For Now and Forever

She just wondered why Daniel wasn’t here to share the moment with her.

Chapter Fifteen

It was late, the party long over, when Emily finally heard the sound of Daniel’s motorcycle coming up the street and turning onto the drive up to the house. She got out of bed and peered through the window at his figure as he removed his helmet and walked up toward the carriage house.

Emily wrapped herself up in her nightgown then slid on her slippers. She went downstairs and out the front door. The grass was soft as she walked across the lawn toward the carriage house. Light was coming from inside, spilling across the grass.

She knocked on the door then stood back, wrapping her arms around herself to keep out the chilly night air.

Daniel answered the door. Something about the look on his face told her that he already knew it would be her standing there.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “You missed the party.”

Daniel took a deep breath. “Look, why don’t you come in? We can talk over tea rather than standing out here in the cold.” He held the door open for her. Emily went inside.

Daniel made them both tea and Emily stayed quiet throughout, waiting for him to be the first to speak, to offer an explanation for his behavior. But he remained tight-lipped and she was left with no other options.

“Daniel,” she said forcefully, “why did you miss the party? Where were you? I was worried.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just don’t like those people, okay?” he said. “They’re the ones who wrote me off when I was a kid.”

Emily frowned. “That was twenty years ago.”

“It doesn’t matter if it was twenty years or twenty minutes to these people.”

“You were singing their praises at the harbor,” Emily said. “Now suddenly you hate them?”

“I like some of them,” Daniel contested. “But they’re mostly small-minded townsfolk. Believe me, it would have been worse if I’d been there.”

Emily raised an eyebrow. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that those people had turned out to be kind, fun folk. That she was beginning to consider them friends. But the last thing she wanted was to have an argument with Daniel when their honeymoon phase had barely begun.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to come to the party?” she said finally, forcing her voice to be calm. “I felt like an idiot waiting around for you.”

“I’m sorry.” Daniel sighed with regret, then set a cup of tea down in front of her. “I know I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. It’s just I’m so used to being alone, to not having anyone to answer to. It’s part of who I am. Having all those people around suddenly, it’s a lot to cope with all at once.”

Emily felt bad for him, for the way he felt more comfortable alone. To her, that didn’t seem like a particularly happy trait to possess. But it still didn’t excuse his behavior.

“I mean, just Cynthia on her own would have been bad enough,” Daniel added with a sheepish grin.

In spite of herself, Emily laughed. “You should have just told me,” she said.

“I know,” Daniel replied. “If I promise not to take off like that again, will you forgive me?”

Emily couldn’t stay mad at him. “I guess,” she said.

Daniel reached over and took her hand. “Why don’t you tell me how it was? What did you all talk about?”

Emily gave him a look. “You want me to recount the conversations of people you just told me you hated?”

“I won’t hate it coming from you,” Daniel said with a smile.

Emily rolled her eyes. She wanted to stay mad at Daniel for a little bit longer to teach him a lesson, but she just couldn’t help herself. Plus, she had some big news to tell him regarding the B&B and she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She tried to dampen her enthusiasm but found herself unable to contain it.

“Well, the main topic of conversation,” she said, “was turning the house into a B&B.”

Daniel almost spat out the sip he’d taken. He looked up over the rim of his teacup. “A what?”

Emily tensed up, suddenly nervous about telling Daniel about her new dream. What if he didn’t support her? He’d just told her that being alone was part of who he was, and now she was about to tell him that having all manner of strangers traipsing in through the property might become a common occurrence.

“A B&B,” she said, her voice smaller and more timid.

“You want to do that?” Daniel asked, setting his cup down. “Run a B&B?”

Emily wrapped her hands around her own cup as though for reassurance and shifted in her seat. “Well… maybe. I don’t know. I mean I’d need to crunch the numbers first. I probably won’t even be able to afford to get it off the ground.” She was stammering now, trying to downplay the idea, unsure what Daniel would make of it.

“But if you could afford to, that’s what you’d want?” he asked.

Emily looked up and met his eye. “It was what I wanted to do when I was younger. It was my dream, actually. I just didn’t think I’d be any good at it so I gave up thinking about it.”

