Chapter 19 Darcy
Irene called me into her office on a gray Tuesday in late November, the wedding season fully behind us, and slid a document across the desk without much preamble.
"I want to offer you a longer contract. A full season, spring through fall, with a real salary instead of per-event fees.
Health insurance through the venue's group plan.
Defined responsibilities so we're not renegotiating scope every time a client sneezes. "
I looked at the number on the page, real and specific and larger than I'd let myself hope for, and felt the old reflex rise immediately, the urge to say yes before she'd finished the sentence, grateful and eager and afraid the offer might vanish if I hesitated.
I recognized the reflex even as it rose, the same one that had once said yes to Claudette before she'd finished a single request, and understood, sitting there in Irene's office with an actual contract in front of me, exactly how much of that reflex I still had left to unlearn.
I made myself hesitate anyway.
"I appreciate this, Irene. Genuinely." I kept my eyes on the document instead of on her, needing the distance to say what came next.
"I want to look at the workload projections before I say yes.
I did the math on the spring calendar last week, and I think this scope, as written, assumes I'm available for evening setup on every single event, which isn't sustainable if you also want me handling the vendor negotiations during business hours. "
Irene raised an eyebrow, not annoyed, something closer to interested. "Go on."
"I'd want a second coordinator brought on for the larger events, even if it's just our junior coordinator taking additional paid hours.
And I'd want the salary structured with a review at six months instead of a year, given how much of this scope is still theoretical.
" I finally looked up at her. "I'm not trying to be difficult.
I just don't want to say yes to something out of gratitude and then discover in April that I've agreed to something I can't actually sustain. "
"That's the right answer." Irene made a note on the document, unhurried, and slid it back toward me with two lines struck through and rewritten in her own hand.
"Some applicants accept more work than they can manage because they're afraid I'll withdraw the offer.
You checked what the job requires before accepting it.
That's what I need from the person running these events. "
"One more thing," Irene added, as I gathered the contract into my bag.
"I want your name on client-facing materials this season.
Not just mine. If you're going to carry this much of the calendar, people should know your name when they book with us.
" It was a small thing, an offer of visible credit rather than the quiet, invisible competence I'd spent twelve years mistaking for its own reward, and I thanked her more warmly than the gesture probably warranted, aware even as I said it that the warmth was really about everything the gesture stood in for.
We settled the terms within twenty minutes, and I drove home with the signed contract on the passenger seat, feeling something settle into place that had nothing to do with Tyler or the Westcotts, a foundation under my own feet that belonged entirely to me and the work I'd built to deserve it.
I called Maxine before leaving the parking lot, unable to wait until I got home to say it out loud to someone. "I negotiated the offer up. Real terms, a review clause, my name on the materials. I didn't just say thank you and sign whatever she put in front of me."
"Of course you didn't." Maxine's voice had a warmth in it that wasn't quite surprise, more like satisfaction at watching something she'd expected finally arrive. "You've been running that woman's calendar for months. You know exactly what you're worth to her."
"I think I finally believe it too," I said, and meant it, sitting a moment longer before starting the car, letting the sentence be true before I drove on.
Joanna texted the next day, asking if we could meet, no agenda specified, just a request phrased more carefully than her usual messages. I almost said no out of pure caution, remembering the sharp edge of her last few texts, but something in the careful phrasing made me curious enough to agree.
She was already at the coffee shop when I arrived, ten minutes early by the look of her half-finished coffee, and she stood when she saw me, which surprised me enough that I noticed it before anything else. "Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure you would."
"I almost didn't." I sat across from her, keeping my guard reasonably up. "What did you want to talk about?"
"I want to apologize. Properly, not the kind where I explain myself into it not really being my fault.
" She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup, and I watched her work up to it, an effort that looked costly rather than performed.
"I used you, Darcy. For years. I asked you to fix things I could have fixed myself, and I let myself believe it was because you were good at it rather than because it was easier to hand you my problems than solve them.
When you left, my first thought wasn't about whether you were okay.
It was who's going to do the benefit now.
I've had a lot of time to sit with what that says about me. "
"It says quite a bit." I kept my voice even, not cruel, just honest. "You joined your mother's version of me more than once, Joanna. The logistics comment, the seating chart correction, all of it happened with you standing right there, and you never once said anything."
"I know. I didn't have the courage to disagree with her, and it was easier to just go along with however she'd decided to treat you.
" Joanna's eyes were bright, and she pressed her lips together for a second, clearly working to hold herself together.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me today.
