“It’s here somewhere. You’ll find it eventually, I guess.
After dinner, when Lucas had finally fallen asleep, Drew and Jennifer sat in the rocking chairs on the front porch.
“I saw Dr. Watson the other day.”
“Jody? He should be in Boston.”
“It was a couple of weeks ago. He was still unhappy that you wouldn’t go.”
“Cathy will do a good job. He’s just worried that someone will ask a question he can’t answer and I won’t be there to take it.”
“No, he’s worried that you’re going to become a hermit.”
Drew chuckled.
“What have you been up to, Dad? You’ve been up here all alone for almost a month.”
“I’m not alone. There are people all over the place. I walk down to the Martins’ store every morning. There must have been a dozen kids in the lake every day this week.”
“Other than that?”
“The Robertsons—Lucas’s friend James—are in the cabin over there.” He pointed to a light that was just visible through the trees.
“You know what I mean. You are by yourself in the cabin. You tell me that you are not planning to do any work all summer. I’ll bet that, except for morning coffee, you haven’t left the house twice.”
“Not true. Tim and I played chess on Tuesday. I go into town to go to church. I paddled across the lake last week…”
“Paddled? In a boat?”
“In a canoe.”
“Dad…”
Drew looked up to heaven for assistance. “You’d be upset if I told you I stayed in the cabin. You’re upset that I don’t. You should see the photographs I took from the middle of the lake.”
“I worry about you.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t. I have no ambition to become a hermit.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Jennifer hurried inside, returning with a book. She held it out. “Mom’s book. The copies were at your office.”
Drew took the book and held it reverently. The cover was rather simple, a white eight-point star on a midnight blue background. Above the star The End of My Life appeared in burgundy script. At the bottom, he saw New York Times Best Selling Author, Diana Alexander Nelson. He paged slowly though the book, feeling the paper, inspecting the typography.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Your mother would be pleased.”
“She would be.” Jennifer nodded.
They sat in silence for a long moment.
“I need to turn in. I’ve a long drive tomorrow.” Jennifer kissed her father good night. “Would you like for me to put the book on your desk?”
“That would be good. Thanks.”
Jennifer stopped as she reached the door and turned back to her father. Drew caught her reflection in the window as he stared out into the darkness.
“Have you heard from Amy?”
“What?’ Drew turned toward her.
“Have you heard anything from Amy lately?”
“No. I haven’t seen her in a couple of months. Why?”
“Just wondering.” She took a deep breath. “I saw her at Starbucks a couple of weeks ago when we went to the beach. She seems to miss you, Dad.”
“Right.”
“She seemed to be…”
Drew shook his head. “I’ve heard nothing from her. I don’t expect to.”
***
The next morning, Drew settled into a rocking chair on the cabin’s porch and opened Di’s book. He had read the book several times as it wound through the editing and publishing process, but had been reading from the point of view of an author who was searching for mistakes, making decisions about wording, deciding whether the editor was correct when she suggested deleting a scene.
He had despised the process. It was Di’s book, and he took it personally when someone suggested an alteration. In any case, that process was completed and the book had been published.
Lucas had gone to the lake with James and James’s mother, so Drew had the morning to himself. He opened the book. He wanted to read it, this time, as a member of the public who might choose to read Di’s story.
He skipped the acknowledgement. Di had been correct. Left to him, the section would have been deleted. He had called the editor, asking to have her do just that, but he had been told that he did not have that choice.
The events Di included were all familiar to him. He had been walking beside her to the lake the morning that she fell. He had reached out to catch her, but he had reacted too slowly. He was the one who had noticed the other symptoms and he had insisted that they return to Charleston so that her own physician could examine her.
He had been with her thirty-five years earlier when she met his family and his friends. He had taken her to the ball. Di had been a wonderful dancer, a major contrast to him, and people had moved to the side of the room that night and turned to watch her as they danced.
He remembered her face the day that she told him of her fears and he told her that he loved her and would protect her.
Drew stopped reading and put down the book. He gazed down the mountain toward the lake. Di’s account was as he generally remembered that day. It was exactly as they had described it to their children. But it was not complete. In particular, she had not described what had occurred a month before. His recall usually omitted the earlier events too.
***
It was early May. School was ending and Drew was going home for the first part of the summer. Di was heading home the next day too. His parents were already at the cabin and they planned to meet there in early July.
They were walking across the campus. Drew was talking about graduate school and plans for the future. Di had been uncommonly quiet. As they stopped in front of her dormitory, she looked up at him with tears running down her face.
“I can’t do this, Drew. I can’t marry you. It would never work. You know it’s true. I’ll never fit in. I’ll never belong in Charleston.” She choked back a sob. “I know you are going to hate me, but that’s better than having you come to despise me.” She took the ring from her finger and placed it in his hand. She kissed him on the cheek and turned away, running into the dorm.
Drew was too shocked to protest. Somehow, he drove home the next morning—later, he did not recall the trip. Reaching home, he did not unpack the car. He climbed the stairs to his room and sank into the chair beside his bed. It was Tuesday afternoon. He came out on Friday, having convinced himself that Di had never loved him and that he was better off without her.
