Chapter Twenty-Four
The Harrington Cabin
Jill felt a bit like a shell. It had been three days since she’d heard the news, and still, she hadn’t confronted her grandmother.
She hadn’t called her father to tell him.
She’d kept this piece of information solely to herself.
She knew Grandma was … worried or suspicious or something. Because Jill was definitely not herself. Detached, and not in the way she sometimes got when the writing was going well.
She was throwing herself into writing. But it was a desperate kind of ignore my life with fiction more than any great creative explosion.
She hadn’t officially sold the book yet, so she probably shouldn’t be putting so much time into it, but her agent was hopeful and Jill just … needed to write this.
Just like she needed to not think about suicide.
But it snuck in every thought, every moment with her grandmother. Every meal was a silent, aching affair, where Jill’s mind whirled with the same merry-go-round of thoughts.
Had she witnessed it? Did she blame herself? Had she always planned on keeping it from Dad, or was that just something that had happened because he hadn’t been able to travel back in time to know?
Had Dad really never asked?
And why did Jill have so many damn questions? Questions she was afraid to ask? Why was she spending all this time wondering? Asking near strangers for answers rather than being able to get them out of the people she should?
She didn’t want to hurt Grandma, or Dad, or anyone.
But, damn it, she was hurting.
And being in the Bennets’ orbit this past year meant she knew the danger secrets posed. She knew all the horrible things that could hide in the shadows if people didn’t tell the damn truth.
What if Grandma had told the Bennets about their long-lost brother? About the abuse their mother had suffered? What if she’d made some way to communicate with them? Could Benjamin Bennet have paid earlier? What domino effect would that have created?
She knew Cal thought there were things he still wasn’t remembering. What if it connected to her grandfather? To more of her grandmother’s secrets? What if there were more truths that needed to come to light so evil didn’t stay hidden.
What if? What if? What if?
And what did it make her if she sat around feeling sorry for herself? If she wished Grandma had done something—reached out, asked for help, let her in sometime in the past three years—didn’t that mean she couldn’t sit here doing the same damn thing?
Maybe her loyalty was to Grandma, but she was starting to wonder why. Grandma hadn’t given her the same since Jill had moved here. Ever since the stroke, she had been kept at Grandma’s very firm arm’s length.
And Jill had let her.
It suddenly felt so wrong and untenable, Jill abruptly got up from her seat, knocking into the coffee table and sloshing some of the cold coffee in her mug over onto her notebook. She didn’t even bother to clean it up.
She marched out into the back yard where Grandma was working in her gardens. Oh, she’d tend these plants. Come out here and hum to them and care for them, but Jill?
It felt like a betrayal to think these things and yet the hurt had dug so deep—no matter how Jill had tried to push it away—that it seemed to grow at an exponential rate now.
Grandma was humming that old lullaby that Jill knew Cal found creepy. Jill had always liked it and wanted to feel warm and happy over her grandmother humming again. That there were sounds in this cabin again that weren’t just her.
But all she’d felt since Grandma had started talking some was that there was more lurking in her speech difficulties. More lurking in the past, in secrets, in being kept at arm’s length.
She wanted to believe that Grandma thought she was protecting Jill. Or protecting someone. She wanted to believe Grandma was doing the right thing, so Jill didn’t have to upend this life she’d built for the past three years.
But, by God, what kind of life was it for either of them? Hiding up here?
“I asked Sam to look into what might have hurt you, what might have made you unable to speak for all these years,” she blurted into the quiet afternoon.
Grandma stilled in her digging, then slowly set the spade down. Gingerly, she got to her feet and turned to face Jill.
Jill couldn’t decide if she looked surprised by the information, but she definitely looked hurt.
But Jill was hurt too.
“I’ve asked myself, and you refuse to answer.
” Jill tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, but she was failing and her eyes were filling with tears.
“I’ve … been here for you. I’ve done everything I know to do.
I only want to help, and I don’t know how.
