Chapter 22
DELPHINE
Ispent the early part of the evening in my potter’s shed, trying to put my feelings into my work, but it didn’t help, so I went to my garden.
On my hands and knees, I weeded one of my flower beds, yanking out invasive plants as if they deserved punishment.
Meanwhile, Poe sat on the window seat in the house, staring at me.
Around eight, Annie called out to me that she’d made dinner.
Reluctantly, I got up from the dirt and went inside.
Poe came running and rubbed himself against my ankles.
I stooped to pick him up for a quick snuggle before I noticed Annie had made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.
More specifically, three grilled cheese sandwiches and three bowls of soup, each with a basil leaf on top for decoration. She’d set the table too. For three.
I scrubbed my hands at the sink. What was she doing? Dorian wasn’t coming over tonight. Surely she knew that? He would not be joining us again, ever. Or had she made three to make a point? And what would that be exactly? That I’d driven him away?
“Why so much food for just the two of us?” I asked, keeping my voice even as I dried my hands on a dish towel.
She shrugged, without meeting my gaze. “I don’t know. I thought we might need an extra.”
“Well, I hope you’re hungry, because no one else is coming.”
She didn’t say anything, just took her place at the table, waiting for me to join her. I poured a glass of wine first and then sat in the spot that had become Dorian’s.
I forced myself to eat, even though I wasn’t hungry. Keeping myself together had to be a priority, especially in front of Annie.
“How was your day?” I asked brightly.
She looked up from her bowl of soup, spoon in midair. “Mom, really?”
“What?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing. Making me quit my job. Storming out of the shop. What happened?”
“Nothing happened, which is exactly the point.”
“What does that mean?”
“I asked him why he didn’t take me to the wedding.”
She flinched. “Oh. What did he say?”
What had he said? He hadn’t answered the question. “Actually, he didn’t answer me. He just said he wanted to slow down.”
Her face fell. “But why? He seemed so happy with us.”
“I don’t know. Men mostly prove who they really are pretty fast.”
“But you’re just taking it slower, right? Not breaking up.”
I set down my spoon. “Annie, do you really think staying with a man who isn’t sure about you is the right lesson to teach my daughter?”
“He said he isn’t sure how he feels about you?”
“Yes. And he knows the stakes are higher because of you. He doesn’t want you to grow accustomed to having him around when he’s not sure how he feels.”
Annie was shaking her head. “That doesn’t even make any sense. He’s obviously crazy about you. Everyone can see it.”
“Apparently, everyone’s wrong. Just like me.”
“Did you end it, then?” When I returned to my soup instead of answering, she threw up her hands. “You did, didn’t you?”
“What else could I do and leave with my dignity? I’m telling you, honey, this is just how men are.
They woo you, suck you in by being all nice to you and your child and then they decide they want to keep looking around to see if they can find someone better.
Or they just leave. Nothing but a note of explanation about how they just turned their family’s life completely upside down. ”
I realized what I said after it was too late. Annie stared at me, her eyes glassy.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Mom. You know dad was sick. It wasn’t like he left for some floozy or whatever.”
I sighed. “Yes, I know. He was sick. It wasn’t his fault.” Why, then, did I have this sudden rage? Was I mad at Jon? Or Dorian? Or myself? Maybe all three.
“Did you even give Dorian a chance?” Annie asked. “Or did you just cut him off like you do.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Right. You always give people the benefit of the doubt,” Annie said.
“I do. Until they prove me wrong.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, stirring her soup instead of eating.
“Honey, I’m sorry about all of this. I shall remain free and easy from now on. Just me and you. How we like it.”
She looked up at me. “Mom, I don’t like it. I want a dad. I want you to be happy with someone. I want that someone to be Dorian. And also, how could you quit my job for me? I loved it there. You had no right to do that without asking me first.”
“I don’t want you working for him. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
“Mom, someday you’re going to wake up and realize it wasn’t Dad who ruined your life, it was all your own doing.”
“You sound like my mother,” I said tightly. “Blaming me for his death.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“What I mean is that you’ve allowed his death to make you suspicious and cold and really, really quick to choose anger instead of understanding.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
She was quiet for a moment. “May I be excused?”
“But you hardly ate.”
“I’m not very hungry.” She picked up her plate and bowl as if to take them to the sink, but changed her mind, setting them back down onto the table with a bang. “I give up, Mom. Go ahead and choose to be miserable. I’m done.”
