CHAPTER TWELVE
ELLA SAT IN her car outside Ben’s house. She’d left first, but from the twinkle in Henry’s eyes she doubted he was fooled by their abrupt departure within minutes of each other. From the half hour she’d spent with Henry before Ben’s unexpected arrival, it was obvious the old man was pretty intuitive. She’d figured Grace had already told Henry about the prank she and Cassie had played on her and Brandon.
Ella had envied Grace and Henry’s friendship as a teen, an age when connections with adults were normally fraught with tension or rebellion. Plus, Henry had never been the type to hand out unsolicited advice. He’d probably been a sounding board for Grace, whose relationship with her father had often been challenging though not as tumultuous as Ben’s had been.
Henry had been too discreet to mention what happened all those years ago. When he answered the door, clutching on to his walker, he’d simply given her a pat on her shoulder and told her how happy he was to see her. His only reference to that time had been a quiet statement. You were brave then, Ella, and you are now in coming back. He was one of the few people in the Cove who hadn’t leaped to conclusions about her—unlike the one person in town she’d relied on most of all for support.
Ben. Fancy him showing up at Henry’s like that. She guessed she had Grace to thank. The whole brother-sister act was wearing her down. The relationship between Grace and Ben had been different when they were teenagers. Whenever Ella was around the Winterses, the communication between them had ranged from sniping banter to moody silences. Of course, they were grown up now and behaving as adult siblings should, but Ella wished she and her brother had as good an understanding of one another.
She checked the time on her car dashboard. Despite her excuses to Henry, she had no set schedule. The days up to and through Christmas were free because she wasn’t due back at work until after New Year’s.
Ella heard the rumble of an engine and craned round to see Ben pull up behind her. This is it, she thought, as she got out of her car. The talk that would lead to his apology. Then she could get on with her life. But when he walked toward her, his face creased in a hesitant smile, Ella knew getting on with life now without Ben Winters in it might be a bigger challenge than the one she’d faced years ago.
“I appreciate your staying on a bit longer, Ella,” he said when he drew near. “I...uh...I didn’t want our goodbye to be unhappy. You know, the way it was last night. And then today, with that thing about The Beacon, I couldn’t let you leave without clearing it up.” When she failed to respond, he was silent for a minute before asking, “Want to go for a walk? We could talk inside, but as you saw, there’s no furniture.”
“A walk is fine, Ben. Anywhere in particular?”
“Along the beach? You’re wearing your new boots, so you should manage okay.”
Ella locked her car and zipped up her jacket. “I’m ready.” She knew her curt tone had reinforced his obvious nervousness but didn’t care. Now that the moment was finally here, she was determined to go through with it.
The waterfront was quiet for a Sunday morning. No more than a handful of people were out, some perhaps going to church and others to brunch somewhere. There were a few dog walkers on the beach boardwalk when they reached it. Ella shivered in the stiff breeze blowing off the water, wishing she’d worn her hoodie under her down jacket.
“Cold?” Ben put his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer.
She might have pulled away except she was cold, and his body heat wasn’t only warm, it was comforting. They soon reached the end of the boardwalk and stepped onto the beach, crunching along on the mix of snow, ice and frozen sand. When they came to the place where the arc of beach curved into the peninsula, the lighthouse at its tip, Ben stopped.
“I thought I recognized that reporter at your book talk but wasn’t sure,” he began. “I want to clarify that I have a majority interest in the paper, but I don’t manage it and I don’t want to, and yes, I could have told you in passing, but was the connection between your book and what happened really that far-fetched? Don’t you think that most people who knew the story would come to the same conclusion as that reporter did?”
Ella didn’t want to hear that, because he was right. Had she been fooling herself, insisting the two stories were different when all along she knew she’d begun her novel as therapy? That she’d intended to breathe life into a character who had a happy ending, not one who drowned on a summer night? She looked across the bay, blinking back tears. There was kindness beneath Ben’s blunt questions. That’s what hurt most of all, because kindness wasn’t part of her own agenda.
“Ella.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. He dabbed the corners of her eyes with his finger. “Don’t make this bigger than it is.”
Ella didn’t want to hear that. “I’m sick and tired of being accused of something I didn’t do! Everyone thinks that I wrote Brandon the note asking him to meet me on the lighthouse path and that it was my fault he ended up getting caught there at high tide. If Grace was so brave telling her family the truth, why couldn’t she have told other people in town? Even just her friends.” She couldn’t stop the tears and strode ahead toward the snow-covered dunes. After a few seconds she heard him follow.
He was gazing up at the dune where she’d slid the day before. “Looks like someone had a tumble. People should know better than to go up there in winter.”
“It was me.”
“What?” He was looking at her now. “This was yesterday? When you told us about going up there last night, you didn’t mention you’d fallen. And why did you go up anyway? Was it really for the view, as you implied?”
“I wanted to see the lighthouse. I thought if I looked at it close-up, I could exorcise the bad memories. Confront them and chase them away. Do you know what I mean?” She searched his face for some kind of affirmation. It was suddenly important to know that he could understand.
