Nights in Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks [47]
While on the phone, Adrienne heard the unmistakable sound of the front door of the Inn squeaking open and the entrance of work boots clicking against the wooden floor. She said as much to Jean before hanging up, then left the kitchen to see who had entered. She was gone for less than a minute before she returned, and when she did, she looked at Paul as if at a loss for words. She drew a long breath.
“He’s here to talk to you,” she said.
“Who?”
“Robert Torrelson.”
Robert Torrelson waited in the sitting room and was seated on the couch with his head bowed when Paul went to join him. He looked up without smiling, his face unreadable. Before he’d come, Paul wasn’t sure he could have picked Robert Torrelson from a crowd, but up close, he realized he recognized the man sitting before him. Other than his hair, which had grown whiter in the past year, he looked the same as he had in the waiting room of the hospital. His eyes were as hard as Paul had imagined they would be.
Robert said nothing right away. Instead, he stared as Paul angled the rocker so they could face each other.
“You came,” Robert Torrelson finally said. His voice was strong and raspy, southern made, as if cured by years of smoking unfiltered Camel cigarettes.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“For a while, I wasn’t sure whether I would, either.”
Robert snorted as if he’d expected that. “My son said he talked to you.”
“He did.”
Robert smiled bitterly, knowing what had been said. “He said you didn’t try to explain yourself.”
“No,” Paul answered, “I didn’t.”
“But you still don’t think you did anything wrong, do you?”
Paul glanced away, thinking about what Adrienne had said. No, he thought, he’d never change their minds. He straightened up.
“In your letter, you said you wanted to talk to me and that it was important. And now I’m here. What can I do for you, Mr. Torrelson?”
Robert reached into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. He lit one, moved an ashtray closer, and leaned back on the couch.
“What went wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Paul said. “The operation went as well as I’d hoped.”
“Then why did she die?”
“I wish I knew, but I don’t.”
“Is that what your lawyers told you to say?”
“No,” Paul responded evenly, “it’s the truth. I thought that’s what you’d want to hear. If I could give you an answer, I would.”
Robert brought the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled. When he exhaled, Paul could hear a slight wheeze, like air escaping from an old accordion.
“Did you know she had the tumor when we first met?”
“No,” Paul said. “I didn’t.”
Robert took another long drag on his cigarette. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, shaded with memory.
“It wasn’t as big then, of course. It was more like a half a walnut, and the color wasn’t so bad, either. But you could still see it plain as day, like something was wedged under her skin. And it always bothered her, even when she was little. I’m a few years older than she was, and I remember that she always used to look at her shoes when she walked to school, and it didn’t take much to know why.”
Robert paused, collecting his thoughts, and Paul knew enough to stay silent.
“Like a lot of folks back then, she didn’t finish her schooling because she had to work to help the family, and that’s when I first got to know her. She worked at the pier where we’d unload our catch, and she ran the scales. I probably tried to talk to her for a year before she said a single word to me, but I liked her anyway. She was honest and she worked hard, and even though she used her hair to keep her face hidden, every now and then I got the chance to see what was underneath, and I’d find myself looking into the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen. They were dark brown, and soft, you know? Like she’d never