I'll Be Your Blue Sky (Love Walked In #3)(65)

But she would. She would.

John moved toward her, as if to kiss her or take her in his arms, but she put out her hand.

“Good-bye,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

He took her hand and pressed it to his mouth, and then John Blanchard was gone.





Chapter Twenty-Two

Clare




I couldn’t let it go.

I didn’t even know what I hoped to find. Mr. Big City’s identity? Proof that Sarah and her baby had found sanctuary in the end? John Blanchard’s story after he was released from prison? The missing fifty-plus years of Edith’s life?

Yes. No. I didn’t know. And, more important, I didn’t know why it mattered so much, so extraordinarily much to me. Apart from understanding that what urged me on was more than simple curiosity, I understood nothing else about my own motivation. I tried asking myself, What if you answer all your questions, fill in all the blanks, what will it give you, what will it change? But all I came up with as an answer was: something.

Maybe it was the house that spurred me on.

Maybe it was Edith, the Edith of Blue Sky House who had loved Joseph, who had slept with him under the blue sky ceiling, who had paddled a canoe, who had collected leaves and bones, who had suffered Joseph’s death, who had run a business, who had given refuge again and again, who had written down the names of the shadow women and their children in order to make them real, to bear witness, to say that nothing is ever truly erased.

Or maybe it was the Edith of my wedding weekend, sharp-eyed, clear-voiced, human and also spun together out of earth and sky, giving me courage, persuading me to find a way to lift my home onto my shoulders and carry it with me.

I searched for their names, collected Herrons and Blanchards, but never the ones I wanted.

I researched Wickham-Flaherty, the New York law firm that had represented John during his trial, but it had closed in the 1960s, after the tragic deaths of John’s lawyer Randolph Flaherty and his son, Randolph Flaherty Jr., in a sailing accident. I wondered how a small-town police chief would even know about the existence of Randolph Flaherty, Esquire, and I wondered how he could possibly have paid him. I wondered if Mr. Big City had signed those checks, if New York were the big city of Mr. Big City.

I kept thinking that as soon as I found something, I would call Dev. But I didn’t find anything, so I didn’t call. He didn’t call me, either. We hadn’t spoken in the four days since I’d dropped him off at his house on my way back from Richmond. I wasn’t angry at him. I didn’t not miss him. My nights were emptier without his voice in them. But I just kept hearing that question: So what’s next? So what’s next? So what’s next? And I imagined that Dev felt like I did: suspended in the empty space where the answer should have been.

Then, one evening, he called.

Before he even said hello, he said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Are you okay? Because you don’t sound especially okay.”

“How do I sound?”

“Worried. Or no—mad. Actually, both. Morried? Wad?”

“You do sound weirdly okay,” said Dev.

“Gee, thanks.”

“So what’s up with your Facebook page?” he demanded.

“Now you sound mostly just mad. Also, what are you talking about? I almost never go on Facebook,” I said. “I jumped on briefly right after—”

In the car making my getaway from my nonwedding, I’d taken down the “Engaged” status I’d only ever put up at Zach’s (very persistent) prompting, but I didn’t feel like sharing that bit of information with Dev.

Dev didn’t say, “Right after what?” for which I was grateful. He said, “How long ago was that?”

“Back in June and everything was normal,” I said. “Everything on Facebook, I mean.”

“Get on your computer and go to your page. Right now.”

“No Wi-Fi, bossy person. And, hey, you’re on Facebook even less than I am. How did you happen to be looking at my Facebook page, anyway?”

There was a pause. “Irrelevant. You’re missing the point here.”

“Well, maybe if you made a point, I would stop missing it.”

“Just get on your phone and look at your Facebook page, Clare.”

“Are you speaking through gritted teeth? You know, that might work for Clint Eastwood, but, honestly, it makes you a little hard to understand.”

“Clare.”

“Fine.”

“After you look, call me back.” He hung up.

“Dev was looking at my Facebook page.” Even though there was no one in Edith’s house with me to hear it, it was still satisfying to say out loud.

But as soon as I took a look at the page, this satisfaction, along with every other remotely positive feeling, evaporated.

I hate myself for what I’ve done to Zach. And to me. My life is so empty.

I guess you never realize what you have until you’ve thrown it away like it was garbage.

First his mother left him, then his sister Ro left him, then his father, now me? I feel like a sadistic monster.

I can’t get Zach out of my head. His face. His voice. His body against mine.

I would do anything to get him back. Anything anything anything anything.