Chapter 36
MAGGIE
This time, I’d come to the cottage prepared.
Determined not to repeat the same mistakes, I lugged a suitcase that contained most of my closet back home into the living room.
It was so heavy that the worn floorboards creaked under its weight.
After I left it standing next to the unlit fireplace, I doubled back for a couple of duffel bags and a few bags of groceries.
Once it was all inside, I shut the door behind me and checked that I had power and plumbing, and when that was done, I stood in the center of the little space and formulated my plan of attack. As far as I was concerned, this was no longer just a hidey-hole anymore.
For the foreseeable future, it was going to be my home and I refused to live like the arrangement was temporary. Maybe it would be. Maybe it wouldn’t. But either way, I channeled my anger into a furious clean-up session to make the place habitable.
Wherever I went from here, I wouldn’t go until I was ready, and in the meantime, I wasn’t living like a hermit. Immediately after deciding to start in the kitchen, I tied up my hair with an elastic I’d snapped on my wrist before leaving home, hung my jacket on the hook by the door, and jumped in.
Armed with cleaning supplies from one of the duffels, I scrubbed, washed, swept, threw out, and reorganized until the fresh scent of lemon and polish replaced the smell of dust and age in the air.
All the while, a relentless drizzle outside pattered against the windows, a soothing sound that lulled me to sleep when I finally collapsed on the couch after a simple dinner of scrambled eggs and toast.
Early the next morning, I moved on from the kitchen and living areas to the study. Soft, mottled sunlight spilled across the space for only about an hour before heavy gray clouds rolled in again and the drizzle started back up. It was oddly comforting, though. At least the weather matched my mood.
Since I was uncertain what to keep and what could be thrown out in here, I simply organized and cleaned. Every pile of paper got filed with others of the same topic, divided into categories like Personal, War History, Bills, and Random.
The only rooms that escaped my wrath were the attic and the bedroom. I was not sleeping or going in there until I’d hired a priest and an exterminator. In that order. There was no way I was giving either a ghost or a raccoon another reason to make my life complicated.
I’d come here to figure things out, not to get possessed or infected by rabies.
Marcus knew I was here, but I’d strictly forbidden him from coming anywhere near the property he technically owned. After everything that had happened, at least my family was finally willing to give me some space, and my oldest brother, in particular, had agreed to keep my location a secret.
I hoped they felt guilty. I hoped they felt extremely guilty, actually.
Paying Ryan to essentially stalk me was abominable, a vile act of control so over-reaching that I was still struggling to process it.
The fact that he’d gone along with it was even worse, but as soon as I felt a sob rise at the thought, I scrubbed harder at the floor in the hallway, forcing myself to focus on the work and the gentle sound of rain drumming against the roof.
When that was finished, I washed the walls too, determined to scrub until Ryan disappeared from my mind.
Eventually, once even the walls were clean and he was still hovering right at the edges of my consciousness, I went back to my suitcase to don a raincoat so I could go sweep the porch, but it didn’t take long to realize that was the one thing I’d forgotten.
Fuck.
I glanced up at the sky through the windows, seeing nothing but thick gray overhead for miles. The persistent drizzle hadn’t let up for more than an hour at a time since I’d arrived here yesterday, and by the looks of it, things were only going to get worse.
After staring at the darkening sky for another beat, I straightened up and grabbed the only jacket I had with a hood, knowing I’d still get drenched, and headed out. Nothing was going to stop me from completing this mission.
I would make the cottage into a home worthy of the name or so help me.
After checking three stores in town and coming up empty, however, I finally started running out of steam at least a little bit.
The closest I’d come to a raincoat had been something made of clear plastic that had looked exactly like a shower curtain, and since I didn’t want to clean the porch while looking like Little Red Riding Hood gone wrong, I left the store empty-handed and considered my final option.
The thrift store.
For a moment before heading inside, I stood under the awning and stared through the window, steeling myself for the moment I’d see her again. Viola. The last time I’d been here, she’d caught me unawares during a time that anything new had felt like too much, but that wasn’t true anymore.
I was prepared this time. It was just a little weird not to know what I was trying to prepare myself for with her, specifically, but I took a breath and walked inside anyway, determined to get a raincoat with maybe even a little side of closure.
When the bell over the door chimed, Viola looked up, sitting in the same chair behind the same counter like she’d been waiting for me to return.
I nodded at her but wandered through the racks to look for a coat first. Once I’d found one that looked old enough to have a retirement plan it was about to be yanked out of, I carried it to the counter and set it down in front of her.
She rang me up with a soft, almost knowing smile on her lips when she accepted my money.
“You look like him, you know. Your grandfather,” she said quietly as I turned to leave. “You’re lucky. He was a very handsome man.”
I blinked hard, a knot immediately forming in both my chest and my throat. It felt like she’d reached between my ribs and squeezed a sore spot right at the very root of my being.
Perhaps I was scarred by Ryan’s deception or simply confused by Daniel’s sudden interest in my well-being, but with the latter texting every so often to check in and the former heart-wrenchingly missing from my life all of a sudden, I looked back up at her and realized that whatever patience I might’ve possessed before was gone.
“Who are you?” I asked abruptly. “Will you please just tell me so we can get this over with?”
She folded her hands on the counter. “I knew your grandfather.”
