The Winters(60)

I took a deep breath. It felt like the first one I’d taken in an hour.

“I know,” he said. “It’s a lot to process. But I didn’t want any kind of doubt to hang over your head, that I would have a lover, that I would cheat on you. By now you must know that I trust you with my life, and with Dani’s life, too. Can I rely on you to keep this secret from her?”

“Of course,” I said, taking him by the upper arms. I felt shock, yes, but also relief.

I stood up from my stool and wedged myself between his thighs and wrapped my arms around him until I could feel some of his awful burden shift over into my body. He must have felt it, too, because he began to return the embrace, most ardently, repeating, “Thank you. Thank you,” over and over.

When I finally released him there were tears in both of our eyes.

“I came down here to tell you something,” he said, wiping them away. “I have a past to contend with, one you now know all about. There are no more secrets between us. But I came to say my past is not located in any one place at Asherley, any one room. I brought you here because I love you and I want to marry you. My home is your home, and my stubbornness about the greenhouse was just born from stupid habit. Louisa helped me see that. And so did Dani.”

“Dani?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “She came back into the kitchen just after you left. The two of them really ganged up on me.”

“Poor Max.”

“I always thought Dani would be angrier than me if we reopened the greenhouse, because she grew up in there, at her mother’s feet. Now I know that it also might have been where she last saw her mother. But she seems keen for us to have the reception there. And I think it’s a good idea. That it’s time for us to make new memories.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m . . . amazed,” I said. “At Dani, I mean.”

“Me, too,” he said. “She surprises me at every turn.”

“I meant what I said, Max. I don’t care where we hold the wedding, as long as it happens.”

“I’ll make you a deal.” He reached over to grab my ring off the nearby shelf. “In exchange for being the lovely keeper of all my dark secrets, I’ll open the greenhouse for your wedding.”

I snatched the ring from his hand and put it back on my stained finger.

“Deal.”





TWENTY-TWO


After Max told me the truth about Dani’s mother, something inside me lifted. Fear, I think, of Dani in particular and our future in general. In return for helping change Max’s mind about the greenhouse, I decided to let Dani assert herself in the last-minute wedding decisions. So it was white peonies for the centerpieces, a bow for Maggie, and a three-piece jazz band greeting guests in the foyer. I treated them all as genius ideas, each one perfect and welcome. As she walked through Asherley making her final checks, I found myself in the familiar position of running behind a bossy woman taking notes, this time with a smile on my face. We were forming some semblance of a team. It was a happy time.

“Flowers for these side tables. Posies.”

“Check.”

“White ribbons on the sconces.”

“Lovely.”

“Candles for the powder rooms.”

“Great idea.”

“Oh, get Gus to lay down the runners. And tell him to give the herringbone a coat of tung oil. It’s about time.”

When I told her I could do that job myself, being well schooled in wood preservation, she looked at me squarely.

“Why the fuck would you want to do that a week before your wedding? Go get a pedicure or something normal.”

That was Dani, one minute angrily scolding me, the next, on the phone with the bakers, amiably telling them we wanted vanilla so I wouldn’t get chocolate crumbs on my pretty dress. She couldn’t have alleviated my wedding stress more thoroughly were she to have slapped on gloves and surgically removed it. And Katya followed her lead, dealing with the caterers herself, and I grew accustomed to starting my days with her yelling on the phone at them, usually about the cost of an ingredient for a dish she could find cheaper elsewhere.

Asherley, too, seemed to cooperate, its grounds beginning to green up a bit, the skeletons of wintering ivy unfurling pale buds across the cold gray stones, coating the meaner-looking garden gargoyles with a warm, leafy blanket. I began to note the position of the house. Once spring arrived, the morning sun was calibrated to slash through all its east-facing windows just so, lending a dramatic light to each room. The greenhouse also became hotter as the sun cut higher across the sky, the glass positioned like perfect magnifiers, creating bright pockets along certain walls and dark ones elsewhere. This place wasn’t just for show. Once the rickety tables and broken shelves had been removed and the ground was leveled for the new floor, the greenhouse felt like a living and breathing entity that wanted to be put to work again.

Before we did any major repairs, Max brought out an engineer who assured him the structure was sound. Nothing was wrong, he said, that couldn’t be addressed in time for the wedding. A few glass panels needed to be cut and installed, a new belt for the fan, the hinges on the upper vents oiled. Other than that, it was a lovely place for a wedding. And, he added, once the temporary floor was removed, we could even grow things in here, the soil still viable.