Listen to this!” Janie’s face was white too when Estella groped her way back to the parlor.
A voice on the radio spoke words that Estella could hardly take in: “At 7:48 a.m. today, Hawaiian time, the Japanese air force and navy attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, and other United States possessions in the Pacific. It is expected that the United States of America will make a formal declaration of a state of war very soon.”
“We need to pack,” Estella said hoarsely, her throat raw from the attempt to purge Harry Thaw. “We’re going back to the city.”
“Are you okay?” Janie asked as she took in Estella’s face.
“Sit down,” Sam said. “It’ll be all right. Maybe it’s a good thing for France if America joins the war.”
“It won’t ever be all right,” Estella said dully.
“Who was your visitor?” Sam asked as if he’d suddenly realized there was more to Estella’s current state than the news of America readying for war.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever,” she added as Sam started to speak.
She threw armfuls of clothes into her suitcase, gathered up needles and pins and ribbons and fabric and wished she’d never been born. How could her mother have slept with a man like Harry Thaw? The worst kind of man, demonic, a man to whom the word evil truly applied because he showed no remorse, continued to hurt people and took great pleasure in doing so. He’d raped his own daughter for God’s sake. What did that make Estella, daughter of the devil himself?
Her body shook as she packed. She couldn’t unthink the awful knowledge that if Alex had thought his own father was bad, then he would think Estella’s diabolical. My father was the world’s worst man, he’d said. One day you’ll look at me and you’ll wish I hadn’t let you kiss me. That’s why I should stop now and walk away.
Oh God! She tried to swallow the sob but she felt Sam’s and Janie’s eyes on her and knew she hadn’t succeeded. Her whole body ached, as if her soul had been ripped away. If Alex knew the truth, there was no possible way he’d want to marry her. His father might have been awful but he’d never raped or murdered or been committed to a lunatic asylum. Harry was the world’s worst man. And insane to boot. Which is why she had to walk away. It’s what Alex would do if he discovered Harry was his father.
And then there was the shame. The horrible engulfing shame that her mother was the kind of woman who would fall for Harry, and then, knowing what he was like, would leave Lena with him. The blood in Estella’s veins was beyond tainted; it was putrid. She couldn’t look at Alex and not feel that shame ruin everything they had.
She felt Janie and Sam watching her as they loaded the car. Felt their concern, their dismay; knew they assumed something had happened between her and Alex and she let them think that because then she wouldn’t have to explain.
At last they were ready to go. Alex would be home soon. Estella asked Janie and Sam to stay outside, said that she’d join them as soon as she’d spoken to Alex. And then she waited to tell him she could never see him again.
He knew something was wrong the instant he arrived. “Why are Janie and Sam in the car?” he asked, walking over to kiss her. He stopped when he saw her face. “My God, what’s wrong? You look so ill. Is it Pearl Harbor? I have to go back to Europe but…”
Estella stood up. Even holding her hands clasped in front of her couldn’t stop them from trembling. Her voice was high-pitched, strangled; she didn’t even sound like herself but then wasn’t that reasonable, given she was no longer the Estella he’d fallen in love with, the Estella he’d wanted to marry.
“I can’t marry you,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Don’t cry, she told herself. Please don’t cry. Make him believe you don’t want him, make him believe anything so that you don’t have to tell him about Harry. So that you don’t have to see the look on his face when he finds out who your father is.
“What did I do?” he asked, desperate. “I know I promised you a month and I’m sorry I have to go back but I can’t stay, not now.”
Estella wanted to cry. “It’s not you,” she said. “It’s not the war. It’s me. I…” How could she say it? How could she lie and not have him know it? But she had to, for Alex’s sake. If Harry was insane, then mightn’t she be too one day? Or her children? For God’s sake, her mother was the kind of person who would give Harry a baby. That was insane. Everything about Estella was born out of disgrace. And to have to admit that to Alex, to witness the love leach from his eyes the minute he learned of her sordid parentage was more than she could bear. She could never say those words aloud: Harry Thaw is my father. But nor would it be honest to let things continue with him all the while keeping her deplorable secret.
So she forced herself to say it. “I made a mistake. I don’t…” She couldn’t make herself say, I don’t love you. “I don’t want to be with you,” she finished. “Not anymore.”
She walked toward the door, willing her body to hold up for just a few moments longer. Her heart seemed to stop, and her breath too, and the room shifted into blackness. A few more steps, she told herself. Get out of the house before you blight Alex, the best and bravest man there was—the love of her life—any further.
“Estella,” she heard him say, his voice bereft.
It took all of her willpower not to turn around, not to hold him as she cried and said I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over again. Because in the sound of her name, she heard all his doubts made manifest: that she would leave him one day. That he didn’t deserve her. That he thought it was why she was going.
No, Alex, she thought as she walked down the front steps to the car. I’m leaving because you deserve so much more than me.
“Wait!” she heard him call as she opened the car door. She made the mistake of turning around, of seeing what she’d done to him. He was annihilated.
And she almost turned back. Almost gathered him up in her arms and smoothed her hands over his face, restoring to it the brilliance she’d been so lucky to witness. But then she would have to tell him and that would destroy everything they’d shared. At least, this way, she saved him from the burden of her shame.