She nodded, her eyes red-rimmed but dry, as if she had finally cried herself out. “I’m just wondering what happens now.”
Dovie stared at her. She honestly didn’t know. She’d been hoping for a tearful family reunion. Instead, she had inadvertently triggered a slow-motion train wreck. “I tried to talk to him, just now, but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept shutting me down. I’m going to try again, though. I have to. This was all my fault.”
Gemma shook her head. “Leave him. Time is what he needs, right now. And lots of space. It’s how he deals with things. He blows up, lashes out, then retreats.”
Dovie winced, flashing back to yesterday morning’s conversation on the beach. “I seem to be learning that the hard way.”
Gemma studied her a moment, one dark brow arched. “Are you in love with my son?”
The question caught Dovie off guard. “I don’t . . . I mean, we aren’t . . .”
“Is he in love with you?”
Dovie shook her head. “No. Of that I am sure.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be. I’ve never seen my son look at a woman the way he looked at you when you were dancing with Kristopher. You’re what he needs, whether he knows it or not.”
Dovie shifted from foot to foot, her eyes on the carpet. In light of recent events, it seemed a strange discussion to be having. “Something tells me Austin wouldn’t appreciate us having this conversation. Especially after today.”
Gemma managed a smile. “No. You’re right about that. But he’s all I have in the world—at least, I hope I still have him—and I want him to be happy. He’s made mistakes in his life. I don’t want him to make any more. And I’m afraid he will.”
“I understand that. I do. But I don’t see how I can help. Your son and I aren’t even on speaking terms at this point, and even if we were, I’m not sure I want to be his next mistake. I’ve already been that for someone, and it didn’t end well for either of us.”
“Have you ever stopped to think there might be a reason you were in the cemetery the day Dora left that letter?”
It was the second time she’d hinted at such a thing, but Dovie found it hard to consider such an unlikely possibility, no matter how tempting. “You’re saying all this was meant to happen, that Dora’s letter was just the first domino in some cosmic chain reaction?”
“That’s one way of putting it. But I was thinking it’s like a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan and creating a tsunami halfway around the world. Dora’s letter was the butterfly.”
Dovie’s lips thinned grimly. “And . . . I’m the tsunami?”
“Today was the tsunami—the truth coming out the way it did in one big crashing wave.”
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.”
“Honey, none of us is going to feel very good for a while. That’s just how it is with tidal waves.” She paused, stepping away to gather Alice’s final letters from the table, then dropped them into Dovie’s tote. “Take them to Dora. And this.” She reached into her pocket then and produced a wadded bit of hanky, pushing it into Dovie’s hand. “It’s what you came for.”
Dovie carefully peeled back the folds of the hanky until the watch came into view, a thick gold disk about the size of a half dollar. She pressed the button on the stem with her thumb. It sprang easily, revealing a yellowed dial with roman numerals and a pair of gold filigree hands.
“It hadn’t worked in years,” Gemma said softly. “But she never went anywhere without it. I offered to send it out to my jeweler, but she never would.”
Dovie smiled as she closed the watch and rewrapped it. “It wasn’t for telling time.” Her eyes met Gemma’s then, an acknowledgment of what this small act of kindness had cost her. “Thank you.”
FIFTY
Dovie’s stomach tightened as she turned down the gravel path that curved around to the back of Austin’s house. She had rung the bell twice but gotten no answer. Maybe he was around back, out on the beach—or maybe he’d just seen her car and had decided not to answer. Gemma said he needed time, yet here she was, twenty-four hours postdisaster, tracking him down like a bloodhound.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Dora about the letters last night. She needed time to think about how best to broach the subject of Alice’s long-lost son. And she still didn’t know what she was going to say to Austin, or whether she should say anything at all. Perhaps the best course was to say nothing, to simply do what she had come to do and then leave. After all, there wasn’t much they hadn’t said.
She drew up short when he came into view, standing at the water’s edge, hurling shells one at a time out over the waves. For a moment she watched him, noting the tightly coiled anger that seemed to vibrate through his body with each throw. And then he went still, the remaining shells trickling out of his hand and onto the sand, and she knew he had sensed her behind him.
“Austin.”
He pivoted slowly, hands on hips. “Don’t you ever give up?”
“I just came to give you something,” she said, holding out the stack of letters. “These belong to you. I still have the last two. I’ll bring them by as soon as Dora’s seen them.”
He glanced at the letters and looked away. “I don’t want them.”
“They were written to you, Austin—some before you were even born. You should read them. Once you do, you might even want to talk to Dora.”
Austin’s face registered a combination of fury and astonishment. “That’s what this is about? Me sitting down for a chat with some old woman because she’s . . . what?”
“Because she’s your grandmother, and she came halfway around the world to find forgiveness—and you. Maybe it’s too late for forgiveness, but it isn’t too late for—”
“If you’re hoping for some teary reunion, there isn’t going to be one. That’s your obsession, not mine—and it’s over, as of now.”
