At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(55)
"Oh, Jesus." He felt like crying. His mother's world revolved around Simon. What would she do without him? "Yeah, I'll tell her." He had to find Gracie. His mother liked Gracie and he knew Gracie thought highly of her in return. He couldn't do this alone. He wanted to climb behind the wheel of his sports car and break the speed of sound getting the hell out of there. He was good at running away from things he didn't like. That was one of the first things you learn when you're six years old and far away from home and everyone you love.
He had to find Gracie. Gracie would know how to handle this. She would know the right way to tell his mother.
"Noah." Pete Winthrop's voice broke into his thoughts. "You okay to drive?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine."
Pete stepped closer. "You don't look so good."
He pushed past him, trying to get to his car. He had to get out of there. He had to find Gracie. He'd stop by her house. It was late. Hours past when they were supposed to meet. Gracie was logical. Clear-headed. She would go home and wait for a phone call, wait for him to show up with an explanation. He had to get to her. This would all make sense when he saw her again, when he held her in his arms.
Minutes later he whipped into her driveway. Her car was nowhere in sight but that didn't mean anything. Maybe she called Gabe's Cab Service and got a lift. Maybe she'd left her car back there in the parking lot with a note for him under her windshield wiper. Maybe if he kept moving it would all start to make sense.
His heart beat so fast and hard that it hurt. Jesus, what the hell was going on. He banged on the door. No answer. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He stepped into the front room. "Gracie!" He moved toward the hallway. "Mr. Taylor?" His footsteps sounded like cannon fire. The rooms were clean and neat. There were no signs of life anywhere, not even Sam the Cat. He stepped into the tiny kitchen. The dishes were washed and put away. The floor sparkled. He noticed wet streaks in the white tiles. He glanced at the kitchen table. Sugar bowl in the center. Creamer next to it. Salt and pepper shaker. Two envelopes, one with his name on it.
He opened the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of typing paper. Gracie's handwriting—formal and precise—angled across the page. She was sorry... she loved him but... school... the future... sorry... so very sorry...
He stood there in the middle of the quiet kitchen for a long time and then when the world reassembled itself around him, he walked out of the house, away from Idle Point, away from Maine, away from the world he'd known, away from the life he'd dreamed about, the girl he loved and the lies she had told and it would be a long time before he looked back.
Chapter Ten
New York City, eight years later
It had occurred to Gracie more than once over the last week that she just might be crazy to even think about returning to Idle Point for her father's wedding. She didn't usually attend Ben's weddings—he'd had so many of them, after all, and not one of them had lasted—but it wasn't every day your father married the girl who used to sit behind you in English class back in high school.
Maybe if he hadn't called her on the day the hospital put her on suspension she might have begged off and sent the happy couple a potted plant and her best wishes, but, as luck would have it, he'd caught her as she walked in the door to her apartment with her arms piled high with files and Rolodex cards and an old cat named Pyewacket who didn't seem all that pleased to be there.
"Graciela," Ben had said in his flat Maine accent, "this is your father."
"Hello, Dad," she'd said, ignoring the little tug of emotion the sound of her given name aroused. Nobody but Ben called her Graciela. You wouldn't think such a simple thing could still hold such power over her heart but it did. He was her father, not Simon Chase, no matter that her DNA might say otherwise.
They had come a very long way since the terrible day of Gramma Del's funeral. He never knew that Simon had come calling. The note she had left him said nothing more than, "Went back to school a week early. Gracie." She had been shocked to learn months later that Simon had died that very afternoon not far from her house. Shocked but not saddened. All she felt was a deep regret that she would never be able to ask the many questions that had plagued her ever since.
A few hours earlier and her life and Noah's would have been entirely different. Then again, that was part of the fantasy. If what Simon had told her was true—and she had no reason to believe otherwise—her future with Noah had been doomed from the start.