The Wishing Tide (33 page)

Michael turned on his heel and began to pace. “And what about me? Did I not have a right to know? He was tired of my mother. Fine. Was he tired of me, too?”

“Evan, you have to believe me when I tell you the hardest part of this for your father, harder even than losing Peter, was giving you up. He couldn’t send for you, and your mother was in no condition to care for you. So he did the only thing he could. He made sure you had a family that could give you the same opportunities you would’ve had as his son.”

Michael whirled, jabbing a finger in Callahan’s direction. “Don’t you dare sit there and try to defend what he did. Don’t you dare do it! You’re wasting your breath trying to paint him as anything but a selfish bastard. The man turned his back on his family—just washed his hands of us.”

“He never lost track of you,” Callahan said softly. “He knew about every graduation, every award, every significant event in your life.”

“How the hell would he know anything about me?”

“From me. He asked me to let him know how you were from time to time.” He slid a stack of envelopes to the edge of the desk, tapping them with the flats of his fingers. “These are for you.”

Michael eyed the stack warily. “What are they?”

“Letters,” he said evenly. “From your father to you. In case you ever learned the truth.”

“And if I never did?”

The look he gave Michael bordered on reproach. “I don’t think he really ever expected that you’d read them. I think it just made him feel better to write them, to pretend he was still a part of your life.”

“He should have considered that before pulling his disappearing act.”

Callahan ignored the remark. “The last of them, the one on top of the stack, arrived a week after his death.”

Michael glanced at the letters but made no move to touch them. “I don’t want them.”

“Not now, no. But you will, Evan.”

Okay, it was time to get a few things straight. “My name is
Michael. Not Evan—Michael. And there’s nothing in those letters I care to read.”

Lane brushed his hand. “He’s right, Michael. Take them.”

“Fine,” he snapped, swiping the top letter off the stack and stuffing it into his back pocket. It didn’t mean he was going to read it, but if it got them off his back, fine. “I’ll take one. You can burn the rest, for all I care.”

Callahan rose and came around the desk, a weighty manila envelope in his hands. “This is a copy of your father’s will. You’ll also find the deed to the house, and other pertinent financial paperwork. There were no other children. Everything your father had will go to you now, except for Hannah’s trust and the Hope House Foundation. I’ll follow up in a few days, if that’s all right, to see how you’re feeling about things, and answer any questions.”

Michael knew he should shake the man’s hand, say thank you, say something; he just couldn’t. With a vague nod, he caught Lane’s eye and gestured toward the door. Lane followed him but turned back to Callahan as they reached the doorway.

“The woman—Margaret—did you know her, Mr. Callahan?”

Callahan nodded. “She was my secretary.”

“Can you tell me if she happened to have red hair?”

The question clearly came as a surprise. “Yes, she did. Why do you ask?”

“A sketch of Hannah’s—a mermaid with red hair. It makes sense now.”

Michael knew the sketch well, had seen it a thousand times in Hannah’s sketchbook, but had never connected the dots to the other woman—to Margaret. He was a boy then, ignorant of such things, and if truth be told, unwilling to believe his mother’s assertions. Turned out, she’d been right all along.

“Ah yes.” Callahan’s expression was tinged with sadness. “Lovely things, those sketches. She had a real gift, lots of them, in fact.”

Lane took a tentative step back into the room. “Mr. Callahan, I’m not sure why I’m saying this, and I’m fairly certain Michael won’t agree, but I think there was something noble in what you did for Samuel Rourke—and for Hannah.”

Michael stared at her, annoyed and vaguely stunned. Damn right he didn’t agree. But Callahan was smiling, a tremulous blend of grief and gratitude.

“You loved her,” Lane said softly. “All this time, you loved her.”

Callahan removed his glasses and folded them into the pocket of his cardigan. “I couldn’t help myself. She was unlike any woman I’d ever known. She never looked twice at me, though. She only had eyes for Sam. Sam knew how I felt. I suppose it’s how he knew I’d look after her. We were best friends, closer than brothers, but he was never right for Hannah. The things that attracted him to her were the things that drove him away in the end. He wasn’t capable of dealing with her . . . problems.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing tellingly as picked up his glass and drained it.

“But you were?” Lane asked in a way that wasn’t a question at all.

Callahan set aside his empty glass, his smile gone. “I would have liked the chance to try.”

Lane

I
t was dark when they finally made it back to Starry Point, the air knife sharp as Lane opened the door of the SUV and stepped out onto the drive. The clouds that had shadowed them all day had finally begun to shred, revealing a spatter of crisp white stars and a bone white sliver of moon.

Michael hadn’t said a word on the ride back, fuming stonily behind the wheel, his eyes locked on the road as I-40 blurred past. There had been so much she wanted to say, so many questions she longed to ask. In the end, she had kept it all to herself. He slammed the car door now, marching away from the inn, and then across the street with long, purposeful strides.

Lane followed a few paces behind, silent as they slogged through the carpet of wet leaves that blanketed the lawn. She should have seen this coming, not that she could have stopped him. Rourke House was his now, to do with as he pleased, which was precisely what worried her. She couldn’t help sneaking a glance at the greenhouse, a chilling reminder of Michael’s long-suppressed anger. After today, another session of venting might be exactly what he needed—and what he deserved.

