Protecting Her(116)

He doesn’t move, so I just say what I need to say.

“I’m sorry, Garret. It was wrong of me to react that way. I know you were only trying to help.”

He’s quiet, his eyes on the floor.

“I put the candy back like you had it. I threw out the popcorn, but we can make more. And the pizza is done. We just need to reheat it.”

“I’m not hungry,” he says quietly. I hear his uneven breaths and know that he’s crying.

“Garret.” I get up and go in front of him and hoist him up into my arms. His body is limp, his face wet from his tears. I sit back down on his bed and hold him across my lap. He puts his arms around me and rests his head on my shoulder. He should hate me right now, but instead he hugs me. He’s so much better than me. He’s such a better person. And it’s Rachel who made him that way.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, rubbing his back. “The past few months, I haven’t been here for you, and I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been a good father to you, Garret. I want to be, but I keep failing you. It’s been so hard for me to go on without your mother. But that’s not an excuse for me to ignore you and what you’re going through. I can’t promise you that things will go back to how they were, but I will try to do better. I will do the best that I can.” I hug him tighter, and he does the same to me.

“I love you, Dad,” he whispers.

I don’t say it back. I don’t know why. I think it, but I can’t say it. Why can’t I say it? What the f*ck is wrong with me?

Garret pulls away and I bring my hand up to his cheek and wipe the wetness away. His blue eyes look so sad.

“Would you like to have movie night?” I ask him.

He rubs his eyes as he shakes his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes you sad.”

He’s worried about me, and about how I feel. It should be the other way around. I should be worried about him. So why haven’t I been? What is wrong with me?

“It’s okay if it makes me sad,” I tell him. “Sometimes memories can be sad, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have movie night. So what do you think? Should we have some pizza? Watch a movie?”

He shrugs. “I guess.”

“Would you rather do something else?”

He hugs me again, like that’s his answer. Like he just wants me, his father, who has been absent for months now. Like he just wants me to spend time with him, be with him, listen to him. He wants his father back. The father he knew before his mother died.

I want that too. I just don’t know how to get that person back.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


25


RACHEL

Every waking moment of every day I wonder if they’re okay. I wonder what they’re doing. I wonder if they’re struggling as much as I am.

I miss them both so much that some days I can barely function. The first few weeks I was here, I stayed in bed. I couldn’t get up. Celia, the landlady, kept coming up here to check on me. She thought I was sick. I told her I was, just so she’d leave me alone.

She wasn’t trying to intrude. She’s just a nice old lady who worries about people. She rents me the apartment that’s just above her restaurant. It’s a very tiny studio apartment with a twin bed, but it’s all I need. It has a small patio, which is where I spend a lot of my time, just gazing out at the water. The apartment is built into the hillside and looks out at the Mediterranean Sea.

I live in the small village that Pearce and I went to on our honeymoon twelve years ago. I chose it because it reminds me of Pearce, and even though remembering him makes me sad, I still want to remember him, and the time we spent here. Those were happy times. Before I knew the truth about his secret life. Before I knew people wanted me dead.

“Rachel.” Celia’s voice startles me. I glance up and see her offering me coffee. “Sì?”

“Yes. Sì.” I wait for her to pour it, then say, “Grazie.” I’m still learning Italian. Celia gave me a translation book that a tourist left behind and I’ve been studying it every night, trying to learn the language. Living here and being immersed in it has helped me pick up words and phrases faster than learning it from a book, but I’m still not very good.

Most of the people here speak some English. They learn it in school but they don’t use it much so sometimes I find it a struggle to communicate with them. Celia speaks fluent English which is good for me, but also for the English-speaking customers who come to her restaurant. This village doesn’t get a lot of tourists, but there are some who stumble upon it, like Pearce and I did years ago.