For Lila, Forever

by Winter Renshaw

  “He’s hanging in there,” I say. “Taking things one day at a time.”

  “Well, it’s just so sad,” she says. “I watched my own mother suffer from that horrible disease, and I know it isn’t easy. Is MJ doing okay?”

  I nod. “She is.

  Kids are amazingly resilient, but I’ve always felt that MJ was a notch above average in that department. Sometimes I think she’s stronger than me.

  “Well, I won’t keep you,” she says, waving her garden shears. “Looks like you’re about to embark on a little project or something … are those moving boxes? You’re not moving, are you?”

  “We are,” I say. “Unfortunately. Our landlord has asked that we leave by tomorrow.”

  “And you’re just now packing? Oh, dear …”

  “Well, his request came as a surprise to us,” I say before realizing she’s going to assume we’re being evicted. “He was an old family friend.” I hate referring to Bertram as a friend, but in this case, it’s just easier than explaining what he truly is: a monster. “He bought the house for us when we first moved here, but our families have had a recent falling out so he’d like us to be out as soon as possible.”

  “Well, that just seems cruel.” She folds her arms and clucks her tongue. “With your grandfather in the nursing home and it just being the two of you … how could someone be so heartless?”

  “If you knew him, you’d understand.” I glance at my front door. “I should probably start packing.”

  “Where will you go?” she asks. “Do you have anything lined up?”

  I begin to speak, but my throat tightens. I can tell her we’re staying in a hotel for the time being, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re officially homeless, and the thought of saying that out loud sends a painful jolt to my stomach.

  “You don’t, do you?” she asks, yanking off her big sunglasses as she takes a step closer. Placing her hand on my arm, she shakes her head. “You’re staying with me. And I won’t take no for an answer. I’ve got two extra bedrooms and a spare bath. They’re all yours until you can get on your feet.”

  “Are … are you sure?” She’s being entirely too kind and it pains me to take her up on this generous offer, but I think of my daughter, and how much easier this change will be if I keep her on her same familiar street with the same familiar faces.

  “Oh, honey. Yes.” She nods. “And you know … I have a couple of nephews back from OSU for the summer. I’m sure they’d like to make a little cash. Want me to see if they can help with the move? Pretty sure one of them has a truck.”

  I’m too choked up to speak, so I drop the cardboard boxes and throw my arms around Ms. Beauchamp.

  “Thank you,” I finally manage as the scent of her perfume fills my lungs.

  It smells of lilacs.

  It smells like my mother.

  If I believed in signs, I’d almost think …

  “All right, dear. You better start packing,” she says. “I’m going to call the guys and tell them to get over here ASAP. Don’t you worry, Delilah, we’ll get this done.”

  The strangest sensation washes over me, a lightness or a weightlessness, and I realize now that I don’t have to be Delilah Hill anymore.

  For the first time in a decade, I’m free from Howard Bertram and all of his chains.

  And that feeling? Priceless.

  Chapter 51

  Thayer

  I’m in my office Monday morning, but my mind is elsewhere.

  Tapping my pen against my desk and staring into space, I lose myself in little vignettes that play like daydreams in my head. I try to picture what our life would’ve been like had I known from the beginning. She’d have left the island and I’d have left New Haven, but where would we have gone? And what would I have done for work? I imagine we’d have been broke as hell but stupid happy. And I imagine she’d have been stressed and nervous and worried and I’d have been making it my mission to remind her that the best is yet to come.

  I try to imagine what Lila would’ve looked like pregnant.

  How her soft belly would’ve felt under my palm.

  I try to imagine the tears in her eyes when she heard the heartbeat for the first time and the pain she must have felt going through all of this without me.

  My reveries disappear for a moment and my focus shifts. I spent all of yesterday mourning what might have been and redirecting my anger from Granddad to Westley to Lila and back. Maybe it isn’t fair to be upset with Westley and Lila, but I can’t help but feel betrayed by them for keeping me in the dark. Contract be damned, I had a child out there and she was kept from me by the very three people who meant the most to me.

  The shrill ring of my office phone jolts me back into the present moment, and I grab the call.

  “Mr. Ainsworth, your mother is on line three,” my assistant says.

  Any time my mother calls me at work, it’s usually to tell me she’s in the city and wants to do lunch or to remind me of some upcoming family engagement she RSVP’d me to.

  “Tell her I’ll call her back,” I say.

  “She says it’s urgent.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, I mull it over. My mother has never deemed anything “urgent” in her life. She’s always been patient and unhurried and unburdened by even the most stressful of situations.

  I think of my father, and I hope to God nothing happened.

  “All right. I’ll take it,” I say, hanging up with her and pressing the blinking light. “Mom, what’s going on?”

  She doesn’t answer right away.

  And then I hear sobs, gasping, breathless sobs.

  “Mom, talk to me. What happened? Is Dad okay?” I ask, heart going a million miles an hour. I rise from my chair, unable to sit and wait.

  “Thayer,” she says between sniffs. “I’m so sorry to tell you this … but Granddad passed away.”

  I sit back down.

  And I feel nothing.

