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“Son,” Mr. Edwards said to Darcy once the moon had risen, pouring himself a cognac by the fireside, “she is perfetto. Just like Giovanni. What do you think?”
“Think?”
“Of her.”
“I think she is pleasant and nice and definitely beautiful.”
But what then? Had Darcy latched onto this idea of dating a woman, trying to suppress his attraction to men and prove the contrary to whomever Giovanni had outed him to? WhyGiovanni’s sister, of all people? Was this all the more of a draw, finding a similarity to his ex-lover in her? Would they have dated behind people’s backs? Swapped one secret for another. How far had he taken things? For how long? Surely Giovanni would have admitted everything to his sister eventually, and she in turn would have shared her dating life with him?
Eventually, the deed was done, and afterward, Toni, unaware of everything that had gone on, would grip to him, thinking that if she were to let go, they would be severed from each other forever. And what would Darcy have felt? Trapped and as though he were losing control of his life. Throwing on his clothes he would have rushed out the door, and left her to think she’d made a mistake. What else was she supposed to think of a man who deserted her so quickly after? Who used her and refused to see her for weeks, who wouldn’t answer her calls? She needed to speak to someone … herself a foolish mess now. She couldn’t lay more problems onto her brother, who still hadn’t recovered from whatever it was she wouldn’t tell him. Finally, Darcy would pick up the phone—she needed to tell him something. Something important.
“Are you sure?” he asked her.
“Yes, I’ve just done a test. It’s positive.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“I had to tell, I had to. You were not picking up. I told some friends.”
“You have to get an abortion.”
“Abortion? You are absurd!”
“Does Giovanni know?”
“I am going to tell him tonight.”
“No, you mustn’t.”
“I must!”
But Bron was losing focus. Who was the villain here? Everybody, nobody … What of the motive for arson? For murder? Love, hate, greed? None of his stories made any sense.
But he continued to play along. What happened then? Did Giovanni, in a rage after learning of the pregnancy, finally out Darcy to his sister, and then reveal all to his father? Would Mr. Edwards have gone on to pressure them into a marriage neither of them wanted? It was likely: the Vespas, religious and Italian—with a baby outside of wedlock?—and the Edwardses, an upper-class family with a reputation to maintain. Could Darcy see that too, see that he needed to take responsibility for what he’d done, only to abandon them thereafter and resent his father for forcing his hand? Or had he done it of his own accord?
The wedding would have been quick. Quiet. A small guest list. They’d go away for a week and then return to England as proper newlyweds, the facade of two people with all the potential in the world, but really it had already been decided for them: their connection was bound in law as well as the eyes of God. But they didn’t have to live as man and wife. On the same night of their return, would Giovanni have visited Darcy? Alone? Would a fight have broken out, or something more like heated passion? What had made Darcy finally leave his family? Was a broken heart too much to bear?
Okay, Bron was onto something, but what? Bron knew what a broken heart felt like. He knewverywell what that felt like. How it could drive someone to do things, see things they didn’t think possible. How deep the wound could cut.
The thought of seeing Harry in Cambridge only weeks ago had left him feeling suspended through air. He was used to envisioning things that only existed in his mind, but now he was seeing them right there in front of him. This thing rolling within him was bursting to come out, and he struggled to contain it, was impelled to displace it.
All at once he relived the most frightening memory: the day that Harry left. The day his parents had taken him away.
The suitcases had been packed in a hurry. Bron had tried to help, but Mr. Blackwater’s tapping foot and Mrs. Blackwater’s intermittent glance at her watch made him feel useless. He didn’t want him to go, after all, and was still processing that hewasgoing as he helped Harry to fold his shirts into neat little squares. Harry, who was careless with his folding. Harry, who struggled to meet his gaze and shied away from him whenever he got too near. Bron pulled the misshapen bundles out from the case and began the process again. An attempt at slowing things down in the hope that maybe, just maybe, he’d change his mind. Wouldn’t leave. Because it wasn’t so bad here, not when they were together. But Harry only hurried the process along, threw things into the bag as he found them, and Bron focused instead on his handling of the little parcels of clothing, how they would make their way from his hands into the suitcase and onto the conveyor belt. Then onto the airplane and over to New York, past customs and into a taxi, until finally they were brought up to Harry’s Manhattan apartment. How Harry would find these little bundles on the other side of the world, carefully folded by Bron. Harry would touch them—a tangible connection between their bodies—unpack them into a dresser in a uniformed row, and every time the drawer was opened, he’d be reminded of Bron, the folder, before slipping on a T-shirt and going about his day. Bron’s little gift to Harry each and every morning until he’d made his way through them.
“Gotta speed up the folding there, Bron. My parents are waiting.”
He couldn’t quite believe it: Mrs. Blackwater’s pinched and disapproving face, the bleached blond hair tied high into a ponytail. She didn’t look anything like what he imagined a mother to be. And Mr. Blackwater, tall and large and Black, in a well-tailored suit and cuff links that glinted brighter than anything Bron had ever seen. They were barely through the front doors before they started pointing out the leaking ceiling, the cracked stairs, the dead rat in one corner, the dimness of the overhead lights that caused strain to their eyes.
“What sort of establishment is this?”he remembered Mrs. Blackwater shouting.“You call this a school?”
One look at their dorm rooms, and the row of iron beds and mattresses stained with yellow clouds was enough to have him pulled.“We’re leaving this place at once. Harry, go and pack your things. Now.”
And the thing Harry said to Bron before he left:“You’ve got to be stronger, now that I’ll be gone. You’ve gotta be tough.”He remembered Harry taking him into a hug, how he felt completely like driftwood, like his entire being had been washed away and here his body was to remain, rigid and unmoving.“Start sticking up for yourself.”
But what about us?he wanted to say.What about us?
“Please don’t leave me here”is what he said.
