Page 78 of Fighting the Tide
“Brooke had many things from Sean for Colette,” Avery says quietly.“Even family photos, Nolan.Colette says she’s never doubted who her father was, even if she doesn’t have his last name.”
“Why do you think that is?”I finally find my voice.“Why not make her Colette Clark?There’s something here that you guys aren’t seeing.My mother disliked Brooke, and she made her feelings known.I was aspiring to become something big in New York, and I wanted nothing more than to have Brooke with me.What if she’s my child, but Brooke covered it up to protect my future?”The first tear slips from my eye as I see the young woman’s confused face in my mind.“She fought so hard to keep that secret from me when I came home from Columbia that first time.Why keep it from me?”
“I’m sorry to say this, Nolan.”Monica brings her chair closer to mine and wraps her arms around me.“Brooke was never that selfless.”
“She’s right, Nolan,” Avery interjects.“If that child was yours, I believe with my whole heart that Brooke would have forced you to stay here in Chatham.I think she didn’t tell you because she knew you would question it.She didn’t want you here, Nolan.She wanted Sean.”
The words are harsh, and even though they ring with some truth, I can’t fully wrap my mind around them.It’s true that Colette Eastham could be Sean’s daughter, given that Brooke cheated on me with him, but she could also be mine.Is that why I felt that tug in my chest?If she was my daughter, why did Brooke not want to be a family?Especially after I begged her to be with me.
“I need proof,” I admit, my words breaking the silence and making Monica and Avery’s heads spin around.“And I am beyond pissed at you both.No, scratch that.I am fucking hurt.”I get up from the table and glance at the watch on my wrist.It’s nearing midnight and the theater will close in half an hour.I can approach Colette there now that I have a clearer head.
“Nolan, don’t.”Avery rises from her seat.“Everyone here in Chatham knows she’s Sean’s child.It’s no secret, but if you go digging around, they will all fall back into the gossip like when she first came back here to live.It was a nightmare for her.”
“What gossip?”I ask as I lean over the table to face her, my hands resting on the wood.
“That she was yours and not Sean’s,” Monica reveals, making me laugh out loud.
“Don’t stop now.”I chuckle as I look between them, the sound dry and sarcastic.“Why would they think she was mine?”
“Because everyone remembers you and Brooke together,” Avery admits.“They said cruel things.”
“They said you were poor and Brooke didn’t want to raise a daughter with a poor boy whose father was a drug addict.So she said Sean was the father.”Monica doesn’t hold anything back, regardless of Avery’s moaning, and I appreciate that from her.
“Makes all the fucking sense to me,” I growl and push off the table.“That would’ve been a disgrace for Brooke.It also explains why her mother hated me.She could barely stand to have me around in the hospital when Brooke was dying.She probably thought I abandoned my child.”
“She hasn’t had the easiest childhood, Nolan.Her mother and father died at the same time, her grandparents didn’t have a clue how to raise a child, and the closest thing she had to a mother was the rotating nannies.The Easthams have pretty much abandoned her, and the cousins she knew when she was younger all began to pull away.She was scared and lonely when she came back here, but she wanted to keep a piece of her mother and now she owns Brooke’s Cinemas.”Avery stands, her face filled with concern.“Don’t make her life harder.”
“I just want proof,” I explain and turn away from them both to head outside.
Everything leading up to me being here in Chatham is feeling serendipitous.I was never meant to go through this life without meeting Brooke’s daughter, and possibly mine.
“Nolan, wait!”Avery calls as she follows me to the door.“Before you make accusations and scare her, think this through.Have a good night’s sleep and we will talk in the morning when you have a clearer head.”
There’s no way I am letting this go until morning because my chest is already burning with pressure.I leave the house as Avery stands at the front door, watching me with a worried look on her face.This isn’t something you hide from your best friend.It’s life-altering, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for this.I love her as if she’s my sister, but I could never imagine she’d do this to me.
It takes ten minutes to get to the theater, and I wait in the back while it’s closing down, keeping an eye on that back door.Soon enough, the employees start filing out, some of them looking exhausted while others look around as if their night is just beginning.None of them is Colette.When she doesn’t appear and the lights in the theater are all off, I am forced to let it go for the night.Avery said something about her living in the Eastham estate and even though I know the place very well, the last thing I want to do is show up on her doorstep in the middle of the night.
I head back to the cottage, filled with disappointment and confusion.How did I not piece the clues together that first year I was home from college?Brooke’s fuller breasts and the stretch marks along them, and then the stretch marks on her stomach, along with the scar I remember feeling before she moved my hands.Yet, none of it dawned on me.Those whispered phone calls and refusal to let me come by her house.Now it all makes sense.She never wanted me to know about her daughter, and it makes me even more livid.Is it because she’s mine or is it because it proved that she cheated on me with Sean while I was so deep in love I couldn’t see straight?
Either way, she played me for a fool.
It feels like, over the years, my love for Brooke has become more and more tarnished.What I once beheld as twenty-four-karat gold has become nothing but a gold-plated nickel.
The cottage is dark when I pull into the driveway, the curtain in the front window billowing in the breeze.Is it insane to miss the cottage as it was twenty years ago?It may have been derelict, but my mother was inside those walls and she made it feel filled with love.This newly upgraded place just doesn’t feel like home.
Which is fine, I admit to myself as I get out of the vehicle and head to the door.This isn’t my home.I unlock the door and step inside, letting the scent of the ocean pull me to a time when all I wanted was for Brooke to love me.I let myself feel that pain; I writhe in it as my chest swells with agony.Then the tug happens.My eyes snap open as they find the back door and I press a hand to the feeling in my chest, taking a step forward.How is this happening now?Brooke is dead.I let it lead me, refusing to step beyond my back porch.I pushed myself enough today and look where that got me.I will not be making a trip to the lighthouse, even if my life depended on it.
I open the back door and step out onto the deck.The surface is made of some composite wood and the railing made to match with glass panels between them.The light flicks on by the door with my motion, casting a yellow glow across the space and revealing the person sitting on one of the chairs, her mismatched eyes on me.I don’t have time to be shocked as she stands from the chair and approaches me, her height a mere few inches below mine.
“I know who you are.”Her voice is like whiskey, rich and husky.“Your name is Nolan Sears, and you were in love with my mother.”The ability to speak has completely left me as she reaches out to pinch a lock of my shoulder-length hair between her thumb and forefinger.“I know you think I’m your daughter.I could see it in your eyes tonight—or rather, in your fear—but I’m not.”
“You must have the proof of that then?”I croak out as her hand drops from my hair, and she turns her face to look out at the ocean.I don’t know how I ever mistook her for Brooke.The features are too different.It’s as if she took Brooke’s face and remolded it as her own, perfecting each feature.Bile swirls in my stomach as I realize I could be checking out my daughter.
“My father was Sean Clark,” she reveals with a sad smile, turning those eyes back on me.“He was the love of her life.Not you.”I wait for the pain of her words to hit and render me useless, but it doesn’t happen.
“That’s not proof,” I point out.“In fact, your eyes are eerily similar to mine.”
“Blue eyes on a Caucasian is rare?”She tips her head to the side and gives me a bewildered look.“Sounds like you’re hoping I’m yours, Nolan Sears.”
