Page 34 of Goodbye, Earl (Ladies’ Revenge Club #4)

I t was three days before they could begin the journey back to Crooked Nook. A day and a half of spotty, warm rain passed, and then another day and a half for the roads to dry. It was, Claire came to find out, very common for the time of year around the games.

In the time that they had left in the little cottages, Freddy was given the opportunity to demonstrate his prowess in the kitchen.

He made Oliver the beef with cherry sauce he had promised back on the event of their first meeting, and he made his famous white fish and hollandaise, at Claire’s request.

She still couldn’t quite believe how good both dishes had been.

He had also taught Oliver how to fry an egg. Oliver, of course, was not allowed to handle the pan or the stovetop or the eggs, but he observed, and he listened as best as a child at that age can.

“A man ought to know how to fry an egg,” Freddy told their son. “Even if he never has to do it.”

Claire had written letters.

First to her sister, to tell her what had happened. She avoided any mention of pie. Next, she wrote her parents, doing much the same in a very different tone. To Ember, she wrote only one line:

He refuses to leave.

Ember would understand.

Freddy had spent the days engrossed in the remainder of those stories she’d written, the fairy tales, and discussing the notes that the others had left in the margins.

Once he’d read through all of them, he took to transcribing them, sitting at the kitchen table for almost an entire night as his quill scratched over a stack of parchment he’d gotten God knows where.

“We’ll have to find a publisher in London,” he’d said to her, after coming to bed entirely too late. “I don’t trust anyone this far-flung to do it justice.”

“A publisher?” she had repeated, realizing as she said it that she should have known that was what he was doing. “Goodness, do you think they’ll be interested?”

He had only laughed at her, kissed her head, and told her to go to sleep.

She didn’t go to sleep. She waited until his breathing had evened, until his restless little kicks had stilled, and she crept up out of the bed and back out into the kitchen to her dower box.

She hadn’t had a moment alone with it since that night back at the Nook, and there was one final piece of her story in the box that she wanted to retrieve.

It took some doing, wiggling up the false bottom, but she did achieve it after a time. And there, nestled in the rear corner, was still the little satin bag she’d put there many years prior, when she’d named this box for all the harsh lessons she’d learned.

Her wedding ring was inside.

She sat with it for a time, setting it on the table in front of her and admiring the way it caught the light from the lanterns outside. Part of her, absurdly, feared it would not fit anymore, as though her finger had doubled in size in the years since she’d taken it off.

But it did.

It slid onto her hand like it had never left it, hugging her flesh just tight enough to be secure without bringing discomfort. It gleamed like it had been freshly polished and not abandoned in that little bag for so long.

That was how Freddy found her.

He didn’t say anything, simply walking into the kitchen and pulling out the chair next to hers to ease into. His pajamas were wrinkled, his hair fuzzy. He looked beautiful even so, impossible not to gaze upon, once he was close.

She smiled at him, offering him the hand with the ring freshly restored to it. He accepted it immediately.

“You know,” she said softly, afraid to disturb the peace around them, “I put it on and took it off a thousand times after I left. Even when it was threatening to draw blood because of how puffy my fingers got while I was pregnant. Off and on, over and over again. For over a year.”

“What made you stop?” he asked, twisting it around her finger between the pads of his.

“Coming to Crooked Nook,” she answered with a little shrug. “I thought your mother and grandmother would see it and hate me for still wearing it, so I put it away. I realize now that not having it on was also offensive, of course. Retrospection is often a little sharp.”

“Ah,” said Freddy, looking at her softly. “About that. Would you stay right there for a moment? Right there. Do not go anywhere.”

She hesitated, blinking up at him as he stood, touched the crown of her head as though to ensure she stay put, and then hurried out of the kitchen.

She sat in the emptiness for a moment, looking down at her hand and mimicking the motion he’d made, twisting her ring in circles around the base of her finger.

She could hear him fumbling around somewhere down the hallway. She could hear the rummaging of bags and the hiss of annoyance and the flipping of leather flaps.

When he returned, he was carrying a lantern in one hand and an envelope in the other, one of the oversized ones Claire always associated with her father’s law firm, secured first with a bit of glued string and then second with a wax seal.

“What is that?” she asked wryly. “Are you suing me?”

