Chapter 27

Thomas hadn’t showedup for breakfast, so we had called to check on him before heading out to Boston. We discovered him well, although a bit down, with Lucas having departed for Florida the night before.

Once again, I’m left to my own thoughts, wondering how Jacob will react to what I have to say. It has been a long time since his love affair with Rose, but I would bet anything that he remembers Rose as though it was yesterday. You don’t forget a love like they obviously had, especially with it ending like it did.

With everything going on, I’ve forgotten to get another copy of the photograph of Rose and Jacob, which is unbelievable, considering how obsessed I am with them.

All too soon, Dean brings the car to a stop in front of his family’s home and turns to look at me. “Are you ready to do this? I have to admit, I’m nervous, so I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

“I’m nervous, and excited, to be finally meeting him. Not just because of Rose, but because he’s your grandfather.”

Dean climbs out of the car and walks around to help me out. He places a kiss to my lips before he captures my hand and pulls me toward the house. “Come on.”

We enter the house and are met by Martha, his grandparents’ housekeeper, who looks down at our joined hands and back up at our faces. “Mr. Dean, I didn’t know you were coming home.”

“I’m not, Martha, this is Mack. We’re here to visit my grandparents. Where are they?”

“Your grandfather is in the study, and your grandmother went to the…powder room.”

“Okay, thanks.” He turns to me and pulls me toward his grandfather’s study. “I’ll go in and introduce you, and then I’ll go and distract my grandmother.”

“Okay.”

“It’ll be all right.” Dean gives me a quick kiss.

He knocks on the study door, and then walks in, dragging a partly reluctant me behind him.

“Dean, my boy, where have you been?” his grandfather asks while he hugs Dean with obvious affection.

I get a better look at him. He’s a distinguished older man with grey hair and, despite his age, is still well built with a very slight paunch. He looks like he’s sixty, not in his nineties.

“Grandfather, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Mackenzie Harper, otherwise known as Mack.”

His grandfather moves slowly forward to greet me. “Well now, you are mighty pretty,” he says, taking my hand.

I swallow around the lump of emotion that threatens to choke me and settle when Dean places his hand on my back as I look at his grandfather. “Thank you.”

“Can we keep her?” Jacob asks his grandson.

“I’m working on that, grandfather.”

Jacob sits down and pulls me down beside him. “So, tell me…what brought tears to your eyes when you saw me?”

I look at Dean, wondering where to begin. “I’m going to find Grandmother while you two chat.” Dean quickly kisses me on the forehead as he leaves the room.

“Now I’m even more curious than before.” Jacob gives me a quizzical look.

“May I call you, Jacob?” I ask.

He smiles and pats my hand. “Seeing as you’re practically family, that would be fine. Although, I hope you will call me grandfather, eventually.”

“I might.” I take a deep breath and start my story, or rather theirs, “If I told you that Dean and I met in Cape Elizabeth at Degan House, what would that mean to you?” I watch him carefully and see the color drain from his face slightly, his hands begin to tremble. “Jacob, I found a diary dated 1947, written by a Rose Degan. She was in love with you, wasn’t she?”

Jacob nods. “Yes,” he whispers, looking away from me and appears to be lost in his own thoughts.

“She never married Richard,” I announce.

He turns back toward me, his eyes fill with some unknown emotion. “Pardon?”

“This isn’t easy, Jacob, but Rose was running away to be with you, when she,” I take a deep breath, “she lost her footing and fell over the cliffs. Jacob, she did love you so very much, she didn’t leave you for Richard like her father told you. She didn’t get the chance to leave with you.”

Jacob looks toward the windows and the garden beyond before he looks back at me. He’s clearly agitated, and it breaks her heart that she’s the cause of it. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Jacob, why did you wait a few days to call Degan House to speak to Rose? Why not look for her that night? You knew she was pregnant? I have so many questions. None of it makes sense to me.”

“I don’t remember,” he says abruptly, cutting me off.

I’m a bit surprised at Jacob’s response.

Dean comes back into the room, looking first at me, who is upset, then his grandfather. “Is everyone okay?” he asks as he approaches Mack, wiping her tears away.

