Chapter 24
The next day, I wake to discover that I really can’t do anything other than scroll through TikTok videos of cute pugs, eat
cereal, and watch Batman cartoons with Heathcliff. I can’t stop thinking about Dansworth and the stew of Southern drama waiting
for me when I get back to South Carolina. Why couldn’t she come clean with her own adult son? I can only imagine how Philip
felt that night he called me to tell me everything. I see her manic in her garden hat with her pistol; I see her leaning out
the bathroom window smoking those cigarettes. Amid my annoyance, I feel sorry for her. She must have been eaten up by guilt
all these years. She needs to tell the truth and let it all go.
Then there’s August . . .
With great effort, I try not to dwell on the pain I still feel from last night.
I can’t believe I got myself into this situation.
I wanted to believe his rakishness was a facade, that the charming smoke and mirrors covered good character.
I was naive. Even more shocking: What is happening between me and Philip’s best friend?
Shame seeps through my gut. My feelings are promiscuous and weird.
Henry and Philip went fishing together. Had beers together.
He’s the last man I should be attracted to in the wake of my husband’s death—even further down the list from British playboys who ply college
students and silly, grief-stricken widows with champagne.
I came to England to reassemble myself after losing Philip. I intentionally created rules to help me navigate my loss. Mourning
rituals provided convenient paths for me to follow, comforting boundaries for my pain. But I couldn’t create rules for my
heart. Black dresses, jet necklaces, little bird urns aren’t talismans to ward off grief and love. There are some things that
I can’t control no matter how improper I believe them to be.
Who am I?
Although I’m on the journey I set out to take, I’m still as fucking lost as I was when I broke down in my seminar class.
“You’re using the wrong colors,” Heathcliff says indignantly. Oops. He’s right. I’m coloring Poison Ivy blue in the coloring
book.
“She’s supposed to be GREEN,” he says scornfully, like I’m the world’s most ignorant slut. It’s like he knows I’m a poor excuse for a Victorian widow—a
true wid-hoe if there ever was one.
“Now, you be nice to your mum,” Ms. Fernsby says reproachfully as she walks through the room with a large bundle of fresh
thyme.
She knows something upsetting happened last evening when I went to meet August, but she’s been giving me space today. She’s
been mostly running errands and busying herself with the patio garden.
Heathcliff scowls at both of us before going back to his coloring book.
In the late afternoon, I’m helping Ms. Fernsby with dinner.
While she cuts up onions for her chicken gnocchi soup, I knead sourdough bread dough on the kitchen island.
Jazz music plays pleasantly from the Alexa on the kitchen counter as we chat.
Mabel will be stopping by for dinner, and I’m looking forward to it.
Always bright and cheery, she’ll be good company to distract me from my angst.
My phone rings suddenly, and I see it’s Henry. Wiping my floury fingers on a towel, I excuse myself and step outside to the
small back patio.
“Hey,” I say, slumping into a wrought iron chair cushioned by a jade garden pillow. Ms. Fernsby’s roses bloom nearby in the
late-afternoon sun.
“Hey . . .”
I wait out a long, awkward pause as he clears his throat. I thought this might be more Mirabel drama, but my stomach sinks
a little. That’s not why he called.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he says.
“I’m . . . sorry.”
“Listen, um . . .” He sighs and then chuckles. “There’s just no smooth way to say this.”
I’m quiet.
“I don’t regret almost kissing you. I think about it every day. I can’t stop thinking about it. I miss you, Lizzie.”
I hold my breath, watching a tiny hummingbird dip into one of the feeders poking out from the roses. Of course, I sensed this in his voice last night. But why does he have to tell me now? I’m in the worst place to hear a love confession, particularly
from Henry.
“Lizzie?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I have to. I mean . . . I know the timing is weird . . .”
“Weird? More like terrible. Where can this go? You were his best friend, for god’s sake. Philip just died, and the ink on your divorce papers isn’t even dry.”
“Look, I know, Lizzie. But there’s never a good time. You can do with this whatever you want, but I need you to know how I
feel.”
“You’re hot-off-the-press divorced. You don’t know what you’re saying. I’m just filling a void for you, Henry. That’s all
this is.”
“You really think that’s all you are to me? Something to fill a void?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not like that. And it’s not like we just met. We’ve known each other for years.”
“Which makes it all the weirder.” Tears well up, filming my vision. “Please. Let’s just not talk about this anymore.”
I hang up before he can say anything, and wipe my eyes. I’m angry at him for calling out what’s been between us these past
few weeks. My feelings for Henry have grown. My fondness for him from all these years has bloomed into something different. But any way I look at it, it feels wrong.
Everything feels wrong with Philip gone, and I’m in pieces. I take several deep breaths, determined not to cry, and go back
inside to knead bread.
By 9:00 in the evening, I’m reading Wuthering Heights on the parlor couch. I’m at the scene of Cathy’s death. Women had such vague causes of death in Victorian literature. There’s
Cathy—hysteria and heartbreak; Lily Bart and Emma Bovary—debt and drugs; the Lady of Shalott—isolation and art. I fall asleep
wondering how I’ll die.
In this dream, I’m in Yorkshire hiking through Bronte country.
It’s cool and windy, and I’m surrounded by the rocky terrain, rippling purple heather, pink foxglove, and sticky thistles.
Philip treks on ahead, sun glinting on his green Patagonia windbreaker.
I yell for him to wait up, but he keeps going.
