14. Sebastian #2
“Whatever you think is happening here, you’re wrong.”
“I think you’re having a breakdown. And I think when it passes, you’ll see what you threw away.” She tilts her head. “She isn’t coming back, Sebastian. She filed. She left you. None of this changes that.”
“Maybe not.”
“Then why stay? Why put yourself through the humiliation?”
“Because I love her.”
Simple. Clear. Therese’s composure slips, just at the edges.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Completely. I love my wife. I always have. And I’ll spend whatever time she gives me proving I can be the man she deserved the whole time.”
“She’s a fisherman’s daughter from nowhere…”
“Don’t.” My voice goes to ice. “Don’t you finish that sentence.”
“I’m only pointing out…”
“You’re pointing out the exact reason I never would have married you.
” I step back, putting air between us. “Margo never looked down on a soul. She never measured a person by their pedigree or their bank or their clubs. She saw people as people, not assets to be acquired. You’ve just proven you can’t do the same in under five minutes. ”
“How romantic.”
“It’s the truth. Which is more than you or my mother ever offered me.”
Therese’s face hardens over. “You’ll regret this. When you come to your senses, when the little adventure ends, you’ll see what you burned down for a woman who was never going to fit your life.”
“She fit my life perfectly. I was the one who didn’t fit hers.”
I turn back to my mother.
“Both of you. There’s a boat to the mainland within the hour. Be on it.”
“You’re throwing us out.” Dorothy’s voice is brittle. “Me. Your mother.”
“I’m asking. The throwing comes if you refuse.”
“I am your mother.”
“Then behave like one. Support my choices. Accept my wife. Or stay out of my life entirely.”
The quiet after that has weight to it.
Dorothy’s face runs through the whole set, shock, outrage, calculation, before it settles into cold fury.
“You’ll regret this.”
“Maybe. But I’ll regret it on my own terms.”
I turn to Therese one last time. “And you. Understand me clearly. If I ever hear you speak that way about my wife again, her family, her home, her worth, I will make certain no Austen company works with you as long as you live. The partnership between our families ends. Your father’s investment is returned. Every door I can close, I close.”
Therese pales.
“I don’t care what history our mothers wrote for us. Margo is my wife. She is the only woman I have ever truly loved. And I will not stand by while anyone treats her as less than she is. I did that once. I did it for five years. I’m done.”
I hold her gaze until she looks away.
“The boat’s that way. Don’t miss it.”
I watch them go. Therese looks back once, over her shoulder, a glance that might be anger or might be a thing more tangled, before she boards.
My mother doesn’t get on the boat. She turns and walks off up the harbor road without a word to me, and I let her go, too worn out to chase her, telling myself she’s too proud for a public crossing and will make her own way back.
The engine turns. The boat pulls off the dock and shrinks until it’s a fleck on the water and then nothing at all.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
This is the first time in the five years of my marriage that I told my mother no. I stood in front of the woman who built me and I defended Margo when Margo wasn’t even there to hear it. It should feel like winning.
It only feels tired.
***
I head for the cottage. I want to see Sandy. I want to tell Margo I sent them away, that I chose her out loud, in daylight, in front of the one person I’ve spent my whole life afraid of. Maybe this is the proof she’s been waiting for. Maybe this is the thing that shows her.
I’m rehearsing it at the gate when I see Celia.
She’s planted there in the gateway, arms crossed, her face like weather coming in off the sea. Angrier than the day I arrived. Angrier than when I admitted I didn’t know what a pomelo was.
“Sebastian.”
“Celia. I was just coming to…”
“Your mother was here.”
Everything in me stops.
“What?”
“Your mother didn’t leave on that boat. While you were still down at the harbor, she came up here.” Her voice is shaking, and I understand it’s rage, pure and total. “She cornered Margo in the garden. She had a great deal to say.”
Ice floods me. “What things?”
“Things I’ll not repeat with the child in the house.”
“Where’s Margo?”
“Inside. With Sandy.” Celia’s eyes drill into me, and there’s a fury in them I’ve never once earned and never want to again.
“I’ll not tell you what she said. It’s not mine to hand you, and I’ll not put those words back into the air of this house.
But you’ll know soon enough, and when you do, you’ll understand why I could barely look at you walking up that path. ”
“What did she…”
“Don’t ask me. Ask your wife, if she’ll have you.
” She folds her arms. “Your mother came up here while you were still down at the docks being a hero for an audience. She got Margo alone in this garden and she did the thing she’s always done, the quiet thing, the thing that leaves no mark anyone else can see.
And I was in the kitchen and didn’t get out here fast enough to stop the worst of it. ”
The ground moves under me.
I was so focused on Therese. I was so certain I was handling it, standing tall on that dock, making my grand speech.
And the whole time, here, in this garden, my mother was doing the thing she has always done.
The real damage was never going to be on the dock.
It was always going to be wherever I wasn’t looking.
“Is Margo all right?” My voice comes out wrecked.
“No.” Celia doesn’t spare me. “She’s putting Sandy to bed with a smile on her face so the child won’t fret, and she’ll come down and pour the tea and pretend her hands aren’t shaking. That’s what she does. That’s what she’s always done, and none of you ever noticed.”
“Celia…”
“Don’t.” She cuts me off, and the fury in her is so total it silences me.
“I sent her off my land myself, and I’ll say no more about how.
But hear me on the rest, because this part matters.
” Her voice drops, and the anger under it turns to a lower, worse note, close to grief.
“What she said to my daughter doesn’t wash off.
It’s not a wound that closes on its own.
Margo held it together for Sandy’s sake, but she’s breaking.
I can see it, even if she’d die before she’d show you. ”
“I’ll fix it.”
“Can you?” Her eyes don’t let me go. “Because whatever your mother offered her today, and she offered her plenty, I could see it on Margo’s face, my girl looked that woman in the eye and said no.
Flat. I don’t even know the whole of what she turned down, and I know it was more than most people could refuse. ”
“That sounds like Margo.”
“It is. But I’ll ask you what I’ve been asking myself all afternoon.” Her voice drops. “How many times can a woman say no before giving up is the easier thing?”
I don’t have an answer.
“Go to her.” Celia steps aside and opens the gate. “And for once in your life, be the husband she deserves.”
I walk past her into the garden. The cottage door waits at the end of the path. Margo is on the other side of it.
And I have no idea whether I’m walking toward the start of us again, or the last piece of it falling into the sea.