Margot shook her head. “I wasn’t a good guy, though, Griff. I mean, I am a good person, in my heart. But what I did was… despicable.”
“I’m happy at Blankstar,” Griff said. “Really happy. It’s the right place for me.”
“Good,” Margot said. “I kept checking on you, you know. I Googled you first thing every morning until I found out you’d gotten a job.”
“Did you?” he said.
“I did.”
“You didn’t have to tell me the truth,” Griff said. “I never would have known. Never.”
“Yes,” Margot said. “I realize that.”
“So why did you?” Griff asked.
Why did she? Well, because she was her mother’s daughter and her father’s daughter, and because she was the mother of three young and growing souls. She could feed them takeout every night, she could leave them for hours with Kitty, the afternoon babysitter, but ultimately the person who was responsible for installing their moral compass was her. It was okay to mess up-to set a scorching-hot pan directly on a soft pine table and mar it forever, to file for divorce when she was no longer in love and had exhausted every hope, to become utterly infatuated with the wrong person and then commit what was essentially a crime of passion-but she had to own it.
How to explain this to Griff? She couldn’t possibly.
“I don’t know why I told you,” she said.
Griff took her chin and turned her face toward him. “But I do know,” he said.
Margot thought he was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her, and this painful, difficult wedding weekend was going to get the kind of movie star ending that Margot could never have dreamed of. But instead Griff let his hand drop to the railing, and he stared out at the water.
“I don’t believe in love,” he said.
“Me either,” Margot said.
“And I’m never getting married again.”
“Me either,” Margot said.
Griff stood up straight and adjusted his visor. He looked at Margot, and she became transfixed by his blue-and-green kaleidoscope eyes. It was a genetic anomaly, and Margot wondered if heterochromia iridum came with any benefits. Did he see things differently? Did it lend him a sixth sense that enabled him to guess people’s favorite lyrics? Did it allow him to be generous of spirit even when he’d been wronged?
“I want you to call me,” Griff said. “Tonight, after you get home and settled, when you’re climbing into bed, as late as you want. Okay? I’ll answer, I promise.”
Margot nodded. “I’ll tell you the stupid stuff,” she said.
“All of it,” he said.
“Okay,” Margot agreed.
As Griff walked away, he spun around. “Thanks for the pennies,” he said. He squinted off the side of the boat. “You know, I can’t wait to come back here.”
Margot followed his gaze to the coastline of the island, the place where she had wandered the beach as a soulful teenager, where she had partied with her brothers and sneaked in the back doors of bars, where she had met Drum Sr., where she had discovered she was pregnant, where her mother’s spirit shone like the sun on every surface. It was the island where Margot wanted to rest her weary bones when this exquisite, tremendous, and endlessly confounding life was through. It was home.
“Me either,” Margot said.
THE NOTEBOOK, THE LAST PAGE
Happily Ever After
There is no doubt in my mind that, whether you’ve followed my advice or ignored it, you had a glorious, memorable wedding. A wedding is one thing, sweet Jenna, and a marriage is quite another. I know there are writers and psychologists and talk-show hosts and “experts” out there who claim they can give you the secret to a long, happy marriage. I assure you, they know nothing. Your father has seen every possible permutation of marriage, separation, and divorce, and he will be the first to tell you-and here I wholeheartedly agree-that half of all marriages will end and half will endure and there is no telling which is which. I am grateful for all the blessings I have been given, especially you and Margot and Nicholas and Kevin, my strong, bright, beautiful children. But my family begins and ends with your father, Douglas Carmichael, who has sustained me for thirty-five years with his devotion and infinite kindness. He did two things for me every single day of our marriage: he made me laugh, and he was my friend.
How lucky, how very lucky, I have been.
OUTTAKES
The New York Times
Carmichael-Graham
Jennifer Bailey Carmichael, daughter of Douglas Carmichael of Silvermine, CT, and the late Elizabeth Bailey Carmichael, married Stuart James Graham, son of James and Ann Graham of Durham, NC, yesterday on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. The Reverend Harvey Marlowe officiated at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
Ms. Carmichael, 29, is the lead teacher at Little Minds Preschool in Manhattan. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary.
The bride’s father is the managing partner at Garrett, Parker, and Spence, a family law practice in Manhattan.
The groom, 30, is a food and beverage analyst for Morgan Stanley. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He received an M.B.A. from Columbia.
The groom’s father is a vice president at GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the groom’s mother has served as a state senator in North Carolina for twenty-four years.
Ryan Graham (best man): Wow, the wedding announcement states all the facts, but it actually tells you nothing.
Nick Carmichael (brother of the bride): Normally, I break hearts like it’s my cool second job. But this weekend, I had a girl swiped right out from under me, which has never happened before. It took a minute for me to realize that she hadn’t belonged to me in the first place. It felt like she belonged to me because I have known her for so long-longer than Scott Walker, by the way-but only by a couple of decades. Finn had always been Jenna’s little friend, but then, this weekend, she became someone else. Had I fallen in love with her? Man, I don’t know if I would go that far, though I felt something crazy and unfamiliar. But then I’ve heard weddings can do that. They can bring out the romantic in anyone.
H. W. Graham (brother of the groom): Her flight was at three o’clock and mine was at quarter to four so we decided to go to the airport together. We had gotten a pretty good glow on at the brunch, and since we had time at the airport, we sat at the bar and did a couple of tequila shots. She had been saying the whole weekend that she knew guys like me and that I didn’t have to worry, there were no strings attached. Once she got on her plane for Myrtle Beach, I would never see or hear from her again. So it took a little convincing for me to get her number. We can text, I said. I’ll hit you on Facebook, stuff like that. Plus, I go to Pawleys all the time to golf (this wasn’t strictly true, though I had been there once), so I can come see you. I can come to your restaurant. She said, It’s a free country. Then her plane was called and I kissed her good-bye and I watched her copper hair disappear through the gate at security, and I’m embarrassed to admit what I did next. I got on my computer and MapQuested the distance between Raleigh and Murrells Inlet. One hundred and eighty-seven miles, three hours and thirty-four minutes. Piece of cake. I’m going next weekend.
Carson Bain (nephew of the bride): My mother says that as soon as we get back to New York I have to start seeing a tutor three times a week!
Douglas Carmichael (father of the bride): By my calculations, the wedding cost me between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. If Beth were alive, she would kill me for telling you that. She would also insist that I add that it was worth every penny. Which it was.