“‘I watched Kate watch Eli. And it broke my heart a little. She thinks no one notices, but I notice everything. Kate is the smartest, kindest, most real person I know, and she would love Eli Lawson with her whole soul if he’d let her. But he won’t, because he’s blinded by Tessa. Why is he so dumb?’” He snorted a laugh and rolled his eyes. “Excellent question, Viv.”
“Keep reading.”
He sighed and continued. “‘Kate just stands in the shadow, pretending the light doesn’t matter to her, when anyone with eyes can see she was made for it.’”
Eli closed the diary, his voice strained on the last line.
The words settled over him like a weight on his shoulder. Seventeen-year-old Vivien, with her teenage wisdom and her diary and her fierce love for the people around her, had seen what he’d been too young and, yes, too dumb, to see.
Kate was made for the light.
“My mom’s been in love with you since she was seventeen,” Emma said, her voice making it clear this was a major revelation. “And you’ve been in love with her since…” She searched his face. “When?”
“Since the moment I saw her again in the spring,” he said honestly. “She thought I was the landscaper and I thought she was…an angel.”
“Then how can you let her go?”
The question was so simple, so direct, so purely Emma—Kate’s evidence-based daughter, who’d spent a month learning that some things couldn’t be proven in a lab.
“It’s not about letting her go. It’s about what I can’t let go of.”
“Your faith.”
“My faith.” He started walking again, forgetting the coffee as he held Vivien’s diary.
They passed the arch being assembled on the beach, and the rows of chairs being lined up for later.
“I do not get this,” she murmured.
That made two of them. But he owed her an explanation and had no idea how much Kate had shared.
“What your mother is asking me to do is deny something as fundamental to me as breathing. I can’t stop that, even for her. Or I would.”
“I get it,” Emma said quietly. “And every day I understand that a little more and, honestly? I think it’s what makes you the man you are.”
He knew that was a compliment, but he also knew where the praise belonged. “That’s God’s doing,” he said softly. “But your mother sees it differently.”
“She’s blind, too, like you were,” she said softly, keeping the slow stride with him. “And I feelsoresponsible, Eli.”
“You?”
“Yes! You took me to that youth group, and it changed my perspective on everything. But it also ended things between you and Mom, and I hate that.”
“That’s not on you, Emma. Not even a little bit. You cannot take blame or feel guilt or anything.”
“I can and I do.”
“Don’t,” he said. “What happened between your mother and me was building long before that night. The youth group was just when we both had to stop pretending the gap between us could be papered over with love.”
Emma was quiet, the sounds of wedding preparation now distant and secondary to the waves and water.
“Can I ask you something about God?” she said.
“Always.”
“Is this His plan? You and Mom not being together?”
Eli took a breath. “I don’t always know God’s plan, just that He has one. I trust it, even when I can’t see where it’s leading or stand how much it hurts.”
