Don't Let Go

I had no memory of leaving Katyville or coming down the highway. It was like I woke up in front of the diner, having gotten there on autopilot. My eyes were hot and dry, like I had used all the liquid up and I was just going to fry from within.

 

My heart was thundering in my chest and in my ears. He had all those pictures his dad sent through the years framed and taking over a side table like a shrine.

 

How was it possible? How did his dad get them? How could he?

 

I could go ask the source, I thought, glaring through the diner window all decorated in shoe polish snowflakes. Linny’s contribution. And I would, but Noah was first. He never said a word about photos, and I was driven to find out why and see them for myself. It was a physical ache pulling me to Johnny Mack’s house.

 

Shayna was probably right on my tail, or burning up Noah’s phone, but I didn’t care. She could watch me rip Noah a new one and then follow me to the diner to get to the truth.

 

I skidded into Johnny Mack’s driveway and had a foot outside before the key was even turned off. I poked at the doorbell three times, then three more for good measure. I’d just started rapping on the wood with my knuckles when the door swung open.

 

Damn it if he couldn’t make me pull in an extra breath, even as pissed off and crazed as I was. Standing there fresh from a shower, barefoot, in gray sweatpants and an old faded Navy T-shirt, his frown turned wary as he saw my face.

 

“Jules, what are you—”

 

“Where are they?” I asked.

 

The frown came back. “Where are—what?”

 

“The pictures of him,” I spat, walking in uninvited and pushing past him and his warm aroma of soap and sexiness. “Where are they?”

 

“What are you talking about?” he asked, closing the door and following behind me. “Look, Shayna told me what my dad said, and I’m sorry. I talked to him about it already.”

 

I paced the living room I hadn’t seen in over twenty years, noting that everything was still in the exact same place. Every piece of furniture, every photograph. Even one of Noah and me at the junior prom, me holding my flowers in front of my nonexistent bump. I was surprised he left that one out. It was like stepping back in time. But there was not one new photograph of a boy. Not anywhere.

 

“Jules,” he said. “Did you hear me?”

 

I wheeled around to face him. “You had framed pictures of our son in Italy.”

 

Noah blinked and physically moved back a step. “Okay.”

 

I scoffed. “Okay?”

 

He held his hands up. “What do you want me to say?”

 

“What do I want—” My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might pass out. “Are you kidding me? Where are they?”

 

“They’re packed up. I don’t have a place to live yet, remember?” he said. “What the hell is going on with you?”

 

Why was he so calm? He wasn’t even trying to hide it or deny it.

 

“Noah,” I said, braving the distance and grabbing his T-shirt to get his attention. His sharp intake of breath told me I’d gotten it. “How do you have photos of him?”

 

He looked down into my face with the same look Shayna had given me. Like I’d lost my mind. “The same way you do.” When I just shook my head, he blew out a frustrated breath and pulled free of me. “Hang on a second.”

 

He disappeared down a hallway to what I knew must still be his old room and came back seconds later holding his wallet.

 

“Look,” he said, flipping to the photos. “It’s the same ones—”

 

I sucked in a breath as a face that looked like the male version of Becca when she was little, only with blue eyes, smiled back at me with no front teeth. It swam in front of me as tears reasserted themselves and came forth with a vengeance.

 

“Jules?” he said, his tone changed.

 

“Oh, my G—” I choked, taking the wallet from him and touching the photos gingerly as I turned them. “Oh, my God, my baby.”

 

I didn’t realize I was backing up until I met with solid wall, and once I did I started sliding down it.

 

“Whoa, whoa,” Noah said, jumping forward and grabbing me by the upper arms. “Hold on, come here.”

 

He attempted to pull me to him, but I pushed back. “Why?” I breathed, turning another and another as the boy got older.

 

Seth, Fifth grade was marked on the back of one with neat blue pen.

 

“Seth?” I choked. “His name is Seth? He has a—oh, my God.” It was too much. Suddenly the nameless, faceless little boy I’d mourned for and prayed for the last twenty-six years was a fleshed-out person with a name and a life, and it made the loss even more grueling. “He’s beautiful,” I breathed.

 

Noah didn’t have them back to back, I realized through my haze, so he could see the years. Ninth grade, eleventh, a cap and gown picture, a snapshot of him standing next to a pretty girl, looking less like Becca at that point and more like Noah. And the last one, in a policeman’s uniform at an academy graduation, looking very much like Noah, grinning next to two other guys. Men. He was a man now.

