Page 31 of The Good Girl Effect
Jack
PS: I’ll even learn French for you.
I read the letter three times, trying to imagine that cold, hardened man upstairs writing it. It just doesn’t match the version of Jack that I know. Did her death really take such a toll on him that it changed him from a romantic, loving person to…this?
Setting the letter down on the desk, I can’t stop thinking about everything I know about him now. It’s like he thinks that he died along with her, but he didn’t. He’s still here, and he still has a life to live. A daughter to raise. And I can’t help but think that shutting me out is just another way of hiding.
My mind is reeling, and there is too much I need to say to him. Opening the drawer, I pull out a piece of blank paper and a pen. If he likes to handwrite letters, fine. I can write one too.
My hand flies as I scribble out everything I want to say to Jack. It’s a messy string of conscious thoughts, and I don’t care that it’s not eloquent or well-spoken. He needs to hear what is on my mind.
When it’s all out and it’s taken up two pages, I read back through the letter. I don’t change a word. I don’t know if he’ll even read it, and at this point, I don’t care. But I hope he does. I hope he listens, and I hope he considers what I’m asking of him.
It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning when I fold the letter and walk it quietly up the stairs. He must still be at the club, because every room is empty. It takes me a moment to decide where to leave the letter. It needs to be somewhere he will find it immediately.
I step quietly into his bedroom. The room smells like him, immediately bringing back memories of last night in the hallway or earlier today in the room across the hall. I take a deep breath, breathing him in because I can.Expensive cologne. Leather. Soap and musk.
What I’m doing now could be a huge mistake, and it could cost me my job. But after the last few days with Jack, I have a feeling it won’t come to that. He may act like he wants me out of his life, but the way he held me today said differently. He wanted to show me. He just needs a little nudge.
Standing next to his bed, I stare down at the nightstand where a single photo of him and Emmaline and baby Bea rests in a frame. I’m stabbed with a twinge of guilt in my gut, realizing that she’s not here. That although she is gone, he is still another woman’s husband. Is this wrong of me? To ask what I’m asking?
Ignoring the photo and swallowing down my guilt, I rest the folded letter on the nightstand with his name scrawled acrossthe front in my messy handwriting. It looks so out of place. I have no doubt he’ll notice it immediately when he comes home.
With that, I’m overcome with a sense of relief. Absolutely nothing could come from this, and at least I would have expressed myself. At least I said what was on my mind. Whether or not he reads it or cares, I did what I could. Leaving his room, I close the door behind me and quietly tiptoe down the stairs to my own. Crawling into bed, I tell myself that whatever happens now, I need to let him go. And even as I drift off to sleep, I know in my mind that there is no way that is happening.
Rule #9: Never say what’s on your mind, and for God’s sake, never put it in a letter.
Jack
“What about this one?” I asked, holding a blue leather-bound book in my hands.
Em turned around and glanced at it. With a shrug, she shook her head.
“No, I couldn’t get into it.”
“To the donation bin it goes,” I replied, tossing it in the box full of other books, old sweaters, and a pair of barely worn ballet slippers.
We were standing in Emmaline’s apartment in Giverny, packing her belongings on a warm Sunday spring morning. There was some generic classic rock song playing on the radio. The smell of coffee, fresh flowers, and her perfume wafted through the air. It was only my second time being in her home. The first was the trip I took three months prior, delivering her home after her yearlong teaching internship in Paris.
The second time was this particular memory. Packing her things to move in with me.
A two-carat diamond on a gold band sat on her left ring finger.
Seeing it shimmer in the light had my heart beating faster in my chest. I moved closer to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and kissing the side of her neck. She giggled like she always did, a sound like a warm breeze or a sip of champagne.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
Turning toward me, she kissed my lips and softly mumbled, “Very happy.”
As I pulled away, I tried to find the truth in her eyes more than just in her words. She looked back at me for a second before her attention flitted down to my lips and then to the ring on her finger.
“Very happy,” she softly whispered again.
It sounded true enough.
I scroll through another photo on my phone, scrutinizing all Em’s smiles and the memories captured in the pictures. On my desk, my computer displays another month of dismal stats and numbers. Ever since we took ownership of L’Amour, recently renamed Legacy, it’s been slowly sinking into an unprofitable mess. As someone who worked for L’Amour under the direction of Ronan and Matis for seven years, I should know how to fix it.
I should be focusing on that now instead of romanticizing the past, but this is what I always do.
