An Invincible Summer (Wyndham Beach), Mariah Stewart [best classic novels TXT] 📗

up. ‘Yours?’ she asked. I started to say yes, but then I noticed a couple standing close to the glass. Before I could answer, they both said, ‘Yes.’ They were so excited they were beaming.” Brett’s voice cracked. “It was the only time I let myself wonder if we were doing the right thing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What difference would it have made? We were going to walk out of the hospital and leave him behind, and that’s what we did.”

“All this time, a part of me has hated you because I thought you were ignoring the fact he was born.”

“How the hell could I have ignored he was born? He was mine as much as he was yours.” He took off his ball cap and ran a restless hand through his hair, his cowlick sticking up stubbornly before disappearing again under the cap. “He was ours, and we were giving him away. I hadn’t wanted to see him because I knew some other guy was going to walk out of there with my son. Only then it would be his son. I thought if I didn’t see him it wouldn’t have been as hard to leave him. But that day, I knew it was my only chance, probably forever. So I stopped at the nursery window. I watched the nurse wrap him in that blanket, and I knew they were getting him ready to go home. But not with us.”

“All this time, I thought you didn’t care.”

“Of course I cared. How could I have not cared?”

“I wish you’d have communicated that a little better.”

“Maggie, for a long time, neither of us could talk about it. Then when we did, all you did was cry. I knew giving him away had broken your heart, and I knew it was my fault. I talked you into doing something you didn’t want to do.” He looked at her across the space separating them. “And I couldn’t undo it. I could never make it up to you. When you left me in Seattle, I knew it was what I deserved. I hadn’t fought for you when you needed me to, and I can never make that right.”

“It wasn’t just you. My parents . . . your father . . .”

“It shouldn’t have mattered. I should have stood up to them. Should have backed you. I never would have lost you if I’d been less of a coward and more of the man you needed me to be. After you left me, I didn’t run after you and beg you to come back, because I knew I didn’t deserve you.”

“Oh, Brett.”

“When I didn’t hear from you, I figured you just wanted to put it all behind you. And I thought I should give you that much. But something inside me never stopped hoping you’d come back. When I heard you’d gotten married, I thought, Okay, she’s found someone else to love. She’s moved on. I should, too.” He tried to smile. “Took me a little longer, and I have to say, I wasn’t as good as you were about getting it right.”

She raised her eyebrows, as if questioning him. Before she could respond, his phone rang. He took it from his belt, where it sat next to his holstered service pistol.

“Crawford . . . what? Where? Okay, secure the scene and get the witnesses’ info. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

He turned to Maggie. “Hit-and-run over on Pratt Street. I need to go. But there’s something else I need to tell you. About me being married three times. Something else I deeply regret.” His expression was sober. “I married three very good women whose only failing was that they loved me. And I hurt them because I couldn’t love them the way they deserved to be loved.” He paused, took a deep breath. “Because the problem was, I wanted them to be you, and none of them were. It wasn’t their fault. It was unfair and stupid of me to have married a woman while wanting her to be someone else. They deserved to be loved for themselves, and I couldn’t do it, and I realize what an asshole I was. The truth is I never really loved anyone but you. I’m pretty sure I never will.”

She wanted to cover her ears, but she couldn’t move. His words hung between them for what seemed like a lifetime. Then Brett stood and stepped down from the rock he’d been sitting on. “So that’s the story. Start to finish. We have a son together, and he wants to know us. He seems almost too good to be true. You’ll understand once you’ve met him. I’m glad he’s reached out to us. I’m glad you’re back. Where any of this will lead is anyone’s guess. But I’m keeping my options open.” He started to walk away, zigzagging slightly to avoid the wettest part of the sand.

“Do you love your children?” Maggie called after him.

He stopped and turned. “Of course I love them. What kind of question is that?”

“You said you regretted having been married three times. Three marriages. One child from each wife, you said at the reunion.”

“So?”

“So if you hadn’t married each of those women, you wouldn’t have those children. If you changed the past, those kids you love wouldn’t exist.”

Brett stared at her for a long time. “Huh.”

His phone rang again, and he answered as he walked away, leaving Maggie with way too much to think about. Today, for the first time, he’d told her exactly how he’d felt forty years ago, and the confession had left her speechless. Forty years too late, she might have said, but then, as she’d pointed out, changing the past meant changing everything, and that she would not do.

She walked back to the house, thinking maybe she, too, should keep her options open.

On Thursday morning, Maggie stepped into the cavernous closet the prior owners had built. Even with every piece of clothing she owned housed there, she’d barely filled the space. She stared