Wandering in Exile Read Online Free PDF Page B

but they just didn’t believe in marriage.
    “Not believe in marriage?” her father had fussed and bubbled. “How can you not believe in marriage? You can dread it and fear it, but you can’t not believe in it. That’s like saying that you don’t believe in death.”
    Her mother had eyed him coldly until he sat down and accepted the whole thing but Deirdre could tell that it never sat well with either of them. And her going off to spend a few weeks with Danny in Canada would be no different.
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    Jacinta had been very formal so Deirdre couldn’t say no. She wanted to say she was busy but she didn’t want to lie. She’d just stay and have tea and they would probably talk about how much they were missing Danny.
    Jacinta made a fuss and insisted on serving tea in china cups, a part of Granny’s collection that she had been able to retrieve from the pawn. She also insisted that they sit in the conservatory that Jerry had rebuilt for her. “He didn’t actually do the work,” she explained. “A friend of Donal’s did the brickwork and new glazing and Jerry painted it and put in a bit of outdoor carpeting.” But it looked grand and was warm in the spring sunshine.
    “You’re not still thinking of going over, are you?” Jacinta asked after she had poured their tea and settled back into her wicker chair.
    Deirdre was hesitant. “I was thinking about it.”
    “Are you sure? Danny might read something into it and you don’t want to be leading him on, do you?”
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    “You’d be better off forgetting about her and getting on with your own life,” his mother told him the next time he phoned.
    “I can’t, Ma. She means the world to me.”
    “Well I hate to be the one to break the bad news, Danny, but she’s going out with someone else.”
    “She can’t be. She just wrote to me and said she was still thinking about visiting.”
    She hadn’t. Her letters were vague, talking only about how much studying she had to do and how she was worried that she might not do as well as she hoped in her finals. But he couldn’t admit that to himself. And certainly not to his mother, who almost sounded happy with her news.
    “Well I’m only telling you what I know.”
    “But she can’t, Ma.”
    “Oh, Danny. You don’t know women. They do whatever their hearts tell them. Not that you can blame her. You’re over there and she’s over here with the whole world between you.”
    He didn’t blame her; he blamed himself. He had no right to expect her to give up anything for him. He wasn’t worth it. He had proven that so many times before. When she came to see him, that day in the Dandelion, she was probably just doing what was right. It meant everything to him and helped him get through it all, but now that he was safe in Canada, he had no right to ask anymore of her.
    It was like the guardian angels his granny used to tell him about; good people didn’t stay in his life. He spent a lot of the day thinking about all that his granny used to tell him. He didn’t feel so bad about most of it anymore but he wished she had talked to him about what happened to his mother—rather than finding out the way he did. He was still a little pissed at his father over that, but who was he to hold a grudge?
    He had, he decided as he leaned on the bar of the Duke of Gloucester, survived the worst of it.
    He liked to spend Saturday afternoons there. He liked the neighborhood and each evening, as he walked from Yonge, across Isabella, everyone he met asked if he’d like some company.
    He was embarrassed the first few times but he knew them all by now; young girls running from frying pans to fires and young men, showing their real selves only at night, offering every sexual possibility for nothing more than money.
    Some nights Danny was so lonely he was tempted. But he couldn’t—they were even sadder and lonelier than he was. And he always had the Windsor. He spent his Saturday nights there and one of these nights he’d chat