This Is How I'd Love You (29 page)

Hensley is wearing her mother’s wedding dress—a bone white silk empire gown with a lace collar and long, sheer sleeves. It is exquisitely made and lovely in its simplicity. There is no veil, but she has pinned three small pink rosebuds into her hair.

“Harold,” Hensley says, pulling him out of his reverie. The two siblings embrace.

When Harold pulls away to look at her, he smiles. “You are quite a picture, Hen. A real beauty.”

“Thank you, Harold. But I don’t know what I’m doing. I just wish things were . . . different.”

“That’s a bland wish. If you are going to spend time making wishes, at least make them colorful. Exotic. Worthwhile.” His voice is full of effort, trying to be cheerful. Hensley doesn’t mind, but it is not contagious.

Hensley nods. “You’re right. Certainly you’re right, Harold. We should not waste our wishes on imprecision.” Immediately, though her toes are cramped in her satin wedding shoes, her hair demurely pinned up, her eyes lined carefully with kohl, just moments away from promising herself forever to Lowe, Hensley begins. “Dear brother, here is what I wish: I wish I’d never met Lowell Teagan, never been seduced by his practiced moves and his foolish self-importance. I wish I’d had sense enough to avoid his earnest eyes and cloying hands. I wish this morning when I put on this beautiful dress, I didn’t worry about how it would be taken off. About how my new husband would certainly feel entitled to that. I wish I hadn’t cried for an hour, cursing my own stupidity and Daddy’s. He should never have gone in that shaft, Harold. Never. And more than all of those wishes, I wish I could marry a different man. A man I’ve never met but who lives in my heart and in my mind. I wish that he would walk through that door—short, fat, pimpled, sloppy, toothless, I don’t care—and take my hand, lead me away from you and Lowell and this whole charade. That is my wish. Better?”

Harold shoves his hands back in his pockets. “Bravo. Toothless, huh? Much better. But you know I’m not a genie and I cannot make your wishes come true.” He smiles at her, but his face is still sad.

She nods. “I know.”

“Things will work out. You’ll see. We are a stubborn lot, us Denches. We don’t like having decisions made for us. But life made this one for you, Hennie. There is no disputing that. This is the right thing—the only thing, really—to do.”

She hates him in that moment. She wants to tell him so, too. To tell him just how foolish his optimism is. But the sound of footsteps striding down the hallway ends their exchange. Harold cocks his head and then extends his hand and Hensley knows, without turning around, who it is.

“Lowell, good man,” Harold says, continuing his act. “You look utterly groomish. I think you know my sister . . .”

Hensley faces him. She and Lowe manage a smile and briefly allow their cheeks to touch. It is they who seem to be the amateur players in this drama.

There is a dull silence in the room punctuated only by a fan that whirs and clicks in the corner.

“You look really nice,” Lowe finally says, acknowledging Hensley’s dress, shoes, and makeup. “Really nice.”

“You do, too, Lowe.”

“So, we all agree that you two make a handsome couple. Now, let’s get this show on the road,” Harold says, checking his wristwatch. “I’ve got a million deadlines today.”

Just then, the judge enters and smiles at the three of them. “Good morning, folks. Happy wedding day. It looks like we need another witness. Give me a moment and I will employ my secretary.”

He returns with a middle-aged woman wearing glasses and a gray cotton dress. “Good morning, lovebirds,” she says, smiling easily.

Hensley tries to mimic her smile.

The judge stands before the four of them and reads from a book. Halfway through, Lowe takes Hensley’s hand in his. Both of their palms are cold and clammy. Hensley hears the judge’s voice, but his words are muffled as though she is behind several closed doors.

She notices Harold pull a box from his pocket and hand it to Lowe. Lowell removes a ring that Hensley has seen before and fingers it, waiting for the instructions.

