Once, he’d thought that Izzy was going to say something. She’d leaned forward, her brown eyes sparkling, her lips trembling.
He’d put down his glass of lemonade. Come on, Izzy-bear. But in the end, she’d held back. Whatever had made it to the tip of her tongue was lost.
That silence was worse than the others, somehow. It lodged in his heart like a steel splinter; he felt it with every in-drawn breath afterward. But he forced a smile and went on with another story, this time about a night long ago when he and Annie had climbed to the top of the town’s water tower and painted GO PANTHERS on the metal sides.
At the end of their picnic, they loaded up the basket with their leftovers and made their slow, silent way back up to the car. They drove home in the last fading rays of the setting sun. Nick found it difficult to keep talking, to keep spilling his soul into the stony silence that surrounded them, but he forced himself to do it. When they passed Zoe’s, the need for a drink rose in him, relentless as the surf. He hit the gas harder and they sped beyond the tavern.
When they pulled into the driveway, day had given way to a pink and gold evening. He held Izzy’s hand as they quietly made their way back into the house.
“What do you say we play a game?” he said, shutting the door behind him.
Izzy didn’t answer, but scampered away. In a few moments, she appeared again, with the big, multicolored Candy Land box mashed to her tiny chest.
He groaned dramatically. “Not that—anything but that. How about Pick-up Sticks?”
A tiny smile tilted her mouth. She shook her head. “You think I don’t want to play that because I never win, but that’s not true. It’s because I fall into a coma. Come on—Pick-up Sticks. Please?”
She gave him a grin that bunched her cheeks. Her index finger thumped on the Candy Land box.
“Okay. One game of Candy Land, then Pick-up Sticks.” She released a giggle, and the simple sound of that soothed the ragged edges of his nerves. He quickly made a fire, then they set up the board in the middle of the living room floor.
One game turned into another and another. When Nick had finally lost his fine motor skills, he tossed the tiny blue and yellow board pieces into the oblong box. “I give up. You’re the queen of Candy Land. No one can beat you. Come on, Izzy-bear, it’s dinnertime. Even cooking is better than this game.” He got slowly to his feet—he’d lost half the bloodflow into his legs—and staggered to a stand.
She lurched up and grabbed his hand. Worry furrowed her brow.
He smiled down at her. “It’s okay, honey. I’m just old, and old people wobble a bit. Remember Grandma Myrtle? She used to totter around like a broken toy.”
Izzy giggled.
In the kitchen, they sat at the big plank table and ate store-bought macaroni and cheese until their skin took on the orange glow of whatever passed for cheese in that little white packet. Izzy helped Nick wash and dry the dishes and put them away, and then they went upstairs. He helped her into her nightgown, brushed those incredibly tiny white teeth of hers, and together they climbed into her narrow twin bed.
He pulled the tattered copy of Alice in Wonderland off the bedside table. Curling an arm around Izzy’s tiny shoulders, he drew his daughter close and began to read.
When he closed the book, her eyes were heavy and she was more than half asleep. “Good night, Sunshine,” he said softly, kissing her forehead. Slowly, he drew back and stood up.
She reached out suddenly and grabbed his hand. He turned back, stared down at her. “Izzy?”
“Daddy?”
For a second, he couldn’t breathe. It was the first time he’d heard her sweet child’s voice in almost a year. Slowly, slowly, he sat down beside her. Tears stung his eyes, turned his precious baby into a blur. “Oh, Izzy,” he whispered, unable to find any other words.
“I love you, Daddy,” she said, and now she was crying, too.
He pulled her into a bear hug, hiding his face in the crook of her neck so she wouldn’t see him crying. “Oh, Izzy-bear, I love you, too,” he whispered over and over again, stroking her hair, feeling her tears mingle with his on the softness of her cheek. He held her tightly, wondering if he’d ever have the strength to let her go.
She fell asleep in his arms, and still he held her. Finally, he laid her head gently on the pillow and tucked the covers up to her small, pointed chin. When he looked down at his sleeping child, he felt a rush of emotion so pure and sweet and all-consuming that no single word—not even love— could possibly be big enough.
Triumph was a trembling, high-pitched aria in his bloodstream. And all because of something as simple, and as infinitely complex, as a child’s I love you. Three little words he’d never take for granted again.
He couldn’t contain the enormity of his emotions; they were spilling over, breaking one after another in waves. He felt the most incredible urge to laugh out loud. He wanted to share this moment with someone he cared for.
Annie.
He knew it was dangerous, this sudden desire to talk to her, be with her, tell her what he was feeling. Knew it, and didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
He went into his room and picked up the phone.
Monday was a magical day, filled with laughter. Once again the sun banished the clouds from the sky. Nick and Annie and Izzy rode bicycles and collected wildflowers and made crowns from the dainty purple and white flowers that had opened during the night.
Annie couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun. Blake had never spent a day like this with his girls, just the three of them; even when he’d had a rare day at home, he’d spent it on the phone or the fax or the computer. Annie was only now beginning to realize how lonely her life had been.
