She waited for more, but when I didn't answer, she nudged my shoulder with her own.
"That's all you can say?"
I knew this was her attempt to get me to open up, and though it wasn't something I'd ever been comfortable doing, I knew that Jane would keep prodding me--gently and persistently--until I did. She was smart in a way that few others were, not only academically, but about people as well. Especially me.
"I don't know what else to tell you," I said. "They're just typical parents. They work for the government and they've lived in a town house in Dupont Circle for almost twenty years. That's in D.C., where I grew up. I think they thought about buying a house in the suburbs some years back, but neither one of them wanted to deal with the commute, so we stayed where we were."
"Did you have a backyard?"
"No. There was a nice courtyard, though, and sometimes weeds would sprout between the bricks."
She laughed. "Where did your parents meet?"
"Washington. They both grew up there, and they met when they both worked for the Department of Transportation. I guess they were in the same office for a while, but that's all I know for sure. They never said much more than that."
"Do they have any hobbies?"
I considered her question as I pictured both my parents. "My mom likes to write letters to the editor of The Washington Post," I said. "I think she wants to change the world. She's always taking the side of the downtrodden, and of course, she's never short of ideas to make the world a better place. She must write at least a letter a week. Not all of them get printed, but she cuts out the ones that do and posts them in a scrapbook. And my dad . . . he's on the quiet side. He likes to build ships in bottles. He must have made hundreds over the years, and when we ran out of space on the shelves, he started donating them to schools to display in the libraries. Kids love them."
"Do you do that, too?"
"No. That's my dad's escape. He wasn't all that interested in teaching me how to do it, since he thought I should have my own hobby. But I could watch him work, as long as I didn't touch anything."
"That's sad."
"It didn't bother me," I countered. "I never knew any different, and it was interesting. Quiet, but interesting. He didn't talk much as he worked, but it was nice spending time with him."
"Did he play catch with you? Or go bike riding?"
"No. He wasn't much of an outdoor guy. Just the ships. It taught me a lot about patience."
She lowered her gaze, watching her steps as she walked, and I knew she was comparing it to her own upbringing.
"And you're an only child?" she continued.
Though I'd never told anyone else, I found myself wanting to tell her why. Even then, I wanted her to know me, to know everything about me. "My mom couldn't have any more kids. She had some sort of hemorrhage when I was born, and it was just too risky after that."
She frowned. "I'm sorry."
"I think she was, too."
By that point, we'd reached the main chapel on campus, and Jane and I paused for a moment to admire the architecture.
"That's the most you've ever told me about yourself in one stretch," she remarked.
"It's probably more than I've told anyone."
From the corner of my eye, I saw her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "I think I understand you a little better now," she said.
I hesitated. "Is that a good thing?"
Instead of answering, Jane turned toward me and I suddenly realized that I already knew the answer.
I suppose I should remember exactly how it happened, but to be honest, the following moments are lost to me. In one instant, I reached for her hand, and in the next, I found myself pulling her gently toward me. She looked faintly startled, but when she saw my face moving toward hers, she closed her eyes, accepting what I was about to do. She leaned in, and as her lips touched mine, I knew that I would remember our first kiss forever.
Listening to Jane as she spoke on the phone with Leslie, I thought she sounded a lot like the girl who'd walked by my side on campus that day. Her voice was animated and the words flowed freely; I heard her laughing as if Leslie were in the room.
I sat on the couch half a room away, listening with half an ear. Jane and I used to walk and talk for hours, but now there were others who seemed to have taken my place. With the children, Jane was never at a loss as to what to say, nor did she struggle when she visited her father. Her circle of friends is quite large, and she visited easily with them as well. I wondered what they would think if they spent a typical evening with us.
Were we the only couple with this problem? Or was it common in all long marriages, an inevitable function of time? Logic seemed to infer it was the latter, yet it nonetheless pained me to realize that her levity would be gone the moment she hung up the phone. Instead of easy banter, we'd speak in platitudes and the magic would be gone, and I couldn't bear another discussion of the weather.
