“Yes, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“All right then. I got sicker after Edith and George—or Gareth rather—left.”
Heartsick, I thought with a pang, because she had given her baby to Gareth.
“I had an infection that wouldn’t go away, so I stayed here for weeks and weeks, suffered setback after setback, and then, one day in mid-March, I woke up and realized that I would live. I was as weak as a newborn kitten, but I got out of bed and walked out into the living room, just inching along until I got to the nearest window. I stood there, hanging on to the window frame, shaky and fragile but feeling alive from head to toe, and I saw crocuses opening up in the yard, yellow and purple, and, for the first time not just in weeks but in years, it was as if spring were happening inside of me, too. I got better.” She smiled. “And Tom and I fell in love. We didn’t have far to fall, either; after all those weeks together, we were more than halfway there.”
“So you stayed,” I said.
“He wanted to marry me right away, but I couldn’t let him. By that time, we’d gotten word that John Blanchard’s lawyer had turned him into a hero—the hero he truly was—in everyone’s eyes, but part of me still waited every day for the knock at the door, for them to catch me and make me go back. And then, one day in May, Tom said, ‘Sarah, I think it’s time to let go of that worry,’ and the strangest thing is that, as soon as he said it, I did let it go. Just like that. And Tom told everyone that his sweetheart from Chicago had come up to marry him, and right out there in the backyard of this house, we were married. When George left here for the last time, on that night just before Christmas, he told Tom he wouldn’t be sending people here anymore. I was the last. He said it was too risky. And maybe it was, but also, of course, he had the baby to think of. Babies change you. They change everything.”
Here, Sarah stopped and the tears in her eyes spilled down her cheeks, just one brief rush of weeping, before her face cleared and she wiped the tears away.
Carefully, carefully, I said, “I can understand about the baby. A woman who worried that she might always be a fugitive, I can understand why she would’ve given her child to someone else to raise. Always looking over your shoulder would be hard enough without worrying that your baby boy might be caught, too, and given to strangers or worse. Gareth was rich and trustworthy, and he and his wife didn’t have any biological children, so it made sense.”
“Yes,” said Sarah, softly.
“It was an act of love,” I said.
“Yes, that’s exactly what George—Gareth—said.”
Shyly, I said, “So you. You’re my grandmother.”
And then Sarah turned wondering eyes on me and said, “Oh, no. He didn’t say those things to me. Is that what you thought? Dear girl, he said them to Edith.”
Even before my mind understood what her words meant, my body did. It began to tremble. Dev took my mug from my hand and set it on the coffee table, and then he slipped his arm around my shoulders and I reached up and grabbed his hand and held on. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Mutely, I turned to Dev.
“The baby Gareth Grace adopted wasn’t Steven?” said Dev.
“No, Steven stayed right here with me and Tom. He was at our wedding, in his grandmother May’s arms. We told people that right before I moved up here to be with Tom, my sister died shortly after giving birth and gave her baby boy to me. But he was my son. Steven lives in Montreal with his family. He’s a doctor like Tom.”
“So—Edith?” I said, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. “The baby Gareth adopted was Edith’s?”
“Yes, Edith’s. She’d risked everything for me and Steven,” said Sarah, her eyes teary again. “And that made her a fugitive, too. George—Gareth—helped her disappear and start a new life like he’d done with the others, but he persuaded her to give her son to him.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand,” I said, gasping. “No one ever said anything about a baby. The newspapers never mentioned it.”
“She was near the end of her pregnancy when she brought me here. Bad off as I was, I knew it that night in her house, as soon as I saw her. She was one of those tall, whippet-thin women, quite like you actually, the kind who can just about cover it up with clothes, even at the end. I expect most people couldn’t even tell. But I’d just had a baby myself. I knew. I never said a word to her about it, but I knew.”
“She delivered the baby here in this house?” said Dev.
