Chapter 9
That afternoon, I sink into a deliciously hot, sudsy bath of floating pink rose petals from Ms. Fernsby’s garden. I listen
to a Norah Jones playlist and ruminate over the surreal meeting and pub lunch with August Dansworth. I’m still reeling from
his suggestion that we meet up again but without Heathcliff.
Would a meetup qualify as a date? A romantic date?
No. My insides roil at the thought.
There’s definitely something about August that smells like trouble. But it would be perfectly fine to meet up as two creative
professionals brainstorming and networking together. That’s all it is. Sarah would be thrilled to know I’ve cultivated a professional relationship with the famous A.D. Hemmings.
I massage eucalyptus oil onto my legs. The scent soothes my muscles, sore from walking for half the day.
As I start shaving, I wonder when I’ll feel like I’ll be ready to even consider dating again.
This is a place I never expected or wanted to be in—I can’t imagine going out with someone at my age.
The thought of sifting through online profiles makes me queasy.
Middle age is a weird time to lose a soulmate. I had the happy Jane Austen ending, but the story was cut short. Even my friends
who are still married don’t love their husbands like I loved Philip. I was a lucky duck. Not long before my grandma died five
years ago at the ripe old age of ninety-five, I visited her in her nursing home. Her mind had been lost for some time to dementia,
and it worsened after Grandpa died the year before. I told her about my recent research trip to England and answered her question
three times: Did you have tea with the Queen? (I said yes, because that really would have been so much fun.) Then she settled back, a vague smile on her face. Her rheumy
blue eyes looked out the window at shaded bird feeders and the Midwest’s sprawling hostas. I tried to get another bite of
pudding into her mouth, but she shook her head faintly, lost in a memory.
“I had a man once.”
“Really, Grandma?” I smiled, leaned forward. She’d married at age twenty-three, and I was hoping for something juicy, a tidbit
about a past love before Grandpa.
“Yes. I had a man once.”
I’m quiet, spoon poised.
“And . . . Oh how he loved me!”
Of course. The man was Grandpa.
I remember thinking how if I’d inherited the family Alzheimer gene and would eventually find myself in a nursing home with
Heathcliff spooning pudding into my mouth, I wanted this moment—where my love with Philip would break through the fog. Where
I could be certain that Philip had loved me even when I thought I’d had tea with the Queen every Tuesday.
After a bit, I let the water out, and I dry off, wrapping myself in the fluffy marigold robe.
Although it’s only about five thirty in the evening, I slip on my cozy black pajamas.
The house is unusually quiet. When I reach the kitchen, I find a simmering creamy watercress soup on the stove.
Ms. Fernsby left a note on the island telling me that she and Heathcliff popped down the street to pick up a fresh baguette.
I pour a glass of wine and return to my room, settling in one of the sitting chairs to start Blood Ties. I was so mad that Emilia Wren turned out to be the Cardiff Strangler. I didn’t see that coming. I was sure the killer was
the suspect’s sister, Penny Bledsoe. Chadwick Hall slept with Penny the first night they met in Tintern after an evening of
too much gin.
A copycat strangler strikes in the first chapter. I’m hooked right away—twenty pages in and I jump when my FaceTime rings.
Henry.
Drat. I forgot we were supposed to talk tonight. I wanted to put more thought into what I would say after our awkward evening
the other night. But between August, possible book news, London sights, and Ms. Fernsby’s cooking, I guess I pushed aside
my little problem with Henry.
“Henry?” I set my book down and prop up the phone.
“Is this still a good time?”
“Ummm . . . yes?”
Henry works from his den office this afternoon. Bonnie paces in the background, shaking a chew toy. He smiles kindly, thoughtfully
rubbing his beard. “Ummm . . . yes, this is a good time? Or ummm . . . yes, we’re stalling, tiptoeing around a big darn elephant in the room?”
“Both.”
“Look, Lizzie, I was Philip’s friend, but you’ve been in the picture too. I can’t forget your kindness throughout the years—even on my wedding day.”
