Page 10 of One Golden Ring
My grandfather moves swiftly to the door and opens it for us.
“See you tomorrow,” he says as I let Darcy lead me out to the porch.
It’s absolutely freezing out here, but I’d much rather keep holding her hand than pull on my leather gloves.
We head down the porch steps, our breath making little clouds in the air, a million stars shimmering in the sky above us.
As soon as we get down to the driveway the peaceful silence is ruined by the crunch of the snowy gravel under our feet.
I figure it’s broken the spell, and I wait for her to saysomething to me, to start asking the thousands of questions I know she must have.
But she doesn’t say a word. So we just walk on, her warm hand snug in mine as I soak in a few extra minutes to pretend it’s all real.
I don’t want to get used to it though, so I speak up once we’re around the first curve.
“They can’t see us anymore,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she says like she’s forgotten she was holding my hand. “Right, sorry.”
The second she lets go my hand feels profoundly empty and I just want to grab hers back. But I shove my hand into the pocket of my coat instead, like maybe I’ll forget it there. There are other things to worry about right now. Darcy deserves an explanation.
“I probably should have seen that coming,” I say.
“You told him I was your… girlfriend?” she asks, a furrow in her brow like she’s more confused than angry. I guess that’s a good thing.
“Definitely not,” I say firmly.
“Well he certainly seems to think it,” she adds.
“I guess I talk about you,” I admit, shrugging. “From time to time.”
“What do you say about me?” Her voice is softer now.
I want to tell her, but I can’t really think of anything specific. When I’m at work I see her more than I see my own shadow, and when am I ever not at work? I guess she’s in the background of most of the stories I tell my grandfather—and apparently in the foreground more than I realized.
Darcy puts out most of the fires in my professionallife and has a hand in almost every part of my day. And as I think about it now, with Judi-Bloom off at school I wonder who or what else I would even bother to tell my grandfather about if not Darcy.
But those are all work stories. It doesn’t explain what he assumed about us.
I scan the snowy woods around the lodge, as if they contain the answer to why Grandpa would think I have feelings for this woman. But it’s not an easy task, because he’s not completely wrong.
The truth is that I like everything about Darcy. I like the way she accepts my silence, even right now, when she probably wants to know what in high heaven is going on.
I like the way she attacks her work without complaint, and the way she makes everyone around her feel important.
Maybe I’ve shared some of those things with him?
But I definitely haven’t talked about her beautiful brown eyes, or the way she smells the tiniest bit like vanilla sugar when she leans over my desk to review the schedule, like she’s made of all those sweet temptations she loves to eat.
And I haven’t told him about the way she’ll laugh sometimes and just the happy sound of it makes me feel unmoored from myself—like I’m falling but I don’t want it to ever stop.
She’s not laughing now though. She’s just waiting with the patience of a saint for me to answer her question. It might be her best gift when it comes to me, that ability to take in my silence and not assume the worst. Even Addie had a hard time with that.
The thought of my wife has guilt washing over me for even pretending to be interested in another woman.
I’m sorry, Addie.
I’ve been lonely, of course I have, but it’s no excuse. I still love her, even if she’s not here anymore.