“Yes. I didn’t know until afterward because I was having a bad time that night. I wasn’t aware of what was going on around me. But I saw the baby later, the next day. The prettiest little boy. Big dark eyes. I can still see his face. And the next night, when Gareth came here and talked to Edith, it was on the sofa you’re sitting on right now. I was lucid then, lying in the next room, and I heard Gareth talk her into giving him the baby to raise.”
“Poor Edith,” said Dev.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, and then I was seeing her again in her gardening clogs and her blue dress; I was hearing her ringing voice: Courage, dear heart.
“No, actually I can believe it,” I said. “It was Edith. Edith, all along. That’s why. The wedding, the house, everything. That’s why.”
Sweet joy swept through me like a flock of birds, a murmuration of starlings, an exaltation of larks. Dev squeezed my hand.
“Gareth said something else that night,” said Sarah.
“What?”
Her eyes gleamed, silver-blue as the silver-blue summer sky outside the kitchen window.
“Edith was crying, so bitterly, poor girl, and Gareth swore to her that he would take the best care in the world of her son. He told her that of course he would, of course, because the baby was his son, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Clare
Dev came to Edith’s house early on an azure-soaked, gold-dusted, jade-green Friday evening in mid-August, and even though our plan had been to leave for North Carolina right away, as soon as he saw the canoes, he said, “Look at those. How can we not take them out?” with his own special brand of arms-thrown-open, face-to-the-wind, conspiratorial, little kid enthusiasm, and I said what I vowed from that day forward to always say to his proposals, however spontaneous or goofy or madcap or impractical, which was yes.
We glided through water that was sun-spangled steel blue from a distance and tea-colored up close. We wove, parting ways and coming back together, again and again. We talked and didn’t talk. We startled birds and were startled by birds. We steered in single file through a narrow channel, the mussels gleaming like spilled oil on either side, our paddles brushing the feathery reeds and marsh grass, and then we slipped out into a wide-open pool edged with woods, where we drifted in a hot, hazy, rustling, bird-call-scattered quiet. I tipped back my head and let myself be entranced by the sky.
When I came back to earth, I saw Dev across the shining water, at least fifty yards away, and I understood that some things you decide and some things you choose and some things just are. Dev and I just were.
And then he was calling out, “Come over here and watch these water bugs with me. You know it’s surface tension, but it still looks like a miracle,” and I took up my paddle and, as fast as I could, even though the two of us had all the time in the world, I made my way to where he was.
* * *
When Edith departed from Canterbury Mills, she left behind her baby and her entire life and her name; by the time she got to the tiny town in western North Carolina, sixty miles outside of Asheville, that Gareth had found for her, Edith Herron had become Edith Waterland. When Thomas Farley got home and found Dev and me, Edith’s granddaughter, sitting in his living room, he told us this; it was all he knew. After just a little Internet searching, Dev and I found her, not in the original town she’d been sent to, but in one just an hour’s drive away. A town that was hardly a town at all, just a handful of houses near a lake. The fact of the lake made me happy: Edith Waterland near w
ater, where she belonged. On the other side of the lake was a summer camp, and I imagined the campers’ shouts and laughter winging like birds over the water to where Edith sat or hung laundry or read in a hammock in her yard. I hoped the sound of children was sweet to her; I hoped it didn’t hurt. Apart from an address, we could find out nothing about her, and, after all my digging and sleuthing, my burning need to discover her complete story, I was at peace with the blank pages, all the missing chapters. I knew what I needed to know: Edith had loved my father enough to give him away; she had loved me enough to find me.
Still, I wanted to see her house. Just to see it, to stand and look at the place she had lived, her last safe place, although surely not her only one. Edith carried Blue Sky House with her wherever she went; I felt sure of it.
