Page 144 of The Cost of Forgetting You

“Glad I could help, I guess.”

Somewhere in the night, an owl calls. We pause, listening, but a response never comes.

Her gaze searches mine. “I didn’t mean to take away from your pain, Henry, I promise. I just—” Her hands flutter aimlessly in the air, grasping for words. “I guess what I was trying to say is, the door is open. We can be together, you and me. Finally. Truett loves you and?—”

“I can’t.” The words are out before I even have a second to process them. “I can’t, Lucy. I’m sorry.”

She blinks rapidly, gaze searching my face in the dim moonlight. “What?” The word is so soft, so malleable I almost want to try and change it. To change all of this and make it better than reality ever is.

But I can’t change it. I can only take what is and make the best of it, like I always have. Or have always tried to do, at least.

“If Delilah… If I ever want to have a chance at her forgiveness… for her to come back…” I let my voice trail off. There’s no need to say the rest aloud. I think hearing that we can never be together once in a lifetime is more than enough, let alone twice.

“…then you have to leave the door open,” Lucy offers. A sacrifice and an acceptance all in one.

I nod. “Exactly.”

Lucy Parker is the love of my life. I thought it before, when we were two kids who barely knew each other, but I’m certain of it now. Across time and space, and so many years, she is it for me. I feel it in my bones.

My daughter, though? She is my entire heart outside my body. An organ I can’t live without. If she were ever to come back and find that I’ve moved on with Lucy… That’s a break that could never be fixed. A risk I’m not willing to take.

“I’m so sorry.” The words are Band-Aids on a gaping wound. Useless to stop the bleeding, but I try anyway. I have to try.

Lucy stands. The cold rushes in, in her absence, drenching me to my bones. She strides forward, blanket wrapped tightly, until she reaches the front step and cranes her neck back, taking in the only clear view of the moon from the porch. She’s awash with silver-blue light, so similar to her eyes that it aches. Every gentle angle, every golden strand of hair. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and everything I’ll never be able to have. Watching her, I could fall to my knees and weep. But it wouldn’t change anything.

“I learned a long time ago not to argue with you when you’ve made up your mind that you’re doing what’s right for someone else.” She glances over at me, half her face cast in shadow. “I just wonder when, if ever, you’ll consider if you’ve done what’s right for you.”

I open my mouth, but no words come out. She nods, like she expected as much, and steps off the porch. “Good night, Henry.”

It’s the second time today I’ve watched a part of my heart walk away. There’s so little of it left, it’s a wonder it still beats at all.

Lucy doesn’t come back the next day. Or the one after that. Or any of the next fifty that follow. I get a job at the music school and start teaching lessons there. I establish some stilted version of a life in the gaping hole of what was, still too afraid to dream of what could be. I’m not necessarily thriving, but I’m surviving. And I call Delilah, because I promised I would.

She doesn’t answer, but I leave her voicemails. Maybe she listens to them; maybe she doesn’t. Either way, I’ll keep showing up for her. Holding her in this small way, until I can squeeze her in my arms again.

And if that day never comes? Well, I try not to think about it much.

I don’t know why I know it’s coming the day Lucy returns. It’s almost as if the air is sharper, the warmth more saturated, the impending evening storm more electric. By the time she steps foot on my porch, I’m already waiting for her at my door.

“I know we can’t be together,” she says. “But can we at least be friends?”

My smile is wafer thin but so, so genuine. “I’d like that.”

I welcome her in. Offer her coffee. We sit in the breakfast nook and watch the rain come down, saying nothing while feeling everything.

The next week, she comes back. And the pattern repeats.

Some days we talk till our voices are raw. Others we sit in companionable silence. We never touch. We don’t discuss our feelings for each other. We just are, and that’s enough. It’s more than I ever let myself hope for.

The day Delilah’s letter comes, Lucy sits with me in the quiet. Doesn’t speak when I dissolve into tears. Nods her head, with pride in her eyes, when I tell her how strong my daughter is. So much stronger than I’ll ever be.

Sometimes I make the trek to the farm instead. We sit at the table with Truett and play cards or eat steak tacos or talk about the plans he has to expand the farm. We celebrate birthdays together. Holidays. Time passes, and I don’t feel it going, which is a blessing in and of itself. One I forget to be grateful for until it’s too late.

The morning of November 7th, 2021, I’m in my office when there’s a knock at the door. I barely hear it from the room, since it’s the farthest down the hall. It’s only when it comes again, louder and rapid as a racing pulse, that I abandon the schedule I was working on for my music lessons through the holidays and make my way to the door, expecting Lucy to be standing there with a new coffee creamer for us to taste, always too sweet but worth trying if it makes her happy.

Instead it’s Truett I find, slump-shouldered on my doorstep with his hands in his pockets. He’s taller than me, built broad like his father but kind as his mother. His back is to me, and when I open the door, he spins around, stealing my breath with the tears streaming down his face.

“What’s wrong?”

---