“I think so,” I reply.

“Sorry for cutting this short, but Grandmother is waiting in the parlor and was about to head this way as she’s getting rather impatient. I’ve been sent to get you both.” He grins. “She’s keen to meet you, Mack.”

He’s leading me out of the room, followed by his grandfather, when I notice a photograph sitting in a lovely frame on the bookcase. I walk over to have a closer look. “Who’s that?” I ask, pointing at the woman in the photograph. I’ve seen the photograph before and know who it is, but Jacob having it on his bookshelf, when he married someone else, doesn’t make any sense.

Jacob replies, “Eliza, my wife.”

“Mack, what is it?” Dean asks.

“The woman in this picture. It’s Rose!” I exclaim.

“Mack, that’s my grandmother,” Dean says, his voice laced with confusion.

I hear Dean, but I can’t think properly because all the blood seems to be running through my head and ears.

It can’t be? Can it?

“This is the same picture Thomas has that Rose left for him. That’s Rose, not Eliza,” I whisper.

“What? Mack, that’s impossible.” Dean searches my face, realizing I’m serious.

He looks toward his grandfather, and then his grandmother as she walks in. I take one look at her before I lose all color and drop like a ton of bricks in a dead faint.

Dean manages to catch her…just.

* * *

“Mack, come on. Please wake up.”Dean sits on the sofa in his grandfather’s study with me cradled in his arms. “Why does Mack think the picture is of Rose?” he asks his grandparents.

“Dean, what are you talking about?” his grandmother asks.

“The photograph of the two of you taken before you got married, when you were pregnant with my father. Why does Mack think it’s Rose?”

“Because she is Rose. Rose Elizabeth Degan, Eliza,” I answer Dean’s question. “Am I right?” I mumble.

“There were only two pictures taken, we have one . . .” Eliza says quietly, her voice trailing off.

“You gave the other one to Thomas, which is how I saw it.”

Sitting down, Eliza looks at me. “How do you know this?”

“You’re Rose?” Dean says.

His grandmother slowly nods her head as he admits, “Mack found the diary that you wrote when you met my grandfather. Also, Thomas and Richard helped fill in the blanks.”

“Thomas?” Eliza whispers.

“Your brother,” I tell Eliza, frowning.

“No…no…no…you’re wrong. Thomas died in 1953 in Korea…didn’t he?” Eliza asks, barely able to finish as the color drains from her cheeks, so Jacob sits next to her and wraps an arm around her trembling shoulders.

I ask them the one question that I need to know the answer to. “Why? Why pretend you were dead? And what do we call you now?”

“I’ve been Eliza longer than I was Rose. Please use Eliza… Can you tell us about Thomas? Then we’ll tell you, our story.”

I cling to Dean. “Thomas is the owner of Rose Cottage, which I rented for the summer. It used to be known as Degan House. I found your diary and started reading it. All this time, Thomas had no idea about the photograph or the message you had written to him. After he thought you died, he couldn’t bring himself to read the comic until I read about it in the diary. It was only then that he found the photograph and message.”

“But he’s dead. How? I don’t understand,” Eliza says.

“Why do you think he’s dead?” I question anxiously, trying to make sense of everything.

“Mack, I took Eliza back to see Thomas in 1954. She missed him terribly, only to be told by her father he’d been killed six months earlier in Korea,” Jacob answers.

I’m not sure I hear correctly. “Your parents knew?” I gasp.

“Yes, or rather, my father did,” Eliza whispers with tears in her eyes, “Please tell me about Thomas,” she begs softly.

“He did serve in Korea, but he didn’t die. In fact, he has become a good friend to Dean and me. He loves to fish and taught my six-year-old nephew. I would say he still gets up to trouble with Levi, who we’ve met briefly.”

“All this time wasted,” Eliza cries.

“Will you tell us your story now?”

Eliza wipes her eyes. “I will.” She composes herself and clasps one of Jacob’s hands with hers on her lap. “You already know about everything up to that night, yes?”

“Yes,” I reply.

