AFTERMATH

Hope would never remember the drive back to Raleigh. Nor would she remember much about her lunch with Josh that Sunday afternoon. He had called her numerous times since the wedding, leaving messages at her apartment, begging her to meet him. Reluctantly, she agreed to meet him at a local café, but while Josh was talking to her across the table, all she could think about was the way Tru had stood in the road, watching her go. Abruptly, she told Josh that she needed a few days to think about things and left the restaurant before the food even arrived, feeling his stunned gaze on her as she hurried out.

He appeared at her apartment a few hours later and they spoke on her doorstep. He apologized again, Hope managing to mask her turmoil. After agreeing to meet with him on Thursday, she closed the door and leaned against it, utterly spent. She lay on the sofa in her living room, intending to doze for a short while, but somehow slept until the following morning. Her first thought upon waking was that Tru was already on his way back to Zimbabwe, the gulf between them increasing by the minute.

It was all she could do to function at work. She moved on autopilot, and with the exception of a teenage girl who’d been in a horrific car accident, she remembered none of the patients. If the other nurses noticed how detached she seemed to be, they didn’t say anything.

On Wednesday, she planned to visit her parents after work. Her mom had left a message on her answering machine a couple of days earlier saying that she’d be making stew, and Hope decided to pick up a blueberry pie from a local bakery on her way over. The only problem was that the bakery only accepted cash, and in her daze of the last few days, she’d forgotten to go to the bank. Remembering that she kept some money in the glove compartment for emergencies, she returned to the car and opened it up. As she rummaged for the cash, she knocked some of the contents to the floor, and it was only while cleaning up that she recognized the drawing of herself that Tru had completed.

Seeing it in the car took her breath away. She knew he must have placed it in her glove compartment the morning she’d left. She stared at the image, her hands beginning to tremble, before remembering that she still had to pay for the pie. She carefully set the drawing on the passenger seat, then hurried back inside to complete her purchase.

Back in the car, she didn’t start the ignition. Instead, she reached for the drawing again. Examining the image of herself, she recognized a woman hopelessly in love with the man who’d drawn her, and she felt an intense longing to be held by him just one more time. She wanted to breathe in the scent of him, feel the coarse scratch of his stubble, stare into the face of the man who intuitively understood her in a way that no one ever had before. To be with the man who’d stolen her heart.

Lowering it to her lap, she noticed another sheet of drawing paper in the open glove compartment. It was carefully folded; on top of it lay an envelope with her name on it. She picked them up with shaking hands.

Unfolding the drawing first, she saw the two of them standing on the beach, gazing at each other in profile. The sight left her breathless, and she was only vaguely aware that a car had pulled into the spot next to her, the radio blaring. She stared at the image of Tru, flooded with longing. She forced herself to put it aside.

The envelope felt heavy in her hands. She didn’t want to open it, not here. She should wait until later, when she was back at her place, when she was alone.

But the letter was calling to her, and lifting the seal, she pulled it out and began to read.

Dear Hope,

I’m not sure whether you want to read this, but in my confusion, I am grasping at straws. Along with this letter, you’ll find two drawings. Maybe you’ve already seen them. You might recognize the first one. I worked on the second one while you were at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I have a feeling that I’ll complete more drawings of you when I get home, but I’d like to keep those, if it’s all right with you. If not, please let me know. I can either send them to you, or dispose of them, and will not attempt another one. I hope that you believe that I am, and will always be, someone that you can trust.

I want you to know that while imagining a life without you is unbearable, I understand your reasons. I saw your radiant expression when you spoke of having children, and I will never forget it. I know how agonizing this choice has been for you. It’s been devastating for me, but I can’t find it in my heart to blame you. After all, I have a son, and I can’t imagine life without him.

After you leave, I suspect I’ll walk the beach as I have every day since I arrived, but nothing will be the same. For with every step I take, I’ll find myself thinking about you. I will feel you beside me, and within me. You have already become part of me, after all, and I know with certainty that this will never change.

I never expected to feel this way. How could I? For most of my life, and with the exception of my son, I’ve always felt as though I were meant to be alone. I’m not implying that I’ve lived the life of a hermit, because I haven’t, and you already know that my job requires a certain level of social agreeableness. But I was never a person who felt incomplete without someone lying beside me in bed; I never felt as though I was only half of something better. Until you came along. And when you did, I understood that I’d been fooling myself, and that I’d really been missing you, all these long years.

I don’t know what that means for my future. I do know that I’m not going to be the same person I used to be, because that’s no longer possible. I’m not naive enough to believe that memories will suffice, and in quiet moments, I may reach for drawing paper and try to capture whatever remains. I hope you will not deny me that.

I wish that things could have been different for us, but fate seems to have had other plans. Still, you need to know this: The love I feel for you is real, and all the sadness that now comes with it is a price I would pay a thousand times over. For knowing you, and loving you, even for a short while, has given my life a different kind of meaning, and I know it always will.

I’m not asking the same of you. I know what’s coming next for you, the new life that you’ll be living, and there’s no room for a third person there. I accept that. The Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu once said that being loved deeply by someone gives you strength, and loving someone deeply gives you courage. I understand now what he meant. Because you came into my life, I can face the oncoming years with the kind of courage that I never knew I had. Loving you has made me more than I was.

