Chapter 36
I FaceTime Dad on his birthday. He’s still in London, with no plans to come home yet. Although he doesn’t text, he emails
often to let me know how he’s doing. He and Ms. Fernsby have been sightseeing—Stonehenge, Stratford-upon-Avon, Canterbury
Cathedral. Ms. Fernsby texts me a photo of Dad in the London Eye. Although Dad rarely smiles, he looks happy, eyes twinkling
behind his glasses. He’s carrying a large bag of gift shop souvenirs earmarked for Heathcliff.
It’s evening there, and Dad and Ms. Fernsby sit in the dining room behind a large frosted pink layer cake. This is the first
time I’ve ever seen him eat cake on his birthday.
“Hullo!” Ms. Fernsby says cheerily from beside him.
She looks pretty with pink lipstick on and her graying hair pulled back in a green cloth headband.
“We’ve just come home from my favorite Thai restaurant.
You and Henry will have to go out with us when you’re here next time.
(Although I think it might be a bit too spicy for Heathie.) We went out with dear Darcie, remember her? ”
“Interesting woman,” Dad interjects. “Extraordinarily fond of cats and wallpaper.”
“Gaylord, can I tell Lizzie about the other night?” she asks Dad quickly.
When he nods, Ms. Fernsby leans forward excitedly.
“Lizzie, we tried it again at Darcie’s—we had the brandy, the candlelight, the hissing cats.
She tried to summon your sweet mother—but nothing happened.
At least for Gaylord. And it was most peculiar because Lord Routledge tried to make another appearance! I think he’s jealous
of me with Gaylord! Maybe he thought I would loyally clean his house for the rest of my days. Stupid man. Anyway, Darcie theorizes
that in the happy relationships, the loved one doesn’t need to go back.”
“That sounds about right,” I say, meeting Dad’s eyes. “I miss Philip every day, but we had a . . . security . . . that didn’t
require anything else.”
“Oh, Lizzie,” Ms. Fernsby says, “That’s so lovely.”
Her phone dings. “It’s almost time, Gaylord! Can you go make some tea and cut me a slice? I’ll be in in a minute.”
Dad says goodbye to me, takes the cake platter, and kisses Ms. Fernsby’s forehead. He’s come a long way from expressing his
affection through smelling Mom’s hair.
“I hope you don’t mind, Lizzie, but we’re going to watch Blood Oath tonight. I know Dansworth was an awful rat to you, but, well . . . Brad Pitt is playing Chadwick Hall and I really must watch
it . . .”
“It’s fine, Ms. Fernsby. Really it is. Dansworth wrote a good series. In fact, I have my own Blood Oath watch party coming up.”
“Oh good! And I did want to tell you something about him the other night. I went down the online rabbit hole on A.D. Hemmings,
and it turns out the man can’t keep his pants on! Have you heard of Cressida Bishop?”
“No . . . Wait . . . yes, he mentioned a Cressida.”
“She’s an author in her own right, more literary fiction than the boilerplate pulp he puts out. Anyway, she talked about their
relationship in an interview—they were a hot literary couple for a while, on some magazine covers posing with antique typewriters.
They were engaged and had bought and moved into a Kensington town house. But then he had an affair with one of his writing
students. Can you believe it? Cressida said she wishes him well, but she just couldn’t trust him anymore.”
“He told me she cheated on him. And yes, now I can believe he would cheat with a student. Jeez. What a creep!”
“Absolutely! And what a lot of nerve! He and Cressida are both public figures, so it’s not like you wouldn’t be able to find
out about this.”
“Right? Poor man. Doesn’t he know he’s going to find himself lonely and old one day?”
“He will soon enough . . .”
“Annabel, it’s coming on,” Dad says from the doorway.
I tell them both goodbye and close my laptop.
From the screened porch, I watch Heathcliff play in the backyard with a friend. They’re both in full Batman costumes, chasing
each other with plastic light sabers. Superhero hybrid play, I guess. Late-afternoon cicadas hum from the trees all around,
and I take a long sip from my glass of iced lime water. I have syllabi to polish and I don’t want to know how many number of emails waiting for me now that I’m plugged in again.
But it can all wait.
I know like I did in Haworth that I’m going to be okay.
And Dad is happy.
Three Years Earlier
The wedding of Philip’s law school friends Meg and Will falls on one of those beautiful, butter-melting Carolina summer evenings.
