"It is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people as well as they deserve." – Jane Austen, Letters
i.
"Why didn't you just ask him to come here?" George inquired. He had blank sheet music paper splayed against one knee and a pen spinning between his fingers.
Darcy exhaled. In hindsight that would have been simpler, and possibly more generous. But to whom? She wanted Eli around all the time, but it wasn't fair to make him pack everything up and come to Manhattan, only to have her be gone Saturday and Sunday. "I don't know. It didn't seem to work." She nodded towards the sheaf of paper. "Is that for class?"
"Kind of. More like, channeling inspiration for school through my own personal inspiration." George grimaced. "As you can see, it's not really going anywhere."
Darcy shouldered on her jacket. "Is Mina coming to dinner tonight?"
"Yeah. If that's OK."
"Of course." It was practically George's apartment now, anyway. Darcy glanced at her watch, distracting herself from the unwelcome twinge of oncoming valuations. "I hope I'll be back by six. Logan said it shouldn't be a late night."
George dashed off a black note with a little wing rising from it. "I don't like this Logan guy."
Darcy stared at him. "Why not? He's just a guy from work."
"Who makes someone come in on a weekend?"
"That's just how these big firms work. He's been very accommodating." Not, of course, that Darcy gave him anything to accommodate.
"Hmph." George was almost scowling. Darcy bent down to hug him.
"Bye, Oscar."
"Oscar?"
"The Grouch. Come on. I let you watch Sesame Street."
"Barely."
But they were both laughing when Darcy went out the door, and she felt a little lift in spirits—just enough to be dampened, as usual, by Manhattan traffic.
She called Eli anyway.
"Hey, you." His voice in her ear made her want to shut her eyes, imagining him beside her.
"Hey. I'm just on my way in. How are the first papers going?" Eli's students had turned in their first assignment the day before.
She could hear him sigh. "You ever stare at a word so long you start to think you're the one spelling it wrong?"
"No."
He laughed. "Show-off. Yeah, so, this one kid is writing about relativism in literature—incredibly broad, interesting, possibly, but he keeps calling it relativity. Like, Einstein's theory. Now, in terms of arguing on a theory of 'moral relativity,' I'm sure there's a great joke in there somewhere."
Darcy smiled. "You just can't find it?"
"Exactly. And I've got a stigmata of red ink all over my hands." He sounded rueful.
"Red pen. Very professorial."
Eli's voice changed. "I want you."
Darcy gripped the wheel a little tighter. "I'll see you in six days."
"Or sooner." Eli's voice became a little hesitant. "I mean, I could…come down there, a couple nights. If George and Fitz didn't mind."
"They'd love to see you! And the only reason—well, I didn't want to ask, because I know you're busy, and it's a lot, and I'm at work so much of the time…commuting would be kind of hellish for you." She switched lanes, and repeated, "I didn't want to ask."
"You can ask your husband stuff." He sounded amused, and she was grateful.
"All right. If it works for you, I'd love…nothing more. If you could come."
"I'd try to surprise you, but with my luck I'd catch the one night you were working late. How does tomorrow night sound? I'll head back up Monday morning."
"Good. That sounds good."
George would be happy too. In all of this—the harsh-turning road of the last few months—she hadn't been the sister she'd always promised George. But having Eli there would help appease that, if only for a little while. And George, when she'd arrived, had seemed happy.
"I'd tell you," Fitz had said. "I'd tell you if there was any reason to worry."
Logan met her at the elevators. "I can't thank you enough for coming in. I know, I'm the bane of boyfriends of everywhere."
"Husband, actually, but he's fine." Darcy paused after she spoke. It wasn't a secret that she was married; she wore it on her hand, after all. Still, she tried to keep everything about her life that wasn't work, out of work.
"Husband!" Logan pressed the elevator button, letting her enter first. "Give him my best. He a lawyer too?"
"English teacher."
"Noble profession!"
Darcy nodded. "He's great."
Logan ducked his chin, lifted his eyebrows. "He must be."