He chuckled, taking his seat again and adjusting the lantern on the table between them. “Not yet,” he teased. “Should I?”

“Perhaps,” she said with a shrug, “but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

He grinned at her. “My brother is a barrister.”

“So are all of mine,” she reminded him, starting to giggle. She swiped her hand forward, making like she was going to snatch the envelope from him without actually intending to. “Well? What is it.”

“Ah!” he tutted, swinging it out of reach. “Patience was never your strongest virtue, was it? It is a letter. An old one.”

“A letter?” she asked, leaning back in her chair and watching him, admiring the way his wrinkled sleepwear clung to the lean planes of his body. “How old?”

“Exactly as old as Oliver,” Freddy replied, raising his eyebrows. “I wrote it the day he debuted.”

She paused, a jolt of genuine surprise snapping behind her cheeks. “For me?” she asked, deeply curious, “or for him?”

“For you, mostly,” Freddy replied, setting it neatly on the table, just below the lantern. “The lad couldn’t read very well at the time.”

“How do you know?” she said with a sniff, knowing it would amuse him. She was determined not to make this tense, now that she knew what it was about. “My son is very gifted.”

“Touché,” he allowed, twisting his lips.

He leaned forward and tapped the crinkled, dried-out parchment that made up the envelope.

“Silas has had it all these years. He gave it back to me after the day we spent at the Rollright Stones, despite the fact that he was supposed to give it to you. Silas always did like to re-saddle me with the burdens I created. Very inconsiderate.”

“Very,” she agreed, her eyes falling to the envelope, which looked very yellowed in this light. “What does it say?”

“Well, that’s the damndest thing,” Freddy replied, lifting his fingers and reaching forward to brush them over her wrist. “I do not recall. I thought about opening it, but that seemed ignoble. It’s not addressed to me.”

“Oh,” she said, unable to argue with that, meeting his eye in the low light of the lantern. “Well, shall I open it, or do you want to hedge a guess or two first?”

“Claire,” he replied affectionately.

“Yes, fine,” she said, taking a deep breath in case she needed to fuel a sigh. “Let’s find out.”

Rather than sighing, she opted to just hold the straining gulp of air in her lungs, letting it bulge in protest in all the little spaces between her ribs.

She didn’t know what she expected. Perhaps an apology so gratuitous, it would break them both? Perhaps a bit of rage that she’d kept him from her childbed? Disappointment at the way she had left him back in Bruges?

Perhaps it would have been better to just burn the thing. There was no going back and fixing it now, anyhow.

“Claire,” he said again. “Are you all right?”

She realized she’d been obvious again, sat there like an overfilled balloon, gripping the corner of the envelope.

“Oh,” she said, deflating. “Apologies.”

“I can do it,” he offered gently. “If you don’t want to.”

She flattened her lips at him and flicked the seal away with her thumbnail, sending it sailing over the lantern and past the edge of the table. “No,” she said. “I will do it.”

But she did take her time unwrapping the thing. She did allow herself that. She made a show of pressing it flat on the table, of flattening it with her fingers, of scooting her chair to the side so that Freddy could draw closer and they could read it together.

She reached out for his hand. Before she read a single word, she wanted his hand. He gave it to her without question and with a reassuring firmness and warmth, their wedding rings brushing against one another in the dark.

To Claire — and to the Child —

I am not with you today. I am nearby. I am wishing you health and happiness. I am thinking of you both. I am there in spirit, from the other side of the walls. I have always been there and always will be, even beyond oceans and cities and rooms. You may rely upon it.

One day, I will know your name, my son or daughter. One day I will see you again, my beloved wife.

One day, all of this will be nothing more than a memory and it will be a precious one, despite its imperfection.

So until I can see you both again, until I can hold you and tell you with my voice, know only that you are in my heart. You are in its every beat.

Know that you are loved. Know that I am —

Forever yours,

Freddy Hightower

For a long time, they did not speak.

She read it once, and again, and again. She read it until the words started to muddle and lose their sound and meaning.

And at long last, even though she had told Silas she wouldn’t and hadn’t and didn’t anymore, Claire Hightower began to cry.

It was not sad crying. It was not a banishment. It was not an escape.

It was, instead, rain after a very long drought. It was healing and sustenance and relief.

It was what she needed, if only just this once.