The One I Trust (16 page)

While I was busy studying Jarrett, he was doing everything he could to avoid eye contact. I found it interesting that he could meet politicians and movie stars with a big smile on his face, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with me.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Thank you for bringing me up here.”

His eyes flitted to mine for a brief moment and he nodded. Then he looked at my bag that had just slammed into him and asked, “Do you need to go to baggage claim?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “I just brought this.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll just go this way then.”

I nodded and followed his lead into the parking lot, where he strode over to an antique Corvette. It was a convertible and the top was down, showing off white leather seats against a shiny red paint job. Now
my
vocal cords wouldn’t work. I was no automobile aficionado, but I knew an expensive, fully restored classic car when I saw one.

Jarrett opened the trunk and I put my bag inside. It was a good thing I hadn’t needed to go to baggage claim, considering there wasn’t much room left.

“All set?” he asked, looking directly at me for the first time.

I managed to find my voice. “Uh, yeah.”

After we got in I asked him what year the car was.

“Sixty-five.”

I nodded as if that was exactly what I’d figured. As we drove, he went on to tell me what kind of engine it had and how long he’d had it and exactly what had been restored and when. I continued nodding.

Eventually we entered a neighborhood full of impressive homes with immaculate yards. Periodically I caught glimpses of the ocean and boats with white sails. Finally he pulled into a driveway surrounded by neatly trimmed grass and pushed the button on a remote to open one of three garage doors. We pulled in beside a shiny black Porsche which—unlike the Corvette—was not an antique and was not a convertible.

Probably one convertible was plenty in Maine . . .

The third bay of the garage was empty. I almost asked him if his Lamborghini was in the shop, but I stopped myself.

The house was post-and-beam construction with several sets of French doors, lots of brick accents, and a bunch of bead board painted in a variety of colors that probably had names like barn red, seafoam green, and periwinkle blue. There were Shaker-style white cabinets and butcher-block countertops in the kitchen, and plenty of hooked and braided rugs on top of hardwood planking throughout the house. It was just like stepping into an L.L. Bean catalog.

Jarrett showed me to my room, which had a small private deck with an ocean view. On the bed was a big fluffy duvet and throw pillows decorated with anchors and whales. A fishnet with starfish and glass balls hung on one wall and a framed and matted poster of a lobster was mounted on another.

Jarrett left me alone so that I could unpack. When that only took about thirty seconds, I texted Emily—
Both of my parents are freaking rich
—and then I went back out into the living room.

Jarrett was in the kitchen with his head in a double-door stainless steel fridge.

“Have a seat,” he called to me. Instead I walked over to the window and took in the dramatic view of Casco Bay. He asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “I’m good.”

He walked into the living room with a drink of some kind in his hand.

“This is really nice,” I said, turning to look at him.

“Thank you,” he said, still looking very uncomfortable. “We enjoy it.”

He sat down on the couch and I took a seat in the chair directly across from him.

“I thought we’d go to one of my restaurants tonight if you’re interested,” he said.

“Absolutely.” I nodded. “I’d definitely like to do that. I looked at them online. They look really nice.”

“We can try all three while you’re here if you want,” he said. “Chester’s tonight, then Delpha’s for lunch tomorrow and Wreaths for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what you had for lunch,” he said. “It’s early, but we can go anytime you want.”

“I’m okay right now,” I said.

He nodded and we sat in awkward silence for a moment.

“What time does your wife usually get home?” I asked, hoping that it was soon and that she was the bubbly, friendly sort.

“She, uh . . . She won’t be here tonight.”

“Oh.”

He sighed and looked out the window. Then he turned to me and said, “We’re actually separated right now.”

“Oh,” I said again, feeling my eyes widen. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded and looked down at the floor.

“I, uh . . .” He hesitated before looking back up at me. “I didn’t tell her about you.”

Confused, I asked, “She doesn’t know I’m here?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, I never told her about Charlotte . . . I never told her about you. She just found out last week.”

I looked at him for a moment. Then I said, “Please don’t tell me that’s why you’re separated.”

He glanced away for a moment but then his eyes settled back on me. “It’s not your fault.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

“It’s not,” he assured me. “I should have told her a long time ago. It’s my fault.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said, shaking my head.

“No. It’s not your fault,” he said again. “It’s just really a sore spot with her.”

I looked at him questioningly.

“We’ve been trying to have kids for over ten years,” he explained. “When she couldn’t get pregnant we tried fertility treatments and then when that didn’t work we started trying to adopt and then that’s just been one big fiasco after another and she was already pretty upset about that and . . .”

His voice trailed off and he sighed again.

“She’s younger than me, but she’s almost forty,” he finished. “Finding out that I already had a kid when she wanted one so bad, well . . . that didn’t go over too well.”

“You didn’t have to tell her about me,” I said, shaking my head.

“I wanted to,” he said. “I wanted to meet you.”

I looked at him.

“I’ve thought about you every single day,” he said quietly, and then he looked away.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“So anyway,” he said, turning back to me. “That’s what’s going on and hopefully we’ll get things worked out, but right now, let’s talk about you.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “What do you want to know?”

“You’ve kind of had a rough time,” he noted.

“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “You could say that.”

“But things are finally getting better?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re getting married—you said her name’s Emily? Tell me about her.”

So I told him all about Emily and how she was going to be a first-grade teacher and how she was the one who had convinced me to look for my birth parents in the first place. After that we talked about my job and how it wasn’t what I planned on doing for the rest of my life but that at least I was working. Finally we got around to Noah and I went into my room and got out the album that Emily had made for me for Christmas. Jarrett and I sat next to each other on the couch while he lingered over every photo, carefully studying each picture of a little boy he had never met as I told him all about his only grandchild.