Daniel reached out and put his hand over hers. “Emily, you’d be amazing at it.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“So you don’t think it’s a terrible idea?”

Daniel shook his head and beamed. “It’s a great idea!”

She brightened suddenly. “You really think so?”

“Absolutely,” he added. “You’d be an amazing host. And if you need money to put into it I’d be happy to help. I don’t have much but would give you whatever I have.”

Though touched by his offer, Emily shook her head. “I couldn’t take your money, Daniel. All I’d really need to get things started is one decent bedroom and a pot of coffee. Once I get the first guest in, I can put the profit straight back into the business.”

“Even so,” Daniel said. “If you need any renovation work done, work on the grounds and stuff, you know I’m happy to chip in.”

“Really?” Emily asked again, still unable to believe it. “You’d do that for me?” She thought again of Daniel’s generosity, and how he came through for her in her time of need. “You really think it’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” Daniel assured her. “I love the idea. Which bedroom would you do up first?”

During their last three months of doing up the property they hadn’t made much headway with the upstairs. It was only Emily’s parents’ old room (now hers) and the bathroom that had been completed. She’d need to select another one of the rooms to focus on.

“I don’t know yet,” Emily said. “Probably one of the big ones at the back.”

“One with an ocean view?” Daniel suggested.

Emily gave a little shrug. “I’d have to put a bit more thought into it first. But it wouldn’t take long to fix up, would it? I could have it ready for the tourist season. If I got a permit, that is.”

Daniel seemed to be in agreement. Over their cup of tea they went over all the details, the amount of time and money they’d need to get a room ready and a menu together in time for the summer influx of tourists.

“It would be risky,” Daniel said, sitting back and looking at the paper in front of him scrawled with figures and sums.

“It would,” Emily agreed. “But then again quitting my job and walking out on my boyfriend of seven years was risky and look how well that played out.” She reached forward and squeezed Daniel’s arm. As she did so, she sensed a hesitation in him. “Is everything okay?” she asked, frowning.

“Yeah,” Daniel said, standing and picking up their empty mugs. “I’m just tired. I think I’ll call it a night.”

Emily stood too as it suddenly dawned on her that he was asking her to leave. The passion of the previous evenings seemed to have been entirely extinguished. The romance of their morning in the rose garden dispersed. The thrill of the motorcycle ride across the cliff tops gone.

Pulling her nightgown tightly around her, Emily went over and kissed Daniel on the cheek. “See you later?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, not looking her in the eye.

Bewildered and hurt, Emily left the carriage house and made the cold, lonely walk back to her own house to spend the night alone.

*

“Morning, Rico!” Emily called as she strolled into the dark, over-crammed indoor flea market the next day.

Instead of Rico, it was Serena’s head that popped up from behind a table that she was in the middle of artfully distressing. “Emily! How’s it going with Mr. Hot Stuff? I never got a chance to properly talk to you about it at the party.”

Daniel was about the last thing Emily wanted to talk about at that point in time. “If you’d asked me that two days ago I would have said it was going amazingly. But now I’m not so sure.”

“Oh?” Serena said. “He’s one of those, is he?”

“One of what?”

“Falls in too deep and scares themselves cold. I’ve seen it a million times.”

Emily wasn’t sure how a twenty-year-old could have seen anything a million times but didn’t say it. She didn’t really want to get into a conversation about Daniel right now.

“So, I’m looking for a couple of specific pieces,” Emily said, rummaging in her bag for the list she and Daniel had made last night before he’d effectively kicked her out his house. She handed it to Serena. “I’m not ready to buy anything yet, I just want to get some ballpark figures.”

“Sure,” the younger woman said, beaming. “I’ll just have a look around.” She was about to head off into the shop when she paused. “Hey, this is all bedroom stuff. Is it…”

“For a B&B?” Emily smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. “Yup.”

“That’s so cool!” Serena exclaimed. “You’re really going to do it?”

“Well,” Emily said, “I’ll need to get the permit first, which means going to a town meeting.”

“Oh pfft, that’ll be easy,” Serena said, waving a dismissive hand. “Does this mean you won’t be going back to New York?”

