“Fitz,” I say as I watch him set up the chess pieces. “I have to tell you something.”
“Go on, then.”
“The Oceanview Home is being sold. It’s going to be turned into a hotel. You’re going to have to move somewhere else. Everyone will.”
Fitz knits his fingers together. The creases on his wrinkled brow deepen. He thinks for a moment and then says, “Is this what you’ve been worrying about? The other day, when we were playing chess, you seemed like you had something on your mind.”
I nod. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
Fitz shrugs. “You told me. Now what?”
“I guess you’ll need to look into other homes,” I tell him gently. “I can help, if you’d like.”
He pulls a face. “I’m not talking about that. I’ll find a place to live. Who cares. One place or another. What’s the difference to me? I’m talking about you. Where will you go after this? Somewhere far away, I imagine.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’m staying with my father right now. He’s having a hard time. Losing my mom… it’s been difficult for him. I don’t like the idea of him being alone.”
Fitz nods and is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “You know, I really don’t like gardens.”
I blink. Then I laugh.
He watches me until I manage to stifle my laughter. “I don’t like gardens,” he says again, pointedly, “but I see how hard you work. I see how this place has changed with you here. I think…” He presses his lips together for a beat and then carries on. “I think that you should be proud of yourself. Proud of what you’ve done. No matter what happens next.”
“Oh, Mr. Fitz,” I say. “That’s very nice of you.”
He looks away, out over the grounds. We’re both quiet for a bit.
“Do you think you might have stayed here?” he asks eventually, still not looking at me. “If you could?”
I follow his gaze over the flowers, the sea, the three open gates tucked into the ivy-covered walls and the one that we’ve still yet to open. I breathe in, and the soft, sweet scent of the woodland garden’s lunaria blossoms tumbles toward me, through me, circling the truth in my heart.
“Yes,” I say. “If I could stay, I would.”
When Fitz looks at me, his pale blue eyes are shining, and I can’t help but suspect that for all of his stoicism, the very same words are echoing through his own thoughts:
If I could stay, I would.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Persian buttercup: A flowering plant with downy stems and colorful, ruffled blossoms whose soft citrus scent recalls youthful joy and friendship
On Saturday, Roger gives me one of his sympathetic looks as he spoons a delicious-smelling pasta-and-eggplant dish into a take-out container. “How’s your dad?” he asks. “It was so nice to see him out and about last weekend.”
“He’s… okay,” I say. I’ve been home for more than two weeks now and wish I had a better answer.
“Okay enough that he might actually accept my next invitation to do something?”
“Oh, I can’t promise that.”
Roger gives me a sad smile. “I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
I nod. I know that Roger is right—that there’s only so much you can help someone if they don’t want to help themselves—but I still feel like there’s something else I could do for my father, something I am missing.
Roger tosses a treat in the air, and Gully catches it easily. “It’s a good thing you came in when you did,” he says. “I’m closing up early today, and we might have just missed each other.”
“I hope it’s for something fun.”
“You could say that. Do you know the little theater at the community center?” He shakes his head. “Ah, what am I saying? Of course you do. You were performing on that stage not too long ago.”