  “Thayer?” she asks. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes, Mom.” I remind myself that Granddad may have been a deplorable person to me, but he was never anything but wonderful to his daughters. They knew him as their loving father. Their protector. Their everything.

  “I’m so sorry.” I’m sorry for her loss, but I’m not sorry that the asshole died.

  “Beatrice found him in bed. They’re thinking heart attack, but of course we won’t know yet until …” she stifles another sob.

  “Is Dad there with you?” I ask.

  “He’s on his way home. He should be here any minute.”

  Good. I don’t want her to be alone. I could leave now, but it’d be at least another three hours before I could make it to Bridgeport.

  “You’ll come home, right?” she asks. “Please tell me you’re not going to work at a time like this. I know you love your job, but you loved Granddad even more. It’s okay to mourn, lovey. You need to mourn.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I say. The thought of sacrificing perfectly good work days pretending to be upset over Granddad’s passing makes me sick to my stomach.

  “They’re planning the funeral for Thursday,” she says. “Visitation is Wednesday. It’ll be here in Bridgeport.”

  “I’ll be there,” I say, but only to support my mother.

  I end the call and grab my suit jacket off the back of my door, and then I make my way down the hall to talk to my partner, Jackson, about taking some time off for the foreseeable future. Fortunately we’re heading into the summer, so we’ve got interns to pick up some of the slack and handle the more tedious parts of our job, but he agrees to cover my cases for as long as I need.

  I let my assistant know what’s going on, and I promise to check my email while I’m out in case there’s anything urgent, but as soon as I’m out the door and hitting the pavement, I have one priority and one priority only.

  Chapter 52

  Lila

  “Girls? I made goulash. Would you like some?” Ms. Beauchamp asks Tuesd
ay evening.

  MJ shoots me a look that Ms. Beauchamp can’t see, but I ignore it.

  “Sounds amazing. Smells amazing too … we’ll be down in a few. MJ’s just finishing up her homework,” I say.

  “Mom.” My daughter hates goulash with an unreasonable amount of passion.

  “MJ, we’re guests here, and being a good guest means eating what your host has prepared for you. We’re only here for a little while. We’re going to make the best of it and show her how grateful we are to be here. Understood?”

  MJ closes her social studies textbook and places it on an old roll top desk in the corner of her temporary bedroom. We brought only the essentials over here since Ms. Beauchamp’s house is already fully furnished, and I managed to find a medium-sized storage unit in town for fifty dollars a month. While I carried boxes upon boxes of clothing and keepsakes across the street to Ms. Beauchamp’s pastel green split level, her nephews loaded up all our furniture in the back of a truck and hauled it to the storage center.

  “Come on. Let’s get some dinner,” I say before leaning down, “if you eat at least half, maybe I’ll take you out for ice cream later …”

  She smirks. It’s an old trick I haven’t used on her since she was much younger, but I’m hoping it still works just the same.

  “Deal?” I ask.

  “Deal.”

  The smell of pasta and peppers and garlic bread fill the air, and while Ms. Beauchamp tends to the oven, I begin to set the table. Passing by a window in the kitchen that overlooks the front yard, I steal a quick glance at our old house.

  Just like Bertram promised, a man came yesterday morning, took my keys, and changed the locks.

  Despite the origins of us living in the house, it was a bright, cheerful, happy place ninety-nine percent of the time.

  I brought MJ home to that house.

  She took her first steps there.

  Said her first words.

  Blew out her first birthday candle.

  I force myself to stop reminiscing, and I tell myself it’s just a house. I’m about to glance away when I spot a black SUV pulling into the driveway, so I stop and let my gaze linger. The man who came yesterday drove a small white car. No one else has any business being there right now that I know of.

  A moment later, the driver side door opens and a man in pale jeans and a white v-neck tee steps out and makes his way to the front door. When he lifts his arm to knock, I spot the sleeve of tattoos.

  It’s Thayer.

  Chapter 53

  Thayer

  Lila’s car isn’t in the driveway and I’m sure she isn’t home, but I knock anyway. I stand back a couple of steps and wait, but it’s only then that I realize the curtains on the large window beside the front door are pulled open wide and the entire house is dark—not so much as a stove light on.

  Cupping my hands around my eyes, I peer inside (like a creep, I know) and find myself looking at a house that’s been completely emptied out. Nothing but carpet and walls.

  I was just here less than a week ago.

  How can they be gone?!

  I take a seat on the front steps, resting my elbows on my knees and staring off.

  I came all this way to make things right … and she bolted? Maybe she was afraid I was going to try to take MJ? Maybe she’s worried I’m too much like my grandfather and she wants nothing to do with me? I wouldn’t blame her for being traumatized at having to live in secret the last ten years, but my God, this is my child we’re talking about here.

  Pushing myself up, I trudge back to my rental. Westley calls just as I’m backing out of Lila’s driveway, so I stick it in park and wait, hoping maybe he’s calling because he knows something.

  “Hey,” he says after I answer. He doesn’t ask me how I’m doing. He knows better. “You at work?”

  “Nope. In Oregon. Looking for Lila. She left. Again.”

