When Noel Enfield is offered a secondment at a museum in London, it’s a chance for her career aspirations to finally come to fruition—but also leads to the opening of some old wounds—in this story of art, love lost, and second chances, perfect for fans of David Nicholls and Claire Lombardo.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Should Have Told You Sooner by Jane Ward, which is out now.
While studying art history at a London university, Noel Enfield falls passionately in love with aspiring artist and art school student Bryn Jones. Shortly after Bryn leaves for a five-month painting trip through Italy, Noel discovers she is pregnant. She is ecstatic and believes Bryn will be too—they have plans to marry, after all. But mishaps part the two lovers, and a desperate Noel makes a split-second choice to move forward in a way that will change not only her life but also the lives of everyone she loves.
Three decades later, when she is offered a six-month secondment to a London museum, Noel decides it’s time to prove she really has moved on from that difficult period by returning to the city where she met and lost Bryn. But rather than proving she has persevered, the move lands Noel in the thick of London’s insular art world, with only one or two degrees of separation from her past and the people she once loved. After she reconnects with an old, dear friend and learns finally what kept Bryn from returning to her all those years ago, the very underpinnings of her life are rocked to their core. Some decisions made in the past can never be put behind her, she realizes, and armed with this new understanding, she sets out on a journey to reclaim what—and who—she left behind.
EXCERPT
CHAPTER 1
YMCA POOL, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 2022
Noel Enfield found an open lane at the Y pool and slipped in. This early in the morning, there was little risk of sharing lanes, and she could swim without worrying about keeping clear of another body. She had enough on her mind. Swimming laps—concentrating only on her body pushing through the water—usually helped her manage the stress in her life. But by the time she had launched her first turn off the far wall, she knew today would be a struggle. She couldn’t shake the worry that had weighed on her since yesterday afternoon, when Deb Stone, the Field-Lyons Museum’s deputy director, had sent her a last-minute request for a lunchtime meeting today, adding as a note: Sorry to squeeze this in during lunch, but the subject is time-sensitive and this is my only free block. No word about what the subject might be, but Noel knew that meetings scheduled with less than twenty-four hours’ notice generally indicated crises. “Maybe it’s about a new project coming in, something we haven’t planned for,” her assistant, Paula, had suggested.
Or maybe she’s “restructuring” again, Noel had thought to herself, the euphemism for downsizing staff. Maybe some of us are about to be let go.
She had kept all that to herself, though, and simply nodded in agreement with Paula—Yes, I’m sure it’s something like that—to avoid making her assistant nervous too.
Part of Noel felt her own fear was irrational; she knew she was hardworking and dedicated and necessary. Over the years she had transformed both the department and her role as Director of Collections, changes that had led to better, more streamlined operations—somewhat of a feat within a not-for-profit organization. However, she also knew those achievements weren’t always taken into account when jobs had to go on the chopping block. And she couldn’t afford to lose her job now that her six-year marriage was coming to an end.
Her choice, she reminded herself as she powered through another lap. It had been her choice to end the marriage and thrust both herself and Andy into endless phone calls with attorneys and discussions of demands being made and whether or not to accommodate them. Who got what, who lost what. Most recently, Andy had requested that Noel sign over her half of their house to him. “It’s the only home Alice remembers,” he had argued, “and she’ll need stability now that you’ve decided to blow up her life. Especially if you’re no longer going to be in it.”
The threat of losing Alice altogether, though veiled, was clear enough to Noel.
The day Noel met Andy, she’d excused herself to use the ladies’ room to freshen up at the end of lunch out with a girlfriend. Outside the restroom door had stood a man with his young daughter. Noel could tell by the way the girl hopped from foot to foot that she needed to use the toilet, but she was refusing—loudly—to go into the men’s room with her father.
As the girl’s father explained that he couldn’t take her into the ladies’ room and she wasn’t old enough to go in by herself, she stamped her foot and cried out, “I’m a big girl! I’m four!”
“Four!” Noel exclaimed as she approached. “That is awfully big.” She smiled at the man. “What if I check inside first to make sure the room is empty? Then we can stand guard out here while she goes in by herself.”
