“Did you know he’s a poet? A very good poet.”
“No, you’re kidding,” she said.
“A beautiful dancer?”
“That doesn’t surprise me. He moves pretty well on rooftops. So, how did this happen? I mean, how did it go from adding a touch of Cape Cod white to your house to this?”
I started to giggle and felt like a schoolgirl. After all, things like this didn’t happen to grown women.
“I talked to him one night at the hamburger place.”
Melanie arched an eyebrow. “Okay. You talked to him at the hamburger place?”
“I can talk to Matt about anything, Melanie. I’ve never had that happen with any man before. He even writes poems the way he talks. It’s very down-to-earth and at the same time, sometimes over your head. He’s passionate, exciting. He’s humble, too. Maybe more than he should be sometimes.”
Melanie suddenly gave me hug. “God, Suzanne, this is it! As IT as it can get. Congratulations, you’re gone for good.”
We laughed like a couple of giddy fifteen-year-olds, and headed back with Melanie’s kids and Gus. That morning at her house, we talked non-stop about everything from first dates to first pregnancies. Melanie confessed that she was thinking of having a fifth baby, which blew me away. For her it was as easy as organizing a cabinet. She had her life as under control as a grocery shelf lined neatly with canned goods. Orderly, alphabetized, well stocked.
I also fantasized about having kids that morning, Nicholas. I knew I would have a high-risk pregnancy because of my heart condition, but I didn’t care. Maybe there was something in me that knew you’d be here one day. A flutter of hope. A deep desire. Or just the sheer inevitability of what love between two people can bring.
You—it brought you.
Bad stuff happens, Nicholas. Sometimes it makes no sense at all. Sometimes it’s unfair. Sometimes it just plain sucks.
The red pickup came tearing around the corner, going close to sixty, but the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion.
Gus was crossing the street, heading toward the beach, where he likes to race the surf and bark at seagulls. Bad timing.
I saw the whole thing. I opened my mouth to stop him, but it was probably already too late.
The pickup swung around the blind curve like a blur. I could almost smell the rubber of the tires as it skid along the hot tar, then I watched as the left front fender caught Gus.
A second more, and he would have cleared that unforgiving metal fender.
Five miles an hour slower, and the pickup would have missed him.
Or maybe if Gus had been a couple of years younger, closer to his prime, it wouldn’t have happened.
The timing was nightmarish, irrevocable, like a rock falling on the windshield of a passing car.
It was over, done, and Gus lay like a rag discarded by the side of the road. It was so sad. He’d been so defenseless, so carefree just seconds before as he romped toward the water.
“No!” I yelled. The truck had stopped, and two stubble-faced men in their twenties got out. They both word colorful bandannas on their heads. They stared at what their speeding vehicle had done.
“Gee, I’m sorry, I didn’t see him,” the driver stammered, and hitched at his blue jeans as he looked at poor Gus.
I didn’t have time to think, to argue, to yell at him. The only thing I needed to do was to get Gus help.
I threw the driver my keys. “Open the back of my Jeep,” I snapped as I gently lifted Gus up into my arms. He was limp and heavy, but still breathing, still Gus.
I laid him in the back of the Jeep, bloody and tenuous. His sweet, familiar eyes were as far away as the clouds. Then he focused on me. Gus whimpered pitifully, and my heart broke into a hundred pieces.
“Don’t die, Gus,” I whispered. “Hold on, boy,” I said as I pulled out of my driveway. “Please don’t leave me.”
I called Matt on my cell phone, and he met me at the vet’s. Dr. Pugatch took Gus in at once, maybe because she saw the look of desperation on my face.
“The truck was going way too fast, Matt,” I told him. I was reliving the scene again, and I could see every detail. Matt was even angrier than me.
“It’s that damn curve. Every time you pull out, I worry about it. I need to lay you a new driveway on the other side of the house. That way you’ll be able to see the road.”
“This is so horrible. Gus was right there when I —” I stopped myself. I still hadn’t told Matt about my heart attack. Gus knew, but Matt didn’t. I had to tell him soon.
“Shhhh, it’s okay, Suzanne. It’s going to be okay.” Matt held me, and though it wasn’t okay, it was as good as it could possibly be. I burrowed into his chest and stayed there. Then I could feel Matt shaking a little. He and Gus had become close, too. Matt had unofficially taken over most of the ball playing with Gus.
Two hours later the vet came out. It seemed like an eternity before she spoke. Now I knew how my own patients must feel when I hesitate or am at a loss for words. Their faces seem calm but their bodies convey something else. They beg to be relieved of their anxiety with good news, only good news.
“Suzanne, Matt . . . ,” Dr. Pugatch finally said. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Gus didn’t make it.”
I began to cry, and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. Gus had always been there with me, for me. He was my good buddy, my roommate, my jogging partner, my confidant. We had been together for fourteen years.
Bad stuff does happen sometimes, Nicholas. Always remember that, but remember that you have to move on, somehow.
You just pick your head up and stare at something beautiful like the sky, or the ocean, and you move the hell on.
Nicholas,
An unexpected letter arrived in the mail for me the next day.