But Michael didn’t head to the greenhouse. Instead, he followed the weedy path up onto the front porch and sank down onto the top
step, hands propped on his knees. Lane didn’t wait for an invitation. Tucking her hands up into the sleeves of her coat, she eased down beside him. It was all she could do not to touch him, to smooth the deep furrow between his brows.

“What are you going to do?” she asked instead.

Michael threw her a sidelong glance. “Do?”

It was a familiar conversation. “About your father . . . the letter . . . all of it.”

“I haven’t the first goddamn idea.”

“No, I guess not. Look, it’s cold. Why don’t we go back to the inn? I’ll fix you something to eat.”

“You can’t fix this with food, Lane.”

“How about alcohol?”

He managed a smile, but there was no humor in it. “No, thanks. If I start drinking now I might never stop. What I really need is to just sit here with my thoughts.”

“You want me to go?”

“Yes.”

“Will you promise not to go into the house? After everything, I don’t think you should. At least not yet.”

“I have no intention of going inside. I just need some time alone, to try to wrap my head around all this. Everything changed today. Everything I built my life around—everything I grew up believing—was a lie. I need to think about that, about what it means, and what I’m supposed to believe now—do now.”

Standing, she brushed the leaves from the seat of her pants, still fighting the urge to touch his face, all shadows now in the chilly moonlight. “Don’t stay too long, though. It’s cold.”

She was stretched out on her bed, running through the blurred events of the day, when she heard his knock. He looked miserable when she
opened the door, although after the last forty-eight hours, he was certainly entitled. He said nothing as he stepped into the room, just pressed a thin white envelope into her hands. It was still sealed but badly rumpled, as if he’d been holding it for a very long time, trying to find the strength to open it.

“Read it,” he said bluntly.

“You’re sure?”

“No, but read it anyway before I lose my nerve and burn the damn thing.”

Lane lifted her head sharply. “You can’t. Not without knowing what it says.”

“I know,” he said flatly. “But I want to.” Wandering to the window, he stared out at the darkened beach, flinching a little each time the light swept past the glass. “I used to sleep in this room,” he said flatly. “Back when I was a boy. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes, you did. How many others were there?”

“Fifteen to twenty, give or take, all lined up like little soldiers in those skinny iron beds. The number was always changing. New kids came in; others got homes—like puppies at the pound.”

Lane didn’t want to think of him as a boy here, miserable and alone. She had teased him once, about yachting camp, and all the while he’d been living with memories no boy should ever have to live with. His attention was still fixed beyond the window, locked not on the horizon, but on some point in time that only he could see. Like Hannah.

“Out there,” he said, tapping the glass. “Down by the jetty. That’s where they found my father’s boat, or what was left of it, smashed against the rocks. Everyone just assumed . . .” He turned from the window then, his voice cracking with thinly veiled emotion. “Everyone except Hannah, that is. People thought she was crazy. I did, too.”

Lane said nothing. He needed this, she knew, but it was hard to watch, to see him torturing himself, taking even more guilt on those already scarred shoulders. She wished there was something to say,
something that would help make sense of it all, but how could anyone make sense of a thing like this?

“Go on,” he said, jerking his chin at the envelope. “Open it.”

Lane stared at the handwriting, unsteady and heavily slanted—the hand of an old man, a sick man. A good-bye. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of such a private moment.

“Are you sure you want me to read it?”

“It’s a little late for discretion, don’t you think?”

Lane felt her cheeks go hot, but he wasn’t wrong. Dropping onto the edge of the bed, she tore open the envelope and teased out several folded pages. Clearing her throat, she began.

Evan,

I have no way of knowing if you’ll ever read this letter, but like all the others, it had to be written. By now you know what I did, and why. There are times in a man’s life, selfish times, I’ll grant, when doing the right thing becomes insupportable, when despair gives rise to its own brand of madness.

I have never asked for your forgiveness, nor do I ask it now. I deserve no such kindness. I write only to say how sorry I am at having lost you—and Peter. R.B. told me about the fire. I died a little that day. What happened to your brother will forever be on my hands, and on my heart. Mine—not your mother’s.

I have only days left on this earth, and so this will be my last letter. Know that it is written with love and regret, a final handful of words to atone for a lifetime of heartbreak. How clear the right way seems once you’ve chosen the wrong one. And yet, as I look back over my life, I find there is one bright spot, and that is you, my son, though I know I haven’t any right to your accomplishments, or even to a place in your memory. Please know that in my heart I have never stopped being your father, and that I did the best I
could for you from a distance. And for your mother, too, as you must surely know by now. She didn’t deserve what I did to her. Only the weakest kind of man turns his back on a woman who needs him. I was the weakest kind of man.

The father who never stopped loving you—

P.S.—Hold nothing against R.B. He played no part in the choice I made, but has remained a faithful friend, helping me to make reparation in the only way I knew how.

Lane blinked back tears as she folded the pages back along their creases and handed them to Michael. “How will you tell Hannah?”