I don’t know why you keep me at such a firm distance.
Why you won’t let me in. I needed to know. I need to know.”
Grandma said nothing for a very long time. Just stood there and stared at Jill and dealt with whatever she felt so internally, Jill couldn’t see it, feel it. She wiped at the tears falling down her cheeks but couldn’t seem to stem the tide of tears.
Grandma finally shook her head. “You can’t.”
It was like being stabbed. “Is that how little you think of me?”
Grandma’s expression gave away nothing but that little glimmer of hurt. “Not about you.”
No. Nothing ever was. It was a self-pitying thought that didn’t belong here, but she felt it all the same.
Deep down. That nothing in her life had ever been about her.
She was everyone else’s supportive role.
Never the main character. Never quite important enough to earn anyone’s notice or praise or appreciation.
She hadn’t come here three years ago to be the main character.
She hadn’t come here for praise or with the thought it would earn her something.
She hadn’t stayed to somehow be paid or appreciated.
She had done the work of caring for her grandmother because she loved Grandma and wanted to give the woman everything she could.
But it felt like … it should have earned her something. Not in payment. Not even in credit. In … respect. In their relationship. That she was more than just a random caretaker. She was a granddaughter, and one who deserved answers.
“Sam found out how Grandpa died,” Jill said.
Flat. Like her own stab.
Grandma went pale. She reached out for something, but there was nothing there. Jill was so afraid she might fall that she rushed forward, grabbed her grandmother’s arm—to be the thing she reached out for.
But Grandma steadied herself and pulled away. “Can’t be. Couldn’t have.” Grandma looked at her like she was a ghost or a threat. Something awful. “Why would you do this?”
“I just told you,” Jill replied, wrapping her arms around herself so she wouldn’t wrap them around Grandma and tell her to forget it.
Secrets were fine. Secrets were better than hurt.
But it wasn’t true.
“Who knows? She has to stop. Stop. Who knows?” It was panic, and some other words too garbled for Jill to make out.
Like this simple truth was somehow going to cause … something dangerous.
“Grandma. Take a breath.” Jill couldn’t help herself. She reached out and gripped Grandma’s shoulders, holding her tight and firm and trying to get Grandma to look her in the eye. “I don’t understand. The death certificate said he committed suicide. What are you talking about?”
Grandma stopped her frustrated, panicked movements. She stilled completely, looking away from Jill. But her breathing was still ragged, her chest rising and falling at an alarming rate.
There was something here. Something bigger and worse … or if not worse, bad. Just as bad.
“Grandma, you have to tell me the truth.” Jill spoke quietly, but with an urgency she’d never really felt before.
Like everything hung in the balance. It was like last summer, when Aly had been threatened. It felt that close to life and death.
But there were no deadly weapons here. No threats. Just a truth Grandma knew and wouldn’t explain.
“I’m begging you. You have to let me in,” Jill said, more tears falling. She didn’t even bother to wipe them away. She held firm to Grandma’s shoulders. “Haven’t we learned anything this past year?”
Grandma finally met her gaze, and Jill recognized the strange emotion Grandma was so desperate to hide.
Terror.
Grandma pointed at her throat. When she spoke, Jill could barely hear it, barely make out the one word she managed to croak out. “Can’t.”
Just like had happened after Benjamin Bennet’s trial, when Grandma had managed to speak in front of all those people for the first time, then struggled to come up with words to explain after, Jill really did believe this was a can’t, not a won’t.
“You just need to relax,” Jill said in a soothing voice, wrapping her arm fully around Grandma’s shoulders and leading her toward the cabin.
“We just need to deal with whatever this is. Let the truth … do its job. Secrets are hurting you, Grandma. They’re stealing your voice. Please. Please. Let me help.”
Grandma stopped allowing Jill to lead her forward, stopping stubbornly, but she clutched Jill’s arm.
“Boston,” Grandma rasped.
“What? You want to go to Boston?”
“Not me. Go back to Boston, Jill. Now.”