“You’re right. I am equally to blame. But do you know why I was so willing to go through with my grandmother’s request of me? Beyond my desire to please her?” I get right up close to him, my head tilted back, my gaze clashing with his. “You want to know my deep dark secret?” His dark eyes bore into me as I continue faintly, “Because I love you.”
No.
I look down as I amend, “I loved you. Once, when I was younger. I built you up as some fantastic mirage of a man. I left you roses on the dock every night when you swam—”
His expression suddenly changes, hardness giving way to confusion. He shakes his head. “You what? What do you mean, you—”
I toss my hands up in the air, and his jacket slips off my shoulders and falls to the sidewalk in a crumpled heap. It doesn’t matter; I’m immune to the cold now. “That was me!” I slap my chest. “Me sneaking down from my room so I could watch you swim night after night. I was obsessed with you. You gifted me those books on your last day at St. John’s, and you know what? I never returned them, not even when I graduated. I paid the fines and took them home and I still have them. They’ve felt like such treasures and I was so embarrassed to admit it, but now I can’t seem to care at all.”
A wild, end-of-the-road laugh tumbles out of me. I think I’ve gone crazy. I feel crazy.
“The last few months have left me with no ego at all so, in a way, it feels freeing to finally come clean about my silly infatuation with you, because it’s done.” I step back. “You’ve ensured that.”
I’m turning back toward the hotel when he says my name, just once.
“Lainey.”
There’s a poem in that word. It’s gentle and heartbroken and pleading enough that it brings forth a fresh batch of tears, but it doesn’t convince me to turn around.
Unbothered by my bare feet and mascara-covered face, I pull open the door to the hotel and go to find my grandmother. We have a lot to discuss.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lainey
It’s late, and we should both be in bed. Christmas Eve is about to become Christmas Day, and yet my grandmother and I are in the sitting room, cast in the twinkling glow from the Christmas tree proudly posed in the corner. When we got home from the Four Seasons, I asked if we could talk, privately. She had the forethought to tell Jacobs to bring us each a spiked hot chocolate, complete with a tiny candy cane dangling over the side of each mug.
Though it’s cheery and delicious, I haven’t had much more than a few half-hearted sips of mine.
I tentatively peer over at my grandmother and find she hasn’t touched much of hers either. She sits facing the tree wearing a wistful expression as she studies the delicate white lights and heirloom ornaments we hung together earlier in December. That easy winter day seems a thousand miles away now.
She’s never one to sit in her emotions, but tonight, she seems fragile and sad. Her austere mask isn’t in its usual place.
I feel bad for what I’m doing. I’d much rather continue to sweep our problems under the rug, but leaving well enough alone just doesn’t seem possible any longer. The rug is overflowing at this point. Besides, I’ve already come this far, and it seems silly to back down now.
I set my mug carefully on the side table and turn toward her. The ominous sound of china hitting wood draws her attention as I begin to speak. “This will not be a pleasant conversation, I’m afraid.”
Slowly, her lips curl into a melancholy smile. She tilts forward and sets her mug down as well. Then she looks at me with surprising gentleness. “Oh, let’s have it out and be done with it. The night was dramatic enough already. If I didn’t go into cardiac arrest at that dinner table while French curses were being flung across the room, I’m sure I can handle this. I’m not some wilting flower. Speak now. What is it?”
Her demanding tone draws the truth out of me.
“I’m not happy with the way things are,” I blurt. Then, more gently, I continue, “It’s…” I shake my head and start again. “I’ve tried so hard to fall in line, to simply exist in whatever manner you’d like me to, but I’ve come to realize that I can’t. Not anymore.
“For so long—since I was a child, in fact—I’ve been so terrified of displeasing you. I worried if I spoke up or went against your wishes, you’d assume I’m filled with too much of my mother’s flaws and not enough of my father’s virtues.”
“Lainey, I—”
“Please. Let me finish,” I rush out desperately. I hold a hand up, palm open. “I have felt your hatred for my mother as if it were hatred for me, and it’s a hard thing for a child to feel so wrong, merely for existing.” I let both hands fall onto my lap, trying to keep them from shaking with adrenaline. “The simple fix has always been to ensure my own happiness takes a back seat to yours, but it’s made life too hollow. Tried as I have to shirk her looming shadow, I’ve made peace with the fact that I will always be my mother’s daughter.”