The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel - By Sarah Addison Allen Page 0,77

with, but so was Win. She wondered if Morgan knew that, if he understood. So much that was incredible about Win seemed to be because of his father. “But I think ignoring what he sacrificed is stupid. He gave us an opportunity to live normal lives here.”

“My life has not been normal since it happened! Your mother has never forgiven me for not telling her.”

“And you want the same for me? I wanted to show her. I didn’t want it to be a secret. And the world didn’t end. She didn’t reject me, Dad. This isn’t you and Mom. This isn’t Dulcie and Logan. This is me and Emily. It’s an entirely different story.”

In the silence that followed, Vance said, “Let them live their lives without our baggage, Morgan.”

But Morgan wasn’t going to let it go. He pointed to Emily. “Your daughter lured my brother into that park that night! She tricked him! She ruined everything.”

“Lower your hand, Morgan,” Vance said. “I’ll say this only once more. My granddaughter is not Dulcie, and I will not tolerate you blaming her for her mother’s sins.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

Vance took a single step toward him. “I’m going to tell the truth. You’ve made Logan and your family out to be the victims, and I let it happen because Dulcie wanted it that way. She left knowing she would be vilified. She left to make things easier on you, which was the first selfless thing she’d ever done.”

Emily, who had been staring at Win all this time, suddenly turned her head sharply. “What are you talking about, Grandpa Vance?”

“Let’s go, Win,” Morgan said quickly.

“No, I want to hear this.”

“Logan was troubled long before Dulcie came into his life,” Vance said. “He’d tried to commit suicide several times, something no one but his family knew. But Logan told Dulcie. He and your mother were in love. At least, your mother was in love with him. I’d never seen her like that before. All over town, she carved their initials onto every wooden surface she could find.”

“Wait, Mom carved those initials?” Emily asked. “Not Logan?”

He nodded. “She was smitten. She was usually such a forceful girl, always getting her way, but she was very deferential to Logan. He was very shy in public, but he could control her like no one else in private. Knowing how angry it would make her, he told Dulcie that they couldn’t be together because his family didn’t approve of her. He said his family had too many secrets and wouldn’t let him marry just anyone. But there was a solution, he told her. So Dulcie went along with inviting everyone in town to a so-called performance by her, aware that it was a ruse, an opportunity for Logan to come out at night in front of the whole town. But she thought it was simply going to be his symbolic declaration of love for her. Dulcie had no idea that the reason the Coffeys didn’t come out at night was because they glowed. She thought, as we all did, it was just one more thing they did to keep themselves elite, to keep themselves separate from the middle-class masses in town. In fact, I can still remember when several of the more important families in town wouldn’t come out at night just because the Coffeys didn’t.”

“She didn’t trick him?” Emily asked.

“If anything, he tricked her. Dulcie was as stunned as the rest of us. Logan reached out to her after it happened, but she didn’t want to talk to him. I don’t know if it was his plan all along to commit suicide after he exposed his family’s secret, or if he was just overcome with remorse afterward, possibly fueled by Dulcie’s rejection. Only his family knows that. I do know he wanted to reveal himself. He wanted people to know.”

Emily couldn’t help but think of the parallel to Win. His family had obviously been trying for acceptance for who they really were for generations.

Morgan’s face had raspberry-red splotches on it now. “No one is going to believe you. They’ll never believe Dulcie was an innocent party. And I will always maintain that she could have stopped him. She could have stopped him from stepping out onto that bandstand. She could have stopped him from killing himself. He did love her. He gave her that family heirloom.” He pointed to Emily’s wrist, to the charm bracelet. Emily automatically put her hand over it. “Our