Chapter Fifty-Two Damion
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“Heartbreak feels heavier in Manhattan. The cacophonic sounds and bustling crowds just illuminate aloneness.”
—Remington
Damion
My birthday started out as crap.
Because for starters, my father got an unofficial acceptance notification for me from Dartmouth. It was nothing—early decisions didn’t go out until next month—but one of his contacts had let him know that I was “in.”
He was on cloud nine and I was nauseous, because I realized that I had no plan to change the prophecy. I knew where and what I wanted to study next year, but zero idea on how to make it happen.
I was going to end up at Dartmouth, God help me. And I knew I was privileged. It wasn’t some tragically sad story that I was going to have to go to an Ivy League school and take over my family’s very lucrative financial empire.
Poor little rich kid, poor little Tom.
So I smiled and pretended to love the birthday crêpes my mom had the chef prepare for breakfast (like she did every year), but I didn’t feel like celebrating.
Because in addition to the bad news about Dartmouth, I kept hearing Remi’s voice every time I started to accept my fate.
Whenever I thought, Maybe I’ll like finance once I start working at Rutledge, I instantly felt like I could hear him dropping f-bombs and telling me life wasn’t supposed to be easy.
For fuck’s sake, if you’re not out there living in the grit of it all, you’re not living at all, kid.
But I had no clue how to see it through.
School also sucked that day, which was no surprise. It’d become sort of a numb place for me since Julia left. It was like she’d opened my eyes and now everyone’s hypocrisies and behaviors looked more egregious than they ever had before.
Or maybe it was because I missed her. So much.
Nothing was the same without her.
It felt like everything was dimmer. Darker.
Like the light was gone.
But when I got home from school, I was shocked to find Bernard waiting for me in the study. Seeing him felt so familiar that I half expected to look around the corner and see Remi, because those two had always been inseparable.
“Your eye,” he said, gesturing to the ugly bruises.
“It’s fine,” I said dismissively, because I’d been wishing I could apologize to him since the night of the ball. “Listen, uh, I’m really sorry about everything I started—”
“Say nothing,” he said, calmly raising a hand. “Sometimes life is messy.”
Bernard was so Bernard that I wanted to hug him. I realized at that moment that as much as I missed Remi, I missed Bernard, too. He was essentially another uncle to me, and here I was hiding things from him. What would Remi think?
“Thanks, Bernard” was all I could say, trying for a polite smile while feeling overwhelmed with regret. About everything.
“I have a birthday gift for you.”
“You do?” I said, shocked. “I can’t believe you know it’s my birthday.”
“You doubt me?” he teased, making me feel slightly better.
“Of course not. No one has ever doubted you, Bernie,” I said.
“You know, she calls me that too,” he said quietly.
I swallowed and didn’t know what to say as I pictured her smile. God, I missed her so much that it hurt to picture her face.
I cleared my throat and managed to say, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. Silence lingered between us as he looked at me. I could tell he missed her too.
“Well. Your present,” his kind voice said, interrupting the silence. “From Remington.”
“What?” My voice came out in a croak. The surprise hitting me hard. I cleared my throat again. “What?”
“I was instructed to give you this on your eighteenth birthday.” He bent over and grabbed a wrapped package that I hadn’t even noticed on the table beside him. Bernard smiled softly, sadness in his eyes, as he said, “Happy birthday, Damion.”
“He seriously left me a present?” I said, my throat tight as Bernard held out the box.
“Of course he did.” Bernard pushed it toward me. “Open it.”
I took the package and ran a hand over the wrapping, wondering if he’d wrapped it himself or if Bernard had.
“He wrapped it,” Bernard said, reading my mind.
“Don’t make me open it,” I said, finding it hard to swallow as so many emotions filled my entire body. I didn’t know how I was going to handle seeing the last thing Remi ever gave me.
“He wanted you to open it,” he said, then gestured with his hand for me to keep going. “Let’s go.”
I ran my finger under the seam, sliding it under the clear tape before pulling back the wrapping. I pictured Remi’s weathered hands wrapping the present, and I knew I was going to save the paper like a fucking lunatic.
But my heart stopped when I saw the gift.
Birds of the World, I read, my heart hurting, burning in my chest as I looked at the bird-watching book in my hands.
“He loved sharing that with you,” he said. “He was always tickled by the fact that you seemed to enjoy it as much as he did.”
