I clenched my teeth. Usually, even if his voice grated me, I heard only liquid diamonds. But my frustration with this monologue rose; it was like listening to my bitter grandfather’s dementia-fogged ramblings about the Afghan War, his remembrances of lingering sadness and loss so long after that we could barely stand to listen.
“And so,” I said, sighing, “it shall always be about the next case. And the next. And nothing else.”
“Yes, when one ends, then I must audition the players for the next performance and achieve that sublime satisfaction all over again. It is the only way to leave the monster behind.”
I wanted Sherlock to want me more than his work. I wanted him to love me, to realize that he already did. But perhaps that was the fatal flaw. I was not sure that there was any way to make him see it, and I did not want to settle for less. Still I pressed on.
“Sherlock, there is more to life than solving the riddles. More than investigations and cases and victims and criminals. More than medicine! Is it really so utterly inconceivable to you that we can share all of the mundane details and interludes of mediocrity that life can offer up? Can’t we try to edit out the inconsequential differences between us, and have a life together? Enjoy the little things? Can’t you keep an open mind?”
“I do have an open mind, Poppy. And the little things... do not think that I see them as unimportant. The details are important. They can be infinitely the most important in solving a case.”
I threw my hands up into the air. “I’m not talking about cases, Sherlock! I’m talking about... about flowers like those you left for me at the cottage. I’m talking about-”
“I know what you are talking about, Poppy, and I am not immune to emotions. I am not inhuman. I seek admiration and appreciation, like any man. But I know myself. I know wherein my serenity of spirit lies and I best abate my anxieties through my work.”
“Have you never thought that perhaps fate brought us together? That my dog biting you was meant to be?”
“Fate. Fate is surely difficult to comprehend. And it seems to me that fate can bring as much misery as joy. Were Archibald and his little friends fated to be born into such a miserable life? I yearn for peace, Poppy. I do. But the flesh is transient and I aspire to something higher.”
“You sound like someone who wants to be a priest. Sherlock, for heaven’s sake-”
He gave out a sigh like a man too weary to take another step. “Let us say that I simply feel called upon to trace evil to its source. And now that I know it, I must go out for a short while, Poppy.” He went to the dresser, took something from a drawer, and tucked it under his waistcoat. I realized it was likely his pistol.
He walked over to me, kissed my forehead and said, “Stay here. Promise me you will stay here and if you insist, we will talk more when I return.”
“Don’t go, please.”
He turned toward the door.
“Sherlock, this was a ruse, wasn’t it? A ploy to keep me away from Uncle’s house. You are going after the killer, aren’t you?”
“I must take the risks that the drama asks of me.”
“But, Sherlock-”
He sighed. “I don’t know what you think is hidden at the bottom of this roundabout conversation.”
“But-”
“Poppy, impose no further tax on my patience or time!” he bellowed. “I have drawn the large cover. The animal has broken the cover and now the hunt begins. Do not leave, Poppy. Do not exert yourself in your reckless fashion and follow me,” he warned.
With that, he hurried from the bedroom and I heard the door to the hallway close.
45
In the wake of this soliloquy, I went back to the lounge and sat down in a chair near the fireplace. I had to face the fact that Sherlock might never embrace the possibility that each of us could gain as much as we lost. I still believed that there was something hidden ‘at the bottom of this roundabout conversation,’ that we could renew that hopeful flight of fancy we’d shared; that we could invest in it, widen that sliver of a connection upon which we could mutually agree and liberate it.
I was unsure what I feared most and endeavoured to avoid - a life without Sherlock in it or one that bound me to him. My upbringing, especially my uncle’s influence, had exhorted me endlessly to move forward, steam onward, to carve my psyche into a rather efficient machine, but Sherlock held me hostage. My feelings for him clouded my mind so much that logic sometimes receded. The disconcerting reality was that I alone could exhume that logical self. That I alone could make the decision to distance myself from Sherlock Holmes or accept him for who he was and stop trying to assuage his infinitely impossible personality, his moroseness, his darker side, his coldness.
I wanted to shape the clay from which he was made, cast him in bronze and stare at my towering hero forever. I wanted to erase the vulnerability, mend the broken pieces and banish the blustery veneer. But those qualities made him who he was... an odd man, a fearless man who smiled at death, who beat death. I wondered if Uncle was right. Was there any way at all to make that leap, for me to take him as he was, detached and unapologetic? Could I succeed in looking past his flaws and the disappointments and hone in on the pleasures we enjoyed in each other and the things that set us in motion to begin with? Could Sherlock ever let down his guard long enough to say goodbye to the
