Falling for Rain (24 page)

Well, if Rain couldn’t be found, she’d just have to do it herself. She’d personally take the fax to Emily. She knew where to find her, feeling suddenly fully justified in having eavesdropped on that conversation as well. She couldn’t let Emily sign that contract! She tried Emily’s cell, but it immediately went to voicemail. Oh well, it was better she went in person anyway. That way, Emily couldn’t hang up on her. Quickly she turned out the office lights and, with the fax in her bag, locked the office behind her.

She stood on the curb of the street, looking at the traffic in dismay. It was now at a complete standstill. Horns honked, but nothing moved. Lee could see the flash of an ambulance light about a block away and assumed an accident had added to the usual chaos. There was no point in hailing a cab, and it was too far to walk if she was going to get there in time. In the end, she crossed the street and walked the block to
Yonge
Street and the entrance to the subway system. It too was packed, but she pushed her way onto the first train, rode the three stops to Bloor Street, and pushed her way out again, emerging onto the street, feeling grumpy and dishevelled. She glanced at her watch. It was after six already. What if she was too late? Emily would never forgive herself.

* * *

Emily stood up and shook the lawyer’s hand, while Jonathon signalled the waiter for another round of drinks. Emily could see that the lawyer was anxious to get on with his own Friday night. His name was Jack Berry, and Emily had been to parties at his mansion in Toronto’s exclusive Forest Hill.  He had the papers out on the table before the waiter was back with his drink. “Very little has changed since we spoke in my office a couple of weeks ago. At that time, I faxed you both the contracts, and we discussed changes. Those have been made, and Jonathon has approved them already.”

Emily hardly heard a word of what the lawyer was saying. He was talking figures now.
Big ones.
She was about to become a very wealthy woman. A few weeks ago she had been excited by this prospect.  Then it had meant that she’d made it. That despite her humble beginnings, she had made her way in the world. She saw it as justice too, for what had happened to her mother. But all she could see was a hotel where a log cabin now stood, rolling golf greens where there were now fields, clumps of well-manicured trees where there were now woods. There was no point in rebuilding the barn. It would soon be an asphalt parking lot.

And she saw the face of her mother in the photograph she found at the farm, now tucked away in a drawer in her condo. Why couldn’t she look at the picture? Was it because she knew somewhere deep in her heart her mother wouldn’t want this. In that photo her mother had been smiling.
I have no
regrets,
she seemed to hear her mother say. Her mother may have died on that farm, but she had loved it.

Above all, she saw Rain. He was leaning against a tree and looking out over the lake. He was telling her the story of her great-great-great-great grandmother, another Emily Alexander, his eyes and voice full of love. Love of history, love of the land, and yes, love for her, Emily.

“So are you ready to sign?” Jonathon’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He held a pen toward her, and she took it, nodding numbly. With one stroke of the pen it would all be over.

“There are several documents as well as several copies,” the lawyer said as he set the pile of documents in front of Jonathon. “Jonathon, if you could just pass each one on to Emily after you sign, we should get through them quickly and efficiently.”

Emily watched numbly as Jonathon signed the top sheet of paper. He picked it up off the pile and placed it in front of her. She looked at the line on the page in front of her. There was no going back. She had made up her mind. She lifted her pen to sign.

Suddenly, someone called out her name.  Startled, Emily looked up and scanned the bar for the caller. It was Lee. She was practically running through the bar, waving a paper in front of her. Emily stood up. “What’s wrong?” she asked, shaken out of her numbness.

“You haven’t signed anything yet, have you?” she said, pulling Emily away from the table.

The lawyer looked at Jonathon in bewilderment. “What
the
...?”

Jonathon jumped from his chair and made a grab at the papers in Lee’s hand.

“It’s not for you,” said Lee sternly before turning back to Emily. “Please, just one moment. You’ve got to look at this.”

Jonathon put a restraining hand on Emily’s shoulder, but she shook it off roughly. “Sit down, Jonathon, I’ll be right back.” She led Lee away from the table to the bar. She looked behind her and saw that Jonathon was sitting at the table, his head in his hands. Did he know what this was about? She looked around the bar and saw several pairs of eyes look away quickly. They were definitely drawing attention.

Lee was still out of breath. “This came just as I was leaving the office,” she said, holding out the now rumpled pieces of paper. “I think you’d better take a look at it.”

Emily shook her head and took the papers from Lee. She put them on the bar and ran her hand over them to smooth them out. She read them once and then read them again before folding them and placing them in her shoulder bag. She kept her voice very steady when she spoke. “Lee, I left my briefcase at the table. Would you please get it and take it into the office with you on Monday?” Lee nodded. “And while you’re over there, could you please tell Jonathon and his buddy that the deal is off?” She looked over at the table where the two men waited and wondered how they were going to react. “Thanks, Lee,” she added softly. She wanted to say more, but she didn’t think she’d ever find the words to express what she felt. They would have to come later.

“Go on,” Lee said encouragingly.  “I’ll cover for you.” And as Lee went over to where the two men waited, Emily walked out the door.

She started in the direction of her car,
then
turned in the other direction. She wasn't ready to go home yet; she was too restless. She needed to collect her thoughts, decide what all this meant,
decide
what she was going to do now that everything had changed once again. The fax from Martin Wright had included a report from the coroner’s office.  Now she knew why the charges had been dropped against Rain. Her mother’s accident had nothing to do with the tractor. Rain had been right. The tractor had been perfectly safe. Her mother had died instantly of cardiac arrest. The tractor was still moving and, without someone to steer, it had tipped trying to climb a hill.

