Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“What if your mother was pressured to leave her career? You’re fulfilling her dream,” Charlie said to Emmy, the open scrapbook between their drinks.
“I’ve never thought of it like that. I’ve always been so afraid to have to live in her shadow that it never occurred to me to carry on her light instead.”
Curiosity filled his features. “I think you have your own light. It’s not just hers.”
Her heart fluttered. “Thank you. I’m just beginning to figure out where I fit in the world.”
Emmy filled him in on what he’d missed since they’d spoken last. He drank his soda while she sipped her latte, chatting, and it was as if the world had stopped around them.
She drank in his masculine build, the lift in his features when he smiled, and the interest in his eyes when he listened to her.
They talked for longer than Emmy had planned to stay.
She wanted to sit there with him for the rest of the day, but her dad was probably awake by now.
“Want to go with me to the hospital?” she asked, not wanting to let him go for a second.
“Of course.”
“It’s not much of a Christmas this year,” she said, “we didn’t even plan a gift exchange or anything, but at least we’re all together.”
“Yes.”
Emmy grabbed the scrapbook and her handbag. With no time limit on her parking, she left her car in its spot, and they walked the ten minutes to VCU.
They went into the waiting room—their usual meet-up place.
Uncle Brian and Jack were already there, getting an update from the nurse at the double doors leading to Emmy’s dad’s hallway.
Elsie’s flowered bag full of knitting yarn was open on the floor next to her chair, one rope of it leading up to her busy fingers, a knitted square of pink in her lap. She lit up when she saw Charlie.
“Look who found us,” Elsie said. “Spending time with us every holiday is becoming a tradition. It’s such a treat.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Aunt Charlotte gave a little squeal of delight, smiling broadly at Emmy. Uncle Stephen, dozing next to a sparsely decorated Christmas tree, stirred and opened his eyes.
“I’m glad to see you, Charlie,” Charlotte said. “What are you doing here in Richmond?”
“I thought Emmy could use another shoulder to lean on,” he said.
Charlotte gave him a wink.
Uncle Brian came back to them. “The nurse said they’re just finishing up with his vitals. He’s been stable, and they’re moving him from ICU to a regular hospital room today.”
“That’s wonderful,” Emmy said. Had Charlie brought all the good luck with him? It seemed so.
Uncle Brian rocked back onto his heels happily. “Do we want to take turns going in again so we don’t overwhelm him?”
“That’s a good idea.” Elsie nodded vigorously as she packed up her knitting.
“All right. Emmy, why don’t you go in first? You had the late shift yesterday, so we can work backwards, and Madison can come with us, to give her time to finish her grocery shopping.”
Emmy agreed. “That works.”
“I’ll wait out here,” Charlie said.
But she beckoned him. “No, you can come.”
He gave her an affectionate look. “I’ll pop in later. You need quality time with your dad, I’m sure.”
“Okay. I’ll come get you in a little bit.”
With her mother’s scrapbook under her arm, she passed the check-in desk and headed through the double doors to her father’s room.
When she walked in, to her utter delight, her dad was sitting up in bed.
“Look at you,” Emmy said, going over to him and giving him a hug.
“The old heart almost took me down, but my will was stronger,” he said.
Emmy pulled up a chair to her dad’s bedside. “Charlie’s here. He’s in the waiting room.”
Her dad’s eyebrows rose.
“He surprised me with a visit when he heard what happened.”
“That’s kind of him.” A small smile lurked at the corners of his mouth.
“I was in the coffee shop down the street. He just appeared and asked if I had a minute.”
From the glint in his eye, her dad made the connection, silently asking if she’d remembered the significance.
“Speaking of Mom,” she said instead, pulling the scrapbook onto her lap. “I’ve been going through this.”
“I’m glad Madison gave that to you. I found it in the back of the closet.”
“I’m so thankful to have it.”
“Learning anything new from your mom?” he asked, fiddling with his IV.
She debated whether now was a good time to bring up her questions. She decided she should wait until he was better.
“Whatever it is, you can ask me.”
She locked eyes with him.
“There are a few pages I didn’t understand,” she said.
“Not understanding your mother’s designs? If you don’t, I doubt I will.” But there was more behind his words, daring her to say something.
“Well, there are other things in the book too.”
“Like?”
“Are you sure you want to talk about this now?” she asked.
He nodded. “I keep seeing your mother in my dreams, and she tells me I need to say what I know. I didn’t want to, but I wonder if I’m supposed to.”
Emmy put the book down and leaned forward, grasping her dad’s hand. “What is it that you know?”
“I thought it might be the drugs or lack of oxygen to the brain…”
His heart monitor beeped more rapidly, alarming Emmy, but he gave her hand a weak squeeze. “Let me get it out.” He took a deep breath in and released it slowly. “When I met your mom that day, and she was crying, she did tell me why. We just didn’t tell you.”
Emmy hung on his words, waiting for clarity.
“A few weeks prior, she’d left her fiancé. She said she wasn’t crying over him but rather at how she’d broken things off. She wondered if she should’ve said more, done more. But she knew that if she had, he’d have tried to make it work, and she didn’t love him.”
“It’s odd that Mom would accept an offer of engagement from someone she didn’t love. She was always so decisive.”
“She told me that she was caught up in the romance of it all. She was wowed by his love for her. She’d never been loved like that by someone before.”
Emmy nodded. “Did you ever find out who her fiancé was?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at her dad. “Who?”
He winced as he shifted in bed. His pillow fell behind his back, and he struggled to rearrange it. Emmy lifted it behind his head once more.
“Was it anyone we know?” she asked.
“Her fiancé was Mitchell Augustine,” he replied.
Emmy’s blood ran cold.
