Page 136 of In the Pursuit of Haven
“She loved Matthew so much and she lost him to this treasure. Haven didn’t want to see me hurt too.”
Jessie winced again, because that was exactly what had happened.
“If things had been different,” I said…and they weren’t.“Well…” I put on a bracing voice, “I’m sorry, you never really got to know how amazing she really was. She would’ve loved you if she’d given you half a chance.”
He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. “What would you do if someone you loved had a horrible secret in their past? What if it was someone close to you like, um… like Haven?”
Like you?I held my breath, feeling uneasy. “You don’t have to pretend with me,” I said, “or—or hide anything from me.”
“If you even knew the half of it,” he whispered. He found my hands, played with the ring that he’d put on my finger—subconsciously, like he always did. His lips were a breath away from mine as he studied my face. “It’s just that it feels so much easier to try to pick up the pieces before you see what a—what a mess we all are.”
“We?” I asked. Was that his problem? He was that ashamed of his family and the pain they’d brought to mine? “I just care about what’s between you and me,” I said. “That’s it.”
His eyes brightened with faint hope. “Can you ever forgive me for pushing you away?”
I was speechless as I stared at him. Every insecurity he brought up, I understood. I saw when he tried to shield them from me, even tonight—watching him with his dad had broken my heart. No wonder he’d moved out as soon as he could. I knew Jessie’s demons, almost as well as I knew his hopes and dreams—and yet, when things got tough, that same guarded behavior he felt so bad about always came back to haunt us.
He’d survived growing up in that household by pretending that he wasn’t spiraling into despair. He parried and retreated, but mostly retreated… and now used those weapons on me. Did I want to stay in this constant feeling of abandonment and uncertainty that stemmed from my childhood?
It just ate me up inside.
I tried to connect my thoughts to my voice. “Maybe we just need some time,” I said finally.
He nodded with acceptance and drew back from me.
With a sinking heart, I saw that he was doing more than moving away from me, he was leaving. “Where are you going?”
“I just need space to think. I want—” He licked his lips. “I want to do the right thing. I just don’t know what that is anymore.”
Neither did I. And even if I could figure things out, I couldn’t face the right thing, either… or him anymore, because watching him just scrambled my brain so that I lost all sight of the truth.
I turned to stare down at the Relics, hearing his footsteps fade on the ladder before he dropped the rest of the way into Haven’s room. A tear slipped down my cheek, followed by another. More and more. Stupid things. I hadn’t given myself permission to cry.
Jessie was my breath, my life… and yet that life had become a rollercoaster with how he let me down again and again. As much as I knew the root cause of his behavior, I couldn’t fix him. He’d said that he’d fight for me and he was, but could I take it anymore? I couldn’t reach him, and I was so scared of constantly feeling this pain. I mattered too.
I sniffed again, trying to see through my tears as I tried to tape the pieces of Abby’s note back together. It was better than obsessing over what I was doing wrong as a wife.
Jessie’s sister said that Davey had helped her find the origins of Jeggle Island, and in the next instant, I knew them too, as I stared down at his handwriting:“From the Massachusetts Online Library:Voated that the towne doe grant unto Thomas Gardner their Right in that Island in the South River that lyeth before Mr. Jos. Hardy Sendore.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes, trying to care about this last Relic on our list. I was failing miserably at being the cold and clinical expert out in the field. I had a heart—probably the reason I’d gone into history in the first place—and I wanted to discover the hearts of those in the past too.
And what about my husband’s? Did I care about discovering his?
More than anything.
Exhaling deeply, I went into the Massachusetts Online Library for myself. Typing in the phrase that Davey had written, I found the whole article on Jeggle Island in six minutes flat. A few paragraphs after Thomas Gardner inherited the island, it read:“Lieutenant Gardner died Nov. 16, 1695, possessed of the island. It descended to his daughter Mary, wife of Capt. William Bowditch.”
Bowditch! I knew that name—everybody did who knew anything about maps. We’d all be lost without him. Nathaniel Bowditch was a Salem native who’d writtenThe New American Practical Navigator, a guidebook rife with new celestial navigation, tides, shorelines, reefs, volume depth and more to keep ships from floundering and crashing.
I knew the Gardner name too. This man’s grandfather was considered the first governor of Massachusetts in some circles—he was one of the old planters, who’d come before the Puritans and got no respect.
Scrolling through the search results, I began taking screenshots on my phone and circling everything with my edit button to save for my notes.
According to my newly checked out digital book, Lieutenant Thomas Gardner had died in 1695, which meant he’d been alive before ’92, so Crabbcould’vegiven him the Relic for safekeeping. I did a search on Gardner and saw that he did early survey work in the area… just like his great-great-great—not sure how many greats—grandson.
The lieutenant’s wife was Elizabeth Horne. Another famous name in these parts… well, Orne was. They’d pioneered this area, and it was possible that Horne could be a corruption of that name. Images popped up on my screen, and I saw that the couple’s gravestones matched Cheever’s with the double tympanum and skulls popular with Puritans.
“Was the Relic buried with them, or did they pass it on?” I wondered aloud. “Or…” This couple had been quite elderly during Crabb’s time. Had the pirate given the Relic to one of their children?
