Chapter Thirty-Three #2
‘You’re a successful woman; you enjoy what you do. Why would continuing on this course be defeatist or cowardly?’
Realizing they might not have been quite the right words, she said, ‘Maybe I want to prove to myself that I can take on something that big and make a go of it.’
‘But you already know you can – you wouldn’t be tormenting yourself like this if you seriously doubted it, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for you.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you talking me out of it?’
‘Playing devil’s advocate.’
‘I’m not sure that’s helpful.’
He smiled, and she decided, in that moment, that she really liked him.
‘You don’t want to let your old mentor down,’ he said.
‘I think that maybe, on some level, you feel you still owe him. On another, your deeply forged loyalties with the people you live and work with are probably telling you all you need to know. You want to stay in Bristol with the team you trust and respect, the friends you know and love and the life you treasure.’
Taking the words in, she said, ‘Are you telling me that, or was it a question?’
‘Take it whichever way you like. Just ask yourself how you felt when I painted that very simple picture.’
She almost wanted to laugh. ‘I guess relieved was the first thing,’ she admitted. ‘It was like being given … a get-out-of-jail-free card?’
‘Then you have your answer.’
She frowned. ‘You’re making it sound so easy.’
‘Because it is, unless you want it to be complicated, and that’s always an option too.’
She smiled and drank some of the brandy, allowing several minutes to pass as she continued assessing his words, testing them with her instincts and her heart, still searching for a sense of what did and didn’t feel right.
She was surprised, embarrassed, when she realized tears were rolling down her cheeks.
She couldn’t even say why she was crying or when it had started, only that sadness was coming over her in waves, and for some reason, she was unable to stop it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, using her fingers to wipe away the tears. ‘I’m not sure … It’s not like me to do this …’
He went to fetch a tissue and passed it to her. He didn’t try comforting her, simply went back to the sofa, and she was thankful for the distance he was keeping between them when she felt so vulnerable. There was no way of knowing how a touch, an embrace even, might end.
‘I don’t think we have necessarily reached a solution,’ he told her, ‘but you can now think of the dilemma in a different way. Saying no isn’t a weakness, any more than saying yes is a strength.’
‘He’ll offer it to Molly Terrance if I don’t take it,’ she said.
‘Do you care? Really?’
Not sure that she did, Cristy dabbed her eyes again and thought of how refusing the offer would rob Andee Lawrence of an opportunity she didn’t even know was hers. ‘Nothing’s ever as straightforward as you’d like it to be,’ she said, almost to herself.
When he didn’t answer, she looked up to find him watching her closely.
‘I’m going to say something now,’ he said, ‘that you probably won’t want to hear, but I recognize heartbreak when I see it, and I strongly believe I am seeing it now.’
Her eyes closed as a wave of emotion engulfed her. She held her breath, waiting for it to pass. ‘I can’t talk about that,’ she told him in a whisper. ‘It’s … too new, too raw.’
‘I understand,’ he said softly. ‘As someone who has felt it every day for many years, I still find it difficult to put it into words. Often, I don’t even feel the need to try, but it can be helpful when I do.
It releases a little of the pressure, allows some oxygen into my heart and somehow it keeps me going. ’
‘Who do you talk to?’ she asked.
‘Usually my brother. He is not a trained professional, but he is very astute, and of course he knows me well.’
‘It sounds as though you’re close.’
‘We are. I see him as often as I can. He’s good for my sanity, even better for my soul.’
Not sure whether it was right to ask this or not, she decided to go ahead anyway. ‘He obviously knows about Nicole?’
‘Mais bien s?r. He has been worrying since her release about the effect it is having on me, knowing she is free but not telling me where she is. It’s hard, I will admit that, but I also understand that she shares my fear of what the future might hold for us.
Will our love be the same now we can be together again?
How much has been lost in reality while we continued to believe in our hearts that nothing could tear us apart?
’ His eyes came to hers. ‘Have you met her? Spoken to her?’
Cristy nodded.
He swallowed and looked down at his drink. ‘I won’t ask again where she is; she’d already have told me if she wanted me to know.’ He took a breath and put his glass down.
‘She does want to see you,’ Cristy told him softly. ‘She asked me to tell you that.’
His eyes lifted, and she could see the hope as clearly as the pain. ‘Did she also tell you why she confessed to something she didn’t do?’
Mindful of Maggi’s words, she said, ‘How can you be so sure she didn’t?’
There was a long, almost interminable silence before he said, ‘You share my certainty – that’s why you’re helping her.’
She didn’t deny it, simply watched him as he stared at nothing, wondering what he was really thinking, how much he was holding back and whether he was regretting letting her and Connor come here. Maybe there was something else entirely in his mind.
He said very softly, ‘Later this year, it will be their twenty-first birthday. Grown into a young man and woman …’ He sounded so sad, so bewildered and tormented, that Cristy almost started crying again.
‘Do you believe they’re still out there somewhere?’ she asked.
His eyes closed, and she realized that even if he did think that, he wasn’t going to tell her tonight.