She left the kitchen, bounding up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door.
Great, just great. Not only was I in love with a man who wasn’t sure about his feelings, I’d now alienated my daughter.
All proof that I should have just stayed in my lane. It might be a bitter spinster lane, but it was mine. I understood the traffic flows and stop signs. The way a light turns yellow, then red almost immediately thereafter.
I cleaned the kitchen silently, with a light step, opening and closing of cabinets carefully instead of banging and slamming and tossing glasses against the marble counter like I wanted. I threw away what remained from our two plates into the trash, rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher.
But what to do with the third, untouched dinner?
I held the third sandwich and bowl of soup over the sink.
For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to just toss them.
It was stupid. I knew it was stupid. But I wrapped the darn sandwich in foil and poured the soup into a glass container, snapping the lid into place before placing it all in the refrigerator.
By then, it was approaching nine. Weariness came, the kind that hurts inside your bones, as I trudged up the stairs.
There was a line of light under Annie’s door. I raised my hand to knock, holding it there for a moment, before pulling back as if it were hot. I simply had nothing left to say. Nothing that would make either of us feel better. So I let it be.
I went to my room and closed the door, then went into the bathroom.
I ran hot water to wash my face. I was fine, I told myself.
Just get a good night’s sleep. Everything would look better in the morning.
Nothing but a few nights of gritted teeth and I would forget all about Dorian Flynn.
No need for a fetal position on the floor.
No need for tears. They were nothing but a waste of time.
But in the end, I slid down the wall and onto the floor.
Oh, how I knew this floor. Cold tile. The grout line that’s not quite even, near the shower.
Thick towels that provided more than dryness.
They were what I cried into so Annie couldn’t hear me.
I’d perfected silent weeping like an art form.
Or maybe an Olympic sport. This is the me no one saw.
The wreckage of what was left of a woman who had lost her husband weeping on the floor.
Not even my friends knew this raw, tortured part of me.
I don’t know how long I’d been down there when the door, which I hadn’t latched, swung in three inches, and Poe put his head through the gap like a building inspector. He looked at me for a long moment. Then he walked over, sat down against my hip, and leaned his weight against me.
“Oh, Poe, how is it you’ve chosen me?” I pulled him onto my lap, and he immediately started purring. “I ruin everything. Everyone I love leaves me, and it’s all my fault.” I placed my face against his furry neck and cried some more.
Until I heard something in the doorway. I looked up to see it was Annie.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I sniffed, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.
Annie grabbed a box of tissues and handed it to me before she sat next to me, our backs against the tub, her shoulder against mine. Poe remained on my lap, but he’d stopped purring. Instead he licked my hand with his scratchy tongue.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You weren’t wrong.” My voice came out scraped. “In fact, you’re right about everything.”
Another lick from Poe.
“I’m in love with Dorian. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s true.
Now he’s gone. And I feel like my heart’s in a thousand pieces.
When he said he wasn’t sure—it hurt. So much.
I didn’t see it coming. I thought this thing between us was something good.
That he might be my future. I was listening to music again.
Singing in the car. Waking up all excited to see him.
But I was wrong. How could I be so sure when he wasn’t?
It’s the thing I tried so hard to avoid. ” I started to cry again.
She put her head on my shoulder. “It’s okay. You’ll be all right. We’ll just go back to the way we were. Like you said, we were fine.”
I hiccuped. “I’m sorry you have to see me this way.”
“Mom, it’s all right. I know all this is in there, even though you’re so good at hiding it.”
Poe nestled deeper into my lap, pushing his nose into the crook of my bent knee.
“I’m sorry I got my hopes up,” Annie said. “Or if I pushed you into the whole dating thing.”
“I know you just want me to be happy.”
“I do. I really do. But I made it worse.”
“You did not do this. Dorian and I are adults. We did this.”
“I still can’t believe he said he wasn’t sure about you,” Annie said. “I didn’t see that coming either. Like why then were we spending all this time together? If all that time he was uncertain?”
“I know. That’s what hurts the most.”
“You’re right about the job too,” Annie said. “I can’t work for him. Not now.”
“You can find something else.”
“Yeah, sure.”
She didn’t have to say it out loud. I knew what she really meant. There was no job she wanted more than the bookstore. And no boss she wanted except for Dorian.
I’d let him get close, and now my little girl was hurting. I would never do it again.