Eliza couldn’t continue so Jacob carried on from where she left off. “I knew Rose was going to take the cliff path to meet me. I walked along it from town to meet her, and that’s when I heard her arguing with Richard. I went running up and pried his fingers off Rose. I took her into my arms before putting her behind me. Richard made a grab for her again and ended up knocking Rose’s bag over the cliff edge into the ocean.”
“So that’s how the clothes washed ashore,” Dean stated.
Eliza nodded her head.
“Yes. After that, he seemed to calm down and I begged him to tell everyone Rose had gone over the cliffs. He refused at first, but Rose knew something about him so he agreed in return for her silence,” Jacob said.
Mack was too stunned to speak, but Dean wasn’t. “So, you faked your own death?”
“It wasn’t planned that way. Rose really was just going to run away with me to be my wife, but pretending she died seemed the safest option. That night, I met her parents for the first time and her father made it more than clear that he didn’t want us anywhere near each other. Her father had many influential friends and was a very hard man. He would have come after us with everything he had, and all we wanted was to be left alone to get on with our lives, together.”
“But what about the phone call to Degan House a month later. Thomas heard your father telling your mother about Jacob calling and telling him you had married Richard. You said your father knew you were alive?” Mack asked, needing answers.
“We left that night to go to Boston and stayed with Eleanor, Jacob’s sister. After about a week of living there, Jacob arranged for us to be married. We knew I was really pregnant by then, and he didn’t want me showing without having the paper to prove we were actually married. He also wanted a
ssurance that if my father discovered the truth, it would be harder for him to take me away from him as I would be Jacob’s wife.” Eliza paused. “After a few weeks, Jacob thought perhaps he should ring to ask to speak to me and see what my father or mother had to say. I didn’t like the idea but went along with it. My father was just awful to Jacob and told him that I had married Richard and miscarried his child. I cried for the rest of the day.”
Jacob wiped the tears from Eliza’s eyes. “Then it was maybe three weeks later that I opened the door and my father was standing there. Jacob was at work and I didn’t know what to do so I stepped outside with him. My father was so angry and said I really was dead to him, and I better not let my mother know I was alive and obviously in good health. I asked my father how he knew, and he told me Richard had told him a week after the accident that I was with child. But it was only the week before that he’d discovered I was actually alive. Apparently, a friend of his who he hadn’t seen for a while saw me in Boston and asked my father about me. My father then went to see Richard again, and he told my father it was true and I was still alive.”
Dean and Mack were sitting on the sofa in silence. You could have heard a pin drop. Mack felt overwhelmed with the turn of events. Rose was alive. She had known there was something wrong with the information they’d uncovered. Although she’d hoped for a happy ending for Rose, she certainly hadn’t expected one. “So, you eventually went back to see Thomas?” Mack asked, finding her voice.
“Yes. It was 1955. Rose had missed Thomas so much. Her mother had died in 1951 so there was no fear of her finding out about Rose. We had a car by then so I drove up to Cape Elizabeth. Her father was home. I asked him about Thomas, and he told us he had died in Korea. It broke Rose’s heart and she cried for weeks. I can’t believe that bastard lied to us. I guess we should have expected it, but we didn’t, not about something like that,” Jacob replied.
“We have to see Thomas.” Eliza wiped her eyes.
“Grandmother, I think this is going to be one hell of a shock for him. Let Mack and me break it to him and then we’ll arrange a get together or something. But we need to go easy. Up until Mack read your diary, he actually thought you died hating him!”
Eliza brought her hand up to her mouth. “I loved him, and he has always been in my heart.”
“He has always loved you, Eliza. He told me that himself. What did you know about Richard?” Mack asked as she tried to mop her face up a bit.
Eliza and Jacob exchanged a look. “He loved Rose a lot, we really believed that, but Rose had discovered that he preferred . . . men,” Jacob said.
“Oh.” Mack hadn’t been expecting that at all, but all of a sudden, she remembered about Rose’s friend, Jayne. “What about Jayne? Did she know you were still alive?”
Eliza smiled. “I got in touch with Jayne about two weeks after we left Cape Elizabeth, and I knew for once, she would keep my secret because she has, all these years. Jayne was, and still is, my dearest friend. She’s gone away with her husband now. It was her house we went to the day of your mother’s garden party. Would you believe that she actually married Jacob’s best friend from the engineering company he started to work for all those years ago.”
“Thank you for telling us your story. I can’t tell you how much it means to me, knowing you’re alive and lived all these years, happily married to Jacob. It broke my heart when I thought you’d died, and that Jacob had been told you’d left him for another man,” Mack said, close to tears again.
Dean stood up and moved over to the desk to retrieve a box of tissues, offering some to Mack and his grandmother. He knelt in front of Mack and pulled her close so he could wipe her tears away, then kissed her. “Babe, come here.” He took her into his arms for a much-needed hug.
“Dean, may I have a word with you, please?” his grandmother asked. She started to leave via a door on the opposite side from where everyone had entered.
“Will you be okay?”
“Dean, go. I’ll be fine.”
He still looked apprehensive. “I won’t be long.”
She smiled back. “Don’t worry about me.”
Mack sat quietly with Jacob as Dean and his grandmother disappeared through the other door. Jacob looked at Mack and smiled slightly.
“So what did Eliza write?” He roared with laughter when he saw the look on Mack’s face. “That good, huh! Might give me a heart attack now.”
Mack started to giggle. “It’s pretty hot stuff, I can assure you.”
“Mmm, hot stuff. That’s what she was back then, she still is. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I can still remember the first day I saw her. I thought I was dreaming. It was a rescue at sea, and I was helping out on land. Heading back to get a warm drink, I just happened to look up and glance into the crowd, and there she was.” He was lost in his thoughts. “She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I felt my heart somersault in my chest. It was love at first sight for me, and before I knew it, my legs were carrying me over to where she was standing."