The Tower

Chapter 59

Darby woke up alone in bed for one of the first times in thirty-eight years. She instinctively turned to her left to extend her arm across Thomas's chest before she remembered he wasn't there.

She rose from her bed with the routinized motions of a woman living alone, and pulled on a robe. She went to the kitchen, put coffee on, and called the hospital, just as she had done every day this week.

"Good morning, love. How are you feeling?"

Thomas's voice was not quite right. It would never be right again, never the voice that had wooed her and carried her in sickness and in health. But that seemed a small price to pay to have her husband alive, so she buried her sorrow beneath her gratitude.

His larynx had been severely injured, and it had taken a delicate surgery to get him to the point where he could speak at all. But he had remained optimistic all the way through, reassuring her with his eyes when he couldn't with his words.

"Oh, great. Or should I say, stable?" Thomas laughed a dry, croaking laugh. "Just three more weeks in, love."

Darby smiled. "And one more operation."

Thomas tried to laugh, but it came out a dull wheeze. "Oh yeah. Nose job, right?"

Darby laughed softly and tears moistened her eyes. "I'm leaving in five."

"Okay. I love you."

Her voice cracked and she struggled to keep it from shaking. "I love you too."

She hung up and sat on the couch in the living room, sipping her coffee. The very couch where they had met Jade time and time again, she realized, where he had helped them in his own guarded way.

She had come to care greatly for Jade. She had come to respect him and almost love him. She knew that some part of her emotions had to do with his role in protecting them, and some part had to do with her son. Though she didn't understand, entirely, her feelings for Jade, she sensed them, as if through a fog that wouldn't lift. It saddened her that they would never see Jade again. There was too much there for her, too much there for them. He had freed them, finally and painfully, from a lifelong ache, but she could never forgive him for it.

She heard the soft rattling of the mail truck outside and she rose and went to the door. It was a splendid morning, she thought as she moved down the walkway to the mailbox.

Turning to face the sun, she fanned through the mail. Mostly bills and mailers. At the bottom of the stack was a plain white envelope, her name and address written neatly in black.

Opening the envelope confirmed it: a single earring.

Placing it back in the envelope, she crumpled them together into a ball and walked over to the trash can at the end of the driveway. She lifted the lid and tossed the small ball of metal and paper inside.

She whistled softly to herself as she headed back inside, closing her eyes and tilting her face to the sun. It was a splendid morning.