Tears blur her eyes as she stares at the gold band with its single embedded diamond. It is her mother’s. This is the ring her father gave to her mother so many years ago. This is the ring her mother wore until she died. Somehow, before his own death, her father must have sent it to Harold, anticipating this very moment. His last gift to her. It should reassure her—his blessing right here. But it doesn’t.

The judge asks Lowe first if he promises to love and honor her, cherish and care for her according to the laws of man and ordinance of God in the Holy Bond of Matrimony. Without hesitation, Lowe says, “Yes, I do.”

Now the judge looks at Hensley, his voice repeating the same question. Her ears are ringing. She shakes her head.

“Miss Dench?” the judge asks.

“I do not,” Hensley says, finally. “I cannot.”

 • • • 

S
omehow the city has changed. Everything all around her appears different, amplified. Even her body is different, her heart beating so quickly and insistently it is as though she’d never before realized its power. Her skin is hot, then cold. Her legs move effortlessly beneath her, but she has no idea how. There is not a single coherent thought in her mind, only disbelief. Only a buzzing, rumbling noise that will not stop.

She returns to Harold’s apartment and removes her mother’s wedding dress. Carefully she folds it and replaces it in the box where it is stored. She disposes of the roses in her hair. Sitting in her knickers, the pale sunlight falling into a rectangle on the floor beside her, she begins to realize what she has done. Instead of the dread of spending her life with Lowell, there is now a disquieting blankness stretching out for as far as she can imagine.

Dear Teresa,

What have I done? I’ve come all this way to make a fool of myself and everyone else. I cannot stay with my brother much longer—I’ve brought enough trouble to him. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but I do hope Berto has recovered and that you are free. I miss you terribly.

 • • • 

W
hen Harold returns, he throws his key onto the front table and walks past her into the kitchen. She has made dinner, but he reaches over the pot on the stove and fixes himself a drink.

“You are angry?” she says, following him.

Harold raises his eyebrows. “Anger is way too simple an emotion for what I am. To begin with, I was humiliated. That judge does not need to have his time wasted, a melodrama played out in his chambers. It was a favor. Now I’m indebted and embarrassed. But that’s just the beginning, isn’t it?” He takes a long drink and then sits in a dining chair, untying his shoes. “I cannot keep you here forever. We are not gypsies, Hen. You will soon be unable to hide that,” he says, gesturing at her waist.

Hensley nods. “I’m sorry,” she says, trying to control her voice. Trying to conjure a certainty, a bravery that she imagines another girl having. “It was just wrong. You were asking me to tie my life to a man who betrayed me. A man for whom lying is a habit, a tool. I saw Mother’s wedding band and I knew she would never approve.”

“She’d also never approve of what you’ve done. Let’s not forget your part in this.”

Hensley bows her head. “I know that.” She pulls a plate from the shelf above the sink. Putting a piece of braised meat and a pile of rice onto it, she places it on the table in front of Harold. “There are beets as well.”

Harold turns his body toward the food. “Oh, Hen,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “You’ll be ruined. Just give him a chance. He might make you happy.”

She nods, placing the bowl of syrupy beets on the table. “You’ve done all you can. My life is no longer a problem for you to solve. It’s mine.”

He shakes his head, utterly disappointed. “You’ve no idea, Hen. The world will not be kind to you. To your child.”

Hensley does not protest. She lets his words hang between them, punctuated only by the scraping of his knife against the plate.

After dinner he goes out without explanation. Hensley is left in the apartment by herself.

B
efore dinner, Charles reads through her letters once more. He doesn’t want to have survived only to give up. As he is dressing, he takes a fountain pen from its place on the desk and tries it out on his wooden leg. Imagining Hensley’s impulse to apply his words to her bedroom wall, he inscribes the prosthetic with the words of her first letter. The ink smears slightly on the finish, but the entire letter fits lengthwise from knee to ankle, around half the circumference. This makes the appendage less of a burden. In fact, it will be his secret strength.

He dresses in his best suit and goes out after dinner, the silver goblet in his briefcase.

This time, he tips his hat to the doorman and waits patiently for the elevator to the third floor.

