“This is a really lovely surprise, Roman.” She stopped there, didn’t ask him why he was here, even though her curiosity was evident in the long silence after she spoke. But she understood him and respected his boundaries. He’d always appreciated that about her.
So even though he felt like a world-class idiot, he opened his chest and set his heart on the table, self-deprecatingly stating, “I’m having girl trouble, Brenda.”
“And you came to me? I’m touched, Roman. I truly am. Tell me about her.”
He stalled. How could he possibly describe Melodie and all she’d come to mean to him? Her smiles, her quiet toughness, her fierce resiliency and her soft, soft heart.
“I just want to know...what makes people stick around? Is there something I can say that would make her come back? For good? Because I’m not good with words and...”
She wasn’t laughing at him. Her graying head was bent a little as she patiently watched him struggle.
“Charles doesn’t recognize you anymore, but you’re with him as much as you can be. What keeps you faithful?” he asked.
She flinched, then smiled crookedly. “He does.”
Roman narrowed his eyes, trying to understand.
Brenda lowered her gaze to stir her soup. “I’ve always kept Charles’s confidences, but I can see you need to hear some of them. He told me once, not long after he hired you, that he saw something of himself in you. That always made me sad because I knew what he’d been through as a child. His mother had a boyfriend who was very cruel to him. Very, very cruel.” Her voice hollowed. “I know he didn’t even tell me all of it, but what he did tell me...” She shook her head. “I don’t know how people can be like that to another human being.”
Roman’s view of his first employer, a man who’d been athletic and smart and gruffly wise—seemingly impervious—shifted. He grew angry on his friend’s behalf. He wanted to go back in time and defend this person he’d suddenly discovered he not only respected and admired, but cared about very much.
“It wasn’t easy in our early days. He simply didn’t want to talk. I completely understand that coping strategy. I don’t want to talk about how difficult it is to put the man I love in a home and watch his health decline. To see him every day but never see recognition in his eyes.” She welled up and dabbed a napkin to her trembling lips, recovering her composure after a moment. “Some things are just too painful to speak about.”
“Brenda, what can I do?” he said, reaching out impulsively. It wasn’t like him at all, but he’d gotten into the habit of touching Melodie when she was upset, trying to comfort, and his affection for Brenda ran as deep.
“You’ve done all that can be done. Research,” she said with a fatalistic lift of her shoulder. “Hopefully in the future it won’t come to this for other spouses and families. But what I’m trying to say is that I understand how futile it feels to speak about things that can’t be changed.”
He nodded. That was it exactly. Why bother telling Melodie that he’d once nearly been raped, that he had a cigar burn scar under his elbow or how alone he’d felt after his mother had died? What point would it serve?
“But talking helps,” Brenda said quietly, adding with an apologetic smile, “Talking is important, Roman. Especially to a woman. Charles showed me in a million ways that he loved me, but until he said the words, I wasn’t sure. And once he’d said it, once we’d devoted ourselves to each other, I knew that nothing could separate us. His illness makes it impossible for him to show me he still loves me, but I know he does. It would break his heart if I stopped believing it... But I wouldn’t know how much he loved me if he hadn’t told me before his illness started affecting him.”
Roman winced from that peek into the intimacy of his friends’ marriage. And he cringed from the idea of laying his heart on the line so blatantly. What if Melodie didn’t want his love? Yes, he knew she wanted the whole package, but what if she’d left because she’d rather someone else offered it?
They finished eating in silence, but afterward he took out his phone and showed Brenda his gallery of Melodie photos, from springtime in Paris to her languid smiles on his yacht to the dreamy beauty of two days before she’d left him, when he’d caught her on the beach, taking a break from using her own camera to lift her face to the sun.
“Is there a reason you’re sitting in an old lady’s kitchen rather than chasing this woman down?” Brenda asked. “A picture is worth a thousand words, and there are a million ‘I love yous’ in each of those photos.”