He stepped toward her, “What can I do to make it right?”
Charlotte shook her head, “Bring my mother back to me. Make it so your mother never hit her. Or hell, at least make it so that your mother wasn’t the one that did it, Declan. At this point, I would even take that. But you can’t! You can’t undo what’s been done. And you can’t change the past or wish for a better one.”
Declan nodded, “I can’t. I wish you knew how much I would give to be able to, Charlotte. I would take all the pain on myself, if I could. I would invent a time machine and change everything that happened. Even if it meant I never would have met you, I would do it. Anything to make you happy, Charlotte. I would stop at nothing to make our reality different than this one.”
Oh, how she loved him right then. Even when she shouldn’t have.
“Declan,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t…”
“I know,” he said, somber. “I knew it as soon as I told you.”
********
They hadn’t spoken the first ten minutes of the drive back to Sullivan’s Island. Declan wasn’t sure why he decided to tell her about Henry.
“My father is dying,” he said. “It’s why I’m here.”
Charlotte gasped, “Oh my God. Declan. I’m so sorry. What’s wrong?”
“Cancer,” he said, looking straight ahead as they crossed the Ravenel Bridge. “Pancreatic. The worst kind to get, they always say. And they’re right. He’s disappearing before my eyes every time I see him.”
Charlotte reached out and placed her hand on his as it rested on top of the steering wheel.
“I’m so incredibly sorry,” she said. “How long?”
Declan shrugged, “He probably won’t make it through the summer. Or maybe even the month. I don’t know. It’s happening fast.”
“Is he in hospice?” she asked quietly.
“He’s at home, we have nurses there around the clock,” Declan nodded. “Just keeping him as comfortable as we can while being in familiar surroundings.”
Charlotte didn’t say anything. What was there to say?
“I’m not telling you this to gain any sort of sympathy,” Declan added. “I just thought you should know. I mean, it’s why I’m here, and, as usual, tragedy brings us together.” He sighed. “It’s like we’re cursed. We can’t be with one another unless it involves agony.”
Charlotte sighed, “It seems that way. I feel so terrible for you, Declan. How does he feel about it?”
“He’s pissed off,” Declan said. “I think he has a lot of regret in his life. And someone like him, they assume they’re above death itself. So I think it’s a huge surprise to him that he’s having to deal with this whole death thing. It’s for the plebs after all.” Declan grinned. “As if DeGraffs are immortal. His father died of the same thing when he was about my age. I’ll probably go the same way unless one of my fellow billionaires finances a cure.”
“Don’t say that,” Charlotte said. “Don’t talk about dying. I can’t even bear to think of you…” She choked back a sob. “I can’t stand to think of anything like that happening to you, Declan.”
He stared at her for a brief moment as they pulled off the bridge and onto Coleman Boulevard.
“But Charlotte,” he said quietly. “I’m as good as dead to you anyway. You never want to see me again. Or be with me. Or even think of me. Not after what I told you.”
She looked at him, anger in her expression, “Stop it. You’re not being fair. Just because I can’t be with you doesn’t mean you’re dead to me. You’re more alive to me than anything else in my life has ever been. And even knowing it can never work out with us, you will continue to live in the very place you obliterated, Declan. There’s no one else that will ever get that piece of my heart. So even if I never see you again, don’t think it means I won’t think of you every night when I go to sleep. Or that I haven’t thought of you every night since you left me.” She was sobbing now. “If only I could forget about you! It would make all of this so much easier for me. But I can never forget you. You will haunt me til the day I die. The dream of what could have been, the taste of something so great that I can never be with anyone else, will stick with me forever.”
They were almost to the island now, but Declan couldn’t wait. He pulled his Range Rover over on the side of Coleman, right before the Ben Sawyer Bridge.