 

“Why—how?” I pushed out. “Where did these come from?” I sucked in a shaky breath. “And why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“My dad sent them,” he said. His hand came to my face and tried to lift my chin but I jerked my face away, not wanting to look away from the little boy I’d last seen when he was two minutes old. “You have these, too.”

 

“No!” I yelled, the sound more of a wail. “I have nothing!” At his shocked face, I pushed him back and walked the room, pressing his wallet to my chest. I gulped in air, unable to get enough, like something was pulling the oxygen from the room. “How did he do this?” I asked, turning to face him, begging with my eyes.

 

Noah’s face showed a myriad of reactions—confusion, disbelief, questions. “I don’t understand,” he said, more to himself than to me.

 

“The adoption was sealed, Noah. No contact. How the hell did he get pictures, and—” A sob took over my throat. “I’ve been here all along. How could he not show me—”

 

My knees threatened to give way again, and I spurred myself into motion before the feeling could win. Before I’d let this agony overwhelm me, I had to get the facts. Walking straight to the door, I opened it and headed to my car, Noah’s wallet still held against my chest.

 

“Jules, wait,” Noah said, springing into action behind me.

 

“I have to talk to your dad.”

 

“I’m coming with you.”

 

“I don’t need you,” I said, wheeling on him on the sidewalk. “I have a twenty-year-old beef with him that’s about to come to a fucking head right now.”

 

Noah’s eyes flared anger that I felt had more to do with my saying I didn’t need him than what I’d said about his father.

 

“You don’t need to drive,” he said, his voice low and commanding. “Give me your keys, let me put some shoes on, and wait your ass right here.”

 

I felt the muscles in my face, my neck, my whole body twitch with adrenaline.

 

“Fine,” I said, slamming my keys into his hand.

 

I walked around to the passenger side while he glared at me, and then he turned back into the house. I got in and felt the cold quiet sink in around me, my breathing being the loudest thing. I pulled Noah’s wallet away from my chest and started at the beginning. A faded photo that was marked Seth, six months. Just six months after I’d seen him last, it was the closest in resemblance to the baby I remembered.

 

“I loved you,” I whispered, sobs shaking my body again. “I always loved you.”

 

The driver’s side door opened and Noah got in, grimacing as his knees crammed against the steering column. He adjusted it and shut the door, giving me a look before he started the engine, an odd expression taking over his features.

 

“What?” I asked.

 

He shook his head slightly, almost as if that motion, too, were inside his own thoughts.

 

“The last time we were in a car together, you were crying then too.” His eyes met mine. “You’d already made up your mind.” I looked away, unable to bear looking at him as he said that. “Jules, I didn’t know you didn’t have these pictures, too. I wondered when there was nothing at your house, but then—and now with what you told me this morning about your parents pretending it never happened.” He rubbed at his eyes and raked his fingers back through still-damp hair, making his short cut stick up in little dark spikes. “It all makes sense now.”

 

“It’s about to make more,” I said.

 

I turned back to the pictures, running a finger over the last one, the one of Seth in a policeman’s uniform.

 

“That’s the last one I ever received,” he said, starting the car and putting it in reverse. “That was about four or five years ago. I guess once he hit twenty-one they stopped sending.”

 

Seth looked so much like Noah in that photo, it was like turning back time.

 

We were quiet on the drive to the diner. He was right, it was weird being in the car with him again, seeing him at the wheel. Weird and oddly right.

 

“Who told you I had photos in Italy?” Noah asked finally when we turned onto the street that flanked the river.

 

“I was talking to Shayna at the library,” I said.

 

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You two get along too well.”

 

I would have laughed at that another time. If my world hadn’t been upended and the diner wasn’t rolling into view. Instead, every moment of every day that Johnny Mack Ryan had tortured me with his indifference and ugly words came to the surface and spread over me like a giant shield of armor.

 

Georgette Pruitt was headed up the sidewalk in our direction, looking purposeful and colorful all in purple. Lord.

 

“Can I have my wallet back?” Noah asked as he pulled in a spot and parked.

 

“No.”

