“That’s not true.” Dawson’s voice was unwavering.
Amanda did her best to act brave. “But it is,” she said. “Honeymoons always come to an end.”
He reached for her then, his hand coming to rest on her thigh. “Being together isn’t about a honeymoon. It’s about the real you and me. I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings, I want to spend my evenings looking at you across the dinner table. I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours. I want to laugh with you and fall asleep with you in my arms. Because you aren’t just someone I loved back then. You were my best friend, my best self, and I can’t imagine giving that up again.” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.” Dawson could feel the dampness in his palms. “I know you’re afraid, and I’m afraid, too. But if we let this go, if we pretend none of this ever happened, then I’m not sure we’ll ever get another chance.” He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. “We’re still young. We still have time to make this right.”
“We’re not that young anymore—”
“But we are,” Dawson insisted. “We still have the rest of our lives.”
“I know,” she whispered. “That’s why I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Please… don’t ask me to go with you, because if you do, I’ll go. Please don’t ask me to tell Frank about us, because I’ll do that, too. Please don’t ask me to give up my responsibilities or break up my family.” She inhaled, gulping air like someone drowning. “I love you, and if you love me, too, then you just can’t ask me to do these things. Because I don’t trust myself enough to say no.”
When she finished, Dawson said nothing. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he knew there was truth in what she had said. Breaking up her family would change everything; it would change her, and though it scared him, he recalled Tuck’s letter. She might need more time, Tuck had said. Or perhaps it really was over and he was supposed to move on.
But that wasn’t possible. He thought about all the years he’d dreamed of seeing her again; he thought about the future they might never spend together. He didn’t want to give her time, he wanted her to choose him now. And yet he knew that she needed this from him, maybe more than anything she’d ever needed, and he exhaled, hoping that it might somehow make the words come easier.
“All right,” he finally whispered.
Amanda began to cry then. Wrestling with the emotions raging through him, Dawson stood. She did, too, and he pulled her close, feeling her collapse against him. As he breathed her in, images began to cycle through his mind—the sunlight striking her hair as she stepped from the garage when he first arrived at Tuck’s; her natural grace as she moved through the wildflowers at Vandemere; the still, hungry moment when their lips had first touched in the warmth of a cottage he’d never known existed. Now it was coming to an end, and it was like he was watching the last flicker of light wink out in the darkness of an endless tunnel.
They held each other on the porch for a long time. Amanda listened to the beating of his heart, sure that nothing would ever feel so right. She longed, impossibly, to start all over. She would do it right this time; she would stay with him, never abandoning him again. They were meant for each other, and they belonged together. There was still time for both of them. When she felt his hands in her hair, she almost said the words. But she couldn’t. Instead, all she could do was murmur, “I’m glad I got to see you again, Dawson Cole.”
Dawson could feel the smooth, almost luxurious, silkiness of her hair. “Maybe we could do it again sometime?”
“Maybe,” she said. She swiped at a tear on her cheek. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll come to my senses and just show up in Louisiana one day. Me and the kids, I mean.”
He forced a smile, a desperate, futile hope leaping in his chest. “I’ll make dinner,” he said. “For everyone.”
But it was time for her to go. As they left the porch, Dawson reached for her hand and she took it, squeezing so tight it was almost painful. They retrieved her things from the Stingray before slowly walking to her car. Dawson’s senses felt acutely heightened—the morning sun pricked the back of his neck, the breeze was feathery light, and the leaves were rustling, but none of it seemed real. All he knew was that everything was coming to an end.
Amanda clung to his hand. When they reached her car, he opened the door and turned toward her. He kissed her softly before trailing his lips down her cheek, chasing the pathway of her tears. He traced the line of her jaw, thinking about the words that Tuck had written. He would never move on, he understood with sudden clarity, despite what Tuck had asked of him. She was the only woman he’d ever love, the only woman he ever wanted to love.
In time, Amanda forced herself to take a step away from him. Then, slipping behind the wheel, she started the engine and closed the door before lowering the window. His eyes were bright with tears, mirroring her own. Reluctantly, she put the car in reverse. Dawson backed away, saying nothing, the ache he felt etched in her own anguished expression.
She turned the car around, pointing it in the direction of the road. The world had gone blurry through her tears. As she rounded the curve in the drive, she glanced into the rearview mirror and choked out a sob as Dawson grew smaller behind her. He hadn’t moved at all.
She cried harder as the car picked up speed. The trees pressed in all around her. She wanted to turn the car around and go back to him, to tell him that she had the courage to be the person she wanted to be. She whispered his name, and though there was no way he could have heard her, Dawson raised his arm, offering a final farewell.
Her mother was seated on the front porch when Amanda arrived. She was sipping a glass of iced tea while music played softly on the radio. Amanda passed her without a word, climbing the stairs to her room. Turning on the shower, she removed her clothes. She stood nak*d in front of the mirror, as drained and spent as an empty vessel.
The stinging spray of the shower felt like punishment, and when she at last stepped out, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a simple cotton blouse before packing the rest of her things in her suitcase. The clover went into a zippered compartment of her purse. As she usually did, she stripped the sheets from the bed and brought them to the laundry room. She put them into the washer, moving on autopilot.
Back in her room, the list of things to do continued. She reminded herself that the ice maker in the refrigerator back home needed to be fixed; she’d forgotten to arrange that before she’d left. She also needed to start planning the fund-raiser. She’d been putting that off for a while, but September would be here before she knew it. She needed a caterer, and it would probably be a good idea to start soliciting donations for the gift baskets. Lynn had to sign up for SAT prep classes, and she couldn’t remember whether they’d put the deposit down on Jared’s dorm room. Annette would be coming home later this week, and she’d probably want something special for dinner.
