 1955 – Spring 1957: They exchange letters
Spring 1956: Lizzie moves home
Spring 1957: Lizzie gets engaged
1957 – 1960: Billy moves to Los Angeles and does art design work
Summer 1959: Lizzie is married, has one child, and is pregnant
1960: Billy moves to New York
?
?
1965: Billy opens publishing house