23. Indie #2
His words were the ones I was dying for months ago. And that might be the most frustrating thing, because he’s said all the pretty words before.
Where you go, I go.
I promise, honey.
I love you.
There was just never balanced action to back them up. Sure, he defended me sometimes, here and there. I would get flashes of the man his Nana raised, the clearest one being when he defended me after his mother gave me gluten.
I took that crumb and made a feast, not realizing I was still starving.
So, is this just more crumbs? More pretty words to lull me into peace before he rips the floor out from under me.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me over and over, and I believe all your words like a naive moron—please commit me to the nearest mental health facility.
I’m not falling for it again.
I won’t.
Even if shivers run up and down my spine at the passion in his words yesterday, and the earnestness of his broken face.
He tracked me down in London just to give me Pop’s ring, a ring I know must be precious to him.
He could have kept it. I would have never known.
He could have given it to Danielle or Stephanie, who actually knew and were loved by Ted Williams.
But he came here. He waited in the lobby for seven hours for me and followed me to the pub. He didn’t just intrude on my time with Petra. He came here just to give me the ring and the letter from Ellie.
Tears sting my eyes now as I think of the letter. I had ordered a bottle of wine to my room last night with my room service, and waited until I had drunk two glasses before I opened the letter.
And I cried and cried and cried.
Indie,
I’m sorry I didn't go to the hospital as you asked. Don’t be too mad at this old woman.
I’m tired, sweetheart. I am so tired, and I miss my Ted so much it feels like my bones ache with it.
I think I stayed as long as I did, and fought the cancer so hard, because some part of me knew Teddy still needed me.
My girls have always been stronger than they think, but my Teddy…
he has the softest heart of them all. Always did.
And that’s a good thing and a bad thing.
Bad because it’s easy to mold into something wrong, and his mother has perfected that over the years.
But it’s also good because he’s sensitive, he’s caring, well, you love him. I think that’s the best thing.
My mother always told me that I have good instincts. It’s what made me say yes to this surfer buffoon when he asked me out, right after wiping out.
It’s what made me keep silent about the money, because while it solves many problems, it also creates many more.
And when I saw you, I just knew you were meant to be my granddaughter—just as much as Danielle and Stephanie are.
Then Teddy looked at you like a damn cartoon wolf with his eyes popping out of his head, and, well, that was that.
You were meant to be his.
I hope you guys take the money I’m leaving you and build something beautiful with it. Maybe that dream house in Cape May. Put my furniture to good use!
I hope you kick cancer’s ass at Bluewater.
I hope you change the world, because if anyone can do it, it’s you.
I also hope you remember that changing the world does not mean letting the world take everything from you, including Teddy.
I love that boy more than words can say, but Dawn has her hooks in him deeper than I think he even knows. But I know you see it. I know you’ve seen it for a while.
I don’t say this to put it on your shoulders, but when you are both in New Jersey, I think some things are going to change.
Help him set boundaries with Dawn. Encourage him to untangle his mother in his head. Be patient with him as he tries.
I have faith in him; he has his grandfather in him after all.
But if he doesn’t, and if he refuses, and he lets that woman decide his life.
Then you choose yourself.
Do you understand?
You choose yourself.
That’s what life is, in the end. Choices.
Sometimes we make the wrong ones. Lord knows I made plenty. But the good ones—the really brave ones—are the ones we make again and again. Even when they cost us something. Even when it’s terrifying.
Love is a choice. Staying is a choice, but so is leaving.
You make the best choice for you.
You deserve that.
Now, I suppose it’s time for me to say goodbye. I’m knocking on heaven’s door. I’ve gone to the great gig in the sky. I’ve taken the stairway to heaven. I’m talking to the spirit in the sky.
Or whatever those hunks were singing back in the seventies, which was the greatest era of music.
I’m dead, kid. Let me have the last word.
I love you, Indie girl.
