The One In My Heart

“But I never stopped thinking about her. My ex-wife and I decided we simply didn’t have enough stiff upper lip to preserve our marriage solely for the sake of not having a divorce on the CV. The divorce became final in July of last year. I was about to purchase a ticket to New York when I heard that Zelda was ill again.

“Then she recovered and came to see Maggie in December. Twice I drove out here. But I was…too ashamed, I suppose, to call on her when she was healthy, when I stayed away during her illness. So I stood in front of the house and looked up at the window of the room where she always stayed, like a character from Bowyer Grange. Each time I drove away without seeing her.”

A snowflake fell on my face, the chill from the tiny chip of ice drilling deep beneath my skin. I should have known. I should have guessed from the moment I saw him that he wanted to be together with her again, this man who had “managed” her into the worst episode of her life.

“If you’d like to know whether Zelda would welcome you back into her life,” I said stiffly, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you one way or the other.”

“Nobody can tell me that except Zelda, and that isn’t why I invited myself here today. Today I only wanted to meet you. She spoke a great deal of you last time we met, and I’ve long wished to see the young woman who stuck by her through sickness and health.”

People persisted in misreading my character. When the Somersets looked at me, they saw nothing but reassuring good sense—as if I could ever bear to appear anything but even-keeled and pulled-together. To be otherwise was to feel the seams of my world breaking apart, to sense the distant rumble that would make the whole house of cards come tumbling down.

To Mr. de Villiers, I stood for all that was selfless and courageous—when there was and had only ever been a stark fear of losing the one person who loved me unconditionally.

Usually I shrug off such mistaken praise—giving false impressions wasn’t my intention, merely a by-product of protecting myself. But now, as we stopped walking again next to a stone sundial at the center of Mrs. Asquith’s garden, I realized that Mr. de Villiers hadn’t just wanted to meet me.

He was hoping for my blessing.

“May I ask you a question, Mr. de Villiers?”

“Of course. And please call me Larry.”

“Does Zelda know about the holiday you’d booked?”

The seemingly inconsequential nature of my question surprised Larry. “I never mentioned it to her, but I believe Maggie did a few years ago. Zelda was visiting and they were looking through some travel magazines together, and according to Maggie, when she came across a picture of La Figlia del Mare, she said, ‘Oh, look, that’s the hotel where Larry meant to propose to you.’”

The wildly romantic La Figlia del Mare, which Zelda had been recommending to everyone since.

I placed my hand on the sundial, feeling nothing but a searing cold. “Obviously my opinion doesn’t count. But since you sought me out, Larry, I’m going to assume that it does matter to some extent: I believe you’ll make a wonderful companion for someone, somewhere, but that someone isn’t Zelda.”

He flinched.

“Our life in New York isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good. She has great friends there and a solid support system. You don’t sound as if you’ll be retiring anytime soon. If the two of you get back together, Zelda will be the one expected to relocate, since her studio is much easier to move across the pond than a TV production.

“And then what? We don’t live in fairy tales and true love cures nothing. It’s more or less inevitable that someday she’ll suffer another episode. You’ll feel as if you lost control over your life again. You’ll feel like a failure again. And where does that leave her? Stuck with a man who can only see her illness?”

Larry’s lips moved, but he made no sound. My stomach twisted at how stricken he looked, but a fierce protectiveness burned in me. This man had his chance and he blew it. What made him think he could just waltz back into her life and pick up where they’d left off?

“I want to believe I have changed,” he said at last, his voice cracking a little.

My fingers clenched together. “And you would bet her well-being on that?”

He had no answer for me. We started walking again. The insubstantial snow continued, leaving no evidence behind of having ever been there. I looked up once to see a curtain flutter in the house. Was that Mrs. Asquith, looking out? Or was it Bennett?

“I have a business trip to Manhattan in early May,” Larry said, as we neared the house. “I was hoping to have dinner with Zelda, Bennett, and you. I suppose you’d prefer that I didn’t contact her at all.”

“I’d prefer that before you did anything, you ask yourself whether it would be good for her—or only good for you.”

We climbed up the wide, shallow steps leading up to the front door. Under the portico I stopped and turned to Larry. “I’m sorry that nothing I said was anything you wanted to hear.”

“The fault isn’t yours,” he said sincerely, if wanly. “I have only myself to blame.”