Alex came to sit on her bed. She was wearing the shirt he’d had on last night. He was in his sweater. "How are you feeling this morning?" he said quietly. "I had them bring up some food for you, in case you wanted anything."
"You can be so goddamned thoughtful sometimes, can’t you?"
"I try sometimes."
She threw off the covers and went into the bathroom. She came out a few minutes later in her own clothes and threw Alex’s shirt at him. "Thank you so much for everything, particularly for yesterday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving. Have a nice life."
"Wait," he said, and put his hand in front of her. She stopped but didn’t look at him. "I’d like to take you somewhere."
"And what Alex wants, Alex gets. Sorry, not this time."
"I want to take you to your house. I want to take you to the house you and your mother lived in."
She didn’t have any more tears to cry after last night. "Is it really my house?"
"It is really your house," Alex said quietly. "Yours to have, any time you want it. Let me show it to you, please."
"Fine." She walked downstairs and waited while Alex changed and paid the bill. Without looking at him, she got into his car. She didn’t say a word as he drove a short distance to a little house.
The shape of the house from the outside was as she remembered it, but the inside was dark. Alex opened the door into a small living room. The house was surprisingly dust-free. "I have someone come in every week," Alex said, as if reading her thoughts. "It’s good to have someone watch a house this close to the sea, particularly in the winter."
"How thoughtful." She sat on the couch her grandmother had sat in. A pretty view of the sea was behind her. She didn’t care. She stared now at a faded picture of her mother and herself as a baby. Tatiana was smiling and cuddling her giggling dark-haired little daughter. Miranda smiled involuntarily. That feeling that her mother had loved her had never left her, despite everything; even this.
"It’s a beautiful picture," Alex said, carefully sitting in the chair next to her. The chair she’d seen him in the first time she’d met him. "It was here the day I came to pick you up."
"Why did you leave it here?" It might have been nice to have had all these years.
"I suppose I thought that this would make this house your home, even if you weren’t here."
"In case you needed to send me here," she said without looking at him.
"No," he said softly. "I didn’t have any plans to send you away."
"How generous."
Alex sighed. "I’m so sorry. I never meant for things to become what they did. I never worried—not once—that you and Michael—"
"That Michael would get to me first?" she said, looking at him for the first time.
"I didn’t think he’d ever get to you at all."
"Had you told me the truth, he might never have."
Alex came to sit next to her. "Do you want me to tell you the truth now?"
"The truth," Miranda scoffed. "What difference does it make? How does telling me a sequence of events change what happened? How does telling me history make anything go away?" She closed her eyes and saw his face, his eyes. She heard his voice. She refused to think his name, because then she might lose her mind. "Don’t tell me anything else if you can’t make all this go away."
"I think you deserve to know."
"I don’t care."
"I should have told you. I knew that. I didn’t because I was so ashamed. You have no idea what I’m responsible for. Everyone else knows what I’m capable of. They’re all afraid of me, or they despise me; or both, but never you. From the first day you saw me, I was your hero. I’ve tried, believe it or not, to live up that. But of course I couldn’t, so when that failed, I tried to hide my sins."
"Lucy. Joanna Hazlett. Stephen. My mother. All your sins? More I don’t know about, I’m sure. All of it." She looked up at the ceiling, but even that was too painful. She buried her face in her hands. "What difference does it make now?"
He was silent for a moment. "I want you to know...maybe it was a mistake that you came into my life. At least, the way you came in. But I’ve never regretted it, and it’s given me faith that maybe there is something better in the world. You’re proof of that."
"I wasn’t a mistake," Miranda said softly. "I had a father and a mother, and they both loved me. I had a picture in your house of the two of them. They were married. They were in love. They found the letter my mother had written telling him about me when he died. He’d opened it. He knew about me. I know that. And my mother loved me. I don’t know what she had with you, I don’t know why she was in that car with Stephen, but she loved me. And there is nothing anyone can say that will make me feel like I was a mistake."
