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That’s the one and only book of boyhood adventure that I’ve read, and I’ve read it cover to cover so many times now that I can probably recite it word for word. For him. I read it to get into his head, to stay close to him, to have some piece of Damien.
He bends the spine of the short book and uses his thumb to run through the pages until he comes to where the envelope is tucked inside. I want to grab for it, protect it, keep it to myself.
“Who was this guy to you? I know you dated him back in college, but that’s all you told me. Why do you still keep these pictures tucked away?” He studies the first one he takes out of the envelope, his expression pained as he shakes his head. “You look so happy.”
He shows me so that I can see what he’s talking about but I don’t need to look. I know every one of those photographs down to the most minute detail, and I know my face is lit up with the love I feel for Damien in every single one of them.
My first instinct is to say,Be careful.Those three pictures are all I have left of him, and they’re far more precious to me than the two-carat diamond ring Jack put on my finger. I don’t want so much as one of Jack’s fingerprints on the surface, let alone for him to bend or otherwise damage it in a flash of anger. With the care of a hostage negotiator, I hold out my palm and he places the picture in it. I hold out my other palm for the envelope and I’m thankful when he hands that over too.
“His name is Damien.”
“I know his name, it’s written on the back. But why do you still keep his picture? Are you still in love with the guy?”
I shake my head. How can I even answer that question? To say the words out loud, that yes, I am in love with a dead man, is to admit to Jack that I’ve been dishonest from day one.
But I will not dishonor Damien. I can’t.
“He died, Jack...A long time ago.” I don’t even realize that I’m holding the pictures against my heart until I see his eyes fixed there. “There’s a part of me that will always love him.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever loved, Grace, so maybe I just don’t know any better. I take what you give me and I’m happy for it. But you never look at me the way you’re looking at him in those pictures.” He takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think you’re in love with me. I don’t think you ever were.”
“It’s not you—”
He stops me. “It’s not you, it’s me. Are you seriously about to feed me that line of crap?”
But in this case it’s the truth. He’s done nothing wrong. The way I am, this closed-off version of myself who’s been sleepwalking through the past fifteen years of my life? All this time, he didn’t stand a chance.
I can tell him now and try to make him understand. I can tell him about Damien, about the pregnancy, about our daughter, about the warm and precious bundle I held only once. I can tell Jack how empty my arms have felt since the social worker took her from me. I can tell him about the despair I felt in the days and months that followed. And how the black cloud of that combined loss, of Damien and our baby, has followed me ever since.
“I can’t believe this shit.”
I almost smile at his choice of words because Jack doesn’t curse. I wish he would. I wish he would have cursed and called me out on my bullshit years ago. I could have saved him from wasting his time on me.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? All this time I’ve been competing with a ghost. This is so fucking ridiculous. You see that, don’t you?”
When he sees me twisting the ring off my finger, he stops. “What are you doing, Grace?”
“Last night I must have looked over at you ten times. You were laughing, Jack. You looked happy with Elizabeth, like you were having a great time.” He’s about to protest so I gesture for him to stop. “I mean it...I never knew what it was that you saw in me.”
He shakes his head. “You’re kind, you’re beautiful and you’re caring. I love being with you.”
“But you don’t know me. There’s so much about my past that you don’t know. And before you say it, I know that’s one hundred percent on me. I’m to blame.”
Jack steps closer. “There’s nothing you could tell me about your past that will change the way I feel. He’s gone. I’m here and I’m telling you that I love you.” He reaches out to put one gentle hand on my cheek. “I was angry last night. I let things build up instead of talking it out with you. And maybe I am guilty of playing games, of flirting and getting off on that kind of attention. But you know she means nothing to me. There’s no one but you.”
I put my hand over his, feeling more sure and steady than I have in a long time. He’s searching my eyes and then his hand drops when he doesn’t get the reassurance from me that he’s looking for.
“Wait.” I stop him as he turns to go. “Take this,” I tell him as I place the ring in his palm and then close his fingers around it. “You’re a good person, Jack, and you deserve so much more than what I can give you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Grace
“I told him.” Kicking at the twigs and dead leaves in front of me, I decide to come absolutely clean. “I told him the basics, anyway. I didn’t tell him about her.”
I’ve only shared my secret with one other person in all these years. It’s beyond bizarre when I think about it. My mother and father don’t know, I never told my Aunt Viv, never told the men I’ve dated over the years or the one man who put a ring on my finger.
