She deserved to know the real Gloria Diamond.
I read the last sentence and then turned the page, but that appeared to be the end.
So this was her story, her real story? Her life as Mare, from being roommates with my mother in college to meeting George, to marrying him, to her affair with Max and then all the horrible things that happened after. She ended with the content of my mother’s letter and then her explanation of how she transformed from Mare into Gloria Diamond after George’s death.
I stared at the blank back page and tried to process it all. So, my mother had loved her once. Or maybe she had loved her always? I had never really considered my mother as a person who might have been in love with anyone. But now it made me sad that she had never gotten the chance to tell Gloria how she felt while she’d been alive.
But I couldn’t be mad at Gloria for that either, because now I understood her. She was a far cry from the too-happy Gloria I’d been trying to play in that first day on set, a far cry from the Gloria dripping in diamonds in her Oprah interview and even a far cry from the ice-cold Gloria who had made me feel completely unwelcome in her home. Her real story wasn’t a love story at all. But a tragedy. Or was it ultimately the story of a woman who had survived—and thrived—even after every terrible thing life had thrown at her?
I finally looked up, and she was staring at me. Waiting for me to say something, or to react, but for another moment, I still didn’t know what to say. I was sad for my mother that she had never been able to tell Gloria how she really felt. Sad for Gloria that she had been through all of this and then only found success by lying about it. Sad for Max, who wasn’t my father, but had clearly been someone my mother and Gloria had both cared deeply for once. And then I thought about Will. Will had been through so much, that as a young boy he’d lost his voice. And as I thought about his sweet, argumentative voice now, that part made my heart ache. “Thank you for sharing all this with me,” I finally said.
She nodded slowly. “You know, I kept so many secrets for so long. But when I read the letter you sent, that Bess wrote me all those years ago. I just...broke. And this all flooded out of me.” She paused for a moment. “I wish Bess had mailed me that letter herself back in 1991.”
I tried to imagine how my own life might’ve been different if Gloria had known how my mother felt about her, but it was impossible to comprehend now. “Would it have changed anything, do you think?” I asked her.
Gloria shrugged. “I wish I’d at least have had a chance to apologize to her before she died hating me.”
“She didn’t die hating you,” I said.
“Oh no. I’m sure she did.”
I shook my head. “She definitely did not. Can I show you something?”
I stood and waited for Gloria to get her cane and stand up, and then I walked toward the extra bedroom I was using as my office.
In the end, I didn’t have the heart to donate any of my mother’s copies of Gloria’s books. They had always been my mother’s prized possessions, and maybe now it made sense why. I had moved them all here to my new house, displayed them across several rows of the beautiful built-in bookcases. I pointed to them now to show Gloria.
“You bought all my novels?” Gloria raised her eyebrows, not making the connection.
“No. These were my mother’s. I moved them all from her house. She loved your books so much—she always purchased them on the day they came out and kept them all prominently displayed on her shelves. I couldn’t bear to give them away when I sold her house.”
Gloria bit her lip and walked toward the bookcase, running her fingers slowly across the pink and purple spines. “She didn’t hate me?” Gloria said softly.
“She didn’t hate you,” I repeated.
And then I couldn’t find it in myself to hate Gloria either. Instead, I felt deeply sad for her. And even sadder for Will. “Can I ask you one more thing?” I said.
She nodded, still running her finger slowly across the spines.
“Why did you say I had hurt Will once? I’d assumed it was because I trapped him in the pantry that night. But then my mother’s letter said I dragged him out. I saved him.” As I spoke, the words ran through me like a chill. Had I really saved Will’s life, thirty years ago? I felt impossibly disconnected from that being something that had happened to me once. But I’d been so young, too young to truly remember it for real.
Gloria looked down, stared at her feet, at her diamond-studded pumps, before answering. “That year after George died, when Will didn’t talk, he actually would say one word. I’d hear him at night. He would cry out in his sleep, Annie, Annie, Annie. He was so distraught. And all he could manage to say was your name.”
I wondered if I’d ever woken up in the middle of the night calling for Will too. I could barely remember anything before the house I lived in with my mother in Pasadena, that we moved into when I was six. In fact, now I had no idea where we went directly after that night when Gloria’s house exploded or what happened in the two years between that and moving into our Pasadena house. I felt a wash of grief for the loss of my mother all over again. It was the weirdest and most horrible feeling, realizing I had a question only she could answer and then understanding there was no possible way for me to ever ask her.
Will might have complicated feelings about his mother. But he was lucky. She was still here. Still trying to protect him. I now realized that this was why she had asked me to leave him alone when we were in Belles Woods. She’d been scared what memories I might bring up for Will again. He had a great and successful life. All his trauma was behind him. “I think I understand why you wanted me to stay away from Will,” I said. “Just so you know, I want him to be happy too. And I’ll never bother him again.”
She stared at me, and she frowned that Gloria frown I’d gotten used to seeing in Seattle. “Amelia,” she said sternly. “What part of I was wrong about everything did you not understand?”