Alex nodded. "Everyone wanted you. If your father hadn’t been killed, things would have been different. There were accidents and tragedies—" Miranda grabbed her stomach "—but believe it or not, I’ve done everything I could to make sure you didn’t suffer one."
She was losing her mind again. She felt like her heart wasn’t in her body anymore. She knew where it was.
"Why did my mother die? I guess I want to know that."
"Because I was a jealous bastard. Because I was cold and ruthless even then, but I wasn’t very smart."
She knew he was crying at this point. She wasn’t sure if she should feel sad or gratified. "Why?"
"Your mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I don’t think it’s hard to see that. I met her with Stephen. Stephen wasn’t happy. Stephen hadn’t been happy for a very long time. It wasn’t Annabelle’s fault. It was in him. I thought I helped. But maybe I did more harm than I thought.
"When I saw your mother with Stephen, I assumed she was his mistress. Maybe I hoped it because Stephen looked happy. And I knew how messy it might get, but maybe it was for the best. Except that from the moment I saw her, I wanted her too. And I pursued her. You see, that’s what I do. I go after what I want. I have to. I’ve always been around people who got what they wanted so often that they forgot how to want. I didn’t. I never had the luxury. I get what I want, most of the time, but I have to work for it." He paused. "And I worked to get her. More so because she could tell what I was and that fascinated me. She knew she was a thing at first, and she didn’t like it. I had to admit that I wanted her beyond just having her." He looked out at the sea. "And then I wanted her worse than I wanted anything else." He wiped a tear. "I was going to marry her. She told me it was over with Stephen, and I was going to tell the world she was mine. But then I saw her with Stephen, and I lost control. I hit him, my best friend. And she looked at me like she had no idea who I was, and she told me to go to Hell.
"I was crazy with jealousy. I was sick with it. She wouldn’t take my calls, and I was convinced, absolutely sure, that she was with him. I’d lost her to him. I don’t lose things. So I did the worst thing I could. I told Michael’s mother they were having an affair. She didn’t believe me. She didn’t believe me because she knew her husband better than I did. But I convinced her."
Silence. Miranda couldn’t believe any of this was real because in reality, she should be with Michael right now, but she wasn’t. "And then what?"
"It took a little while, but I figured it out, or so I thought. Jim and Richard told me. The two of them came to Stephen’s house. Annabelle wouldn’t listen to anything. Why should she? Your mother got into her car, and she was very upset, I imagine, and Stephen got in to make sure that she wasn’t going to hurt herself." Miranda heard a small heave. "But of course, she did."
Now she could look at him. She blinked, shaking her head. "And then she was gone. And then he was gone. So how...how did you figure it out, if everyone who knew was gone?"
"Jim called me to tell me about the accident. I ran over. Annabelle was crazed with grief. I’d never seen her like that. She hit me on the face and chest. And I let her. And she kept screaming that I’d killed them both. I wasn’t going to say anything, b
ecause that was close enough, wasn’t it?
"She almost caused a scene at the funeral. Jim and Lucy—Lucy—took her and Michael in so they could watch her. But they didn’t do a good enough job. The doctors gave her some tranquilizers, but they didn’t watch her. She took the whole bottle.
"Jim was a wreck. Lucy—well, you know Lucy. They all—we all—thought it was best that Michael stay with me. I was his godfather. Stephen made me his son’s godfather." He shook his head. "Michael had never been very fond of me. I can’t blame him. And after everything that happened—I didn’t think there was anything I could do except allow him to have Richard whenever he wanted. Anything he wanted. Fix anything he broke."
Miranda imagined how much Michael must have hated Alex that week. She remembered how much Michael had glared at Alex, and had hated all of them, of course. She wished she could be the child she was and throw her arms around Michael and tell him how sorry she was. But she couldn’t think about being so close to him at any point in time. "Why didn’t I just stay here?" she whispered painfully. "And then I’d never have met him."