He turned then and headed up the dunes, making a beeline for the back stairs. Dovie followed him, taking the steps two at a time to catch up.
“It’s not that simple, Austin. You can’t put this genie back in the bottle. You need to talk to your mother. And she needs to talk to you.”
Austin was breathing hard by the time he stepped through the open sliders and rounded on her. “Did you know?”
Dovie blinked at him. “Know what?”
“When you went to my mother’s house yesterday, did you already know what was in that letter?”
“Of course not. How could I? How could anyone?”
“I did.”
The words came so quietly Dovie wasn’t sure she’d heard them right. “You . . . knew?”
He wandered to the kitchen, grabbed two bottled waters from the fridge, and handed one to Dovie. “I was ten, and home from school for the holidays. Like any kid worth his salt, I was snooping for presents in my mother’s closet.” He paused, eyeing the packet of envelopes Dovie had placed on the kitchen counter. “I thought I hit the jackpot when I found that box.”
“The letters?”
“Yup. I recognized them the minute I lifted the lid.”
“How could you recognize them?”
“I’d seen them once, just before Alice died.” He paused to shuck off his jacket, then pulled a long sip from his water. “She was so sick my mother wouldn’t let me see her, so one day I snuck down the hall to her room. The door was open, and my mother was there, sitting beside her while she wrote something. Jesus, she looked awful. She was so thin you could almost see through her. I remember starting to cry. I think that’s when I realized she wasn’t going to get better. After a few minutes she folded whatever she was writing into an envelope and handed it to my mother, who added it to a stack of others just like it. There was something about the way she handled those letters, like she expected them to burst into flames or something. The image stuck with me for days. Longer than
that, I guess, because I knew what they were the minute I saw them in the closet.”
“What did you do when you found them?”
“What any kid would—I picked the fattest one in the stack and read it. Or most of it. I was too young to understand the nuances, but I got the gist.”
“You must have been stunned.”
“That’s the thing. I wasn’t. It was like part of me always knew. Unfortunately, by the time I snuck back to read the rest of the letters, they were gone. I had no idea what happened to them. I figured I’d see them again when my mother thought it was time. Every birthday that rolled around, I wondered if this would be the year she sat me down and told me the truth. But it never was. I thought for sure she’d do it when I turned eighteen, and then when I turned twenty-one. But she didn’t. After that, I just stopped thinking about it. I was in school, and then came the business with Monica—her death and the whole hushed-up mess—and all of a sudden I knew what it was like to be so ashamed of something you’d done that you’d do anything to keep the people you loved from knowing. If she wanted to keep the whole thing a secret, who was I to press the issue?”
He was prowling now, stalking from one end of the living room to the other. Dovie settled on the arm of the couch, following him with her eyes. “So that was it? You just went on pretending Gemma was your mother?”
Austin stopped prowling and met her gaze. “I wasn’t pretending, Dovie. Gemma is my mother. And so was Alice. I meant it before when I said the rest was just biology.”
Dovie nodded. She was about to open her water when she spotted the blue nylon duffel near the door. Something clenched in her chest. “Are you going somewhere?”
Austin followed her gaze to the bag. “I’ve been thinking about it, yeah.”
“Because of yesterday?”
“Because of a lot of things. Up until a few months ago, I had a life. Maybe not a great life, but one I built very carefully. I knew what worked and what didn’t. I knew what I wanted, and what I couldn’t have. Now that life’s been hijacked. It’s like the ground I’m used to standing on is disappearing out from under me. I don’t know how it happened, or why, but I need to figure out how to get it back.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. As long as it takes. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, and I can’t do it here, where everything’s so . . . close.”
Dovie slid off the arm of the couch and moved to the open sliders, determined not to let him see her face. “Your mother says it’s how you deal with things—you lash out, then retreat.”
“It sounds like me.”
“It does,” she said, turning back to face him. “But this isn’t like Monica. You can’t just run away from this one. I don’t mean me. You don’t owe me anything. I’m talking about your mother. I know it’s none of my business, but she’s spent the last thirty years terrified you’d find out something you already knew. And now, because she still has no idea you did know, she’s terrified you’ll never forgive her. At least talk it out before you go.”
Austin was silent for a time, his face a parade of unreadable emotions. “You’re right,” he said. “It isn’t your business, and it never was. So you’ll excuse me for saying a lecture from you at this point is a bit presumptuous.”
“I know.”
He hung his head, shaking it from side to side. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
Dovie stepped to the counter, fingering the stack of letters. “Because I made a promise.”
“To Dora?”
“Yes.”
“I know you think I’m a hard-ass for refusing to see her, but try to see my side. The woman’s a stranger to me.”
Dovie nodded but said nothing, letting the silence thicken.
Finally, Austin cleared his throat. “What will you tell her?”
“The truth, I guess.”
“Yes.” Austin’s expression was grave. “I suppose it’s time for that.”