Ellie
I read it ten times before I let the tears fall, grief washing over me like I’d ripped open a scab to let it bleed.
It felt good to cry, and it felt like closure.
I hadn’t asked about a will because I wasn’t part of the family—that much was clear—and I didn’t want to make anyone else feel like this. Picking at a wound.
But Dawn must have known something, and I’d bet the entirety of the money Ellie gave me that she didn’t get anything. That’s why she kept the will to herself.
Just when I think that woman can’t reach new depths.
But Teddy is here.
And the Teddy I left in Chicago wouldn’t have flown across the world for me unless Dawn gave him permission. And she wouldn’t have. Especially not for me. The Teddy I left would have dropped everything the second his mother called, damn everyone else.
So why is he here? Why is he staying in Europe? Cape May isn’t that big; he could have tracked me down at Bluewater to deliver the ring if that was all he really wanted. He wouldn’t have come this far for me before.
So what changed?
Yeah, I’m more gullible than I thought.
Huffing, I rip off a part of the bear claw and pop it into my mouth.
And feel enraged.
“Goddamnit,” I mutter, my mouth twisting. “That’s good.”
I shove another piece into my mouth and chew roughly, thoroughly enjoying the flavors on my taste buds.
It’s so hard to find a good gluten-free donut. The substitutions people claim are just as good are usually just a way to cope with the fact that our bodies cannot process wheat. If we say it enough, maybe it will become true.
But this bear claw is delicious, and I can’t help picturing Teddy asking the bakery about their gluten-free options, about cross-contamination, about how they clean their kitchen.
It’s the same thing he used to ask waiters when we went out to restaurants. If there was even a second of hesitation, or if someone said they weren’t sure, he didn’t trust it.
And yet his mother could do no wrong, and, of course, it was just one big mistake.
Angry again, I tear open the envelope and have to blink a few times when I see what’s on the page.
It’s not a letter.
It’s a sentence.
In a city full of royalty, you’re the only queen I see.
And a drawing.
Of me.
He always told me I was his muse, his favorite subject to draw, the way he was going to make us millions someday. He said it as a joke, but I believed it could be true because I believed in him. But this isn’t just a portrait like he usually draws of me.
No, he’s drawn me as a queen, dressed in a long gown, my hair curled and pinned back with a crown on my head, a saber in my hand, and a cape around my shoulders.
There is a regal smile on my face as I look down at a subject kneeling before me in armor, a knight whose face I cannot see because his head is bowed.
But he has dark hair. He is large. And on his shoulder plate is the unmistakable sigil of a bear.
It’s beautiful.
It’s some of his best work, and I can practically feel the care he put into getting the lines right, the shadows right, and the fact that he drew this from memory.
“Teddy…” I whisper, barely audible over the hum of the other parkgoers having a wonderful morning, unaware that I am currently swirling around an emotional hurricane.
My eyes sting, and I move the paper out of the way before my tears can fall and smudge the charcoal.
Then a burst of anger erupts in my chest from the sheer force of what I’m feeling, and my fingers pinch the top of the paper.
My arms tense, ready to rip it, ready to tear it into pieces because this doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t solve our problems.
One stupid, beautifully drawn picture accompanied by a sweet caption does not erase months and months of mistreatment.
And yet.
I don’t rip it.
I can’t.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and count to ten, feeling the irritation ebb out of me. It doesn’t fix anything, and destroying a piece of art that Teddy worked on will only make me feel bad. I can recognize that.
Also, the fact that he gave this to me seemingly without any expectation. He told William that if I refused, to leave it be. There are no pretty words begging me to take him back. There are no empty apologies. No pressure.
It’s just appreciation.
And that’s what makes it worse.
“Idiot,” I scoff, shoving the rest of the bear claw into my mouth.
I just don’t exactly know who I’m calling an idiot.
Teddy, for thinking that a box full of sweets and a stupidly adorable drawing of me as a queen with him kneeling before me is going to soften me.
Or me.
Because it is.