by Leigh Dreyer
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“Is it?” She could feel the sudden rush of emotion. She was angry, hurt, sad, and embarrassed all at once.
When she was a little girl, she remembered reading Peter Pan. J. M. Barrie had described the fairies as so small they only had room for one emotion at a time. Elizabeth had often felt like that. For years, the only emotional room she had was devoted to flying. Have I wasted years of my life on flying lessons and jobs to pay for fuel and instructors and flight time? She had earned perfect grades and kept in perfect shape. She had turned down cookies and dates for her obsession to touch the skies. And for years, gliding over clouds and coming down for a soft, perfect landing had fulfilled her every wish. Her soul had overflowed with the joy of those flights. After flying had been stolen by George Wickham and his damned vertigo, she only had room for the pain that loss had brought, and her drive to get it back. With her parents’ disturbing revelation, that drive had been overcome by the sensation to get in bed, hide her head under a pillow, and die there, the bastard child of a philanderer. This feeling threatened to overpower her, and she felt the tears prick her eyes.
“Elizabeth, it happened more than twenty years ago and your parents clearly got over it. They’re still married and had three more kids.”
“They fight daily and barely tolerate each other.”
“They run a successful business in a small town, and your father enjoys watching your mother meddle in small town life.”
“My mother is a blithering idiot most of the time, and my father likes staring at books rather than dealing with actual problems.”
“We all have our escapes, Elizabeth.”
“Right. You have your money and your winery and your well-connected family, and I have a working-class, barely-making-it cheater for a mother.”
“Do you happen to remember my aunt Catherine? Possibly the most meddling woman on the planet?”
Elizabeth giggled against her will. “She is a little imposing.”
“A little? You have no idea. You didn’t grow up with her.”
“I’ll concede the point.”
“Aunt Catherine’s husband cheated for years. She knew it. We knew it. Hell, Hunsford and half of Austin knew it. The reason she is so harsh now is because she chose to become hard so she wouldn’t have to feel. If she micromanaged everything in her life, maybe Uncle Louis wouldn’t cheat. She needed his money for her political pursuits. She didn’t want children with her philandering husband so she didn’t. As long as he kept his affairs out of the newspapers during election time, she let him do his thing, and he let her climb political ladders; and he politely attended functions as the dutiful husband.”
“Is that why she’s such a bitch?”
“Elizabeth, I am shocked by your un-ladylike language.”
“Ha, ha. I notice you didn’t argue.”
“Well, no one can. My point with her story is that maybe your mom screwed up one time. But listen, you are here because of it. And, honestly, how great is your dad? You’re his favorite daughter, and you’re not even his blood. I mean, do you know what I would do to have a parent to call when I have a problem? You have no idea how blessed you are—how privileged.”
Elizabeth was taken aback by this latest revelation. She had known that Darcy was an orphan. She had seen Pemberley. At Rosings, Richard had told her about Darcy’s mother, and Darcy had told her about his dad and finding him crumpled on the floor. Her life had changed. Her very sense of self was reeling under the weight of her parents’ confession but had anything changed? Her parents—at least her mom and dad—were still here. She was here. She had questions and problems and would not get over this quickly or easily, but with Darcy’s discussion and Miss Bates words, she could already feel the comfort of understanding covering her softly. She was still angry, but maybe, just maybe she could forgive her mother…even if she was a two-timer.
Longbourn loomed large in the windshield. Elizabeth had been staring out of her window thinking about everything and nothing when she noticed the familiar landscape.
“What are we doing here?”
Darcy stopped the car in front of the house but kept his hands on the wheels. “I’m going to run back to the graduation for a few and then come back for you.”
“Can’t you just take me with you? I don’t want to be here.”
Darcy sighed and closed his eyes as if gathering his thoughts, then he opened them, facing her. “Look, I can’t help with this, Elizabeth. I want to. I would love to take all of this from you and put it in a little box for you to keep until you are ready to deal with everything, but I can’t. Elizabeth, we barely know what we are half the time—I mean, what are we? Friends? Would you even call me your boyfriend? We are somehow more than that and less than that all at the same time and, you know, I’m dealing with that…okay…but this Phillip thing? I’m way out of my depth. I don’t have parents to even talk to and ask how to help you. The only thing I can suggest is you talk to them. I’ll be back in a couple of hours when you have had time to work some things out.”
“You’re leaving me here?”
“You can’t run home, can you?”
“No, and you know that!”
“Well, then, yes, I am leaving you here.”
“You can’t do that. You said you would help me. You promised.”
“Can I be frank?”
She shrugged in frustration.
Darcy held one hand to his head and closed his eyes before looking at her intently. “I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted in the world. I don’t want to lose you because of a fight you are having with your parents. One that I don’t think will ever be resolved to your satisfaction. More importantly, I’m tired, Elizabeth. I’m tired of fighting. Fighting for you, against you. And I need you to fight for yourself, just for this. I can do everything else, but I can’t fix your parents’ past.”