When a tall, disheveled man answers the door, his surprise renders Charles mute. He assumes he must be in the wrong place. Checking the apartment number Teresa has given him against that on the open door, he confirms he is in the right place.

“Can I help you, mister?” the gentleman asks, his voice full of misery and phlegm, the stench of an abundance of drink on his breath. Perhaps this is her brother, he reasons.

“I apologize for the intrusion. I am looking for a Miss Hensley Dench. Are you Harold?”

“Lowell Teagan,” he says, shifting his stance and glancing at Charles’s cane. “How do you do?”

Charles holds tightly to his case. “Is she here? I was told I could find her here,” he says finally. “I’ve something for her.”

The man smirks, amused by something unsaid. “No, she’s not here, actually. Though she should be. First yes, then no, then me, then her . . . it’s never-ending. Tell me,” he says and pulls out a cigarette. “You courted her once?”

“No,” Charles says, a low buzz flooding his ears, making it difficult to think. Had he? “Nothing like that. I’ve been overseas. In the war.”

The man’s face loses its color. “Oh. Excuse me, then. Would you like a drink?”

Charles barely hears him. He sees his mouth moving, his body language full of apology. What has happened? Who is this man? This dreadful noise like a swarm of bees encircles his head. He grips his cane tighter and sets his case down. “I have something for her,” he says again, unable to hear his own voice. He leans over carefully and his fingers search out the bundle. “From a friend in New Mexico,” he manages to say, despite his diminishing strength.

“We’re engaged to be married, but there’s been a bit of drama. Courthouse drama. I could’ve staged it much better, though, really. Those flowers in her hair were simply too innocent. Or perhaps too cloying.”

“Drama?” Charles says, clinging to that word, certain that surely it is over. Whatever this was, it could not be what Hensley wants.

“Don’t tell anyone, but she’s with child. Mine. Progeny already. Cart before the horse, but . . . You can leave that with me,” he says, gesturing to the goblet in Charles’s hand. “I will make sure she gets it.”

“How kind,” Charles says, handing it over, his fingers trembling. “May I ask . . . I don’t mean to be rude, but is it recent? The engagement?”

The other man drags a hand across his forehead in a gesture of weariness and nods. “Quite.”

Charles retrieves his bag from the floor, wishing for the first time that instead of just his leg, his entire body might have been obliterated in the French mud.

He halfheartedly tips his hat and leaves her fiancé there, blowing his nose into a handkerchief as he closes the door.

He waits in the corridor for the elevator, all thought obliterated by the horrible sawing noise that has moved into his body, dismantling each piece of the scaffolding their correspondence has built around his heart. His mouth hangs open and his chest heaves.

The endless days of carnage, moist insides falling out of ragged openings, pungent in the hot French air, are not nearly as vile as that man. Her fiancé! With child!

The horrors of the war are quite apparent. Violence is not hidden or disguised. Hatred—whether real or imagined—is expressed in loud, riotous shots and explosions. How, how is he to release this ugly rage? What can he possibly do with it all?

Charles wanders the streets well past midnight, cursing everything in sight. Ugly, dirty pigeons roost in awnings. Newspapers riddled with lies and propaganda, their obsolescence at the end of every day marked by the overflowing trash bins. Insipid horses sleep on their feet, shitting in the gutter. Impatient, anxious drivers blare the irritating horns of their trucks. Buoyant clouds hang low, reflecting the city’s light back on itself. The smiling faces of couples, their arms linked in solidarity, oblivious to the foul stench emanating from the corners and alleys of the city. Loathsome. All of it. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. He cannot imagine his despair ever ceasing.

When he returns to his parents’ house, he pours two strong drinks in a row. The effect is just what he’d hoped. Everything becomes slightly blurred and unreal.

As he undresses, he is newly devastated when he unbuckles his appendage. There are her words, in his own hand. There she is. Mocking him. Revealing his tender, foolish heart. He lets it fall hard against the floor.