Chapter 3 - Celeste's Part of the Lie
By morning, Celeste was still in the house.
Julian found her in the breakfast room staring at a cup of coffee that had gone cold.
She wore the same emerald dress under one of his housekeeper's gray cardigans. The combination should have looked absurd.
It didn't.
It looked like the night had finally stripped her of performance.
Julian sat across from her.
"Why didn't you leave?"
"Because if I left, you'd decide what my silence meant without me."
He almost said something cruel.
Instead he asked, "What did it mean?"
Celeste looked at him.
"At first? Fear."
"And later?"
"Cowardice. Loyalty. Shame. Pick one. They all fit depending on the year."
Julian folded his hands.
"Start at the beginning."
She breathed out slowly.
Fifteen years earlier, Eleanor had been twenty-four. Celeste was twenty-three and spent nearly every weekend at the Vale estate because her own parents were fighting through a bitter divorce and the Vale house, absurdly, felt calmer.
Julian remembered that version of Celeste.
Skinny jeans.
Too much eyeliner.
A laugh that made his father complain from across the house.
He had never asked why she was there so often.
He had assumed young women liked beautiful houses.
"Eleanor had been planning to leave for months," Celeste said. "She had a job offer at a small design studio in Providence. Your father hated it. He said it was embarrassing."
Julian frowned. "She told me she wasn't sure about the job."
"She told you what was safest to tell you."
That stung.
"Why wasn't I safe?"
Celeste's eyes softened, which he disliked more than anger.
"Because you loved her and still kept asking her to make Dad easier to live with."
Julian looked away.
A waiter entered, saw their faces, and immediately backed out.
Celeste continued.
"The night she left, your father found the suitcase. He accused her of humiliating him. Then he found the bank envelope."
"What bank envelope?"
"Her savings."
Julian's head snapped back.
"He told me she stole cash."
"It was hers."
"He said the house safe was short twenty thousand dollars."
"It wasn't."
Julian stared.
Celeste rubbed one thumb over the rim of the coffee cup.
"He wanted a reason that would make everyone stop asking whether she had a good reason to leave. Theft was cleaner. Mental instability was cleaner."
"And you repeated it."
Celeste's face tightened.
"Yes."
"To me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
She gave him a tired look. "Because your father knew I helped her. He threatened to tell my father I'd stolen jewelry from this house."
Julian frowned. "Did you?"
"No."
"Then why would your father believe him?"
"Because he believed men with buildings over daughters who cried."
Julian had no response.
Celeste reached into the cardigan pocket and took out an old postcard.
The edges were soft from being handled.
On the front was a lighthouse in Maine.
Julian's pulse quickened.
"When?"
"Nine years ago."
She handed it to him.
The message was brief.
I'm alive. I'm safe. Please don't tell Julian. I'm not ready to be the reason he fights with a dead man in his head.
- E.
Julian read it twice.
"Dad was already dead."
"Exactly."
He looked at Celeste.
"She still didn't want me to know."
"No."
"And you obeyed her."
"Yes."
"You watched me wonder if she was alive."
Celeste flinched. "Yes."
Anger moved through him, clean and hot.
"That's unforgivable."
"Maybe."
He expected defense.
She gave him none.
"I told myself I was protecting her. Then I told myself I was honoring her boundary. Then I told myself it would be cruel to tell you after so much time."
She looked down.
"Eventually I stopped knowing where respect ended and cowardice started."
Julian stood.
Celeste remained seated.
"Are you leaving?" she asked.
"No."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Trying not to say something I'll use later as proof that I'm honest."
She looked at him strangely.
He understood why.
That sentence did not sound like him.
It sounded like Eleanor's letter had entered the room with them.
Julian walked to the window.
In the garden, the winter fountain was dry. A groundskeeper was sweeping leaves from stone steps that would be covered again by noon.
Futile work.
Necessary anyway.
"Did she hate me?" he asked.
Celeste waited.
"Sometimes."
He nodded once.
The honesty hurt less than reassurance would have.
"Did she ever ask about me?"
"Yes."
"How often?"
"Every year."
Julian closed his eyes.
Celeste stood.
"She knew when you sold the hotel division. She knew when you got divorced. She knew when your mother died. She knew when you broke your ankle skiing because it made some ridiculous society column."
A laugh almost escaped him.
It didn't.
"And she still stayed away."
"Yes."
That was the part he would have to live with.
Not that Eleanor forgot him.
That she remembered him and still chose distance.
Celeste picked up her purse.
"I'm going home."
Julian turned.
"Are we done?"
She studied him.
"I don't know what we are, Julian. I think that's part of the problem."
For twelve years, Celeste had been the woman who knew how to arrive beside him without asking for a definition. They attended events. Took trips. Shared hotel rooms sometimes and separate lives most of the time.
He had called it freedom.
Now he wondered how much of it had simply been mutual avoidance.
At the doorway, Celeste paused.
"There is one thing Eleanor never forgave me for."
Julian looked up.
"What?"
"After she left, your father called me. He asked where she was."
Celeste's hand tightened around her purse.
"I told him I didn't know."
"You didn't."
"I knew the bus station."
Julian went still.
"Did he find her?"
"No."
Celeste's eyes filled.
"But I spent fifteen years wondering if that answer made me brave because I protected her or weak because it was the only brave thing I did."
May you like
Then she left.
On the breakfast table, she left the lighthouse postcard behind. Julian picked it up. For the first time, the person he was angriest with was not Celeste. It was the twenty-nine-year-old version of himself who had needed everyone else to be simpler than they really were.
