Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Henry
April 14th, 2015
Footsteps shuffle over the weather-beaten wood of my parents’ front porch. Despite owning the house outright since the day my mother died, I still think of it as theirs. A vessel keeping me, like I’m a ship built in a bottle. A thing that looks like it should sail but never actually has.
I glance up as Delilah, who refuses to make eye contact, moves past with the last suitcase from her room. The moving truck isn’t even half full. Turns out Kimberly’s parents didn’t want any of our hand-me-down furniture in their South Carolina estate. So boxes of clothes, some pictures, and Kimberly’s exercise equipment are all that made the cut. Everything else will stay, a museum of the family that once resided here, before I blew it all to bits.
Guilt is a half-starved rodent crawling around my insides, gnawing at anything it can get its paws on. Every day that passes takes another piece of me. Soon I’ll be nothing but the chewed-up consequences of my own poor decisions, with nothing but the walls to hear my apologies .
I’ve tried to give them to Delilah. At first she seemed like she wanted to talk. We built a bridge over morning coffee before she left for school each day, when her mom was still fast asleep. That all disintegrated Friday night when Kimberly burst into my office.
“ She’s coming with me. ” Kimberly’s eyes were bright with malice, her tone laced with it. She knew the weapon she held, and she wielded it perfectly. “ Guess you can’t win ’em all, can you, Henry? ”
I sat up in my makeshift bed on the window seat, heart throbbing in my chest. “ What do you mean? Why would she leave? She loves it here. ”
“ What would you know about how she feels? You only ever think of yourself. ” She laughed, shoulders lifting slightly. “ Though that’ll be perfect, since yourself is all you’ll have left. ”
I bite down hard on my tongue. Even remembering it has me panicking, my chest tight. I didn’t argue with her that night, and haven’t since. What do the details matter, after all, when the results are all the same? Semantics aside, I cheated. I ruined not only my life, but Delilah’s, too. I deserve everything I’ve lost. Am continuing to lose.
Delilah turns to me once the truck is loaded. Her hair is braided back from her face, which is mottled with the quiet tears she’s shed all morning. I rise to my feet, the bottom step creaking beneath my weight. When she finally lifts her gaze to meet mine, I swear I see an apology hiding behind the accusation.
I’m not sure which breaks my heart more.
I step down onto the dirt. A cloud of dust rises around my black Converse. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. I chance another step forward. When her eyes flare wide in warning, I stop. Close enough. This has to be close enough.
I haven’t hugged her since I left for the concert that night. Now I fear I’ll never get to again.
“I love you, sweet pea.” I place my hand over my heart, which has been hers since the day she was born. “And I’m so sorry. I’ll never be able to make it up to you. I know that.”
She whimpers, a tiny sound that escapes her parted lips. She clamps them closed.
“I want you to know that you’ll always have a place here. This will always be your home. You can come back whenever you’re ready. I—” My voice falters. I’ve never known how to put my feelings into words. Music? Sure. But this? It’s so much harder. How do you teach your seventeen-year-old daughter a lesson you’ve yet to learn? A moral you’re still trying to find in the rubble of your mistake?
“Dad…”
I strain to see her clearly through the blur caused by unshed tears. To memorize every freckle, every quirk. The way she tugs at her braid nervously while she tries to find her words. The arch of her brow when she does.
“You don’t have to—” She licks her lips. Glances behind me and grimaces. “Never mind. Bye, Dad.”
“I love you,” I repeat.
Her gaze is still trained over my shoulder. “You too.”
“I’ll call.”
“Don’t bother,” Kimberly says from behind me.
Delilah ducks her head and turns. I count each step as though it were her first, right up until she climbs into Kimberly’s car and closes the door. Thirty-eight. It takes thirty-eight steps for my daughter to walk out of my life. Selfish. I was so selfish. And now it has cost me the only thing that matters.
“You know, I really should thank you.”
I hear Kimberly approach, but don’t turn. I won’t take my eyes off Delilah till she’s gone completely. Even the top of her head through a car window is a lifeline, which I’ll hold on to till I lose even that.
Kimberly takes each step slowly. When she finally stands in front of me, duffel bag on one shoulder and purse on the other, she smirks. “My parents never would’ve approved if I left you because I wanted my own life. Even at thirty-seven. But cheating? From someone who was never good enough for me anyway?” She shakes her head, gaze scanning the length of me. Whatever she finds, it’s lacking. “You guaranteed I’ll have their full support.”
She reaches across her chest, spreads her purse open, and plucks a manilla folder from it. I take it from her hands and hold it limply at my side. I don’t have to open it to know it contains a divorce filing. I don’t have to read it to know I won’t contest.
She pauses like she’s waiting for me to beg. To try and change her mind. When I don’t, she narrows her gaze. Crinkles her nose at me in disgust.
