Chapter 30
Levi
“What is this?” I asked roughly, refusing to accept the words I’d seen.
Claire set down her phone; she’d been talking to her father in the kitchen. When I first came in, I debated indicating that I was here so I wouldn’t surprise her, but then I found the neat stack of papers on her desk. On top was a Post-it that said to Levi.
After that, their conversation was blocked out due to the sound of blood rushing in my ears. I stood staring at the papers for too long. I finally picked up what appeared to be her newest article when she walked into the room.
“It’s what I’ve been working on. I was going to give it to you before I left,” she said.
Like I hadn’t seen her loading up her car all day. Like I hadn’t come back to her just running away as she had when she arrived in Cozy Creek all those weeks ago. Maybe in time some hapless soul passing by will have to hear the story about how I ruined her life. My jaw was tense. My heartbeat was still so loud in my head that I struggled to focus on anything she said.
I tried to find what I wanted to say. Pace had been right. “You’ve been working on a story behind my back?” I tossed the papers on the ground between us. She flinched back. “‘The True Legacy of Lily Carmichael.’ I told you to leave it.”
“I couldn’t. Her story spoke to me, and now I know I was right.” She lifted her chin.
Even now, even after everything, she looked at me like I was the one who didn’t understand.
“Right about what? Jesus, Claire.” I ran a hand down my face. “Did you get your job back with this, huh? An exposé on a celebrity photographer who wronged the woman he loved would surely be enough?”
At that, her color drained. “How could you even think that?” She reached her hands out and took a bracing breath. “You should read things before you jump to conclusions. Actually, I’ve been thinking about what we talked about. About your offer.”
She had to be kidding. “And you just decided to go against everything I said?”
She shook her head, looking at me like I was the one out of line.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I realized after I finished it why I couldn’t stop researching her story and why it was so important to me. It just took me a little longer to understand what I’m feeling.”
“I know why. Justice. Retribution at all costs, right? It’s all that’s important to you. Or whatever you think this sense of justice is, no matter who it hurts,” I said.
She looked at me for a long moment. “That’s what you think? You won’t read it, then?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing in there that I don’t already know,” I spat. “You forget that this is my life. It’s not some key to the next step in my career. Do you even care who gets hurt?”
Her mouth hung open. “This conversation feels so familiar.” She mumbled it to herself.
“Oh, yeah. Now you paint me with the same brush as your ex. This is why you didn’t want to stay here with me? Because you couldn’t just leave it, couldn’t do what I said were her dying wishes. Because everybody else is wrong. But not Claire. All facts, no fucks given.”
Her hand went to her mouth. Her eyes closed for the briefest moment, and the soft skin trembled. “I came here to tell you I was sorry for reacting to your offer the way that I did. And to tell you I l-love you too.” Her throat caught. “But I don’t think you can love me. Not really, not if you are accusing me of all this. Not if you even think me capable. I thought you knew me better than anybody else. Recognized truths in myself before they revealed themselves to me.”
I was seething, I couldn’t even look at her. The words I was so desperate to hear before fell flat. Useless. Hollow. A means to an end. But something started to sink in, started to make me doubt myself even now.
“I see what I see. And what I’ve heard around town,” I said.
She frowned. “I asked them not to tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“I’m surprised.” I didn’t drag Pace into this. She didn’t need to have him in her sights next.
“You aren’t listening. I see I’m too late.” She closed up her laptop and slid it into her shoulder bag. Her eyes were glistening as she spoke. “I’m not sure what I did that made it so easy for you to see me as this awful person. But I’m sorry if my reaction to your offer to stay hurt you. But the story is for you. I wanted you to have a proper memorial of your mother. I wanted you to be able to see her as the world saw her and not as the victim of your father. She chose you. She chose love. She was the winner in all ways. She got you. I just wanted you to see that, so hopefully, you could finally mourn her. I wanted you to see yourself the way she saw you and not as some huge cost she had to pay.”
I shook but couldn’t speak. The fears and the pain caught up with me. I was frozen.
