She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 85

(Nathanial)

My mother has put flowers on every surface.

It's a good instinct.

Flowers fill space, give the eye somewhere to land, make a house feel inhabited rather than merely occupied.

She’s thought carefully about this afternoon and it shows.

What she hasn't thought about, or perhaps has thought about too much and decided to face anyway, is that this house remembers everything.

I can feel it the moment I walk through the door.

The layout is the same.

The smell is almost the same. Sea salt and old timber.

Something particular to this stretch of coast that I haven't encountered anywhere else.

I was twelve years old the last time I stood in this hallway.

I make the appropriate noises, admire what my mother has done with the place, accept a glass of something and then find the first excuse to take it outside.

We haven’t made peace since our last conversation, where she continued to refuse to discuss her reasons for leaving.

But our family is nothing if not fantastic at pretending to be fine.

The beach is where the real memories live.

They come without warning, the way they always do in places like this.

Nat building something elaborate and structurally unsound at the water's edge, narrating the construction process to nobody in particular.

Nat asleep on the flat rock in the afternoon, one arm thrown over her face against the sun, completely unbothered by the world.

Nat running toward the water and stopping at the last second, every single time, because she always claimed she was going to go in and never quite did.

Nat finding pretty shells and presenting them to me proudly. A gift for the best brother in the world.

My throat closes up and I have to blink the tears away.

She was six the last summer we came here.

I stand at the edge of the water and look at the flat rock and feel the full, unmanaged weight of everything I missed.

Her school years.

Her adolescence.

Whatever she became and whoever she was becoming when she died.

I have the death certificate but I have nothing else.

One document, one date, and a gap where a lifetime should be.

Standing on this beach, I realize I don't know nearly enough.

I need to know what happened to her.

Not just that she died. I know that much and it's not enough.

I want to know what her life looked like in the years between.

What she studied.

Whether she was happy.

What she found funny.

Whether she ever stood on a beach and looked at the water the way she used to when she was small.

I want photographs. A digital footprint. Surely she had social media that would give me a true glimpse into her life?

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