FIFTY-ONE
Dovie tiptoed around the kitchen while she waited for the coffee to brew. After a night of no sleep, her head felt heavy and dull, her stomach queasy at the thought of the unpleasant conversation that lay ahead of her. For now, at least, Dora was still asleep, and she preferred to keep it that way until she figured out how to say the things she needed to say. But it wasn’t the telling she dreaded most. It was the questions that would come after. Questions about Austin.
Dora’s spirits were already at rock bottom. She had no appetite, and getting her to take her medicine had become a battle of wills. She didn’t want to think about how the poor woman would take the news that her grandson had been found at last, alive and well, right here in Charleston—and wanted nothing to do with her. The last flicker of hope snuffed out, and a fresh dose of grief, to boot. The thought left Dovie hollowed out. How on earth would she manage the fallout?
The question was still scraping around in her head when the doorbell rang. She hurried to answer, before whoever it was could ring again and wake Dora. She was expecting a salesman of some kind, or a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Instead, she found Austin standing on her front porch.
“I thought you were leaving town.”
“So did I. Turns out I had some business to take care of. I went to the museum, but you weren’t there.”
“I’m taking a few days. What are you doing here?”
“There are some things I didn’t say yesterday that I need to say now.”
Dovie eyed him warily. He’d said a lot of things—none of them pleasant. Which is why she was pretty sure she wasn’t in the mood to listen to whatever it was he thought he’d missed. “What things?”
“Are you going to make me say them out here on your front porch?”
“Dora’s asleep,” she told him coolly. “I’d rather you weren’t here when she wakes up. I suppose we could go around to the back porch, if you want.”
On the porch, she pointed to one of the rockers. Austin declined, choosing to stand at the railing instead, taking in the broad expanse of tidal marsh, awash in morning sunlight. For a moment there was only the sound of the wind sifting through the spartina, and the high, hollow tinkle of the tiny hummingbird wind chimes hanging from a corner of the porch.
“I should have known your backyard would look like this,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
“You said there were things you needed to say.”
He nodded, turning away to grip the deck railing with both hands. “The other day at my mother’s, and then yesterday, I said some things, bad things, that I need to apologize for. It was just that whole scene, walking in on you reading that letter, hearing my mother talk about how much my father hated me—it brought up a lot of old memories, things I’d worked really hard to forget. And there you were in my mother’s parlor, unraveling the whole damn mess. I wanted to strangle you.”
“You made that pretty clear.”
“I read the letters you left last night. And then I sat down with my mother. She told me how you and Dora met, how you ended up with all of Alice’s letters and found yourself pulled into her story. That’s why I had to come. You stuck your nose into my family’s business, and made a hell of a mess while you were at it, but I should have known better than to question your motives. You were trying to fix things, because that’s what you do. And that’s why I’m here, to say I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for that,” Dovie said. “And I’m sorry about . . . all the rest of it.”
“Don’t be.” Austin dropped into one of the rockers, eyes fixed on the expanse of cordgrass beyond the porch. “My mother and I covered a lot of territory last night, stuff neither of us wanted to talk about, but needed to. My father, mostly, and how he screwed us both up. He couldn’t stand the sight of me, even as a kid. No matter what I did, or how hard I tried, it was never enough. Now I get that it was never really abou
t me. Unfortunately, my mother blames herself, and I’m afraid she always will.”
Dovie eased into the rocker beside his, nearly reaching for his hand before she caught herself. “I don’t know what else to say, Austin, but I’m sorry. You both have good reasons to be angry. He wanted to hurt your mother, so he used you as a weapon. He was a coward, like most bullies.”
“When I said those things yesterday, I was mad at you, but it wasn’t just you. Hell, I’ve been mad for such a long time—at Monica, at myself, at my father—that it almost feels normal. I was too stupid to see that there comes a point where trying to punish someone who doesn’t give a damn becomes a complete waste of time. Instead, all I did was hurt a lot of people who didn’t deserve it.”
They were quiet for a time, rocking in unison, the rhythmic creak of the treads mingling with the quiet thrum of the marsh. It was Austin who finally broke the silence.
“Have you spoken to Dora? About the letters, I mean.”
Dovie shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve been trying to figure out how to break the news. I’m afraid the shock of it all might be too much.”
Austin looked away, back out over the marsh, as if weighing something. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, drawing the words out. “I think I’d like to be there, if that’s all right.”
Dovie was almost afraid to open her mouth, afraid she’d heard him wrong, afraid he’d change his mind. “You want to meet Dora?”
“I think it’s time. For her, and for me.”
Dora was already awake when Dovie stuck her head through the door. The television was on, tuned to the Weather Channel.
“I’ve brought you some tea, and it’s time to take your pills.”
Dora shook her head. “No more pills.”
“Please, Dora. You need to take your medicine.” She set the tea on the bedside table, then pulled in a deep breath. “And then I have some news—about Alice.”
Dora’s weary eyes darkened. “What kind of news?”
Love, Alice Page 37