“Have a good life, Henry.” She shrugs, a biting laugh piercing the air around us. “Or don’t. The great thing is, either way, it’s not my problem anymore.”
When she walks away, I don’t bother watching. All those years ago, I didn’t see her coming. There’s no need to watch her leaving now.
Instead I keep my gaze trained on our daughter. I track their progress over every pothole, past every live oak, till they disappear behind a thicket of holly, too tall for me to see over from here. I continue to watch even as the movers close up the truck and follow Kimberly’s Honda Civic down the dirt road. I don’t stop even when the sound of the truck’s engine fades into the afternoon, or when the afternoon fades into the evening.
I don’t know when it gets dark out, only that it does. Only that I’m afraid the light will never come on again. Not for me, anyway.
That’s when Lucy arrives. She’s wrapped in a quilt, wearing a tight white T-shirt over pajama pants that she’s tucked into cowboy boots. Her hair is mussed, her eyes red from crying. She pauses in front of me, head tilted in question, and squeezes the quilt a bit tighter around her shoulders.
“I’ve been on our front porch for the past hour, and I haven’t seen you move a lick. I figured I’d come check if you’d turned to stone.”
I suck in a breath, shocked to find my lungs still remember how to hold it. “She’s gone.”
“Kimberly?”
“Delilah.”
Lucy’s expression freezes. Slowly, tears begin to stream from her eyes, polishing her irises till they shine. I want to join her, but I don’t know how. I want to put this pain down, but I’ve no idea where to set it.
“I’m so sorry, Henry.” She steps closer, a question opening up her gaze. When I don’t react, can’t , she opens her arms and embraces me. Rocks me when I finally start to weep. “She’ll come back. I know she will. You’ve just gotta give her time.”
I press my chin into the curve of her neck, trying and failing to regulate my breathing. “How do you know?”
“Do you remember when we were kids and you dreamed of running off to Nashville to make a career as a musician?”
I rise to my full height and glance down at her, one brow raised.
She goes on like she hasn’t just thrown me for a loop. “Let’s say you did do that. You even made it big. Spent ten, twenty, even thirty years touring with a band. What would you have done at the end of all that? Where would you have gone?”
It’s not even a question. “I’d have come home.”
“And so will Delilah. She loves it here, even if these last few weeks have made her think otherwise.”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
Lucy grabs my hand and nods toward the porch. I follow her, albeit slowly. My joints are stiff from standing in one place for too long. We take our time climbing the steps and settling onto the swing. The wood is cold even through my clothes. A shiver courses through me, and Lucy scoots closer till her body warms mine from proximity alone.
“The kids at school have been…none too kind to her since the news got out. Truett, too, but not nearly on the level of Delilah. He told me last night. I imagine because of this.” She gestures toward the driveway.
I stare in that direction, unblinking. “I had no clue.”
“Me neither. A bit too distracted by the comments made in the teachers’ lounge when I go to microwave my lunch, I suppose.” She laughs, but there’s an edge to it. Her chin drops, and along with it her gaze. “Maybe I should resign, too. Make things easier for everyone.”
“You can’t, Lucy.” I grab her hand, which brings her gaze back to me. “You worked too hard for this.”
“So did you,” she whispers.
“But I can work anywhere. I’ve got an interview at the music school in the city next week.”
She squeezes my hand. The corners of her mouth tug downward, and my heart goes right along with them. “I’m grateful for what you did. For leaving, so that I could stay. I never would’ve asked you to do that, though, Henry. You’ve got to know that.”
“I know.” I clear my throat. “But it was the right thing to do. I’m the one who started all this.”
Her lips form a flat line and she nods. “Waylon’s gone, you know. Even my dad supported him. Told him he deserved a godly woman, and I’d clearly proven I was not one.” She snorts softly, shaking her head. “Only time I’ve ever been grateful for Dad’s misogynistic advice.”
“How’s Truett taking it?”
A smile blooms on her face. “He’s relieved. The minute Waylon walked out that door, I swear a light came back on in Tru’s eyes that hasn’t been there in years.”
“Glad I could help, I guess.”
Somewhere in the night, an owl calls. We pause, listening, but a response never comes.
Her gaze searches mine. “I didn’t mean to take away from your pain, Henry, I promise. I just—” Her hands flutter aimlessly in the air, grasping for words. “I guess what I was trying to say is, the door is open. We can be together, you and me. Finally. Truett loves you and?—”
“I can’t.” The words are out before I even have a second to process them. “I can’t, Lucy. I’m sorry.”
She blinks rapidly, gaze searching my face in the dim moonlight. “What?” The word is so soft, so malleable I almost want to try and change it. To change all of this and make it better than reality ever is.
