Sweet Forgiveness (34 page)

“Do you want to come with me?”

She looks around at the crowd, and I can almost read her mind. It's been years since she's been out of Harbour Cove, since she's been free to roam and explore and be responsible for only herself. “If you'd like me to.”

“Or you can stay at the apartment, take the train back Wednesday, just like you'd planned.”

She brightens. “Would you mind?”

“Of course not. I'll call you tonight. If it doesn't go well, I'll drive back tomorrow.”

She gives me a hug before I leave. “Good luck, sweetie,” she says, and pats down my hair. “I'm here for you. You know that, right?”

I nod. We've come a long way since that mother-daughter pair in Chicago all those years ago. Gone are the anger and judgment and the need for certainty. But our relationship isn't perfect, either. It's clear that the mother-daughter bond of my dreams is just that—a dream. We won't have long discussions about politics and philosophy and books and art. We won't share a love of wine and restaurants and films. My mother isn't a wise and savvy woman who's going to dole out life-changing advice or pearls of wisdom.

Instead, she offers something better. She gives my heart and all its fragile pieces a soft place to land.

E
xcept for the distant screeching of sparrows in the orchard, it's quiet when I pull into the vineyard just after four o'clock. I look around for RJ's truck, but it's nowhere in sight. I hurry across the parking lot and groan when I see the sign on the door.
CLOSED
.

Damn! I knock on the door anyway and peer up at the apartment window overhead. But the curtains are drawn. It's just as deserted as the rest of the place.

I collapse onto a bench on the patio. It's too late. I shouldn't have come. The voice of doubt creeps in, telling me I'm unworthy, that I'm crazy to think someone like RJ would ever love me.
Leave. Just go, right now, before you make a fool of yourself again.

No. This time I'm not giving up. I will fight for RJ. Maybe I'll lose, but in the end, I'll know I haven't left it to chance.

To kill time, I wander out beyond the main building, glancing at my watch every five minutes.
C'mon, RJ! I need to see you
.

I roam past a tractor parked on the hill, in front of a wooden shed. Beneath the eaves of the shed, I run my hand along a workbench hosting an assortment of tools. I pick up a hammer, a pair of pliers, a screwdriver. Each bears the initials
RW
etched into its handle. Robert Wallace. Bob's carpenter tools. My mother's gift to RJ.

My foot hits against something hard. I step back and squint. There's a box wedged under the workbench. The hairs on my arms rise. No. It can't be.

Slowly, I lower myself to a squatting position and peer beneath the bench. I gasp and clutch my throat. Bob's red metal tackle box.

I look around. Nobody's in sight. I move cautiously, as if I'm wading into roiling waters that threaten to drown me, once again, in the quest for certainty.

My heart pounds. Is the reappearance of this box a sign? Am I supposed to see the contents?

With both hands, I drag the rusty old box from its hiding place. It weighs almost nothing. In an instant, I make a decision. I'll put it in my trunk. Later, I'll pitch it in a trash container, sparing RJ from ever discovering the plastic bag of photos inside.

The minute the metal box slides into daylight, I see it. I gasp. The lid hangs open now, like the gaping mouth of a croc. I stare down at it.

The only thing inside is a rusty padlock, its hook severed with a hacksaw. Someone—RJ, no doubt—has finally solved the mystery.

The orchard disappears behind night's shadow, taking with it the day's warmth. I find a sweater in my car and wrap it around me, then move to a picnic table. I make a tent of my arms and rest my head on the table. Gazing out at the army of cherry trees barely visible in the dusk, I focus on a slew of twinkling lights somewhere far out in the vineyard, until my eyelids become heavy.

I startle when I feel a tap on my shoulder. It's pitch-black. I blink, and finally my eyes adjust. I can make out his face.

“RJ.”

I sit up, suddenly embarrassed. He must think I'm a nut, asleep here on his property. Or worse yet, a psycho stalker.

Every instinct tells me to run. This man doesn't want to see me. He's not going to forgive. What was I thinking? But I can't. I won't. I've come too far and lost too much.

He takes the spot beside me, his legs facing the opposite direction as mine so that we're shoulder to shoulder, our faces inches apart.

I put a hand to my chest, trying to calm my racing heart, and force myself to look him in the eyes.

“Please,” I say. “Feel this.” My hand trembles as I take his hand and place it on my thundering heart. “That's me,” I say, “terrified of you.” He tries to pull his hand away, but I keep it there, above my heart. “I'm asking you, begging you, RJ, to please forgive me.” I close my eyes. “And I'm scared to death, because you have the power, right now, to either crush this fractured heart, or help it heal.”

I release his hand and it falls to his side. He stares at me, his jaw muscle clamped tight. I turn away, wishing I could disappear. That's it. It's over. I've exposed my heart and still he's silent. Tears spring to my eyes, and I rise. I need to get out of here before he sees me cry.

My breath catches when I feel his hand clutch my wrist, pulling me back down. I turn to him. His eyes are soft now. He smiles and reaches out to graze his knuckles across my cheek. “I've traveled all the way to Chicago and back, and that's the best you can do?”