“Yeah, I already knew that much. I found a picture of you two together.” I fought a wince. “A wedding picture, actually. Of you in a dress and him in a suit, so it seems to me that it was more than just knowing each other.”
Viola pursed her lips, one of her fingers sliding over the simple, golden wedding band on her finger. I glanced down when I caught the movement from the corner of my eye and she sighed, moving her hands a little farther apart before dropping them back to her sides, but it was too late.
The woman was wearing a wedding ring, and an old one at that. It was worn smooth with age and lightly scratched, telling the story of an item she’d been wearing for a very long time. The lump in my throat grew, but she finally met my eyes again.
“Hubert was my first love,” she explained, tears filling her eyes even as she smiled. “We were young and probably stupid, but I prefer to think we were brave.”
“So you were married?” I asked, my voice hushed as I braced one hand against the counter in preparation for the blow I knew was coming. I wouldn’t run this time. “Is that still his ring?”
She shook her head, her brow furrowing like she was struggling to hold back tears. “Hugh and I were married, but not for long. We met in college and fell in love, but what I didn’t know at the time was that I wasn’t like him. My family isn’t wealthy and we weren’t part of the same circles.”
I blinked against the tears welling in my eyes. “He didn’t tell you who he was?”
“No, not at first.” She gave me a watery smile.
“Well, I knew who Hugh was. Possibly better than anyone else, but I didn’t know what it meant that he was Pembroke.
When we were married, I also didn’t know they’d already chosen a wife for him, a woman more suitable who was from a family more like his own. ”
My stomach turned. “My grandmother?”
She inclined her chin a soft nod. “I believe so. He did love her, my dear. Eventually.”
“What happened?” I whispered. “How did he go from looking happy with you to loving her?”
She gave me a sad smile. “Like I said, we were both young and naive when that picture was taken. I’m not sure which one you found, but if it was from our wedding, then that remains true regardless of which exact one it was.”
“So you got a divorce?”
“When his family found out about us, Hugh tried choosing me,” she explained. “He told them he wasn’t going to marry anyone else and that he was already married, but I couldn’t let him do that.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“I couldn’t let him throw away everything he’d been born to have simply because he’d fallen in love with me,” she said like it was obvious. “I told him he deserved the life waiting for him. A life of wealth and success. A dynasty. I wouldn’t be the reason he gave it up.”
“But he chose you,” I whispered. “You’re the person he wanted to be with.”
She nodded, glancing down at her ring. “We were both heartbroken at first, but then we grew up, my dear. We lived good lives. Different lives but very good ones. We even occasionally kept in touch. Your grandmother and my husband were both aware of our correspondence. It was nothing inappropriate.”
The tears threatened to spill over as I thought about my grandfather sitting down to write the love of his life with the wife he hadn’t wanted in the next room.
A wife who’d been a good person, a great wife and mother, but who had also lived out the rest of her days knowing what being with her had cost him.
It might even have cost her the same thing. I had no idea if she’d also had someone in her life when their marriage had been arranged. The whole situation was devastating.
“The last time he wrote me was after your grandmother died,” Viola said. “I’m sure that was before you were born or perhaps shortly after, but he was very proud of his grandchildren. He mentioned finally having a granddaughter on the way. I believe that might’ve been you.”
“Yes, it must’ve been. I’m the only girl.”
She smiled. “I thought so. He was thrilled about welcoming a little girl after the absolute tide of boys they’d been blessed with. Did he leave you the cottage? I’ve been wondering since that first time you came in here.”
Fighting tears, I couldn’t speak for a moment. The Pembrokes had forced them apart. My own family, even so many years ago, had only cared about money and their legacy, wiping their asses on something they considered as trivial as love, and that had been over half a century ago.
Isn’t it about time something changed? For God’s sake.
Viola looked at me like she knew where my thoughts had gone and she reached across the counter to squeeze my hand. “You won’t regret it, if that’s what’s troubling you, but I do think of him sometimes and wonder what could have been if we—if I—had been braver.”
As I nodded, she folded the raincoat and handed it over, giving my hand another gentle pat. “I’ll be here if you’d like to talk some more.”
Giving me an obvious out I desperately needed, she smiled and turned to walk into the back office, and I simply murmured a thank you instead of trying to stop her.
After sliding my arms into the raincoat, I headed back to the cottage through the gentle drizzle, reeling over everything I’d just learned.
My grandfather had loved her. He’d loved her enough to choose her, but she’d loved him enough in turn not to let him, and although she’d insisted they’d both lived good lives, I’d also seen the look in her eyes when she’d said she still thought about it sometimes.
It didn’t take a trained psychologist to see that she regretted her decision. At least on occasion.
When I got back to the quiet cottage, I sat on the couch and stared at the rain sliding down the windows, thinking about everything they’d both given up simply because his family—our family—had told him what his life was supposed to be.
They’d refused to accept it when he’d chosen differently, still using that godforsaken inheritance to hold him hostage from the sound of things.
He’d tried to fight tradition, and in the end, he’d lost because she hadn’t wanted him to give up what he was entitled to as a Pembroke. It was crazy to think that so much time had passed and the family’s MO was still the exact same.
Finally, I pulled my phone out of my purse, hesitating for only a moment before I scrolled to Daniel’s number and pressed call.
I couldn’t turn back the clock and give my grandfather and Viola a second chance, but I sure as heck could make sure that Daniel and I didn’t get to our eighties only to find ourselves in the same position.