The hinged lid of the box was locked with a silver-keyed lock. Looking at it made Logan mention again that she, and she alone, had spotted it and recovered it. Graham was talking on top of her about the hoisting powers of the winch. The rest of us were yawning. We were four very tired and punchy people.
We tried in vain to open the lock, but we didn’t have any tools, we were all exhausted, and our hands were sore and blistered. We decided to deal with it after the burial in the morning. We’d blow it up if we had to, but we would get it open.
It wasn’t even three o’clock in the afternoon, but the four of us were ready to call it a night. As Logan walked Graham out, I followed them to the door. I called after him. “Graham, you know you can’t tell anyone what we did last night, right?”
He and Logan shared a look. He said, “Yes ma’am, I know.”
I knew what that look meant. “Did you already tell him?”
Logan answered for Graham. “Elliott had a right to know. He’s the one who figured everything out.”
My hand instinctively went to my pocket for my phone. I had forgotten that I had lost another one to the waters of the lake. I couldn’t explain my urgent need to see him considering the fight we had had, but it was immediate. He knew that we had found the baby, that he was right about everything. For some reason I had to talk to him about it. I felt awful that I hadn’t been the one to tell him. I turned to Georgia and said, “I’ll be right back.”
When I got to Elliott’s house he was sitting on his porch, waiting for me. Somehow I knew he would be. On the way over there I had realized the improbability of Graham being able to get his hands on a truck with a winch in the middle of the night. That had to have been Elliott’s doing.
I wasn’t sure what to say, where to start. Elliott’s eyes were red rimmed, as if he had been up all night. It made them look even more green. My stomach hurt to look at him. I made my way slowly up the stairs, the two of us locked in a silent stare.
Finally I said, “Thank you for sending Graham with the truck. We couldn’t have gotten into the vault without it.”
He didn’t answer; he just nodded.
“Where did you get it?”
“It’s Jimmy’s. He let me—Graham borrow it.”
I dared to move closer and took the last step onto the porch. “How did you know about Oliver? How did you figure it out?”
It took him a long time to answer. “I’m not sure. It just hit me when you said that thing about being a good boy, that you would cook me dinner if I was a good boy.” I felt queasy as he said that, remembering the fact that I wasn’t able to cook him dinner because I was busy having all of the lies I had been living blow up simultaneously. He continued. “I realized that we had never looked for a baby being born after they were married. It all seemed to make sense. It was the only person I could think of that would be so important to Janie that your father would go to all that trouble to find and to move.”
“Did you know I would do it? I mean, go in and get him out?”
“I thought you might. You knew your father was never able to get permission to move him. I wasn’t sure you’d actually go through with it though.”
“I’m sorry, Elliott.” I couldn’t think of a single other thing to say.
Elliott kept talking as if I hadn’t interrupted him. “But I guess, well I guess I thought that I had pushed you away. Pushed you to the point where you would want to get out of town as soon as possible. Look, I feel . . . I feel really awful that I said that about your mother. I know that hurt you. I’m sorry for that.”
That comment about my mother had hurt me, but maybe it just hurt because it was accurate. I said, “It’s true though. She had a whole life she never talked about, and then there I go, following her lead and lying to you.”
He was wringing his hands together. “I know you weren’t . . . I know you didn’t keep it from me to be cruel.” Elliott stood up and I leaned back. I was pinned in between him and the porch rail. “Olivia, how could you not tell me? How could you keep that from me?”
I was trying to hold on to calmness and reason, but it wasn’t working very well. I just had to fall on my sword. Apologize. How could I have handled this so badly? Warm trails of tears rolled down my face. I kept brushing them off with the back of my hand but I was having trouble keeping up. I was so tired, and hurt, and upset. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I wasn’t doing it to hurt you.”
“I was just so stunned. I don’t understand. I didn’t mean to blow up at you like that. I should have . . . I should have given you a chance to explain but . . .”
I put my hand on his chest to quiet him so I could speak. Taking in a deep breath I tried, unsuccessfully, to stop crying. “I know I messed up. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Leo. I was just . . . scared. I think I was afraid that if I said anything . . . that you wouldn’t understand. That I would lose you.” I shook my head. I wasn’t saying any of this right.
Elliott stood there for a long time looking over my wrecked body. He was completely still and silent. Finally he took both my hands in his and rubbed them lightly. He could feel the calluses and blisters on my palms.
I said, “You told me that I ruined this before we even got started.” I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted to believe that this was our first fight, not our last.
“I was . . . shocked. I saw you two in there—”
“I know it was my fault for not telling you. I knew from the moment I met you that it was already over with Leo. I just didn’t know how . . . Then so much time had passed, so many things happened with us. I didn’t know how to go back.” I broke off, not knowing exactly what to say. He was still holding my dirt-stained, aching hands. I said in a hopeful whisper, “You didn’t push me away.”
“I didn’t?”
“No. I’m the one in the wrong here.”
“Yes, you are. You’re in a lot of trouble.” He put my hands to his lips and kissed them. Very gently. “Why didn’t you wear gloves?”
