34. Catherine
I could tell the exact moment when Jasper slid into the movie theater seat a few rows behind me.
It would be too much to say that I felt him or smelled him or that the air shifted in a way that only a lover could sense. For one thing, the theater was so dark that I could barely make out the tub of popcorn in front of me. For another, the movie’s sound was turned up high enough to send the whole delicate art deco building shattering to the ground.
No, I knew because the old fool was about as subtle as a battering ram.
“You might as well climb up here,” I said without turning back to look at him. Just in case he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the movie explosions, I raised my voice and added, “We’re the only two people at this movie, so you might as well get it over with. This place hasn’t changed much in six decades, has it?”
I could tell the exact moment he gave in and joined me, too. His steps were as slow and purposeful as they’d always been, the march of a man who’d never known any beat but his own, but he grumbled the whole way up.
“The security lady is the villain,” he said as he fell to the seat next to me with a thump. Kernels of popcorn flew out of the tub and scattered across my lap. “I’ve seen this one already.”
“Of course you have,” I said in the voice of a woman who refused to be goaded either by his ruining the movie or the fact that getting butter grease out of my chiffon skirt was likely to prove all but impossible. Trust a man—and this man in particular—to understand nothing about the care and keeping of delicate fabrics. “This town has exactly one theater screen. They show the same movie for two months. You’ve probably seen it eight times.”
To my surprise, the seat shook with a low, friendly chuckle. “You turned into a snob, Catherine. I should have seen that coming.”
I turned to him, even more surprised to find that his chuckle was matched by an equally friendly smile. “I beg your pardon?”
“The girl I used to know didn’t give two figs about her clothes. In fact, she was happiest when she wasn’t wearing any at all.” He paused before adding, “Come to think of it, that’s when I was happiest, too.”
I sat upright in my seat. This time, when the popcorn flew all over, I had no one to blame for it but myself. “Jasper Holmes, you dirty old crow! You can’t say things like that to me. I’m a grandmother.”
“And I, apparently, am a grandfather. It’s been a strange few days.”
That remark gave me pause—and, if I was being honest, a sharp pang in the region of my heart. It could have been a gastronomic reaction to the unhealthy amount of butter I’d eaten, but it was more reasonable to assume the sensation was one of guilt.
“Jasper, I—”
His hands stole over mine, silencing me before I even knew what I want to say. That I was sorry, obviously, but also that I wasn’t. I was sorry for bursting in on him and assuming I’d be welcomed with open arms. I was sorry for letting him believe I’d been dead for all these years, and that our child had died with me.
But that was where the buck stopped. I couldn’t regret my son or my grandson. I couldn’t regret the places I’d seen or the things I’d done. I couldn’t even regret the loss of a love like ours. We hadn’t realized it at the time, but it would have consumed us. In many ways, it did consume us—only instead of sticking around to watch as we each blew up our lives in a spectacular Bront?-worthy fashion, I left before it had the chance to ruin us both.
“You aren’t staying in Colville, are you?” he asked as if reading my every thought.
“No,” I said. I squeezed his hand, hoping he’d understand. I knew how much he loved this place. Zach loved it, too, but to me, it would never feel like anything but a small, narrow slice of the world. It was a beautiful slice, obviously, and one I enjoyed while I was in it, but not enough to remain forever. “And you aren’t going to move to New York, are you?”
That made him chuckle again. “I’ve always wanted to visit, but no. What would I do there? Offer to take strangers on horse-cart rides through the park? Find a potted plant and hide myself in it?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. “But you could always come and stay with me. I have plenty of space these days.”
“These days?” he echoed. “You mean there’s no husband at home waiting in the wings?”
I liked that he was bold enough to ask the question. I liked even more that only took him a few minutes to do it. “There’s never been a husband, Jasper. I found I never had much need of one.”
That gave him a moment’s pause, which coincided with the sudden flash of the end credits as the movie came to a close. Neither one of us made a move to get out of our seats.
“But you haven’t been lonely?” he prodded.
“Not really, no.” I admitted. It felt good to say the truth with no need to sugarcoat it. Talking to Jasper had always been one of the easiest things to do. Not because he was a particularly good listener, and definitely not because he was a natural conversationalist, but because I knew myself to be safe in his hands. “How could I be? You’ve met Zach now, so you know how full my life has been. Believe me when I say that you’ll like Bates even more. He says he wants to meet you, but only when you’re ready.”
The burst of laughter this confession elicited startled me for a second. At first, I was afraid that I might have finally broken Jasper—that mentioning the man he helped create was the straw that would break both our backs—but the laughing narrowed to a warm, rich chuckle.
“Bates?” he asked. “Catherine, you didn’t.”
