Chapter 51 Charlotte
Charlotte
The last remnants of summer slipped away and the overgrown trees at the bottom of the garden began to let go of their leaves.
It felt like everything around me was exhaling in one deep, long sigh.
Still we worked. We worked until there was nothing left to tackle but the untouched room at the end of the landing.
Dad’s study was the hardest, but I couldn’t put it off forever.
From the window, I watched Cole hacking the hedges back.
He’d hired a professional to replace the cracked paving stones and skim the pond.
I pulled out the box of Dad’s notebooks.
Tiff was due over later to look through them with me, but I couldn’t resist another quick scan.
The first time I’d opened these pages, it had been so painful, but the ache had dimmed a little. It was a comfort to see Dad’s beautiful handwriting. To hear his words. This was a new side of him that I hadn’t known. These books were a gift.
The girls took the news as well as could be expected. It is a comfort to me that they have each other. I have been blessed with the most wonderful family. Lived a wonderful life. It is enough. I am grateful for all of it. I hope my girls will remember me well.
We’d lost Dad in pieces. But I’d picked those pieces up and tucked them away inside. I’d been carrying parts of him with me even before his final breath. This cruel disease had stolen his memories, robbed him of his personhood, but I kept those pieces inside of me. He was always with me.
He’d walked with me down the aisle. He’d stood at my side marveling at St. Peter’s Basilica.
He was in the laughter of the children chasing the pigeons on the Spanish Steps.
He was the sky—blue and limitless. He’d thrown a coin over his shoulder into the Trevi Fountain when he was a young man, and once again with me.
I would always carry him inside. The way he’d carried us.
I scanned through the notebooks, remembering all the silly, mundane things we’d done together as a family: endless summer holidays, school misdemeanors, seaside trips.
Dad’s illness had been hard, but we’d still laughed when we could, and we’d once all been so happy together in this house. Then one entry made my heart stop.
A terrible thing this evening. This poor boy.
Cole. I feel for him. He’s a good lad, smart and kind, but I have to think of Charlotte.
He was in tears, begging for my help, but what can I do?
Philip Thorner isn’t a man who anyone would want to get on the wrong side of.
He said he’d destroy everything Cole loves, and I don’t think that boy loves anyone as much as my daughter.
I can’t risk her. She has a bright future ahead of her, and she’s besotted with him.
She’d try to follow him to New York, and that could only end in disaster.
I’m forgetting all the time. It is a curse.
I will have to tell them soon. I don’t know how.
It’s no time to be distracted by puppy love.
It’s for the best if he goes. I’ve grown so fond of him.
It’s a terrible thing. But Charlotte needs to focus on getting into art school, not a teenage love affair.
If he truly loves her, as he says he does, he must leave her alone. Let her go and not drag her into this mess with his father. He seemed to understand. He begged for one of her sketch pads to take with him. I could hardly say no.
I reread the words over and over again, but they still said the same thing.
It wasn’t my brain tricking me. My dad would never have done anything to hurt me.
It couldn’t be. But he had. Whether or not it was to protect me, his decision to send Cole away with no explanation had cut me so deep.
It had hurt Cole too. My father had been one of the few adults that Cole could trust in his hour of need. He’d been let down.
My father had sent Cole away.
Cole hadn’t told me the truth. I crawled on my hands and knees to the window, because my legs felt too shaky to walk.
Cole was mowing the lawn, walking slowly in straight lines.
It was such a mundane scene. But the shift in my heart was seismic.
Cole had said he’d always loved me. For the first time, I actually believed him.