Making plans. Moving past the weekend, reentering her real life. Like the water in the shower washing Dawson’s scent from her skin, it felt like a kind of punishment.
But even when her mind finally began to slow, she understood that she still wasn’t ready to go downstairs. Instead, she sat on the bed as sunlight streamed gently through the room, and all at once she remembered the way Dawson had looked when he’d been standing in the drive. The image was clear, as vivid as if it were happening all over again, and despite herself—despite everything—she suddenly knew that she was making the wrong decision. She could still go to Dawson and they could find a way to make it work, no matter what the challenges might be. In time, her children would forgive her; in time, she would even forgive herself.
But even then she was paralyzed, unable to bring herself to move.
“I love you,” she whispered into the silent room, feeling her future being swept away like so many grains of sand, a future that already felt almost like a dream.
16
Marilyn Bonner stood in the kitchen of the farmhouse, idly watching the workers make adjustments to the irrigation system in the orchard below. Despite yesterday’s downpour, the trees still needed to be watered, and she knew the men would be out there most of the day, even though it was the weekend. The orchard, she’d come to believe, was like a spoiled child, always needing just a bit more care, a bit more attention, never quite satisfied.
But the real heart of the business lay beyond the orchard, in the small plant where they bottled the jellies and preserves. During the week, it housed a dozen people, but on weekends the place was deserted. When she’d first built it, she could remember townspeople whispering that there was no way her business could support the cost of such a facility. And maybe it had been a stretch at the time, but little by little the whispers had been silenced. She’d never get rich making jelly and jam, but she knew the business was good enough to pass down to her kids and allow them both a comfortable living. In the end, that was all she’d really wanted.
She still had on the same outfit she’d worn to church and her visit to the cemetery. Usually, she changed immediately after returning home, but today she couldn’t seem to summon the energy. Nor was she hungry, and that was unusual, too. Someone else might think she was coming down with something, but Marilyn knew well enough what was bothering her.
Turning from the window, she inspected the kitchen. She’d had it renovated a few years ago, along with the bathrooms and most of the downstairs, and she found herself thinking that the old farmhouse had finally begun to feel like home—or rather, the kind of home she’d always wanted. Until the renovation, it had felt more like her parents’ house, a feeling that didn’t sit well with her as she’d gotten older. A lot of things didn’t sit well with her as she struggled through adulthood, but as hard as some of the years had been, she’d learned from the experiences. Despite it all, she had fewer regrets than people might imagine.
Still, she was bothered by what she’d seen earlier that day, and she debated what to do. Or even whether she should do anything at all. She could always pretend that she didn’t know what it meant and let time do its magic.
But she’d learned the hard way that ignoring a situation didn’t always work out for the best. Reaching for her purse, she suddenly knew what she had to do.
After cramming the last of the boxes into the passenger seat of the car, Candy went back inside her house and removed the gold Buddha statue from the living room windowsill. As ugly as it was, she’d always kind of liked it, imagining that it had brought her luck. It was also her insurance policy; and lucky or not, she planned to pawn it as soon as she could, knowing she’d need the money to start over.
She wrapped the Buddha in some newspaper and put it in the glove compartment before stepping back to survey her packing. She was amazed that she’d been able to get everything into the Mustang. The trunk could barely close, the passenger seat was piled so high it would be impossible to see out the side window, and items had been stuffed in every nook and cranny. She really needed to stop the Internet shopping. In the future, she’d need a bigger car, or quick getaways would be that much more difficult. She could have left some items behind, of course. The cappuccino maker from Williams-Sonoma for instance, but in Oriental she’d needed it, if only to feel like she wasn’t living completely in the sticks. A little touch of the city, so to speak.
In any case, this part was done. She’d finish up her shift at the Tidewater later tonight, then hit the highway, turning south as soon as she reached I-95. She’d decided to relocate to Florida. She’d heard a lot of promising things about South Beach, and it sounded like the kind of place she might end up staying in for a while. Even settle down. She knew she’d said that before and it had yet to work out that way, but a girl had to dream, right?
Tip-wise, Saturday night had been a bonanza, but Friday had been disappointing, which was why she’d resolved to stick it out one last night. Friday night had started out well—she’d dressed in a halter and short shorts, and guys were practically emptying their wallets trying to get her attention, but then Abee had showed up and ruined everything. He’d taken a seat at a table, looking sick as a dog and sweating like he’d just walked out of a sauna, and he’d spent the next half hour staring at her with that crazed expression of his.
She’d seen it before—a kind of paranoid possessiveness—but Abee brought it to a whole new level on Friday night. For her, the weekend couldn’t end soon enough. She had the sense that Abee was on the verge of doing something stupid, maybe even dangerous. She’d been sure he was going to start something that night and maybe he would have, but fortunately, he’d gotten a call on his cell phone and had left the bar in a rush. She’d halfway expected to find him outside her front door on Saturday morning, or waiting for her at the bar on Saturday night, but strangely, he hadn’t shown up. To her relief, he hadn’t shown up today, either. A good thing, considering the loaded car made her plans pretty obvious, and it was clear that he wouldn’t be too happy about the idea. Although she didn’t want to admit it, Abee scared her. Scared half the bar on Friday night, too. The place had begun to clear out as soon as he entered, which was why her tips had dried up. Even after he left, the crowds had been slow to come back.
But it was almost over. One more shift and she’d be out of here. And Oriental, like all the other places she’d lived, would soon be nothing but a memory.