Trey sits up. “Say whaaa?”
“She said that. Really! And I said, ‘You mean you?’ And she said it wasn’t her. So who does that leave, besides Dad?”
Trey sinks back down. “Well, there’s me.”
“You?”
“No, it wasn’t me, but I don’t like to be ruled out without a scandalous discussion first.”
I laugh again and grab my side. “Oh, my aching—stop that!”
“I guess we have a mystery to figure out.”
I nod and lie back, exhausted from the conversation, but not sleepy for once. “Two mysteries, even.”
He nods and squeezes my hand. “Mom and Dad and Rowan will be back later. They’re closing up early tonight to see you. Eight o’clock. So it’s just you and me, and whoever might be out there, and I have homework I can do . . . just so you know.”
I nod, and we share a look that says, Bring the hot boy to Jules.
Thirty-Six
“We need to talk about some things,” I say to Sawyer as he sits down.
He nods. “We do.” His dark hair hangs in little ringlets on his forehead, and he appears freshly washed today, which is better than what I can say for me. He’s not wearing an Angotti’s shirt anymore, either.
“First, I don’t want you to mope around feeling guilty anymore, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Second, what the hell happened in seventh grade that made you hate me?”
He holds my gaze, unwavering, his green eyes sending lasers into mine. “Fair question,” he says finally. He drops his gaze to my bedside table and picks up a pen, weaving it through his fingers.
“You don’t want to answer it?”
“No. But I need to. I’m thinking.”
I take in a quick breath, moved by his honesty, ignoring the searing pain that the motion leaves behind. And I stay quiet.
“Where to start,” he says, lost in thought. “My grandfather,” he says eventually, “is a very controlling man.”
I nod.
“He used to hit me.”
My eyes spring open wide. “Your grandfather? Didn’t your parents stop him?”
He hesitates. “No. They didn’t. My mother couldn’t, and my father was angry enough that he wouldn’t.”
“I don’t get it. Why couldn’t your mother stop him? What kind of a—”
He sets the pen down and clasps his hands together, staring down at them. I look at his hands too and remember the feel of his touch on my cheek. And then he looks up at me again, his eyes unwavering for an almost frightening amount of time.
“Your father and my mother had an affair, Jules.”
The words take a moment to register. “What?” I say, incredulous.
“My mother just told me everything yesterday, after all of this—” He waves his hand at me, at the hospital. “When I was so angry and upset, and I didn’t understand why things had to be the way they are between us. She made me promise not to tell you, but I can’t help it. I think you need to know.”
I bring my hand to my hair and try to work my fingers through it. It’s weird. I don’t feel anything about this. No emotion, nothing. And then I think about my poor mother, and my heart cracks. “When?” I say.
“A long time ago, when we were really young.”
“Wow.” I stare up at the ceiling, trying to process it.
“It was short, and Mom said both of them eventually realized it was a mistake, but it happened,” Sawyer says. “I can’t believe she told me all of this, but she’d been drinking. It was late.” He glances at the door and then says quietly, “She said they planned to leave their spouses, combine restaurant assets, and become an enterprise. Take over business from the chains, sell products commercially and all that.”
My mouth drops open. “Products? Made from secret family recipes?”
“Yes.” Sawyer takes a deep breath and can’t look at me. “From what I know, your father gave my mother his family’s special sauce recipe, which my grandfather had been after for years. When your dad and my mom broke it off, and my father and grandfather found out, they were seriously pissed off. To try to redeem herself, my mother gave them the recipe. Kind of a last-ditch effort to try to diffuse things and keep the family together.” He stares at the ground. “And my grandfather took it. And he patented it.”
“You are not serious.” I look at him in wonder. “That’s probably what put my grandfather into his big downward spiral. Betrayed by his son and his biggest rival.” A new realization hits me. “Maybe that’s my dad’s problem. It’s the guilt. Not just losing the recipe, but driving his father to kill himself. Holy shit.”
Sawyer nods. “It all sounds extremely dramatic, but that’s because it was, according to my mom.”
“Yes.”
Sawyer looks up at me, remorseful. “When you and I were in first grade, our stolen sauce line went to market, and it was a hit. Your father tried to sue us, but he didn’t have the proof he needed to win. It was a verbal recipe, handed down for generations, my mom said. He’d known it by heart. Never wrote it down.”
“Oh my God,” I say. “That’s when the hoarding started.” All the recipes and cookbooks piled up in our apartment. None of them holding a candle to the one that remained unwritten.
Sawyer doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I stare at the ceiling, letting everything sink in.