Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
DARBY
Darby almost bailed on Samesh. She pulled into a parking space in front of the ivy-covered brick building that housed the romantic Italian restaurant.
Bundles of mistletoe wrapped with iridescent lighting hung from the front windows.
She could see a trio of musicians serenading tables inside the low-lit dining area.
What are you doing?
She clutched the necklace with Jim’s wedding ring.
This was a mistake.
She shifted the car into reverse, but his voice stopped her.
I sent you Samesh.
The words repeated again and again.
Perhaps hearing your dead husband’s voice in your head is another reason not to go inside, Darby told herself, but then she put the car in park and got out before she changed her mind.
Samesh was already seated at a table for two with a classic white linen tablecloth, red napkins, and a tapered candle dripping with wax. “You look wonderful,” he said, standing as she approached the table.
“Thanks.” Darby managed a small smile.
“It’s really picking up out there.” Samesh sat and commented on the weather.
The weather was a great equalizer in conversations.
She could talk about the snow and the threat of freezing rain for hours.
Darby was a bit of a weather junkie. Jim used to tease her about her obsession with winter storm warning alerts.
He had been convinced that she had a not-so-secret crush on the weather guy from Channel 8 news.
She didn’t, but she did admit to having an affinity toward storm chasing.
Some of her fellow English teachers abhorred the use of weather references in writing.
Not Darby. She encouraged her students to explore how they might use the eerie quiet and eggplant-colored clouds that rolled in before a snow squall as symbolism for emotions in their writing.
She wasn’t a proponent of cliché references.
She challenged her students to go beyond the “it was a dark and stormy night” weather trope, but done right, weather could add atmosphere, act like a character, or become the catalyst for transformation.
“I’m sorry, you don’t want to discuss the weather.” Samesh cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I’m nervous, but I promise I won’t be so lame as to make small talk all night.”
“I love the weather.” Darby shrugged off her coat and placed it on the back of her chair.
“You do? I didn’t know that.” He unfolded his napkin and spread it on his lap. “Did I ever tell you about the time I got invited on a storm chase in Kansas with a bunch of tornado hunters?”
“No.” Darby clasped her hands together. She wanted to ask how she possibly would have heard that story since they hadn’t been in touch in years. It was almost as if Samesh thought they were back in school. How would she know anything about his life?
Samesh launched into a tale about being in Kansas at the height of tornado season for a parks and recreation convention and somehow got talked into riding along with a group of storm chasers.
Darby found herself laughing as he spoke with animation, letting his hands fly while he emphasized how close he’d come to the eye of the storm. He was a good storyteller.
They ordered a bottle of wine and pasta, falling into an easy rhythm.
The conversation flowed from stories of their twenties and thirties.
Darby’s disastrous first year as a teacher and Samesh being confronted by systemic racism in city government, even in Southern California, where there was more diversity than in Bend.
The candle in the center of the table burned low as they traded stories from two lives fully lived. When the musicians came by to play a song for them, Samesh requested “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Darby couldn’t believe the trio knew the song, nor could she believe that Samesh had remembered.
“You made me watch Grease like four million times,” he teased after the musicians had moved on to the next table.
“That might be an exaggeration.” Darby shook her head, knowing he was right.
“Not much.” He raised his wine glass. “Although a toast to you for introducing me to musicals. Did you know that to this day, I can still recite the movie and every song word for word?”
“No.” There was so much about him she didn’t know, and yet he was also so familiar.
There weren’t any uncomfortable lulls in the conversation or awkward pauses. It was as if no time had passed, and they were undergraduates again, ready to take off on great adventures across the globe.
Only Darby wasn’t a na?ve, bright-eyed twenty-something any longer. She was a mature grown woman. Catching up might be fun, but she needed answers. She deserved answers.
Their dinner plates were cleared away. Coffee and slices of tiramisu were delivered. This was Darby’s cue to follow through with what she’d come to do.
“Listen, Samesh, I’ve enjoyed chatting tonight. It’s like no time has passed.”
He leaned across the table. “Me too. You are so easy to talk to. It’s like being back in college. Remember how many nights we were up in your dorm room until two or three in the morning, eating Pringles and talking about nothing and everything at the same time?”
She added a splash of cream to her coffee and took a deep breath as she looked up into his kind eyes.
“I do, but that was many, many years ago, and I have to be honest. I’m glad we’ve been able to catch up, but it feels so out of the blue.
I need to know why you left me on graduation night.
Everything I’ve told you tonight is true.
I’ve had a wonderful life, a happy marriage, and a fulfilling career.
I wouldn’t change any of it, and I don’t harbor any resentment toward you.
After that night, I did, for a while. I was so confused.
I’ll never forget standing in my cap and gown, holding two plane tickets to Europe, and hearing you tell me you weren’t coming, and it was over.
We went from being best friends and lovers who were going to see the world and travel across Europe for the summer before we got real jobs and figured out what to do next, to nothing.
Literally nothing. Not another word. You left, and that was it.
” Darby’s voice quivered. She blinked back tears.
These tears felt different than the constant ache of missing Jim.
These tears were nostalgic. Reminding her of her first heartbreak that didn’t break her.
Samesh exhaled slowly like he was attempting to blow out the candle in the center of the table. He watched the flame with a quiet reserve.
“I honestly don’t have ill will for you, Samesh,” Darby continued.
“I got over that long ago, and I’m grateful that our breakup led me to find Jim, but I would like to understand.
It would have made sense if we had been fighting or were at odds about where we wanted to go next.
I don’t remember that. Maybe I imagined that we were happy.
Maybe you had been unhappy for a long time, but I wish you had told me. It would have made the hurt less.”