But I can’t change it. I can only take what is and make the best of it, like I always have. Or have always tried to do, at least.
“If Delilah… If I ever want to have a chance at her forgiveness… for her to come back…” I let my voice trail off. There’s no need to say the rest aloud. I think hearing that we can never be together once in a lifetime is more than enough, let alone twice.
“…then you have to leave the door open,” Lucy offers. A sacrifice and an acceptance all in one.
I nod. “Exactly.”
Lucy Parker is the love of my life. I thought it before, when we were two kids who barely knew each other, but I’m certain of it now. Across time and space, and so many years, she is it for me. I feel it in my bones.
My daughter, though? She is my entire heart outside my body. An organ I can’t live without. If she were ever to come back and find that I’ve moved on with Lucy… That’s a break that could never be fixed. A risk I’m not willing to take .
“I’m so sorry.” The words are Band-Aids on a gaping wound. Useless to stop the bleeding, but I try anyway. I have to try.
Lucy stands. The cold rushes in, in her absence, drenching me to my bones. She strides forward, blanket wrapped tightly, until she reaches the front step and cranes her neck back, taking in the only clear view of the moon from the porch. She’s awash with silver-blue light, so similar to her eyes that it aches. Every gentle angle, every golden strand of hair. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and everything I’ll never be able to have. Watching her, I could fall to my knees and weep. But it wouldn’t change anything.
“I learned a long time ago not to argue with you when you’ve made up your mind that you’re doing what’s right for someone else.” She glances over at me, half her face cast in shadow. “I just wonder when, if ever, you’ll consider if you’ve done what’s right for you.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. She nods, like she expected as much, and steps off the porch. “Good night, Henry.”
It’s the second time today I’ve watched a part of my heart walk away. There’s so little of it left, it’s a wonder it still beats at all.
Lucy doesn’t come back the next day. Or the one after that. Or any of the next fifty that follow. I get a job at the music school and start teaching lessons there. I establish some stilted version of a life in the gaping hole of what was, still too afraid to dream of what could be. I’m not necessarily thriving, but I’m surviving. And I call Delilah, because I promised I would.
She doesn’t answer, but I leave her voicemails. Maybe she listens to them; maybe she doesn’t. Either way, I’ll keep showing up for her. Holding her in this small way, until I can squeeze her in my arms again.
And if that day never comes? Well, I try not to think about it much.
I don’t know why I know it’s coming the day Lucy returns. It’s almost as if the air is sharper, the warmth more saturated, the impending evening storm more electric. By the time she steps foot on my porch, I’m already waiting for her at my door.
“I know we can’t be together,” she says. “But can we at least be friends?”
My smile is wafer thin but so, so genuine. “I’d like that.”
I welcome her in. Offer her coffee. We sit in the breakfast nook and watch the rain come down, saying nothing while feeling everything.
The next week, she comes back. And the pattern repeats.
Some days we talk till our voices are raw. Others we sit in companionable silence. We never touch. We don’t discuss our feelings for each other. We just are, and that’s enough. It’s more than I ever let myself hope for.
The day Delilah’s letter comes, Lucy sits with me in the quiet. Doesn’t speak when I dissolve into tears. Nods her head, with pride in her eyes, when I tell her how strong my daughter is. So much stronger than I’ll ever be.
Sometimes I make the trek to the farm instead. We sit at the table with Truett and play cards or eat steak tacos or talk about the plans he has to expand the farm. We celebrate birthdays together. Holidays. Time passes, and I don’t feel it going, which is a blessing in and of itself. One I forget to be grateful for until it’s too late.
The morning of November 7th, 2021, I’m in my office when there’s a knock at the door. I barely hear it from the room, since it’s the farthest down the hall. It’s only when it comes again, louder and rapid as a racing pulse, that I abandon the schedule I was working on for my music lessons through the holidays and make my way to the door, expecting Lucy to be standing there with a new coffee creamer for us to taste, always too sweet but worth trying if it makes her happy.
Instead it’s Truett I find, slump-shouldered on my doorstep with his hands in his pockets. He’s taller than me, built broad like his father but kind as his mother. His back is to me, and when I open the door, he spins around, stealing my breath with the tears streaming down his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Mama,” he whimpers.
I haven’t heard him whimper since he was eight years old and fell out of a tree he and Delilah were climbing, shattering his collarbone. My lungs squeeze tight. I reach for my throat absently, needing to hold on to something. “What’s wrong?” I repeat.
“Cancer,” Tru says softly. His gaze lifts to mine, bereft and seeking comfort. “It’s bad, Henry. It’s so bad.”
I open my arms, and he falls into them. He’s several inches taller, and broad everywhere I’m narrow, but in that moment he is a little boy collapsing against my chest. And as his words settle into my mind, I come undone, collapsing right along with him.