Chapter Nineteen
“JAMIE, ARE YOU sure this is what you want to do?” Vera stood in the doorway of his bedroom in the cottage as he packed his things the next morning. “You can’t just bury your feelings in work, no matter how easy that is.”
He met her worried gaze, then zipped his suitcase closed. “I’m not burying my feelings. I’m going back to work to handle the issue that Mark uncovered. I should have been there days ago.”
“Sounds to me like Mark came here to uncover issues.”
His muscles constricted. He gritted his teeth while he tried to calm the anger that had been gnawing at his gut ever since yesterday, when he’d found out Jessica had left. He’d held out hope that maybe his doubts were wrong until he’d broken down and called her—only to be met with her voicemail. Fifteen hours later she still hadn’t returned his call. His feelings were so tangled that he didn’t know if he was coming or going. Was she avoiding his calls because she knew he’d discovered she’d lied to him, or was it something else altogether? Had he hurt her too badly by not being there for her and leaving her in limbo while he tried to drown his doubts in ocean views, pretending he could cast them away with each rolling wave?
He picked up his suitcase and set it on the floor beside Vera. “I don’t know, Gram. I can’t figure out if his coming here was a blessing or a terrible mistake. I usually know what’s right and wrong, and this time…” He twisted the ring Jessica had given him, unable to convince himself to take it off.
Vera took his hand in hers. “That’s because this time it isn’t about right and wrong. This time it’s not about code or computers or puzzle pieces that fit into nice little niches and make sense. This time, Jamie, it’s about your heart. You’re not supposed to understand it, but it’s a good thing you’re feeling something. You’ve got a big heart. Heaven knows you do. You take care of me so well, Jamie. Now take care of you.”
He nodded, not sure he knew what taking care of himself even meant anymore.
“I’ll come back next weekend. I just need to get this work thing under control.” And hopefully get in control of myself again.
“I’ll be fine, sweetheart. If I need anything, Bella, Kurt, and the others will take care of me.” She hugged him and stroked his back, as she’d done when he was a little boy.
He kissed her cheek. “Okay. I love you.”
“I know you do. I love you, too, dear.”
Jamie reached for the door.
“Jamie.”
He turned around. “What is it, Gram?”
She shook her head, and her thin lips curved into a semi smile. “I just wanted to say that there are some things in life that are meant to be. Sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re the most hurtful, treacherous things you can imagine. Those things can’t be stopped. They can’t be thwarted by fighting or changing your course, because they’re like air. Shapeless and fluid. Odorless and silent. They move through hearts and closed doors, and travel the globe until they find their prey.”
Her tone sent a shiver down his spine. These were the words she’d used the day she told him that his parents had died. The very same words, being delivered in the very same fashion. A flash of memory he’d buried so deep he thought he’d never be able to revisit it burst forth in his tortured mind. Just before those words left her lips all those years ago, she’d stumbled at the kitchen counter where she’d been making his grilled cheese sandwich. He’d jumped from his chair—Gram! He was a little thing at six years old. He could still feel the cold linoleum on his bare feet as he ran toward her. He could still feel the weight of her, as if it were yesterday, as he’d put one lithe arm around her waist and guided her to the kitchen table. His hand was barely big enough to wrap around the wooden spindles of the chair as he tugged it from the table and guided her into it. What he didn’t remember, had never been able to recall, was a phone call telling her of their demise. No matter how many nights he’d stayed up replaying the moment in his mind, he never could recall the shrill ring of the phone.
Now she patted his hand and nodded. “Go. You’ll know what’s right.”
“I…”
“Jamie, just as you knew then, you’ll know. We couldn’t stop them. I warned them, begged them to stay, but your mother insisted, and your father, he’d have followed her into a volcano without a thought.”
“You…You believed me.”
“I believed you. You told me then that they weren’t coming home. As a boy, you were very in tune to your parents, but after…Jamie, I prayed you’d lose that connection over time, and you did. You got busy filling your mind with everything and anything you could. It was as if you never wanted to feel that connection again. Not that I blamed you. No. I knew you were right. You dove into puzzle after puzzle. Oh, the hours you spent doing every puzzle imaginable. Figures, crosswords, math calculations, and any other puzzle you could get your sad and angry little hands on. You put enough chaos in your head to fill those lonely spaces your parents left behind.”
“Gram.” He laughed at the notion. “Are you saying that it wasn’t just a feeling, but that I had a premonition about Mom and Dad dying?”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m not one to give names to things. I don’t believe like your generation does, that everything needs a label. All I know is that you knew that they were not coming back, and when I couldn’t convince your parents to stay home, I moved into your house and insisted that you stay with me.” She smiled and waved her hand in the air. “You probably don’t remember, but they put up quite a fight about leaving you home. Your mother called me every name in the book.” She paused, and her eyes filled with sadness.
He must have blacked that out, because he didn’t remember any of it, but he remembered clear as day, standing on the front porch of his parents’ house waving to them as they left for the very last time. His mother’s face was streaked with tears, her thick dark hair loose and wild, tickling his cheek and nose as she clung to him. I love you, Jamie. You’re the best boy in this world. I’ll take pictures of your favorite animals, and I’ll write to you. I love you so much. And his father, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black tee, looking virile and powerful. Jamie remembered feeling like his father was as big and solid as the oak tree in their front yard, and when he picked Jamie up and wrapped those powerful arms around his only son, the scent of Old Spice filled Jamie’s senses. Take care of Mama, he’d said to his father. I’d die before I’d let anything happen to her, his father had answered with his deep voice, full of tethered emotion. He wasn’t one to openly cry, and when he set Jamie back down on the ground and palmed Jamie’s head with his big hand, Jamie knew his father was a man of his word and meant what he’d said.
Vera squeezed his hand again, pulling him from the memories he’d thought he’d buried long ago.
“Go,” Vera urged. “Before it gets late and you have to drive in the dark. Put the past behind you and concentrate on your future. That’s where you’ll find your answers.”