A gurgle rose up in my own throat. It made me feel almost girlish—a thing I hadn’t known I was still capable of. Even though I’d meant it when I said I could never live in this town, I was starting to see the appeal of holding on to the hometowns of one’s youth. Even this theater, where I once sat and flirted with Jasper, the pair of us so young and innocent that I could almost feel the ghosts of our past sitting behind us, was so much more than four walls and a faded movie screen.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I protested. “From the moment I saw his angry, wrinkled little face, I knew it was the only name for him. It could’ve been worse. I was this close to naming him Norman instead.”
He chuckled again, but I could tell his mind was working fast. “I think I would like to meet him,” he said. “Not right away—I need some time to process first. But in a few months, maybe.”
“That sounds perfect. You’ll get a kick out of him. I tried for decades to turn him into a suave, sophisticated man of the world, but he turned out exactly like you. He and Zach both. You should have warned me how strong your bloodlines are. I never stood a fighting chance.”
When he didn’t respond except to continue staring at the thread of movie credits, I was afraid I may have crossed a line. It was too much, too soon. He was catching up on sixty years of history—watching his past rise up from the grave, not just whole, but wholehearted. That sort of thing couldn’t be easy.
But when he finally spoke, it was with a smile in his voice. “Good. I hope they gave you hell.”
“Oh, they did—still do, in many ways. Did you think I came all this way just to see you? I never would’ve done it if not for Zach. He wanted to see this place, to see you, and nothing I said or did could stop him.” I risked a sideways peek at him. “I wish I could make you understand, Jasper. The way I left wasn’t easy for me, either. I cried throughout my entire third trimester. And afterward, well…”
I stopped. How could I describe to this man the torment of my twenties and thirties? To know that he was still here, working himself to the bone so his family could thrive. To hope against all hope that he’d found a way to move on.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said. I didn’t believe him until he rolled his head toward me, his eyes still so bright and blue that it was like looking into a window to the past. In a fit of gallantry he must have picked up far away from this outpost, he lifted my hand to his lips and lightly kissed it. Despite myself and the fact that I was far too old for another doomed romance, I felt my heart flutter. “You told me from the outset how it would be. I was just too self-involved to realize it.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was the kiss or his words that unsettled me most. “I did? When?”
“I gave the books to Chloe, so I can’t tell you the exact quote, but I remember it like it was yesterday.” He smiled then, but it wasn’t a smile meant for me. That was a smile for the boy he once was—the boy who, in many ways, still lived inside him. “‘I’m no Hemingway heroine,’ you said. You refused to die in childbirth for the sake of the hero’s redemption arc. The moment you pulled that ruse, I should’ve known what you were up to.”
A bright, fizzy burst of something flooded my veins. It was the same feeling I used to get whenever I discovered a shiny new manuscript from an unknown author, the same feeling that overtook my weeping sadness the day Bates was born. Like opening the cover of a book for the first time, it was the sensation of the world opening up before me.
“I did say that, didn’t I? What an absolute beast I was.” I shook my head, lighter in body and spirit than I’d felt in a long time. I wasn’t sure I deserved Jasper’s forgiveness, and I was almost certain that it came from a place that had very little to do with me, but I planned to take it all the same. “I honestly don’t know what you saw in me. I hope you fell in love a dozen times after I was gone.”
“Not even once.”
The movie credits ended and the lights of the theater came up. As soon as the room was cast into full illumination, I could see the cracks where the plastered walls were falling down, the dirty carpeting and even dirtier stairs. Jasper, however, didn’t seem to notice. His gaze was locked on me instead—not sad, but wistful and a little bit sheepish.
“I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but you were the whole story as far as I was concerned,” he said. “The beginning, the middle, and the end. I didn’t need to open another romance when I already had the perfect one written down.”
“Jasper,” I said—begged, really. “I wouldn’t have made you happy. You have to know that by now. No matter how hard I tried to settle into your life, or how far you followed me into mine, there was simply no place where our lives intersected.”
“I do know it,” he said quietly. “But I would have done my damnedest to try.”
I opened my mouth to say more—what, I had no idea—but he wasn’t done yet.
“I’ve never been one of those men who yearned for much,” he said. “A roof over my head, food on the table, and a stack of good books were all I needed to live a calm, contented life—or so I believed, anyway.”
“But you don’t believe it anymore?” I asked. “Because of…me?”
“Not you, precisely.” He twisted his lips in a rueful smile. “But because of Zach. And Chloe. And Noodle and Theo and Trixie. Before you go back to New York and your big glamorous life, can I ask you to do me one favor?”
“Anything,” I said. I meant the words more than I’d ever meant any combination of syllables before. After everything he’d given me—my freedom, my family, and his forgiveness—there was nothing I wouldn’t do for him. “Anything at all.”