Chapter 24 #2
“He was a good man,” I say, a bit awkward.
“Levelheaded—he would’ve had me hospitalized if I screamed in the middle of a conversation.
He didn’t take us to do typical kid things—everything had a purpose.
Walks were spent analyzing the cars in people’s driveways and what a loan would look like long term for each one.
” I laugh softly at the memories. Ed was great to us, and I loved him dearly, but he couldn’t be more opposite to this man sitting next to me.
My mom loved two very different men in her lifetime.
“He was good to Mom. Loved us. Taught us well. There weren’t any surprise ice cream sandwiches or trips to toy stores or anything, but he was a good dad. Showed up where we needed him to be.”
Briefly, the void my dad left in my life when he passed reopens, and I miss him so badly it hurts. Nobody ever would have accused him of having a big personality, but his presence was calming. He kept a house full of girls grounded.
All Cap says is “Good.”
In the comfortable silence that follows, I watch the inner tubes swirl around the pool from the pressure of the jets until my stomach growls.
“You hungry?”
Cap doesn’t answer; he’s fast asleep. His button-up shirt is splayed open, belly protruding with Penny resting on top of it. A rise then fall with his labored breaths.
My father, a man I never knew existed, is lying next to me with oxygen, medically suggested marijuana, and a fake foot. It just doesn’t seem real.
Today wasn’t the right time to tell Nash about Bennie, but I know I have to.
More than because my mother is forcing me to, it’s the right thing to do.
Me meeting Cap proves that. As different as he is, I’m happy to know him.
I don’t want to take that from Bennie. Or Nash.
He might not have been ready to be a dad before, but his reaction today lets me know he’d want to know.
He deserves to. My reasons may have felt right back then, but they don’t anymore.
Everyone will be here next week, and with a little luck, we’ll find the gold in the next few days. Then I’ll tell him. He can decide if he wants to meet her, or I can keep them separate and Bennie will never have to know. Maybe this won’t be so bad. Maybe it will be easy.
And maybe I’m delusional.
The next growl of my stomach takes me inside to rummage through Nash’s very well-stocked fridge, gathering ingredients to make a sandwich.
I should call Jonathan, but I can’t. Even though he has a perfectly reasonable excuse not to be here—he’s working and has plans—Cap pointing out he’s not here annoyed me.
Instead of calling, I text him. Hey. No news here.
He responds instantly with: Does that mean you’re coming home?
I stare at the phone. It’s a normal question given the circumstance, but it’s as if he’s waiting for me to fail. Not yet. I bite my lip, adding: If you didn’t have work and the trip planned, would you have come with me?
One of us has to keep our wits about us.
He’s not trying to be mean, but it stings just the same.
Setting my phone down, I look around Nash’s house.
It’s cozy. Him. A little cluttered but still organized.
The more I take in the details, the more aware I become of how alone I am.
That awareness takes a swift turn to the compulsive urge to snoop.
It’s so strong and sudden, I am bewitched.
I need to open every drawer and closet. Catalog every new artifact of who he is.
Find out if he pays his bills on time or learned to match his socks.
It’s sick how badly I want to do it, which lets me know I can’t. At least not to the extent I want. The urgency makes my blood rush so fast I’m lightheaded. Out the sliding glass doors, Cap’s still asleep on a lawn chair. Nobody will ever know.
I can’t not do this. I have to look.
And Bennie would tell me to. Maybe she would call it practice for gold finding. Maybe Nash has something hidden that, in fact, has something to do with the gold.
I’ll choose one spot. One nook or drawer. Just one peek.
I assess the kitchen and living room; I don’t care what kind of cutlery he uses or the secrets that live in here. I peek in the bathroom and guest room as a front. I know even before I lay eyes on Nash’s bedroom that it’s the only place I want to touch.
His bed is covered with a simple beige comforter, and the rich wood of the headboard matches the dresser on the opposite wall. Against one of the navy-blue walls, a full-length mirror leans.
