The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel - By Sarah Addison Allen Page 0,78

mother gave it to him to give to the woman he married, like it had been given to her on her wedding night. That he gave it to Dulcie had to mean something But if he had fallen for someone less selfish, and more sympathetic, he might be alive today. Our secret might still be a secret. The way it was always meant to be.”

“Emily knows the truth now,” Grandpa Vance said calmly. “That’s all that matters. I have no intention of telling anyone else.”

She didn’t know why it was so important for Morgan to have people believe his brother was tricked. Maybe it made dealing with the death of his brother easier. Or maybe it helped his family, knowing the town didn’t think Logan was troubled or manipulative. It could only help, she thought, that there wasn’t a stigma like that attached to their glowing. It probably made it easier for the town to accept what they’d seen, to sympathize. Emily realized that her mother had known this. That’s why she’d taken the blame. And it had been her first step into the life of someone different. “I won’t tell anyone, either,” she said.

Morgan turned to Win. “I’ll think about it,” Win said.

“You’ll think about it at home. You’re grounded.”

Morgan turned and walked to the front door. He held the screen door open for Win. But Win walked over to Vance. “I’d like to take your granddaughter on a date when my punishment is over, if I have your permission.” Win held out his hand.

“Win!” Morgan said.

Vance seemed as surprised as Morgan, but he slowly held out his hand and shook Win’s.

“Win! Now!”

Win turned, but not before he looked up at Emily, who was still on the staircase, and said, “I’ll see you soon?”

She nodded. He gave her a reassuring smile, then turned and left.

Morgan let the screen slap shut loudly behind them.

Emily and Vance didn’t move for a few moments, both of them staring at the door. Emily finally turned to her grandfather. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the beginning?”

“She made me swear not to tell anyone.” He looked tired. He walked to the staircase and sat on the stairs, sinking like an anchor. She was still standing, but he was so large that he was taller than she was, even when he sat. “Lily had a cousin who lived in San Diego. I arranged for Dulcie to live with her. To go to school there. I gave her a large chunk of cash, and she left the day before Logan’s funeral. She tried to make it work, but I don’t think she knew where she fit in after what happened. She quit school after a few months. A few months later she ran away. I got postcards for a couple of years. Then nothing.”

“Why didn’t you look for her?” Emily said.

He shrugged. “Because I knew she didn’t want to be found. She knew that if she contacted me, I would give her anything. But she didn’t want that anymore. A good, decent life for her was only possible if she left everything behind. The Coffeys, Mullaby … me.”

“She could have come back and told the truth!” Emily said. “And then everyone would have seen what a good person she became. She could have been redeemed.”

“I think she found redemption in other ways,” Grandpa Vance said, looking down at his clasped hands. “When she left, she told me that when she had children, she would never raise them the way I raised her. She said she would teach them responsibility. She said her children would be nothing like her. I like to think that at some point in her life she forgave me. But I deserve it if she didn’t.” He took a deep breath. “One thing is for sure, she did raise a remarkable daughter.”

Emily paused, then sat beside him on the steps. She put her hand on his. “So did you, Grandpa Vance,” she said.

And for the very first time, she thought maybe it was okay that they were the only two people here who knew that.

The point was, they knew.

VANCE DEBATED whether or not to go to breakfast that morning, but ultimately decided to go because he didn’t want to answer questions about his absence. No one had to know what had occurred that morning.

When he came in from breakfast a few hours later, he was exhausted, and not his normal exhaustion, the kind he felt minute by minute. The tension from