 

I got out and marched to the door, not caring what my drowned-rat face looked like. Not giving any thought to whether I had dried snot down all my black clothing after the day from hell that had barely made it to one in the afternoon.

 

Not caring if Noah was with me or stayed in the car. What I had to say was between me and his father, and probably a diner full of people. So damn be it.

 

“Jules, I need to talk to—” Georgette called out, upping her steps to catch up to me.

 

“Go see Ruthie,” I said, waving her away.

 

“No, it’s about the Chamber party,” she said, like that made things different. If I had to hear one more thing about flowers or floats or snowy things, even in a party atmosphere, I was going to do something unladylike.

 

“Ruthie,” I said, already swinging open the door.

 

I saw him immediately. He was out of the kitchen and behind the bar, refilling coffee during a lull. Good. He’d have plenty of time to give me his undivided attention.

 

Johnny Mack looked up as I walked in, a scowl clouding his face when he saw it was me before he looked away. Long-buried hurt freshened by recent events stung to the bone.

 

I slammed Noah’s wallet down on the counter, pictures facing up. “Explain.”

 

He let go of a deep sigh, sounding exhausted. “Maybe you should explain what you’re doing with Noah’s wallet.”

 

“I gave it to her,” Noah said from behind me.

 

Johnny Mack looked up, surprised. “What the hell are you doing with Julianna Doucette?”

 

“It’s White now,” I said. “Been that way for twenty-something years now, did you miss the memo?”

 

“Dad, I told you,” Noah said, his voice carrying that dark demanding something that made people listen. “Enough of this.”

 

“You have that sweet Shayna now, boy,” Johnny Mack said. “Don’t go messing—”

 

“I could give a shit who your boy is with now,” I said, my voice rising enough to turn a few heads. I tapped the photos in the wallet. “We’re not here for that. I want to know why you have these.”

 

“Not your business,” he said quietly.

 

“Not my business?” I said, scoffing. “He’s my son.”

 

Johnny Mack shook his head. “You gave up the right to call him that—”

 

“I said enough!” Noah said, making me jump. He came up to the bar beside me and splayed both hands wide on the counter. “Stop being an ass, Dad, it’s beneath you.”

 

Johnny Mack’s expression was priceless. Like Noah, not too many people talked to him that way. I watched his jaw muscles work and he sucked in a breath through his nose.

 

“I always assumed Jules had these pictures too,” Noah said. Why on earth didn’t you—”

 

“I know why you didn’t share them with me,” I said, cutting Noah off, tears burning my eyes and throat again. “You’ve made that quite clear through the years.”

 

I felt Noah’s hand come up to the back of my neck, and I watched Johnny Mack’s eyes narrow as he took it in as well. Just the fact that it bothered him gave me courage.

 

“How could you hate me that much?” I asked, my voice dropping to almost a whisper as I braved out the question I’d wanted to ask for years. Emotion shook my words as they left my mouth. “Do you even remember loving me?”

 

He looked like he wanted to chew barbed wire as his eyes made a quick dart around the room. “You threw that away when you let that boy go.”

 

“I was seventeen,” I said, louder than I intended to, tears tracking down my cheeks. “Doing what my mom and dad said was best to do. I didn’t want it that way, but I was too scared to say no. They sent me to that god-awful place to show me what being a teenage mother would be like, remember? I was fifty different kinds of terrified.”

 

“I would have helped you,” he said, sudden emotions coming to his face, mixed with the old anger.

 

“Until I told you no about something,” I said. “Until I pissed you off. You’re no better than they were. So I did what I did. And everyone left me.” I moved away so that Noah’s hand would drop. “I lost my son, I lost Noah, my parents went in denial, and you spent the next twenty-six years making damn sure I paid for my sins.” I slammed a fist on the counter in front of him. “And how dare you insult my daughter today.”

 

His mouth worked and then clamped shut before he sighed with irritability. “I was out of line with that comment earlier, I apologize,” he said, staring at coasters on the counter instead of looking at me. It sounded forced, but I didn’t care.

 

“Jules said the adoption was sealed, Dad,” Noah said, laying a hand on his open wallet. “How’d you pull that off?”

 

Johnny Mack grabbed a bar cloth and wiped the length of what he could reach, then gave up with a sigh, rested his hands on the cloth and met my eyes. “Your mother gave them to me.”

