“What, at his last fight after he’d been knocked down?” A frown creased his forehead. “That was you in the corridor?”
“Yes. When you were telling him to go on and fight.” The vision popped into her mind, the disbelief as strong as it was on the night she witnessed it. “‘Just one more fight,’ you said.” Mari shook her head. “Do you have any idea what that knock caused? The damage that fight did to him? How the doctors think it may have started his brain trauma?”
He shook his head.
“The medical profession talks now about head injuries like concussion being the beginning of tumors or brain damage. The more knocks you take, the more chance you have of getting something. That’s what killed my husband. The constant hits to the head.”
“No. No, you have it wrong.” He moved forward and reached for her, horror etched into the lines on his face. “I was trying to stop him going back in the ring. I was asking him to sit out one more fight. Just one more fight before he got back in again. He wouldn’t listen.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was the one fight he really wanted to win. Scouts were there looking for talent. Rake had it by the bucketful. Anyone could see that. But, like any sport, you have to strike while the iron is hot and that night he figured it was his chance to get an offer for a place in the gym he wanted to sign with.”
“So he ignored you and fought anyway.”
Jeff chewed on his lip and nodded his head. “Yeah. That’s about it.” He dropped his head. “Guess he signed his own death warrant without knowing it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Is Ethan going to be there?” Noah smoothed his hand over the gel he’d massaged into his hair and ducked away from Mari as she tried to straighten his shirt collar for the fifth time.
“I don’t know, maybe. But it’s not Ethan we’re going to see. I’m taking you to meet your granddad. Grandma Pearl will be there though.” She picked up her car keys and looked around the apartment, saw the cake tin, and grabbed it. Bella would kill her if she forgot it after begging for the last-minute offering to break the ice. It wasn’t every day that Jeff apologized and now it was up to her to help fill the gap between them.
“Cool. How come we haven’t seen him before then?” He opened the door and scurried down the stairs, Mari close on his heels.
“Oh, you know how it is. Adults have to play at adulating. Jeff’s been very busy with cherry harvest just like I already told you. Ethan said he works nearly every day during the picking season.” After a sleepless night of chiding herself, it was the only sensible answer she could come up with. No more lies in this family and even though this was stretching the truth – it would have to do for now.
He paused at the back door and waited for her to catch up. “Can I go and see Ethan if he’s not at Grandma’s place?”
“Maybe.” She locked the door behind her and walked over to the car.
On the way to the farm she tried not to get overanxious about Noah meeting his grandfather for the first time. It’d taken another visit from Jeff for her to get the answers to all her questions before she understood everything. The complicated family dynamics and the impact on the family including on her childhood. The real relationship he had with Pearl that wasn’t anything like what she would have imagined.
She’d started to see Jeff in a different light and only now, the decision to come back to Cherry Lake felt like the right one. But there was still one more hurdle to climb. Was she up to it or would she fail at the first step? Time to find out.
When they drove into the orchard and pulled up at the house, her nerves were more than a little bit frayed. Her gaze went down the laneway to Ethan’s cottage where the peak of the roof was visible among the trees but she couldn’t see his truck. Maybe he was at work and she wouldn’t see him at all. Perhaps Pearl had told him she was coming and he was avoiding her. She could hardly blame him after what she’d done to him.
Their last meeting wasn’t something she was proud of. After being judged by his father and the town as a teenager, the last thing she wanted was to be judged by the one person she thought had her back. It didn’t help any that she now understood how his life had been since she’d been gone. Mari owed Ethan an apology. She wasn’t the only one that’d suffered.
“Noah. You’re here.” Pearl hurried down the path to wrap her grandson in her arms. “Come in, come in.”
“Mom’s got cake.” His voice became smothered as he was pulled against Pearl’s breast.
“Mari, you shouldn’t have.” The smile in Pearl’s voice was enough to tell Mari she should have.
“Bella was more than happy to pass it off to me. Jake’s struggling to say no to her sweets as it is and she has to test out recipes on someone. May as well be you guys.”
Footsteps sounded behind her and she looked up. “So, this is my grandson.” Jeff stood beside Mari, wonder in his eyes and, for the first time in her life, she thought she saw the real Jeff Benson. “My goodness. You look just like your dad at that age.”
Pearl wrapped her arm around Noah’s shoulders. “Noah, say hello to your grandpa, Jeff.”
Noah glanced at Mari but he didn’t need encouraging. He came forward and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Jeff laughed and