I stop to catch my breath, pissed and exhausted.
Then I remember the rules of these Philip dreams. He’s always just out of my reach, and it’s nothing but yearning. Always.
No.
This time I’ll catch up with him.
There’s nowhere for him to hide here—no crowds, no bushy azalea gardens. I run, yelling his name, keeping my eyes glued on
him. But in the way dreams work, space and time don’t make sense. Although I’m sprinting and he’s hiking, he remains ahead
of me. Out of reach.
I stop on the trail, teary and exhausted. When I look up, I see we’re approaching Top Withens, the crumbling farmhouse that
likely inspired the Earnshaw home in Wuthering Heights. Now it’s all stone walls and open space.
“Philip! Wait for me this time!” I yell with Cathy Earnshaw passion.
He pauses at an open door. He turns slightly in my direction, but I only see his silhouette. He can hear me. He knows I’m
here. But then he walks inside the ruins.
I run up the hill and into the ruins. “Philip?” I call, looking around me. But it’s all broken rocks and grass and sunlight.
He’s nowhere here. And it’s eerily, unnaturally silent. No nesting bird warbles, no wind roars. I stand frozen there, confused
and trying to pinpoint a spreading emotion. Fear. Not fear that I’m in danger, like someone is going to attack me. It’s much worse because I don’t think I can fight back against
this. I really am alone, and it’s terrifying.
I wake up. In the dark parlor, my phone says it’s 1:30 a.m. I sit up, rub my eyes, rumpling a large eiderdown quilt Ms. Fernsby
must have laid across me as I slept. Wuthering Heights lies open on the floor. Everyone’s asleep. Heathcliff. Ms. Fernsby. Lucy sleeps in her cozy hearth bed.
I might be awake, but the fear from the dream continues. I feel the weight of my separation from Philip. I’m living a life
I didn’t want to live. If Philip could see me now, he’d be ashamed of me—having a nervous breakdown in class, whisking Heathcliff
away to this fairy-tale little row house in London. Attending séances, wearing and carrying pieces of him.
Who am I?
In spite of the early hour, stray cars still pass on the street. I see the glare of headlights through the curtain slits,
hear the soft braking of a car and men’s voices.
Someone knocks at the door.
Wiping away tears, I get up. I’m in such a grief fog that only as I’m unlatching the door do I think it’s odd for someone
to be knocking at this time of night. And I’m in London, so—Jack the Ripper?
“Dad!”
He’s standing there in his tweed jacket and trousers, barely rumpled in spite of the international flight. His gray beard
is trimmed, tortoiseshell glasses perched neatly on his nose. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him face-to-face, but he still
smells oh-so-wonderful, like pipe smoke and dusty books.
He shuffles uncomfortably.
“Ian called yesterday. He said you were having a hard time. Maybe we could go out for ice cream later and talk about it?”
I burst into tears and collapse into him, the tweed rough against my cheek.
At 5:30 a.m., Heathcliff wakes, excited to see his grandpa curled up on the little futon in his room. I make strong coffee and scramble eggs with fresh spinach and Tabasco sauce the way Dad likes them. As I sip my coffee, I enjoy watching Dad with Heathcliff.
Dad studies a little LEGO house Heathcliff made, looking it over through his glasses as if it’s a scholarly essay to be edited.
As Heathcliff chatters, Dad nods, interested but not quite able to follow a six-year-old’s stream-of-consciousness thoughts,
where the Joker, kittens, and chocolate donuts somehow make it into the same sentence. He’s treating Heathcliff the way he
treated me and Ian as children, with love and care, but also with slight bewilderment, as if we were hobbits or some other
little strange creatures that magically ended up in his world.
Heathcliff doesn’t seem to notice, and I have to keep reminding him to eat his scrambled eggs and strawberries as he chatters
away.
A little after seven o’clock, Ms. Fernsby walks downstairs in a daisy-print housedress, hair pulled back in a neat gray knot
at the back of her head. Without looking around, she tells me good morning and goes on about the lemon sponge cake she needs
to make for her gardening club event this afternoon.
“I should have started last evening, you see—the lemon glaze should set overnight—but then I poured my nip of brandy and started The Governess Falls for the Duke and, well, I couldn’t put it down— Oh . . .”
She stops mid-sentence, suddenly seeing my shy father at the kitchen island with Heathcliff.
“Oh . . .” she says again more quietly, patting her hair.
Dad nods but doesn’t say anything. Obviously, he isn’t an extrovert, and I’ll need to introduce them. But I’m trying not to
smile into my coffee. I’m more delighted than I want to let on by Ms. Fernsby’s response.
I make the introductions.
“Well, Gaylord, it’s nice to meet you,” Ms. Fernsby says, regaining some of her composure.
Dad shifts in his seat. “You as well, Annabel.”
This is too cute.
Ms. Fernsby tightens her apron strings and springs into action, doing what she does best, making everyone feel comfortable.
“I have some iced scones in here—they’ll go well with that coffee . . .”
As she pulls the tray out of the fridge, I start to tell her that he never eats sugar. But he catches my eye and shakes his
head.
“Yes, I’d love one. Thank you.”
I gulp my coffee, watching Dad eat a scone as he adds to Heathcliff’s LEGO house. Ian said he ate a Twinkie recently, but
I don’t think I actually believed it until now. Ms. Fernsby bustles around me, pulling out the ingredients for her cake. She
keeps casting side glances at Dad, her cheeks blushing rosier by the minute.