It’s tidy. It smells good. The fact that the man I married was happy living out of hotels with his laundry in trash bags like a hobo ended up creating this beautiful space is almost offensive.
He never wanted this with me. Never had any desire to leave that cramped apartment unless it was to go to another city.
When my eyes catch on the matching nightstands, I nearly fall over. Bracketing the bed is a pair of Regency period tables that take my breath away.
Zebrawood tops.
Single drawers.
Three-quarter brass galleries with heart-shaped motifs.
Even from across the room and without thoroughly investigating them, I put them as nineteenth century. And expensive.
I take a step toward them and a bark fills the air that nearly sends me flying out of my skin.
Frank plants his ass in the doorway and looks at me with a tilted head and judgmental pant.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper-scold, eliciting another bark.
Any sane person would take a dog barking as a sign that this is a terrible idea, but I’ve accepted my sanity stayed in Fontain. Frank could lunge at me and start gnawing my leg and it wouldn’t stop me from seeing what’s in one of those nightstands.
I choose the one with a glass of water on top of it—it must be Nash’s side of the bed. I admire the pristine beauty of the table one last time before putting my fingers on the wooden knob.
Do not open it, Rue.
Do not open it.
Do. Not. Open. It.
I suck in a sharp breath . . . and open it.
Two things register at once: A strip of unused condoms and a black-velvet ring box.
While the condoms make me want to vomit like the hypocrite that I am—I can have sex with Jonathan, but Nash absolutely should have been a celibate monk—it’s the ring box that shocks me like a toaster tossed in a bathtub.
Frank whimpers his judgment; I ignore him.
The war raging within me makes my hands fidget and legs bounce.
“I need to see what’s in that box.” I say it out loud because I really, really need to see what’s in that box. Because if I don’t, I might die. “I’m looking in the box, Frank.” I swear the dog frowns. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Then I open the box, and once again, I can’t find the breath to breathe.
It’s an engagement ring.
Unlike the oversized solitaire diamond that sits on my finger and probably costs three times as much as the one I’m gaping at, it’s vintage.
Art Deco in design. My mom knows jewelry better than me, but I’d say this is from the 1920s.
The showcase stone is an unassuming yet flawless pearl, surrounded on one side by a gold fan detail that reminds me of a sun ray, and on the other side by geometric diamond accents.
It’s unique, stunning, and disgustingly perfect.
And because I can’t not, I take it out of the box.
Cap wasn’t wrong about Nash being in love, he was just wrong about who with.
Nothing says love like a band of glittery stones and gold, and this one says a whole lot of love.
It consumes me with the most devastating form of jealousy I’ve ever known.
Nash and I blasted into a marriage without rings and on a whim, but this go-around is as clearly different for him as it is for me.
“I’m happy for him,” I tell Frank and myself without looking away from the ring. “I love Jonathan.”
The dog whimpers a warning, like he knows what I’m about to do before I do.
I flip him off. I don’t care what he thinks, I have to know how this thing feels on my finger.
Once.
For a second.
Pulse blasting my eardrums, I take my own engagement ring off and drop it into my pocket, replacing it with the one I can’t stop looking at that wasn’t bought for me.
It’s tight, but it fits, and when I hold my hand out, emotion I have no right to feel crashes over me like a tidal wave.
Nash is marrying someone else with this ring.
She’ll wear it as long as she lives, then be buried with it, then it will live on her skeleton when she’s nothing but bones. I am so happy for her it burns my skin.
I need it off. Right the hell now.
I tug at it.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice. It won’t budge.
“Shit,” I whisper, yanking frantically. Like a Chinese finger trap, the harder I pull, the tighter it gets. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
It’s not coming off.
I look at Frank, desperate and panicked and with another woman’s ring on my finger. “Frank,” I say, like the dog can help me at all. “Help.”
I hear Nash’s truck pull into the driveway, and I nearly black out.
Frank’s next bark sounds like a laugh.