“Nothing at all. Go on. Please. Keep talking. I want to hear everything.”
Sophie looks down. “It was those flowers. The sage. I smelled them and they smelled so good and then…”
“And then you thought of Mom?”
“I didn’tthinkof her, Dad. Isawher. She was here. Or… I wasthere. In my bed. I don’t know. I thought I couldn’t remember her. I thought I forgot. I’m sorry, Dad.” Sophie’s mouth twists. “I was so bad to forget her.”
“Ofcourseyou’re not bad,” Adam says, his arms tightening around her. “I know how much you love her, and how much you will always love her. It’s okay if you don’t remember her the way you once did. It’s been two years, and you were only five years old when she died, and… Oh, Soph. Is this why you stopped speaking? Because you thought you were bad?”
She nods. He strokes her hair, looking as though he is trying very hard to hold himself together.
“Time passes,” he says softly. “Things change. That’s okay. And sometimes memories just come to you, out of nowhere.”
Sophie mumbles something into his neck.
“What, sweetheart?”
She pulls her head back. “Like magic?” she asks.
“Yes,” says Adam. His eyes drift to meet mine at last, as if he has just remembered that I am there. I feel my skin grow warm as his gaze moves searchingly over my face. “Something like magic.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
FITZ
“Good morning, Adam!”
Fitz groans. He’s still in bed, half-asleep, but in the apartment next door Marjorie Swenson is speaking so loudly with her grandson that she might as well have crawled into bed with Fitz and hollered in his ear.
“It iswonderful,” he hears her say. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear Sophie’s sweet voice again!”
Fitz has no interest in eavesdropping, but the woman gives him no choice. She must be leaning against the wall that separates their apartments, yelling into the heating vent. It’s the only explanation for how well her voice carries. As Fitz begins to dress for the day, Marjorie’s voice thunders through his room with all the subtlety of a dancing elephant.
“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if Lucy stayed in Bantom Bay? Fantastic forallof us,” she says in a ridiculous way that makes Fitz gatherthat there is romance brewing between Lucy and Marjorie’s grandson, and that Marjorie approves.
As well she should, Fitz thinks crossly. Lucy is a gem. It’s Marjorie’s grandson thathe’sworried about. How could anyone be good enough for someone like Lucy?
And yet… if Lucy falls in love with a local boy, perhaps she will stay in Bantom Bay. As quickly as the thought passes through his mind, Fitz shoos it away. What would it matter? The Oceanview Home will close, he’ll have to find somewhere new to live, and he won’t see Lucy ever again. Of course he won’t.
Once a fool, always a fool, he thinks angrily, catching sight of himself, red-faced, in the small mirror above his bureau.
There was a time when Fitz almost thought he might be forgiven for what he had done. He thinks of that woman, the kindness in her eyes, the glimmer of generosity, the promise she had made. She had planted a seed of hope in the craggy soil within him and he had allowed it, had felt it grow.
A fool, a fool, a fool. Time after time after time.
He had never seen that woman again.
His gaze falls to the photograph that Louis took of him playing chess with Lucy on the terrace, Gully looking enormous and happy at Fitz’s feet. Lucy had the photograph framed for Fitz, the gesture full of more tenderness than he knew he deserved. He placed the frame on his bureau next to the photograph of his dog, Tad. Looking at them now, a knot tightens in his chest.
He reaches out and knocks both photographs so they are face down.
“No, of course it won’t work,” Marjorie says now. “I know thekind of man that Donovan Pike is. But Cynthia would never forgive me if I didn’t see this through.”
Where will I go?Fitz wonders mildly in the all-too-brief silence. It really doesn’t matter to him. Jill Li delivered a packet of nursing home brochures to his apartment, but he’s yet to look through them. Unlike some of the other residents—Vikram, he suspects, and despite all of her tired elegance, Adele—Fitz doesn’t have to worry about the costs of another, more expensive home. He has plenty of money. It is all he has had for a long time.
He reaches out and sets the two photographs on his bureau upright again, relieved to see that he hasn’t shattered the glass.
“I’m simply being realistic,” Marjorie says. “The Oceanview Home was nice while it lasted, but we’re all certainly about to be thrown out. I’m glad we’ll have one last party.” Another pause. “I’ve been looking into a community a little farther down the coast… No, I know, dear, I don’t want to be any farther from you, either, but it does seem to be the best option. There aren’t gardens or any of the charm that there is here at Oceanview, but… Now, stop that. You know I can’t stand anyone feeling sorry for me. Who knows what this next adventure will hold? I hear all the handsome widowers are shacked up a bit farther south, where it’s warmer.”
