Fitz looks at his son and nods. “Nell,” he says softly. “Nell. Yes. I’m sorry.”
Now he wonders if the secret that Nell was hiding during that visit was that she was pregnant with Lucy.
He wonders if after not being able to control the way he felt for Millie, and not being able to control Millie herself, he simply wanted to control his son.
“He gave me an ultimatum,” Gregory tells Lucy. “If I married your mother, he didn’t want to have anything to do with either of us. He told me to choose her or to choose him. If I chose your mother, I would no longer have a father. I was never to contact him again. It was not a difficult decision.”
And looking back now, Fitz can understand that of course it was not a difficult decision. Here was a captivating woman, possibly carrying Gregory’s child, who was not afraid to express how much she loved him. On the other hand, there was Fitz, who had grown so scared of love that he’d hardly shown his own son an ounce of it in all the years he’d raised him. It was no wonder that Gregory walked out the door that night and never came back.
Fitz has always thought that love made people weak, but he understands at last that that isn’t true at all. It is the people who try to resist love who are the weak ones, the cowardly ones. Somehow, his son knew that. Gregory left that day and cut all ties with Fitz, just as Fitz had ordered him to.
Fitz hangs his head. “I regret it all. I regret the things I said to you, Gregory, and the way I behaved. And not just on that day. I was not a good father. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I thought I could make you stronger than I was, but I should have shown you all the love that I felt for you instead of hiding it away where you couldn’t see it or feel it. I’d start all over again if I could, but I can’t, and that… and I…” He trails off, struggling to contain his emotion.
He’s speaking to Gregory, but it’s Lucy who takes his hand, her palm as soft as a salve against his gnarled knuckles.
He looks into her lovely young face, her big blue eyes. “How could I have been such a fool?” he asks. “How could I have lost all of those years with my son?” He clutches her hand tightly. “And my granddaughter. My very own granddaughter.”
If he can just somehow make this right, he thinks, he will no longer be alone. He will have a family. The thought twists through him, scraping as it goes.
“Oh, Fitz,” Lucy says, squeezing his hand again. She gives her father a hard, searching look, but Gregory presses his lips together and stares off into the distance. Fitz almost smiles at that. He recognizes the expression, having glared right at it in the mirror for decades.
It’s okay, he thinks. He doesn’t expect forgiveness from his son—not now, certainly. Perhaps not ever. Acceptance, though? Maybe someday. Maybe.
“Now that I know you’re my grandfather,” Lucy tells Fitz, giving up on her father saying anything, “I plan to make up for lost time.”
Fitz is astonished to see not only friendship in her eyes, but also, perhaps, love.
“And not a moment too soon,” he says, somewhat darkly. Gregory and Lucy both look at him with alarm. He shakes his head and chuckles. “Oh, I’m not dying. Not imminently, at least. But the Oceanview Home isn’t a nursery school, you know. It’s the last stop on the train. Well,” he adds, “I suppose that isn’tstrictlytrue. This place is about to become a hotel, so I suppose I’ll have to make another stop after all.”
Lucy straightens, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh! I missed it. The developers were coming, and I… I’m sorry, Dad, Fitz, but I have to go. Can I leave you two here? You have so much to catch up on.”
Gregory shakes his head and stands. “I came to see the work you’ve done here, Lucy. That’s all. Let me walk you back to the terrace, and then I’ll show myself around a bit more.”
“I’ll walk with you both to the terrace,” Fitz says. “If that’s okay with you, Gregory?”
Gregory seems surprised to be asked. He nods, his face softening slightly. “Yes. That’s fine.”
Fitz catches Lucy’s smile. He walks through the garden beside his son and granddaughter. The noises of the party grow more distinct with every step they take. They walk slowly—or, Fitz supposes,hewalks slowly, feeling a bit tired from the turns of the day, and theother two politely match his pace. The afternoon is fading into evening. The sky, he notices, is a swirl of blue and gold. The light gilds the roses and makes their pink petals glow.
“My mother used to say that the golden hour is twice as long in Bantom Bay as it is anywhere else,” Lucy says. She cups her hands in front of her as though to catch the light, and it seems to Fitz that she really does manage it, that she holds the light there in her hands for a moment.
But the light changes an instant later, the sun slipping just enough so that it no longer spills over the walls and into the garden. And in that very moment when everything seems suddenly darker, the lights that have been strung throughout the gardens turn on, twinkling like stars against the watercolor sky.
Fitz is certain he has never experienced anything more beautiful in his long life.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Daffodil: A flowering plant in the amaryllis family with a trumpet-like bloom whose rich, honeyed scent carries a message of new beginnings
A collective whoop of delight rises from the terrace when the lights turn on. As I step through the archway from the rose garden into the sunken garden with my father and Fitz—my grandfather, I think, profoundly stunned by this development—the crowd’s excitement electrifies the air. I spot Jill near the reflecting pool. I turn to my father.
“Would you help Fitz find a seat somewhere?”
“I don’t need any help,” Fitz scoffs at the same time my father says, “Go. Stop worrying about us.”
For a moment, I look between the two of them, smiling. How had I never seen their resemblance before? Then I turn and hurry toward Jill.
“What happened?” I ask when I reach her. “Where are the developers? Did they leave already? Where is Donovan?”