I don’t know why I didn’t rip it open and read it. I just stood there wondering why Matt Harrison had written me a letter when he could easily have picked up the phone or come over.
I stood at the end of the driveway in front of the weatherbeaten, off-white mailbox. I opened the letter carefully and held it tight so it wouldn’t be blown away by the ocean wind.
Rather than try to paraphrase what the letter said, Nicky, I’m enclosing it in the diary.
Dear Suzanne,
You are the explosion of carnations
in a dark room.
Or the unexpected scent of pine
miles from Maine.
You are a full moon
that gives midnight its meaning.
And the explanation of water
For all living things.
You are a compass,
a sapphire,
a bookmark.
A rare coin,
a smooth stone,
a blue marble.
You are an old lore,
a small shell,
a saved silver dollar.
You are a fine quartz,
a feathered quill,
and a fob from a favorite watch.
You are a valentine
tattered and loved and reread a hundred times.
You are a medal found in the drawer
of a once sung hero.
You are honey
and cinnamon
and West Indies spices,
lost from the boat
that was once Marco Polo’s.
You are a pressed rose,
a pearl ring,
and a red perfume bottle found near the Nile.
You are an old soul from an ancient place
a thousand years, and centuries
and millenniums ago.
And you have traveled all this way
just so I could love you.
I do.
Matt
What can I say, Nicholas, that your good, sweet father cannot say better? He is a stunningly good writer, and I’m not even sure he knows it.
I love him so much.
Who wouldn’t?
Nicky,
I called Matt very early the next morning, as soon as I dared, about seven. I had been up since a little past four, thinking that I had to call him, even rehearsing what I should say and how I should say it. I don’t really know how to be dishonest or manipulate people very well. It puts me at a great disadvantage sometimes.
This was hard.
This was impossible.
“Matt, hi. It’s Suzanne. Hope I’m not calling too early. Can you come by tonight?” was all I could manage.
“Of course I can. In fact, I was going to call you and ask for a date.”
Matt arrived at the house a little past seven that night. He was wearing a yellow plaid shirt and navy blue trousers—kind of formal for him.
“You want to take a walk on the beach, Suzanne? Take in the sunset with me?”
It was exactly what I wanted to do. He’d read my mind.
As soon as we crossed the beach road and had our bare feet in the still-warm sand, I said, “Can I talk? There’s something I have to tell you.”
He smiled. “Sure. I always like the sound of your voice.”
Poor Matt. I doubted that he was going to like the sound of what was coming next.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while. I keep putting it off. I’m not even sure how to broach the subject now.”
He took my hand, swung it gently in rhythm with our strides. “Consider it broached. Go ahead, Suzanne.”
“Why are you so dressed up tonight?” I thought to ask him.
“I’m dressed up because I have a date with the most special woman on this entire island. Is that the subject you had trouble broaching?”
I squeezed his hand a little. “Not exactly. No, it isn’t. Okay, here goes.”
Matt finally said, “You are scaring me a little now.”
“Sorry,” I whispered. “Sorry. Matt, right before I came to the Vineyard —”
“You had a heart attack,” he said in the softest voice. “You almost died in the Public Garden, but you didn’t, thank God. And now, here we are, and I think we’re two of the luckiest people. I know that I am. I’m here holding your hand, looking into your beautiful blue eyes.”
I stopped walking and stared at Matt in disbelief. The setting sun was just over his shoulder, and it looked like a nimbus. Was Matthew an angel?
“How long have you known? How did you know?” I stammered.
“I heard before I came to work for you. This is a small island, Suzanne. I was half expecting some old biddie with a walker.”
“I did use a walker for a couple of days in Boston. I had surgery. So you knew, but you never told me you knew.”
“I didn’t think it was my place. I knew that you’d tell me when you were ready. I guess you’re ready, Suzanne. That’s good news. I’ve been thinking about what happened to you a lot in the past few weeks. I even arrived at a point of view. Would you like to hear it?”
I held on to Matt’s arm. “Of course I would.”
“Well, I can’t help thinking of this whenever we’re together. I think, isn’t it lucky that Suzanne didn’t die in Boston and we have today to be together. Now we get to watch this sunset. Or isn’t it lucky Suzanne didn’t die and we’re sitting out on her front porch playing hearts or watching a stupid Red Sox game. Or listening to Mozart or even that smarmy love song you like by Savage Garden. I keep thinking, isn’t this day, this moment, incredibly special, because you’re here, Suzanne.”
I started to cry, and that’s when Matt took me into his arms. We cuddled on the beach for a long time, and I never wanted him to let me go. Never ever. We fit together so well. I kept thinking, Isn’t this moment incredibly special? Aren’t I the lucky one?
“Suzanne?” I heard him whisper, and I felt Matt’s warm breath on my cheek.
“I’m here. Hard to miss. I’m right here in your arms. I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s good. I want you to always be there. I love having you in my arms. Now there’s something I have to say. Suzanne, I love you so much. I treasure everything about you. I miss you when we’re apart for just a couple of hours. Every day while I’m working, I can’t wait to see you that night. I’ve been looking for you for a long time, I just didn’t know it. But now I do. Suzanne, will you marry me?”
