“I—Babe, I did it for you,” he found himself blurting out, even if she didn’t appear to want to know anything further about him other than what he was eating for lunch. “I only did it for you. I thought you should know.”
Babe cast her glorious eyes downward; he saw her shoulders tremble before she gathered herself. When she raised her face to him, she was herself once more; his, his beautiful Babe. The only woman—hell, the only person—he realized with a jolt, that he had ever loved.
Even more than his mama.
Babe’s eyes, for just that moment, were completely sympathetic, aware; full of knowledge. Knowledge he alone had imparted, a secret code between best friends. Her eyes were warm—and grateful.
“I know,” she whispered, turning away from Betsey, her voice intended for only his ears. He had to lean in to hear. “I know. And thank you.”
He wasn’t sure he’d heard it right; he thought he had. He wished he had—Dear God let this be true forever and ever Amen.
But she was already gone, gliding away, pulled by her sister; elegant as always, although very slow, each step deliberate, a defiant act of living. Her back was straight, formidable; she never turned to look at him. And so he wasn’t sure, after all.
“Babe?” he whispered, and it was like before; he was sure she would hear him above the din of people laughing and chatting, and stop, pick him out, come back for him, take him with her.
But she didn’t. He turned around, blindly, and felt hot, disapproving stares burning into his flesh. His ears buzzed with hissing and sneers, taunting, dismissive.
Truman plopped back down, knocking over a water glass, sending cutlery falling softly to the plush carpet. His heart slowed, but now his lungs seemed to be working overtime; he was cold and clammy, listing to the right, then to the left, as helplessly as if he were on choppy water, unmoored. Unloved.
And to his astonishment he burst into tears, sloppy, messy tears, and whispered, a cry from the tattered heart that he hadn’t understood he’d possessed until now, “Babe, Babe, Babe,” and then the ma?tre d’ was grabbing his arm, holding him up and escorting him from the restaurant, trying to shield him from the stares. The proprietor mumbled something about taking care of the bill, but Truman didn’t care.
He knew that he would never see her again.
CHAPTER 23
…..
And they lived happily ever after….
Who did? Who the hell did? Babe wanted to know, on the days when she felt strong enough for outrage. Because she didn’t. She sure as hell didn’t. Life was no fairy tale, no matter what her mother had told her. She had no prince to kiss her, to wake her up from this nightmare.
She’d had a prince. Once.
It wasn’t the tall man, stooped now, his shoulders hunched always with regret, with thinning silver hair, who sat by her bed and held her hand and sloppily cried on it. No, Bill wasn’t her prince, and had he ever been? Maybe, once, when he promised her salvation in the form of riches, a fabulous partnership designed to be the envy of all. Maybe then. When riches and prestige were the only things that mattered to her; when she was still her mother’s daughter.
But then she met another. A fair-haired prince, her true love. And they told each other all their secrets, bared to each other their souls, and were going to live happily ever after together. They’d even talked about it, how she’d most likely outlive Bill, and so the two of them would live together, become one of those touching older couples who still held hands, still danced in the evening when the shadows were long, while a scratchy phonograph played “The Tennessee Waltz.”
That was the story they told each other, after the first story, the story of how they met, was no longer sufficient; when the future was closer than the past. But no less golden.
But now she was dying, and Bill was the one who would remain. And Truman could not be by her side, holding her hand, even though she longed for his touch, cried out for it, she feared, when she was not herself, when the medicine could not ease the pain, the terror of not being able to draw breath, of being suffocated. She wanted Truman in the same way she’d wanted her father when she was little, when she was scared, when she knew something ominous and terrifying was looming, and she was too small by herself.
But she couldn’t have Truman, she wouldn’t have Truman. Truman had betrayed her, betrayed Bill, betrayed the family they had created. “We stick together. We don’t air our dirty laundry. Family is first, family is everything.” Her mother’s words still trumped all—all feeling, all impulse, all longing. All compassion.
Because deep in her heart, Babe knew something else, too.