“We’re sorry,” Gillian said. “And we’ll back off, okay?”
“You have nothing to feel sorry about,” I said. “I’m glad for all of you, but the truth is—we’re no longer in the same stages oflife. We won’t ever be again. Some things just aren’t meant to be forever.”
With that, I gathered my bag and headed out the door to my car, then drove home, crying the entire way there.
The next dayI spent at the gallery. Thankfully it was a busy day, so I didn’t have too much time to think. By the time I closed up and drove home, I just wanted to take a shower and go to bed. However, I knew Annie would be waiting with questions about why I left the dinner without her. I’d feigned sleep when she came in and left before she woke, mostly to avoid the conversation. How could I tell her that I’d blown up the most important thing in my life besides her? My friendship with the four women who had carried me through so much. Over, just like that. I wasn’t sure either one of us could forgive me for that.
When I pulled into my driveway, my heart skipped a beat. Dorian’s car. What was he doing here?
I got out, leaving my bag on the passenger seat. Dorian and Annie were kneeling near my potting shed. As I came nearer I saw that they were digging in the dirt. My dirt. A raised bed had been built, long and skinny that ran along the side of the shed. To the side, was a bag of daffodil bulbs.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
They both startled and jumped to their feet.
“Hey, Mom. Surprise.” Annie gestured toward the bed with dirty hands. “Dorian’s built us this for daffodils. My favorite flower.”
“What are you talking about?” I couldn’t comprehend any of this. Dorian in my garden? Planting daffodils? “It’s the wrong time of the year to plant bulbs.”
Dorian still hadn’t said anything, but he stepped closer to me now. “I wanted to … give you something that would tell you how sorry I am for what I did and said and didn’t say.”
“Daffodils?” I asked. “You’re planting daffodils?”
“Just getting the bed ready,” Annie said. “And then we’ll plant them in October and they’ll bloom in early spring. The first color in the garden. Reminding us that spring is coming.”
I closed my eyes, the dream from weeks ago coming to mind. Dorian had been in my garden, cutting my peonies, music all around us. He’d said I needed to let go. Of what, I’d asked. But he hadn’t answered because I’d awakened before he could.
However, this was not a dream. Dorian was not cutting anything. He was making a bed for Annie’s favorite flowers. She’d asked for some for years, but I always told her no. They’d been my mother’s favorite, and the sight of them made me mad. I’d never told Annie the truth, making something up about how they were too ordinary. But really, they were too much. Too bright. Too early. Too full of judgment. Too much my mother.
Yet, here they were preparing to plant them. Without asking me.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked Dorian.
“Before you answer, I’m going to head inside for a cold drink,” Annie said. “You two talk.”
She sprinted from the garden, pony tail bouncing.
“Delphine, come sit. Please.”
Feeling numb, I followed him over to the chairs under my apple tree, well shaded and scented with the ripening fruit.
“I’m sorry for everything,” he said once we were settled. “I didn’t handle things well, and I now know why. I was operating from a place of fear. Loving someone as much or more than I did Nate scared me to death. The thought of losing you and Annie sent me into this weird tailspin of insecurity. I’m not unsure how I feel about you. I’ve been in love with you for a year. I alwaysthought it would just be from afar, but then, I saw a chance and I took it. And lord have mercy, as my mother would say, I fell hard. The weeks with you were some of the happiest of my life. Which made them dangerous. But I know I love you. I want you in my life for as long as I can have you. Even if it hurts when you leave.”
“You love me?”
“With everything I have. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I shut down. Please, give me another chance.” He gestured toward the bag of bulbs. “This is a symbol of my commitment to you. A bed, then planting in the fall, and then being here with you when they bloom.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Residual anger remained, and I almost tried to hang on to it, but then I looked into those blue eyes watching me so intently and with such obvious love, and I let it go. All that fury was swept away in the ocean breeze and lifted up and out of the garden and toward the sea. Leaving behind me and this man I adored surrounded by my garden’s blooms and absolutely no way of twisting this into something bad.
“I want to answer your question about the wedding,” Dorian said. “I didn’t take you because I didn’t know how to deal with it. Walking her down that aisle, into the arms of someone besides Nate was really, really hard. I didn’t know how to talk to you about it, so I distanced myself. And then, after the ceremony, Luci refused to be in the photos and ran away. I went to find her, and she shared with me how it felt like everyone but her had forgotten her dad.”
“And that triggered you?” I asked.
“Big time. I started thinking about Annie and how she deserved so much more than I had to give. So I talked myself into pumping the brakes. I couldn’t have explained it at the time, but I know now. It’s pretty simple, really. Nate’s death made mequestion everything I thought I knew. And it made me afraid to hurt that bad again.”
“I do understand,” I said. “I wish I didn’t, but I do. Which is why I was so quick to send you away. It was my way of protecting myself further. Only it didn’t work because I was already in love with you by then. These last few days have been awful. I missed you, and it made me so mad, so I just dug the hole deeper.”
“Will you let me back in?” Dorian asked. “And if the answer’s no, I’ll keep asking. I’ll keep showing up at your doorstep with a bag of bulbs, hoping you’ll give me another chance.”
