Goodbye, Mr. Regret

"Mr. Zimmerman, I'm sorry about last night—I really thought Timothy wouldn't

show up."

Vince shook his head. "No, I should be the one apologizing. I'd already spoken to him, and he said he wasn't coming. Someone else in my family must have invited him behind my back."

The truth was, when Vince called Timothy and told him not to come to his grandfather's birthday dinner, he'd only done it to take a jab at Timothy. He never really intended to keep Timothy away. He'd said it because he couldn't imagine Timothy leaving Jessica's side, but he also didn't want Jessica to realize he was lying. In the end, he still wanted to be close to her.

He couldn't say exactly why, but there was something different about seeing her compared to everyone else.

"By the way," Vince added, "the gift you gave my grandfather-he absolutely loved it. He came here today looking for you, actually. There are two things he wanted me to pass along."

looked up at him, giving

preservation status for your craft. Second, my grandfather wants you to be his goddaughter. He wanted to ask you last night, in front of everyone at the party, but you

hadn't been given was simple-Larkin wanted to see Jessica again, and have a proper

Applying for heritage status seemed like a good

Larkin's

her, and it would seem cold to refuse. But if she agreed, knowing she had only six months left to live, she'd just be

being so kind to

and smiled. "That's not the whole story. There's something I haven't told you yet. When I brought your work home, my grandfather recognized it immediately-he knew

shared everything Larkin had ever said about Jessica's grandmother. Jessica hadn't expected

grandfather, and her mother had died young. Her father had disappeared long ago, and she hadn't seen him since. She knew almost nothing about her