 

 

 

• • •

 

 

 

For the first time in years, there was no animosity in his eyes. No hate. Just—a giving up of sorts. Giving up my mother. Throwing her under the bus. It wasn’t possible. My mother was controlling and had done many questionable things in the name of “taking care of people,” but it was too far outside the realm of belief.

 

I shook my head as every nerve ending on my body woke up. “I don’t believe you.”

 

Johnny Mack shrugged. “That’s your choice, but it’s the truth.”

 

“How?” Noah said, moving closer to me again. As if he sensed my impending breakdown.

 

Johnny Mack met his son’s gaze and then looked off into the diner, avoiding my hard stare.

 

“Mary arranged that as part of the adoption,” he said. “That correspondence and two copies of photographs a year would be sent to her, and her only, until he was twenty-one.” He darted a look my way and then just as quickly feigned interest in his rag. “She always gave me the second one. I sent them to Noah.”

 

The trembling started at my core, like all warmth had left my body. I gripped the counter to stem it, but it just got worse.

 

“Why—” Noah began, his voice hoarse. “Why would they agree to that?”

 

“Mary set up a trust in his name in exchange for it,” Johnny Mack said, not looking at either of us.

 

“No,” I whispered. “That’s not—” I shook my head, unable to believe that she would have done that to me.

 

“Why didn’t anyone tell Jules about this?” Noah asked, voicing the question I couldn’t seem to push out of my mouth. “Or me, for that matter? I didn’t know any of that. Dad!” he yelled, when Johnny Mack didn’t answer, making the old man jump and turn to face him. “Why?”

 

“Because Mary didn’t think she could handle it,” Johnny Mack said with a snarl to his voice and lips. “Okay?” He turned and looked me dead in the eye with both irritation and pity. “I didn’t want to say that out loud, but there, you feel better knowing that? She made me promise not to tell you about the pictures or anything related to the boy. She said it was better for you to move on.”

 

My stomach roiled against its contents as every muscle contracted. I grasped Noah’s wallet and backed up, running into a customer who I heard offer apologies but I couldn’t see. All I could see was Johnny Mack’s face, looking at me with something related to remorse, as if saying it all out loud somehow finally highlighted the insanity of it.

 

Better for me.

 

I sucked in air as what felt like my mother’s final blow knocked the wind from my chest, and as I turned for the door, I suddenly felt weightless. Blackness tinged the edges of my waterlogged vision, sounds of chatter started to echo, and as I reached for the knob it disappeared.

 

Arms caught me, wrapping around my middle.

 

“I’ve got you,” came Noah’s voice against my ear. He held me tight against him, one arm around my waist and one holding my head as sounds started coming back into normal tones. “Just breathe, baby, I’ve got you.”

 

He called me baby, I thought, my woozy thoughts swimming around in the delicious aroma that was Noah.

 

“I need to go—home,” I managed to say as my feet felt solid floor again.

 

“We’re going,” he said, lifting my chin to look at my eyes. “Are you okay to walk?”

 

I blinked and nodded and pulled gently away from him, feeling the odd mix of my body coming back to life as my soul shut down. It was the last straw, the last thing my mind was willing to take on, and my heart felt like it turned cold in my chest.

 

“Noah,” Johnny Mack said from behind us. “There’s something I need to tell you. I was going to make it a surprise, but now I think I should tell both of you—”

 

“Save it,” Noah snapped before he led me out the door.

 

He put me in the car and we drove in silence to my house. I had nothing left. No more tears, thank God, I was completely out of those. Nothing but betrayal and rage coursed through me as we passed the houses I’d seen all my life. As we passed the old one I’d shared with Hayden. That’s where I should have stayed, I realized. I should have sold Mom’s house when she died and stayed where we were. Away from the negativity and rules and controlling influence that her house still held over me.

 

She had ruined my life.

 

We pulled into the driveway, and I stared at the house I now despised with everything in my being.

 

Noah’s phone sang “Love Shack” and he hit the button to silence it.

 

“Shayna?” I asked, and he nodded. “You can call her back.”

 

He texted something quickly. “Told her I’ll call her back later.”

 

“I should have brought you home,” I said, not recognizing the hollow sound of my words, my voice.

 

Noah shook his head and handed me the keys. “I’m not leaving you here alone,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I’ll walk the two blocks later if I have to.”