Alex absently traced the line of the couch. "It was a month after your mother died. I got a call. I’d spoken to her once before." Alex closed his eyes briefly before he continued. "She told me she was Tatiana’s grandmother, and she told me she needed to talk to me. I didn’t think I could turn her down under the circumstances.
"I’d never been here before. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? It was exactly the kind of place your mother would have come from. So beautiful..." Alex stood up and turned. He was crying but she didn’t care.
"I need to know. Why did I come to you?"
~~~
The cottage Alex walked into was the most charming place he had ever seen. It was light and bright. It was white inside, with touches of pink and red. He smiled in spite of himself, because it was so much like Tatiana.
As was the older woman, so much like Tatiana. She must have been in her late sixties, but she had the same eyes. He could tell that her hair had once been blonde like Tatiana’s. But her eyes didn’t have the same sparkle Tatiana’s had.
"I’m Helen Hamilton, Mr. Sheldon. Thank you for coming," she said as she walked him into the small living room.
"I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Hamilton. If there is anything I can do, please let me know." Alex sat in the chair for all of two seconds before he saw the picture on the wall. It was the picture with Tatiana, maybe a few years younger, holding a little girl. The hair and eyes were different, but the little girl had the same face.
He stood up. "Oh God, oh God." Her secrets. Oh, they were very different from his. "I had no idea." He turned to Helen. "I’m so sorry," and it was the first time in years that he meant it.
He shrank from her gaze. "Please sit down," she said gently.
"Where is she?"
"In her room," Helen answered. "I’ll be happy to introduce you after we’ve talked." Alex didn’t say anything. "I’m afraid my granddaughter wasn’t entirely honest with you. I hope you can forgive her. But," she said, looking at her lap, "I know that it was a mistake she intended to remedy." She looked back up. "She’d want you to know now."
Alex nodded mutely to the unspoken question. Helen turned her head in the direction of that window. "Do you see that beach out there, Mr. Sheldon? It’s one of the prettiest sites in the state, I think. Not too well known, maybe that’s part of our charm. But of course, we’ve never been entirely a secret."
"I used to be a teacher. Nothing too grand, I was just an eighth-grade English teacher. I’d wanted to be a professor when I was younger, but I got married to a wonderful man and we had a beautiful daughter. Her name was Eve. And she was worth giving up a dream for. It wasn’t much of a sacrifice. My husband and I had a wonderful life with her."
"She was fifteen." Helen looked even further out into the horizon, not at the beach but past it. "She grew more beautiful with each passing day. She had my eyes and hair. I must say, when I was younger, people told me they were my best features. But they looked much better on her. My husband was very handsome—she took after him as well." She closed her eyes, and smiled. "She was going to be a junior in high school after that summer. She wanted to make a little extra money, so her father and I said she could have a job that year. It’s a little livelier here in the summer, more visitors, more summer jobs. Her father and I thought she might work at the lemonade stand, or maybe even at one of the restaurants. But no, she ran home to us on her first day and told us that one of the families that were visiting needed a nanny for their son. He was about eight at the time—easy enough for a bright fifteen year-old to control." She turned to Alex, her green eyes suddenly flashing. "And would you believe, Mr. Sheldon, that that was the very first time I’d heard your name?"
Alex didn’t understand. "My name?"
"You were his best friend even then, weren’t you?"
"Stephen? He knew your daughter?"
"We met the family. The father seemed very kind. He went out of his way to ask about the school I taught in, my favorite students. He asked after my husband’s job as well. We were both very charmed. Stephen wasn’t a wild boy, very well-mannered at the time. I thought he might have a little crush on Eve, actually. The mother was a little standoffish, as if she were doing Eve the favor of hiring her, but we knew she wasn’t going to be around that much, so we didn’t worry.
"Eve went everywhere with the Abbots. She took trips into Newburyport, Boston, New York. We were a little bit concerned the first time she went out of town, but everything seemed alright. And Mr. Abbot—Michael Abbot—always went out of his way to talk to us afterward, to thank us for letting her come, to tell us how much Stephen enjoyed time with his special friend. So we had no reason to worry.
