This Book Made Me Think of You(56)

Ellen takes a deep, faltering breath. She places the frame carefully back on the nightstand and smooths down the covers, straightening the threadbare toy dog resting on the pillow.

“I’m thinking of turning this into a craft room. I probably should have done it a long time ago, really. It’s been years since he left home, but I suppose I kept it like this in case…”

“He left me and moved back?” Tilly says, unable to stop herself.

Ellen’s eyes flick up to Tilly’s, her mouth opening wider. Then she presses her lips together.

“No. I wanted you both to move back.” She hesitates, glancing sideways at Tilly. “Him leaving you and coming back alone was only plan B.”

Despite it all Tilly laughs. It breaks something in the air and Ellen’s lips twitch, Joe’s mother’s eyes sparkling mischievously.

“I made it that obvious, huh?”

“You tried to talk us out of getting married.”

Ellen’s face cracks, pain sparking behind her eyes.

“Tilly, that’s not…” She takes a breath, steadying herself against the frame of the small bed. “I regret what I said that Thanksgiving. I was just adjusting to the thought of my son being so far away for good. Of having grandkids that I might only get to see a couple of times a year. I didn’t handle it well.” She reaches to briefly touch the stuffed dog leaned against the pillow. “It all seems so ridiculous now. To think that the UK was too far away to bear…He could be anywhere in the world as long as he was OK.”

As Tilly watches Joe’s mother sit on her son’s childhood bed, Tilly’s heart breaks for her. She crosses the room, sits down beside her, and wraps an arm around her shoulder. Ellen hesitates for a second before reaching a hand up and placing it on Tilly’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” she says in a choked voice. Tilly gives Ellen a moment to compose herself, then says the thing she wishes she’d had time to say to Joe.

“I would have moved with him, you know.”

Ellen’s head spins so she is facing Tilly. “What?”

“I didn’t want to at first,” Tilly continues, dropping her hands to her lap. “I had my job and my life, and moving isn’t something we’d ever seriously talked about. We fought about it…”

The arguments flash through her mind, her heart catching at the thought of every disagreement. Ellen is watching her closely, perfectly still.

“But that was just at first,” Tilly continues, sniffing. “Over time I realized how homesick he was. His desk was covered in photos of you all. Every time summer turned to autumn, he’d start wearing his old varsity jacket from college. His computer screen saver was a picture of the Connecticut trees in the fall. And whenever we’d go to visit my family, I’d see how much he ached for that himself—to have family meals with the people he grew up with. I realized none of the other stuff mattered. I loved him. I didn’t want him to be unhappy. So I started looking for jobs in New York. I didn’t tell him because I wanted to surprise him when it was all sorted. I was even offered a job.”

“Tilly…”

Her mind floods with memories and thoughts of how differently things might have gone.

“I was going to tell Joe about the job, but the day I got it was the day he got his cancer diagnosis.”

She pictures walking through their front door, her heart racing, a smile already creeping across her face. It had been hard to keep her interviews a secret, but it would be worth it when she saw the look on his face and he realized that she had changed her mind.

But when she stepped into the living room, he was sitting on the sofa, his shoulders hunched, and for the first time in forever, his face didn’t light up as she entered the room. The sparkle had gone from his eyes, their blue dull and lined with red. That was when he told her he’d been feeling off for weeks but had thought it was just some sort of virus.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she had asked him.

“I didn’t want to worry you when it was probably nothing…”

It had struck her then how they’d both been keeping something from each other.

In his childhood bedroom, Tilly pictures Joe’s face when he told her that the doctor had done some tests and he’d got the results. “It’s something, Tils,” he’d said.

She takes a deep breath, meeting Ellen’s eye again.

“Once he got his diagnosis, we were so focused on all the doctor’s appointments that moving didn’t seem an option anymore, so I didn’t say anything. The priority was just to get him the treatment he needed. But I can’t tell you how much I wish it could have been different. I wish I could have brought him back here. I wish I could have told him…”

She crumples then, shoulders rounding, her face tilted down as the tears fill her eyes. There’s a sudden warmth on her skin, and Ellen’s hand is in her lap, covering her fingers with hers.

“Tilly,” she says softly. “There’s something you need to know.”





Thirty-Six




Ellen takes a breath.

“Joe called me a few weeks before his diagnosis.” Tilly lifts her head, her eyes tracking across Ellen’s face as she speaks. “We talked for a long time. He started by calling me out on the way I’d reacted at Thanksgiving—which I knew I deserved.” She says the last part firmly, taking another deep breath before continuing. “Then he talked about you. He told me how happy he was. That he’d been happy since the day he met you. He told me how excited he was to spend his life with you. And that it was a life that would take place in the UK.”