Chapter 32
Noah felt both numb and reeling as he walked away from the lodge—from Grace and Jacob—back to Grayhaven.
Brad, Grace’s horrible ex Brad, was Brad Bellingham, a shallow, irritating, self-aggrandizing jerk he’d palled around with back in the city, at various bars and clubs.
Because he’d been stupid. And arrogant. And yes, stupid. So, so stupid.
And now it might cost him the woman he loved before he even got to tell her that he did.
Noah had seen the stricken look on Grace’s face when Noah had bumped Brad’s fist and said it was good to see him.
Why had he done that? He didn’t even like the guy.
He hadn’t liked him back in New York, and he definitely didn’t like him now, and when he pictured Brad Bellingham’s hands around Grace’s throat…
Well, he wanted to put his hands around Brad’s throat.
Which made him not much better than Brad, but still.
Maybe he couldn’t change, Noah thought bleakly.
And even if he could, maybe it didn’t matter, because other people wouldn’t let him.
They wouldn’t see it or believe it, and maybe he wouldn’t even believe it himself.
And maybe even if you did change, it didn’t matter, because of what you did and who you were in the past. Maybe no one got a second chance at anything, ever. Maybe life simply didn’t work that way.
It was a deeply depressing thought. He’d been so close to forgiveness, acceptance, happiness, all that good stuff. Now it felt as far away as ever.
With a sigh, he opened the front doors to Grayhaven, only to stop in shock when he saw who was standing there, a suitcase at her feet.
His mother.
She looked tired, and older than he remembered, although just as elegant, her silver bob without a single stray hair. She smiled as she saw him, a sorrowful curving of her lips.
“Hello, Noah.”
“Mom.” He felt blank inside, like certain things were not computing. “What are you doing here?” She must have come over on the same ferry as Brad. But why? The last time he’d seen or spoken to her, at Jem’s funeral, she’d said she never wanted to hear from him again. He’d obliged.
“I’m here to see you.” She paused. “Isaiah called me.”
“Isaiah…” Noah didn’t know whether to feel angry about that or not. Had Isaiah filled his mother in on what he’d been going through this last year and a half? The answer, he knew, was probably. He knew they’d been in touch, anyway. He shouldn’t even be surprised.
“I’m glad he did, Noah,” his mother said quietly. “I should have come sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t.” She paused as if working up the courage to continue. “You don’t know how sorry. Please, can we talk?”
So many revelations in one day. Noah started to shake his head—he was already in an emotional red zone—but then he shrugged. His mother had come all this way, and he didn’t think she’d done it just to yell at him some more. Hopefully, anyway. “Okay.”
“Shall we go outside?” she suggested. “There’s a little sunlight left, and I’ve missed the ocean.”
They walked in silence through the gardens, although occasionally his mother would give some little exclamation of surprise or delight as she studied some flower or bush.
“Isaiah’s been so faithful, tending this place,” she murmured as she broke off a stem of lilac and inhaled it. “I’ve always loved spring here, and we hardly ever came up for it. I’ve missed it so much.”
They’d reached the rose garden, so neatly tended, and his mother opened the gate, slipping through and then holding it for him afterward. “Come,” she said, beckoning toward the little bench where he’d found Grace just a month or so ago. “Sit.”
They sat. The sun was low in the sky, causing the placid surface of the ocean to shimmer with golden light. A slight chill had crept into the air, and his mother hugged herself as she breathed in deeply.
“There’s no smell like the ocean.”
Noah didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure what to say. His mother was talking to him as if things were normal—normal but a little sad—when eighteen months ago she’d told him she never wanted to see him again. That he was to blame for his brother’s death.
It was hard to forget that kind of stuff. To act like it hadn’t happened.
“I really have missed it here,” his mother said quietly.
Noah shifted on the bench. “I never understood why you closed this place up. I mean, I know Eleanor’s death was tragic, but even so, it seemed… extreme.”
“There were a lot of reasons.” His mother was quiet for a moment. “How much do you remember about that summer?”
“Remember? I don’t know.” Noah tried to think back. “It seemed like any other summer. Although I remember doing my college applications a lot of the time.” He’d been fixated on getting into MIT.
“Yes, you were. I think you spent most of the summer in your room, writing essays.”
There was no accusation in her voice, but Noah prickled anyway. “Well, it was important.”
“I know, Noah.” She reached out one hand as if she would touch him and then dropped it again. “I’m just trying to explain what you may have missed. Your father and I—we were having problems.”
Noah did a double take. “You were?” That was news to him. He’d always thought his parents were solid, until his dad’s stroke. His mother had cared for him for years until he’d finally died.
She nodded somberly. “That summer… well, we mentioned the d-word for the first time. We’d danced around it before.
Your father worked so much, and he liked life in Boston.
I loved it up here.” She let out a soft, sad laugh.
“Funny, since it was in his family, but I guess he didn’t come here at all when he was a child.
And I fell in love with it the first time I did.
