Chapter Forty #2
“I do not remember word for word . . .” She turned to face him again. Took back that step she’d used to distance herself. She took another one toward him, just for good luck. “But I told you that I was leaving because I could not ask you to abandon your life for me.”
He started to move, to stand up or speak or something, but she held up a hand. If she were interrupted, she’d never get through this.
“You have worked so hard for the life you’ve built, and I couldn’t ask you to leave all of that behind.
I thought that you’d come to resent me if you did.
I told you that I wanted to be with you, and that you’d always be welcome here.
That we could be friends again or we could be .
. . more, but it had to be because you truly wanted that. It was up to you, I said.”
Della heaved out a breath. For a moment, she felt so much lighter.
Keeping her affection for him such a secret for so long was a heavy burden, and it was amazing to be free of it.
That was, until she realized how life-changing what she’d just said was.
It was even more of a risk than her unreceived letter.
She’d spoken it into the air between them, and now nothing would ever be the same.
“Della,” he breathed. His hands came up to cover his face once more. “If it were up to me, I’d have married you eight years ago.”
She gasped. Her legs carried her to the settee and promptly gave out, leaving her sitting there in a heap. That was impossible. She didn’t think he’d lie to her, not after everything, but she knew it could not be true.
“You . . .” He looked at her again, his expression agonized. “You said that you don’t require courtship. Why?”
It seemed an odd change of subject, but Della could almost see his train of thought.
He had a list of questions in his mind, and he was ticking them off as he went.
The first question was why she’d left without warning.
This was the second. Della wondered how many there’d be, but she’d answer them all just the same.
“I do not require courtship,” she sighed, “because I would marry you tomorrow. Or today, if I weren’t so exhausted.”
Now he gasped. They were finally beginning to understand each other.
Apparently, they were two people who’d wanted to marry each other for years.
Knowing that was like falling into a deep sea of relief, but once Della saw the remaining despair in his face, she felt they were starting to drown in it.
“Now that we are . . . speaking,” Andrew said. He stood up, waving an arm out in front of him and speaking with his hands. It was rather animated for such a docile man. “There is something I have nearly always wanted to ask you.”
Della’s breath caught. She might’ve thought her heart stopped beating, but she could hear it pounding in her ears.
“Why did you leave that night?” His voice broke, and his face fell, and the gut-wrenching hurt he felt was nearly palpable between them.
“What do you mean? What night?” She’d thought they were coming to an understanding, but now she was back to an uncomfortable confusion.
“The night that you left London. Eight years ago. Why did you leave in the middle of the night? You said you were leaving in the morning, David told me you were to leave in the morning, but by then you were . . . gone.”
Della wanted to speak, to respond, but there was a clump of shame in her throat. She considered her words for a moment. They had come to a fragile understanding, but she did not want to break it.
“I was not happy about being sent away, as I’m sure you remember.” Della rolled her watery eyes at her own teenage stubbornness. When it came to him, though, she was afraid she’d always be stubborn. That had nothing to do with her age.
“I . . . I wanted to see you. One last time. To say goodbye. I begged and begged Esther to let me. She denied me over and over, and eventually she told me how you really felt. That the best thing I could do was free you of the burden I’d become.
That you wouldn’t want me as I got sicker, and I should want someone better for you, someone whole. ”
Della’s voice broke, and she heard an agonized groan that was not her own.
“All I wanted was you,” she sobbed. “But she convinced me you could never love me, and I fled before I could wait around for you not to come. And I did it again, when I left London after the ball. My mother became a different person—a deeply unhappy person—after she spent so much time trying to fix me. I couldn’t let that happen to you.
She sent me away eventually. I knew you’d never do that.
You’d stay, and you’d just grow to hate me. ”
She’d thought that if she never saw that London morning, it would never have to be over.
She’d never have to feel the defeat of his absence, and she’d always get to remember him as the one person who smiled when she walked into a room.
For years, all she’d had to remember him by were flashes of curls and dimples and a bunch of letters tied together with twine. Now, she had so much more.
“I did come, Della,” he whispered. Her eyes were still misty, so much so that he was only a hazy silhouette in her vision.
She couldn’t see him properly, but she heard his tortured voice, and she felt those words in her soul.
“That morning. I came to say goodbye, and she told me you were already gone. I could never resent you, let alone hate you. Being with you would never make me unhappy. It would be the pleasure of my life to care for you, if you’d let me. ”
Strong, heavy sobs wracked Della’s body. It all rushed over her at once. That what she thought would always be her greatest mistake had in fact been another aspect of her life orchestrated and perpetrated by the person she’d called her mother.
She didn’t know what to say, or if there was anything she could do to fix this.
Some part of her wanted to apologize, to beg his forgiveness for the way life had managed to ruin them so fully.
Della remembered their rule, though. Instead of this apology feeling warranted enough to break it, it instead felt woefully insufficient.
Della looked up at him, just once. She’d never seen that face so despondent. It was as if she could see the pieces of his broken heart lying on the plush carpet between them. She started to speak, to utter that apology, no matter how inadequate it would be.
Andrew shook his head.