“No, but I don’t wear it much. Just special occasions.”
“I think Tuck would have approved,” she said. “What did you end up doing last night?”
He thought about Ted and all that had happened, including his subsequent move to the beach. “Not much. How was dinner with your mom?”
“Not worth talking about,” she said. She reached into the car, running her hand over the wheel before looking up at him. “We had an interesting conversation this morning, though.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “It got me to thinking about these last couple of days. About me, you… life. Everything. And on the drive over, I realized that I was glad that Tuck never told you about me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because yesterday, when we were in the garage…” She hesitated, trying to find the right words. “I think I was out of line. The way I was acting, I mean. And I want to apologize.”
“Why would you apologize?”
“It’s hard to explain. I mean…”
When she trailed off, Dawson watched her before finally taking a step closer. “Are you all right, Amanda?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know anything anymore. When we were young, things were so much simpler.”
He hesitated. “What are you trying to say?”
She looked up at him. “You have to understand that I’m not the girl I used to be,” she said. “I’m a wife and a mother now, and like everyone else I’m not perfect. I struggle with the choices I’ve made and I make mistakes, and half the time I wonder who I really am or what I’m doing or whether my life means anything at all. I’m not special at all, Dawson, and you need to know that. You have to understand that I’m just… ordinary.”
“You’re not ordinary.”
Her look was pained but unflinching. “I know you believe that. But I am. And the problem is that there’s nothing ordinary about any of this. I’m completely out of my element. I wish that Tuck had mentioned you, though, so that I could have been more prepared for this weekend.” Without even being aware of it, she reached up to touch the silver locket. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”
Dawson shifted from one foot to the other, understanding exactly why she’d said what she had. It was one of the reasons he’d always loved her, even if he knew he shouldn’t say those words out loud. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Instead, he kept his voice as gentle as he could. “We talked, we ate, we reminisced,” he pointed out. “That’s all. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Yes, I have.” She smiled but couldn’t hide the sadness in it. “I haven’t told my mother that you’re here. Nor have I told my husband.”
“Do you want to?” he asked.
That was the question, wasn’t it? Without even being aware of it, her mother had asked her the same thing. She knew what she should say, but here and now the words simply wouldn’t come. Instead, she found herself slowly beginning to shake her head. “No,” she whispered finally.
Dawson seemed to sense the fear that seized her at her own admission, because he reached for Amanda’s hand. “Let’s go to Vandemere,” he said. “Let’s honor Tuck, okay?”
She nodded, letting herself succumb to the gentle urgency of his touch, feeling yet another part of herself slip away, beginning to accept the fact that she was no longer fully in control of whatever might happen next.
Dawson led her around to the other side of the car and opened her door. Amanda took a seat, feeling light-headed as Dawson retrieved the box holding Tuck’s ashes from his rental car. He wedged it into the space behind the driver’s seat, along with his jacket, before getting in. After taking out the directions, Amanda stowed her purse behind the seat as well.
Dawson pumped the pedal before turning the key, and the engine came to life with a roar. He revved the engine a few times, the car shimmying slightly. When the idle finally held, Dawson backed it out of the garage and drove slowly down to the main road, avoiding the potholes. The sound of the engine quieted only slightly as they made their way back through Oriental and onto the quiet highway.
As Amanda began to settle in, she discovered that she could see all she really needed from the corner of her eye. Dawson had one hand on the wheel, a posture achingly familiar to her from the meandering drives they used to take. That was when he’d always been most relaxed, and she sensed that feeling in him again as he shifted from one gear to the next, the muscles of his forearm bunching and relaxing.