8. Diadema #2
Hamilton kissed her goodbye, assuring her that should anything happen, he would summon her back to the hospital.
After grabbing her purse from the windowsill and her coat from the chair, she sunk her fingers into the fur lining the hood and collar.
One benefit of marrying Burnside had been his bank account, a fact she’d never denied.
She’d grown up wealthy, and moving to the reservation after she and Nathaniel graduated from college had been a shock to her system.
At first, the poverty-steeped parts of the reservation disconcerted Diadema.
But then she began to appreciate the stunning beauty of the land.
Determined to build a life with her husband there, she’d not only gotten used to it, she had appreciated everything she had more.
Cut off from her parents, the newlyweds lived solely off their incomes: she taught third grade, and Nathaniel worked for the tribal police.
Back then, she imagined she would live there happily ever after.
Until her husband’s accident upended her world.
Her in-laws had blamed her, and she’d denied it, but deep down she had always believed that she was the reason Nathaniel died.
He and a few friends had just arrived at a bar to celebrate his acceptance into the criminal law program at the University of South Dakota when he got a call that Diadema, six months pregnant, was having a miscarriage.
In his haste to get to the hospital, he had misjudged a hairpin curve on a dirt road, one he’d driven a thousand times, and crashed his car into a tree.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for how to live with the guilt. So she had stopped trying.
Sidestepping snowdrifts on her way to the diner, guilt ate at her again, this time about what more she could have done to ensure the health of her second husband.
Shivering against the cold and her invasive thoughts, walked into the diner and requested a table by the window facing the hospital.
The hostess led her to a small booth, and after perusing the menu, Diadema decided on a turkey club sandwich and a side of cheese curds.
What the hell? she thought. Why not have some breaded and deep-fried balls of cheddar?
She wasn’t the one with angina, after all.
When the waitress took her order, she added a Bloody Mary as well, hoping the hit of alcohol braced her for the remaining afternoon.
“Bloody Mary? DD, it’s barely noon.” Instantly recognizing the gentle voice, she flushed as she looked up.
Henry Livingston. Another regret in her life, but not for the reason most people probably speculated.
They likely imagined she regretted using him to make her senior year boyfriend, Dirk, jealous after he dumped her right before prom, but that wasn’t the case, although she wasn’t proud of it.
Henry asking her to the prom hadn’t been her diabolical plan.
In fact, he’d dumbfounded her by suggesting they go to prom together.
As teenagers, she’d been cognizant of his eyes following her, blatant longing so easily read in their blue depths whenever she allowed herself to exchange a glance with him.
Had she played games with him on prom night?
Maybe, like riding with Nora and George, inferring to them that she’d prearranged everything with Henry, but she hadn’t done that out of cruelty.
If anything, she had been generous—she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about them.
Ironically, she’d been the one getting ideas during their slow dances together, allowing Henry to hold her closer and closer each time.
Toward the end of the evening, it had been Diadema closing the gap between them, even wrapping her arms around his neck for their final dance, resting her head on his strong and sympathetic shoulders.
After he dropped her off at home, as the sun was almost rising, she noticed the Eiffel Tower he had carved.
Holding it made it impossible to deny the breadth of his emotion…
and hers. Afraid of the vulnerability he exposed in her, and unable to face the fact that she would never live up to whatever it was he saw in her, she called Dirk that following afternoon.
Her biggest regret was not believing that the DD in Henry’s eyes was the true Diadema.
To Henry now, she responded dryly, “You know what they say…it’s five o’clock somewhere.”
With his generous blue eyes oozing sympathy, he slid into the booth across from her.
Of course, Josh would have filled him in about Burnside.
Or her daughter had, considering how fond she was of Josh’s dad, almost clinging to him as the father figure she’s been missing in her life.
As a child, Euphemie hadn’t bonded with her stepdad the way Diadema had hoped, only growing closer this past year.
“I’m so sorry about Burnside, DD.” Henry’s blue eyes exuded sympathy. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do. We’re family now.”
With her Bloody Mary in hand, the waitress reappeared, and Diadema gratefully accepted it.
A large gulp helped keep her tears at bay.
Momentarily, anyway, until she looked into the summery eyes of the kindest man she had ever known.
Too good for her even now as only a friend, just as her mother had warned her the afternoon of prom, when she had advised her against waiting for Henry to pick her up: “He’ll get the wrong idea, Diadema.
That boy is too smart, too driven. Too good for you, even if he doesn’t have money like us.
” If she’d been ready for him as a teenager, her life would have gone differently, but it was his goodness that had made her ready to love Nathaniel; if not for Nathaniel, she would not have Euphemie.
Under his empathetic gaze, her floodgates opened. “Henry, I don’t know how to do any of it—not our life, not his business. What if something else happens to him? I’m not even sixty. I can’t be a widow again.” She collapsed into her hands, pressing them to her face to staunch the tears.
He rose from his seat and crossed to her, balancing himself on the edge of her booth seat before wrapping his arms around her. “I’m here, DD…whatever you need, I’m here.” Leaning into him, she allowed herself to be comforted by the first man who truly loved her.