"On the night before the Abbots left, she didn’t come home. We didn’t worry, because it wasn’t the first time. We didn’t call. We knew she’d be with them. She knew she needed to be home so she could get her school supplies and pick out a few new outfits before school started the next week. We didn’t worry.
"But then Eve did come home. Late. It was past eleven. She was a sight, and we knew what had happened. Her clothes were torn, and she was bleeding, on her face, her body. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t tell us who. It was right on the beach. She had sand in her hair and clothes.
"I was washing her up, trying to see if I could find a doctor. My husband was going to go out to the Abbot house, to find out how they could have let this happen, why they didn’t look for her, call after her here. And then Evie became hysterical. She begged him, she pleaded that she didn’t want him to go over there, that he’d hurt him too. And then we understood. All of those times that we should have worried.
"My husband stayed. We waited until morning, when Evie was asleep. And then he went. But the Abbots were gone at that point. I’d never seen my husband so furious. He went to the police. He wanted to file charges. But he didn’t get very far. Did we really want to tell the world that our very pretty, very mature-looking fifteen year old daughter had had sex on the beach with an older man? How were we going to prove that it was rape, and that she didn’t consent? And Mr. Abbot could afford a nice, big house in Boston and a little summer place here. He could probably afford a very expensive lawyer that would make all of it go away quietly. Evie would be the only one who was hurt. And she’d already been very badly hurt.
"She didn’t want to go to the doctor. She didn’t want anyone to touch her that way. So I didn’t make her. But she wouldn’t go to school either. She wouldn’t get out of bed. She wouldn’t leave her room. She just cried.
"It was a month after it happened, and I thought she’d started to feel better. She was joining us for meals; she was even watching a little television with us. And it looked like she felt ready to go to school. But then she started getting sick. I thought maybe she’d made herself weak, staying in all that time, and she caught something from me or my husband. That’s what I told myself for a month. And then one da
y my husband looked at me, and we both knew what it was.
"We told Eve, and she went crazy. She tried to hurt herself, but we stopped her. We didn’t know what to do. My husband and I didn’t have any other family aside from each other, and we didn’t have anywhere we could send her. So we kept her locked away here. People asked questions, but it was all we could do.
"Before we knew it the time had come, the beginning of the spring. Evie had her little girl right here. She was beautiful. She looked just like her when she was born, but maybe her hair had just a touch of red.
"I named the baby after Eve’s favorite character from Shakespeare. She’d loved Shakespeare before. But she cried when I said the name. When I changed it a little bit, she stopped. So I thought it was okay. But Evie didn’t want to touch her.
"We took some time off from work so we could take care of the both of them. But Evie was worse. She didn’t even cry, Mr. Sheldon. She just looked out her bedroom window. She looked like she wanted to throw herself into the ocean.
"I took the baby out when she was a week old for her check up. When I came home, my husband was in the garden, trimming the honeysuckle bush. We went to check on Evie, and that’s when we found her." She blinked. She’d finished crying about this a long time ago. "She was in the bathtub. She’d found my husband’s razor.
"My husband died a week after Eve’s funeral. It was too much for his heart, but also his conscience. He never forgave himself for letting Michael Abbot get away with hurting Evie. He never forgave himself for letting a man like that win.
"So I was alone. It was just me and the baby. Eighteen years after I’d met the gentlest, most wonderful man, sixteen years after we’d had the most beautiful daughter, I was all by myself with a brand new baby. I was in my forties, I could do it, but it’s harder starting all over again at that age than it is in your twenties.
"I wanted that monster to know what he had done to my family. I wanted him to know that the price of his selfishness had been my daughter and husband. So I snipped a lock of the baby’s hair, and I sent a picture of her. I told him that Eve was dead, my husband was dead. I told him never to set foot here again, or I wouldn’t be responsible for what happened.
The Family You Choose Page 26
