For Lila, Forever

“Well, that just seems cruel.” She folds her arms and clucks her tongue. “With your grandfather in the nursing home and it just being the two of you … how could someone be so heartless?”

“If you knew him, you’d understand.” I glance at my front door. “I should probably start packing.”

“Where will you go?” she asks. “Do you have anything lined up?”

I begin to speak, but my throat tightens. I can tell her we’re staying in a hotel for the time being, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re officially homeless, and the thought of saying that out loud sends a painful jolt to my stomach.

“You don’t, do you?” she asks, yanking off her big sunglasses as she takes a step closer. Placing her hand on my arm, she shakes her head. “You’re staying with me. And I won’t take no for an answer. I’ve got two extra bedrooms and a spare bath. They’re all yours until you can get on your feet.”

“Are … are you sure?” She’s being entirely too kind and it pains me to take her up on this generous offer, but I think of my daughter, and how much easier this change will be if I keep her on her same familiar street with the same familiar faces.

“Oh, honey. Yes.” She nods. “And you know … I have a couple of nephews back from OSU for the summer. I’m sure they’d like to make a little cash. Want me to see if they can help with the move? Pretty sure one of them has a truck.”

I’m too choked up to speak, so I drop the cardboard boxes and throw my arms around Ms. Beauchamp.

“Thank you,” I finally manage as the scent of her perfume fills my lungs.

It smells of lilacs.

It smells like my mother.

If I believed in signs, I’d almost think …

“All right, dear. You better start packing,” she says. “I’m going to call the guys and tell them to get over here ASAP. Don’t you worry, Delilah, we’ll get this done.”

The strangest sensation washes over me, a lightness or a weightlessness, and I realize now that I don’t have to be Delilah Hill anymore.

For the first time in a decade, I’m free from Howard Bertram and all of his chains.

And that feeling? Priceless.

Chapter 51

Thayer

I’m in my office Monday morning, but my mind is elsewhere.

Tapping my pen against my desk and staring into space, I lose myself in little vignettes that play like daydreams in my head. I try to picture what our life would’ve been like had I known from the beginning. She’d have left the island and I’d have left New Haven, but where would we have gone? And what would I have done for work? I imagine we’d have been broke as hell but stupid happy. And I imagine she’d have been stressed and nervous and worried and I’d have been making it my mission to remind her that the best is yet to come.

I try to imagine what Lila would’ve looked like pregnant.

How her soft belly would’ve felt under my palm.

I try to imagine the tears in her eyes when she heard the heartbeat for the first time and the pain she must have felt going through all of this without me.

My reveries disappear for a moment and my focus shifts. I spent all of yesterday mourning what might have been and redirecting my anger from Granddad to Westley to Lila and back. Maybe it isn’t fair to be upset with Westley and Lila, but I can’t help but feel betrayed by them for keeping me in the dark. Contract be damned, I had a child out there and she was kept from me by the very three people who meant the most to me.

The shrill ring of my office phone jolts me back into the present moment, and I grab the call.

“Mr. Ainsworth, your mother is on line three,” my assistant says.

Any time my mother calls me at work, it’s usually to tell me she’s in the city and wants to do lunch or to remind me of some upcoming family engagement she RSVP’d me to.

“Tell her I’ll call her back,” I say.

“She says it’s urgent.”

Sucking in a deep breath, I mull it over. My mother has never deemed anything “urgent” in her life. She’s always been patient and unhurried and unburdened by even the most stressful of situations.

I think of my father, and I hope to God nothing happened.

“All right. I’ll take it,” I say, hanging up with her and pressing the blinking light. “Mom, what’s going on?”

She doesn’t answer right away.

And then I hear sobs, gasping, breathless sobs.

“Mom, talk to me. What happened? Is Dad okay?” I ask, heart going a million miles an hour. I rise from my chair, unable to sit and wait.

“Thayer,” she says between sniffs. “I’m so sorry to tell you this … but Granddad passed away.”