Darcy shifted her briefcase to her other hand, watched the light blink up-up-up, felt the floor surge sluggishly beneath them. "What do you mean?"
"Oh." He seemed to have forgotten the question, though his gaze was steady. "Just…you strike me as someone with high standards." He grinned brightly. "I mean hey, that's why I picked you for this job."
And by all events, she'd been right to take him up on his offer. She was engaged, focused. Brought outside of herself, and that still mattered. She wasn't made to be perfectly content. She always had to reach, and it was safer to keep that reaching contained here.
"I think it's working," she announced to Fitz that night. George and Mina were doing the dishes. Fitz was marking passages in a textbook.
"What is?"
Darcy tugged aside the curtain with a window, letting the shadow and light of the city at night pattern on her face. "My work-life balance."
"Did you read that term in a magazine?"
"Shut up."
Fitz cracked his neck and put the book down. "Is there something bothering you?"
Darcy turned to glower at him. "Didn't I just say that everything was fine?"
"You wouldn't have brought it up if you didn't have something to prove," Fitz countered mildly.
"Sometimes I think I was meant to be alone," Darcy said. "But I don't want to be. So I'm lucky, because I found someone who's willing…well, willing to put up with me."
Fitz said nothing for a moment. He linked fingers around his knee. "I don't want you to take this wrong way…"
"So I will." Darcy turned back to the window so she didn't have to look him the eye when he said whatever it was he was going to say.
"Everyone gets to choose their passion. If yours is grinding your soul up every day of the week, so be it." Fitz paused. "But I just…Eli's not going to tell you when he's not doing well. Not yet, at least."
Anything Darcy said would sound defensive, so she fixed a steely gaze on the glitter of traffic, inching along below and kept her mouth shut.
"He doesn't think he's good enough for you, so he doesn't want to bring you down."
"That's not…"
"I'm not saying it's true, I'm just saying it's what he thinks." Fitz picked up the textbook again. "And who knows, maybe there is a way to do everything you're doing. But living through something and actually looking at it are too different things."
She felt a wave of anger, but it wasn't exactly at Fitz.
"Thanks." Her voice was stiff, and she knew it.
"You took it the wrong way."
She rubbed her shoulder. "Not really. I just wish he could see it's the other way around."
Fitz's brow crinkled. "You're not good enough for him?"
"Exactly."
"Ugh!" Fitz threw his hands in the air. "Damn it, Darth. Why can't either of you see? That's not what it's about. Nobody's good enough for anybody, that way."
"You're very lecture-y tonight," said Darcy, grimly. Maybe Logan was right. Her standards were high—too high—for everything, and that included herself. But living something and looking at it—shut up, inner Fitz. Outer Fitz is sufficient. "I'm going to bed."
ii.
He woke on Saturday morning without Darcy. He'd grown used to her sleeping next to him, and whenever he was alone he still slept with an emptiness on the right side of the bed. Darcy had this habit, when she was sleeping, of bending her hands at the wrist and tucking them under her chin.
Missing her was a physical ache. It settled in the knots of his shoulders and just behind his eyes, dissipating a little only when she called him on her way in to work. When he hung up, he stared at his fingertips. There wasn't as much red ink on them as he'd pretended. Grading papers was a slow business.
Around noon, he heard a familiar rumble in the driveway. He craned his neck and looked out the kitchen window—stopped and looked again.
It was the truck. James' old truck.
Levi and Cody tumbled out of it.
Eli surveyed them from the doorstep, pretending he wasn't happy to see them, though he was. "What are you two idiots doing here?"
"Came to remind you that we're your relations," Levi said, slamming the door shut.
"James told us we should visit you sometime," Cody admitted.
"Fair, I suppose." Eli tucked his hands in his pockets. It had been a while since he'd seen them. Levi might have grown another inch.
"Where's your trophy wife?" Cody asked.
Levi elbowed him. "Dude, he's the trophy husband. C'mon."
"You're both dumbasses," said Eli, but he let them inside all the same.
