“If you decide you want to get in touch with him, I can . . .” He started to walk around the side of the desk, but she backed away before he could reach her.
“I’ll let you know.” She opened the door before he could open it for her and left the office, her nerves a jumble, feeling his eyes on her back the entire way down the hall.
She wondered how she could get past Coraline without the woman noticing her swollen eyes and red nose, but Coraline was on the phone, her back to the hall as Maggie hurried past.
Once outside, Maggie took several long, deep breaths, trying to even out her emotions so she could think. When she realized deep breathing wasn’t helping, she walked to the corner and started up Cottage.
But when she approached her house and saw her daughters’ cars in the driveway, she knew she wasn’t ready to continue that conversation just yet. Not sure when she might be, she headed for the beach. She kicked off her shoes and walked on the pebbly sand to the lifeguard stand. She climbed up and sat at the top, her legs drawn up to her chest, and watched the calm water of the bay ebb and flow as night began to fall, and she tried to rationally think through everything that had happened. On the one hand, she was relieved to finally know what had put the bee in Natalie’s bonnet, but at the same time, she herself was annoyed. Did her daughters really think they had a right to know everything about her past? What was it about discovering the truth that had made them both so indignant?
Then there was Brett. She’d tried to ignore the nagging little voice that had warned her moving back to Wyndham Beach might not be such a good idea. She hadn’t been back for long, but already she’d run into him once in the general store, and another time in the post office. Both times he’d tried to speak with her, but she still wasn’t ready to hear a declaration of love when he’d never really acknowledged the reason they’d broken up so many years ago. Somewhere in her heart she’d felt there might be too much history between them for the future to hold anything that mattered, but seeing him break down had broken something inside of her, and the rancor she’d kept inside for forty years had begun to crack. She’d had no idea how much he’d suffered—he had so many regrets. Now she understood why Brett had been so persistent in his efforts to speak with her privately, away from prying eyes and ears.
And now there was Joe. Her son, no longer nameless, wanted to meet her. The reunion she hadn’t believed would ever happen was suddenly the one thing she wanted most—and all she had to do was say yes. Was she strong enough to face the child she’d abandoned so long ago? How would she know what to say? Could she tell him she’d wept every year on his birthday because she’d never stopped trying to picture him as he grew? That she’d prayed every night his mother and father loved him and had given him a happy life? That she’d never gotten over the pain of losing him?
She sat on the stand until the stars blinked their way into the evening sky, and slowly, one by one, all the pieces of her life began to fall into place. It would take strength and honesty. It would mean facing the truth unflinchingly. But if she was very lucky, in the end, the payoff would be healing and understanding, and maybe even love. It was all within reach, if she could only step up and accept the challenge, knowing her life would never be the same.
She’d begin where she needed to. She climbed down and headed for home, and the conversation she never thought she’d have.
Chapter Sixteen
GRACE
“I don’t believe she walked out on us like that.” Grace had been loaded for bear, and the fact that her mother had left the house before she’d had a chance to say one word had infuriated her.
“God, I can’t believe I did that to her.” Natalie covered her face with her hands.
“What could she possibly have to do that would be more important than explaining to us how she’d had this son she never bothered to tell us about? And seriously, Nat? You’re feeling sorry for her?”
Before Natalie could reply, Daisy stumbled into the room, half-asleep and rubbing her eyes. “Mommy, I can’t sleep. I’m lost,” she said, her voice small and frightened, and Grace couldn’t blame her sister for picking up the child and taking her back upstairs. She’d thought Natalie would come right back, but Grace was still sitting alone in the kitchen when she heard the front door open and close quietly.
Grace fixed her mother with her most lethal stare, and she was annoyed even more that Maggie ignored it.
“Where’s Natalie?” Maggie asked.
“Upstairs with Daisy.” Grace got up and opened a new bottle of wine. If she didn’t do something to relax, she was going to blow, and right then the only sure thing in sight was the bottle of pinot grigio sitting on the counter. She took a glass from the cupboard, poured, and drank.
“I’ll have one of those.” Maggie poured a glass for herself, then sat at the island, toying with the fruit in the bowl, rearranging the oranges, apples, and bananas. Finally, she said, “If you have something to say, go ahead, Gracie. Get it off your chest so we can get past this.”
“You think we can just have a nice chat and then we’ll be past this? How do we get past the fact you had a child you never told us about? That I have a brother I never met?” Grace knew her face was headed to ugly town, but right at that moment, she didn’t care. “Did Dad