“I need to get the permit first,” Emily repeated with a slightly sterner tone.

“Got it,” Serena said, clicking her fingers. “Permit first.” She grinned and walked away.

Emily smiled to herself, happy to know there was at least one person who seemed to genuinely want her to stick around in Sunset Harbor, not just because of the profit she’d bring to the area but because they liked her.

She went over to the drawer of door handles and started looking through it. Rico had a collection to rival her father’s, though Rico’s were in much better condition. She was considering powder blue for the color scheme of the room, and wanted delicate glass handles to go in the chest of drawers.

As she was rummaging through the drawer of handles and knobs, she heard two voices entering the shop behind her.

“Stella said she saw him up on the cliffs again yesterday, riding his motorbike for hours and hours,” one of the voices said.

Emily paused and strained to hear them better. Could they be talking about Daniel? He had a penchant for driving his bike on the cliffs, and he had been gone for a really long time yesterday.

“And he was at the festival down at the harbor the other day,” the second voice said.

Emily felt her heart rate increase. Daniel had been at the festival. Well, so had everyone else, but not everyone else rode a motorbike along the cliff path. She felt certain they were gossiping about Daniel.

“You don’t think he’s moved back into town, do you?” the second voice was saying.

“Well, Stella has a theory that he never left,” the first said.

“Oh my. Really? Just the thought of it gives me the chills. You mean to say he’s been at the old house this whole time?”

“Yes, exactly. Stella told me that someone told her that he was at the garage sale the new girl had up there the other day.”

Emily felt her whole body turn to ice as the voices kept on gossiping.

“Really? Goodness me. Someone ought to warn her!”

Certain now that the women were talking about Daniel, Emily stepped out of the shadows. “Warn me about what?” she said coolly.

The two women stopped and stared at her like rabbits caught in the headlights.

“I said,” Emily repeated, “warn me about what?”

“Well,” the first woman began, her voice now suddenly trembling. “It was Stella that said that she’d seen him.”

“Seen who?”

“The Moreys’ son, I forget his name. Dustin. Declan.”

“Douglas,” the other woman informed the first confidently.

“No, it’s more exotic than that. More unusual,” the first contested.

Emily folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “It’s Daniel. And what about him?”

“Well,” the first woman said, “he has a reputation.”

“A reputation?” Emily said.

“With women,” she added. “He’s left a lot of women with broken hearts, that Declan.”

“Douglas,” the second woman said.

“Daniel,” Emily corrected them both.

The first woman shook her head. “It’s not Daniel, dear. I can’t remember his name but it’s definitely not Daniel.”

“I’m telling you, it’s Douglas,” the second woman said.

Emily was starting to get frustrated. She didn’t want to believe what the women were saying about Daniel – about the women in his past – but she couldn’t help the niggling doubt that they were creating in her mind. “Look, I’m sure that was all a very long time ago. People change. Daniel isn’t like that anymore and I’m not getting into this argument with you. You should mind your own business, okay?”

The first woman frowned. “It’s not Daniel! Honestly, girl, I’ve been in this town a damn sight longer than you have. That boy’s name is not Daniel.”

The second woman clapped her hands. “I’ve got it. Dashiel.”

“Yes that’s it! Dashiel Morey.”

Just then Serena reappeared. She paused mid-stride when she saw the two elderly women standing there and Emily looking flustered.

“I have to go,” Emily said, turning and striding out of the shop.

“Wait, what about your list?” Serena called out as Emily disappeared.

As soon as she was out in the springtime sunshine, Emily bent over and began to take deep breaths. She felt like she was hyperventilating. Her mind seemed to be spinning in circles. Though she knew the old women were just busybodies, she couldn’t help but feel rattled by what they’d said, by how certain they were about Daniel’s name, about his past indiscretions with women. And though Emily had been with Daniel mind, body, and soul, she had the sudden, dreadful realization that she didn’t really know him at all, that one couldn’t really ever truly know a person anyway. Her dad had taught her that much. If a loving family man could walk out on his family never to be seen again, then a guy she’d known for a few months could be lying about his name.

And his intentions.

