Beautiful Graves(98)

“We wanted to apologize again,” Gemma says, “for the whole ordeal with Sarah. How humiliating it must have been to both of you. I can only imagine how much more complex it made an already impossible situation.”

“It’s all right,” I say, and I mean it. This past week, I’ve felt the pain brush past me, as opposed to going through me. It’s like getting pushed by a stranger while hurrying to catch a train. Not like being run over by one.

“It’s not,” Brad says, toying with the cookie on his plate but not eating it. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, unfortunately.”

“Really, it doesn’t matter now,” I say. Then, remembering why I’m here, I hurry to remove the engagement ring from my finger. I slide it across the breakfast nook.

“Here. I want you to have it.”

“Nonsense, Lynne. He gave it to you,” Gemma says, but her eyes sparkle when they land on the ring. Another thing her son left behind.

“It’s Ever,” I correct her. It’s good to claim my name—my identity—back. “And even though I’ll always cherish the day Dom asked me to marry him, I need to move on. And the truth is, I think it belongs to you more than it belongs to me. It’s a love song to you. He wanted to make you happy.”

Gemma looks down, then starts crying. I notice it’s not the same dark, hopeless sobs that tore from her body all those months ago. It’s a cleansing, grateful cry. She smiles and pats my shoulder before brushing her tears away.

“Thank you, my dear. I appreciate it.”

“You should try it on.”

She hesitates for only a moment before going for it. It sits perfectly on her bony middle finger. She admires it, tilting her hand here and there, watching the diamond catching the last of the afternoon sunrays slipping through the big bay windows.

“It’s really beautiful,” she says.

“It looks right at home on your finger.”

She looks up. “Are you truly doing okay?”

Nodding, I realize that I am. Things are still far from ideal, but I’m not unhappy anymore.

Gemma rubs at her cheek distractedly. I can tell something is eating at her, but she doesn’t know how to approach the subject. She shoots Brad a look. He jerks his chin once, the movement barely there, to tell her to go ahead. What the hell is happening?

“Ly . . . Ever,” she corrects, her skin flushing slightly. “I have an unusual request.”

“Unusual is my expertise. Fire away.”

“Can you come with me to the attic for a second? There’s something I want to show you.”

I follow her up the stairs to the second floor and watch as she pops open the hatch for the attic. She pulls the ladder down, and we both climb inside. It’s the first time I’ve been in an attic. The place is surprisingly broad and unsurprisingly woody. It smells of dust and naphthalene. It is full to the brim with crates and boxes. They are all labeled. I drink it all in. The right-hand side of the attic is full of stuff with the name Dominic labeled on each box, and the left-hand side belongs to Seph.

I find it ironic that even the brothers’ possessions look like they’re having a standoff. And here I am, again, standing in the middle, between the two of them.

“Your sons sure have a lot of stuff.” I try to crack the tense mood with a joke. It immediately falls flat between us. Gemma shoots me an uncertain look. Whatever she brought me here for, it is making her anxious.

I swallow hard. “Gemma? Why am I here?”

She slants her head toward the pile of Seph boxes. I follow her footsteps. She grabs a shoebox sitting atop a big cardboard box and holds it away from her body, as if it could bite her.

“I’ve been doing a lot of tidying up recently. Especially in the attic. It was a combination of things. I needed something to take my mind off Dominic and was also inspired by how Seph found my first-date dress in our old attic. I wanted to see what treasures I could find that would lead me to memories of Dominic.”

I wait for her to continue. I’m not sure what she is holding, but since it has Joe’s name on it, I can safely assume it has nothing to do with me. We didn’t exchange anything in Spain. Other than bodily fluids and phone numbers, and those don’t count.

Gemma smiles sadly. “Dominic was always such a sweet child. With a strong moral compass and a lot of compassion toward others. He always treated wounded animals in our backyard and was the first to approach a new kid who moved into our neighborhood. This somewhat changed after he was diagnosed with cancer. He became understandably angry. And then he beat the cancer and went back to being the Dominic we loved and adored. Then he thought he had cancer again, when he was in his early twenties.”

I remember Dom telling me about it. I remember being horrified for him. I remember all of it like it was yesterday.

“Yes?” I ask her quietly, to encourage her to keep talking.

She opens the shoebox—finally—and takes out something that looks like a piece of paper. “Last week, when Seph was in San Francisco to complete his book, I started going through his things, because I was done with Dominic’s side of the attic. I came across this.”

She hands me a small piece of paper. Only it’s not a paper. It’s a photo. The Polaroid photo Joe took of me on the beach in Spain. My mouth drops open. My breath is stuck inside my throat, like a bone. My lips are puffy and my hair is a mess, and I look at the camera—at him—with so much emotion it makes me choke. The love I have for him is raw. The intimacy is palpable. I can feel this photo imprinting itself onto my DNA.