I smiled a little. My tears had stopped but my voice was still choppy. “I know. I didn’t think of that. Elliott, you have to know . . . how I feel. I can’t pretend this didn’t happen but maybe we could just start over? Are we . . . are we going to be okay?”
He made one small movement, a slight shrug and nod, and then took me in and held me tight to him. I could feel the flood of relief take over. He whispered in my ear. “We have to be. I don’t know what else to do. You have a lot to tell me, but we’ll be okay. Right?” He kissed my neck and behind my ear. “What choice do we have?” I ran my sore, blistered hands through his hair and pulled his face into mine to put a stop to all this annoying talking.
We had a few blissful minutes of making up and then I realized that some of the neighbors were starting to stare. Elliott led me inside. “How about some coffee, Liv?”
First of all, I loved it when he called me Liv. Second, I didn’t care one bit about coffee at the moment.
I held his hand, following him to the kitchen, where he lifted me up to sit on the counter. He began filling the pot with water. I told him that as soon as I had the energy I would start at the beginning, tell him everything about Leo. Everything I had been holding back.
He stood in front of me and said, “I think we should take things slowly, especially now, after everything.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist pulling him closer to me. I let my head fall onto his shoulder and rub his rough unshaven cheek, letting my hair catch on the whiskers.
Elliott gently traced the length of my back as he kept talking. “We need some time I think. I don’t want you to regret your decision and I’m worried if we rush into anything you’ll feel conflicted.”
Why was he still talking? I kissed his ear, down his neck. I breathed him in. He said something again with the word “slow.” I was going as slowly as I possibly could. It was taking every bit of self-control I could muster not to tear the jeans off his body.
He said
, “We should probably take some time . . .” He halted as I ran my hands down his back. “To . . . to sort out everything that’s happened since you got to Tillman. That would . . . that would be the smart thing to do.”
The thin T-shirt that I was wearing was gapingly large. The neck of it fell from my shoulder. He kissed me on my collarbone and lifted me off the counter.
I pulled him out to the couch and fell on top of him. Finally not having to stop, finally not being interrupted by Logan or thoughts of anyone else.
Then he flipped us over quickly, landing on top of me and pinned my arms above my head. Laughing he asked, “Are you listening to me at all?”
“No. Why do you keep talking?”
“I just said we should take things slowly.”
I said, “I honestly don’t think I can go any slower.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I stared into his eyes for a long time trying to think of which words I could use to best make him see my point of view. The words didn’t come. Maybe this was an argument better won by actions anyway. I leaned up to kiss him.
I didn’t have to put too much effort into changing his mind about that stupid waiting thing.
I got back to the rental house the next morning. I was sitting on the couch when Georgia came out from the bedroom. She put her finger to her lips and shushed me to let me know that Logan was still asleep.
It occurred to me that Georgia didn’t know that I had spent the night out. That I had been with Elliott this whole time.
She whispered, “She’s still sleeping.”
“Don’t worry about it.” We had to get ready for little Oliver’s funeral but we had time. “She can take the third shower.”
Georgia nodded, agreeing with me. “Was that the best sleep you’ve ever had? I think I was out by four o’clock yesterday. Did you sleep through the whole night?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I had slept, a bit. For maybe an hour? Maybe less. There were bits of time cobbled together where I slept with my head tucked into Elliott’s shoulder while he rubbed my back or snored gently into my neck. Those moments didn’t last very long as one of us would always seem to wake up and need the other one to be awake too. We talked for hours, whispering into the dark, and when we weren’t talking we were busy doing other things.
To answer Georgia’s question I said, “I slept a little bit.” But I had a stupid love-struck grin on my face, giving me away.
Georgia shot up and shouted. “Oh my God!” She remembered that Logan was sleeping and sat down again. She said in a scolding whisper. “Did you stay at Elliott’s last night? Did you sleep with him?”
“Well, we didn’t sleep that much.”
She hit me on the shoulder nearly knocking me off the couch. Then she stomped into the tiny kitchen and pointed to the floor at her feet, demanding that I follow her in there. She closed the small swinging door so that if Logan woke up she wouldn’t hear us. We huddled in there whispering. She said, “I can’t believe you! You’ve been broken up with Leo for what, a day?”
Was it that recent? Wasn’t it a lifetime ago? “I know. I thought you were on my side. You said you would support me.”
“I meant I would support you being alone. Not running off with this other guy you just met. You can’t just rush into this! You need to take some time to sort things out in your head.”
“Rush into this? I’m already in this. I’ve been in this since I met him. God, you sound like him.”
“I sound like who?”
“Elliott. He was saying all the same things. That we needed to take it slow and take time to deal with all of this. Especially since he hadn’t known about Leo. He was worried that I was conflicted. He thought it would be best if we waited before . . . you know.”
“Hold on. So he wanted to wait and you . . .”
I bit my lip trying to keep that dumb smile off my face. “He was pretty easily persuaded.”
“Olivia! You can’t do that!”