 

My phone buzzed from my purse and I dug it out to see Becca asking to spend the night with Lizzy. Not a shocker. And probably a good idea, considering my mood.

 

“I’m not good company right now,” I said, eyeing the house as if my mother were standing on the porch.

 

Ignoring me, he got out and walked around to my side, where I still sat, and opened my door. “Come on.”

 

I swung my legs out and stood, letting him shut the door behind me as I walked up to a place that didn’t feel like mine anymore. Not that it ever really had, but I was at least making headway. Now none of that mattered. My mother still lived there. Working me like a puppet, just as Noah had said.

 

I unlocked the door, hearing and feeling him behind me, and heard the ka-thunk of Harley jumping off the couch.

 

“Hey, my Harley girl,” I said as she wiggled over to me, swinging her giant tail. I felt love and relief seep back through for just a second as her unconditional love melted my heart a little. I knelt and buried my face in her neck. “You and the girl child are the only things that make this home,” I mumbled.

 

Standing as Harley then made her way to Noah to get bonus points, I kicked off my shoes and looked around the room at all I had done to try and make it our home. It was lipstick on a pig, as Nana Mae would say. Nothing changed the guts of the thing. I narrowed my eyes as I scanned the room with a different perspective.

 

Somewhere in these guts were photos of Seth. Hidden away because I couldn’t handle it. I clenched my teeth together at the anger those words fired up in me. Photos and correspondence, whatever the hell that could be. But how? We’d gone through every possible drawer and file, both at the house and at the bookstore, when she died. And then many of the older pieces of furniture had been put to the street in favor of ours. I couldn’t imagine what I could have missed—

 

My eyes landed on the bookshelf. Or rather, my mother’s corner of it. The section I never really touched, but pretty much just jammed together to make room for my own things.

 

Walking slowly to it, I stared, adrenaline boiling my blood as I remembered my mother lying in a hospital bed telling Becca and me that she loved us and never mentioning one word about “Oh, by the way, there’s something kind of important you might want to find.”

 

“That bitch,” I whispered.

 

“Jules,” Noah said.

 

“No, Noah,” I said, hearing the shake in my voice as the irony spread through my system like poison. “My mother sent my son away, cutting all contact for me but holding on to it for herself.” I turned to face him, my whole head feeling like the top of a volcano. “For herself. She still had a grandchild, but I couldn’t be a moth—” My words gave way as my chest pushed the air from my lungs. “She gave it to your dad to send to you on the other side of the world, but couldn’t share it with her own daughter, right here in the same house.”

 

He just met my gaze and didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.

 

“She knew his name,” I said, the rage bringing tears back to my throat. “For years I’ve wondered how your dad could hate me so much, and now I have to wonder how my own mother could have so little fucking faith in me.”

 

Noah moved toward me but I turned around. Turned to stare at her books and her beloved atlases and precious antique glassware. All collecting dust because I never did more than hit it with a feather duster. I never liked being around it. I always assumed that was due to so many unresolved, unfinished issues with my mother. Or my own guilt over the resentment I felt. Whatever the reasons, I left her things alone.

 

I pulled a book out, flipped through it, and set it on the floor. Pulled out another one and did the same. Again and again, thick atlases and small books. I moved the glassware to other shelves, and Noah silently picked up the books and began making stacks as I pulled faster and faster, not caring about what they were. Harley sniffed each one tentatively and would then look up at me with her little forehead creased like she wanted to understand the game but wasn’t catching on.

 

I kept tossing and Noah kept organizing, and if he didn’t know what I was doing, he didn’t say. And although I originally didn’t want him there, I found myself glad to not be alone.

 

It didn’t take long.

 

Two thick volumes on astronomy stuck together as I tried to pull one out. Rather grossed out, thinking something nasty had bonded them together over time, I tried to pry them apart to no avail.

 

“What the hell?” I said, garnering Noah’s attention.

 

“What’s the matter?”

 

“These are stuck, they’re—” I stopped short when I picked them up with two hands and felt the movement within. I stared at the books in my hand, looking closer at the seam between them. Bound with super glue.

 

My Nana Mae’s words about my mother’s teenage rebellion sung softly in my ear. “. . . carving out old books to hide things like letters from boys—and her daddy’s cigarettes.”

 

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, fighting against the burn that wanted to take me under.