“You actually found him,” she said, scanning the flyer again.
“Yup.”
“So what now?”
“That’s what we need to figure out. I’m not sure picking up the phone and saying, ‘Hey, cous, remember me? Is your mom still alive and kicking?’ is a good idea.”
Ashlyn shot him a sideways look. “That’s definitely not a good idea.”
“So what do I say? We met exactly once, when he was fifteen and I was five. How do I explain tracking him down now, after all this time?”
“Maybe you could use your father’s death. You could say you’ve been going through his things and you found some old letters and photos that you’d like to return to your aunt if he’ll tell you how to get in touch with her.”
“Hey, that’s good. It’s also not a lie. If she is alive, she probably would want them back. But what do I say to her?”
Ethan’s intensity surprised her. “I thought you were against trying to find her.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I was. But then I started reading and I think you’re right. There’s no way she forgets Hemi. I also think she’d want the books back—if only to assure they don’t end up in anyone else’s hands. The question is how to accomplish it with a modicum of delicacy.”
Ashlyn tried to imagine what it would be like to get a call from a stranger who knew the most intimate details of her past. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant thought. “I think you cross that bridge when you come to it. The first order of business is to find out if she’s alive and then see if you can get a number for her.”
While Ashlyn attempted to put the cards and letters back in order, Ethan wandered about the room, presumably mulling over how best to approach Zachary. She was looking for Marian’s letter about Helene’s photo album when she noticed a hardcover edition of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World on the corner of the desk.
It hadn’t been there last week—she would have remembered—but it jumped out at her now. By his own admission, Ethan didn’t read fiction, which meant it had probably belonged to his father. She ran a finger over the gray dust jacket with its oddly headless man. She felt it instantly, echoes pulling at her like an undertow.
Unable to resist, she picked up the book, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in again. Waiting. But the echoes refused to resolve, like a dissonant chord scraping along her nerves. Self-doubt. Inner turmoil. A man who’d lost his way and desperately wanted to find it again. A man searching for purpose, searching for himself.
Ethan’s book. Ethan’s echoes.
Turning to the title page, she found what she was looking for.
Ethan,
Be brave and do the work. But do it your way.
The world needs your voice.
—Dad
“It was a gift from my father.”
Ashlyn started guiltily. She hadn’t heard him approach, but he stood just behind her now. She closed the book and returned it to the desk, recalling the inscription she’d found in the battered copy of The Remains of the Day. It, too, had mentioned bravery.
“Be brave,” she repeated. “It’s a lovely inscription.”
“It was a thing with my dad—bravery. A guiding principle. I was going through a rough patch when he gave it to me, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, my work.”
“You didn’t always want to write?”
“No, I did. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to write. I had a friend, a guy I went to school with, who’d published a couple of novels. He thought it would be funny to send a manuscript of mine to his editor without telling me. One day, out of the blue, I get a call from a guy I’ve never heard of, offering me a three-book deal based on the piece my pal had sent him. A political thriller series, of all things.”
Ashlyn let the words sink in. A three-book deal. Out of the blue. It was the kind of thing that happened in movies, not real life. “That’s amazing. But I thought you didn’t do fiction.”
“I don’t. My friend bet me I couldn’t write a four-hundred-page novel in a year, so I did. I was just fooling around, trying to win the bet and shut him up. I never dreamed anyone would ever read it.”
“It’s the kind of thing every writer dreams of—being discovered.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t want to be discovered. I know it sounds elitist, but I didn’t want to write that stuff. It was, however, what my wife wanted me to write. The advance was six figures and all she could see were dollar signs and movie rights. She was already planning her red-carpet ensemble when I told her I wasn’t going to accept.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t take it well.”
“She was furious. When we got married, she tried to get me to reconcile with the family. She thought if I got back in Corinne’s good graces, I’d magically be back in the will. She lost her mind when I told her no. So when the book deal happened, she was determined to get her way.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No,” Ethan said tightly. “So she found Tony, the personal trainer. But not before she’d dragged me to hell and back over that deal. That’s when my father gave me the book. And why he wrote what he did. He knew I had things I wanted to say. He also knew that if I gave in to Kirsten, I’d never say them.”
“So you turned down a six-figure, three-book deal, knowing your wife would be furious.”
“Yeah.”
Ashlyn smiled at him over her shoulder. “You were brave.”
“Or stupid.”
“It’s never stupid to be brave.”
“Yeah, the jury’s still out on that one. For me, at least.”
Ashlyn studied him, noting, perhaps for the first time, the cloud that seemed to hover about his shoulders. He’d stood his ground with his wife, had made his father proud, and yet there was something that remained unsettled in him, something holding him back.
“I’ve never done anything brave in my life,” she confided quietly. “It was easier to just knuckle under, to be what people expected me to be. You should be proud you didn’t.”
Ethan responded with a halfhearted shrug, then dropped into a worn leather club chair. “So that’s my sad little story. What about you? What happened with Daniel? You said you were in the middle of a divorce when he died.”
Ashlyn ran her eyes around the room, in search of a distraction. She didn’t want to talk about Daniel, but it felt impolite to refuse when he’d just shared his own story.
Rather than sit beside him, she opted for the edge of the hassock, positioning herself opposite him. She didn’t have to tell it all, but she owed him something. “We met at UNH. I was in one of his classes and we started seeing each other on the quiet. The next thing I knew, we were married. It went off the rails pretty quickly after that, but I stayed. I wasn’t brave.”
“He was the one to leave?”
“No, I left.”
“What finally did it?”
“Coming home at three in the afternoon to find a woman named Marybeth in my kitchen—in my husband’s bathrobe.”
Ethan winced. “Ouch.”