Page 42 of Inventing Mr Darcy

For some reason, the memory of that single red heart emoji pops into my mind. Even though I’ll probably never know what he meant by it, and I do know I dodged a bullet when I hesitated over sending one back, for some reason I suddenly regret not doing it.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” I touch his hand where it’s resting on the couch cushion. His fingers are still cold from the walk across town, but I don’t pull away when he grips my hand and squeezes. “Is he … OK?”

“He’s stable. My mom called me at two thirty this morning from the ER, and I stayed on the phone with her until just a little while ago; I guess they’d been there most of the evening already. And I mean, there’ve been plenty of warning signs this could happen. The doctor wanted to do a less invasive procedure last year. But my dad insisted on waiting until things were a little slower at work. Now he’s scheduled for major surgery tomorrow morning.”

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him again, because really, what else is there to say? “Do you need someone to drive you to the airport?”

He shakes his head. “This is all so unpredictable, I think it would be best if I drove myself. I really have no idea when I’ll be back.”

And even though he says when, I hear the shadow of if behind it. I remember what he once said about finishing his degree remotely. There are so many new variables at play, including whether the timeline for joining his father’s company has now been drastically accelerated; it’s not difficult to imagine him deciding never to return to Grantham.

He straightens his leg to reach into his pocket, removes a ring of keys, and takes off an old-fashioned-looking brass key. When he holds that key out to me, I don’t immediately take it from him.

“I know I fucked up, Elle,” he says, pressing the key into my hand, which is lying right where he released it, slack on the couch between us. “But you need somewhere to stay. Let me do this for you.” His eyes scan my face, like he’s hoping to glean from my expression the right words to say. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Unless we want it to.

No, no, no. Haven’t we covered that ground already?

Wanting isn’t enough. Wanting is what got us in trouble in the first place.

“All right,” I say.

He tugs me closer with our joined hands and presses a soft kiss against my forehead, just as he did once before. Except this time, he’s the one seeking comfort. He smells of black coffee, and the unshaved whiskers around his mouth prickle my skin, but somehow, that only makes the moment more … real. “Thank you,” he murmurs, leaving his lips there long enough to draw one slow breath, like he’s absorbing my calm instead of the other way around.

Eventually he pulls away and stands up in one motion. “I should go. Just come over whenever you’re ready. That key opens the back door, too, and you can park your car in the carriage house. I’ll, um, I’ll update you about my dad. If you care.”

Instinctively, I want to reassure him that everything will be all right, except of course I have no way of knowing that’s true in his father’s case, and after last night’s ruminations on hope, very little faith in the idea in general. All I can do is nod.

After he’s gone, I text Cassie to let her know the situation, pack a bag, and wrangle the cat into his carrier. I wait to go to his house until I’m sure he’s already left for the airport. I wonder whether the Davis family owns a private plane.

The back door opens into a large, well-organized mud room, with hooks for coats and places for shoes. Beyond it lies the kitchen, spotless and sparkling, not a thing out of place … except for a sugar bowl sitting in the middle of the counter near the fancy coffee maker.

I’ve never seen it before, but it only takes me a moment to understand: Fisher didn’t want me to have to hunt for it. He knows I take my coffee sweet.

It’s just ordinary thoughtfulness, but it feels like a lot. Mostly because he had so many other things to think about before he left. And also, I suppose, because everyone I know is too drained to think about others much at all. Grad school is an endless succession of lessons in how to survive on little and expect even less.

Beneath it, he’s left a note, a list of phone numbers that might come in handy, instructions for using the coffee maker and for lighting a fire in the fireplace, quirks about the old house he thinks I might need to know. I can’t believe he took the time to do this for me, given how anxious and worried and exhausted he was.

I wander through the rest of the downstairs, which feels even bigger—and so much emptier—without him here. In the foyer, I sink down to the floor and lean against the front door and study the note he wrote, which is still in my hand.

His handwriting is neat, but not perfectly so—the sort of neat that makes me think that in fact it might usually border on sloppy, but this time, he made a special effort. For me. He mostly prints, like other science-y types I know, and pretty compactly at that, but the letters with tails all have loops. The overall effect is one of restraint, with occasional surges of passionate energy, not unlike the man himself. It reminds me of the way his serious expression pairs with those goofy t-shirts and the heavy metal music and the cooking.

It makes me think of the night I spent in his bed.

The icy fingers of a cold draft slip beneath the door and tickle my lower back, making me shiver. What was I thinking, agreeing to stay here?

Despite the chilly air, I’m still sitting there contemplating that question when, some undetermined time later, I hear steps on the porch. The knocker falls, and I absorb the reverberation with my spine. Scrambling to my feet, I peer through the decorative pane of stained glass along one side of the door and spy the distorted figure of a pizza delivery person standing there.

I open the door just a crack. “I didn’t order anything,” I start to say, but as she slides a box from the insulated sleeve she’s carrying, I can see Fisher’s name and address on the tag.

“Mr. Davis ordered online, about an hour ago,” she explains as she holds the pizza out to me.

I start to take the box from her. “Oh, sorry. Just a second. My purse is in the other room.”

“He already paid,” she says, sounding impatient. “Including the tip.”

After she’s gone, I place the box on the table in the foyer and just stare at it. On the way to the hospital to see his critically ill father, Fisher thought to order me a pepperoni and banana pepper pizza—my favorite—from Stan’s, universally derided as the worst pizza place in town and the one I once told him I unapologetically love the most.