The Echo of Old Books(119)

“Yes. I want them.”

“Take them, then, and get out.”

I scoop the box up into my arms; then, before I can change my mind, I lift out the hairbrush and lay it on Corinne’s pillow, a gift she doesn’t deserve. She doesn’t see me do it, but Hemi does. Our eyes touch briefly as he relieves me of the box. I pick up my purse from the bed and head for the door. I don’t say goodbye. I don’t look back. I’ve gotten what I came for and now want only to be away from Corinne and out of my father’s house.





TWENTY-TWO


MARIAN

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

—Charles W. Eliot

I feel a dull sort of closure as we climb into Hemi’s car, a sense of loose ends being tied up. The fall of the Mannings is all but complete. But our story—Hemi’s and mine—isn’t over.

We’re silent for much of the drive back. I stare out the window at the passing cars and blurring landscape, trying to process everything that’s happened in the last few weeks. Ethan and Ashlyn discovering the books. Hemi showing up out of the blue with a forty-year-old letter in his pocket. Corinne’s admission that she’d purposely thwarted my hopes for happiness. And soon, the last piece of the puzzle. The one I’ve held back.

That four decades of secrets have unwound themselves in so short a time seems impossible but inevitable, too, in some tiny part of my consciousness. Haven’t I always been braced for this day? When Hemi’s book arrived and I saw what he’d written—How, Belle?—wasn’t I already preparing for this inevitability? I was. Of course I was.

Ashlyn’s words have been festering all day.

Closure.

Is such a thing possible? When anger and loss have been your companions for so long that you can’t imagine waking up without them burning in your chest? When the face that has haunted you for so many years is suddenly before you, threatening to reopen wounds you believed scarred over? Ashlyn seems to think so. A belief I can’t help feeling comes from personal experience, though she never said so. She claims it’s a matter of deciding. And so I’ve decided. But before closure, there must first be a reckoning.

Mine.

And yet I’m not quite ready to shoulder all the blame.

Beside me, Hemi broods behind the wheel, his expression carefully shuttered as he navigates rush-hour traffic. I feel his eyes stray to my side of the car now and then and sense that he might be about to say something, but when I turn to look at him, he looks away.

“Are we not going to talk about any of it?” I ask when I can no longer bear the quiet. “What she said and what it means?”

He keeps his eyes fixed on the road, his hands wrapped tight around the wheel. “What is there to talk about?”

His response stuns me. “Perhaps we could start with the fact that we’ve both had it wrong all these years, and that I was telling the truth last night when I told you the letter you showed me was meant for Teddy and not you. I think I deserve at least that.”

He says nothing for a time, pretending to be interested in something in the rearview mirror. I wait, watching him. I used to know his face so well, every plane and shadow, but the years have hardened him, making him unreadable.

“And then what?” he says finally. “After forty-three years, we’re both sorry. Then what?”

The bitterness in his voice cuts me to the quick. “Then . . . we forgive, Hemi. We stop all the blaming and who hurt who first. It won’t change what we’ve lost. Nothing can change that. But it might pave the way for some kind of closure. For both of us finally being able to let it go.”

I hold my breath, waiting for him to respond, to give some sign that he’s heard me at all, but he remains mute, unreachable. I turn my face to the window, staring at the highway blurring past. Forgiveness. Closure. Such pretty words. But they felt false as I uttered them. Because I know there’s more to come. Much more. And much worse. Perhaps the unforgivable. And yet I must say it. Confession, they say, is good for the soul. But not here, with horns blaring and cars whizzing past. I need to be on my own ground when I tell him.

“Hemi,” I say abruptly, before I lose my nerve. “I need you to come back to the house with me. When we get back to the hotel, to my car, I need you to follow me home.”

He looks at me finally, his face slightly softened. “Are you not feeling well?”

“I’m fine. But there’s something we need to discuss.”

“We’ve been in the car almost three hours and we’re still an hour from Boston. Is there some reason we can’t discuss whatever it is now?”

“There is,” I reply evenly. “There’s something I need to show you.”

“At your house?”

“Yes.”

His expression is suddenly wary. “What?”

“Not here.” I turn my face to the window again. “Not yet.”



My hands are hot and sticky as I pull up into my driveway. Hemi parks behind me and gets out. I wrestle with my suitcase and the hatbox full of my mother’s things from the trunk. The rest will have to wait. And then suddenly Hemi is there, relieving me of the suitcase and box. I murmur an awkward thank-you and head up the drive, leaving him to follow.