Ten minutes later, Laurel sat down on the narrow strip of grass between Pearl’s and Derby’s graves. She motioned for Irv to join her on the ground.
“I won’t be able to get back up.”
“Yes, you will. I’ll help you.”
He lowered himself to the ground on the other side of his son’s grave. “What’s going on, Laurel? What’s the matter? Are you sad over him?”
She knew he wasn’t speaking of Derby. Thatcher had left without a word and hadn’t come back. No one knew if he would. She cried herself to sleep most nights. She was in dire need of comforting. Yet, the person who could ease her misery was the source of it.
She was furious at him for that. But her yearning for him was like a sickness. “This isn’t about him.”
“Told you not to trust him.”
“You did,” she said softly. Idly, she began pulling up the dandelions that had begun sprouting on Pearl’s grave. “Something’s come to me recently.”
“A package?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “Nothing tangible, although I do consider it a gift of sorts.”
“I think when Gert clouted you on the head, she knocked something loose.”
She laughed softly. “You might be right. In which case, I have her to thank for this.” He opened his mouth to say more, but she held up her hand. “It’s enlightenment. It’s been trying to worm its way into my consciousness. I think subconsciously I wanted it to stay put. I’ve resisted facing it. But I woke up this morning with it firmly seated in my mind. And please stop looking at me like I belong in a loony bin.”
“Well, how am I supposed to be looking at you? You ain’t making a lick of sense.”
“Then I’ll make it plainer.” She dusted loose dirt off her hands. “Irv, you know how bitter I felt toward Derby for abandoning me.”
“You had a right to be.”
“Not really. Because I also abandoned him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve never told you about our start. We met at a dance. Which was forbidden to me, of course. I sneaked out and went with a girlfriend. Derby was handsome and fun, someone I knew my parents would disapprove. I’ll admit that was a large part of the attraction. Our whirlwind romance and hasty marriage was my deliverance. Just six weeks later, he left for Europe. I was a bride. Then the war ended, and he came home. To a wife.
“If he had returned with a shattered leg, I wouldn’t have expected him to run sprints, would I? But in my selfishness and…and immaturity, I guess…I expected him to pick right back up where he’d left off. Giddy in love. Lighthearted, optimistic, oozing charm.
“But it soon became apparent that Derby was no longer that romantic hero. What’s become clear to me is that I, unintentionally, applied pressure on top of the pressure he was already feeling. I didn’t support him
the way I should have.”
“Laurel—”
“No, please. Let me get this out.”
He dry-scrubbed his face with his hand and motioned for her to continue.
“I cleaned and cooked and slept with him like a dutiful wife. I begged him to talk to me about the things that were haunting him. I pushed him to try this, to do that, to get help. I swear to you that I did all of this out of love. I hated that he was suffering and seemingly unreachable.
“But I’ve come to realize that what I considered encouragement must have sounded like harping to him. He even said so just before he shot himself. ‘I’m sick of you nagging me about every goddamn thing.’
“God knows I wanted to rescue him. But what he might have needed most was for me to stop flapping around him dispensing advice, and just to be. Be there. To hold him tight without saying anything. That’s what I didn’t do. I didn’t allow him to face his fears within the cradle of my arms.”
Irv frowned down at the turf over Derby’s grave. There was still a slight mound that had yet to flatten out. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Laurel. I told you Derby always had that darkness in him.”
“I don’t know that I could have fixed him, Irv. It’s vain of me to think that I could have prevented him from taking his life if he was determined to do so. We’ll never know. But, given how damaged he obviously was, I didn’t give him credit for struggling through each day as well as he could.
“I laid all the blame on him for what he did. That was unfair.” She reached across the grave and took Irv’s hand. “You fault yourself for having to leave him when he was a boy. In your circumstances, you did the best you could. It was important for me to tell you that I could have done better by Derby.”