THERE WAS ANGUISH in his words, and for a moment Mellie couldn’t answer. There was too much in his question to fully comprehend. Before she could articulate her confusion, Delano continued speaking.
“I know I messed up the other night, walking away from you, but I realized today, when you were in danger, how much I love you.”
Her heart was racing, joy flooding her, but Mellie knew there was something missing from his story.
“Why did you walk away, Delano?” His mouth tightened, as though in pain, and she knew she was on the right track. “What happened on Friday?”
He got up abruptly, releasing her hand. For a moment she thought he was going to walk away, but instead he paced across the kitchen, as though the effort to sit still was too much for him. He stopped at her kitchen window, his hands gripping the edge of her sink.
“Do you know how my mother died?” he asked, surprising Mellie with what sounded at first like a change of subject.
“Yes,” she replied, stiffening, her hands clenched so tightly her fingers ached.
He’d only once ever spoken about his mother.
“The boy she was trying to save was my best friend, Everard.”
“I know,” she admitted.
“Mum and Dad had taken us to the beach.” He spoke quietly, but with a gravelly edge, the words seeming to come reluctantly from his throat. “Mum was laying out the food. Dad went back to the car for something, and told us not to go into the water until he got back, because the sea was rough.”
Mellie’s hands tightened into fists, until her short nails were digging into her palms. She wanted to tell him to stop, not to relive the pain, but knew he needed to. And he needed her to listen.
Just like she’d needed to share her pain and embarrassment with him.
“Everard...” He paused, shaking his head. “Everard wasn’t afraid of anything. He said he was going swimming, dared me to go with him. I wouldn’t. I told him that if my father said not to swim until he got back, that’s what I would do. I tried telling him that he wouldn’t have to wait long, but he just laughed and ran into the water. There was a rip current and an undertow.”
“I’m sorry.” How inadequate those words sounded, but it was the best she could do through the lump in her throat.
“When he first called for help, I thought he was kidding, and shouted for him to stop. Mum ran down and dove in. Then, just as she got to him, they both disappeared.”
He stopped, and swallowed. There was no need for him to continue. Mellie could imagine the scene. The chaos and attempted rescue. The devasting news being delivered to not one but two families. The fear and guilt a little boy would feel at witnessing the death of two people he loved. With jerky movements he paced back across the kitchen and dropped into the chair again.
“You asked me what happened on Friday? Everard’s mother came into the clinic. I hadn’t seen her since just after the funerals. Since I heard her blame me for Everard’s death.” He shook his head slowly, then his expression changed from sorrow to a kind of desperate determination. “Now you know why I can’t stay here. The memories come at me when I least expect them, and I know whenever Daddy looks at me, it must bring it all back for him, as well.”
Oh, she could hardly bear to see his agony, but, at the same time, she couldn’t leave him wallowing. She knew how detrimental it was to live in the past, castigating yourself without end.
“Delano.” She sought the words, said a little prayer that she would get this conversation right. “Whatever Janice said to make you believe she blamed you, was said in the midst of the type of pain that would make anyone lash out. It’s not something you can ever forget, but don’t you think it’s time to forgive yourself—and Janice—and put it behind you?”
“I don’t blame her. How can I? She was right. They died because I didn’t stop Everard from going swimming. If I had—”
“How would you have stopped him?” The question popped out of her mouth before she even thought. “You said he wasn’t afraid of anything. Was he the kind of child you could stop when he made up his mind to do something?”
Even in distress, Delano couldn’t help the upward twitch of his lips. “Not him. He was adventuresome and hardheaded. Even his mother said so, more times than I could count, after we’d gotten into some scrape or other.”
Mellie got up then and moved close to him, looking down into his face, willing him to listen to what she had to say.
“You’ve been living in the past. Beating yourself up for something that wasn’t your fault and you couldn’t have stopped even if you’d tried. And you know what breaks my heart, Delano?” When he shook his head, she said, “It’s the thought that you could have died that day too. That I might never have had the chance to know and love you.”
“Mellie.”
Her name came out of him like a breath, almost too quiet to be heard, but the wonder and joy in it made Mellie’s heart leap and race.
Then he was on his feet, holding her close, and it felt exactly like coming home.
“Come back with me,” he said. “To Trinidad. You can start a shelter there. God knows there are enough stray animals to keep you busy.”
And her heart, which had been sent soaring by his declaration of love, plummeted.
For a long moment she stayed where she was, her arms tight around his waist, her cheek pressed into the curve of his neck. Savoring his touch. His love.
When she pulled back to look up at him, her desolation must have shown, because the hope and joy in his expression faded.
“I can’t do that, Delano.” She said it softly, aching with the need to comfort him, but also with the determination to speak her truth. “This is my home. Where I’ve built a life for myself, found a place where I belong and can make a difference.”