Michael stared at the pages briefly, then let them flutter to the floor. “I have no intention of telling her.”

It was what she was afraid he’d say. “Are you sure that’s the right decision? You said it yourself, all those years ago, she was the one—the only one—who refused to accept that your father was dead. After everything she’s been through, don’t you think she deserves to know she was right?”

Michael’s face registered something approaching astonishment. “To what end? So she’ll finally have proof that her husband was desperate to be free of her? That he cared more about some secretary than he did about his own family?”

Lane was careful to keep her voice even. He didn’t need a lecture right now, but he did need to understand. “Don’t you see? She never needed proof, because she always knew. It was everyone else who needed convincing.”

“Fine, she learns she was right. Then what? She spends the rest of her life reliving it all, and blaming herself?”

“Or maybe she realizes it’s time to forgive herself. She’s stronger than you think, Michael. She’s had to be. I’m not saying tell her today, but I think that in time the truth might help her feel vindicated.”

Michael eyed her grimly. “There are more important things than being right, Lane.”

“I understand that, but this isn’t just about being right. It’s about proving she wasn’t crazy for believing what she did. And just maybe, she’ll finally see that not everything that happened back then was her fault.”

“Meanwhile, the Rourke name gets dragged through the mud all over again. Only this time my mother plays the tragically wronged heroine, and my father is the villain.”

“The Rourke name? That’s what you’re worried about? Michael, no one else has to know any of this, but your mother has a right to the truth, to know that what people thought about her all those years ago was wrong. She needs that, and she deserves it.”

“I was one of those people, Lane. How do I look her in the eye now and admit that?”

“You don’t.” She reached for his arm, surprised when he didn’t pull away. “You were a child, Michael, a little boy. What were you supposed to believe?”

“I saw the wreckage with my own eyes. The pictures ran in the paper for days.” He stepped away and resumed pacing, this time giving the windows a wide berth. At length, he sagged down onto the edge of the bed, elbows on his thighs, hands dangling between his knees. “All my life, I’ve blamed her for his death, for forcing him out of the house that day. It never once occurred to me that she might be right, that the bastard might actually be alive.”

“Under the circumstances I don’t think anyone would have believed differently. But, Michael, you’re going to have to find a way to forgive and let go of the past.”

He closed his eyes, shook his head. “That isn’t going to happen.”

“I know you don’t believe it’s possible, that you’re hurting right now, but try standing in your father’s shoes for a minute. You heard what he wrote. Life with your mother wasn’t easy. Even she admits
that. He was miserable—desperate. Right or wrong, he took the only avenue he believed open to him. He walked away from one life and began a new one. And in her way, your mother did the same thing. She gradually withdrew from the real world, where every day was a struggle, and not even the doctors could help her. Then, when the grief became too much to bear, she buried Hannah Rourke and became Dirty Mary—because it was easier to be a social outcast than a woman who’d lost a husband and two sons.”

Suddenly, Michael looked very tired, tired of listening and tired of talking. “I know this all seems very clear to you, Lane. And you’d like me to say I can just put it all behind me, but it’s not that easy. I lived it.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

Michael looked at her wearily. “There’s more?”

“Yes, but you won’t like it.”

“I haven’t liked any of this, so far.”

“I think before you can forgive anyone else, you’re going to have to find a way to forgive yourself. All these years, you’ve been blaming yourself, for not being able to make your mother well, for not being there for Peter when the fire started, for not being able to hold your family together. But none of those things were your fault. Actually, I’m not sure they were anyone’s fault. Your father, your mother—all of you—did the only thing you knew to do at the time. You survived.”

“So that’s your answer? Just forgive myself and everything will be fine?”

He was getting surly now, like a child who didn’t want to do his homework, because he didn’t know how, and didn’t know how to ask for help. Dropping down beside him, she gentled her voice. “I didn’t say that. But there won’t be room in your heart for anyone else until you try. Blame can take up a lot of space in a heart. I finally figured that out. Life is too short for grudges, the big ones or the small ones.”

If Michael was listening, he made no response. It broke her heart
to see him hurting so, tortured by a past that kept rearing its ugly head. Before she could stop herself she pressed a kiss to his temple. The air seemed to go out of the room as he lifted his head, his eyes full of pain and confusion—full of need. Lane felt her bones go soft, felt the warm, strong pull of him, stirring memories of another night—and the last time he’d needed her. When he reached for her she pulled away. She couldn’t be there for him this time, not like that—not temporarily.

“I’m sorry, Michael, I can’t. I don’t want to just be a distraction, and we both know that’s what I’d be, a way to keep your mind off things you’d rather not think about. I was that for you once. I can’t do it again.”

“Right. Got it.” He stood, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. “I know you want the happy ending. And you deserve one. But I can’t stay in Starry Point. Not when there are memories everywhere I look. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t want to hurt you, or when I said leaving was the best thing for both of us. It still is. That hasn’t changed.”

Lane nodded, trying to pretend she hadn’t been hoping he’d say something else. She watched as he crossed the room and retrieved his father’s letter from the floor. When he had folded and pocketed the rumpled sheets, he turned back to face her.