I lift a hand to my mouth. “You went to Chicago? Today? To find me?”

He nods. “A girl I know once told me, ‘When you love someone, you never give up on them.'”

“The very reason I came here,” I say.

He cups my face in his hands and leans in. His lips are soft when they meet mine, and my eyes fall shut. The moment is everything I'd hoped for—no, everything I'd
believed
it would be.

I pull the stone from my pocket. It's smooth and soft, and after so many months I almost mistake it for a comfort. But it's not. It's a weight.

“I tried to give you this once, at my mother's house. I'm asking you again, RJ, will you please forgive me?”

He takes the stone from me. “Yes, I forgive you.” His gaze penetrates mine, and he runs a hand down the side of my hair. “You're a good person, Hannah. A truly good person.”

My throat squeezes shut and I close my eyes. This simple validation is what I've been longing to hear all my life—what everyone longs to hear. “Thank you.”

“I'm sorry it took me so long.” He turns the stone over in his hand. “When you can't forgive yourself, it's hard to forgive someone else.”

I hold my breath, waiting for him to tell me about what he found in the tackle box.

“I never told you the true reason I've taken Zach and Izzy under my wing.”

I blink. “They're yours,” I say, without judgment.

“No.” He chews his bottom lip. “Their dad used to work for me. After one too many times of showing up drunk and at least a dozen warnings, I fired him. He begged for another chance, but I wouldn't hear him out.”

“You did what you had to do,” I say.

He rolls the stone in his palm. “Yeah, well, I didn't really have to do it. Russ bought a handle of Jack Daniel's on his way home. Fell asleep on the kitchen floor and never woke up.”

I close my eyes. “Oh, RJ.”

“The man needed help, and I turned my back.”

I take his hand and squeeze. “Let it go. Forgive yourself. The way I see it, it's the only choice we have.”

We sit in silence for a minute, our hands intertwined, and then he rises. “Come,” he says, pulling me to my feet. “I have something to show you.”

He grabs a flashlight and leads me through the parking lot and down a gravel path. I'm relieved when we pass the shed and he doesn't mention the tackle box.

He holds my hand as we move through the shadowy orchard, and tells me how he found my mom at the reunion. “I couldn't believe it when she told me you'd left. I told her I was going back, and made her promise not to call you. I wanted it to be a surprise. I drove ninety miles an hour all the way home. I was so afraid you'd be gone when I got here.”

“I wouldn't have left,” I tell him. “I would have waited forever.”

He lifts my hand and kisses it.

“I still can't believe you closed the vineyard on a Saturday,” I say. “I know how precious summer weekends are up here.”

“Believe it or not, we're on track to have the best year yet, which isn't saying a whole hell of a lot.” He grins down at me. “Now, if only I could find a good baker, I'd be golden. Know of anybody?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. But she comes as a set—a mother-daughter duo.”

“Really?” He squeezes my hand. “You're hired. Both of you.”

We walk another hundred yards when he stops at the base of a giant maple tree.

“It's all yours,” he says, patting the trunk and gazing up. “We've been waiting for you.”

The wooden tree house sits about twelve feet above us, surrounded by twinkling leaves and branches. I stare at RJ through a haze of tears. “You . . . This is for me?”

He nods.

I throw my arms around him and kiss his mouth, his cheeks, his forehead. He laughs and spins me around. When he sets me back on my feet, I grab hold of the ladder.

“Oh, no, you don't,” he says, blocking my entrance. “You can't get in without the secret password.”

I cock my head. “Okay. And what's the secret password?”

“You know it. You're the one who told me. Think about it.”

I smile, and think back to the evening at dinner, the night I told him about my dream of the tree house. When he asked the secret password, I blurted out,
I have a boyfriend, RJ
.

“C'mon,” he says, his eyes dancing. “You remember.”

I hesitate. “I . . . have . . . a boyfriend?”

He grins. “That's right. And the next sentence?”

It takes me a second. “RJ?”

He nods. “Two sentences, not one.”

My voice breaks when I repeat the password. “I have a boyfriend. RJ.”

“How does that sound?” he whispers.

“Perfect.”

It's foggy the next morning when we walk along the bay. My hair is pulled into a ponytail, and my face is pink from RJ's harsh soap. I'm wearing one of his old shirts and the leggings I had on yesterday. He drapes an arm around my shoulder and we walk in contented silence.

I didn't ask him about the tackle box last night. And I never will. The way I see it, one of two things happened since that confession nine weeks ago in my mother's living room. RJ has either discovered my accusation was valid, or he has learned to forgive me. I don't need to know which.

We stop along the shore, and he pulls the stones from his pocket. He keeps one in his left hand and places the other in my palm, the one that tells me I'm forgiven. He looks at me, and together we throw our stones—and the weight they symbolize—into the lake. We stand hand in hand, watching the ripples multiply and spread. Slowly, they merge again and finally disappear completely, so that nobody except RJ and me would ever know the stones, or the ripples in their wake, ever existed.