20. Will #2
I want to be the man your mother married. The man she believed in when she said yes to me all those years ago. I don’t know if I can get back to him, or if that man even existed, or if she just saw something in me that I hadn’t become yet. But I’m going to try.
Whether your mother takes me back or not. Whether she ever forgives me or not. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of her. And of you.
I hope you get to see that man. I hope it’s not too late.
Love,
Your father
I folded the letter and added it to the stack in my desk drawer. A month of letters now. A month of trying to articulate things I couldn’t say out loud.
The clock read eleven forty-five.
I should go to bed. Should get some sleep, stick to the routine Dr. Reyes had recommended, practice the self-care that felt so foreign and uncomfortable.
Instead, I got in my car and drove to Thames Street.
The gallery was lit up, warm light spilling through the windows onto the sidewalk. I parked across the street and killed the engine, and then I just sat there, watching.
Blair was inside.
I could see her through the window, moving around the space, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, hair tied back with a pencil the way she always did when she was working.
She was holding a paintbrush, gesturing with it as she studied a canvas on the wall, and even from here I could see the furrow of concentration between her brows.
She looked magnificent.
I gripped the steering wheel because my legs wouldn’t cooperate.
Because if I got out of this car, I’d walk across that street and through that door and pull her into my arms, and I didn’t have the right to do that.
She’d given me a chance. A chance, not a guarantee.
And showing up at her gallery at midnight like some lovesick stalker wasn’t the way to prove I’d changed.
But I couldn’t make myself drive away.
So I watched. Just for a minute, I told myself. Just long enough to see her, to remind myself what I was fighting for, to carry this image with me into another long night alone.
She set down the paintbrush and pressed her hand to her lower back, stretching, her belly visible now beneath her shirt. Our daughter. Growing inside her while I sat across the street, wanting to be there, not knowing how to bridge the distance.
The gallery shelves were still unassembled. I’d noticed them last week, stacked against the wall in their flat-pack boxes. She hadn’t had time, probably. The pregnancy, the painting, the work of rebuilding her life. How was she supposed to do everything alone?
She shouldn’t have to.
I dug my phone out and hunted through my contacts for the landlord’s number. Michael something. I’d helped him out of a tight spot a few years ago, a development deal that had gone sideways. He owed me a favor.
He answered on the third ring, groggy and confused.
“Will Beaumont? It’s almost midnight. Everything okay?”
“I need access to the gallery space on Thames Street. The one Blair Beaumont is renting.”
“Your wife’s place? I thought you two were-”
“We’re working on it. I need to get in there tonight. Early morning, actually. Around two. She won’t be there, but I need to set something up. A surprise.”
A pause. “A good surprise?”
“I’m going to build her shelves.”
Another pause, longer this time. “You’re going to break into your wife’s gallery at two in the morning to build her shelves.”
“It’s not breaking in if you give me the key.”
“Will, I don’t know if-”
“You owe me a favor, Michael. I’m calling it in.”
I could hear him sigh through the phone. “Fine. I’ll leave the key under the mat. But if she’s mad about this, I’m telling her it was all your idea.”
“Fair enough.”
I hung up and went home to get my tools.
At two in the morning, the gallery was quiet and dark and full of Blair’s paintings. I turned on the lights and stood there for a moment, looking at them. Seascapes and abstracts and portraits of Henry at various ages. Her whole life on these walls, her talent finally given room to breathe.
I got to work.
The shelves were heavy and awkward, built to be mounted by professionals, and I wasn’t one. I worked slowly, badly, my hands busy while my mind wandered.
I thought about all the years I’d watched her set aside her art. The way she’d boxed up her paints when Henry was born, promising to get back to them someday. The way someday had stretched into years, into a decade, into a quiet resignation I hadn’t fully noticed until it was too late.
She’d given up her dreams to build a life with me. And I’d repaid her by accusing her of betrayal.
I mounted the last shelf at five-thirty, just as the first gray light of dawn started seeping through the windows. My arms ached. My back hurt. I had sawdust in my hair and a splinter in my thumb.
I’d never felt better.
I cleaned up, packed my tools, took one last look at the gallery. Her paintings on the walls. Her shelves ready for display pieces. Her new life, waiting for her to walk in and claim it.
I left the key under the mat and drove home before she could arrive.
***
The texts came that afternoon.
Blair: Did you do this?
I stared at my phone, heart pounding. Debated what to say. How to play it.
Blair: Will.
She knew it was me. Of course she knew. Who else would break into her gallery in the middle of the night to build shelves?
Blair: Thank you.
I carried that thank you for days. Pulled it out and looked at it during meetings, during meals, during the long sleepless nights at Seacliff. Thank you. Two words. A door opening.
I wanted to call her. Wanted to hear her voice, wanted to ask if she needed anything else, wanted to find more excuses to show up in her life with useful contributions.
I recorded a voicemail instead.
“Blair, it’s me. I just wanted to say… I hope you liked the shelves.
I know I should have asked first, but I saw them sitting there and I couldn’t stop thinking about you trying to do everything alone, and I just…
I wanted to help. I want to help with everything.
I want to be there for you, for the baby, for whatever you need.
I know I don’t have the right to ask for anything, but if you ever need me, I’m here. I’m always here.”
I deleted it.
Recorded another one.
“Hey, it’s Will. The shelves. I hope they’re okay.
I probably should have let you choose where they went, but I measured based on where I thought you’d want display space, and I tried to keep them out of the sightlines of the main pieces, and…
Okay, that sounds insane. I’m sorry. I just wanted to do something useful.
Something tangible. Something that wasn’t just words. ”
Deleted that one too.
There was one more thing I had to set in motion before any of it would mean anything, and it wasn’t the kind of thing you could do with a text.
Marguerite had told me it would take weeks and a great deal of persuading a great many unhappy people.
I’d told her to start anyway. Some things you build quietly, and you don’t announce them until they’re done.
In the end, I just texted.
Me: Your show is going to be incredible. I’ll be in the front row if you let me.
I sent it before I could second-guess myself. Then I set the phone face-down on my desk and tried to focus on work.
Six hours later, my phone buzzed.
Blair: I’ll save you a seat.