He went very still. I’d spoken softly, but there was power behind my words and he knew it.
“I know I owe you a great deal, Tess,” he said finally. “But can you give me some time to figure this out? There’s so much going on right now, with things at the factory falling apart and Jilly being sick and me trying to help out at the polio hospital. It’s just a difficult time to suddenly … split up and have to answer questions and … Can you give me some time?”
I took in a deep breath, studying the pattern of moonlight on the ceiling. For me, divorce meant freedom. Shame would come along with it, true, but I would be free. Henry never would be.
“How long?” I asked. “How long are you asking me to wait?”
“A month? Can you give me that?” he asked. “I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“All right,” I said. I could wait a while longer. Knowing I would eventually be set free—that knowledge would keep me going.
“Can you hold off on telling Vincent?” he asked. “He might … I don’t know. Do something. Turn us in, or … He already hates me. I can tell by the way he looks at me at the hospital.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” I said. “And he wouldn’t ‘turn you in.’ And no, I’m sorry, but I have to tell him. He has to know I’m going to be free. I don’t know if he’ll still want me, but I need to tell him. I deserve that.”
He sighed. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose you’re right.”
I rolled onto my side to look at him. “What will you do?” I asked.
He studied the ceiling as if he could see his future there. “After we’re divorced, and after an appropriate amount of time, I suppose I’ll ask Violet to marry me.”
“Henry, it’s so wrong,” I said.
“Violet isn’t you,” he said. “All she wants in a marriage is riches and a comfortable life. I can give her that.” He suddenly laughed. “Actually,” he said, “here’s a crazy idea. I could start an affair with Violet during the next month. That would be my adultery.”
I had to laugh at the brilliance of the plan. If I’d cared a whit for Violet, I might have thought to warn her. As it was, I found myself worrying that she would not be as easy to manipulate as Henry was thinking. I doubted Violet would surrender as easily as I had to Henry’s lack of ardor and intimacy.
“I think she’s going to be a more difficult wife than I’ve been,” I said.
He chuckled, then rolled onto his side to face me. He stretched his arm across the space between our beds and I did the same to take his hand.
“Tonight,” he said, “you are the most wonderful wife I could imagine.”
76
The following day at the hospital seemed to drag on forever despite the fact that we were frightfully busy admitting new patients, a couple of whom were very seriously ill. Even though Vincent and I worked together in the admissions tent, I was afraid I wouldn’t get a chance to ask him if we could talk after our shifts were over. Finally I gave him the message the only way I could manage: I wrote it on a slip of paper and attached it to the patient chart I handed him.
I need to talk to you. After work?
He looked up from the chart in surprise. He wore no mask—he almost never did—and the sunlight caught the perfect angles of his face, the thick-lashed dark eyes, the lips I hadn’t kissed in far too long. I wanted that face back. I wanted all of him back.
He nodded, then returned his attention to his patient while I stood there with my heart pounding from both anxiety and desire.
I was undeniably nervous about talking to him. Telling him everything. I was unsure if he would still want me once I was divorced. I was no longer the sweet, innocent, untouched Little Italy girl he’d spent half his life hoping to marry. And how would he feel about Henry and Honor’s relationship? If I didn’t know the two of them as well as I did, if Henry had not shared his heart and soul with me as he had the last couple of days, I would still be shocked by their relationship myself. Vincent had been raised with the same values I had: colored and white should keep to their own kind when it came to romance. But he was a softhearted man. He would understand. I was counting on it.
We met in his car at the end of the day. The windows were rolled down to fight the heat and we had to bat away mosquitos, but they were a tiny concern compared to the things I needed to tell him.
“We should probably be talking in public,” he said, before I even opened my mouth to speak.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“It’s hard for me to be with you alone,” he said. “It’s hard for me not to touch you. I tend to forget you’re no longer mine to touch.”
I couldn’t help but smile, my trust in him and our history returning. “Henry’s going to give me a divorce,” I said.
“Tess,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Really? How did you change his mind?”
“I have a bargaining chip,” I said, and then I told him about walking in on Henry and Honor. I told him everything I knew about their relationship. Everything Henry had told me. When I saw Vincent’s expression finally shift from shock to compassion, I knew I’d given him a fair account.
He shook his head. “Well, I feel sad for them,” he said, “but I’d frankly like to knock Henry’s block off. How could he do this to you? He took advantage of you. He made you part of his illicit scheme.”
“I was pregnant, remember?” I said. “I needed a husband.”
“You could have had a husband who loved you, instead of this … con artist.” There was bitterness in his voice and I knew he still had some anger at me for how I’d handled everything.
“You’re still mad at me,” I said.
He looked toward the woods, silent a moment, and then shook his head. “Only a little,” he said with a small smile.
“I wish we were at St. Leo’s right now instead of batting mosquitos away in your car.” I looked at him. “I miss our old life so much, Vincent.”
He took my hand. Held it on his knee. I felt my whole body melt.
“Let’s get it back,” he said.
“Can we?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes,” he said. “We can and we should.”
“I’ll be a divorcee,” I reminded him. “The church won’t—”
“I don’t care,” he interrupted. “And anyway, didn’t you say you were married by a justice of the peace?”
I nodded.
“Then as far as the church is concerned, you’re not married.”
I gasped. I hadn’t thought of that and it was as if a weight had suddenly been lifted off my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how much the church—my Catholic faith—still mattered to me.
“I don’t know how long the divorce will take,” I said.
“I’ll wait.”
“I never wanted Henry.”
“Shh.” He squeezed my hand. “Let’s not think about him.”
“But I do care about him, Vincent,” I said. “I don’t love him. I don’t want him. But I do care.”
“You have a good heart, Theresa De Mello.” He smiled at me. “That’s the thing I love best about you.”
“You’ll still have me?”