I nodded, unable to speak. Uncle Remi had left behind a birthday gift for me. A bird-watching book.
“I, um, I just miss him so much, you know?” I managed, my voice cracking as I swallowed again and clenched my jaw against the pain.
“I understand completely,” he said, his voice rougher than usual.
“If you go back to the index,” he said, pointing at the book, “there is a letter.”
“A letter?” I flipped through the pages, and when I reached the back of the book, there was something stuck in the pages. “From Uncle Rem?”
“You know how he loved correspondence,” Bernard said with an affectionate grin.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, watching my fingers tremble as I unfolded the letter, as my eyes saw that familiar handwriting.
Oh God.
I wasn’t sure my heart could take this, to be honest.
Dearest Damion,
Happy birthday. I hope your day is filled with life and love and laughter. You have been eighteen years of pure joy—for me and for everyone—and I consider your life a gift.
I imagine you’ve probably been wondering about my will.
I bet the shit has really hit the fan since I croaked.
It was never my intention to leave your family out, but as I thought about you and your parents, it occurred to me that your family has enough money.
Too much, if you ask me. I wanted to free your family from the curse of more, if that makes sense at all.
Because if I left your parents the inheritance, I knew your father wouldn’t do good with it, Dame.
So I decided to use it to help a nice family. Selfish of me, perhaps, but I think a dying man can be a bit selfish, right? I just want Riverside Manor to go to a family that can fill it with the kind of joy we’ve always found in it, you and I.
There is a trust set up in your name and Bernard is the executor.
It’s enough to support you completely while you go to school in Colorado, but after that, you need to make your own way, Damion Rutledge, DVM.
It’s because I love you and want you to find fulfillment that I’m cutting it off at that.
If living in Gardenwood has taught me anything, it’s that money does NOT bring happiness.
I hope you know how much I love you, that you are 100% what I would’ve wanted if I’d ever had a son. In my heart, you are—and always will be—my son.
Love,
Uncle Remi
I stared at the letter in my hands, hands that were shaking hard now, and then I couldn’t see the words anymore through the tears.
Because, God, I’d just heard from him. It felt like Remi had stopped by and had spoken to me, literally, and now the grief of him being gone again felt worse.
Bigger. Harder.
Unbearable.
How can he be gone forever?
I wanted another letter. I needed more sentences. Dear Jesus, I couldn’t go back to hearing nothing from him again.
It was like a match had been lit in the darkness, showing me what I’d been desperate to see, but now it’d flared out and everything felt darker than it had before.
“I should’ve visited more,” I said, dropping into the chair because my legs didn’t feel like they could hold me up any longer. I tried keeping everything in, but it came out as a sob when I said, “Why didn’t I go see him after he moved to Nebraska?”
“You did exactly what you were meant to do,” Bernard said, setting a hand on my back. “He loved his quiet life at that cabin.”
“Still,” I said, swiping at my eyes, which wouldn’t stop fucking leaking tears. “I should’ve made him a priority.”
“You wrote him every week,” Bernard said with a patient smile in his voice.
It wasn’t enough, I thought.
Not nearly fucking enough.
“I just wish—”
“Damion, look at me.”
I wiped at my eyes again and raised them to Bernard.
“Listen to what I’m saying. Remington chose to live out his final years in that cabin.
He wanted it to be exactly how it was. He wanted you to find your way without him, and trust me, he wasn’t lonely or isolated, and he definitely wasn’t being taken advantage of.
The Lowells became another family to him.
Not a replacement, but an addition. And it was their time to make him happy. ”
I hoped—so badly—that he was right. I searched his face for the lie, but I couldn’t find it. I sounded like a little kid when I asked with a hoarse voice, “Do you really think so?”
“I know so,” he said. “They needed him, they loved him, and he loved and needed them right back. It was beautiful.”
All the grief was hitting me at once. It was too much and I just wanted to curl up into a ball. I just wanted more of him, dammit.
But then… I turned the letter over, where more of Remi’s scribbled handwriting stared back at me. Writing I hadn’t noticed until now, next to his tiny doodle of a crimson-red cardinal with a black face and a fluffy crest that looked like tousled hair.
P.S., it said…
There is a girl here in Springfield you should meet.
I think you’d like her.
And that’s when I fucking lost it.