Page 66 of The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever
He turned the page, and Grace looked away, wanting to give him privacy. “I’m going to shower.”
Reed pulled her closer and kissed her. “Thank you,” he whispered in a tortured voice, making it harder for her to walk away.
She tried to shower quickly, but as the water rained down on her, the ache inside her bloomed, making her chest feel full and sore. She hurt for Reed and all he could discover, for the pain of never knowing a mother who clearly loved him, and that pain morphed to guilt. She had a family who adored her. A mother who wanted nothing more than to continue having her children come and go from her house at all hours. A father who cared enough to be overprotective. And she had run far and fast at eighteen years old and had rarely looked back.
Until now.
Guilt sank deep into her bones as she leaned against the tile wall, sobbing into her hands, her tears mixing with the shower spray. And then that guilt shattered into a million pieces, slicing her like shards of glass, and she was no longer crying over what she had but for what Reed never would.
After her shower, she found Reed pacing the living room, red-faced, swollen veins mapping his body, neck, and arms, and his eyes—those serious, loving eyes she fell head over heels for day after day—were dark torrents of grief. She went to him, and he stopped cold, eyes drilling through her.
“DON’T COME NEAR me, Grace,” Reed warned.
“Why? What happened?”
“What happened? That’s what I want to know.” He flipped open the journal and read from it. “‘I can’t wait to meet our baby. Frankie is beside himself, talking to my belly, telling stories about when he was a boy and about how we fell in love the day we met. He’s as in love with our unborn child as I am.’” He flipped angrily through a few more pages and continued reading. “‘Some days I don’t think I could breathe without Frankie. When my feet ache, he rubs them. When I’m sad, he dances with me. Dances! Our baby is the luckiest child in the world to have him as a father.’” Reed snapped the journal closed, gripping it tight.
“But that’s all good, right?”
Grace’s worry and confusion were as palpable as the freaking journal in his hand.
“Good?” He scoffed. “It’s freaking wonderful. What happened tothatguy? Where’d he go when she died? Because that man? ThatFrankie? He can’t be the man who left me behind.”
“W-wha…?”
“Exactly,” he seethed, and took the stairs two at a time, with Grace rushing after him. He grabbed a shirt from his drawer and tugged it on. Then he jammed his bare feet into his boots and headed downstairs.
She followed him. “Where are you going?”
“To get some answers.”
“Give me a sec to get my shoes on.”
“You’re not coming, Grace.” He grabbed his keys.
“You shouldn’t do this alone,” she pleaded. “You’re too upset.”
“That’s exactly why I have to do it alone.” He reached for the doorknob, his hand fisted around his keys, and hesitated only long enough to say, “I love you, Gracie,” before storming out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
REED STALKED INTO the Marriott with tunnel vision, determined to get some answers, or at least to tell Frank what he thought of him for letting his late mother down. His heart hammered as he rode the elevator up to Frank’s floor and even harder as he strode down the empty hallway toward room433 with the journal in his hand. Why did Frank give it to him if not to torture him even more?
He stood before Frank’s door, battling rage and staving off no small amount of fear for how he’d react when he faced the man who had abandoned him. He pounded on the door, then pounded again. He heard the sound of the chain sliding, bringing a pulse of anxiety. Thethunkof the dead bolt curled his hands into fists.
Blinded by rage, the second the door opened Reed pushed his way inside, waving the journal. “You were a great husband, a greatman. What the heck happened?” He spun around, and his gut seized. Frank’s eyes were sunken, shadowed by dark crescents, his unshaven face even more gaunt than Reed remembered. His pallor was yellowish, contrasting sharply with his wrinkled white T-shirt. His flannel pajama pants hung from his frail frame. He looked more like eighty- than fiftysomething.
Reed turned away, gasping a ragged breath. His eyes caught on pill bottles beside the bed, a half-empty glass of water, and a framed photo that nearly took him to his knees. In the photo, his mother’s hair was pinned up in a bun. She was kneeling on the grass, wearing a striped shirt bunched up below her breasts, her pregnant belly too big and round for her tiny frame. A big red heart was drawn on her belly, the wordsour love, our lifewritten above the rounded tops of the heart. His father knelt behind her, his arms around her shoulders, holding her so tight it broke Reed’s heart. His father’s face was tilted down, eyes closed, his lips against her cheek. His mother’s eyes were also closed. She was leaning into the kiss, wearing the smile of a woman in love.
He became aware of his father moving and forced more air into his lungs.
“I lost her,” his father said in a defeated voice as he lowered himself down to a chair. “We lost her.”
“That’s not good enough,” Reed said angrily, his gaze locked on the picture, drawing strength to ignore the meaning of what was so clearly before him: the pill bottles, Frank’s weakened state and pallor. He wanted to cling to his anger, to let it fuel the hurt and hatred he harbored.
“No, I suppose for most people it wouldn’t be enough,” his father said. “She was my world, Reed. She was the reason I breathed from the time I was barely a man.”
Reed spun around, hands fisted, ire pulsing through his veins, unable to keep it from burning out in hateful words. “Then how could you let her down? How could you turn your back on her—your—son?”