He balled up his napkin and tossed it on the table. “I know. Darby, I’m so sorry. I have lived with regret over the way things unfolded. I don’t know what I can possibly say that will make it better.”
“An explanation would be a good start.”
Darby was acutely aware that the music had stopped.
Several tables had cleared, leaving the restaurant nearly empty except for two or three other parties.
The only sound was hushed conversations and the occasional clink of forks and knives.
Talk about symbolism. Darby could teach an entire lesson on how the restaurant’s vibe had shifted with their mood.
Samesh sipped his coffee with complete attention, like he was buying time. When he finally spoke, his voice was almost a whisper. “It was my parents.”
“Your parents?” Darby couldn’t help but notice that a table nearby had turned in their direction at the sound of her response. She let out a breath and tried to keep her mouth from hanging open. “What do you mean, your parents?”
“They forbade me from going to Europe with you.” He couldn’t meet her eyes.
“What? I thought they liked me.” Darby was stunned.
She had met Samesh’s parents every time they had visited.
They had invited her to family dinners and had been kind and welcoming to her.
Darby hadn’t known them well, but every time they came to visit Samesh, they seemed eager to include her and warm and welcoming.
“They did like you.” Samesh cleared his throat again. “They didn’t like you as marriage material, though. Our friendship was fine, but they had me end it when they realized how serious I was.”
“I don’t understand. We weren’t even engaged.”
Samesh picked up a spoon and stirred his coffee. He started to speak but stopped himself. The weight of unresolved emotions seemed to crumple his chest.
“Were you going to propose?” Darby nudged, her pulse quickening.
His gaze was soft and wistful, as if he’d been transported back in time.
“In Paris. I had the ring. I had it planned out. We were going to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower.” He removed the spoon from his coffee cup, rubbed his temples, and sighed.
“I shouldn’t have told them. I should have just done it. ”
Darby wasn’t sure how to respond. Samesh had been planning to propose that summer. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she finally asked.
“I told my parents at lunch the day of graduation. I knew at some level that they were traditionalists. They wanted me to marry a nice Indian woman and preserve our family customs and traditions. I underestimated how important that was to them. When I showed them the ring and told them I was going to propose, they were so upset.”
He had a ring?
Darby couldn’t believe it. The room was closing in on her. She could hear the rush of her heartbeat thudding in her head. She tried to clasp her wine with a clammy hand and then decided against it.
“Their response threw me. It made me question whether it was fair to you. How could I bring you into a family like mine?” His subtle smile carried a hint of longing.
“What if they never came to terms with it—with us? What if they wouldn’t accept you or our future children?
I hadn’t intended to leave. I thought I would take a week or so.
I would travel down the coast alone. I had to get my stuff back to San Diego anyway.
I figured a long solo drive would be good.
I could clear my head and figure out what to do. ”
“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have told me.”
“Because if I had told you, we would have taken off right then. Right there. I knew how much you cared. I knew you loved me the way I loved you, and I would have done anything to make it work. We probably would have gone to Europe and eloped.”
“Okay, and what would have been wrong with that?”
“I couldn’t do that to you. You deserved a husband who loved you and a family, too. I imagined every future holiday with you as an outcast, with you feeling hurt and unloved by my parents. I wouldn’t put you through that. On the drive, I considered severing ties with them completely.”
“Samesh, I had no idea.” Darby’s hand went to her heart. “You did?”
Samesh reached for his napkin. He smoothed it out and folded it into a tight square.
“I did.” His eyes flickered to her momentarily and then returned to the napkin.
“I knew you wouldn’t go for that. Not as a long-term solution, and I didn’t know how to tell you that my parents were against our future.
It wasn’t you. They really did like you.
It was just that… that…” He trailed off.
“That I’m white and not a practicing Hindu,” Darby finished his thought.
“Yeah.” He stabbed his uneaten tiramisu. “I was also young. I might have reacted differently if this had happened now.”
“That’s the gift of aging, isn’t it?”
He nodded, but the pain was etched in the deep lines in his forehead and the corners of his warm brown eyes.
“After I drove to San Diego, I did more soul-searching. It was hard because I felt the call of duty to my parents. They had given up so much for me. They were the reason I’d been able to get a college degree.
Being the only child, the only son of Indian parents, came with a lot of pressure.
Plus, you remember this was the 1980s. Things have changed, but back then, the idea of me marrying you was so out of the realm of possibility for them.
” He put his fork to his lips but didn’t take a bite.
Instead, he returned the fork to the plate.
“I wish I’d been braver. I wish I had fought for us. ”
A tear rolled down Darby’s cheek. “That’s so sad. It must have been hard for you.”
“It was hard, and the only person I wanted to talk to was you.”
“You could have, though.”
“No. No.” Samesh motioned with his hands. “I couldn’t. You would have tried to find a solution for an unsolvable problem, and I refused to put you through that. I loved you too much to hurt you like that.”
“But you did hurt me.”
“I know.” He gulped. “I get that now, with the gift of distance, but at the time, it seemed like the only thing to do. To make a clean break. To forget about you and let you move on with your life, which you did.”
“Yeah, I did.” Darby was thoughtful for a moment. “What about you? You never married? You never found love?”
His dark eyes misted with emotion. “I found love. I just lost her.”
Darby let out a small gasp.
“It’s always been you, Darby. I lost you once.
Now I’ve found you, and I will do whatever it takes to convince you that we’re meant to be.
Love like this isn’t a coincidence. I made a huge mistake when we were younger, and I’ve had to live with that regret every day since.
You went on to love deeply and lost him.
I think our problem has been about timing. This is our time now.”