Page 57 of Summer Rose

As Rebecca watched her father arrange the books in front of his family, tears spilled from her eyes. This was Victor’s final peace offering. This was the last thing he had to give.

“My gosh.” Esme shook her head, at a loss. “When Rebecca showed me Doug’s books, I remembered that my father gave you his set as a wedding present. They were too delicate and important for the Sutton Book Club, and he asked you to take them. To care for them. And you did.”

Victor nodded gravely. “I hadn’t thought of them in years, not till I saw Doug’s waterlogged ones. It never occurred to me to sell them, of course.”

The Sutton sisters were flabbergasted. Slowly, Valerie, Bethany, and Rebecca dropped to their knees to look at the gold engravings on the tops of the books. Rebecca opened one to look at an illustration of a German forest with a small cottage tucked between the trees.

“I looked up what the books are worth,” Victor explained timidly. “And it’s enough to keep the Sutton Book Club open for another few years, at least.”

Esme gasped. After a dramatic pause, she rushed for Victor and threw her arms around his neck. She shook violently. It was the first hug they’d shared in decades.

“Oh, Victor,” Esme whispered, over and over again, as though his name had taken on new meaning. “I don’t know how I’ll repay you.”

“Don’t you get it?” Victor asked softly. “I’ll never be able to make up for what I did.”

After that, their hug broke. Victor wiped tears from his cheeks, turned, and walked down the hallway to the guest room. A moment later came the sound of his door closing. The Sutton women were left with the enormous books, which were symbolic in every way.

That night after everyone had gone to bed, Rebecca tossed and turned. She felt haunted by the events of that week, unsure if any of it had happened at all or what could possibly happen next. She also hated that Lily had answered her text messages with single words, as though she couldn’t muster the strength to write more.

Rebecca planted her feet on the floor beside her bed. She was parched and decided to refill her water bottle in the bathroom down the hall. The clock on her phone told her it was one thirty in the morning, and the storm had finally quieted outside.

Like a ghost, Rebecca crept down the hallway. Just before she reached the bathroom, she realized a slick of light was coming from beneath one of the bedroom doors. It was Joel’s.

Rebecca’s heart was in her throat. Slowly, she stepped toward the door. Who was in there? Was it possible she was dreaming that she’d gone back in time to 1992, and Joel had decided to stay up late to read or play with his toys?

Instead, when she got close enough, she heard the soft murmurs of her parents’ voices. Both of them were in there.

Rebecca couldn’t make out everything they said. And she knew it wasn’t kind to eavesdrop. But she clung to every word she heard. They calmed her.

“That must have been terrible to read,” Esme said. “Who do you think Bree talked to?”

“We had a number of friends in the upper leagues of psychology,” Victor said. “I can’t tell you how many times she told me I should be more like Steven or more like Jackson or more like this or more like that. So I think, when I asked her if she really thought our marriage was working out, she wanted to take matters into her own hands. She wanted to show me just how little I mattered. And boy, did she have the ammunition to do that.”

“That sounds hard,” Esme breathed. “I can’t imagine turning on my husband like that.”

“Maybe you should have turned on me,” Victor pointed out. “What I did was—”

“Don’t,” Esme said firmly. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not in Joel’s room.”

They were quiet for a moment. Rebecca remained very still.

“It sounds like Larry loved you a lot,” Victor said.

“He did,” Esme agreed. “We had a very special connection. Gosh, I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“When I learned he’d died, I knew I had to come find you,” Victor said. “All I could think about was you, Joel, and our daughters. After all my work in the field, I knew none of us had dealt with Joel’s death correctly. Even in losing Bree, I started to spiral.”

“You can see it in Rebecca, can’t you?” Esme asked.

“Fred’s death uprooted her, I think,” Victor agreed. “I’m sure Joel has been heavy on her mind since then.”

Rebecca closed her eyes. Did her parents see her so clearly?

“Those poor kids,” Esme said.

Rebecca didn’t want to hear any more. She couldn’t. Slowly, she abandoned her mission in the bathroom and returned to her bedroom, where she tucked herself in and stared at the wall. She went in and out of sleep for hours, imagining what else her parents said to one another only a few rooms away. It was one part nightmarish, one part beautiful. She hadn’t realized how much she’d ached for her parents to see one another as humans again.

When she awoke again at five thirty, a series of text messages from Lily appeared on her cell. Rebecca was immediately wide awake.

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