Life Without You (20 page)

“But you know
now
. Do Uncle Jack and Uncle David know?” I asked, pretty sure that I already knew the answer.

“They do,” he replied, releasing a small sigh. “We all talked about it after I found out from Mom.”

“And the three of you just decided that Mama didn’t need to hear about it?” I interjected. I wasn’t really angry—not for myself, anyway. It was mostly that I was hurt, for Mama’s sake. For one reason or another, they had all decided to keep it to themselves.

He tightened his hand on mine, squeezing for emphasis. “It wasn’t to be mean, Dellie. We did discuss telling her, but your grammie asked us not to.”

I felt my gut clench.
Grammie
had requested their silence? But why?

My eyes must have telegraphed my thoughts.

“Your grammie was a strong lady, Dellie—for
other
people. She did a lot of things for a lot of people, but she didn’t do much for herself. That was just the way she was, I think because she never wanted anyone to feel overlooked. And you know as well as I do that she wasn’t the most confident woman in the world about herself,” he said, showing much more insight than I had expected. “It took a long time for her to start to believe that what she could do was enough, that people didn’t expect more. So for your mama to find out that she’d been engaged to someone who ended up leaving her—” he shook his head “—Grammie was afraid that it would make your mama look at her differently.”

“And she never got the chance to know otherwise,” I said, my heart hurting.

You were such a treasure and a gift, Grammie
, I thought silently.
How I wish I could make you see that.

Chapter Sixteen

“Annabelle, can I ask you something?” I ventured, staring holes into the paper coffee cup I was holding. I’d taken a break in my workday to meet with Annabelle, feeling the importance of making the arrangement, now that I had a little more information and even more questions.

It was nine days into my visit, nine days of so many unexpected revelations and so many emotions. I felt like, in some ways, I was getting to know my grandmother more, while in others I felt like I knew her less. It was ironic, really, how uncovering the truth could do that.

Annabelle cackled. “Technically, you’ve already asked me a question, dear.”

Good old Annabelle, never one to tiptoe.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my own roiling guts before I asked what I wanted to ask. Really, it wasn’t that big a deal, but I had the unfortunate habit of making humongous mountains out of molehills, and I seemed to be exceeding even my own natural abilities when it came to this subject.

Maybe it was a way of avoiding what I was dealing with in my own life.

Maybe it was a way of keeping myself distracted from the guilt I felt over not having been there for Grammie’s funeral.

Whatever it was, I needed to figure it out. Soon.

“Okay, you don’t have to be so literal,” I said, feeling slightly chastised. I knew I was being a bit defensive, but given how upended I already was, she could hardly blame me.

“Go on, Dellie, ask. Whatever it is, it can hardly be worth all this fuss,” she replied. “Just spit it out. We have places to go and things to do.”

She was right—we did, indeed, have places to go and things to do. Oddly enough, she seemed to have made it her personal project to intervene and be my fairy godmother. Her observations about my clothing and overall appearance had catapulted her into a full-speed plan of attack; and she was swearing up and down that by the time I left Hampton in a few weeks, I would no longer be the sad sack I was when I came up here. I had yet to be convinced that her mission would be successful, but I found it interesting to watch her try. And I was curious to see just what she might have up her sleeve. Lord knew I could hardly end up looking any worse…right?

“Did you and Grammie ever really…” I left the question hanging, not knowing quite how to word it.

“Set things right?” Annabelle finished, looking unflustered. “And by that, I’m guessing you mean did I apologize for running off with her fiancé.”

It was a statement, rather than a question, coming from her lips. She had no doubt of the intent behind my line of inquiry—I was feeling her out, trying to assess whether she was friend or foe, if I had reason to continue some feud that had begun long before my birth. Whether I could trust her, or if I had reason to watch my back.

Whether if, by being with her now, I was betraying my grandmother.

I nodded, chewing my bottom lip and finally looking into her eyes.