“I almost told you that day you called. I admitted to you that she’d been crying, but then I clammed up because I worried that if your mom had wanted you to know, she would’ve told you.”
“That explains a lot about Mitch’s demeanor when I first met him. He took quite a while to get back to me and only agreed to meet when he found out Mom had died. When we did meet, he seemed nervous and was quick to leave.”
“It was a whirlwind engagement. She told me all about it after we started dating seriously. Mitchell was a decent guy. He didn’t bother her after she left, but she was actively trying to leave Paris.”
“When did she realize she didn’t love him?”
“She was so young and inexperienced at life. As you know, Mitchell grew up incredibly wealthy. He proposed to her in the most romantic city in the world. She was swept up in all of it, but then, when she started planning her wedding, his family were incredibly difficult. They required a lot of her. They wanted her to build her own empire so she didn’t live off their son’s inheritance.
They looked down on her because she didn’t know the etiquette of their elite society.
Their behavior, however, actually saved her, because their judging eyes made her assess how much she loved him.
Enough to endure that? Her answer was no. ”
The pieces slowly came together. “She designed that wedding dress for herself. That’s why she wrote his name and then ‘Mrs. Augustine’ on the back.
She was probably seeing how it felt to write her new name.
And that was why Mitch had the dress, because she probably left it in Paris when she followed you to Tennessee. ”
“Yes. His family was upset that she was designing her own dress. They wanted a name brand, given that their son was a designer himself. A few times, she admitted to me that she could tell his family was embarrassed by her, fabricating things to make her sound better than she was.”
How could anyone think her mother was less than amazing? “That makes total sense after what I read in here.” Emmy opened to the journal entries. “I thought Grandma and Grandpa were putting pressure on her, but I’ll bet this was about Mitch’s parents.”
“We faced a lot,” her dad said, his gaunt face serious.
“We fell for each other quite quickly as well, and I worried whether she truly loved me. Was this a matter of two people who were perfect for each other, or was it that she always fell hard and fast? I feared that she’d run off with me as a way to escape her old life.
I always felt inferior to the high-end lifestyle she’d been living, and I was afraid she’d want that someday.
She assured me she wouldn’t, and she couldn’t continue on her career path because his family had invested an incredible amount in her, and she knew she’d be disgraced in their circles if she left their son. ”
Her father’s lips parted once more, but he remained silent.
“Is there something else?” she asked, breathless.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to say because I think it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.”
“You can tell me anything, Dad.”
Tears suddenly swelled in his eyes, his lip wobbling.
Emmy squeezed his hand.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing against his pale neck.
His gaze rolled up to the ceiling and then back to her.
“When I was out of it, I saw your mom in my dreams, and she was insistent on telling you something that I’ve suspected all along.
I don’t want to believe that the message was actually from her.
It was probably just my imagination running wild. ”
“Tell me anyway. What did Mom say?”
He hesitated. “Seeing her felt so real, and she was so adamant.”
“If anyone could figure out how to give you a message, it’s Mom. Tell me.”
His gaze shifted over the bed as he clearly wrestled with what he was going to say. “If, God forbid, I don’t make it, and I don’t say anything when she wanted me to…”
“Dad, you’re going to make it. You’re doing great,” Emmy said.
“Promise that you won’t take this as truth until we explore it together.”
“I promise.”
“In my dream, your mom took me by the hand and said, ‘Emmy needs to know where she really comes from.’ As I said, I always suspected this. I never asked your mother outright because I didn’t want to believe it. I told myself there was no way it could be true, but I did the math, and it could be.”
“What are you saying, Dad?”
He chewed on his lip.
“Tell me what you’re talking about,” she urged.
“I wondered if she meant you aren’t mine.”
Emmy lost her words. Had her entire life not been what she’d thought it was?
She scrutinized her father’s features, getting more panicked with every tick of the clock because she didn’t see herself in them.
She favored her mom, but she’d always wondered where her green eyes had come from.
Her father’s were hazel and her mother’s were blue.
“I did the math. You came early…” He trailed off, tears brimming again.
Mitch has green eyes.
“Could that be why my artistic ability is so strong? Did I just spend the last year with my father?”
The look on her dad’s face told her everything she needed to know.
“I have to admit, when you called me with his name, I almost passed out.”
She mentally pored over everything she’d learned about her mom—all the notes, her drawings, the clutch. Coupled with her dad’s dream, it was as if her mom were trying to send her a message, attempting to tell her who she was—something she hadn’t been able to say in life.
She and her dad stared at each other.
“My dream doesn’t necessarily mean you’re his daughter.”
“Do you think Mitchell would know if I was?” she asked through her dry mouth.
Her dad shrugged, helpless. “I didn’t even want to bring it up. You’re my daughter.”
She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his frail body, tears springing to her eyes. “And you’re my dad—no matter what.”
They sat together, holding onto one another so long that she’d eventually have to let go, but she didn’t want to. She hoped she could hold him long enough to prove her love for him without a single doubt.
He finally leaned back, made eye contact, and wiped a tear from her cheek with his bruised, IV-taped hand.
“Over the years, I could see what looked like fear in your mother’s eyes when I noticed your talent.
I told myself it was nothing, that I was being paranoid.
She didn’t want anything to do with the Augustine family, so if there was any connection, I doubt she ever told Mitch. ”
“Should I ask him outright?”
“Why don’t we get a paternity test first, before we drop a bomb on him unnecessarily?” her dad suggested.
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
Could she really be Mitchell Augustine’s daughter? Her whole life, she felt as if she were in the shadow of her mother, when really, she might be a part of something much bigger: the daughter of two creatives who were tragically torn apart by money and social standing.
Emmy stood up and put her arms around her dad one more time. “No matter what, nothing will change between us. Ever.”