What to do, though? That was the question that plagued me. In the span of an hour, I'd viewed both our marriages, and I knew which one I preferred, which one I thought we deserved.
In the background, I heard Jane beginning to wind down with Leslie. There's a pattern when a call is nearing an end, and I knew Jane's as well as my own. Soon I would hear her tell our daughter that she loved her, pause as Leslie said it back to her, then say good-bye. Knowing it was coming--and suddenly deciding to take a chance--I rose from the couch and turned to face her.
I was going to walk across the room, I told myself, and reach for her hand, just as I had outside the chapel at Duke. She would wonder what was happening--just as she wondered then--but I'd pull her body next to mine. I'd touch her face, then slowly close my eyes, and as soon as my lips touched hers, she'd know that it was unlike any kiss she'd ever received from me. It would be new but familiar; appreciative but filled with longing; and its very inspiration would evoke the same feelings in her. It would be, I thought, a new beginning to our lives, just as our first kiss had been so long ago.
I could imagine it clearly, and a moment later, I heard her say her final words and hit the button to hang up the call. It was time, and gathering my courage, I started toward her.
Jane's back was to me, her hand still on the phone. She paused for a moment, staring out the living room window, watching the gray sky as it slowly darkened in color. She was the greatest person I've ever known, and I would tell her this in the moments following our kiss.
I kept moving. She was close now, close enough for me to catch the familiar scent of her perfume. I could feel my heart speed up. Almost there, I realized, but when I was close enough to touch her hand, she suddenly raised the phone again. Her movements were quick and efficient; she merely pressed two buttons. The number is on speed dial, and I knew exactly what she'd done.
A moment later, when Joseph answered the phone, I lost my resolve, and it was all I could do to make my way back to the couch.
For the next hour or so, I sat beneath the lamp, the biography of Roosevelt open in my lap.
Though she'd asked me to call the guests, after hanging up with Joseph, Jane made a few calls to those who were closest to the family. I understood her eagerness, but it left us in separate worlds until after nine, and I came to the conclusion that unrealized hopes, even small ones, were always wrenching.
When Jane finished, I tried to catch her eye. Instead of joining me on the couch, she retrieved a bag from the table by the front door, one I hadn't noticed she'd brought in.
"I picked these up for Anna on the way home," she said, waving a couple of bridal magazines, "but before I give them to her, I want to have a chance to look through them first."
I forced a smile, knowing the rest of the evening would be lost. "Good idea," I said.
As we settled into silence--me on the couch, Jane in the recliner--I found my gaze drawn surreptitiously toward her. Her eyes flickered as she looked from one gown to the next; I saw her crease the corners of various pages. Her eyes, like mine, are no
t as strong as they once were, and I noticed that she had to crane her neck back, as if looking down her nose to see more clearly. Every now and then, I heard her whisper something, an understated exclamation, and I knew she was picturing Anna wearing whatever was on the page.
Watching her expressive face, I marveled at the fact that at one time or another, I'd kissed every part of it. I've never loved anyone but you, I wanted to say, but common sense prevailed, reminding me that it would be better to save those words for another time, when I had her full attention and the words might be reciprocated.
As the evening wore on, I continued to watch her while pretending to read my book. I could do this all night, I thought, but weariness set in, and I was certain that Jane would stay awake for at least another hour. The creased pages would call to her if she didn't look at them a second time, and she had yet to make her way through both magazines.
"Jane?" I said.
"Mmm?" she answered automatically.
"I have an idea."
"About what?" She continued staring at the page.
"Where we should hold the wedding."
My words finally registered and she looked up.
"It might not be perfect, but I'm sure it would be available," I said. "It's outside and there's plenty of parking. And there're flowers, too. Thousands of flowers."
"Where?"
