Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Learning Gramps forced them apart when they were young and Mom defied him and went back to Dad and he accepted the baby she’d conceived with another man in a reckless fling tells me how much love is sacrifice.
Loving Kane taught me the rest.
“All that guilt, all those years,” she hisses to herself. “It must’ve driven him mad. I’m not sure how he was ever good with you kids.”
“He was,” Ethan says sharply, leaving no doubt.
She’s right, it did make PopPop crazy.
He just hid his agony very well.
It’s obvious from his journal, from his obsession with the shoes he broke, that he was consumed with finding a way to repair the family rift created by his pride.
If only to regain a little of the deep, everlasting love he clearly had for my grandmother.
Half the entries in that journal were pondering what he could do to fix all the hurt he caused. Whenever he wasn’t journaling about his art collection or a day out on the water with us kids, he was bleeding.
Ink doesn’t need to be red to look like a murder scene, and this poor, damaged man died a thousand times. He relived losing his wife and his daughter over and over.
No, there won’t be any easy answers about why he makes everyone’s inheritance so difficult. That’s just the kind of tortured weirdo he was.
But he was our weirdo, and I loved him.
Also, I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for my little cousin soon, last on the list to inherit his kind of crazy.
In the end, he was a teacher, and he left us lessons he couldn’t just give us in life.
Gramps couldn’t have known I’d meet Kane at the lake house, but he knew I struggled to slow down, to stop and breathe and find myself.
He called me May. Not just because I resemble Grams, but because he’d laugh and tell me I don’t slow down.
Being at the lake house made me hit pause.
And yes, it brought me Kane, but if he hadn’t been there, I think I still would’ve walked out of there in a better place emotionally. Assuming the Babins didn’t burn my body, of course.
Gramps made a lot of mistakes, no question.
Yet there’s no doubt he loved fiercely.
Just as fiercely as Ethan and Hattie.
Just as fiercely as Kane and me.
Reading his journal with time and space to reflect taught me a lot. It’s given me the chance to understand Gramps in a different way.
The way he and Mom left off, too. She wouldn’t even look at him or come to his big house in Portland to pick us up when those long summers ended.
Ethan leans forward, his hand covering Hattie’s on his shoulder.
“Does that mean you forgive him?” he asks.
The trillion-dollar question.
My breath stalls.
Ares perks up and whines, his thick tail slapping the floor.
Mom dabs her fingers at the thin, wrinkled skin under her eyes. When she drops her hands, I see the moisture gleaming there.
Unexpected and scary.
“Not today. Not yet. I can’t,” she whispers, but there’s something in her voice. Genuine regret? “It’s still too raw. Reading this book, looking at these shoes, they—they beat me to a pulp again. And that man has done enough of that for this lifetime.”
Devastating.
Kane tightens his grip on my hand, his thumb stroking my skin.
Mom looks at me, and her face softens.
“But someday… someday, maybe,” she says. “Maybe I just need time.”
Holy crap.
Nodding, I wipe away a tear with my own shaking hand.
Time.
I can give her that.
We all can, if that’s what she needs.
This isn’t a slamming door.
It’s an opening, one tiny step in the right direction.
“We wanted you to realize how much it meant to him,” Ethan says.
Mom smiles.
“Thank you,” she says simply.
It’s not what we wanted.
No big, dramatic, heartfelt conclusion to tie up everything real neat, but that’s life.
For now, someday is enough.
Someday, we’ll have true closure. An end to the hate, the heartache, and tears between the people we love most.
Someday, she’ll accept his apology from beyond the grave.
Dad massages her shoulders, and Mom leans up, kissing his hand.
They trade a glance I don’t quite understand.
“This was important, Evvie,” he says after a few moments. “It’s a fresh start.”
“Whatever it is, it’s left me famished.”
She reaches for her phone. Less than a minute after she types out a text, the chef rolls in.
He’s a tall man, pushing a trolley across the floor, and he starts unloading covered silver dishes onto the sideboard against the wall. Ares lumbers up and sits, ready for head scratches while he watches the food intently.
I should’ve seen this coming when we came over for ‘breakfast.’
“Mom never cooks,” I whisper to Kane. His eyebrows are halfway to his hairline.
He’s no stranger to wealth and comfort.
But as a man who still cooks for his kids a lot, this must be weird. Even if it’s always been an expression with money.