A month later, she knocked at the front door.
Drew glanced through a window to see who was knocking. His body grew tense and he turned to go upstairs.
She knocked again. “Please, Drew,” she called. “If you’re here, please open the door.”
Drew looked at his watch. Ten minutes, he decided. She could have ten minutes. Then, he’d never need to speak to her again.
He opened the door and stood in the entrance, barring her way, not inviting her in. He noted her red face, her swollen eyes, and her hoarse voice.
“Well?”
“Can we talk? Please, Drew?”
Drew did not allow himself to even hope that she had changed her mind, but he took her to eat lunch, and they strolled along the Battery, hand-in-hand. They stopped to watch a wedding at the gazebo. She told him again of her fears. “My fears…my fears were getting the better of me,” she said. Her bottom lip began to tremble. “I can’t be happy without you. I love you, Drew. I’ll make you happy. Please give me another chance.”
He returned her ring, slipping it onto her finger.
“I’ll never take it off, again,” she said.
***
“Would I do the same for Amy?” he said quietly now. “If she were to apologize?” He smiled sadly. “Moot question. I’ll never hear her knocking at my door.”
He lifted the book to resume reading, and an envelope fell from inside the back cover. It must be the envelope Jennifer found on his desk.
He opened it and unfolded the note.
Remember, Drew, when forgiveness is asked, it must be given. Be happy together. If you love each other, nothing else should matter. Di.
“Of course,” Drew said softly as he looked over his shoulder to see if he was alone. “Of course.”
***
“Amy! Amy!” Lucas stood on the cabin’s steps, wearing a swimsuit and carrying a towel. He waved his hand wildly above his head. “Grandfather,” he turned and looked toward the door, “Amy is here.”
As Amy stepped out of her car, Drew appeared in the door.
It was early on Saturday morning. Amy’s heart was pounding. She imagined Drew dragging Lucas back into the house and slamming the door in her face.
“Lucas, are you ready?” A little boy’s voice called from behind her. Amy turned and saw a boy about Lucas’s size and a young woman standing at the end of the driveway.
“Coming,” Lucas shouted. He hugged Drew and ran to Amy. “James and I are going swimming in the lake. Do you want to come?”
“I need to talk to your grandfather.”
“Will you be here when I get back?”
“We’ll see, Bubba. I hope so.”
“I do too.” He hugged her and ran down the drive. “That’s Amy. She’s a friend of mine,” she heard him tell James. The woman waved and the three of them set off.
Amy turned back to the house. Drew still stood in the doorway. She took a step and then stopped.
“You’re out early this morning. Just in the neighborhood and decided to drop by?”
Amy slowly mounted the steps to the porch. “You once invited me to visit.” She looked into his eyes. “Bring my family, you said.”
Drew didn’t respond.
“You…you told me…is the invitation still open?”
Drew glanced down the driveway. “The others are on the way?” He raised his eyebrows, a sign, Amy knew, that he was not serious.
“Drew, I need to tell you something…”
“Sit down.” He motioned toward one of the rockers. “I’ll bring coffee.”
“No. I need to tell you. Now. Before I…” Amy could feel her heart pounding.
Drew let the screen door close, and he waited.
Amy took a deep breath. She had rehearsed her apology for days. All of the way up the interstate she had repeated it, over and over. She had lain awake the night before, in the hotel across the lake, practicing what she would say. But standing on the porch, her mind went blank.
Drew looked at her expectantly so she just blurted it out. “I was wrong. I was so wrong. Everyone, well, a lot of people were telling me that I wasn’t good enough, that I would never fit in, that you would be sorry you ever met me. I mean, Barb, and Elaine, and Sylvia Bounds, and Joshua Cooper…and Jack. Jack always said—and then…then the will. And I blamed you, not just you, every man in the world, for what Jack did to me.” She gulped for air and continued. “And the investigator, Elaine told me about him and…and…everything seemed to merge together, and I thought—I don’t know what I thought.” She placed her hand on the rail to steady herself.
Drew started to speak, but Amy held up her hand for him to stop. “Wait. Please wait.” She ran back to her car and returned carrying a book.
“You have a copy of Di’s book?”
“Jody, Dr. Watson, gave it to Cathy.” She looked into Drew’s eyes. “She sounds like the wonderful person you talk about. Her husband sounds like the wonderful person you are.” She started flipping pages, looking for her place.
“I want to read something to you. Drew, in…in the first chapter, I saw me, and I saw you. She began to read aloud.
“When I visited Drew in Charleston, I entered a new world. Drew’s family, his friends, were so different from my family, from the people with whom I had grown up.
“Charleston was founded in sixteen seventy-five. Drew is descended from two of the men who stepped off the first ship to cast anchor off the Carolina coast. My family had lived in the United States for twenty-two years, arriving three months before my birth.
“Drew and his friends grew up in mansions overlooking the Battery, some of which were over two hundred years old. I grew up with six people in a seven-room house, sharing a bedroom with my sister. My father owned a store, and my brothers, sisters, and I grew up working there. When Drew and his friends were teenagers, they all had summer jobs—jobs designed to keep them from being bored and to enhance their college applications. Their families had more money than my father had ever dreamed of having.