Dev showered while I packed the car. We would spend the night with our families in Charlottesville and then would drive the seven hours to Edith’s house the next day. When our bags were in the trunk of Dev’s car, I clipped some hydrangea blooms from the plants in Edith’s garden, wrapped the stems in wet paper towels and aluminum foil, and walked out into the newly fallen dark. A few steps from the car, I heard not so much a sound as a shift in the night noises, and I turned to see a figure half stumble from the shadow of the dogwood tree in the front yard. Tall, broad shouldered, lurching toward me. A scream caught in my throat, and I dropped the flowers.
“Clare, goddamnit, it’s me.”
Zach. Drunk. Angry. His words slurring. Before he reached me, I stuck out my arm. He ran into my open hand and staggered backward.
“What the hell?” he said. “I thought you’d be glad to see me.”
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
He laughed. “I’ve known about this place for a while now. Your little love nest.”
“How?”
“I’ve been staying at Ian’s in Baltimore. Getting myself together, which is working out pretty well, as you can see.” He made a bitter sound. “Ian hired someone to track you down.”
Cold anger filled me. “Hired someone? That’s sick, even for Ian.”
Zach waved his hand in front of his face, dismissing what I’d said. “He hired a guy to watch your parents’ house a few weeks ago, waiting for you to show up.” In the dim light, I could see his face break into a grin. “And then, you know what?”
I kept silent.
“You did,” said Zach. “Showed up with your pathetic little boyfriend and then went to Richmond with him to do God knows what, and then you came back here.”
I thought of a stranger watching me open my front door, peering at me through windows, treading all over my sacred ground. I thought of the trip to Canada, of him trailing us all that way. I shuddered.
“And?” I asked, relieved when my voice came out hard instead of shaky.
Zach shrugged. “Since then I’ve been waiting for the right time. And this morning, I said to myself today’s the day.”
I felt relieved that the guy hadn’t tracked us to Canada, but then I turned and saw Zach’s car parked on the street.
“You drove here? In this state? You know you could’ve killed someone, right?”
Zach, who never so much as tailgated, who drove sixty miles per hour on the highway.
“That would’ve been on your head, Clare. Like everything else.”
“You have to stop this craziness, Zach. Having me followed? Driving drunk? Hacking my Facebook page? This isn’t you.”
“You left me. Like my mother. Like Ro. Women aren’t supposed to leave!” he shouted.
I had never had anyone look at me with such pure, black meanness in his eyes. I backed toward the car and groped for the door handle, but my fingers couldn’t find it.
“Do you know what Ian told me about Ro this morning?” said Zach. “He helped her run away.”
“What do you mean?”
“He helped her get away from my dad. Set up her escape to California, sent her money, helped cover her tracks. She swore to him she’d keep in touch and that she’d figure out a way for us all to be together again.”
“Oh, my God,” I said, realizing what he was saying. “Ian knew where she was all these years, and he let everyone believe she was dead?”
Zach shook his head. “For the first year, Ro kept her promise. She stayed in touch with Ian, but then, she wrote to say she’d found someone who would help her leave the country. Duped some man into it, probably. She said she needed to cut herself off from her old life, all of it.” He pounded his fist on his chest. “Her old life. She meant me! And Ian. We fucking loved her!”
“I’m sorry, Zach,” I said.
“You’re not sorry! You did the exact same thing.” He stabbed his finger in my direction. “How do you think I will stand it? Knowing your life is going on away from me? Imagining you with other people when you were supposed to be with me?”
“Zach, please stop yelling at me. You’re scaring me.”
“Good!”
He didn’t mean it. He was drunk, mad, hurt, and possibly mentally ill, but I knew the Zach who wanted to be good, who tried so hard, was still in there.
“Listen to me,” I said. “This isn’t you. Ian is the one who’s full of hate and anger, and he wants you to be, too. That’s why he told you this now, to feed your anger. Don’t let him do that.”
“Ian went all those years knowing that lying bitch was out there somewhere, living her life, being happy. She had no right to be happy. It killed Ian, ate him up.” Zach ran his hand down his face. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter but scarier, flat and strange. “But you know what? Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she isn’t out there living like we never even existed. Maybe she’s dead.”
