Chapter Thirteen #3
By the time he had returned to London, despondent and broken, Kempton and Amelia had just had their falling out and broken their engagement.
He couldn’t find comfort in what remained of his family, and now he certainly couldn’t confide in his grief-stricken friend.
So, he had pushed aside his own anguish and did his best to keep Kempton from destroying his life.
“I remember you being there for Dori,” said Clara. Pearce nodded, unable to meet her eyes. “So, to this day, no one knows what happened?”
He shook his head. “Not until you.”
“What was her name?”
“Anna MacPherson,” he replied without thinking.
“No. Your daughter’s.”
Pearce hesitated. He’d never said it aloud, almost as if it would confirm the reality that his perfect, beautiful little girl had never even taken her first breath. He finally choked out the name he’d chosen for her: “Malina.”
“What a lovely name,” Clara whispered.
He continued to describe the baby—her curls of blonde hair, the roundness of her cheeks—suddenly needing someone else to know of her…
of her existence…to help share the weight of being the only one in the world to hold her memory.
Though nausea and grief nearly suffocated him, Pearce continued to speak of the plans he had made for his daughter—how she was going to be well-educated and want for nothing, not love nor material items. Clara let him talk, as she sat silent and supportive.
“You’ve had a terrible burden to bear all alone—how difficult it must have been for you.”
The pain was so harsh that it felt like a fresh wound, deep and bleeding.
He abruptly reached for Clara and clutched her to him, burying his face in her hair and taking solace in her solid presence.
It was her turn to comfort him as she stroked his back and his hair.
He nearly lost control of himself to his tears and new waves of old sorrow, but, for the most part, he eventually managed to regain his composure with a shuddering breath.
“So, now do you see?” he finally rasped. “This is why I cannot father a child. I will never, ever risk having that happen again. I would not survive losing a partner and a child once more.”
Clara’s eyes glistened. “Thank you for telling me the truth—for sharing the story of your daughter. But don’t you think your trauma could be preventing you from experiencing something wonderful?
This is not an attempt to downplay the tragedy of what happened, but what if everything turns out fine? You were excited to become a father—”
He captured her hands in his and stared deeply into her eyes. “You do not understand, Clara. I cannot risk losing you. I was destroyed over Anna and Malina’s deaths, but you…if anything happened to you…that would kill me as surely as a pistol to my head.”
*
The weight of Pearce’s admission, added onto the grief he’d finally revealed to her, felt like a leaden disc upon Clara’s heart.
She reminded herself that it was only a fraction of what Pearce had been carrying around for all these years, though.
She enfolded him in another embrace, and he held her back in a bruising grip.
Though it was uncomfortable, she allowed it.
She understood how he needed it—needed her.
He’d been changed by his life in ways that even Dori did not know.
It was her job as his wife to be supportive and understanding, to help prop him up when grief threatened to overcome him.
She was hopeful that he might finally begin to heal now that he’d told her the truth, that they could work together to move forward with their lives and see where the future might take them.
They settled back on the bed and she held him, stroking his head as it lay on her breast. He sighed as he held her, their legs intertwined. His admission must have drained him entirely because she felt his muscles soften as he drifted off to sleep.
She felt absurdly protective of Pearce. He was older, stronger, larger, and wiser, but she could not help it.
The unnamed emotion she’d seen behind his eyes so many times had turned out to be a pain so deep and a loss so keen that it was impossible to fathom unless one had lived through it.
She couldn’t begin to imagine the grief he’d suffered through or the weight of the secret burden he’d been carrying around all these years.
And no one had any idea. After burying the woman he’d thought he’d marry and the child he’d loved, Pearce had suffered in silence, putting her brother’s pain ahead of his when Dori’s own tragedy struck.
Several times now, Pearce had said he was not a good man in an effort to keep her at arm’s length, but Clara now found his selflessness to be the pinnacle of goodness.
She finally understood his adamancy over not risking her life by putting her through childbirth.
Though she did not agree, she could respect it and hope, in time, that he might heal.
In the meantime, she would dedicate herself to him and help him to find joy in a world that had taken so very much from him and shattered his heart.