I just wanted you to hear it directly, the actual thing I did, not some softer version of it. "
I sat with that for a moment, feeling the old instinct to reassure her rise and, for once, letting it pass without acting on it.
"I appreciate you saying that. I mean it.
But I need you to understand that I'm not ready to just resume being close the way we were.
Trust isn't something an apology restores by itself.
It's something you rebuild over time, by doing something different than what you did before. "
"That's fair. More than fair." She nodded, wiping quickly at her eyes. "Can I ask what that looks like? Practically?"
"Small things, for now. Actually asking how I am instead of what I can do for you.
Not repeating whatever your mother says about me without checking whether it's true.
Showing up, occasionally, in ways that cost you something instead of only in ways that are convenient.
" I said it plainly, without cruelty, because I could see she wanted an answer rather than absolution.
"I'm willing to see where that goes. I'm not promising it goes anywhere specific. "
"That's more than I expected. Thank you." She reached across the table, briefly, and I let her take my hand for a moment before we both let go, an uneasy but real beginning to something neither of us could fully name yet.
"Can I ask you one more thing before I go?" Joanna wrapped both hands around her cup again, working up to it. "Do you think Mom's capable of the same kind of conversation we just had? Or is this just something you and I get to have because I actually wanted to have it?"
I thought about it honestly before answering, because Joanna deserved the real answer rather than a diplomatic one. "I don't know. I hope so, for your sake and your father's. I've stopped waiting to find out for mine."
She nodded slowly, absorbing that, and didn't push for anything softer.
"For what it's worth," Joanna added, gathering her coat, "I've started seeing someone.
A therapist. I mentioned it to Mom once, in passing, thinking she might be curious, and she immediately asked whether I had booked a caterer for the baby shower.
I don't think she knows how to hear that any of us needed help.
I think that scares her more than anything else about this whole year. "
"That doesn't surprise me." I considered it, feeling something unexpectedly close to sympathy move through me, thin but real. "I hope it helps. Genuinely."
"It's helping more than I expected." She hesitated at the door of the coffee shop, coat half on. "I know I don't get to ask this yet. But I hope, eventually, you'll let me back in a little. Not all the way. Just a little."
"Ask me again in six months," I said, and meant it as an actual answer rather than a deflection, and something in her face eased at getting a real timeline instead of a vague maybe.
I called Tyler that evening, still holding the warmth of both conversations, the contract and Joanna's apology, and asked if he wanted to spend Saturday together, just the two of us, no paperwork, no family, no agenda beyond enjoying a day.
He said yes immediately, something eager and unguarded in his voice that I hadn't heard in months.
We spent Saturday at the farmers market near my apartment, then walking along the river with coffee in hand, talking about nothing important in the easy rhythm we'd always had underneath everything else, laughing at a dog that stole someone's pretzel, arguing lightly about whether the bridge lights looked better at dusk or full dark.
Tyler bought a bundle of dried flowers from a vendor he clearly had no real opinion about, just wanting an excuse to keep browsing the stalls beside me a while longer, and carried them the rest of the afternoon carefully, keeping them clear of passing cyclists and offering me his free hand on the steps, which struck me, watching him, as its own small unspoken tenderness.
It felt, for the first time since the gala, entirely like the marriage I remembered loving, without any of the weight that had eventually crushed it.
We ended up back at my apartment as the light was fading, sitting on my small porch steps with the last of our coffee gone cold, and there was a pause between us that felt different than the other pauses had, charged in a way I recognized from twelve years of knowing exactly what it meant when it settled over us.
I leaned in and kissed him first, after touching his cheek and waiting for him to turn toward me, and felt him go still with surprise before he kissed me back, careful at first and then not careful at all, both of us letting something back into the space between us that we'd kept carefully out of it for months.
When we finally pulled apart, I kept my hand on his jaw a moment longer, needing him to hear the next part clearly. "I still want to spend tonight here on my own, Tyler. That hasn't changed. This isn't me telling you I'm ready to come back."
"I know." He said it without arguing, without disappointment bleeding through the words, just simple acceptance. "I wasn't expecting anything different. I just wanted today, exactly as it was."
"Today was good." I kissed him once more, lighter this time, and stood, needing the evening to end on my own terms even as every part of me wanted to keep it going. "Thank you for today."
I watched him pull away, then took the flowers inside.
The first vase I tried was too tall, so I used a water glass and put them on the kitchen table.
I wanted to see him again. I could admit that now without picking up the phone to ask him to turn around.
I made myself dinner and left the porch light on until I went to bed.