“But you can do that in Trinidad too.” The note of desperation in his voice tore at her heart. “With me.”
“I don’t know that I can.” She held Delano’s gaze, as his eyes widened and his lips firmed into a straight line. “Even if I put aside everything I’ve worked for, abandoned my father and yours—just when Dr. Milo most needs someone to depend on—I’m not sure our relationship would work.”
He released her, and stepped back, leaving her to shiver with the chill filling her center.
“I don’t understand. Explain.”
There was no plea in his voice, only demand. Anger, she suspected might come later, but for now he was shocked and hurt. Only honesty would do.
“The losses you suffered when you were young are horrendous, something you will never completely get over. But you’ve blamed yourself for that loss—for twenty years—and, as far as I can see, run away from every reminder of what happened. Every reminder of your mom and Everard, who were both so important to you. You’ve even run away from your father, who loves you so much and needs you now, and I’m sure needed you long before now too.”
She could see his face tightening, his eyes going flat, but she couldn’t stop now. Not when everything she wanted was at stake.
“If something were to happen—something bad—I got sick, or we lost a child, or I was hurt, would you run away from me too?”
He flinched, as though she’d struck him, and his face paled.
Had she gotten through to him, or would this be the end?
Delano shook his head, and anguish flashed across his face, then was hidden as he turned away. She saw his chest expand on a huge breath, and she waited for his response, the air pent in her own lungs.
“I don’t know.”
As his words registered, all sensation left her legs, and Mellie blindly reached for the back of the nearest chair, holding on to it for support. Her mouth was dry, and the thumping of her heart was harsh, made her feel sick.
Then she found her courage, and strength, and although she knew the pain of loss was hovering, waiting to swamp her, she straightened. When she reached out to touch his shoulder his muscles were locked and tight.
“Figure that out, Delano,” she said, proud of how steady her voice came out. “Figure it out and let me know.”
And when he strode out the door, she let him go.
Delano made his way out to the road, and stood there for a moment, lost. Mentally and emotionally battered.
And angrier than he could remember being for a long time.
How could Mellie not understand?
She was the first person he’d spoken to about what had happened all those years ago, what he’d seen and heard. Why couldn’t she comprehend that he couldn’t stay here, in this place so full of memories and reminders that crept out of doors or jumped out around corners?
That the pain of it was something he couldn’t wait to get away from?
The rage boiling inside him was preferable to any other emotion just then, and it sustained him long enough for him to call a taxi to take him back to his car. In fact, he nurtured the anger, welcomed it, stewed in it all the way to his father’s house.
But once there, he turned off the car and sat in it without getting out, reliving all Mellie had said, unable to sustain his fury.
Knowing she was right.
He had run away.
It had been the only thing he’d known to do, to deal with the agony of loss.
His entire world had fallen apart, and he still didn’t know how to put it together again.
Wasn’t sure he even wanted to try.
There was another world, removed from all of this, waiting for him back in Trinidad and it would be simpler—easier—to go back to it. Leave all this turmoil behind.
Finally, he got out of the car and made his way into the house, standing for a moment in the formal living room, which hardly ever got used.
It’s for when visitors come, his mum used to say; a sentiment echoed by Aunt Eddie.
All of his mother’s knickknacks were still on the shelves, and in the cabinets. The paintings she’d collected on the wall. He wouldn’t be surprised if the rug was the same as it had been twenty years before too.
While he’d run away, his father seemed to have stayed stuck.
How had he been able to bear it?
Suddenly, it was imperative to know, and Delano went through to the patio, looking across to where his father sat beneath the shade of the poinciana tree.
Dad was leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, and Delano hesitated, not wanting to disturb him if he was asleep. But before he could go back inside, Dad opened his eyes and smiled.
“Hi, son. Were you looking for me?”
The carefully searching way his father looked at him spoke volumes. Very little got past Dr. Milo and, although he hadn’t commented, Delano knew his dad had noticed the change in him since Friday.
Suddenly, Delano was overtaken by waves of love and gratitude, sadness and longing.
Love for one of the best men he knew.
Gratitude for the fact that man was his father.
Sadness for the lost years, and an overriding longing to have them back.
Or, he thought, as he crossed the lawn to sit on the grass at his father’s feet, longing to have the relationship they’d had before back, rather than the years.
The future doesn’t have to be like the past...
Mellie had said it, in a variety of ways, and she was right.
Of course she was.
Looking up at his father, who was still and silently waiting, Delano felt as though perhaps Dad was feeling the same way too, and something inside him cracked open.
Never to be repaired.
“Dad...” It was a hoarse whisper, and he couldn’t clear his throat enough to make it any clearer. “I want to talk to you about Mum—and the day she died.”
And his father’s nod, along with the hand he laid on Delano’s shoulder, was everything he needed right then.