Eliza still looks beautiful at eighty-nine. She wears her silver hair pulled back into a bun and it emphasizes her high cheekbones, small button nose, and her skin looks to have aged well. She wears a deep purple dress on her slim figure with low-heeled black and purple ballerina pumps. Very stylish, and both Rose and Jacob still look so much in love, after all these years together. It make sense now as to why Jacob was so in love with Eliza.

Dean pulls me closer into his arms and sits back further into the cushions. “We might as well get comfortable. Are you okay, Mack?” he asks, kissing me briefly, but tenderly.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Everything always is with you in my arms.”

“Good answer,” I whisper, snuggling into him. He always makes me feel loved and cherished with his concern for my wellbeing.

Eliza sighs. “I was on my way to meet Jacob. I’d taken the path along the cliffs when Richard came running up to me. He begged me not to go and kept grabbing me, begging me to stay and marry him. I told him about the baby, thinking he would let me go then, but no such luck. I started getting worried because I didn’t want Jacob to think I’d changed my mind if I wasn’t there by eleven.”

Eliza can’t continue so Jacob carries on from where she left off. “I knew Rose was going to take the cliff path to meet me. I walked along it from town to meet her, and that’s when I heard her arguing with Richard. I went running up and pried his fingers off Rose. I took her into my arms before putting her behind me. Richard made a grab for her again and ended up knocking Rose’s bag over the cliff edge into the ocean.”

“So that’s how the clothes washed ashore,” Dean states.

Eliza nods her head.

“Yes. After that, he seemed to calm down and I begged him to tell everyone Rose had gone over the cliffs. He refused at first, but Rose knew something about him, so he agreed in return for her silence,” Jacob says.

I’m too stunned to speak, but Dean isn’t. “So, you faked your own death?”

“It wasn’t planned that way. Rose really was going to run away with me to be my wife, but pretending she’d died seemed the safest option. That night, I met her parents for the first time and her father made it more than clear that he didn’t want us anywhere near each other. Her father had many influential friends and was a tough man. He would have come after us with everything he had, and all we wanted was to be left alone to get on with our lives, together.”

“But what about the phone call to Degan House days later. Thomas heard your father telling your mother about Jacob calling and telling him you had married Richard. You said your father knew you were alive?” I ask, needing answers.

“We left that night to go to Boston and stayed with Eleanor, Jacob’s sister. After about a week of living there, Jacob arranged for us to be married. We knew I was really pregnant by then, and he didn’t want me showing without having the paper to prove we were actually married. He also wanted assurance that if my father discovered the truth, it would be harder for him to take me away from him as I would be Jacob’s wife.” Eliza pauses. “After a few days, Jacob thought perhaps he should ring to ask to speak to me and see what my father or mother had to say. I didn’t like the idea but went along with it. My father was awful to Jacob and told him that I had married Richard and miscarried his child. I cried for the rest of the day.”

Jacob wipes the tears from Eliza’s eyes. “Then it was maybe three weeks later that I opened the door, and my father was standing there. Jacob was at work, and I didn’t know what to do so I stepped outside with him. My father was so angry and said I really was dead to him, and I better not let my mother know I was alive and obviously in good health. I asked my father how he knew, and he told me Richard had told him that I was with child when I died. However, it was only the week before that he’d discovered I was actually alive. Apparently, a friend of his had seen me in Boston and asked my father about me. My father then went to see Richard again, and got the full story out of him.”

We sit on the sofa in silence. You could hear a pin drop. I feel overwhelmed with the turn of events. Rose is alive. I knew there was something off with the information we’ve uncovered. Although I hoped for a happy ending for Rose, I certainly hadn’t expected one. “So, you eventually went back to see Thomas?” I ask, finding my voice.

“Yes. It was 1954. Rose had missed Thomas so much. Her mother had died in 1951 so there was no fear of her finding out about Rose. We had a car by then, so we drove up to Cape Elizabeth. Her father was home. We asked him about Thomas, and he told us that he had died in Korea. It broke Rose’s heart and she cried for weeks. I can’t believe that bastard lied to us. I guess we should have expected it, but we didn’t, not about something like that,” Jacob replies.

“We have to see Thomas.” Eliza wipes her eyes.