She walked to the door, her laptop bag over her shoulder. Her smile was sad and brittle. The pain in her eyes palpable, the first tear falling and quickly wiped away by her hand, like she didn’t want me to see her hurt. She glanced back toward the room, then fleetingly at the scattered papers, before her watery gaze fell back to me.
“I wrote that for you, Levi. It’s not for any paper or magazine. Just for you. That’s the only copy outside my computer. I would never publish a story like that without your consent. I know that sometimes my morals come at a cost, but I wouldn’t do that. I would never hurt somebody I love so intentionally.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I do think you should read it. I wanted you to have a story about your mother that was beautiful to replace the one in your head.”
She walked out. I didn’t stop her. I couldn’t think when she was near me. She made me doubt everything.
For a long time, long after her car rumbled away, long after Ripley came out of her hiding spot to lick my hand, I stood there immobile.
Had I really fucked up?
The sun had set. The house was dark.
I listened for her voice. Here I was, in the space that was so hard to be in, the space I avoided so long, and suddenly, Lily Carmichael’s voice was nowhere to be heard.
“Have I disappointed you?” I asked the quiet and dark house.
I didn’t need to know her answer. I felt it in my entire being. Claire wouldn’t do the awful things that I accused her of. I felt hurt and rejected and wanted any reason to think she wasn’t the woman I fell in love with, so maybe her leaving wouldn’t hurt as much.
Eventually, I grabbed the story and Ripley and walked out.
I locked the front door, not sure I would ever open it again.
I had tried to open my heart to someone like I had tried to open the house to her .
And it was pointless.
I stomped back up to the main cabin.
I paced. I made a fire. I glared at the story, wrinkling in my damp grip.
“I don’t want to read anything about that man. I don’t want to give him any more of my attention.” I spoke out loud to Ripley. She whined at my side, licking my hand even more. “I’ve already wasted so much time thinking about justice and his happy life.”
I held the paper to the fire. The heat of the flames started to curl the edges of the sheets.
Ripley barked. With her ears pressed back, crouched down on her hind quarters, her little backside sliding as she whined, tail smacking the hardwood floor.
“Fine. I’ll read until I see his name. Then I’m throwing it in the fire.”
Ripley barked.
I sat down with a sigh. She was instantly in my lap.
With my shoulders tensed and jaw clenched, I read the first page … then the second and third, until I finished.
I immediately started it from the beginning to read again without being blurred by tears.
Then I read it again.
It was the final paragraph that broke me.
With Lily’s natural talent in photography, it would be easy to envision a different path for the woman who touched so many. A lifetime of rewards and accolades, full magazine spreads, and a name of notoriety would certainly have been within her reach, but then she wouldn’t be the woman who touched a town, she wouldn’t be the mother and friend to many. Every person I spoke to couldn’t mention Lily without also mentioning her apparent and fervent love for her son, her kindness, and her overarching aura of peace. She held on to a truth about life that so many of us realize too late. If success is measured by some standard that involves only accolades and money, then it might feel like Lily could have hoped for more, but Lily seemed to have an inherent wisdom that nothing would ever mean more to her than a present life with her son in a town that she loved. However, if legacy is measured by lasting memory and love, then the legacy of Lily Carmichael will far surpass most of ours.
She hadn’t even mentioned Richard Stanley or the scandal. There wasn’t even a hint of ugliness in the story because Claire hadn’t needed to. That wasn’t the point of this piece she wrote for me. Claire understood what I never could. Lily didn’t give up her life for me; she lived a beautiful life with me. Claire wrote this to help me see what I was too stubborn to accept.
I was so loved by two amazing women, and I let one man I’d never met make me doubt it. I let a need for retribution hide what was right in front of me. Exactly what I accused Claire of doing.
I brought a balled fist to my mouth to push back a gasp of pain, to not let it happen, but it was too late. The sob had escaped, and after that, another one hiccuped out. The flood had been bursting through the dam, and it was finally freed.
My head dropped to my hands, and for the first time since my mother died, I sobbed. I let myself feel the loss of someone truly amazing.