He glanced at the dune again, shaking his head. “You could have hurt yourself. Hit your head or broken something.”
“But I didn’t, Ben, and that’s—”
“Yeah, not what we were talking about a second ago. I can’t say I know what you went through back then, Ella. It was a scary and sad time for all of us but especially for you, because people were blaming you without having the facts. As for Grace, I don’t know why she hasn’t told anyone else. But that’s her responsibility, not mine.” He gazed out to sea. “I’m especially sorry that I didn’t come to see you after. I don’t know exactly why I didn’t, but...” His voice trailed off. “You were waiting for me. At least, I guessed you were. I’m not going to blame anyone else, but there was a lot of pressure on me and Grace from the family. Questions. Crying. At the time, we both just wanted to hide from it all. And knowing what I do now—what Gracie did—I can understand why she stayed in her bedroom for days after. I wanted to see you, but people needed me at home. Then your family left.” He turned away for a moment. “All of that doesn’t justify what I did, though. Part of me refused to believe what everyone was saying—that you were secretly meeting Brandon—because I knew we cared for each other. I knew we had something special between us. But then the doubts came. I heard about the note you’d written and—”
“I didn’t write it. You know that!”
“I do now, but back then I didn’t. I’m sorry I doubted you. Sorry I let you leave the Cove without giving you a chance to tell me what really happened. Sorry I didn’t contact you later, when the grief had gone. But by then, it felt too late.”
Ella had been waiting to hear those words for years, but she didn’t feel relief or vindicated. The turmoil in Ben’s face and the quaver in his voice told her his apology was from the heart, but her own heart was still hurting. She couldn’t help wonder if the apology she’d longed to get was going to change her life at all.
She managed a faint smile. “Thanks, Ben
. I needed to hear that.” She took a deep breath. “Now I guess I should get back to Boston.” As she turned around to walk away from the dune, she caught a glimpse of his face. Was that what she’d really come for? To see his sadness?
* * *
“I’LL HELP GRACE. You go sit with Dad in the den.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
His mother cast a wary glance at him as she left the dining room. She’d been quiet since just before dinner when she’d casually asked him about Ella. Of course, she’d said that Ella Jacobs, which had riled him, and he’d snapped, She’s gone back to Boston.
So now he was making amends. Apologies didn’t come easily to him. The confrontation with Ella earlier was proof of that. Even though he’d meant every word, the whole apology had been wrenched from him, as if some invisible being was pulling it from his chest. He’d actually felt sick afterward but didn’t know if that was due to the emotion involved or guilt. Apologies weren’t confessions, and Ben knew that, unlike his sister, he wasn’t ready to travel that path.
“This your way of saying sorry?” Grace looked up from loading the dishwasher.
“Huh?”
“I heard you just now snapping at Mom over Ella.”
“Then you also heard what she said—ʻthat Ella Jacobs.’ It ticked me off.”
“Yeah, I get that. It annoyed me, too. But you have to accept that Mom and Dad are still reeling over what I told them. And they’re having a hard time believing I was to blame rather than Ella.”
“It was months ago.”
“Yes, but Ella’s return here has brought it all back.”
“You were the one who invited her!”
Grace put down the plate she’d been rinsing. “I had to, Ben. You know all this. I had to make amends to her, too. She was a victim, just like Brandon.”
“Not the same thing.”
She placed a damp hand on his arm. “I understand you probably have mixed feelings about Ella, but there’s more going on here than her return to Boston, isn’t there, Ben?”
“Well, she was upset over The Beacon article...but mainly because I hadn’t told her I basically own the paper.”
“And you couldn’t have done anything about it. So you apologized, and then what?”
He hesitated. Talking about that summer night years ago was a topic very much avoided in the Winters household, even after Grace’s confession. “I realized that the review wasn’t the biggest thing bothering her.”
“So, what was?”
“She wanted an apology from me. For my actions after Brandon died.”
“What do you mean? Giving the police the note? I’ve never told anyone outside of the family, Ben. I swear.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I know, and thank you for that. But I should have gone to see her the next day and I never did. You remember what it was like here. Dad calling the relatives, and everyone descending on the house. The police with their questions. The phone calls. Mom holed up in her room with Aunt Jane. Savanna home from Augusta, looking like she’d been hit by a truck. Uncle Fred...”
Grace teared up and Ben cursed himself for bringing those days back when he knew she was blaming herself again. But he persisted. She needed to know. “Ella deserved an explanation for why I didn’t go see her the next day. For why I didn’t call. I acted like everyone else here in town, assuming she’d sent that note.”
“She felt abandoned.”
Grace’s voice was thick with emotion, and Ben felt for her. At the same time, she could have spoken up back then.
“Yes. And she was. Not only that, but you haven’t set the record straight here in town, have you?” He saw her wince but didn’t regret his words.
A moment later she asked, “How was she after?”
“What do you mean?”
“After you apologized. Do you think she was satisfied?”
Ben couldn’t be sure. She’d accepted it, but was that the same thing? “I don’t know. I thought so, but now...”