“I felt like the serving wench who had caught the eye of the king’s son. One of Drew’s acquaintances—I would never say friend—told me as much. He made an insulting reference to my Greek heritage. He accused me of ‘sleeping my way into Charleston society,’ making me no better than a common prostitute (my word, not his). He assured me that Drew would dump me and marry a Charleston debutante once he discovered what I was really like.
“I became certain that he accurately foretold my future. I began to doubt that Drew truly loved me. Finally, I told Drew of my fears. ‘I’ll never fit in,’ I told him. ‘I’ll always be the poor little Greek girl who got lucky, who made a good catch.’ I looked into his eyes then. ‘You’ll come to despise me.’
“He put his arms around me. He forgave me for doubting him. He promised to protect me and care for me and love me for the rest of my life. ‘I love you, Di,’ he said. ‘I will make you happy. Don’t let your fears get the better of you. I’ll take care of you.’ He has been as good as his word.”
Amy placed the book on a chair. “That’s exactly how I have felt, Drew. And…and you haven’t changed, and I thought…I thought that you forgave Di for doubting you, you didn’t hold it against her…maybe you could forgive me too.” She clasped her hands together, almost as if in prayer.
Drew looked at her for what seemed like an hour. “I understand your fears. I understand your anger at your husband and his attorney.” He paused. “I do not understand how, if you love me, that you can lump me in as one of them. If you love me, I do not understand how you can despise me the way you seem to despise them.”
Amy gulped. “Drew, when Jennifer was a child, did she ever do something that you did not like, something you would not want her to do?”
“Of course.”
“Did you love her anyway?”
“Surely I did. You don’t stop loving a person just because you don’t like her behavior.”
Amy gave a big sigh. “That’s how it was with me. I loved you Drew. You knew that.”
“I believed you did.”
“I did. I loved you—love you—with all of my heart. But then, I started seeing all of these things, hearing all of these things, and I became so angry.”
“What things?”
“He’s one of us, I was told. And then Rachel was your girlfriend, she was staying overnight with you, you were shopping for a ring—”
“What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter, Drew. Not now. I know I was so wrong. What matters is that I did not like what I heard, what I thought you were doing. I was so angry with you that I wanted to scream at you, to hit you, to grab you and shake you.” She paused to take a breath. “But I never stopped loving you. I was confused and angry, but I loved you. I love you still.”
Her heart was pounding. She knew that this was her last chance and she feared she was losing him. “I don’t know how to prove it. All I can do is to apologize for the stupid things that I’ve done and the stupid assumptions that I made. Is it possible…can you forgive me? Give me another chance. Like you did Di?”
Drew didn’t respond.
“I talked to Jennifer,” she rushed on, almost afraid of what he might say. “I started to come to see you a week ago, two weeks ago, but…but I was so afraid.” She looked into his eyes. “As long as you never told me no then, in my mind, you might say yes. Please forgive me.” She looked into his eyes. “Jennifer told me that
in the Nelson family, if you were really sorry and asked for forgiveness that…that you always received it.”
“When forgiveness is asked, it must be given,” he mumbled quietly, almost to himself. Then, “Jennifer is taking your side?”
Amy thought that he almost smiled.
“I don’t want us to choose sides.” She could feel herself beginning to cry. “But if we do, then Jennifer is absolutely on yours.” She wiped her eyes. “She wants you to be happy. She thinks that you are in love with me,” she whispered.
Drew didn’t speak for a moment, appearing to well-up himself. “That child has always been able to read my mind.”
“Drew, you know that I would not be here unless I loved you.” Amy held her breath.
He nodded. “I’m told that if we love each other, then nothing else matters.” He reached for her, and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. “I do love you, Amy.”
“I love you, Drew.”
For a moment, they stood on the porch as if they were all alone in the world.
“Amy,” Lucas’s voice cut through the quiet and they looked up to see him, James, and James’s mother at the end of the drive.
“James forgot his flippers and we had to come back for them,” Lucas said. “Amy, are you and Grandfather going to be friends again?”
All three adults laughed.
“Yes, Lucas,” Drew called. “We are going to be friends again.”
“Yes,” Lucas screamed. He dashed up the drive, into the house, almost knocking Drew and Amy down as he passed.
“Lucas, watch where you’re going,” Drew called.
“Sorry.” Lucas’s voice came from the office off the family room. He reappeared a minute later, holding a small box. “Here, Grandfather. Don’t forget this.” He held it out to Drew, who hesitated. “I heard you tell Mom that you bought it for Amy.”
He took the box from Lucas, staring at it for a moment, then he nodded and held it out to Amy. “This is…for you.”
“For me?” Her hands quivered as she slipped the top off the small box, and gasped. “Oh, Drew.” She stared at the ring. She stared at Drew. Her eyes cut back to the ring, then returned to Drew. Her heart was racing. She felt lightheaded.
To Fall in Love Again Page 28