“That would work. Thank you.” Noel could hear the relief in the man’s voice.
“Of course. Be right back.”
When Noel nodded an all-clear, the man hustled his daughter into the restroom. “Be quick. But if you need me, I’m right outside the door. And don’t forget to wash your hands!” he added as the girl disappeared inside.
Noel laughed and the man shot her a sheepish smile.
“Believe it or not, that was my first single-dad fail,” he said. “She’s very headstrong lately.”
“It was bound to happen,” she said. “You handled it well.”
“With help,” he acknowledged, and he smiled again—full wattage this time. His intensity made Noel feel bashful for the first time in a long time. She thanked the squeal of the bathroom door a few moments later for ending the awkward silence between them.
“I’m Andy, by the way,” the man said as he stopped his girl from running past them, “and this is Alice.”
“I’m big,” Alice said again, shaking herself free from his hands on her shoulders.
“Yes, you are,” Noel said, laughing. “It’s nice to meet you, Alice. And Andy. I’m Noel. Yes, like the man’s name,” she added when Andy frowned in confusion. “I was named for a grandfather I never met.”
In those few moments, while grinning down at a stranger’s lovely, defiant daughter, her heart had stirred with so much yearning for a life that had eluded her in her forty-three years.
Here, she’d thought when Andy had asked her for a first date on a whim, here is my haven. She’d thought it again each time he asked her to come with him on outings with Alice after that. Finally—after the break from her partner, Ed, who’d admitted after ten years that he didn’t want children; after the devastating diagnosis of premature menopause that had followed their split; and long after the two-plus university years wasted on Bryn, her first love who hadn’t loved her enough in return—finally, a child, and someone who loved a child this much. Her own family. And she would love them, not as second or third best but as hers, as if all the missteps of those younger years could be forgotten because she had arrived here. Andy’s wife. Alice’s mom.
But no, she wasn’t. She was Alice’s stepmother. Going forward, her visits with Alice would always be up to Andy. Her choice to leave him had consequences, and there was no going back anyway. “What’s done is done,” as Noel’s grandmother had so often said—one of her most frequent platitudes.
“What’s done is done,” Gran said when Noel was nine and the car her mother was a passenger in went off the road and careened into a tree. That night, Noel showed up at her grandmother’s front door near midnight in the company of a social worker who’d had the task of explaining that Noel was now orphaned. If not for Gran walking away from her retirement plans and taking on the raising of her, she would have ended up in foster care for sure. And she would be forever grateful to her grandmother for taking her in, for loving her as best she knew how. But after the social worker told her grandmother about the crash, and after Gran expressed her bewildered frustration at her daughter’s getting into a car with a man who would turn out to be a reckless driver, she’d turned and looked at Noel. “Ah, what’s done is done,” she’d said, “and here you are.”
Yes, there she was, and there she stayed for the next nine years before going off to university. Gran had intended the lesson as a kindness for Noel: a drawing of a firm line under something awful, a way to tell her that what came after could be and would be better—and because of Gran, Noel had put the same platitude into practice for decades.
“Let him have it,” she’d told her attorney, against the woman’s best advice. “The house is not important to me. Alice is.” She would make any concessions that might help her keep that little girl in her life.
She pushed herself up and down the pool lane, her hands slapping the surface of the water instead of slicing into it. Bad form. She knew it but couldn’t correct herself. Lately, when thoughts of Andy and the looming end of her marriage invaded her mind, she lost focus. She’d sworn to put this failure out of her thoughts for the one hour she had to herself, but here it was anyway—a greater pull than the peace she expected in the water. She hoped Paula was right that Deb wanted to discuss a new, last-minute project. She really hoped this would not be another setback.
Crawl, crawl. She persisted through water that felt like sludge until her limbs were heavy. Had she done her hour? Less? Did it matter?
Her first swim teacher’s advice popped into her head: “Mastering the water doesn’t always mean pushing through it. Sometimes a swimmer has to conserve energy; sometimes it is enough to stay afloat.”
Noel rolled onto her back and, with a few flutter kicks, allowed the water to carry her, exhausted, the last few feet.