I smile at that memory.
“My point is that I don’t want the other night to come between us. There were a lot of emotions. We were both feeling a lot.”
I nod.
I’m waiting for him to say it shouldn’t have happened. Because we should not have almost-kissed. But he doesn’t say it. I try to say it. But I can’t.
“Let’s just . . .” Even through my small phone screen, I see his face reddening. “Let’s just . . .”
“Pretend it didn’t happen,” I say quickly.
“Sure.”
But he winces. It was the wrong thing to say.
The downstairs front door crashes open, and I hear Heathcliff chattering excitedly.
Henry rustles the paperwork on his desk, puts on his reading glasses. “So I asked Mirabel some simple questions about the
trust, and she shut me down, referred me to her lawyer. I called her Summerville lawyer, and she refused to tell me anything.”
He shakes his head.
“I’m going to subpoena the trust documents, but it’s all bizarre. Never in my fifteen years of practice have I seen such fuss
and secrecy about a trust fund.”
“Ted? He’s from old money. Could he have set it up?”
“It would make sense for him to set that up for his grandson—but why the secrecy? We have to pursue this. There’s something mighty fishy.”
“Speaking of fishy, I was going through Philip’s phone the other night, and I found this oyster roast pic from the late ’70s.” I text him the photo of Mirabel at the party. “It might be nothing, but Philip had it saved in his phone shortly before he died.”
Henry’s phone dings, and he opens the text. “She sure was a looker. Hasn’t changed much.”
“It’s because she’s a witch.”
Henry glances up, lopsided grin. “Maybe. That hair’s the same damn color. Impressive. I wonder—” he peers down, making the
image larger on his phone “—who the couple is . . .”
“You think there’s something important here?”
“Maybe. It looks like Philip did.”
He leans back, taking off his reading glasses. Bonnie plops her toy in his lap, and he rubs her head. “Look, I’ll do some
more digging on my end. Meanwhile, you enjoy London and think back on if Philip said anything that could shed light on this.”
“I will.”
An awkward pause. “So London, heh?”
“Heathcliff and I needed to get away. It was kind of spur-of-the-moment. It’s hard at home.”
“I get it.” He clears his throat. “How long do you think you’ll stay?”
I shrug. “Probably for at least a few weeks.”
“Well, you and that poor little hurricane of yours take care. Bring me back one of those Big Ben tower souvenirs.”
We say goodbye, and I settle back in the chair, sipping my wine.
Lucy leaps up onto my lap, and I rub her back. That went about as well as I could have hoped. We just needed to get past the
other night. Even if we’re both a little attracted or curious, too much could go wrong. Henry’s not just any man—he was Philip’s
best friend. Losing his friendship would be like losing yet another piece of Philip. I touch the little jet necklace, only
the stone separating my fingers from Philip’s hair. I just can’t lose anything else now.
I refocus my thoughts on Mirabel, digging hard into memories from the weeks before the accident.
It’s a blur of our beautiful routine. Saturday morning pancakes and cartoons with Heathcliff. Reading the New York Times with coffee on Sunday mornings. A long afternoon at Edisto Island. We chattered about where we’d go out to eat on our next
date night. What movie we’d see. But something had been off. It was so subtle, I’d barely noticed it. Philip had unusual moments of quietness. One morning, as he rinsed out his oatmeal
bowl in the sink, he stared out the window, thick blond brows furrowed, stuck in some kind of daydream. Everything ok? I’d asked. Oh yeah. And he snapped out of it.
He was preoccupied with something, and he hadn’t wanted to trouble me with it.
Why?
Heathcliff yells up the stairwell that it’s time to eat. Lucy leaps off my lap, running for cover under the bed.
I stand, brushing the cat hair off my pajama bottoms before going downstairs for dinner. It might take some time to find these
answers, but I’m determined. I owe it to Philip to uncover what he wanted me to know so badly that night.
