Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Lemonade with Eloise.
An emotional goodbye with Jack.
The cemetery.
It doesn’t feel like the span of twelve hours. It feels like weeks, months … years.
I don’t know what to do or where to go. Is Jack still alive? If he is, where was Slade taking him?
My maniacal laugh cuts through the silence. I don’t recognize it as my own. “The world thinks he’s dead.” Tears accompany my hysterical laughter. Jackson Knight’s not his real name. And Jude Day died.
No real name.
No number.
No address.
I’m in love with a ghost.
Stumbling in the dark, I go from the car to the sofa and collapse, drawing my knees to my chest.
The garbage truck wakes me with screeching brakes and the clang of the lift. I slowly sit up and rub my eyes. For some reason, I glance around the garage, hoping to see Jack.
The idle piano keys and boxing bag tell the ending of this story. I won’t see him again. Maybe he’s dead, and if that’s the case, I’m glad I don’t know. If I figure out how to drag myself off this sofa, say goodbye to Eloise, and drive home, imagining he’s alive will make it easier—imagining he’s reunited with his daughter, waiting for her to give him another grandchild.
It’s a long walk to the cemetery, but I need my car. And by some miracle, it’s here. The door unlocked—key fob in the console where I left it. I can see why John thought this was a safer place to raise a family.
When I pull into the driveway, Eloise is on the porch in her wooden rocker, her usual spot, so much for sneaking around the back of the house to get showered and out of these smoky clothes before she sees me.
“Francesca. Oh my goodness! Are you—”
“I need a shower.” I hold out a flat hand. “Can I just do that before we talk?”
The concern along her face deepens, but she returns a hesitant nod.
“Thank you,” I whisper, heading into the house.
I peel off my clothes and drop them in the trash can that’s too small to accommodate the bulk. When the hot water hits my head, I slick back my hair and close my eyes. The first wave of emotion hits me, and I squat in the tub, hugging my knees to my chest. After a while, the water begins to run cold; I grab the soap bar and scrub every inch of my body. But no matter how hard I scrub, I still feel Archer’s flesh pressed against mine.
I can still smell his pungent cologne and the liquor on his breath.
My hands move frantically, but I still hear his voice. So I drop the bar of soap and cover my ears.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I am not a victim.
When I first became interested in piano and classical music, my parents scrounged the money for a piano teacher. Bertha Cabral lived a few miles down the road, an elderly lady who appeared sweet on the outside. But when it was just the two of us in her piano room, she used a tiny twig (an actual stick from a tree) to literally whip me into shape.
“Shoulders back.” She’d snap the twig at the middle of my back so I’d arch it.
“No lazy wrists.” She’d flick the underside of my forearms.
Bertha was as practiced with that twig as I was with the piano. She never left a welt or a mark that remained visible long enough to show my parents.
And if I started to cry, she’d say, “You are too weak to ever be great, Francesca. The great ones channel their emotions into the notes but are ironclad on the outside. You will never be great if you can’t stop being this weak girl who sits at the piano just to drivel for an hour.”
I mentally whip myself with that tiny twig and suck it up. No driveling.
“Good morning,” I say, carrying a cup of coffee onto the porch to join Eloise. I even manage a believable smile as if she didn’t see me at my worst thirty minutes earlier.
She eyes me with caution while I sit in the other rocker. “Long night?” Her gaze shifts to my wet hair before sweeping along my face.
I nod, sipping my coffee. “Long night.”
“Where’s Jack?”
Taking a minute, I swallow and gaze at the garage. It’s just. Not. Real. “He went for a jog.”
Eloise nods slowly, but I don’t detect an ounce of trust in her wordless response.
“Dear, are things not going so well between you two? Is there something you want to discuss? I hope you know you can trust me with anything.”
With a deep breath, I harness the courage to keep going and let go of the people I have loved with my whole heart—the ones I have lost forever. And I whisper the only truth I know right now because I don’t trust myself. I don’t know which parts of the previous twenty-four hours are real. “I’m going home.”