“In hindsight, I’m not entirely sure why I proposed,” Andrew said. “Of course I am so pissed off at her now that it’s hard to have any perspective. And then, you know, am I so shite that a woman would leave me days before the wedding?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” Sorrel said. Inwardly she wanted to laugh, not at Andrew exactly but at the whole idea that he could be so clueless as his engagement unraveled, such a poor judge of Miranda’s character, so hesitant to claim his own.
“At any rate,” he said, “the Sunday before the wedding, Miranda and I had an awful row. It began stupidly, as fights so often do, arguing over the fact that my church was too small and the guests would be budged up in the pews. It escalated in an embarrassingly public way, a shouting match on the church lawn, in full view of dozens of people with mobile phones, some of whom belonged to Christ Church.”
“Surely a lovers’ quarrel is hardly news. Why would they care?” Sorrel asked.
“Because I was wearing my full vestments and swearing like a sailor. Clearly Miranda was already out the door in her head, and this was just the excuse to break it off. A picture of me, surplice and stole flapping, arms waving, in the Daily Mail was just the thing.”
“Oh, that would be a scene,” Sorrel said.
“Yes, it would. It was, and my bosses were none too happy,” Andrew said. “Hence the scurrying away to Wiltshire to lick my wounds and give the bishop time to forgive me and my parishioners time to forget me.”
“Okay, this might sound harsh, and I completely understand the feeling of being stared at and whispered about, not to mention being ditched, but this is the trauma that has so destroyed you that you’ve terrified your family into tiptoeing around you?” Sorrel asked. “All this stormy moping and simmering distress is because you got dumped?”
“Why, thank you for your sympathy,” Andrew said.
“Look, I’m sorry Miranda broke your heart and then stomped on it,” Sorrel said.
“Ouch,” said Andrew.
“I know how it feels to have the rug pulled out,” Sorrel said. “I know exactly what it’s like when everything you thought was real and true turns out to be false.”
Andrew stared at Sorrel for a moment, his head cocked and one eyebrow raised.
“What makes you such an expert on loss and love and everything in between?” he asked.
“Oh, you have no idea how expert I am on matters of the heart!” Sorrel snapped. “I am the product of every kind of loss you can imagine, and I am stronger and smarter for it so don’t you dare question me.”
This was a very different Sorrel than the one who had trailed Andrew around the Globe or sat before a fire sipping tea. He realized he’d rather like to know this Sorrel better and felt, for the first time since her arrival, optimistic about her promise to grow something out of nothing.
“You’re right,” Andrew said. “A little blunt, but right. Most of my wounds are self-inflicted, and my ego is probably as broken as my pitiful heart.”
“I can be opinionated,” Sorrel said, already regretting her outburst. It’s just that she’d seen tragedy and regret up close, too. And she’d seen what it could do to someone like Rob Short, who had no hope left and was made transparent by his loss and afire with despair.
“I won’t let you give yourself over to desolation, Andrew,” Sorrel said. “If I did, I would be ignoring all the hard lessons I learned last summer, and what kind of friend would that make me?”
“You’ve certainly got the courage of your convictions.” He turned to Sorrel and in the darkness she could see that tears stood in his eyes. “What kind of man am I then? I mean, it’s my job to guide people through their darker times, and here I am completely gutted by a woman I loved. Why couldn’t I save something I thought was precious?”
“Oh, Andrew.” Sorrel took his hand again. “You can’t save something that doesn’t want saving.” She thought of her father, his slide into alcohol-fueled fury at the loss of her mother. She remembered the nights the sisters would sit in her room, huddled on her bed listening to Thaddeus Sparrow stumble into the house, swearing and crying out for his wife, Honor, shouting for the girls, cursing God himself.
Wags began to whine at Andrew’s feet. He knelt down next to the dog and stroked her gently. Sorrel let the silence fall around them, waiting for Andrew to resurface.
“Thank you, Sorrel,” he said finally and stood, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes.
“For what?”
“I suppose for listening, for pulling me up short, for, I hope, forgiving me.”
“It isn’t my place to forgive you, Andrew,” Sorrel said. “You’re grieving the loss of something you thought was a certainty, and there is no blame to be laid at your door for that. Besides, you’ve done nothing requiring forgiveness from me except, I guess, being shouty and rude and generally unfriendly.”
“Oh, Lord, you are so right,” Andrew said. “I’ve gotten too used to being judged a failure at—well—everything lately. I haven’t been fit company and I certainly haven’t been worthy of this family’s love. But you have my word, I will turn over a new leaf, no pun.” He laughed weakly. “Please, let me prove myself to you and that garden. I know it’s what Stella wants, and I owe her any chance I have at a fresh start. Will you let me help?”
“Oh, I wish you would,” Sorrel said, and they walked home together under the stars.
UNDER THOSE SAME stars and a moon that was no more than a silver slipper, the garden stirred in the night air. The place where Wags had dug and nosed lay in the shadow of the wall. A tiny, curling tendril of green reached upward. The spot on the wall where Sorrel had brushed at the browning lichen was damp with night dew, the lichen slipping off in thin strips to the ground beneath. Inside, Sorrel’s footprints began to fill with clear water, the pea gravel swelling and the dusty soil soaking up the wet. One could argue that the afternoon of rain had seeped into the benighted garden, and the mild evening had simply fed a growing that was long overdue. But that was not what was happening, not at all.
CHAPTER 8
Rose
Sorrel woke late. Her head ached and it felt as if every limb weighed a thousand pounds. Shit, she thought, I’m getting sick. She pulled herself out of bed and into the all-singing, all-dancing modern shower. The water was hot, and the pressure so much better than in town. By the time she toweled off, Sorrel felt more herself. She dressed for a day in the garden: jeans, a navy sweater of indeterminate age, and her clogs, which had once been thick black rubber and were now worn into soft, gray, gummy blobs. As she made her way to the kitchen, she passed the dog pile in front of the great hall fireplace. She reached into the warm mass of bodies for a pat and the comfort of velvety muzzles and furred bellies. But the dogs roused and shuffled away from her hand.