Zach took an unsteady step toward me, looming large, and I pressed back against the car, trapped. “God, I hope she’s dead. If she died, that would balance things out. It would make things fair, don’t you think?”
Suddenly, Dev was there, standing behind Zach, looking surprised, his hair still wet from the shower.
“I don’t know what’s happening here,” he said in a low voice. “But it needs to end.”
Zach whirled around so fast he almost fell. “You! Shut the hell up!” he shouted.
He turned back to me and took me roughly by the shoulders. “Him. Jesus Christ, it’s always been him. You left me because of him.”
“Let her go,” said Dev.
“No,” I said to Zach, and then, without planning to say it, I said, “and also yes.”
Zach twitched backward, as if I’d struck him, snatching his hands off my shoulders. “What?”
I pulled myself up straighter. I would tell the truth. No more lies about Dev to myself or to anyone else. “It has always been him. But I didn’t realize it; I didn’t really, really know it, until today.”
Zach pressed his hands to the sides of his head and said, “How can you say this to me?”
“I owe it to you not to lie to you. I need you to understand, once and for all. Dev isn’t the reason I broke off our engagement. I didn’t choose him over you. We’re the reason I ended it. We don’t belong together. I could never live my life with you. It would be wrong.”
Zach stood, his head hanging down, and then, suddenly, with a guttural, animal snarl, he spun and charged Dev, knocked into him, his shoulder ramming Dev’s chest, and Dev fell backward onto the grass. I thought he would leap on Dev then, and I got ready to pounce, to jump in and help, but then Zach was coming at me instead, wild-eyed, arms flailing, and I balled my fists, ready to hit him, energy surging through me, even though I had never hit anyone in my life. But he was reeling, off balance, and Dev was up and on him, grabbing him around the chest, holding him back, Zach twisting and turning, trying to free himself.
“You don’t want to do this,” said Dev, panting out the words.
“The hell I don’t,” sputtered Zach.
“You don’t want to hurt Clare.”
As if Dev’s words were a bucket of cold water thrown ove
r his head, Zach stopped struggling. He shook himself and stared at me, stunned, breathing hard. “Hurt Clare? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I would never hurt her.”
Dev loosened his grip, and Zach turned sideways and crouched in the grass, where he rocked, his fists pressed against his eyes. “What am I doing? What am I doing?”
Dev and I stood watching him. It was as if a space had opened up in the jumble and noise of the night, a doomed, sad empty space with Zach right at the center of it. I thought I’d never seen someone so alone.
“Zach,” I said, gently.
“I’m sorry.” He stood up, his back to us, and began walking to his car, fumbling in his pocket for his keys. “I’ll go. I’ll go and I won’t come back.”
“You can’t drive,” I told him.
“No, I can. I’ll be fine,” said Zach. But when he got to the car, he just stood there with the keys in his hand. I walked up and opened his fingers and took them.
“Come on,” said Dev. “Let’s go inside. You look tired.”
Slowly, Zach turned around. “I am tired,” he said.
“We’ll go inside and call Ian,” I told him. “He’ll come pick you up.”
“Okay,” said Zach, nodding wearily. “Okay, okay, okay, okay.”
I took Zach’s arm and together, with Dev a few steps behind us, keeping watch, we walked into Blue Sky House.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clare
The next morning, when Dev and I were in the car on our way to North Carolina, Zach called.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he said.
“I’m sorry I hurt you in all the ways I did,” I said.
“It’s okay. Or maybe it’s not totally okay, yet, but it will be. I know you didn’t want to hurt me. You did what you had to do.”
“That’s true.”
“You were right that I’m not like Ian. I can’t let myself turn into a man like him, angry all the time. He let Ro’s leaving wreck him. I think I wanted you to save me from being like him.”