The Echo of Old Books(101)

“Won’t that just confuse things?”

“Confuse things?” Ethan repeated, as if the question were utterly ridiculous. “Ashlyn, from the moment I met you, I’ve been confused about everything. This is the first thing I haven’t been confused about. When Marian asked about us today, you froze. You didn’t know how to answer. But I did. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I wanted to say, Yes, Marian, we’re an item. And then she reminded me that it was the books that brought us together. Well, the mystery is solved and we no longer have the books, and I’m afraid if I let you leave tonight, that’ll be it. You won’t have a reason to see me again.”

“You think I’m going to just disappear?”

“I don’t know what I think. I just know I don’t want this to be the end and it feels like it might be. I said it before and I’m saying it again, in case I wasn’t clear the last time. I want to see what we’re like together. To see if there’s an us—without Hemi and Belle.”

Ashlyn studied him, the sharp lines of his face muted now by the fog. But she didn’t need to see his face. His shoulders were bunched, his posture stiff, as if braced for a blow. She wasn’t the only one taking a risk. “Okay, then.”

“Okay . . . what?”

“Okay, I’ll stay.”

“We can make scrambled eggs if you want.”

Ashlyn frowned at him. “You’re hungry?”

“No, but that’s what couples always seem to do in the movies late at night. Make scrambled eggs together. Plus it sounded safe, and I want you to feel safe.”

“I’ll settle for a mug of hot tea and some honey if you have it. It’s freezing out here.”

Inside, Ethan lit a fire while Ashlyn located a box of Earl Grey and saw to the tea. When she finished, they settled on the sofa with their mugs. They sipped in silence for a time, listening to the crackle and huff of the flames in the grate. Eventually the quiet grew heavy.

“So, what now?” Ashlyn asked, aware that he’d been waiting for her to speak.

“Well, we could tell ghost stories, like we used to do at camp. I think I’ve got a flashlight around here someplace for effect. Or . . . we can talk. I pretty much bared my soul to you out there in the driveway—which, by the way, isn’t usually my style. Now it’s your turn. You’ve given me scraps here and there—stuff about your dad and your divorce—but I suspect there’s more to know.”

“Like what?”

“Like why you’re so scared. Of me. Of us.” He set down his mug and reached for her hand, curling his fingers around her closed fist. “I’m assuming it has to do with Daniel. You told me he cheated on you, but there was something else, wasn’t there? Something worse?”

Ashlyn stared at their tightly furled hands, warm and comfortable. But inside her closed fist, she could feel the sting of old memories. Of broken glass and screeching tires.

Yes. There was something else. Something much worse.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, shaking her head. “I don’t know how to talk about this with someone I’m not paying by the hour.”

Ethan gave her fingers a squeeze. “Maybe start from the beginning.”

The beginning. Yes.

“All right.” She closed her eyes, pulled in a breath. “I told you when my mother’s cancer came back that she refused treatment, that she chose to die, but I left out the part about my father going up to the attic a few months later and shooting himself while my sixteenth birthday party was happening.”

“Oh, Jesus. Ashlyn . . .”

She turned her face away, afraid if she continued to look at him, she wouldn’t be able to get through the rest. “I went to live with my grandmother after that. I changed schools and spent every other Thursday on a therapist’s couch. A specialist in family trauma. I learned coping skills, healthy grieving, they call it. In time, I adjusted. Or learned to pretend I had. I couldn’t bear to talk about it anymore so I pretended I was fine. I finished school and got accepted to UNH. And then I met Daniel.”

She extricated her hand from Ethan’s and stood, needing to put distance between them. She began to pace, arms clasped tight to her body. “I never saw him coming. He was always careful in his choice of targets, and a consummate actor. I fell for every bit of it. I told him everything, introduced him to all my demons. I gave him the power to hurt me—and he used it.”

“The student in your bathrobe?”

“Marybeth,” Ashlyn said quietly. “She was hardly the first. But she was the catalyst for me leaving. I filed for divorce the next day. He never thought I’d go through with it. When I told him I wasn’t coming back, he started hanging around outside the shop, watching me from across the street. He’d call at all hours, begging me to take him back one minute, calling me a bitch the next. His novel still hadn’t sold and he was on the verge of being fired from the university. His entire life was spiraling out of control. Naturally, it was all my fault.”

“Please tell me you called the police.”

The question made Ashlyn cringe. She hadn’t, but there hadn’t been a day in the last three-plus years that she hadn’t wondered if things might have ended differently if she had.

“I didn’t. He had enough troubles and I didn’t want to add to them. But I couldn’t go back, no matter how bad things got for him. I called him one afternoon and asked him to meet me for a drink. He thought I wanted to work things out. Instead, I handed him a list of how I thought our personal property should be divided. It was the last straw.”