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But I didn’t know she was sick! If I had, I would’ve moved heaven and earth to be here.
‘What? Staying away?’ he presses, his disbelief audible. ‘Even when Gran was diagnosed...?’
I flex my fingers, breathe through the pain. ‘No...’ My voice catches as I risk meeting his penetrative gaze. ‘Not then.’
‘Why, then? Why not come home when you knew she was sick?’
‘Because I didn’t know.’
I look away in my shame, my guilt, and say it so quietly I’m surprised he hears me over the blades beating loudly above our heads and the static through the headphones.
He leans across the lush cabin—swankier than I ever thought possible in such a confined space—and touches my leg, tries to get my attention.
‘What do you mean, you didn’t know, Summer?’
‘Just what I said...’ I swallow the bulging wedge in my throat, blink back the tears. ‘She didn’t tell me.’
‘But all this time you claimed to be in touch. Hell, Charles assured me you’d always been in her life, that her love for you was as strong as it ever had been, that you were close.’
Close?I nip my lip and the tears keep on coming. The retort is on the tip of my tongue. So close she didn’t think to tell me something as important as the fact she was dying.
But I can’t say it. It hurts too much.
‘Summer?’
‘What, Edward?’ I shoot back, my eyes piercing his. I’m angry that he’s pressing me on this. Something I haven’t been able to come to terms with myself. ‘You know what she was like! She didn’t want to be seen as weak, as vulnerable, to have people fussing. She wouldn’t have wanted me to worry on the other side of the world. She wouldn’t have wanted me packing up my life to come back for her. She wouldn’t have wanted me...wanted me...’
I fumble for more reasons—reasons that I’ve told myself a thousand times over. But the only one I truly believe is that she didn’t love me enough to think I needed to know...
Or, worse, she thought I didn’t love her enough to care.
And if that’s the case why the inheritance? Why the letter so heartfelt and full of future promise?
‘No, you’re right.’ He snaps his hand back. The lines bracketing his mouth deepen as he presses his lips together, the rich brown depths of his eyes haunted by his own grief, his own confusion. ‘She wouldn’t have wanted you to worry or change your life for her.’
I ignore the way his words stick the knife in deeper and ask, ‘How long was she sick?’
‘I can’t believe you didn’t know...’
‘I didn’t, Edward. Please, you must believe me on this.’ Desperation makes my voice hoarse. ‘Do you really think I would have stayed away if I’d known?’
He debates it for longer than I like, his stare intense, and then he blinks and I see the shutters lift, the resignation in his sagging posture.
‘She was sick for a while.’ He sinks back into his seat, his eyes going to the window, lost in the past. ‘Like you say, she didn’t want to make a fuss. It was only when she couldn’t hide the pain that I forced her to admit something was wrong.’
His voice cracks but he doesn’t stop.
‘She refused treatment. Said it would only prolong the discomfort, make her feel worse, and she’d prefer to spend her last few months on this earth pretending it wasn’t happening...’
He takes a ragged breath and I fight the impulse to reach out for him, to offer comfort that I know he won’t welcome.
He turns to look at me. ‘You know, I don’t think she would have told me either if she could’ve avoided it.’
He looks so broken, so defeated, and I know what the admission has cost him. Gone is the cold executive. In his place is a glimpse of the man I knew and my heart aches for him.
‘She was too independent for her own good,’ I say.
‘She was too stubborn, you mean.’