I hesitated.
"At Noah's house," I said. "Under the trellis by the roses."
Jane's mouth opened and closed; she blinked rapidly, as if clearing her sight. But then, ever so slowly, she began to smile.
Chapter Six
In the morning, I made arrangements for the tuxedos and began making calls to friends and neighbors on Anna's guest list, receiving mostly the answers I expected.
Of course we'll be there, one couple said. We wouldn't miss it for the world, said another. Though the calls were friendly, I didn't linger on the phone and was finished well before noon.
Jane and Anna had gone in search of flowers for the bouquets; later in the afternoon, they planned to swing by Noah's house. With hours to go until we were supposed to meet, I decided to drive to Creekside. On the way, I picked up three loaves of Wonder Bread from the grocery store.
As I drove, my thoughts drifted to Noah's house and my first visit there a long time ago.
Jane and I had been dating for six months before she brought me home to visit. She'd graduated from Meredith in June, and after the ceremony, she rode in my car as we followed her parents back to New Bern. Jane was the oldest of her siblings--only seven years separated the four of them--and I could tell from their faces when we arrived that they were still evaluating me. While I'd stood with Jane's family at her graduation and Allie had even looped her hand through my arm at one point, I couldn't help feeling self-conscious about the impression I'd made on them.
Sensing my anxiety, Jane immediately suggested that we take a walk when we reached the house. The seductive beauty of the low country had a soothing effect on my nerves; the sky was the color of robin's eggs, and the air held neither the briskness of spring nor the heat and humidity of summer. Noah had planted thousands of bulbs over the years, and lilies bloomed along the fence line in clusters of riotous color. A thousand shades of green graced the trees, and the air was filled with the trills of songbirds. But it was the rose garden, even from a distance, that caught my gaze. The five concentric hearts--the highest bushes in the middle, the lowest on the outside--were bursting in reds, pinks, oranges, whites, and yellows. There was an orchestrated randomness to the blooms, one that suggested a stalemate between man and nature that seemed almost out of place amid the wild beauty of the landscape.
In time, we ended up under the trellis adjacent to the garden. Obviously, I'd become quite fond of Jane by then, yet I still wasn't certain whether we would have a future together. As I've mentioned, I considered it a necessity to be gainfully employed before I became involved in a serious relationship. I was still a year away from my own graduation from law school, and it seemed unfair to ask her to wait for me. I didn't know then, of course, that I would eventually work in New Bern. Indeed, in the coming year, interviews were already set up with firms in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., while she had made plans to move back home.
Jane, however, had been making my plans difficult to keep. She seemed to enjoy my company. She listened with interest, teased me playfully, and always reached for my hand whenever we were together. The first time she did this, I remember thinking how right it felt. Though it sounds ridiculous, when a couple holds hands, it either feels right or it doesn't. I suppose this has to do with the intertwining of fingers and the proper placement of the thumb, though when I tried to explain my reasoning to her, Jane laughed and asked me why it was so important to analyze.
On that day, the day of her graduation, she took my hand again and for the first time told me the story of Allie and Noah. They'd met when they were teenagers and had fallen in love, but Allie had moved away and they didn't speak for the next fourteen years. While they were separated, Noah worked in New Jersey, headed off to war, and finally returned to New Bern. Allie, meanwhile, became engaged to someone else. On the verge of her wedding, however, she returned to visit Noah and realized it was he whom she'd always loved. In the end, Allie broke off her engagement and stayed in New Bern.
Though we'd talked about many things, she'd never told me this. At the time, the story was not as touching to me as it is now, but I suppose this was a function of my age and gender. Yet I could tell the story meant a lot to her, and I was touched by how much she cared for her parents. Soon after she began, her dark eyes were brimming with tears that spilled onto her cheeks. At first she dabbed at them, but then she stopped, as if deciding it didn't matter whether or not I saw her cry. This implied comfort affected me deeply, for I knew that she was entrusting me with something that she'd shared with few others. I myself have seldom cried at anything, and when she finished, she seemed to understand this about me.