Chapter Sixteen

Emily drove home quickly, her vision blurring with tears. She didn’t want to overreact but she really had no other option. Daniel had lied to her about the most fundamental part of his being: his name. What kind of a person did that? Even if he had changed his name because he hated it or was embarrassed by it, that was the sort of thing Emily would expect to crop up in conversation at some point. She didn’t go by her full name of Emily Jane but she’d still spoken about it to Daniel and even then, in that specific conversation about names, Daniel hadn’t piped up and said anything. Which led her to believe it was because he was deliberately hiding his identity from her.

And if he could lie to her about that, then maybe what the women had said about the string of broken hearts he’d caused could be true as well.

As she pulled up to the house, Emily saw that Daniel was in the yard, tending to the shrubs. He looked up, frowning, at the sound of her speedy approach and the squealing brakes as she slammed the car to a halt. She parked the car carelessly at a strange angle, then sprang out from the passenger seat, leaving it with its engine running and the door wide open. Then she stormed across the lawn heading right for Daniel.

“Who are you?” she cried, jabbing him in the chest as she reached him.

Daniel staggered back, looking shocked and confused. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Tell me!” Emily yelled. “Your name isn’t Daniel, is it? It’s Dashiel. Dashiel Morey.”

A crease formed between Daniel’s eyebrows. “How – ”

“How did I find out?” Emily cried in an accusatory manner. “I had to hear it from two old women in the flea market. Because you didn’t have the guts to tell me yourself. Do you know how humiliating that was for me?” She could feel her blood boiling at the mortifying memory.

“Emily, look I can explain,” Daniel said, bringing his hands to her shoulders.

Emily shoved his hands off from her shoulders. “Don’t touch me. You’ve been lying to me this whole time. It’s true. Just tell me straight Your name really is Dashiel?”

“Yes. But it’s just my name that’s changed. It’s – ”

“I can’t believe this. And the women? That’s all true too, isn’t it!” She threw her hands up exasperated.

“Women?” Daniel asked, frowning.

“All those hearts you broke! You have a reputation, Daniel. Or should I say Dashiel?” She turned away, tears pricking at her eyes. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Daniel exhaled with emotion. “Yes you do, Emily. I’m exactly the same person I always was.”

“But WHO is that?” Emily cried, bringing her finger up to his face. “A violent criminal who puts people in hospitals? A sensitive photographer running away from home? Some lothario who uses women up then discards them when he’s done with them? Or are you just the silent, stammering caretaker who is freeloading off me?”

Daniel’s mouth dropped open and Emily knew she’d pushed it too far. But she couldn’t stand to be deceived, by Daniel of all people, after everything they’d been through together. She’d shared so much with him – her dreams, her pain, her past, her bed. She’d trusted him, perhaps naively so.

“That’s below the belt,” Daniel shot back.

“I want you off my land,” Emily shouted. “Out of my carriage house. Get out! Take your stupid motorcycle with you!”

Daniel just stared at her, his expression somewhere between appalled and disappointed. Emily had never thought she’d see him look at her that way. It felt like a dagger to the heart to see that look in his eyes, to know it was directed at her and that her cruel words had caused it.

Daniel didn’t utter another word. He walked calmly to the garage and wheeled out his bike. Then he gunned it to life, gave her one last, stony stare, and drove off.

Emily watched him go, her hands held in tight fists, her heart beating wildly, wondering if that was going to be the last time she would ever see him.

*

Emily trudged wearily back into the house. The argument with Daniel had taken it out of her, exhausted her. She desperately wanted to speak to Amy, but had recently gotten the feeling that her friend was growing exasperated with her. Their text exchanges had become shorter, less frequent, and days would pass without hearing from her. If she called her now with woes about a man she hadn’t even gotten around to telling Amy she was dating, that would probably be the nail in the coffin for their friendship.