“Both of you have Charlotte’s eyes,” he observed quietly when we’d finished.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

He was quiet for a minute and then he shook his head.

“Man, she blew me away when she called,” he said.

“Charlotte?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I guess I always thought that maybe one day
you’d
find me, but I never expected to hear from her.”

I still stayed quiet.

“How’s she doing?” he asked.

“Good,” I said. “She’s married. She’s got three boys.”

He nodded.

“They’re adopted, actually,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. All three of them.”

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. Then he asked, “Does she seem happy?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “She does.”

This seemed to satisfy him and after a moment he asked, “You hungry yet?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I could eat something.”

“Well let’s get going,” he said, giving me a pat on the leg before standing up. “I hope you like seafood.”

We took the Porsche because there was a chance of rain that evening and Jarrett didn’t want to bother with putting the top up on the Corvette. It was a much more comfortable and quiet ride, although I had to admit that I had kind of missed the feel of the wind and the sun.

Jarrett told me that he’d named the restaurant we were going to tonight Chester’s after his grandfather on his mother’s side.

My great-grandfather . . .

“I actually hated going to visit him when I was little,” Jarrett confessed. “We always had to be quiet so that we didn’t disturb the people living in the apartment below him.”

“So is it a quiet restaurant?” I asked.

He laughed. “No. But there’s lots of wood and leather . . . that’s what I remember most about going to visit him. That and the smell of cherry pipe tobacco.”

Delpha’s
,
he said, was named after a dog that he and his wife had gotten shortly after they’d first gotten married.

“And Wreaths,” he finished, “was already named that when I bought it. I hate the name, but it was pretty well established and had a lot of good reviews and everything. It didn’t seem like a smart idea to change the name and lose all that ground.”

A hostess greeted us at the door, calling Jarrett “Mr. Wellehan,” and led us past large numbers of people who were waiting to be seated.

After we’d settled into a booth and placed our drink orders I mentioned, “I didn’t see a sanitation rating posted up front.”

He looked at me in obvious surprise. “What?”

“You know,” I said. “A sign with what your score was from your last sanitation rating. Like a grade?”

“We don’t do that here.”

“Here in your restaurant or here in Maine?”

“Here in Maine.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Are you worried about it?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “My best friend’s just going to ask me, that’s all.”

His eyebrow was still up.

“He works for the state health department,” I explained. “He lives and breathes inspection reports. I guarantee you it’s going to be the first thing he asks me about.”

“Uh-huh,” Jarrett said, nodding skeptically but finally lowering his eyebrow. “Well, he sounds interesting.”

“You have no idea,” I said. “It’s an absolute nightmare to go anywhere with him.”

Jarrett smiled.

“If I go to a fast-food restaurant or something I always make sure to throw all my trash away before I get home,” I went on. “If he finds out I ate out then I get grilled about exactly where I went and exactly what I ordered and then I usually spend the next three days convinced that I’m going to die from salmonella.”

He grinned. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

“You have no idea,” I repeated.

Jarrett recommend the lobster and crab tortellini with asparagus and sautéed parsnips. These were not things I ever would have tried on my own (nor were they things that I ever could have
afforded
on my own), but I liked everything and was surprised to be able to call myself a fan of parsnips by the end of the meal.

On our way out, I noticed a huge oil painting hanging by the front entrance. It was so large that I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it on the way in, but I had probably been too busy looking for a sanitation grade.

The painting was of a white Afghan hound with a collar around its neck and a silver dog tag that read, “Delpha.” On the deep red background behind the dog was a large grapevine wreath. It was a very sophisticated painting—really well done—and something about it seemed unsettlingly familiar. I looked in the bottom corner and was not at all surprised to find Jarrett’s signature.

“You painted this,” I said to him.

“Yeah.” He nodded with a little laugh. “I figured it was a bit of free advertising for my other two places.”

“Now I know where I got my artistic talent from,” I commented.

“Really?” he asked.

“Really.” I nodded.

He gave me a smile and something that could have easily passed for pride crossed his face.

When we got back to the house we sat on the patio for a while, watching the lights of the boats that were bobbing up and down in Casco Bay. After about an hour, we both agreed that it was time to turn in, but after I’d brushed my teeth, I found myself out on the private deck just off my room, watching the lights again.

I called Emily and talked to her for a bit, and then I called Hale and checked in with him because I knew he was probably worried—or at least wondering—about how things were going. After I’d filled him in on my day and the lack of sanitation ratings in Maine, I asked him, “You know what I just realized?”

“What?”

“Everybody owns waterfront property except for me,” I said. “You’ve got your beach house, Charlotte’s got Lake Michigan, Jarrett’s got the Casco Bay. Even Emily’s parents have a pool.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked with a little laugh. “Waterfront property?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” I admitted. “Something in the mountains maybe. On the New River.”

“Waterfront property’s not going to make you happy,” Hale told me seriously.

“Says the man with the beach house.”

As I lay awake that night trying to fall asleep, I thought about what would make me truly happy. Waterfront property would definitely be nice, but honestly all I really wanted was another family—one that didn’t fall apart in every way possible.

That was probably all Jarrett wanted too, and I suspected that he would be willing to give up the Casco Bay and everything else in order to have it.

When we said good-bye two days later, I apologized one more time for creating such havoc in his life. He assured me again that it wasn’t my fault and he told me how happy he was that we had finally met. Then he said he’d see me at the wedding and that he loved me, and when we hugged this time, it was neither clumsy nor embarrassing.

CHARLOTTE WANTED TO pay for a rehearsal dinner. I told her that this was ridiculous because we weren’t even going to rehearse; Emily was just going to walk down the stairs from the beach house to find me waiting on the beach with a minister. Then we were going to get married—how hard was that going to be?