Chương 9
“I learned your name.”
“You never called me family.”
“You weren’t.”
“I was trying to be.”
“With a fake baby.”
“No. Before that.”
Eli looked away.
Celia pressed her lips together. “When I became pregnant, everything changed. Your grandmother stopped introducing me as Graham’s friend. The wedding date moved forward. Graham asked me what I wanted instead of telling me what was practical. Even you helped paint the nursery.”
“You thought we only liked you because of the baby.”
“I thought the baby made my place permanent.”
“So when she died, you thought we would throw you away.”
“I thought your father might postpone the wedding. I thought postponement would become doubt. I thought doubt would become the end.”
“And now it did.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
Eli heard footsteps in the foyer.
Celia moved toward the doors, then stopped. “I should not have said you planned what happened.”
“No.”
“I saw the tab before you did. I tried to hide it.”
“I know. The camera saw.”
“I know what the camera saw.”
“Did you hate me?”
She considered the question longer than he expected.
“Sometimes,” she said. “Not because you were bad. Because Graham loved you without needing you to make his life easy. I envied that.”
Eli did not know what to do with the admission.
Celia opened the library doors.
Graham stood on the other side.
His face was controlled, but his eyes moved from Celia to Eli and back.
“I told you not to come in here,” he said.
“I needed a book,” Celia replied.
“You are not holding one.”
“No.”
Mara appeared at the foot of the staircase. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Celia said.
Eli looked at his father. “She told me why.”
Graham’s jaw tightened. “You should not have been put in that position.”
“I asked.”
“You are a child.”
“I was already in it.”
Celia picked up the sailboat and handed it to Eli. “The glue on the mast is coming loose.”
He took it.
For an instant, their fingers touched.
Then she walked upstairs without looking back.
Graham waited until her footsteps disappeared.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“That she thought she could get pregnant again before anyone knew.”
Mara sat down hard on the bottom stair.
Graham’s face lost color.
“She said the baby made her permanent,” Eli continued. “She thought you only wanted to marry her because of it.”
“That is not true.”
“Did you move the wedding because of the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make the trust because of the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did Grandma start calling her family because of the baby?”
Graham looked toward Mara.
Mara stared at the floor.
Eli held the sailboat against his chest. “Then some of it was true.”
Celia packed for another forty minutes.
When she came downstairs, she had four suitcases and three garment bags. Graham carried two without being asked. Mara took another. Celia refused to let Eli help.
Near the front door, she removed a brass key from her purse and placed it on the console beneath the security camera.
“I will send someone for the boxes in the storage room,” she said.
Graham set down the suitcase. “We need to discuss the wedding announcement.”
“Say I’m ill.”
“I will not lie.”
“You have no problem protecting private matters when they belong to you.”
“I am protecting your medical information.”
“Then say the wedding is postponed indefinitely.”
“It is canceled.”
The word entered the foyer and stayed there.
Celia stared at him.
Graham’s voice remained low. “I will tell our families that you experienced a miscarriage and concealed it from me for five weeks. I will not mention the insert unless necessary. I will not share the recording.”
“You don’t need to tell them I concealed it.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise Eli becomes the reason the wedding ended.”
“No one knows what he did.”
“My mother will ask. The museum board will ask. Friends will speculate. I will not allow a story to form in which my son’s difficulty accepting you caused this.”
“You think telling people I carried a fake pregnancy will protect him?”
“I said I will not mention the insert.”
“They will understand.”
“They will know you lied to me. That is the truth.”
Celia’s eyes hardened. “Truth has become very important to you in the last forty-eight hours.”
Mara whispered her name.
“No,” Graham said. “She’s right.”
Celia looked almost disappointed that he agreed.
Graham continued. “I preferred the version of our lives that required the least examination. Eli told me what he saw, and I explained it away because believing him would have been inconvenient. You told me what I wanted, and I called that trust.”
“I loved you.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She stepped closer. “Then don’t do this.”
Graham did not move. “Love is not the question.”
“It is the only question that matters.”
“No. It is the question that allowed me to avoid all the others.”
Her face crumpled for a second before she restored it.
Eli stood near the library doors with the sailboat in his hands. He had seen Celia angry, charming, impatient, amused, and frightened. He had never seen her look ordinary. Now she did. Not elegant. Not dangerous. Not false. Just a tired woman beside too many suitcases.
She looked at him.
“I am sorry,” she said.
Graham’s eyes moved toward his son, but he did not speak for him.
Eli waited.
Celia swallowed. “I am sorry I lied about you after the tab came loose. I am sorry I tried to make your father believe your fear made you unreliable. I knew he was already worried you resented me, and I used that.”
Mara looked away.
Celia’s hands trembled at her sides. “I am sorry I made you doubt what you saw.”
“You didn’t,” Eli said.
“I tried.”
“Yes.”
“I do not expect you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
Graham’s head turned slightly, but Celia nodded.
May you like
“That is fair,” she said.
The driver rang the bell. No one had noticed the car arrive.
