She watched his tears well. Even after all these years—alifetime ago, as he’d said himself—he was heartbroken. He wore those scars still.
Tears spilled down her cheeks too. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
He nodded, removing a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” She dabbed at the tears, but they weren’t going anywhere.
“I’d done my time practicing in Chestnut Ridge, and when she died, it was so hard for me to get back to work. To living. When my friend from college came to see all of this and how much pain I was still in a year afterward, he was relentless in trying to get me to leave. Finally, he talked me into coming out to LA to work as an agent in the movie industry.”
“That had to have given you some relief. A new hope?”
“I’m glad I did it. With my wife gone and my daughter dating a guy I never approved of, she and I were at odds.” He leveled a stare at Natalie that bored straight through her. “I never approved of him. Never, and he proved me right over and over again. He was a bad man, but she wouldn’t listen to me. We’d wanted her to go to college, but she wouldn’t go. I don’t know if it would’ve been different had Patrice lived, but do wonder… all the time.”
“I see what you mean about family being hard sometimes.”
“So off I went. It was totally different. Quite swanky. Big parties. Big gossip. There were big cover-ups for some of those famous people, but I did my job. It was different. So different that it seemed like someone else’s life. I know that probably doesn’t make sense.”
“No. I kind of get it.” Not so different from her being able to live and escape in that little fantasy Marc Swindell had offeredher. Because he was nothing like Jeremy, and that’s where her heart was. “What made you come back?”
“I was tired. It’s a hectic and unhealthy way to live, burning the candle at both ends. Then Jesse called me one night. My daughter’s husband had beat her so badly that even though she begged Jesse not to tell me, he called. He was afraid she’d die, and I wouldn’t be there.”
“How terrible.”
“They both drank too much, and it wasn’t a healthy relationship. They had a son. A good boy. That man, though. He was pure evil. Didn’t care about anything or anyone but himself.”
“You can’t fix everything, although you did pull off some magic.”
“I tried. My daughter was so out of it that she never even visited during that time. She was hateful. I didn’t even recognize her. I’d send her to rehab, and that man would drag her out and start the cycle all over.”
“How about your grandson? Were you close?”
Paul stared at her, nodding but not saying a thing for a long time. “He came. He had to sneak over because his father would have beat him had he known. We worked on projects. Restored old cars. Built beehives because Patrice was a campaigner about bees before it was even a thing like it is now.”
“All those beehives you made. Because of her?”
“Healing process. My grandson and I made a bunch of them, and when he left, I was like my own little factory. I enjoyed the monotony of it. It kept me sane. Which, by the way, you come fill that pickup truck with them if you’d like to do your part for the bees. I have plenty to spare.”
“Really? I’d love that. You’ll teach me?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe it’ll help you too. There’s something wonderful about the life of bees.”
“I’d like that. Thank you.” She could already imagine painting scenes on them. “What happened with your grandson?”
“The only thing I could do to possibly save him was to send him away.”
“Did you? Somehow?”
“I set him up financially, with the promise he’d never speak to his parents again. Leave everything he knew to go to college. Forget about all of this, and never ever treat anyone like he’d seen his father treat them. And he did.”
“I bet he was so thankful.”
“In his own way maybe. He was angry too. He didn’t want to leave. When his mother died, he blamed me. Said that it wouldn’t have happened had he been here. Our relationship never had time to repair.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s a long, ugly story. Her husband had been slowly killing her for years. The relationship was abusive, loud, and full of addiction. I’ll never know for sure if she took her own life or if it was at his hand, but it was very hard to watch it unravel over time.”
