Chapter 16
We trudge back to the inn quietly, both of us emotionally depleted. And as we enter the lobby, I can picture how the next few minutes are going to go.
We’ll both offer awkward goodbyes, unsure what to say now that we’re in the middle of a vulnerability hangover. We’ll wake up tomorrow as if today never happened, as if we didn’t just cry in each other’s arms.
We’ll bicker less, uneasy allies, but I don’t want that to happen.
I want more.
We reach the foot of the stairs, my hand on the banister, but before we take the first step, I turn to Jacob.
“Should we go to the Hart?” I ask.
He blinks. “The Hart?”
“It’s the pub. The one everyone was going to after?”
He looks up the flight of stairs, then back at me. “Is that what you want to do?”
“I—” I don’t know. I don’t actually care about going to this pub in particular. I don’t really feel like being around too many people, but I want an excuse to talk to Jacob more, to be around him. “I do,” I say.
The corners of his mouth twitch. “Okay,” he says softly, and my stomach flips. The way he’s looking at me, it’s as if he can see right through me. As if he can read my mind.
“I’ll just go change,” he says, gesturing to his kilt, and my mouth opens before I can think better of it.
“Don’t,” I say.
His brows fly up. “Don’t?”
“Uh, don’t…you think we should head over there now?” Not much of a save, but it’s the best I can manage at the moment. “Since we ducked out of the reception early, we should probably go there now so we can, uh, pay our respects.”
For some reason, Jacob’s eyes grow dull at my explanation, the light, teasing glint disappearing. “Oh,” he says. “Okay.”
He takes a step back, but I reach out, placing my hand on his arm.
“Actually, go change. If you want. I’m going to run up and check on Dad.” We’ve left him alone here all day, and for the first time, I feel this urge to see him. To make sure he’s okay. Maybe he could even come with us, even for a short while, just to take a break from his hotel room.
Jacob stares at me, his confusion clear, but he just nods, saying he’ll meet me back down here in ten.
I hurry up to my dad’s room. I can’t blame Jacob for being confused.
I’m confused myself. My thoughts are going a mile a minute: spend time with Jacob; keep him in the kilt; check on Dad; get back to Jacob; find a way to be alone with him.
I feel like a girl with my first crush, all butterfly feelings and second-guessing and uncertainty.
I lift a hand to knock on my dad’s door, but stop when I hear his voice. It’s muffled, but when I lean in, it becomes clearer.
“…but why wouldn’t you—”
He goes quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t let us come,” he says. “I don’t understand any of it. We need to talk this through, we—”
He’s quiet again.
“I love you,” he says. “I love you, and you won’t even say…
No, I’m not trying to rush you. But…I’m not him, Maggie.
You know that I’m not him.” He pauses. “I don’t know.
It might be fixed tomorrow, but it could be days, a week.
Do you really want to wait that long to just have a basic conversation about—Okay.
Okay.” He releases a long sigh. “I’ll let you know in the morning. Yes. Sleep well.”
I stare at the door, not moving, the swirling wood-grain pattern beneath the white paint burning into my mind.
I love you.
I don’t know why those are the words that stand out to me the most. Maybe it was the broken, desperate way he said it. Maybe it was the fact that he said it all.
Part of my brain must have known that he loves Maggie. That he would say those kinds of words to her in private. But hearing them myself is something else altogether.
Because I’m not sure if I’ve heard my father say those words before.
To me, or to my mother. I’ve seen them, scribbled on the birthday cards he sent every year, at the ends of short, terse emails we exchanged, but they were often shortened to the more casual love you.
Hearing them said out loud, with the “I” in front of them, is a shock.
I step backward just as the door swings open. My father, backlit by the light in his room, his face hidden in shadow, stands less than a foot in front of me.
“Neelu?” he asks, his voice thick with surprise.
“Dad, hi. I just came to…Jacob and I just got back.”
“Oh. Good. And how was the, uh—”
“The funeral? It was fine.”
“Right.” He nods. “Good.”
I look past him, taking in the room. Comforter pulled back, sheets crumpled as if he was just in bed. Used tissues on the nightstand. And reruns of a show I’m all too familiar with on the television.
“You’re watching Love in the Sun?” I ask.
He looks back over his shoulder, surprised, as if he forgot he had it on. “Oh,” he says. “Yes.”
I have a strange urge then. A desire to comfort him.
Because this scene? I recognize it. Add a bowl of melted ice cream and some crinkly plastic packaging for some high-sodium snack, and this could be a scene of my dorm room when I was nineteen and going through my first breakup.
