Chapter Thirty-Five
NATALIE CRIED.Hurt and angry, she threw things, screamed, and scared little Buzz, who had just run under the bed with his tail tucked tight beneath him.
Get yourself under control.
Perspective. Look at this from another angle.
Just when she thought things were going so well, all of this was feeling like more than she could handle.
Buzz poked his head out from under the bedspread, a dust bunny hanging from one ear.
She drank some water and apologized to the puppy.
“I’m sorry. It’s just too strange to even believe.”
Buzz settled down on her lap, his chin resting on her leg.
“I hope Randy will forgive me as easily. He meant well. Maybe I overreacted a little.”
Buzz barked and nipped her chin in an awkward kiss.
“Okay, overreacted.”
She sat there for a long time, then got her keys and drove out to the castle.
She’d never even noticed that gravel road before. She took that path and pulled in front of the tiny chapel. She got out and walked inside.
Not a sound but her footsteps.
She knelt in front of that very pew where she’d sat with Paul. Heard the truth. And she could imagine Jeremy and his grandfather together. Could even see the resemblance in that old picture she’d seen of Paul and Patrice.
No wonder Jeremy had been so afraid to have children.
It made sense now.
An abusive father, an alcoholic mother, and he was caught in the middle.
Peace fell over her. It wasn’t about her at all. She loved Jeremy. She loved how he’d loved her, and together they enjoyed a blissful existence that neither could have experienced otherwise.
We were blessed.
She got up and drove to the house.
Paul sat on the bench by the front door. The puppy, duck, and rooster marched about as if trying to snap him out of the heartbreak he must be feeling.
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t contact you and tell you when he died. I didn’t know what he had or hadn’t told you. It was wrong.”
“It’s fine. A wise man once told me that family can be strangely difficult.”
He laughed.
“And then there was you,” he said. “You changed my grandson’s whole life. He deserved you.”
“I don’t regret a moment of my life with him. Except that I didn’t get to know you before. Get to see you two together.”
“Oh, Natalie. He was a light so bright. A good, good boy.”
