CHAPTER 52
“Mike, why are you . . . ? What have I . . . ?” I asked.
He took his sunglasses off and ran his hand through his hair. He looked pained. He leaned one arm on my car and suddenly I heard him tap his fingers against the roof, like some frantic beat.
I waited for him to speak, but the silence and the tapping continued.
“I read some of the letters and the diary,” he finally said. “And, the thing is . . .” His voice trailed off and he didn’t speak again.
“Thing is?” I asked, after what felt like a torturous wait.
“I was with my grandmother when she died.” He stopped tapping his fingers; the sudden silence acted like an exclamation mark to those words. “I was holding her hand when she passed.”
“I . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that,” I replied. I could see the pain etched into his face as he stared off past me and the car, as if he was looking down a dark tunnel, trying to see what was at the end of it.
“I’m not saying it because I want you to feel sorry for me; in fact, it was probably one of the most special moments of my life. To be with someone, like that, when they are at their most vulnerable and . . .” He paused and swallowed, as if the words were sticking in his throat. “It was a privilege to be there at the end with someone I loved.”
“Of course it was,” I whispered, trying to hold back my tears.
“She told me something, though.” He finally tilted his head down and looked at me. Our eyes met with the intensity of a thousand galloping horses. Hooves hitting the ground hard, kicking up dust. Thunderous. Painful.
“What did she tell you?” I asked, unable to look away from him.
He tapped the roof again. “There had always been these whispered stories when I was growing up. I mean, I knew snippets. I knew she hadn’t loved my grandfather when she’d married him, that it had almost been this arranged marriage. I’d always gotten the feeling that there was more to the story, but no one spoke about it. It was as if no one was allowed to speak of it. Our family had a secret, I just didn’t know what it was . . . until I read those letters and her diary.” There was a long pause again, and I waited for him to say what he needed to say. “She loved someone once, someone she wasn’t allowed to love.”
“She did.” I nodded.
Then he looked away again. “You know what she said to me, as she was holding my hand and taking her last breath?”
“No.” I shook my head, tears starting to form in my eyes as I pictured the scene he was describing.
“She told me that she was going to die with only one regret. And that regret was that she had never spoken her truth and told her story. She’d kept it locked up inside and held on to it, a secret, for so many years. At the time, I didn’t really know what she was referring to, but, now, I guess I do.” His voice was overflowing with emotion. He was struggling to get the words out and I was struggling to keep the tears in. “She told me . . .” He paused. I actually heard the breath and the words sticking in the back of his throat. “She told me to always follow my heart. To love who I love without fear of judgement, and to never keep it a secret. To scream my love from the rooftops and let the world know, because she hadn’t let anyone know.”
The tears could not be held back anymore and they trickled down my cheeks. He started walking away from the car, and I watched as he stood in the middle of the empty road and looked up at the sky. He put his hands on his hips and stared, as if he was trying to find some answer that would come down to him from the clouds. And then he started walking back towards the car.
“What do you need to tell this story?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You obviously need something, or you wouldn’t have been running around stealing Persian cats and breaking into secure estates. Just what is it that you are actually looking for? No more lies. Tell me the truth.”
“I’m looking for clues,” I said. “Things to give me more insight into what they were both like. I wanted to see the places in the letters. I wanted to see the engraving under the willow tree, the room under the stage. I wanted to see all of that so I could get a better sense of them. I was also trying to figure out how their story ends, because it seems to end so abruptly in the letters, but there’s got to be more to it. It can’t just end like that.”
“She gets married to someone else,” he said. “That’s how it ends.”
I shook my head. “You’ve read those letters—their story could not have ended there. It just couldn’t have.”
“So you think there’s more?”
“I do. And I also think there’s another stash of letters somewhere.”
“Inside her favorite book?” He raised his eyebrow at me.
“Yes.” I reached up and instinctively touched the scar on my forehead.
“So, basically, Becca, you came here with the express purpose of taking someone else’s story and making it your own,” he said.
I nodded. So ashamed. “Yes,” I admitted.
