"You're welcome. We were happy to do that for you and Billy. We have several of Donnie's pieces. We like to support him, and it's a piece of furniture you can pass down to your children."
"I know, it's beautiful. Thank you. We'll take good care of it."
Nancy smiled. "Congratulations, sweetheart, and let us know when the baby comes."
"We will," Tess insisted nodding.
Nancy waved at both of us as she returned to the front of the restaurant where she would pick up her food and leave.
"Do you think she was upset with me? Is that why she was being short?" I asked.
"What do you mean short?" Tess asked, looking genuinely confused. She took a bite of her lunch.
"Don't you think it seemed like she was in a hurry?"
"No, not really," Tess said, shaking her head and chewing her food.
I thought about it as I took a bite of my sandwich. "I wonder if she's mad at me from when I stopped talking to Daniel," I said.
"I didn't think she was mad at you at all," Tess said, still looking confused.
I shrugged and smiled like she was probably right, but I didn't feel casual about it in my heart. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw Nancy paying for her food. I tried to figure out why seeing her made me feel bad. I was melancholy as a result of all these thoughts of Daniel and her visit to our table only made it worse. Nothing had been said to make me feel that way. Nancy was being friendly.
I was nostalgic for my friendship with Daniel, though, and suddenly filled with regret over ending it. I felt sick with myself about doing it at a time when he needed me the most.
"What happened, Abigail? What's the matter?" Tess asked the questions as if she was really concerned about me, and I realized my expression must have been reflecting my anxious thoughts.
"I was just thinking back," I said. "I was thinking about Daniel."
"What about him?"
"Those letters," I said dazedly. "I was remembering them, trying to. At the time, I was just…" I trailed off, feeling guilty for my selfishness. "I was preoccupied with my own stuff. I knew he was over there and everything, but I had feelings for…" I paused and took a bite of my sandwich for no other reason than to keep myself from crying. There was really no reason for me to be so worked up. I tried to tell myself that, but my emotions couldn't be controlled at the moment.
"For who?" Tess said, still looking confused.
"Albert," I said, pulling myself together, concentrating on my food. "I had feelings for Albert and everything, and I, I just feel bad. I'm just now realizing that Daniel probably thought we were… maybe he had some… feelings…" I sighed. "He probably thought things were different between us than I did. I don't know. I need to get home and look at those letters again. I need to read them again."
"Don't beat yourself up," she said. "Things turned out okay for him. He did well."
"I know, and I'm glad. I'm just thinking that I probably wasn't a very good friend."
"Well, you could always call and tell him that," she said. "I'm sure it's fine though. I didn't even realize you guys were talking all that time. He talks to Billy quite a bit. It seems like he would've said something if he was upset with you or anything."
"Yeah," I agreed even though I took no comfort in the fact that he hadn't mentioned me to Billy.
I sat there and ate that sandwich and responded to Tess and the conversation she made, but I was preoccupied thinking about Daniel and remembering the sequence of our friendship. My thoughts were unorganized and interrupted, but during the course of that meal, I somehow reasoned with myself and concluded that Daniel had been in love with me the whole time—maybe even since the very beginning. I had never known it or accepted it. I had treated him so casually.
I ate most of my sandwich, but it was only to make myself seem normal. I was sick to my stomach.
"I'd like to go down to the boardwalk," I said to Tess on our way out.
"Really? Just to walk around?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding.
"Do you want to go alone?" she asked, looking at me as if gaging my mood.
"Not necessarily," I said. "A walk might do you good." I gestured to her stomach. "It might shake things up in there."
"I was thinking that same thing," Tess said, smiling.
We went to the boardwalk.
I had been there lots of times. More recently, I went with Albert. But the memories that came to me as Tess and I walked were long ago memories—the ones that included Daniel. I tried to force myself into not thinking of him. I tried to tell myself that I was only yearning for him because he got that big honor. I told myself that I regretted losing him now that he was some famous war hero.
But that wasn't what my heart felt.
I felt regret, but it wasn't the selfish type. I knew I wasn't good enough for Daniel now. I might have been at one point, but I hadn't seen it then. Now I had done things and made decisions that made me unworthy of someone like him. I wasn't sad out of selfish regret. I truly did just want to make things right with him. But, then again, maybe that was selfish of me. Maybe I should just let him lead his life and not have the gratification of his forgiveness.
I went through the afternoon with my sister, saying the things she'd expect me to say so that she didn't know I was having a hard time internally. My regrets over Daniel were my problem, and I didn't want to put that on her—especially when she was about to give birth.
I left Galveston that evening, making Tess promise to call me as soon as they headed to the hospital.
I cried on my way home. I laughed, too. I was just emotional. I wasn't normally a dramatic type of person, but I was sad that I didn't get to meet the baby, and I was delirious with thoughts and memories regarding my relationship with Daniel.
Regret, I decided, was the worst of all emotions. I was sad and embarrassed and full of regret, and I had no one to blame but myself.
I thought of how aloof I was at a time when Daniel was scared and risking his life, and I felt sick with regret over it. That feeling only intensified when I got home to Starks and found the letters Daniel had written me.
I was currently living in an apartment with a roommate. It was a small complex owned by a friend of our family. I had been independent in college and then for a year in Galveston, so I was reluctant to move back in with my parents when I came home. I had been renting this apartment for a year. I carried a few things with me through all of my moves, and one of them was the box of letters. I had a few other keepsakes in there, but most of them were letters and most of those were from Daniel.
I went to the box the instant I got home. It had been a long time since I opened it, and I got a nostalgic feeling just from looking inside. I had gotten into the habit of putting the newest letters on top, so I simply sat the letters up on their side and started at the back of the pile, at the beginning. I read letters into the middle of the night. I stopped or took breaks, but all night, I kept going back to the box.
It was embarrassing how much I learned about Daniel. He wrote about things that I didn't even remember reading. Some of those letters, I wondered if I had even read them at all. One of them, I knew I hadn't read because it was literally still sealed. I cried when I opened it and the whole time I read it. Not because it was sad, but because Daniel assumed I had already read the things he wrote.