It’s outdoors, in Meg’s family’s backyard, not far from the Azalea Dream. The ceremony over, the reception is in full swing,
with a jazz band playing from the back deck of the large house. Long rows of white linen–covered tables decorated with ivy
garlands and flickering candles in glass globe centerpieces line the yard. Servers bring steaming platters of Low Country
boil to each table and refill champagne glasses generously.
Philip and I give our warmest wishes to the couple before visiting with some of his other law school friends at our table
during dinner. But Philip and I enjoy each other’s company best, and eventually find ourselves meandering to the celebration’s
boundaries, closer to the quiet edge of the Ashley River. Twilight settles around us as we walk along the banks. As much as
I hate the South’s stupid conservative politics and asshat politicians, I never tire of the landscape. Cicadas buzz around
us, drowning out the noise from the party, and Spanish moss drapes curtain-like from the surrounding oaks.
I feel particularly cleaned-up tonight having splurged on a vintage, shell-colored cocktail dress with a scalloped skirt and chandelier earrings.
Philip looks dapper in the suit he usually reserves for court.
It’s a glorious childless evening as Mirabel has Heathcliff for the weekend and we’re staying at a Charleston Airbnb.
We both feel a rare lightness, like two teenagers allowed to stay out past curfew.
We’ve had a few glasses of champagne and everything has that nice fuzzy glow; we’re both bolder, brave enough to talk about
our deeper fears and longings.
As we talk about the ceremony, I bring up that part of wedding vows that always makes my heart skip a little with dread, that
fly in the ointment. “‘Till death do us part.’ Does that bother you like it does me?”
“What? Death?”
“No, that one of us is probably going to die first.”
We watch the fiddler crabs scurry along the pluff mud banks. Philip exhales loudly, then picks up a thin rock and throws it
across the water so that it skips three times.
“I do. But that happens to everyone, Lizzie.”
“But what about when it happens to us?”
“Lizzie,” he says softly.
“No, you know what I mean. You and I, we don’t have normal couple boundaries.” And I’m buzzed enough in this beautiful Low
Country twilight to keep going. “We’re the rare ones like Heathcliff and Cathy where we don’t know where one of us ends and
the other begins. People in nineteenth-century novels die all the time of fucking heartbreak. What will we do when one of
us dies before the other?”
He steps closer to me, puts his hands on my shoulders. The setting sun catches on his short, neatly trimmed blond beard. The
wind blows at my ridiculously long earrings, and they tickle my neck.
“We keep living.”
“How?”
“With happiness and purpose.”
I lean forward, my face in the crease of his neck. He smells vaguely of dinner’s heavy cardamom spice, the citronella-scented torches back at the reception. I drink in his smell and put my arms around him.
Present
After Saturday dinner in my backyard with Henry, Patrick and Elaine, we start popping popcorn and refilling wineglasses before
heading to the den to watch the Blood Oath Netflix series.
A.D. Hemmings. August Dansworth. My heartbreak passed quickly, and I’m fine bingeing the series with everyone else. Who knows,
I might even read Blood Offspring when it hits bookstores next summer. I’m curious about Inspector Hall’s new widowed love interest.
I tuck Heathcliff in bed, leaving on only his night-light, which radiates the Bat signal onto the ceiling. Most nights he
asks a hundred questions and gets up several times for water, but not tonight. Bonnie wore him out playing in the yard this
afternoon. He’s already falling asleep, talking sluggishly about a pill bug he and Bonnie found in my garden box. As his eyelids
droop, I brush his blond bangs from his forehead. He looks like his father and grandfather in the dull light.
“I love you, Heathcliff.”
As he drifts off, he rolls over in the bed, yawning widely. “I love you too. You’re brave like Batman.”
My heart full, I walk back downstairs, pausing in front of the fireplace mantel.
The orchid Dad sent after Philip died still blooms. Framed photos line the rest of the shelf.
Of course, there’s a black-and-white picture of Philip and me cutting the cake at our wedding.
There are photos of Philip, Heathcliff and me at the state fair, another of us dressed up as matching superheroes for Halloween.
I’d been Poison Ivy in a silly and expensive wig.
There’s one of Heathcliff looking sulky and unhappy in a little seersucker suit at one of Mirabel’s events.
And now there’s a framed photo of Heathcliff and a smiling Frank at a USC football game, both wearing team colors, garnet paint smeared on their cheeks.
I stare at the picture from Meg and Will’s wedding. We’re by one of the tiki torches, just before we slipped off for our walk
by the river. Philip’s kissing my cheek, looking like he’s the luckiest guy in the world. I remember that moment, the feel
of his chin stubble on my skin, how happy I was. Then the ache swells. I take a breath and return to the den.