As she pedaled her bike down the National Park trail, she found herself recalling bits and pieces of her phone conversation with Nick last night. She talked to me, Annie. She told me she loved me. The awe in his voice had brought tears to Annie’s eyes, and when he went on, telling her about their day at the beach, she’d envied them the easy perfection of it all.
Though neither one of them had mentioned the conversation today, it hung in the air between them, like dust motes that were occasionally thickened by a flash of sunlight. They’d woven a new strand of intimacy during their conversation. The distance of the telephone had made it easier somehow.
In the middle of it all, Annie had begun to remember the old Nick—the young Nick—and how she’d loved him. And when she closed her eyes while he was talking, she saw the boy who’d first kissed her beneath a starry night sky. The boy whose gentle, tentative kiss had made her cry.
She could feel herself drifting into dangerous waters. So many things about Nick touched her, but it was the depth of his love for Izzy that tangled her up inside and left her aching. No matter how hard she tried to forget the life she’d lived in California and the choices she’d made, Nick brought it all up again. Annie had raised a daughter who would never truly know the comforting embrace of a father’s adoration.
And she had been a wife in love alone for too many years.
She had felt pathetic and small as she crossed the rickety bridge to that realization. For years, she’d mistaken habit and affection for true love. She had assumed that the love she gave her husband was a reflection of the love he felt for her, and now, because of her blindness, she was alone, a thirty-nine-year-old woman who faced her “golden” years without a child at home or a husband in her bed.
At that moment, she and Nick were separated by miles, and she was glad because if he’d been beside her, she would have reached for him, would have begged him to hold her and kiss her and tell her she was beautiful . . . even if the words were a lie.
Now, as they drove home after their bike ride, Annie prayed that Nick hadn’t heard all that loneliness and pain in her voice. Every time he looked at her today, she’d looked away, fast.
By the time they returned to the house, she was a wreck. She sat quietly at the table, her eyes focused on her food, her right foot tapping nervously on the floor.
As soon as dinner was over, she bolted from the table and hustled Izzy up to bed, leaving Nick to wash and dry the dishes.
“Good night, Izzy,” she said, tucking the child into bed. “Your daddy will be up in a minute.”
“ ’Night, Annie,” Izzy muttered, rolling onto her side.
Annie closed the bedroom door and headed downstairs. She found Nick in the living room, staring out at the lake. Even from this distance, she could see that his hands were shaking. There was a damp dishrag lying at his feet.
The last step creaked beneath her foot and she froze.
He spun toward her. His skin was pale in the lamplight, and sweat sheened his forehead.
“You want a drink,” she said.
“Want?” His laugh was low and rough. “That doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Annie didn’t know what to do. It was dangerous to touch him, but she couldn’t turn away. Cautiously, she moved toward him. He reached for her hand, his sweaty fingers coiling around hers with a desperate squeeze.
After a long minute, she said, “How ’bout a bowl of Chocolate Chip Mint instead?”
“Great. I’ll just go say good night to Izzy, then . . . I’ll meet you by the fire.” He gave her a relieved smile before turning and bolting up the stairs.
Annie went to the kitchen and scooped out two bowls of ice cream. The whole time she told herself that it was nothing, just a bowl of ice cream between friends. By the time she was finished, Nick was back downstairs. Together, they sat on the sofa.
In silence, they ate. The tinny clang of spoons on porcelain seemed absurdly loud. She was sharply aware of everything about him, the uneven way he tapped his foot anxiously on the floor, the way he kept tucking a flyaway lock of hair behind his right ear.
All at once, he turned to her. “How long will you be here?”
So that was it. She sighed. “About another month and a half. Natalie gets home on the fifteenth of June.”
His gaze caught hers, and she felt as if she were falling into his blue eyes.
Annie’s breath caught in her chest. She found herself waiting to hear what he would say next, though she couldn’t imagine what it would be.
“What do you think of Mystic?” he asked slowly, watching her. “You sure couldn’t wait to leave after high school.”
“It wasn’t Mystic that sent me running.”
It was a long minute before he answered softly, “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“You scared me.”
She felt it blossom again at his words, that delicate bud of intimacy that had drawn them together last night. It scared her, especially now when she was so close to him. She tried to brush it away with a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
He leaned forward and set the bowl down on the coffee table. Then, slowly, he turned toward her. One arm snaked down the back of the sofa toward her, and she had to fight the urge to lean back into it. “I think our lives are mapped out long before we know enough to ask the right questions. Mine was cast in stone the day my dad abandoned my mom. She had . . . trouble handling life. Before I even knew what was happening, I was her caretaker. I learned what every child of a drunk learns: don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t care. Hell, I was an adult before I was ten years old. I shopped, I cooked, I cleaned . . . wherever we lived. I loved her, so I took care of her, and when she turned on me or became violent, I believed what she said—that I was worthless and stupid and lucky she stayed with me.” He leaned back into the sofa.