Page 177 of Distant Shores
Pops stepped aside for her, and she tugged my hand before walking inside. I followed, my brain not quitecaught up to what was happening yet, though my body had. My heart beat loudly in my ears, muffling the world around me, and a cold sweat broke out on my hairline.
The door shut softly, and I just stood there, looking out the window, not seeing a damn thing.
Ireland raked her nails lightly down my spine, bringing me back to myself enough to take care of the basics. Falling back on what I knew, I did a quick scan of Pops, assessing his coloring, his breathing.
All appeared normal.
Sensing my gaze, he slowly raised his to mine, and that’s when I realized what I was seeing. Ornotseeing.
Recognition.
Wilbur Smith was here, but my Pops wasn’t. Just like at the ravine all those months ago, when he couldn’t find his way back home.
“I couldn’t remember.”
A shiver crawled up my spine as I forced the images away, looking for Ireland and finding her beside me with her deep blue eyes already fixed on me.
She gave me a tiny nod, and that was somehow enough to allow air into my lungs.
“We brought you a gift,” she told Pops, turning to him and pulling out a chair at the table. She guided him into it with aching tenderness before taking the one beside him. “I gave Addy the same one for his birthday,” she said, smoothing the glossy photo on the table. “But I figured you might want one too.”
Addy.
The name he called me. One she’d never used.
His hands shook terribly as he tried to pick it up from the table. After several attempts, he gave up and dropped his hands into his lap, clenching them over and over.
Ireland lightly pushed the photo to the other side ofthe table and angled her body toward him. “Addy says you know something about gardening.”
My eyes burned as Ireland tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled at Pops. “I’m working on a project to raise money to build a new greenhouse here. But my dad was more of a yard art guy, not so much for keeping plants or growing vegetables. So, I don’t know a thing about it.”
Ireland kept it up, talking all about Ari’s plans, and my breaths came easier the longer she went on.
Some of this was new information to me, too, like the fact that Gil, Ari’s late husband, had plans in a notebook that her nephew was reworking into a blueprint for the greenhouse.
“I’m hoping it’ll be up in time to get some tomato plants going,” she said, leaning toward Pops like she was sharing a secret. “That’s been what everyone wants most, besides flowers. Tomatoes.”
Ireland sat back in her seat, and I held my breath as Pops finally raised his gaze from his hands and looked at her.
“My Nell,” he said roughly, pausing to clear his throat, “loves tomato sandwiches.” His eyes shifted from vacant todistantfor several long moments before his lips twitched. “I cut her first tomato sandwich of the season horizontal once. She never let me live it down.”
“Well,” Ireland said, threading her fingers together in her lap, “Only psychopaths cut theirs horizontally, so… I’m with her.”
He chuckled, and Ireland pressed on.
“Do you know anything about greenhouse tomatoes?”
Pops looked at Ireland, really seeing her this time, his eyes shimmering with deep affection. “Well, darlin’. The secret to good tomatoes is you can’t ever take a day off. You have to care for them every single day,” he said quietlyand more slowly than before. “My Nell…,” he started, then trailed off as he fiddled with his wedding band.
Raising his chin, he looked around the room, stopping when his eyes landed on me. The sudden, deep grief that swam in his eyes was so sharp that I felt nauseous. “She was good at that, wasn’t she, Addy?”
It took everything in me to hold back a flinch, butGod, did it hurt.
Ithurt.
“Yeah, Pops,” I said, relieved when my voice came out strong. “Grams was good at everything.”
I’d been silently begging for him to come back to the present, to behereso I could show off what I’d found with Ireland, for him to see usreallytogether.