“I kind of already did.” I knew every one of Georgia’s gestures and intonations, and one look at her told me that she did not approve. At all. Normally having my older sister so obviously disappointed in my choice would be a bit upsetting but today it just made me laugh. “I know this seems strange to you and too soon and too reckless. Well, maybe it is, but I don’t care. Georgia, I’m . . . I’m in love with this guy.” I had my hands strapped across my stomach trying to hold it in. “And I just don’t see how time is going to change that. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. Ever.”
Georgia softened. She brushed the hair out of my eyes, like our mom used to do. “But everything’s such a mess right now. What if you get hurt?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care. I would rather throw it all in with Elliott and risk having my heart broken than slow down or be reasonable. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to do the right thing. I don’t want to be rational. I just want to be with him.”
She sat down on the small metal kitchen chair and pulled her knees to her chest. “That doesn’t sound like you, Livie.”
“I know. Maybe this is the new me. Maybe I dumped the old me in the lake.”
“So you . . . you really love him?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
“What does this mean? What are you going to do?”
What a strange question. What am I going to do? I’m going to spend all the time I can with him, of course. I’m going to meet his family, finally, and make them like me. I’m going to cook him breakfast. I’m going to tell him every thought I’ve ever had and everything I’ve ever experienced so that he’ll be the one person who knows everything about me. I’m going to hold his hand when he gets scared. I’m going to sing lullabies to all ten of our children.
I said, “I don’t really know.” Because the truth was I didn’t really know. I had a lot of very pesky realities that I was going to have to deal with. Not the least of which was the fact that he lived in Georgia and I lived in Maryland. That’s a long way to go to cook someone breakfast.
Georgia felt compelled to point out some of the logistics involved with this reality. “I mean if you’re serious about him then what, you’d quit your job? Move down here? Change your whole life? You couldn’t do that.”
I knew she was just looking out for me. And she probably didn’t want me to move so far away from her and her children. But in light of everything we’d learned this summer it was hard not to laugh in her face. “Gigi, that’s exactly what Mom did. She walked away from an entire life and started a new one.”
“You can’t use that as an example. Her first life died. Burned down. Drowned. Yours didn’t.”
I didn’t want to talk to her about this anymore. I was working on an hour of sleep and some kind of contact buzz from my night with Elliott. I gave her a tight hug and then moved to the kitchen door. “I’m going to get ready for the funeral. I’m taking the first shower.”
She gave me one of her wry smiles. “Good, because you smell like sex and mud.”
THIRTY-ONE
Georgia, Logan, and I had planned a small private burial for Oliver and our mother at Huntley Memorial Gardens. I got ready quickly and then left Georgia and Logan in the house while I wandered down to the lake.
The lake felt different in the mornings. The air was surprisingly cool and breezy. It smelled of fresh grass and blooming flowers. Later, I knew, the lake would feel hot and sticky, the surface of the water would be alive with skimming bugs, and the air would be filled with the smell of suntan lotion and the sounds of motorboats. I sat back and tried to enjoy this fleeting moment as the sun began to burn the mist off the rise on the opposite bank.
Eventually Georgia found me and made me come back up to the house to zip up her dress and fasten her bracelet and check her hair. I didn’t think she actually needed help getting ready; she just didn’t want to be alone as we dressed for yet another family funeral.
Georgia asked, resigned, “So when do I get to meet him?�
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I caught Logan’s eye and I could tell that she’d been acting as the Olivia-Elliott advocate the whole time she’d been alone with her mother. I said, “He’s coming over in a little bit to set up for the reception.”
“Who is coming to this reception? We don’t even know anybody here.”
Logan started counting off names on her fingers. “Elliott, Graham, Jimmy, Betty, Laura and all the other people from camp, Maggie—”
Georgia cut her off. “Okay, I get it. You two are locals now.”
I didn’t want to push her, but I had to ask. “And you’ll be nice to Elliott, right?”
Georgia looked put out. “Yes! Why do you guys keep telling me to be nice to him? When am I not nice?” I had to kick Logan to keep her from answering that question.
I waited out on the front step for Elliott so that he and I could have a minute alone before he was subjected to Georgia’s inquisition. He turned the corner onto my street and our eyes locked. We both smiled. When he reached the front porch he put down the bag he was carrying and sat next to me.
I said, “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Do you want to talk about it now?” I asked.
He took my hand and held it tight in his lap. “About what? About the fact that you’re a blanket junkie and you stole all the covers, or the other ‘it’?”
“I meant the other thing, but now that you mention it, I wouldn’t have had to steal the covers if you didn’t keep the room so ridiculously cold.”
“You are completely intolerant of changes in temperature. You know that, right? And you fall down a lot. What have I gotten myself into?”
“I’m a lot of trouble. You may not want to get stuck with me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I do want to get stuck with you.” He pulled me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s go get this over with.” As I walked into the house holding Elliott’s hand I felt overwhelmingly blissful and happy, utterly calm yet tremendously excited. It was that same strange mix of emotions that I felt they should really have a name for. It occurred to me then that they did have a name for it, and I was more convinced than ever that I was, in fact, stupidly, girlishly, giddily in love with Elliott Tate.
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