  He says nothing at first, and then he sighs. He knows how fucked this whole thing is and he knows better than to offer some pithy words of comfort. “So, they wanted me to call you and let you know that the reading of the will is this Saturday at the Hageman Law in Bridgeport. Eight o’clock. They want everyone there.”

  “I’ll be there Thursday for the service, but I can’t promise I’ll stick around after that.”

  “Really?”

  “Granddad told me Saturday night he was writing me out of the will,” I say.

  “What? What’d you do? Tell me you didn’t …”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Seriously?” His tone is cutting. “I bet he wrote us both out because I wasn’t supposed to tell you. And you knew that. Thanks a lot, asshole.”

  “Do you really want to go there with me? Right now? As I look for the mother of the child that you hid from me for almost ten fucking years so you could keep your inheritance?”

  Westley begins to say something, but I end the call.

  I don’t have time for his shit.

  I shift into reverse and begin to back out, only I slam on the brakes when I catch a glimpse of Lila in my rearview. She’s coming from across the street, run-walking toward my SUV. Rolling down my window, I begin to ask where she was, but she cuts me off.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” she asks.

  Chapter 54

  Lila

  We’re seated in a corner booth in a sparsely filled café on the north side of Summerton. Thayer’s hands are folded on the table in front of him, and I can’t stop shredding the paper napkin in my hands into hundreds of tiny pieces.

  We order two coffees.

  We’ve got a lot to talk about.

  When I saw Thayer at my old house a little while ago, I asked Ms. Beauchamp if she wouldn’t mind watching MJ for a little bit so I could catch up with an old friend, and she happily obliged. In my frenzied state, I stepped into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed my purse and phone, and ran out the door just in time to catch him backing out.

  “So what brings you back?” I ask.

  “I came back because I wanted to apologize,” he says. “Last week, when I talked to Westley … he didn’t give me the full story. And I assumed …”

  “You assumed what?”

  “I assumed you and Westley slept together after I left for college and that he got you pregnant and that’s why you left,” he says. “When I saw the picture of your daughter on my way out of your house, I guessed her age to be about eight or nine, and I started piecing everything together. And when I called Westley to ask him if he had anything to do with this, he just kept saying it was complicated and he needed to talk to me in person. And in my mind, I figured that if he didn’t do it and he’s innocent, all he had to say was ‘no,’ but he was so vague and kept circumventing my questions so the only logical explanation was that the two of you …”

  I reach across the table and place my hand over his. “Oh my god. No. I’m so sorry you thought that.”

  “The next day, I saw MJ at the coffee shop on my way out of town,” he says. “She was wearing that opal ring I gave you, the one from the antique shop? She had that on a chain like a necklace. I asked her about it and she said her dad gave it to her mom before she was born.”

  Thayer takes my hand in both of his.

  “I had a flight to catch and Whitley’s wedding to go to, so I left,” he says. “But as soon as I got to the island, I found Westley and demanded the truth.” Thayer’s blue eyes are intense as they hold mine. “And he told me everything, Lila.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “So you know about the NDA?” I ask.

  He nods. “I know that you were coerced into signing it. I know that you were young and scared and you probably felt like you had no choice. He knew you had no legal representation, he knew you were naïve, and he took advantage of that.”

  I drag in a breath that cools me from head to toe. “You have no idea how terrified I was.”

  “Any reputable judge would throw that contract out the wi
ndow because you signed it under duress,” he says. “But that’s neither here nor there. I want to move forward, Lila. I don’t want to focus on everything we missed. It’s upsetting, and I don’t want to be upset when I’m around you. And MJ.”

  Our waitress brings our coffees and he releases my hand.

  “I hate that you went through that alone,” Thayer says, his strong, steady hands wrapped around the white ceramic mug.

  “I had my grandparents.” I stir a splash of creamer into mine before reaching for a sugar packet. “And my friend, Taylor.”

  “I wish I could’ve been there to welcome her into the world,” he says. “Last thing I said to the old bastard was that I’d never forgive him for taking that away from us.”

  I almost choke on my sip of coffee. “I bet that went over well.”

  Thayer shrugs. “I mean, he wasn’t thrilled to hear that. Nor was he thrilled to hear all the other things I said to him after that. Crazy thing is, he dropped dead the next night. Heart attack in his sleep, they think.”

  The way he’s so nonchalant about this is strange. I know he’s angry, but I also know his grandfather was his everything growing up. They had a bond like nothing else.

  “Isn’t that so typical of him?” Thayer asks. “It’s almost like he died of a broken heart just to spite me. He was always manipulative like that.”

  “He called me Sunday morning,” I say. “Told me I had twenty-four hours to move out of the house.”

  “Ah. That was the morning after I had words with him,” he says. “I’m sure the moment he hung up with you, he speed-dialed his attorney to have me written out of the will. That was his last threat to me, like the promise of money was worth more to me than you.”

  His words catch me off guard.

  I know he’s spent all these years looking for me, but I had no idea his feelings were still so strong that he’d be willing to risk his inheritance, his future, and guaranteed financial security. I sip my coffee, convincing myself that I’m reading into it too much. People say a lot of things when their emotions run high.