Darcy exhaled slowly. "She is managing. Better than she should be, which concerns me slightly. She made a joke at dinner. A real one. And then five minutes later she went very quiet and I did not know whether to say something or leave it."
"What did you do?"
"I passed her the bread."
Silence settled again, ending only with a sigh from Bingley.
"That is actually quite good," he said.
Darcy did not respond. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and looked at the floor. The tiles were the same black and white pattern you found in every old Brooklyn building. Richard had pointed that out the first time he brought Darcy here, years ago.
He had said. “Charlotte chose this apartment because of the floors.”
Darcy had said that was not a sensible reason to choose an apartment. To this, Richard replied and said, “no, but it is a Charlotte reason, which is better.”
"It still does not feel real," Darcy said.
Bingley was quiet.
"I keep reaching for the phone to call him. Three, four times a day. You know, I keep thinking that I need to tell Richard this, or Richard would find this funny, or I should ask Richard what to do about Mia's school situation because he would know exactly. And then I remember." He paused, and rubbed his tired eyes. "I have been strong. In front of Mia, at the lawyer's office, through all of it. But Charles — I cannot fathom it. I genuinely cannot fathom that he is gone."
"I know," Bingley said. Quietly. Without trying to fix it.
"He was the only person who could make me laugh at myself," Darcy said. "Do you know how rare that is? Someone who knows exactly where the gap is between who you are and who you think you are, and loves you anyway, and will not let you take yourself too seriously." He stopped. "I did not tell him enough times that I knew how rare it was."
The apartment was quiet around him. The radiator in the hallway knocked once and settled.
"How is Georgiana?" Bingley asked, after a moment.
“She cried on the phone when I told her about Richard’s passing. She adored him."
"Everyone adored Richard."
“She couldn’t make it for the burial. Something about her master degree exams.”
“Well, you just don’t opt out of oxford master exams because of a burial. No matter how important.” Bingley said.
”No, you don’t.”
The two men lapsed into another silence, as though the man on the other end was giving his friend time to compose himself.
“I hope Elizabeth is all right too?” Bingley said at last.
"Yes." Darcy looked at the door. "Elizabeth has been holding everything together. Since the beginning. The calls, the arrangements, Mia's first nights — I was travelling and she was here, handling all of it." He said it plainly, without drama."She has always been like that. Strong in a way that does not announce itself. She just does what needs to be done and does not wait to be asked."
"I know," Bingley said. "Jane says the same. Says Elizabeth has been keeping Mia strong too."
“She has.” Darcy was quiet for a moment. “Which means I need to be strong for both of them now. I am here. I am not travelling again. Whatever this year requires… I am here.” He exhaled slowly. “I just haven’t been a father before. I don’t know how to be whatever this needs me to be.”
"Richard trusted you," Bingley said. "That says something about your fathering skills."
"Richard committed me to something without asking me first."
"Did he?" Bingley's voice was mild. "Or did he just know what your answer would be and skipped the part where you'd spend three weeks overthinking it?"
Darcy had no response to that. It was irritatingly accurate and Bingley knew it.
"How is the other situation," Bingley said, in the careful tone he used when he was about to say something he expected pushback on.
