Page 43 of Love Conquers All

Chapter Nineteen

Five nights after that fateful one in Birmingham, Sylvie was back in the kitchen of The House on Nantucket, sitting on a stool in front of her computer to finish up the article about the Alabama bayou and the alligator farmer. The piece felt smart and sharp and topical, and she loved some of the farmer’s quotes—pieces of wisdom that felt entrenched in Southern history. She’d told her editor she would have the article done by the evening, but she was nearly finished—nearly eight hours ahead and with time to kill. She typed up a few alternate titles and sent them off, closing her laptop to the sound of Graham on the phone with another new hire and arranging their paperwork for the Memorial Day opening.

Already, he’d hired three employees to help with the opening.

Without Graham, none of this could have happened.

Without Graham, she never would have had the courage to take on the journals upstairs.

Not that she’d gotten to them yet. Not that she’d found the courage.

But soon. Now that she’d finished the article. Now that things were falling into place. Perhaps now, she’d find the will to open the secrets of the past and know her mother for the first time.

On the counter, her phone pinged with an email from the upcoming award ceremony. Her heart leaped into her throat. She’d decided she was going to take Graham as her date and even introduce him as her very first co-conspirator, the man who’d helped her become who she now was. He was the man who’d once pushed her to believe in a better world. In a week and a half, they’d drive to Washington, DC, in his electric car and get a fancy hotel for the night. They’d wear fancy clothes and drink champagne. She imagined the photographs that would be taken of them—photos they’d send back to Valerie. Photos Valerie would certainly print out and frame.

Just yesterday afternoon, Valerie had driven downtown and spotted them holding hands. She’d texted Graham:

Did I really see that? Or am I dreaming? Did I hit my head and wake up in 2002?

Graham had rolled his eyes and written back:

Give it a break, Mom.

He’d written it as though he were still a teenager.

Sylvie padded through the inn to find Graham in the room that had once served as her father’s office. Since they’d returned from Alabama, they’d gone through her father’s old files, his computer, his address book, and his paperwork to orient themselves. They’d decided on which systems of his to keep and which to toss. Generally, the organization was one of James Bruckson’s strong suits. Sylvie wondered if he’d had to teach himself to be organized or if this had been a part of his personality from the start.

How much of her father did she really understand?

But when Sylvie entered the office, she found Graham with a file folder open in front of him, one that didn’t involve the inn,one she recognized from long ago. The pages were yellowed and filled with her father’s handwriting.

Incredibly, it was the application to the boarding school in Maine.

Sylvie’s jaw dropped. Just seeing it now, she was transported back to those heinous days when it had become clear to her that she’d had to run.

Sylvie approached Graham and gazed down at the pages that had been meant to ruin her life. Graham raised his chin and looked at her. “It was supposed to be your senior year.”

Sylvie nodded. “He wanted me gone.”

Graham touched her cheek. “You must have been so angry.”

Today, Sylvie had expected herself to go into the attic. She’d expected to swallow her mother’s words and reckon with the past. But just seeing the application before her now, she felt stalled. She closed the folder and threw it in the recycling bin to the left of the desk.

“I can’t believe he kept that,” she said after a long pause. “For all these years.”

It took a little while for Sylvie and Graham to find solid ground again. They held each other, talking about what they’d done so far that day: Graham with his hiring process, Sylvie with her article. Sylvie found her breath. Graham’s voice was a calm breeze.

Sylvie made up her mind to take the recycling down to the recycling center immediately so that the boarding school application would be out of sight forever.

A little while later, Sylvie got up the nerve to tell Graham, “I want to invite you to be my date to the awards ceremony. It’s right before we open here, but I think with the right mindset and the good people you’ve hired, we can swing it. What do you say? We can get all dressed up. We can walk the green carpet, as it’s called. How silly, right?”

But that was when Graham gave her a strange look that made Sylvie nervous. Did Graham not want to go with her? Was he too busy? Was he having second thoughts?

Anxiety shimmered through her. The last thing she needed right now was for Graham to say this is going too fast. Maybe it was going too fast. Perhaps they’d jumped right back into teenage dreams and hadn’t given themselves time to think.

Sylvie took a deep breath and stood, separating them. “You don’t have to decide now.”

“It’s not that,” Graham said, rubbing his temple. “I want to go. I want to be your date.”

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