Chapter 22 #2
“I tried to explain. For years, I tried. The truth was more complicated than she wanted it to be. Robert and I, we weren’t happy.
We hadn’t been happy for a long time. But Delilah didn’t see that.
She just saw her mother choosing to stay in one place while her father took her somewhere else.
” Eleanor meets my eyes. “She’s been running ever since.
And every time she runs, she tells herself it’s because she’s not enough.
Because the people she loves will eventually leave her anyway. So she might as well leave first.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No. It’s not. But it’s what she believes. And you can’t love someone out of their beliefs, Levi. They have to choose to let them go.”
The front door opens. Heavy footsteps in the hallway.
Dean appears in the kitchen doorway, still in his work boots, looking like he got dressed in the dark. Which he probably did.
“You look like hell,” he says to me.
“Thanks. Very helpful.”
“Jo made me bring these.” He sets a container on the counter. “Muffins. Blueberry. She says carbs help.”
“Carbs don’t help when your girlfriend left in the middle of the night without telling you.”
“Ex-girlfriend?”
“No.” The word comes out harder than I intended. “Not ex. She doesn’t get to decide that by running away. That’s not how this works.”
Dean exchanges a look with Eleanor. Some kind of silent communication I’m not part of. I hate that. I hate feeling like everyone knows something I don’t, like there’s a playbook for dealing with Delilah Smart that nobody gave me a copy of.
“I’m going to give you boys some space,” Eleanor says, standing.
“I need to shower. I’ve been awake for almost twenty-four hours.
” She pauses at the doorway, her hand on the frame.
“Levi? Whatever you decide to do…don’t wait too long.
She’s sitting in that cemetery right now, alone.
With nothing but her own thoughts for company.
” Her voice softens. “And her thoughts have never been kind to her.”
She leaves.
The house feels emptier without her. Quieter. Just me and Dean and the sound of the clock ticking on the wall.
Dean sits down across from me. Doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
I hate when he does this. He knows I hate it. He does it anyway.
The silence stretches. I can hear the clock on Eleanor’s wall ticking. The hum of the refrigerator. My own heartbeat, too fast, too loud.
“She left,” I finally say. “Just like last time. Just like the time before that. She saw one photo, one stupid photo that doesn’t mean anything, and instead of asking me about it, she packed a bag and ran.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand how someone can do that. How do you just leave without talking? Without giving the other person a chance to explain or even trying to work it out?”
“I don’t know.”
“I would never do that to her. Never. No matter what I saw or how bad it looked, no matter what I thought happened, I would talk to her first. I would give her the chance to tell me her side.”
“I know you would.”
“So why can’t she do the same for me? Why is it so easy for her to just walk away?”
Dean doesn’t answer right away. He picks up one of Jo’s muffins, examines it like it holds the secrets of the universe, sets it back down.
“You really want to know what I think?” he asks.
“Would it matter if I said no?”
“Probably not.”
“Then just say it.”
He leans forward, elbows on the table. “She’s scared.
Terrified, actually. She’s convinced herself that she’s not good enough for you, that you’re going to leave her eventually anyway, and instead of waiting around for that to happen, she’s leaving first. She’s not running from you, Levi.
She’s running from the possibility of you hurting her. ”
“I wouldn’t...”
“I know you wouldn’t. But she doesn’t know that.
Not really. Not deep down where it counts.
” He pauses. “Think about it. Every time she’s ever loved someone, it’s ended.
Her parents’ marriage fell apart. Her marriage fell apart.
And you”—he gestures at me—”she loved you when she was seventeen, and she walked away.
She loved you when she was twenty-seven, and she walked away again.
In her mind, loving people means losing them.
So when she saw that photo, she didn’t see evidence that you cheated.
She saw evidence that her worst fear was coming true.
That she was about to lose you, just like she loses everyone. ”
I want to argue. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that Delilah should know me better than that, that after everything we’ve been through she should trust me.
But the words won’t come.
Because he’s not wrong.
“That’s not my fault,” I say instead.