As she walked through the corridor, she felt like everything had been tainted by Daniel. The splotch of paint on the floorboards beside the staircase from when they’d been painting the hall and he’d sneezed. The slightly crooked picture frame they’d spent the good part of an hour trying to get straight before giving up and concluding that it simply had to be the wall that was wonky, not the frame. Everywhere she turned, she had a memory of Daniel. But right now Emily wanted space from him, not just physically but mentally. And that’s when it occurred to her that there was one room in the house that she had not yet set foot in, that was not tainted by Daniel. One room that had remained perfectly preserved, not just for the last twenty years but for twenty-eight years. And that was the bedroom she and Charlotte had shared.

Emily climbed the stairs now, filled with anguish. Ever since she’d arrived here she’d been avoiding the room. It was a habit she’d picked up from her parents, who never went in there again after Charlotte’s death. They’d immediately moved Emily into another room in the house, had shut the door to the room that reminded them of their deceased child, and had simply never opened it again. As if it were that easy to eradicate the pain of her death.

Emily walked right down the corridor and went up to the door. She could see faint scratches and dents on the wood from when she and her sister would carelessly slam the door running through while playing tag. She rested her hand against it, wondering if now was a bad time to do this since she was already in a fragile state, or whether she was going inside as a sort of punishment to herself, a way of causing self-inflicted pain. But she wanted to be close to her sister. Charlotte’s death had robbed her of having someone to confide in. She’d never been able to talk to her about boy troubles or relationship woes. Now she felt like this would be the closest she could get to her sister. And so she gripped the door handle, twisted it, and stepped over the threshold into a room that had been preserved in time.

Walking into that room was like unearthing a time capsule or stepping into a family photograph. Emily was immediately hit with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Even the smell of it, though hidden beneath the aroma of dust, brought back memories and feelings she had all but forgotten. She was unable to hold back her tears. A great sob ripped out of her and she clutched her mouth as she took a small step forward into the room containing all those precious memories of her sister.

The girls had been given the biggest room of the house. There was a mezzanine at one end and huge floor to ceiling windows at the other with a view over the ocean. Emily had a flash of memory of making her dolls climb the ladder to the mezzanine, pretending it was a mountain and they were intrepid explorers. Emily smiled mournfully to herself at the memory of a time long past.

She paced around the room, picking up items that had remained untouched for almost three decades. A coin bank in the shape of a bear. A plastic neon pink toy pony. She couldn’t help but let out a laugh at all the garish toys she and Charlotte had filled the room with. It must have driven her mom crazy that her daughters were in the most beautiful, stylish room of the house and had filled it with rainbow octopuses. Even the wooden dollhouse in the corner had been covered in stickers and glitter.

There was a large built-in wardrobe on one side of the room. Emily wondered whether their dress-up princess outfits were still inside. They had all the Disney ones. Her favorite had been the Little Mermaid and Charlotte’s had been Cinderella. Emily went over and opened the wardrobe door. When she looked inside she discovered that all of Charlotte’s outfits were still hanging there, untouched since her death.

Suddenly, looking at the clothes caused Emily to have another flashback. But this one was so much more vivid than the scraps of memory that had come back to her as she’d walked around the room. This flashback felt real, immediate, and dangerous. She gripped the wall to steady herself as she saw, with clarity, the moment when her clasp on Charlotte’s hand had slipped and the little girl had disappeared, her bright red raincoat swallowed up by the gray rain.

“No!” Emily cried, knowing how the story ended and desperately wanting to stop the inevitable, the moment when her sister fell into the water and drowned.

Then suddenly the vision was over and Emily was back in the bedroom, her palms slick with sweat, her heart racing a mile a minute. She looked down to find that she was tightly gripping the sleeve of that very same raincoat; its polka dot design was unmistakable. She must have gripped it during the terrifying memory.

Wait, Emily thought suddenly, looking at the tiny red raincoat in her grasp.

She scrabbled around in the wardrobe and found Charlotte’s boots with a ladybug design.

Emily had always believe that Charlotte had fallen into the water and drowned because she’d let go of her hand in that storm. But here were her clothes. Unless her mom had had them dry cleaned after Charlotte’s body had been returned to them, then put them back in the wardrobe along with all of her other clothes, Charlotte must have come home that day, alive and safe. Could it be that Emily had conflated two events in her mind? That the death of Charlotte had come after the storm? Had been caused by something else?