They wandered the house like it was a museum, and Eli felt a twinge of guilt. James had offhandedly mentioned how often the younger boys visited him and Bing-practically weekly-but this was the first time they had come here.
And Darcy wasn't even around.
"Did you eat?"
They stared at him blankly.
"Of course not." He shook his head, led the way to the kitchen, and took out the makings of grilled cheese.
"What the hell, dude," Cody complained. "You have normal cheese."
"As opposed to..." Eli quirked a threatening eyebrow.
"Some fancy crap. You're like, filthy rich now!"
Levi, who had personally benefited from Darcy's wealth, had the good grace to look abashed.
"Eat the damn sandwiches," Eli growled, when the maligned sandwiches were completed. He hadn't played mom in a while, but judging from how the boys scarfed them down, he hadn't lost his touch.
Eli waited until they were finished, then said, "So, how're things?"
"Fine." Levi swiped at the crumbs on his plate with a finger. He and Cody were both taking classes at community college, but though Eli was interested in how that was going, he knew asking directly might make them clam up all the more.
Not that Cody was in danger of clamming up, particularly. "So, did you hear about Mom?"
"What about Mom?"
"She's moving in with James."
Levi was staring down. Eli said, "Yeah, dude. I talk to James. Remember?"
"Right." Cody sighed. "Anyway, she's moving in two weeks. Do you think it will last?"
"James and Bing are pretty patient," Eli said, clearing away the plates. "I don't see why not."
"No, I mean, like…the Mom and Dad thing."
Levi looked up.
Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. Maybe."
"Really?" Levi sounded lost.
There was so much natural light in the kitchen, but it felt a little cramped. Eli set the dishes in the sink, ran the faucet over them quickly, and said, "Let's go outside."
They followed him. Eli said, "Show me how you've been taking care of the truck."
He wasn't James. He wasn't ever going to be James, and he wished that James could be here, but this might just be the next best thing.
They had never cared much about the truck before James gave it to them, but that was the mystery of Bennetts: they had a complicated relationship with responsibility. Now, given the prompt, Cody and Levi were both eager to show off their handiwork. How about this paint job? And did Eli see the new fender? Ha! It wasn't new. They'd just refurbished it.
Eli, who hated mechanic work with the same passion he always had, still knew a great deal about it. They filled the better part of an hour with tinkering, and afterward, he pulled out a couple of beers.
"What about me?" Levi whined.
Eli rolled his eyes. "Someone has to drive back, doofus, and I'm not betting on either of you lightweights."
"I'm not a lightweight," Levi mumbled, but he slurped down a soda with relatively good grace. Much better grace, notably, than Levi of a few years ago would have.
They sat on the steps. It was afternoon. The time had gone by and Eli hadn't spent all of it aching about Darcy. He hoped that was a good thing.
"So where is she?" Cody asked.
"Darcy?"
"Yeah."
"She had to work this weekend. She's usually here."
"Huh. Do you like being married to her?"
"Yes."
They finished their drinks. Then Eli said, "OK, the thing about Mom and Dad is this. They're both stubborn, and Dad's dumb. You know that, right?"
They nodded.
"Sometimes Mom wants him to be dumb and sometimes she doesn't. Right now she doesn't. So it all depends on Mom."
"But Dad's the one who bought the new place…" Levi said, frowning.
"That's probably not going to last." Eli rolled the bottlecap between his fingers, catching the sharp fluted edge with the tip of his thumb. "He'll come back and want to make things right with her again, eventually. It's familiar to him."
"And then she'll decide," Cody finished. He sounded a little breathless.
"Yes. But there's nothing any of us can do about it now."
"Mom only listens to you," Levi pointed out.
Eli swallowed. "It's not that simple."
Cody leaned back on his elbows. They were kind of a tight fit, the three of them on the steps, but nobody was complaining. Eli had one on either side of him.
Cody said, "You know it's weird, that Mom's going to live with James."
"Why?" But Eli already knew.
"We all thought she'd only want to live with you."
So did I. Eli flicked his eyebrows up, and said nothing aloud.