Bailey and I will go on—but without Owen, without Ethan. Owen, Ethan: the two of them start melding themselves together in my mind—the husband I thought I knew, the husband I didn’t. The husband I don’t get to have. This is what I’m considering.
This is the deal I’m willing to make if Nicholas is. Which is when I tell him why.
“It’s what Ethan wants,” I say.
“To live his life without her?” he says. “I don’t believe that.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t make it any less true,” I say.
Nicholas closes his eyes. He looks tired suddenly. And I know it’s partially because he is thinking of himself—of the daughter (and granddaughter) he’s had to live his life without. But also because he is feeling sympathy for Owen, sympathy he doesn’t want to feel, but he is feeling it all the same.
And there it is, what Nicholas least expects to show me. His humanity.
So I decide to tell him the truth, to say out loud the one thing I’ve been thinking all week, but haven’t said out loud—not to anyone.
“I never really had a mother,” I say. “She left when I was little, not much older than when you last saw your granddaughter. And she hasn’t been involved in my life in any meaningful way. An occasional card or a phone call.”
“And why are you telling me this?” he says. “For my compassion?”
“No, I’m not doing it for that,” I say. “I had my grandfather, who was completely amazing. Inspiring. And loving. I had more than most people.”
“So why?”
“I’m hoping it helps you understand that even in the face of what else I may lose here, my priority is your granddaughter. Doing what’s right for her, whatever the cost, is worth it,” I say. “You know that better than I do.”
“What makes you say that?” he says.
“You were there first.”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. Because he understands what I’m telling him. My mother never tried to fight for her family—she never tried to fight for me. That defines her. Apparently, I’m willing to give up everything to do the opposite for Bailey. One way or another, that will define me.
And if Nicholas agrees to what I’m asking him, it will define him too. We will have that in common. We’ll have Bailey in common. We’ll be the two people doing whatever is needed for her.
Nicholas crosses his arms over his chest, almost like in a hug, almost as if bracing himself against what he doesn’t know if he should do.
“If a part of you thinks that it will change one day,” he says. “That one day this will go away and Ethan can come back to you, slip back into your lives and they’ll let it slide… it won’t. That’s untenable. These men, they don’t forget. That can never happen.”
I summon up the strength to say what I honestly believe. “I don’t.”
Nicholas is watching me, taking me in. And I think I have him. Or, at least, we are moving closer toward each other. For better or worse.
But there is a knock on the door. And Charlie walks in. Charlie who apparently stayed, despite Nicholas’s instructions. Nicholas doesn’t look happy with him for that. But he’s about to get less happy.
“Grady Bradford is at the front gate,” he says. “And there are a dozen other U.S. marshals standing behind him.”
“It took him long enough,” Nicholas says.
“What do you want me to do?” Charlie says.
“Let him in,” he says.
Then Nicholas turns and meets my eyes, the moment between us apparently over. “If Ethan comes home, they’ll know,” he says. “They’ll always be watching for him.”
“I understand that.”
“They may find him even if he doesn’t come home,” he says.
“Well,” I say. “They haven’t found him yet.”
He tilts his head, takes me in. “I think you’re wrong,” he says. “I think it’s the last thing Ethan would want, to spend his life away from his daughter…”
“I don’t think it’s the last. No.”
“What is?” he says.
Something happening to Bailey, I want to say. Something happening because of Owen, because of his ties to all of this, that ends with Bailey getting hurt. That ends with her getting killed.
“Something else,” I say.
Protect her.
Charlie touches my shoulder. “Your ride is here,” he said. “You need to go.”
I get up to leave. Nicholas had seemed to hear me but then doesn’t seem to want to hear anything at all. And it’s over.
There is nothing else to do. So I follow Charlie. I walk toward the door.
Then Nicholas calls out after us.
“Kristin…” he says. “Do you think she’ll be open to meeting me?”
I turn around and meet his eyes. “I think so,” I say. “Yes.”
“What will that look like?”
“She’s going to be the one to decide how much and how often she sees you. But I will make sure that the well isn’t poisoned. I’ll make sure she understands that a lot of what happened here has nothing to do with how you feel about her. And that she should know you.”
“And she’ll listen to you?”
A week before the answer would have been no. Earlier today, wasn’t it no too? She walked out of the hotel room, knowing I wanted her to stay put. And yet, I need him to believe the answer is yes. I need him to believe it and I need to believe it too, in order to pull this off. I know everything comes down to this.
I nod. “She will.”
Nicholas pauses for a moment. “Go home,” he says. “You’ll be safe. Both of you. You have my word.”
I take a deep breath in. I start to cry, right in front of him, covering my eyes quickly.
“Thank you,” I say.
He walks up to me, hands me a tissue. “Don’t thank me,” he says. “I’m not doing it for you.”
I believe him. I take his tissue anyway. Then I get out of there as quickly as I can.
The Devil Is in the Details
Grady says