“She’s gone back, and maybe you’ll never know.”
Ben nodded. That was the crux of the whole matter. He’d never know for sure how she felt, because she was gone.
She spun around. “Ask her to come back. Reach out to her.”
Ben shook his head at the eagerness in her face. “I think it may be too late for that, Grace.”
“Maybe I can think of a way to get her to come back.”
Ben smiled at the faraway, thoughtful expression that he knew so well. This was the Gracie from last July—the schemer and plotter. But he doubted any idea she came up with would work. He pictured Ella’s stony face and remembered her voice when she abruptly announced she had to leave. Those few words, delivered so coldly, made him realize his apology was all she’d wanted. There was no more unfinished business in the Cove. She’d gotten what she came for. And that made him unspeakably sad.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ELLA PUT A second load of laundry into the washer. Her monthlong absence from her rental condo had been broken only by the few days of preparation for her visit to the Cove. Except for the small pile of mail to sort through, there really wasn’t a lot to do. That was a benefit of living by herself. She made her own rules and set her own schedules. She never had to compromise. The only person she needed to please was herself. She’d enjoyed those benefits since her divorce and had liked being on her own, until seeing Grace and Drew together.
The washer revved up, and Ella wandered from the compact laundry-storage room to the sliding doors leading onto her small balcony. She’d moved into the condo days after the one she and her ex had owned together was sold and was glad now she hadn’t purchased it. For the first time since then, she felt the unit’s size close in on her, smothering her like the memories of the past weekend in the Cove had. Cut it out, Jacobs. Move on with your life.
If only she could. Now she regretted booking time off over Christmas. She’d thought she’d need a rest after the tour, and there were always social events to look forward to in the season. Yet for some reason her calendar for the next two weeks was unusually blank. Then she thought back to the emails and voice messages she hadn’t gotten around to answering.
Why? Her only explanation was that after receiving Grace’s note weeks ago, she’d gone into autopilot mode. Life on tour hadn’t been as glamorous or exciting as she’d anticipated: cycling through the book talks in a string of small cities and large towns; repeating the same story over and over; signing books and smiling. Then Grace’s invite had overshadowed every thought and word. I’m going back to the Cove had been in her mind the whole time.
Ella stared at the sliver of gray water visible between the skyscrapers around her condo building—the “waterfront view” that had been the unit’s lead in the rental ad—and thought of the units Ben hoped to build overlooking the peninsula and the lighthouse. There was no chance of skyscrapers blocking that view. She hoped he got investors and town approval for the project, because it was a good one and she knew how much it meant to him. She wished now she’d told him that rather than fixating on her obsession about his apology.
Funny how perspective alters emotions. What happened that Labor Day weekend had dominated her few days in the Cove. She couldn’t seem to escape the past. Now that she was back in Boston, she realized she hadn’t given Ben a fair chance. He wasn’t the same person he’d been back then, and neither was she.
Too late for thoughts like these. She picked up her pile of mail to sort the junk into her recycling and scanned a handful of bills. Then she decided to make some phone calls. Christmas was less than two weeks away, and she knew people’s social calendars filled up quickly. All except hers, apparently. No doubt her small circle of close friends and her even-larger group of colleagues assumed she was either promoting her book or working on another.
Less than an hour later, the realization tha
t she’d probably be alone on Christmas Day had sunk in. The resultant phone call to her mother had been brief because her mother was on her way to the theater. “I thought I told you before you left for the Cove, dear, that Frank and I were having Christmas with his daughter and her family. And your brother is taking his family on a cruise. Didn’t he tell you that months ago?”
Perhaps. Ella couldn’t remember anything from months ago or even the days before her return to the Cove. Her mother had added, seemingly as an afterthought, “And how was your visit back? Did it all go well?”
“Sure.” Ella had lied, knowing her mother didn’t really want to know. The topic of that weekend had been taboo since they’d packed their car with the possessions they’d stored at the cottage for the previous ten years. Her family had loved their annual vacations and leaving forever—at Ella’s insistence—had been bitter. She wondered if her brother had ever really forgiven her for the loss of carefree days and his own summer friends. Her parents’ divorce months later had, for Ella, been tied to the whole mess. After her father’s death, there’d been no obligation to trek to Syracuse for holidays, and she’d never gotten close enough to his second family to continue the tradition afterward.
The calls and emails to friends and workmates were equally disappointing. There’d been a flurry of apologies—we thought you’d be with your family had been the most common—and a few half-hearted invites. You’re welcome to join us anyway had been the most humiliating, especially that tepid last word, anyway.
She spent the rest of Monday cleaning, buying Christmas gifts that she would now need to mail to her family and trying to come up with an idea for her next op-ed piece for the Globe. It was scheduled for the coming Saturday but needed to be filed by Thursday.
When Grace phoned her later that night, Ella was pleasantly surprised. “I know you must be busy getting settled after being away, but I wonder if you’d be interested in coming back here.”
That got Ella’s full attention. “Um—”
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