"I'm sorry about getting so emotional," she said quietly. "But I've been waiting to tell you that story for a long time. I wanted it to be just the right moment, in just the right place."
Then she squeezed my hand as though she wanted to hold on to it forever.
I glanced away, feeling a tightness in my chest that I'd never before experienced. The scene around me was intensely vivid, every petal and blade of grass standing out in sharp relief. Behind her, I saw her family gathering on the porch. Prisms of sunlight cut patterns on the ground.
"Thank you for sharing this with me," I whispered, and when I turned to face her, I knew what it meant to finally fall in love.
I went to Creekside and found Noah seated at the pond.
"Hello, Noah," I said.
"Hello, Wilson." He continued staring out over the water. "Thanks for dropping by."
I set the bag of bread on the ground. "You doing okay?"
"Could be better. Could be worse, though, too."
I sat beside him on the bench. The swan in the pond had no fear of me and stayed in the shallows near us.
"Did you tell her," he asked, "about having the wedding at the house?"
I nodded. This had been the idea that I mentioned to Noah the day before.
"I think she was surprised she hadn't thought of it first."
"She's got a lot on her mind."
"Yes, she does. She and Anna left right after breakfast."
"Rarin' to go?"
"You could say that. Jane practically dragged Anna out the door. I haven't heard from her since."
"Allie was the same way with Kate's wedding."
He was speaking of Jane's younger sister. Like the wedding this weekend, Kate's had been held at Noah's house. Jane had been the matron of honor.
"I suppose she's already been looking at wedding gowns."
I glanced at him, surprised.
"That was the best part for Allie, I think," he went on. "She and Kate spent two days in Raleigh searching for the pe
rfect dress. Kate tried on over a hundred of them, and when Allie got home, she described every one of them to me. Lace here, sleeves there, silk and taffeta, cinched waistlines . . . she must have rambled on for hours, but she was so beautiful when she was excited that I barely heard what she was saying."
I brought my hands to my lap. "I don't think she and Anna will have the time for something like that."
"No, I don't suppose they will." He turned to me. "But she'll be beautiful no matter what she wears, you know."
I nodded.
These days, the children share in the upkeep of Noah's house.
We own it jointly; Noah and Allie had made those arrangements before they moved to Creekside. Because the house had meant so much to them, and to the children, they simply couldn't part with it. Nor could they have given it to only one of their children, since it is the site of countless shared memories for all of them.
As I said, I visited the house frequently, and as I walked the property after leaving Creekside, I made mental notes of all that had to be done. A caretaker kept the grass mowed and the fence in good condition, but a lot of work would be needed to get the property ready for visitors, and there was no way I could do it alone. The white house was coated with the gray dust of a thousand rainstorms, but it was nothing that a good power washing couldn't spruce up. Despite the caretaker's efforts, however, the grounds were in bad shape. Weeds were sprouting along the fence posts, hedges needed to be trimmed, and only dried stalks remained of the early-blooming lilies. Hibiscus, hydrangea, and geraniums added splashes of color but needed reshaping as well.
While all that could be taken care of relatively quickly, the rose garden worried me. It had grown wild in the years the house had been empty; each concentric heart was roughly the same height, and every bush seemed to grow into the last. Countless stems poked out at odd angles, and the leaves obscured much of the color. I had no idea whether the floodlights still worked. From where I stood, it seemed there was no way it could be salvaged except by pruning everything back and waiting another year for the blooms to return.
I hoped my landscaper would be able to work a miracle. If anyone could handle the project, he could. A quiet man with a passion for perfection, Nathan Little had worked on some of the most famous gardens in North Carolina--the Biltmore Estate, the Tryon Place, the Duke Botanical Gardens--and he knew more about plants than anyone I'd ever met.