She smiled wryly at me. “Am I telling this story, or are you?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
July 1955
Hereford, Massachusetts
She sat for a moment behind the wheel, working up the courage to go pound on the door until someone told her where to find him. But then Tony walked out, peering up at the sky before pulling on his uniform hat.
Evelyn moved quickly, stepping out of the car and calling his name. He whirled around in surprise at her voice.
“What do you want, Ev . . .” He trailed off when he saw her face, his tone changing immediately. “What happened?”
Evelyn swallowed bravely, but her knees buckled, and Tony raced to catch her before she hit the pavement.
She woke up on the living room sofa, a cool, damp cloth across her forehead. She studied the unfamiliar ceiling for a moment before she remembered where she must be and why she was there. Turning her head, she saw Tony, who sat on the floor next to her, and she scrambled to sit up.
“Easy,” he said, and her heart broke all over again. She wished that she had found the words to explain to Vivie that it was possible to love two different people in entirely different ways without one being more or less than the other.
But what was done was done. And it was safer to stick to why she was there.
“I need your help,” she said dully.
“What have you done now?” He was almost smiling. Under any other circumstances, she would have pretended to bristle at that, which he knew.
“I can’t explain it all—but Vivie—” A tear slipped down her cheek, and she took a breath to compose herself. “Vivie wasn’t there when I woke up. And she—she left a note. Papa is going to call the station when I get home and say she’s missing. But it—Tony, it has to be an accident.”
There was genuine pain in his face as he realized what Vivie had done. But the rest—“I don’t understand.”
“My mother can’t know it wasn’t an accident. Papa—Papa will be okay as long as Mama doesn’t know.”
Tony stared at her. “You want me to risk my career . . . for your parents? The people who took everything from me?”
Evelyn wanted to shake him and say that he took everything from himself. But it would solve nothing to rehash that argument. Instead, she took his hands. “No. I want you to do it for me.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment, then exhaled audibly. “Destroy the note.”
“We already did.”
“Do you know where to look?”
“The water. Below the bluffs by the cottage.”
“And in a storm at night.” He rubbed at a muscle in his neck, then swore before looking back at Evelyn. “Why did she do it?”
Evelyn bit her lower lip. “She fell in love. And he—he married someone else.”
Tony looked back at her, the ice of his gaze ripping off another chunk of what was left inside her chest.
“Tony, I—”
But he wouldn’t let her finish. “Go back to the cottage. Call the station. I’ll try.”
She rose, and Tony held out an arm to steady her, but she didn’t need it. “Thank you.”
He nodded curtly, and she returned to her car, feeling as if she had aged a hundred years since the previous morning when she’d lazily scanned the newspaper over a cup of coffee and plate of eggs.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“And he did?”
She nodded. “No one else ever knew. Not my brothers or sisters. Not my mother. They all died thinking Vivie slipped, which was what the police determined officially.”
“Did you know . . .” I trailed off. “Were there any clues she would do something like that?”
My grandmother sighed heavily. “Looking at it now, maybe. Then, no one talked about those things. I think depression ran on my mother’s side. It was that darkness my father was afraid of if she knew the truth. That’s why I went to Tony.”
I sat in stunned silence, wondering at this man, whom I still hadn’t met, who loved my grandmother enough to do something like that and then keep the secret of it. Brad hadn’t loved me enough to stay faithful. Or even take out the trash without me asking four times, for that matter.
I looked at my grandmother. She had removed her makeup after her nap, which was why she looked older, and the telling of this story had left her tired.
Which reminded me—
“What happened today?”
She held out her empty glass. “I’m going to need another first.”
“I’m not pouring you another. You’re not supposed to be drinking.”