Chapter 68
WILLIAM
When William woke at dawn, he felt rested. His sleep had been dreamless—unless he’d dreamt that Shay had risen from the rug after a soft knock at the door, and that she’d returned to lie down beside him.
“The sleep of the dead,” he said, and then winced at his own words.
Shay took his hand again, her hair copper in the window’s shaft of sun, and he reminded himself that the cliff was not so high, that the man was strong.
Even if he had not grown up near the ocean, America was a country of pools and lakes and rivers, and he must have learned to swim.
“Should we go find Mom, or should you find Andrew first? He’s probably worried. ”
“I already talked to him,” she said. Shay had the sort of focus she’d get before a big exam, a precision to her words and gestures. He could tell she had made a decision, and trusted that she would tell him what it was when she was ready. “But I really need to change out of this dress.”
She pulled the hem taut, and William took in its full state of ruin. It was mud-speckled and smeared, the thick silk stippled, having lost its crisp sheen in the rain.
“I guess you won’t be passing it down to your daughter,” he said.
Shay laughed. “I think you’re right, though I’m not sure what else I’ll have to give her.”
“Well, the only things Dad left me were some books and cheap cuff links.” He was surprised at how easily he’d invoked their father. He still felt a twinge of pain at the thought of him, but it was duller than the day before.
“That makes me feel better.” She smiled. “You turned out all right.”
“You did too. You seem . . . better, this morning.”
“I am. Or I will be.”
Shay went up to her room to change, and they met on their mother’s floor, both freshly showered.
He noticed she wore the earrings from Aunt Eleanor.
The hotel was warming to life, the whirring of staff on the ground floor, the familiar echoes of a working kitchen, but most of the guests appeared to still be in their beds.
William wondered if dancing had begun again under the tent the night before, if they’d cut the cake without the bride.
If, in the guests’ relief over the rain passing, she had not been missed, as it had obviously taken some time for Andrew to find her, or for her to find him.
Perhaps the reception had resumed its revelry as if the storm had never happened.
This brought him a strange comfort. That when they all woke, no one would remember the dark.
When William and Shay told their mother about Aunt Eleanor, she was wrapped in the same plain green robe that she’d worn every morning in their memory, its edges lined with white piping.
She looked like she hadn’t slept, and her palm went to her mouth, but she did not cry.
Neither of them had ever seen her cry, and if she had that morning, they would not have known what to do.
“How could you have kept this from me?” his mother said. “We talked about her, about how I needed to speak to her about the check, and you didn’t say a word.”
“I just didn’t want to—ruin the wedding, and I thought I could wait—”
“All of this time. And then you lectured me about honesty?”
“What check?” Shay asked.
Their mother brought her hand to the back of her neck. “Eleanor was going to help pay for the wedding, and now the Pruitts are holding this over my head, as if they don’t have enough money to hold weddings for the whole state of Connecticut.”
“I’ll talk to them,” Shay said, trying to rein in the conversation.
“And think of who I have to talk to,” their mother continued. “Who I have to explain this to. Lewis will wonder why I never called, will think I’m some sort of—”
“I can talk to him,” William offered.
“No, no, you’ve done quite enough already,” she said, sitting down on the edge of her bed, bracing her hands against the mattress. “I just need to be alone.”
“But you don’t have to be alone with this,” he said. “We can help.”
“I want to be alone.”
Outside the door, a child had begun to throw a tantrum, stamping their small feet down the hallway, a mother trying to shush their demands that they carry their own suitcase.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and he knew this was one of many apologies he’d have to make.
Though this was daunting, there was also a rush of relief—when the death had happened, it felt like catastrophe, but that was because he’d been alone.
With his family, the loss was bearable, and he wanted to make their mother feel this as well. The ship would not sink.
“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she said to William.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how.”
“We’re telling you now,” Shay said, and when their mother crossed her arms, pressing her chin to her chest, they understood—without her having to say another word—that they could not press her anymore, at least not today.
Outside their hotel room, the morning was passing, and William realized he had to pack his wrinkled suit, his fraying toothbrush.
“I saw you both walking back toward the Pruitts’ last night,” their mother said quietly. “Everything was all right?”
William looked to Shay, but her gaze did not waver from their mother, and he knew that this would always be a secret between them, one in a stream of so many others, though this one had been great enough to change their current—to bring them back together.
“Yes,” she said. “Everything’s fine. William found me.”