She nodded. “Okay. Two hours? I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to my parents for two hours in my life.”
He chuckled. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“I suppose.” She got out of the car and leaned back into it before closing the door. “You owe me.”
He winked at her, then she closed the door and watched Darcy drive away.
She walked through the front door without knocking. “Mom!”
Her mother’s twittering voice answered from the kitchen. “In here, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth walked through the familiar halls, looking at pictures that had hung in her home throughout her life. There was the picture of the storm above a wheat field, the boat on a bay, the trees in a bluebell wood—all keeping watch over her from her babyhood on. They would have known what had happened. It was unfortunate she could not speak to them.
When she entered the kitchen, Elizabeth smelled the familiar aroma of spices that always inhabited the space. Her mother stood over the counter, furiously stirring ingredients in a mixing bowl.
“Whatcha cooking?”
“Chicken tikka masala. We have a family in from New York that asked for Indian tonight.”
“I always liked that you added that bit of cilantro.”
“Some people leave it out, but there’s no accounting for taste.” She wiped a strand of blonde highlighted hair out of her face with the back of her hand and shrugged, pushing a wooden skewer through chicken pieces.
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Mom?”
“About cilantro?”
“Mom, why would I ask about cilantro?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you finally realized coriander and cilantro are the same plant?”
“Are they really?”
“Yes. They are both Chinese parsley. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about herbs for this long. I can only assume you’re here with more than cilantro on your mind.”
“Thanks.” Elizabeth laughed nervously. “I had some questions about Phillip, but I don’t know how to ask. It seems like a
sensitive topic.”
“I think I told you most of what you need to know.”
“Well, I guess you did. It’s not about him, though. It’s about you and, uh, Dad.”
“Thomas Bennet is your father. I don’t know why learning about Phillip changes that. At all.”
“That’s just it. For my whole life, you two have been fighting. He reads; you talk. And both of you kind of do your own things. Honestly, Longbourn and the inn are the only things that you two work on together.”
Her mother stopped stabbing the chicken, put down the skewers, and walked to the sink to wash her hand. “Lizzy, marriage is a complicated place.” She dried her hands, pushed a button on the coffee maker, and sat down.
“I thought you might need a drink.”
“I already have one from”―Elizabeth looked around her and winced when she leaned on her bad leg.
“Darcy drive off with it?”
“Looks like it.”
She motioned to the chair next to her. “I know you are still hurting. I can see it on your face when you change weight.”
“Thanks.” Elizabeth took the proffered seat.
“When I came back, Thomas took me back, just like we told you. He understood me when I said I was sorry, but that didn’t mean we were perfect. I had made a very big mistake, and I did so with his best friend. I don’t know that there will ever be anything I can do to fully atone for that. Honestly, in a strange twist, it was Phillip’s death that brought us back together the most. Both of us were grieving. Thomas had lost a man who had been his friend. I think later, he felt terribly confused for a long time…about never speaking to him about you and coming to some resolution. I, well, I had lost a friend and someone who had helped me in a time of need.”
“But I don’t understand how that would bring you together.”
“Well, we didn’t have him in between us anymore. When you were born, you should have seen how quickly you wrapped your father around your little finger. He tried and I tried, and we just sort of fell into a flow of being together. I know it probably isn’t a model marriage, whatever that is, but it is ours.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that you all fight all the time or that Dad belittles you?”
“Not even when we first got married. Besides, we don’t fight so much as tease. I am a silly woman, Elizabeth. I was a silly girl. Thomas has known that since we were teenagers. I knew Thomas was an intellectual and was bound for bigger and better things, but he lacked the ambition. That is why you are the best of both of us, Lizzy. You are smart, like your father and like Phillip, but you have my desire to make something of yourself.”
She stood and poured Elizabeth a cup of coffee. “Now, what other questions do you have? I’ll tell you anything you would like to know.”
Hundreds of questions poured out of Elizabeth as her mother finished cooking. What was Phillip like? How did she know that Thomas Bennet was “the one”?
While her mother served the chicken to their guests, Thomas entered the room and Elizabeth asked him about growing up with Phillip. “Phillip’s parents moved away right after high school. His dad worked for General Electric and as he moved up in the ranks, he was relocated fairly often. We all were at college together, so I still saw them from time to time, but of course we didn’t have social media back then, so unless you ended up on a Christmas card list, who knows what happened to them. He was an only child, like me, and we decided we were brothers.”
“So when did Phillip decide he wanted to fly?”
Thomas sat back and looked at the ceiling. “You are very much like him, Elizabeth. He wanted to fly as long as I knew him. Going fast appealed to him. He was into racing cars and used to race down the main drag in town. Always impressed the girls with his car. He was always working on that car. He was great with his hands. I was the brains of the operation but Phillip was the brawn.”
Elizabeth thought for a moment. She had to ask. “How did you get over what he and Mom did to you?”