I was the one who made it into our summer home—it had been no more than a mausoleum before then.
And of course your father wouldn’t let me change any of the décor.
This place was like a museum to him. To his family, and yet he didn’t want to spend time in it.
” She sighed. “We wanted such different things out of life.”
Noah was quiet, absorbing everything his mother had said.
He realized not a lot of it was a surprise.
He’d known his dad didn’t like it here, had rarely come up.
And he’d known his mom had loved it. And, now that he thought about it, he supposed there had been some tension between them—his dad, the smooth-talking investment banker, his mother, a former socialite who preferred gardening and sailing to cocktail parties or tennis clubs.
“You didn’t talk about getting divorced over whether or not you could change the curtains,” he finally said, a statement.
“No.” His mother sighed. “We thought about it because we wanted such different things out of life, and neither of us knew if we could—or wanted to—change. But then Eleanor died, and it was all so tragic and disruptive—do you remember Jem that summer?”
Noah shrugged. “He went into a depression after her death, but I didn’t think they were close.”
“No, they weren’t. Eleanor had a crush on Jem—girls always seem to like those they perceive as the strong, silent types—and Jem didn’t return her feelings. And the day she died, she asked him to take her sailing. He refused—you know how stubborn he could be, in his quiet way.”
“Yes,” Noah said after a moment. Why hadn’t he remembered this? That summer was a blur to him, and yet clearly important stuff had happened.
“And so she went out on her own and she couldn’t handle the boat and then she died,” his mother finished sadly. “It was so horrible, and Jem felt terribly guilty about it all.”
“He didn’t tell me,” Noah protested, as if that made it untrue.
Jem had told him everything. At least, he thought he had.
But maybe, in his grief and guilt, he’d built their relationship up in his mind, their twin-level closeness.
He knew there were things he’d never told Jem.
Why should Jem have told him everything? Why should he have known it?
It was unsettling, to look back and realize things weren’t quite as they’d seemed. As he’d assumed.
“Eleanor was the daughter of one of my oldest friends, from boarding school,” his mother continued.
“We hadn’t seen each other that often, but I always valued our friendship.
But when Eleanor died… well, she blamed us.
Me. She even threatened some kind of lawsuit, although your father handled that.
But it ruined the friendship, and your father wanted to close this place up anyway, and with Jem spiraling down…
it just made sense. I thought we’d come back, but then you and Jem were in college, and your father had his stroke and we never did.
And the more time passed, the less I found I wanted to.
” She smiled at him, the corners of her eyes drooping sadly.
“Sometimes things just happen, Noah. Time slips by and you don’t even realize it, and you wish you’d done things differently all along. ”
“Is that what happened over the last eighteen months?” he asked in a harder voice than he meant it to be.
His mother sighed. “Yes, in a way. We’re both stubborn, you know. You’re so like me. And as much as I regretted what I’d said in a moment of terrible grief, I was afraid to approach you. Afraid you wouldn’t accept my apology. And… feeling guilty felt easier, somehow, less of a risk.”
Noah looked out at the sea, the sun now sinking behind the horizon. It was getting cold; they would need to go inside soon. “I can relate to that,” he said in a low voice.
“Noah, I promise you, I didn’t mean what I said.” His mother reached over and clasped his hand in her own cold one. “Jem’s death was not your fault. He always struggled with depression. It wasn’t your job to save him. Ever.”
He glanced down at her fingers curled over his. “He wanted to leave New York, Grob, all of it,” he told her tonelessly. “It was too much for him, the pressure, the people. And I didn’t listen.”
“He told me too,” she whispered. “And I told him to stick it out. Maybe that’s why I blamed you, Noah. I was terrified of blaming myself, because I didn’t think I could survive that, and yet I did it anyway.”
Briefly Noah closed his eyes. “I’m trying to let go of the guilt,” he said in a low voice. “But it’s hard.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know. And for my part in that… I’m so sorry, darling. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
“But not as much as Jem.” The words surprised him. They belonged to a little boy, not a grown man, and yet… he’d felt them. His whole life, he’d felt them, and he felt them still.
“Noah, no.” His mother drew back, looking distraught.
“I never loved Jem more than you. I loved you both in different ways, it was true. Jem needed protecting, coddling even. And you… you needed someone to rein you in and then let you loose. It’s true, we butted heads sometimes, because we were so alike.
And because we both wanted to protect Jem.
” She sighed sadly. “I’m sorry that you’ve felt that way.
I promise you, I’ve loved you just as much as I loved him. ”
Noah nodded slowly, not trusting himself to speak. Did he believe his mother? He thought he probably would, in time, but it all felt too raw now. Too much to think about and to accept and to grieve.
And what about Grace? He thought of the way she’d snapped at him, telling him to go. How white her face had gone when she’d realized he and Brad knew each other. Were friends. He wanted to believe it wouldn’t change anything between them, but he felt as if it already had.
Would Grace even want to know him, never mind love him, now that she truly knew what he’d been like?
And maybe what he still was?