“No. It’s not.” Dean picks up the muffin again. Takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. “But here’s the thing, little brother. You know what it’s like to have someone leave. You know what it feels like to wait and hope and have that hope crushed over and over again.”
My chest tightens. I know where this is going.
“Mom,” I say.
“Mom.”
I don’t talk about this. Not with Dean, not with anyone, not even with Delilah, though I told her more on that pier than I’ve told anyone in years.
But the memory is right there anyway, sitting on my chest like a weight.
Eight years old, standing at the mailbox every day after school, checking for a letter that never came.
Keeping my bag packed for three years, shoved under my bed where Dad wouldn’t see it, just in case she sent for me.
Watching the driveway every time a car drove down our street, hoping this time it would be her.
It was never her.
“Delilah’s not like Mom,” Dean says quietly.
“Could have fooled me.”
“No, listen.” He sets down the muffin. “Mom left because she wanted something else. She wanted LA. She wanted her singing career. She wanted a life that didn’t include a husband and two kids in a small beach town. She looked at what she had, and she decided it wasn’t enough. She made a choice.”
“Delilah made a choice too. She chose to leave instead of talking to me.”
“Did she? Or did she panic and run before she could think it through?” Dean holds up a hand before I can interrupt.
“I’m not saying what she did was okay. It wasn’t.
But there’s a difference between someone who leaves because they want something better, and someone who leaves because they’re terrified of being left. ”
I stare at the table. At the wood grain. At a water ring from someone’s coffee mug.
“Mom didn’t love us enough to stay,” Dean continues. “That’s the truth of it, as much as it sucks. She loved herself more. She loved her dreams more. She walked out that door and she never looked back.”
“I know.”
“But Delilah?” He waits until I look up. “Delilah loves you so much she’s convinced herself she doesn’t deserve you. That’s not the same thing. That’s not even close to the same thing.”
“It feels the same. She’s gone. The house is empty. She’s sitting in a hotel five hours away, and I’m here, waiting. Again. Just like when I was eight.”
“Except you’re not eight anymore.” Dean reaches across the table, puts his hand on my shoulder. “You’re not a kid standing at a mailbox hoping someone will come back for you. You know exactly where she is. You have a truck with a full tank of gas. You can go get her.”
“What if she doesn’t want me to?”
“What if she does? What if she’s sitting in that cemetery right now, crying her eyes out, hoping you’ll show up but too scared to ask?”
I think about the note. I’m sorry. I love you.
If she didn’t love me, she wouldn’t have written that. If she didn’t want me to come after her, she wouldn’t have said she was sorry.
Would she?
“She didn’t trust me enough to talk to me,” I say. “How am I supposed to get past that?”
“Maybe you don’t get past it. Maybe you work through it together. Maybe you show up at that cemetery and you tell her what actually happened, and you let her decide if she believes you.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then at least you tried. At least you didn’t sit here in Eleanor’s kitchen, eating Jo’s muffins and feeling sorry for yourself, while the woman you love convinces herself she made the right call.”
I look at my phone. At the time. It’s been hours since she left. Hours that she’s been sitting alone with a dead man and a dog and all the voices in her head telling her she’s not good enough.
“Asheville’s five hours from here,” I say.
“Four and a half if you speed.”
“I shouldn’t have to chase her.”
“No. You shouldn’t.” Dean shrugs. “But sometimes love isn’t about what should happen. Sometimes it’s about showing up anyway, even when you’re hurt and angry, even when you think they should be the one coming to you.”
He finishes the muffin. Brushes crumbs off his hands.
“Mom never came for us,” he says. “We waited, and she never came. But here’s the difference, Levi. You have a choice that we never had. You can sit here and wait, or you can get in your truck and go. You can be the person who shows up, even when it’s hard.”
I stand up so fast the chair scrapes against the floor.
“Tell Eleanor I’ll bring her back,” I say.
Dean smiles. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen from him all morning. “I’ll tell her.”
The drive to Asheville takes five hours. I make it in four and a half.