“Not in so many words, Dellie,” she admitted, and I saw a shadow of regret pass over her wrinkled little face. Or was I just imagining things?

We were sitting in a corner at the cafe in Barnes and Noble, fueling up for a few hours of what Annabelle claimed were going to set me well on my way to being a “presentable young lady.”

Whatever
that
meant.

At first, I’d been reluctant to take her up on her insistence that we go out and shop for a bit; but after giving it some thought, I’d come to the realization that I was never going to be able to really and truly heal, never be able to reclaim my life, if I didn’t keep taking steps forward. I’d made a few small ones, but I needed to keep going.

Letting Annabelle have a hand in making me over could hardly do me any harm, and it was, after all, one of the things on my list.

Plus, I saw it as the opportune time to get some more questions in, to see what new details Annabelle might be willing to provide.

I was taking one for the team.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I had a feeling I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it directly from her, rather than having to go on my own assumptions.

Annabelle fluffed at her hair and then picked up her coffee cup, looking at me thoughtfully, as though she was weighing her answer. I wondered, not for the first time, what was going through her head. And I wondered what she saw when she looked at me, the granddaughter of the woman whose fiancé she had stolen all those years ago.

Was there any part of her—even the slightest little fragment—that felt guilty about all of it?

Was she trying to make some sort of amends, even now, as she took me under her wing?

Was she trying to fix things by fixing me?

“Well, the two of us never sat down to talk about everything that happened when we were young. We each led our own lives and really only crossed paths occasionally; and then, of course, whenever I needed a cake,” Annabelle began. “But you already know all that.” Annabelle paused and set her cup back on the table without taking a sip of her drink, brushed at a piece of fuzz on the powder pink cardigan she was wearing today. The rest of her outfit was much more subdued than the last time I’d seen her, when she’d been decked out in Lily Pulitzer. Today’s ensemble consisted of a crisp white cotton button-down, pink cardigan, and light khakis with a pair of pink Chanel loafers. Her quilted pink Chanel handbag was parked on the tabletop next to her, no doubt replete with lipstick; compact mirror; and, of course, an embroidered handkerchief.

Obviously, Annabelle’s eye for style had been one of the driving factors behind my acceptance of her offer of wardrobe intervention.

“Merry was a good lady, Dellie. And no one deserves to have their heart broken,” she said, her face more serious than I’d ever seen it. “I know I might sound sometimes like I set out to steal George from her, but that was never my intention. The two of them were engaged, and I knew it—
everybody
knew it. But George and Merry weren’t really from the same social circles the way he and I were,” she explained. “As we got older and started getting more active in some of the social clubs around town and at school, we ended up spending a lot of time together. We certainly never expected that we would end up running away together to get married. Both of us would have much rather things had been more out in the open, but things don’t always happen the way you envision them, do they?” she murmured, dropping her gaze to her hands, where they now rested in her lap.

There was a long silence, and I could feel something building, could sense something coming.

Her eyes snapped up again to meet mine, looking both oddly resolute and oddly vulnerable at the same time. I held my breath as I waited.

“Let me ask
you
something, Dellie.” It wasn’t really a question, more like an introduction to whatever would come next. I braced myself for impact.

“Why is knowing all of this so important to you? What difference could it possibly make
now
, after Merry is gone?”

It was a reasonable question, I knew, but it was far from a simple one. Especially in light of the fact that even I, the one who wanted to know all of these things, had no idea of why it seemed to matter so much, why I couldn’t just take the facts as simply as they were presented and move on. Why had I made it my personal mission to find out more, when no one else seemed to be pounding down doors demanding answers?

Not even Mama was doing
that
. Sure, she’d been surprised to find out about it, hurt at the fact that her brothers had never shared their own knowledge with her. Heartbroken that her own mother had feared rejection from her. But she was also logical enough to know that things happened for a reason, and that Grammie had led a good life—with a family of her own—even after all of that.

