The swimming competition had started at one.
He stood up so fast his chair scraped back. "Oh God. Elizabeth, I am so sorry. I lost track of the time completely. I am on my way right now, I can be there in twenty minutes —"
"Twenty minutes." She said it back to him quietly. Not shouting. That was almost worse. "The event started an hour and fourteen minutes ago, Darcy."
"I know. I know, I am —"
"I told you I would not be available," she said, cutting him off. "I told you that. I told you this meeting was important and I asked you to be there and you said yes. You looked her in the face and you said yes." Her voice did not rise. It did not need to."Do you know how these events were for her before? Her parents never missed a single one. Not one. Charlotte and James were always there. Always. And now they are not here and we are supposed to be the people who show up and you forgot."
Darcy stood at his desk by the window and said nothing.
There was nothing to say. Every version of it that formed in his head arrived and dissolved immediately because none of it was sufficient and he knew it and she knew it and the silence on the phone between them was the most honest thing either of them had said in the last two minutes.
"Elizabeth —"
"I am already here," she said. "I cut the meeting short. Priya's mum called me, so I am here and I have her and we will be home soon." Her voice was quieter now, not softer, just tired in a way that landed differently than anger. "I explained to her yesterday that I might not make it in time. I hope you find a way to explain to her why you missed it."
The line went dead before Darcy could respond.
He stood very still in his room.
He thought about Mia in the water. About looking up at the stands and counting the people there for her. He had promised to be there and yet, he had sat at his desk by the window and let two-fourteen arrive without noticing. How was he going to face her? What was he going to say that was going to mean anything to a fifteen-year-old girl who had already learned, in the most permanent way possible, that the people you counted on did not always stay?
Then he thought about Charlotte and James. Indeed, they never missed a single one of Mia’s event. Not one. And here he was, the man who agreed to help them raise their child, the man who had told Bingley that all Mia needed was someone who shows up, sitting in his room at two-fourteen on a Saturday withwork instead of cheering the one person he agreed to help raise to victory.
Then his thoughts drifted to Elizabeth. They had been good this past week together. Genuinely, quietly good in a way that had felt like something building toward something. And now he had handed her a reason to step back. She would not be hostile — that was not what concerned him. What concerned him was the tiredness in her voice. Not anger. Tiredness. Anger he could work with. Tiredness meant she had expected better and had stopped being surprised by not getting it.
He set his phone down and pushed the laptop away.
His mind was in turmoil. They were coming home soon and he did not know what he was going to say when they walked through that door. He only knew that whatever it was, it needed to be more than sorry and it needed to be true and it needed to be the last time he was standing in this room having this particular conversation with himself.
He went downstairs to wait.
SIXTEEN
THE LADIES RETURNEDhome at half past three.
Darcy heard the front door before he saw them. He was on the sofa where he had been since he came downstairs, which was where he deserved to be, and he stood when he heard the door creak.
Mia came in first. She was still in her swimming kit under a hoodie, her hair damp, her bag over one shoulder. She looked at him.
The look lasted about three seconds, not giving him any time to say anything.
Then she walked past him without saying a word and went upstairs.
Her door did not slam. It closed. Quietly, deliberately, the way a door closed when the person closing it had decided that noise was beneath them right now. Which was somehow worse.
Elizabeth came in behind her. She set her bag down, took off her coat, and looked at him with the expression of someone who had spent the drive home deciding how much to say.
From upstairs, after a moment, came a sound that was not loud and was not a word. Just a sound. The kind that fifteen-year-olds made when they had been holding something together all day and had finally got somewhere private enough to put it down.
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly.
Darcy was already moving toward the stairs.
"I will go," Elizabeth said.
She went up. He heard her knock. Heard the door open. Heard, very faintly, Mia's voice and then Elizabeth's voice and then nothing for a long time.