“I...” I didn’t know what to say.
“Will is waiting in the car,” she said abruptly, slapping the hardwood floor with the bottom of her cane for emphasis.
Of course, Gloria didn’t drive. Gloria didn’t do anything alone. I had assumed that Tate had brought her out here. (Or whoever the new Tate was at this moment in time.) Will? Had come all the way here, with her? He was sitting out in front of my house right now?
I folded my arms in front of my chest. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“He read my story too. I thought it was long past time he understood the truth about me. About everything.” She paused and gave me a withering look. “He’s been absolutely miserable since you left Seattle, so I’m saying, go out there. Talk to him. Love each other if you both want to.”
Love each other? I twisted my hands together, trying to reason what game she was playing now. “But you wrote that a happy ending isn’t being with a person. It’s becoming the person you want to be.”
“So go be the person you want to be with him,” she said. Then she added, “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that love doesn’t wait for you. When it comes, it’s fleeting. And if you don’t grab on to it, it disappears forever.”
I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to Max, or my mother, or to the plotline of one of her novels. But I nodded.
“Amelia,” she said my name curtly. Then waved me away toward my own front door, as if she owned this place, not me. “I brought you a gift. Go.”
There was a white BMW parked in my driveway, and as I walked down the path toward it, I could see a man sitting in the driver’s seat. It was only when I got closer that I could make out the shape of his beautiful bespectacled face, that I believed Will was truly here.
I stood there for a moment, unsure exactly what I was going to say. Gloria had said he’d been miserable, but maybe he was also upset by how I left things. He’d traveled with her here, sure. But he’d taken her up to set too, and even babysat Jasper when she’d asked. His being here in my driveway didn’t necessarily mean he’d be happy to see me, did it?
The windows were almost all the way rolled up and he appeared to be focusing on something. Probably listening to NPR or reading the New York Times on his phone. And the thought of Will still being so Will made something swell in my chest. If Gloria was right, if love really was fleeting, then I at least had to try to tell him how I truly felt. I took a deep breath and knocked softly on the window.
Will jumped, removed his AirPods and turned to look at me. He stared at me through the window, putting his hand up to the glass as if wondering if he was imagining me here. I took a step back, and then he opened the door and got out of the car.
We stood a few feet apart, staring at each other for a few silent minutes.
“This is private property, you know,” I finally said, unable to suppress my smile at the sight of him again. “You’re trespassing.”
He just kept staring at me, and I wasn’t sure whether he was going to yell at me or hug me. “I think that’s my line,” he finally said and smiled a little.
I suddenly felt weightless, giddy. “Will,” I breathed his name. “You’re really here.”
He held up his hands. “But I’m not trespassing,” he said firmly. “I can explain.”
“Can you?” I laughed.
“The thing is, I actually do know the woman who lives here. And I have something to say to her.”
“You do?” I put my hands on my hips, but I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face now.
“I do. I think I’m in love with her, and even though she told me she wanted me to leave, I’d like to present a closing argument to the contrary, if she’s willing to listen. First of all—”
In love with me? “Will,” I cut him off, and took another step closer. I stood on my toes and put my hands on his forearms. “I didn’t really want you to leave,” I said. “I thought I was protecting you. And protecting myself. I had so many unanswered questions that were confusing me then. But none of them were about how I felt about you.” I paused for a moment and then I added, “How I feel about you. I want to try this and see where it goes. For real.”
He moved his hand to my cheek and stroked it softly with his thumb. “That is a much more concise argument than what I would’ve said.” He leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips, and then he pulled back and whispered, “And I concur.”
I smiled, and he wrapped me in a hug that felt like home. I held on to him for a few minutes, not even caring what my new neighbors must be thinking about me. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whispered into his chest, still not letting go. “Thank you for not listening to me, and for showing up here.”
Will pulled back a little and gave me a half smile. “Actually, my mother didn’t tell me where she was taking me. I didn’t know until you knocked on the car window that she came to see you.” He chuckled. “She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” But he said it as a term of endearment, and I nodded to agree.
Maybe it was strange the way Gloria had brought me to Will, then forced us apart, then brought us back together again. As if we were a love story she was writing too, the ending still unknown. But right then all I could feel was grateful that she had brought him here, and that she had told me the truth about everything.
Will reached for my hand. “So...you live here?” he asked, pointing to my new little house behind us. I nodded. “It’s cute.”
“Now that we’ve established that you’re not a trespasser, do you want to come in?” I asked him.
He squeezed my hand. “Of course.”
“Oh, and I have a cat now too. You can meet him. He’s awful. Almost as bad as Jasper. But you’ll love him.”
Will grimaced. “Well... I’m really not a cat person. But I’m suddenly hoping your cat likes me. What do you think that says about me? And also, how in the world do you even get a cat to like you?”
I stood up on my toes and kissed him softly, slowly, leaning into him long enough that we both had to pull back a little for air after a few minutes. Then I whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m not a cat person either. But it’s amazing what a can of tuna can do.”