Teddy Barnes’s Unrequited Love for Lily

Teddy Barnes’s Unrequited Love for Lily is a long-lived private attachment that shadows Teddy’s friendship with William Henry Devereaux, Jr. First disclosed in a drunken conversation, the crush is never withdrawn, but neither does the evidence establish a romance or a reciprocal declaration from Lily. Instead, it persists in small acts of attention, awkward humor, and Teddy’s concern for Devereaux himself.

A Long-Standing, Unspoken Attachment

Teddy has had an innocent crush on Lily for more than twenty years. The length of the feeling gives it a settled place in his friendship with William Henry Devereaux, Jr., but Teddy does not openly pursue Lily in the scenes described. His opportunities to see her have diminished since the Devereaux family built a house in the country. He nevertheless looks for reasons to be near her: on the rare Saturday mornings when he and Devereaux still play basketball, Teddy drives Devereaux home, even though the court is only a few blocks from Teddy’s own house and the country drive adds four miles to his journey.

The extra distance is more than a practical detail. Teddy presents the ride as a favor to his friend, while Devereaux teases him that the real attraction is the chance to flirt with Lily. Teddy’s flush gives the teasing force, but does not turn his attentions into a pursuit or prove anything about Lily’s feelings. The affection remains unreciprocated in the account: it is Teddy’s known attachment, not an established relationship between the two.

The Confession and Its Embarrassment

More than a decade before the later scenes, Teddy disclosed his infatuation to Devereaux during a drunken night. Almost as soon as the secret was out, he tried to secure Devereaux’s promise not to reveal it, repeatedly warning him against telling Lily. Devereaux answered that he would tell her as soon as he got home. When Teddy protested that this would threaten their friendship, Devereaux turned the exchange into a joke, distinguishing his ability to threaten from any obligation to be taken seriously.

Teddy did take the conversation seriously. With tears in his eyes, he told Devereaux that he did not love Lily as much as he should. Devereaux, dry-eyed, challenged Teddy’s authority to make that judgment and then teased him by suggesting that a promise to lavish attention on Lily might satisfy him. Their argument over how much love is enough is comic in its setting—two middle-aged men in a Railton bar—but the humor does not erase the difference between them. Devereaux treats love as a subject open to teasing; Teddy believes it should not be joked about. His tears and insistence show that, for him, the confession was not a casual drunken boast.

Friendship, Secrecy, and Recurrence

After the confession, Devereaux becomes the only person who refers to it. Teddy never retracts what he said, yet the incident remains embarrassing. This pattern leaves the attachment acknowledged but largely contained: Devereaux can bring it into conversation, while Teddy’s discomfort keeps it from becoming an easy subject between them. Their friendship survives the disclosure, but the secret becomes one of its private, awkwardly shared facts.

Years later, Teddy ruefully imagines a reciprocal yearning from afar, this time involving Devereaux’s feelings for June, Teddy’s wife. The suggestion echoes his own unreturned affection for Lily and turns the old disclosure into a point of comparison between the friends. Devereaux asks how old Teddy is; Teddy falls quiet before changing the subject to the real reason he wanted to drive him home. The exchange shows that the crush can still be invoked through joking, but Teddy’s pause also preserves the embarrassment beneath the humor.

Lily and the Limits of Devereaux’s Imagination

When Teddy visits the Devereaux home, Lily offers to walk him to his car. Devereaux watches them from the kitchen window and imagines an intimacy between the pair, even placing them in his and Lily’s bed in a private fantasy. That imagined scene belongs to Devereaux’s mind, not to the events themselves: he recognizes that Teddy and Lily are not lovers. He further imagines that if Teddy’s fantasy ever came true, Teddy would confess what he had done, then punish himself in an absurd, apologetic fashion. The episode is therefore less evidence of betrayal than a measure of how thoroughly Devereaux understands Teddy’s characteristic embarrassment and self-reproach.

The actual farewell is restrained. Teddy and Lily share a quick hug and separate chastely. Devereaux is almost disappointed, revealing that even while he knows the imagined betrayal is unreal, he has entertained it enough to anticipate an outcome. He then decides that Teddy is asking Lily whether Devereaux will be all right, rather than inquiring about Devereaux’s nose. He cannot hear Lily’s answer. Teddy’s concern for his friend, expressed indirectly through Lily, gives the moment its emotional weight: his attention is not confined to the woman he loves, but is also bound up with a longstanding friendship. The crush remains unresolved, and the scene offers no confirmation that Lily returns it; what it does reveal is how affection, secrecy, teasing, and care continue to coexist among the three of them.