I pulled back and looked into the beautiful eyes of this precious man I had found somehow, or maybe he had found me. I couldn’t stop smiling, and the warm glow spreading inside me was the most incredible feeling.
“I love you, Matt. I’ve been looking for you for a long time, too. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
KATIE
KATIE CLOSED the diary again.
She slammed it shut this time. It hurt her so much to read these pages. She could take them only in small doses. Matt had warned her in his letter that it might happen, and it had. There will be parts that may be hard for you to read. What an incredible understatement that was.
The diary continued to put her in a place of unexpected surprises. Now it was making her jealous, something she didn’t think she was capable of. She was jealous of Suzanne. She kind of felt like a jerk, a small and petty person. Not herself. Maybe it was hormones. Or maybe it was just a normal reaction to everything abnormal that had happened to her recently.
She shut her eyes tight, and felt incredibly alone. She hugged herself with both arms. She needed to talk to someone besides Guinevere and Merlin. Ironically, the person she wanted to reach out to was on Martha’s Vineyard. As much as she wanted to, she wouldn’t call him. She would call her friends Laurie or Gilda or Susan, but not Matt.
Her eyes moved over to the bookshelves she had built into her walls. Her apartment was like a small bookstore. Very independent. Orlando, The Age of Innocence, Bella Tuscany, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The God of Small Things. She’d been reading voraciously ever since she was seven or eight. She read everything, anything.
She was feeling a little queasy again. Cold, too. She wrapped herself in a blanket and watched Ally McBeal on TV. Ally turned thirty in the episode, and Katie cried. She wasn’t nearly as crazy as Ally and her friends, but the show still hit a nerve.
She lay on her living-room couch and couldn’t stop thinking about the baby growing inside her. “It’s all right, little baby,” she whispered. I hope so, anyway.
Katie remembered the night when she had gotten pregnant. She’d had a fantasy in bed that night, but she dismissed it, thinking, I’ve never gotten pregnant before. She hadn’t ever missed a period—except one time in college, when she’d been playing varsity basketball at North Carolina and learned that her body fat was too low.
That last night with Matt, Katie had felt that it had never been like this before. Something had changed between them.
She could feel it in the way he held her and looked at her with his luminous brown eyes. She felt some of his walls come down, felt This is it. He was ready to tell her things that he hadn’t been able to talk about.
Had that scared Matt? Had he felt it, too, that last night we were together? Was that what had happened?
She had never felt as close to Matt as she had that night. She always loved being with him, but that night it was urgent; they were both so needy.
Katie recalled that it had started so simply: all he had done was wrap his fingers around hers. He slid his free arm beneath her and stared into her eyes. Next their legs touched, then their entire bodies reached toward each other. She and Matt never lost eye contact, and it seemed as if they were really one in a way that they hadn’t been before that night.
His eyes said, I love you, Katie. She couldn’t have been wrong about that.
She had always wanted it to be like that, just like that. She’d had that thought, that dream, a thousand times before it actually happened. His strong arms were around her back, and her long legs were wrapped around his. She knew she could never forget any of those images or sensations.
He was so light when he was on top of her, supporting himself on his elbows, his k
nees. He was athletic, graceful, giving, dominating. He whispered her name over and over: Katie, sweet Katie, my Katie, Katie, Katie.
This was it, she knew—he was completely aware and attuned to her, and she had never experienced such love with anyone before. She loved it, loved Matt, and she pulled him deep inside, where they made a baby.
Three
KATIE KNEW what she had to do the next morning. Seven A.M.—but it wasn’t too early for this. This was it.
She called home—Asheboro, nestled between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina—where life had always been simpler. Kinder, too. Much, much kinder.
So why had she left Asheboro? she wondered as the phone began to ring. To follow her love of books? It was her passion, something she truly loved. Or had she just needed to see a world larger than the one she knew in the heart of North Carolina?
“Hey, Katie,” her mother answered on the third ring. “You’re up with the city birds this morning. How are you doing, sweetie?”
They had Caller ID in Asheboro now. Everything was changing, wasn’t it? For better or for worse, or maybe somewhere in between.
“Hey, Mom. What’s the latest?”
“You doing a little better today?” her mother asked. She knew that Katie had found someone in New York. She knew all about Matt and had loved it when Katie called to talk about him, especially when she said they would probably be getting married. Now he had left her, and Katie was suffering. She didn’t deserve that. Her mother had tried to get her to come home, but Katie wouldn’t do it. She was too tough—right. A big-city girl. Well, her mother knew better.
“Some. Yeah, sure. Well, actually, no. I’m still a mess. I’m pitiful. I’m hopeless. I swore I’d never let a man get me into a state like this —and here I am.”
Katie began to tell her mother about the diary and what she had read so far. The lesson of the five balls. Suzanne’s daily routine on Martha’s Vineyard. How she met Matt again.
“You know what’s so strange, Mom? I actually like Suzanne. Damn it. I’m such a sap. I ought to hate her, but I can’t do it.”