The doorbell woke her. Ruth’s first thought was Who would show up at Shell Haven this early? The second was I’m not in my own bedroom. The third was My body feels different.
It had been a very long time since she’d had sex.
She sat up, taking in the details of the third-floor room, the space she’d prepared so carefully for Olivia’s arrival at the start of the summer. On the bedside table, one of the rose-and-black-currant candles she’d purchased at Good Scents and the copy of Land’s End. And next to her, Ben.
The events of the night before came rushing back to her, the good, the bad, and the outrageous. The backyard kiss with Ben that had made her feel like the teenager on that boat forty years ago, feelings she barely had a moment to process before Bianca’s theatrics and Jaci Barros’s public confession. After that, there was no time to think about Ben. The place was in an uproar, and she joined Amelia and Rachel and a circle of other women who were helping Lidia deal with the news. Olivia left with a distraught Marco, and Manny Barros took it upon himself to escort Bianca out of the party.
“I have my own confession to make,” Ben said later that night as they shared a bottle of wine in the Shell Haven living room. Outside, Carnival still raged. Ruth knew they would be hearing music and fireworks possibly until the sun came up. “This disaster is all my fault.”
Ruth refilled his glass. “What? Tonight? I don’t see how that’s possible.”
Ben took the bottle from her hand and set it down. His expression was miserable. “On my first day in town, Olivia told me about the baby being abandoned. I let it slip to Bianca.”
“Why would you do that?”
Ben shook his head. “She had a theory that it was Olivia’s. I was telling her no way, it wasn’t my daughter’s baby. That the baby had been left on the porch.”
“Bianca knew the baby wasn’t Olivia’s! The baby appeared before Olivia got to town. Bianca was just trying to push your buttons. She was fishing. And she got what she wanted.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ruth couldn’t find it in herself to be angry at him when there was so much blame to go around. “Still, that doesn’t explain how she knew Mira belonged to Jaci.”
“If you have one piece of the puzzle, it’s probably not that hard to put the rest together. I mean, the baby does look like their family. And you figured it out, so it stands to reason that someone else might discover the truth too.”
She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I told you Bianca was a menace.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I feel terrible. I don’t know what to do.”
Ruth was suddenly exhausted. It had to be close to one in the morning. “There’s nothing to do,” Ruth said. “Jaci had to come forward eventually. It’s out of our hands now. Let’s just…keep this to ourselves.”
“Can you forgive me?” he said.
She looked at him. Despite the lateness of the hour, despite all the cocktails and wine, he was focused on her with steely clarity. Were they still talking about the baby?
“Can you forgive me?” she said, and it came out as a whisper.
He did not answer; instead, he leaned forward and kissed her. It soon became clear they needed to take their little party of two upstairs.
“Hey,” Ben said now, sitting up. His hair was slightly mussed, and without his glasses and just wearing a gray T-shirt in bed, he looked exactly the same to her as he had as a college boy.
“Hey,” she said. How was it possible that so much time had passed and yet they could wake up in bed like it was forty years ago, like nothing at all had happened?
That had to mean something.
“That was some night,” he said, smiling.
What if she suggested they pick up where they had left off? Or, rather, that they pick up from where they had been the most happy. Ruth had once been asked the question: If you could choose any age to be forever, what would it be? This felt similar. Did an ideal version of themselves as a couple exist, one they could try to find their way back to? Or would they have to push forward, become something new entirely? Did they have it in themselves to do that?
“Don’t go back to Cherry Hill,” she said.
“Ruth,” he said. “You always have to push.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Ben put his arm around her, and she leaned against him. “No. It’s not. But Ruth, we’re too old not to be realistic. I have my life there.”
“And I just bought a house here,” she said quietly. Blue Stone. Her forever home. Then there was the fact that Elise and Fern were starting to sell her handmade products in the shop. She was on her way to launching a new small business—nothing on the scale of what Liv had become, but something. She would not mention this to Ben, would not remind him of the career-obsessed woman she had once been. Things were different now. At least, she wanted them to be different.
Ben tightened his arm around her. “I think we need to see the past few weeks—and last night—for what it was.”
“And what’s that?”
“A beautiful ending to our story.”
It was beautiful, that was for sure. “It doesn’t have to be an ending.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Ruth, I’ll always love you. And I’m grateful we had this summer together. But let’s not be irrational.”
Why wasn’t it rational to think that now, at an entirely different stage of their lives, they might be in a place to appreciate each other and be together again? It wasn’t about rationality. He simply didn’t trust her. And why should he?
He was the one who’d made sacrifices for their life together. She never had.
Somehow, she had to show him that she was capable of that.
Elise sat hunched over in their bedroom while Fern packed up Mira’s clothes and bottles and diapers and brought them downstairs.
Manny came over to pick everything up, and when Elise heard the front door close and the sound of Fern’s footsteps climbing the stairs, she burrowed under the covers and pulled the comforter over her head. She did not want to talk to Fern—or anyone. She didn’t want to be a part of the world.
Fern sat on the edge of the bed. “Elise, I need to talk to you.”
Elise shook her head, then, realizing Fern couldn’t see it, let out a muffled “No.”
“It’s important. Just listen to what I have to say and then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.” Fern pulled back the covers and rubbed Elise’s shoulder gently.
“I’m going to sleep,” Elise said. For the rest of the year.
“This is sooner than I wanted to tell you about this, but everything that’s happened is sort of forcing my hand.” Fern paused, then said, “Amelia told me about Jaci last month.”
Elise sat up. “What?”
“She figured it out.”
“I don’t understand. When did she tell you?”
“Remember when Amelia came to the shop and insisted I stop by the inn for a drink?”
Of course Elise remembered. And she also remembered that Fern left the next morning for Boston.
“That’s when she said she was certain the baby belonged to Jaci. She wanted me to help break the news to you gently—she knew you were hoping to keep her. And I didn’t want you to lose another baby, so I asked her to give me some time.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you keep this from me? All along, you said I was getting too emotionally invested in Mira, and then you made it worse!”
“I didn’t want to make it worse. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to figure out a way to fix this so that you weren’t heartbroken yet again. And so, once I realized that we would never be able to keep Mira—that she belonged to Jaci—I went to see Dr. Sparrow.”
Dr. Sparrow. In Boston. Elise didn’t dare breathe. “Why?”
“I had our remaining embryos implanted. Like I said, it’s earlier than I wanted to tell you about it, but…we’re having a baby.”