You know where I am and where I’ll be if you ever want to contact me. It might take time. I’ve already mentioned that the world moves more slowly in the bush. And some items never reach their destination. But I firmly believe that you and I shared something special enough that if you reach out to me, the universe will somehow let me know. It’s because of you, after all, that I now believe in miracles. With us, I want to believe that anything will always be possible.

Loving you,

Tru

Hope read the letter a second time, then once more, before finally returning it to the envelope. She pictured Tru writing the letter as he’d sat in her kitchen, and though she wanted to read it again, she doubted she would be able to make it to her parents’ if she did.

She stowed the drawings and the letter in the glove compartment but didn’t start the car right away. Instead, she leaned back against the headrest, trying to calm her raging emotions. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she forced herself to get on the road.

Her legs were unsteady as she walked to the door of her parents’ home. She forced a smile as she stepped through inside, watching as her dad struggled to rise from his recliner to greet her. The aroma from the kitchen filled the house, but Hope couldn’t muster an appetite.

At the table, she shared a few stories from the wedding. Asked about the rest of the week, she made no mention of Tru. Nor did she tell her parents that Josh had proposed.

After dessert, she retreated to the front porch, claiming a need for fresh air.

By then, the sky was full of stars, and when she heard the screen door creak open, she saw her dad framed in the lights from the living room. He smiled and touched her shoulder as he shuffled carefully to the seat next to hers. He carried a cup of decaffeinated coffee with him, and after he settled in, he took a sip.

“Your mom still makes the best beef stew I’ve ever tasted. ”

“It was very good tonight, ” Hope agreed.

“Are you feeling okay? You seemed a little quiet at dinner. ”

She tucked a leg up beneath her. “Yeah. I guess I’m still recovering from the weekend. ”

He placed the cup on the table between them. In the corner of the porch, a moth was dancing around the light, and crickets had begun their evening call.

“I heard that Josh showed up at the wedding. ” When she turned toward him, he shrugged. “Your mom told me. ”

“How did she find out? ”

“I’m not sure, ” he answered. “I’m assuming someone told her. ”

“Yes, ” Hope said, “he was there. ”

“And the two of you spoke? ”

“A little, ” she said. Until last week, she couldn’t have imagined keeping the marriage proposal secret from her dad, but in the close, muggy air of that September evening, she couldn’t form the words. Instead she said, “We’re going to have dinner tomorrow night. ”

He looked over at his daughter, his soft eyes trying to read her. “I hope it goes well, ” he said. “Whatever that means to you. ”

“Me too. ”

“He has some explaining to do, if you ask me. ”

“I know, ” she answered. Inside, she heard the grandfather clock chime. Earlier in the day, she had taken a dusty atlas down from the shelf at home and calculated the time difference with Zimbabwe. Counting forward, she figured out that it was now the middle of the night there. She assumed that Tru was in Bulawayo with Andrew, and wondered what they had planned when they woke for the day. Would he take Andrew into the bush to see the animals, or would they kick a ball back and forth, or simply go for a walk? She wondered whether Tru was still thinking about her, in the same way she couldn’t stop thinking about him. In the silence, the words from his letter tried to force their way to the surface.

She knew her dad was waiting for her to speak. In the past, whenever she’d had problems or concerns, she’d gone to him. He had a way of listening that always comforted her. Naturally empathetic, he seldom offered advice. He would instead ask what she thought she should do, silently encouraging her to trust her own instincts and judgment.

But now, after reading what Tru had written, she couldn’t help thinking that she’d made a terrible mistake. As she sat beside her father, her final morning with Tru began to replay in slow motion. She remembered the way Tru had looked when he’d stepped onto the deck, the feel of his hand in hers as they strolled down the beach. She recalled his stricken expression when she’d told him of Josh’s proposal.

Those weren’t the most piercing memories, however. Instead, she thought about the way he’d begged her to come with him to Zimbabwe; she saw him bent over double as she made that final turn, away from a possible life together.

She knew she could change things. It wasn’t too late. She could book a flight to Zimbabwe tomorrow and go to him; she’d say that she knew now that the two of them were destined to grow old together. They could make love in a foreign locale, and she would become someone new, whose life she had only fantasized about.

She wanted to say those things to her dad. She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted him to say that her happiness was all that mattered to him, but before she could speak, she felt a lick of breeze, and all at once, she pictured Tru sitting beside her at Kindred Spirit, the wind ruffling his thick hair.

She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she?

Hadn’t she?

The crickets continued to sing, the night settling heavily, with an almost suffocating weight. Moonlight threaded the branches of the trees. On the street, a car passed by, the windows down and radio playing. She remembered the jazz music on the radio when Tru had held her in the kitchen.

“I forgot to ask you, ” her dad finally said, “and I know it was storming most of the week. But did you ever make it to Kindred Spirit? ”

At his words, the dam suddenly burst and Hope choked out a cry, which quickly gave way to sobbing.

“What did I say? ” he asked in a panic, but she could barely hear him. “What’s wrong? Talk to me, sweetheart…”

She shook her head, unable to answer. In a haze, she felt her father put a hand on her knee. Even without opening her eyes, she knew he was staring at her with alarm and concern. But all she could think about was Tru, and there was nothing she could do to stop the tears.

PART II

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