“Grandmother, I think this is going to be one heck of a shock for him. Let Mack and me break it to him and then we’ll arrange a get together or something. But we need to go easy. Up until Mack read your diary, he actually thought you’d died hating him.”

Eliza brings her hand up to her mouth. “I loved him… He has always been in my heart.”

“He has always loved you, Eliza. He told me that himself.” I wonder. “What did you know about Richard?”

Eliza and Jacob exchange a look. “He loved Rose a lot, we really believed that, but Rose had discovered that he preferred…men,” Jacob says.

“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that at all, but all of a sudden, I remember about Rose’s friend, Jayne. “What about Jayne? Did she know you were still alive?”

Eliza smiles. “I got in touch with Jayne about two weeks after we left Cape Elizabeth, and I knew for once, she would keep my secret because she has, all these years. Jayne was, and still is, my dearest friend. She’s gone away with her husband now. It was her house we went to the day of your mother’s garden party. Would you believe that she actually married Jacob’s best friend from the engineering company that he started to work at all those years ago.”

“Thank you for telling us your story. I can’t tell you how much it means to me, knowing you’re alive and lived all these years, happily married to Jacob. It broke my heart when I thought you’d died, and that Jacob had been told you’d left him for another man,” I say, close to tears again.

Dean stands and moves over to the desk to retrieve a box of tissues, offering some to me and his grandmother. He kneels in front of me and pulls me close so he can wipe my tears away, then kisses me. “Come here.” He takes me into his arms for a much-needed hug.

“Dean, may I have a word with you, please?” his grandmother asks. She starts to leave via a door on the opposite side from where everyone entered.

“Will you be, okay?” he questions.

“Dean, go. I’ll be fine.” I smile to reassure him.

He still looks apprehensive. “I won’t be long.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

I sit quietly with Jacob as Dean and his grandmother disappeared through the other door. Jacob looks at me and smiles slightly.

“So, what did Eliza write?” He roars with laughter when he sees the look on my face. “That good, huh? Might give me a heart attack now.”

I giggle. “It’s pretty hot stuff, I can assure you.”

“Mmm, hot stuff. That’s what she was back then, she still is. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I can still remember the first day I saw her. I thought I was dreaming. It was a rescue at sea, and I was helping out on land. Heading back to get a warm drink, I happened to look up and glance into the crowd, and there she was.” Lost in his thoughts. “She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I felt my heart somersault in my chest. It was love at first sight for me, and before I knew it, my legs were carrying me over to where she was standing.”

Jacob wipes his eyes, setting me off again with the waterworks. “We introduced ourselves and I didn’t want to ever leave her. I wanted to carry her away with me and keep her forever.”

“Which you did, but a month later.” I smile.

“Yes, I did. The only thing I regret about what happened back then is that we didn’t go and get married before going to see her father. We should have done that and told him instead of pretending that she died. He probably would have acted the same, but at least there might have been a chance of Thomas being in our lives as he got older.”

Eliza comes back into the room. “Jacob, what have you been saying to upset Dean’s girl again?” she scolds, but there is affection in her tone.

I smile. “He was telling me how it was love at first sight when he saw you. A bit like Dean and me, really.”

Eliza sits down next to her husband. Dean moves to sit down next to me and takes my hand in his, lacing our fingers together. “Like us, Mack.”

“If you want the truth, Mack, neither his grandmother nor I thought we would see the day when he would fall in love so not only have you made us happy telling us about Thomas, but you have made us ecstatic by loving our grandson. So, thank you.”

I smile at both of Dean’s grandparents. “I want you to know I love Dean so much. He has become part of me in such a short time.” I turn to Dean and place a tender kiss on his lips.

“Now you’ve made me cry,” Eliza says, wiping at her eyes again.

Dean stands, pulling me up from the sofa. “We’re going to go and rest for a while before heading out. We’ll see you before we leave.”

“Make sure you do,” Eliza says.

I hug Eliza and Jacob.

“You take good care of her, you hear?” Jacob gives him a stern look.

Dean looks at me. “Yes, sir,” he replies, looking at his grandfather.