“Anger is a cancer. It eats away at you until your heart turns black. When you’re angry, you can’t feel anything anymore—not joy, not love, and certainly not trust. The thing you live for is that hot feeling in your chest. Anger puts you to bed each night, dreaming of violence, and wakes you up each morning, wishing for revenge. The only real way to be rid of it is to cut as much as you can out of your life, treat the rest, and put that anger into remission. And then Phillip died. No matter what we all had meant to each other, or what had happened, he had been permanently cut out of our lives. I didn’t have to wonder if she might one day go back to him. He was gone, but we were still here, and we had to keep living.
“You also have to understand that your mother was out of her mind, Lizzy. There was nothing I could do to get her out of her stupor, but Phillip had reached a place I couldn’t. I am grateful to him for bringing her back to me because we never could have made it in the state she was after Jane. The difference when she left to when she came back was so stark that at first I was over the moon. I do love your mother, even if we live somewhat parallel lives. That works for us and has helped her keep from returning to that dark place.
“Your mother and I talked. We couldn’t afford therapy, but I read every book I could find on the subject. I didn’t want a divorce, but I had to learn how to trust her again, and she had to do the same. I had just left her alone when Jane was born. She seemed so much better at dealing with children than I was. She never had a break. Never had a hobby. And when she wasn’t taking care of the baby, she was busy catering some event. That is almost enough to drive anyone crazy, but she was also dealing with postpartum depression, and I had no idea what that even was, let alone what to look for. When she had you, we had learned a lot and I took the vast majority of duties when you were a baby. By the time Mary came along, we had built up the inn to support us and your mom could take more time off and pay for some help when she needed it. A little medication from a doctor who actually listened to me didn’t hurt either.
“That cancer is still inside me and if I take it out and examine it, I can find every feeling of hate and anger that was there the day I realized the full betrayal, but if I take a breath and focus on how far we’ve come as a family and what I have now, I can keep that anger from surfacing.”
Elizabeth reached out and took her dad’s hand. He patted her gently.
“You’re more than enough reason to forgive anyone, dear one.”
She laughed and moved her hand to wipe away a tear from her cheek. “You haven’t called me that since third grade.”
Her mom returned through the kitchen door with a platter of dirty dishes and placed them next to the sink. “Well, after that he never saw you. You were always running to the Lucases to play with Charlotte or at Civil Air Patrol meetings.”
They laughed as the memories of Elizabeth’s busy childhood washed over them.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“Just one. Why didn’t you tell me I wasn’t your daughter?”
Elizabeth looked at her father, who still had his head down.
“Losing Phillip was like losing my only family. My parents died when I was in college, you know, and losing Phillip was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through. You finding out in the way you did is one of the biggest moments of shame for me as a parent. We should have told you, if not sooner, in a more appropriate manner. I guess it was pride, not wanting to tell you and give even a little bit to him. He stole something from me so I stole you back. It’s childish. We should have sat you down and studied out a plan. Regardless, I am so relieved that you finally know because this—Phillip—is a part of you that you needed to discover to comprehend your mother and me.”
“I don’t think—that is, I’m still mad. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over you hiding it from me, but maybe I can eventually understand. I am glad I know, but I think I feel as betrayed and untrusting now as you both did before.”
Her mom placed a plate o
f food in front of her. “What else would you like to know? It seems like we’ve kept enough secrets.”
Elizabeth wanted to know everything about Phillip, and as she talked with her parents, she noticed the little quirks that had always been present in her life. Her dad sat in his spot at the family table while her mother served him his dinner and a drink. She had often said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and here she was ensuring that her husband had his heart and stomach filled by her service. He let his hand rest on hers just a second longer than necessary when taking the plate and met her eyes. Elizabeth had never thought it before, but her parents did seem like maybe they did love each other.
The sweet nectar of caffeine from a couple of cups of coffee had gone a long way toward reviving Elizabeth’s broken spirit. In the past, Elizabeth had been described as an up-tight control freak with a thirst for achievement. She thrived in high stress, difficult environments but, as a result, suffered from an underlying tension that was as much a part of her as her brown eyes. Around Darcy, though, she felt like she could breathe deeply and relax. He had a way of calming her that she could not name but made her feel like herself.
At work sometimes she felt like she was an actor in an Air Force movie—that she needed to be tough in order to get her job done. In some ways she did; she needed to be better, stronger, faster, smarter than the men to get to the same place, but with Darcy she felt like she could make mistakes without being judged. She had made a mistake about her parents, but he had led her to a correct course of action rather than tell her how prejudiced she was toward them.
On the drive back to Netherfield, she postulated different ways that her parents had been influenced by Phillip in her upbringing. She talked about the way her mother had never liked her flying and how she had been the only one of her sisters invited with any frequency to her father’s office. Darcy asked questions and together they started to put the pieces of her past together.
They drove down the avenue with the windows down despite the chill of the air and pulled up to Netherfield. As they parked into the driveway, Elizabeth noticed a small silver coupe next to Caroline’s Jeep.