She put up her umbrella against the steady rain. Despite the miserable weather, the streets were still busy. Cars sped along the busy street, charging through puddles and sending up oily sprays of water over the legs of pedestrians. Emily hugged the inside of the sidewalk and looked without seeing into the windows of the expensive shops.

She crossed the intersection at Bay Street, ignoring the blare of a motorist's horn as she stepped out into the road. Pedestrians and traffic whirled around her, but they seemed unreal. She felt as if she were the only person in a city of millions.

The poster in the bookstore window jolted her back to reality. She would have known his face anywhere.
The blue eyes.
The blond hair.
The smile that lit his features like the sun.
She stared for a moment, her heart in her throat, tears in her eyes. She put her hand against the window as if to touch the image behind the glass.

He had been photographed against a misty background of water and trees. She recognized it immediately as the farm.
His farm.
Oh god, what a fool I’ve been.
Grouped around the base of the poster were copies of the book, the same misty blue photograph of the lake replicated on the cover.
Love in a Strange Land
by Ray Storm was written across the sky.

Suddenly she wanted to hold the book in her hands, as if in holding the book she could be closer to him.

She closed her umbrella and walked through the revolving glass door of the bookstore. It was a big shop, designed to be inviting to the shopper with wood floors and big armchairs grouped around gas fireplaces. She backtracked along the window until she came to the display of books. She picked one up and ran her hand over the warm, smooth cover.

On the back was a review. “Like Romeo and Juliet, like Dido and Aeneas, the tale of Emily and Gabriel is one of the great love stories of all time.”

She opened it carefully, looking first at the picture and bio on the back jacket flap.
Ray Storm holds a PhD in history. He currently resides on the Alexander farm and teaches at a university in Eastern Ontario. This is his first book.
The picture was a smaller version of the one on the poster. She stared at it for a long time before turning to the front of the book.

On page three was the dedication.
To Emily, with love, always.
Emily felt the tears press against the corners of her eyes as she stared at the words. These words had been chosen by Rain long before last week when she'd shown up on his doorstep. They had been chosen at a time when everything indicated that she hated him and would never have anything ever again to do with him. How could he still love her after everything that had happened? She pressed the book against her chest and, with tears in her eyes, looked up at his face on the poster.

All these years wasted in recrimination, bitterness, loneliness. What a terrible guilt Rain had lived with all this time. If only she had forgiven him, all this pain could have been avoided. But maybe it wasn’t too late for them. Maybe they could be happy after all. There was only one way to find out. She had to find him. She went to set the book back down and found that she couldn't. She wanted it with her as a reminder of his love.

She took a big breath and wiped the tears from her eyes before going over to the checkout counter by the revolving doors. She placed the book down on the counter before one of the clerks and found her wallet in her purse. "Are you sure you don't want to get this signed?" asked the clerk.

"Pardon me?" asked Emily.

"You can get this signed. Ray Storm is giving a reading. He's upstairs right now," she said, pointing toward a set of stairs in the centre of the store. She took Emily's money and put the book in a bag before handing it back to Emily. "You should at least go up and listen for a while. He's every bit as gorgeous as his picture."

Her heart racing, Emily nodded and quietly thanked the woman before heading in the direction of the stairs. Emily didn't know what she was going to say to him at such a public event, but she did know she couldn't walk away without seeing him.

Rain was standing at the front of the crowd, his head bowed over the book. Emily slipped unnoticed into the audience, partially concealing herself behind one of the bookcases. Her heart began to beat less wildly as she listened to the now familiar story of her great-great-great-great grandmother Emily Alexander. The warm tones of Rain's voice soothed and reassured her. She closed her eyes, listening to the sound of his voice, and saw in her mind the lake and trees. She felt like she was home.

"It was the story of their love that made me want to write this book," Rain explained after he finished the passage he was reading. "To me, this book is as much a love story as it is a historical document. It was a love that was so unlikely, and yet it endured and grew over half a century. Until I found the diaries and letters of Emily Alexander, it was also a secret love, known only to themselves and the child August. It is a story that has sustained me through some very difficult years.

“This is also a story of forgiveness, another theme that is very important to me personally. It’s about forgiving those we love as well as ourselves. It’s about letting go and moving forward. When Gabriel came to their rescue, it was already too late for August. The child died later that winter. Such was Emily’s grief for the loss of her child that she blamed Gabriel.

“But with the help of Gabriel, Emily learned to accept her loss, and the following summer they had a child of their own. Their child was also named August and, because of the prejudice of the local settlers, was passed off as the child she had had with her husband Michael. The
Alexanders
of Maple Tree Farm are the descendants not of Emily and Michael but of Emily and Gabriel, an English woman and a Mohawk.”

Emily watched as Rain paused in the telling of his story. She could feel the hush of the audience as they listened to this story of love that had endured so much.
Oh Rain
, she whispered to herself.
I forgive you. I forgive you. Can you ever forgive me? We could have been so happy together. Please, let it not be too late….

"I’d like to finish off with Emily’s own words.  This is the last entry in her diary.
Christmas Day, 1869."

Rain read in his rich voice. Emily closed her eyes and let the words speak to her.

“I buried my love today.