So why
was
I hanging on so tightly when no one else was?

I felt tears pool in my eyes.

“Because I need to know that she was really okay,” I said, finding my answers unlocked themselves as I spoke. “I need to know that she wasn’t broken forever; that
I
won’t be broken forever. I need to know that it’s not too late to undo all the damage. I need to know that she’d forgive me for not being here for her funeral because I was too afraid to come, because I’m afraid of
everything
. I need to know that I won’t always be afraid. I need to know that Grandpa is going to be okay now that she’s gone, and that he’s not angry that I wasn’t here when I should have been.” The words were unfiltered and torrential and unexpected. I had never intended to give Annabelle a confessional, but once the flow of words had begun, I couldn’t seem to stop them.

And now I had dissolved into a mess of tears.

Annabelle whipped out her handkerchief and offered it to me.

I took the soft square of pristine cotton and dabbed at my eyes, trying to minimize the damage that had already been done to my makeup.

“I’m sorry,” I blubbered, trying to keep my voice low so that I didn’t attract any attention in our direction.

“Hush, don’t apologize,” Annabelle said softly. Soothingly.

There was a softness to her that I hadn’t anticipated, and it made me want to ask her to hold me in her lap, tiny as she was, and rock me until I was all cried out.

“No, really, I shouldn’t have spilled my guts like that,” I protested, trying to regain my grip on my emotions as I continued to mop at my face with the hanky, which was by now smudged with makeup and soggy with tears and snot.

“You hardly ‘spilled your guts,’ Dellie,” Annabelle said evenly, waiting until she could see that she had my full attention. “If you had, I might know what it is that has you so tied up and hurting,” she said, showing a level of understanding that surprised me. “I know you hurt, Dellie. We can all see it. And I may understand more than you think I do.” She took a deep breath, then continued on. “I’m going to tell you something that I’ve not told anyone else in all the years since it happened.”

I took in a breath and held it there, afraid that if I let it out, she would change her mind and leave me with yet another mystery.

“I was pregnant when George and I got married,” she said quietly—so quietly I almost thought I’d imagined it. “I was a whole month along by the time we were able to get away, and we knew that we had to make it look impetuous and sudden to keep anyone from suspecting what had really happened,” Annabelle continued. “Up until then, no one knew that George and I were anything more than friendly in social settings. They didn’t know about all the nights we spent out on his sailboat, looking up at the starts and dreaming foolish young dreams. But we fell in love and started an affair, even though he and Merry were engaged. So when we found out that I was pregnant, we thought the best solution—for everyone—would be for us to run away together, on what looked like a silly whim, and get married before anyone found out about the affair and the baby and put two and two together. George would look like the ladies’ man who ran off with the society girl; and your grammie would be the innocent—rather than the truth, which was that George was running off to be with the society girl he’d been having an affair with and gotten pregnant. The truth would have shamed my family and George’s, so we did what we thought would cause the least damage.”

“But it still did plenty of damage,” I protested, balling my hands into fists around the handkerchief. “Don’t you ever think about what that did to Grammie and how much it made her doubt herself?”

“You’re right. It did more damage than either of us wanted to admit. But we were young and reckless and in love and afraid of losing favor with our families. So we did what we did and hoped it would all turn out for the best,” Annabelle continued, gazing off without focus. “We thought we’d have the baby and tell everyone it was a premature birth, to keep the charade going, but—” Her voice caught, and she stopped.

“But,” I repeated, suddenly sick with the words I knew would come next. “You lost the baby, didn’t you?”

She nodded slowly, looking much older than she had only a moment ago. “I wasn’t very far along—we didn’t even have to tell anyone we were expecting. But when it happened, the doctor told me that it would be my last pregnancy, that I would never be able to carry any children of my own.” There were tears in her green eyes, brightening them to an almost electric shade. “So no one ever knew, and Merry never suspected. We were just the wild, impulsive couple who kept the society pages hopping.”