Or my room at twenty-two. Or twenty-six.
Or eight months ago, when yet another man decided to leave me.
I wasn’t mourning that relationship, exactly, or that man in particular, but the loss of a life imagined. A life everyone around me seems to have effortlessly attained. A stage they’ve all moved on to, leaving me behind.
What is my father mourning? The life he imagined with Maggie, or the loss of Maggie herself?
A bitter thought floats through my mind. Maybe now he understands what it feels like to be left behind.
I look at the takeout containers piled on his desk. “Do you want some help with clearing that away?”
“Oh. No. No, that’s okay.” He pauses. “Thank you.” He turns over his shoulder. “Actually, I have something for you.” He walks back into his room, looking around for a moment, then grabbing something off the nightstand.
“Here,” he says, dropping a small square into my open palm.
It’s chocolate. A dark-brown wrapper, with a hint of mint-green foil.
“They dropped it off with turndown service,” my father says.
“You don’t want it?”
“No, that’s—” He rubs the back of his neck. “Jacob was right before. Chocolate’s not—I’m not particularly fond of it.”
I frown. “Then why would you…I mean, you always had it at the house.”
“Well, you used to like it,” he says. “But if you don’t anymore, that’s okay. I remember you used to like the kind with mint, but you don’t have to take it if you don’t want it.”
My fingers curl around the chocolate in my hand. Out of all the flavors we tried together, I ranked mint second only to “fruit and nut,” but I’m surprised that my father remembers that. And that he would buy all that chocolate for me, even try all the flavors with me, if he didn’t enjoy it.
“I still like it,” I say. I clear my throat. “Jacob and I are going to a pub just down the street. Would you want to come?”
“No, I have enough for dinner here,” he says. “You two picked up a lot of food, so I’ll stay back.”
“Are you sure? You don’t want to step out for a little bit? Just for a drink?”
My father hesitates, indecision flickering on his face. “I shouldn’t. I’m not supposed to, not with my health and all.”
I flush. Right. That’s something I should have known, something I bet Jacob knows.
But still, couldn’t he come with us? He doesn’t have to drink anything. Doesn’t he realize I’m asking him to get out of his room? To spend time with us? With me?
“We’d like it if you came,” I say, trying one more time, and for a moment, my father looks stunned.
“I…” He glances back at his room, where his coat’s slung over a chair, and I think I might have him, but when he turns back around, he’s shaking his head. “I’m going to sleep early, I think.”
Disappointment rushes through me, surprising and swift.
When did I go from wanting to avoid my father to wanting to spend time with him?
“Good night, then,” I say, and he echoes the same before closing his door.
—
The Hart is packed, the small pub filled with people and loud, chattering voices, and as we make our way inside, we spot a few familiar faces.
“The bagpiper!” someone cries, and Jacob blinks, incredibly flustered.
It’s cute, the way he waves the attention away, shaking hands with a few folks but shrugging off any offers to buy him a drink.
One man has an extra pint and tries to pass it to Jacob, but Jacob refuses, lifting a hand and declining with a smile.
“You don’t want a drink?” I ask, rising slightly on my toes to reach his ear.
“I do,” he says. His hand comes to my elbow, and he navigates me forward through a space in the crowd. “Why?”
“I—well, you didn’t take that one.”
We find a bit of breathing room, and Jacob turns to look at me. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright. It’s warm in here, all of us packed in together, the collective body heat making my skin feel dewy.
“It wouldn’t have been right,” Jacob says. “They don’t owe me anything.”
“But they want to give you something,” I say.
He opens his mouth, and I place a hand on his arm.
“You gave them something today. What you did—they just want to say thank you. What’s wrong with letting them?”
“Because that’s not why I did it. It wasn’t transactional.”
“I know,” I say. I lean closer, making sure he hears me.
“But look!” I wave at Iain and Elsie in the corner, both sitting at a table.
Iain has his hands over his ears, blocking out the noise, and Elsie is looking around with a warm smile.
“You showed up for complete strangers today, and clearly, it meant a lot to them. They just want to acknowledge that. Even if it’s only with something small. ”
Jacob looks away, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“It really makes you that uncomfortable?” I ask softly.
“Not uncomfortable, exactly, just—” He huffs out a breath. “That’s not—” His eyes meet mine, and there’s something in them that makes my chest grow tight. He looks…confused. A little lost, like he’s walked into something unfamiliar.