Ten Years Earlier
“Try to look a little happy. It’s your wedding day,” I say, sitting next to Henry at the bar. “Or is it the music you’re bummed
about?”
“Summer of ’69” blares from the dance floor behind us.
Henry smiles sideways. “Hey, aren’t wedding reception songs supposed to suck?”
“Sure. It wouldn’t be a wedding otherwise. I’m not even sure you’d officially be married.”
He chuckles.
The bartender hands me a hard cider, and I clink my bottle against Henry’s.
“To bad wedding songs.”
“To bad wedding songs.”
I’ve only talked to Henry a handful of times, but there’s something sad about seeing the groom drinking alone. Not that it
isn’t easy to get lost at this wedding reception. It’s ridiculously expensive and crowded, and we’re in a century-old factory
building remodeled into an art gallery, niche office building, and reception hall. The enormous room has worn brick walls
and gaudy chandeliers; string lights dangle from the high ceiling. Little offshoot corridors and quirky unused rooms jut out
from the space with plenty of vintage nooks and crannies for hookups. Three minutes ago, I saw Ginger’s maid of honor slip
into a side room with Gabe, an old law school friend of Philip and Henry’s.
“But seriously, is everything okay?”
I glance back to the dance floor, where Ginger and her former sorority sisters rock out to “Material Girl.” Ginger’s blond
hair twirls as she holds up bunches of her tulle skirt. Her Pekingese, Zoie, yips at the corner of the dance floor in a matching
gown. Zoie was actually the wedding ceremony star, carrying the rings up the aisle in a special rhinestone pouch.
“Yeah, everything’s great. We both thought it was time to make it legal.”
He stares down into the bottle, only a third full now. I search his expression and wait for him to say something else. But
he doesn’t.
Oh no. He knows she’s not right for him.
I take a big sip of cider, staring at the wet ring of condensation my bottle leaves on the knotty wood counter.
He rubs his eyes. “We just see how happy you and Philip are, so we took the plunge.”
I glance over at Philip at the grits bar. He’s talking to Henry’s law partners and layering shredded cheese over his grits.
I frown. He’s lactose intolerant and will regret that later. But even now, watching my husband eat something he shouldn’t,
knowing he’ll be gassy and bloated tonight, my heart pumps harder at just seeing him. What we have is special, and I feel a sick lump in my stomach that Henry “took the plunge” with someone he’s not madly
in love with.
“Well . . . best wishes to both of you,” I stammer, pressing the right toe of my taupe high heel into the metal bar stool’s
base.
“Thanks.”
We both sit in silence. I want to go join Philip over at the grits bar, but I can’t leave Henry alone here. Not like this.
Not after this well-disguised confession.
A string of 90s Madonna songs ends, and James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” blares.
I grimace, catch his eye, and we both chuckle. But then Ginger suddenly grabs his shoulder., “Come on, babe, it’s our song!”
No way . . . I mouth.
He reddens, grins, and heads back to the dance floor.
Finishing my cider, I tug my pink shawl around my shoulders and walk over to Philip.
I hug him, wrapping my arms around his waist tightly. Not caring about who sees, I kiss his cheek, leaving a light rose lipstick
imprint. “I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too.” He sets his empty plate down and returns the kiss. Then he smiles against my forehead. “What’s that for?”
I shrug, keeping my arms tight around him. The stuffy law partners look away, uncomfortable.
“I just really want you to know, because it’s fucking true.” I look up at him. “Hey, there’s this really cute gallery just down the hall
I want to see.”
“You don’t want to slow-dance to James Blunt? We can pretend its prom and awkward-dance. Or better yet you can show off some of your old show-choir moves.”
“Ha! You know I’m, like, fifteen years too old for that.”
“Oh come on.” He pulls me closer to his chest. “When are we going to take those dancing lessons, Lizzie?”
“Sometime, I suppose. Eventually. When I get up the guts again. But now I want to check out the gallery.”
“Why . . .? Oh . . .”
Then, holding hands, we slip out of the loud, crowded hall.