“Don’t you like cities?”
Harper let out a chuckle. “I love cities. I live in New York, remember? It’s more that when I came to Sea Breeze early in the summer, I was in a quandary. Searching for something that required peace and introspection. I had to shut out the noise and distractions.”
“Some people need that to write.”
“Apparently I do. I’ve never written so much or so steadily.”
He picked at the label on his bottle of beer. “Maybe you should stay here.”
“You think?”
He looked directly at her and held her gaze. “I do.”
The idea of not going back to New York had not seriously occurred to her.
“I’m an editor. I’ll most likely find a job in New York.”
He took another pull of his beer. “What about your writing?”
“I plan to finish the book before I leave. That’s as far as I’ve gotten in my plans.”
Their conversation was interrupted when the first poet approached the podium. The crowd hushed. Taylor gave Harper an encouraging smile. She returned the smile and, unwrapping her arms, leaned forward on the table to listen.
As one poet after another read a few poems, Harper felt surrounded by the music of words—the tempo, the cadence, the high-pitched tones and the low. Music that penetrated barriers, brought forth memories in bursts of color, images so real she saw them come alive right in front of her. She’d been to many prose readings before for her job in the publishing house, but never a poetry reading. It truly was performance art. Harper was mesmerized. It helped her understand the meaning and heightened the emotions kindled by each spare, carefully chosen phrase.
So lost was she in the readings that she almost forgot that Taylor was going to read. Then she heard his name called and he stood up. Her breath quickened as he walked to the podium, a slim volume in his hand. She felt anxious for him. She wanted him to be good. Her stomach tightened when he faced the crowd. The overhead light cast shadows on his face, highlighting his cheekbones, his straight nose that flared slightly with nervousness.
He stood for a moment at the podium, his gaze sweeping the room. “I’m reading a poem I wrote when I returned from Afghanistan. It’s called ‘Wake Up. Keep Moving.’ That’s what they tell a guy with PTSD when he’s having a nightmare.”
Harper froze and her breath stilled in her throat. PTSD? She didn’t know that he’d had post-traumatic stress disorder. Her mind raced. She knew he was a Marine. That he’d seen action. She recollected a photograph that Carson had shown her of Taylor and Thor at the Dolphin Research Center. Harper had been charmed seeing him—his beautiful body—directing two dolphins to leap in the air. Thor was on the dock. The dog had been wearing a black service-dog emblem.
I’m an idiot, she told herself. For all that she prided herself on being observant, she didn’t put these obvious signs together. Suddenly all the small details of his behavior made sense. Taylor was more than reserved. He was alert. Hypervigilant. When he walked into a room, his gaze always scoped it out. He’d just checked for exits at the podium. Harper had done research on PTSD for Nate after the dolphin incident. She’d seen the symptoms. And been blind to them. Deliberately? she wondered.
Harper put her trembling hands in her lap and stared at the man she was falling in love with. Did this make a difference?
Taylor cleared his throat and raised his slim volume. She took a deep breath.
When he began to read, she didn’t hear a hint of nervousness in his voice, and she remembered how he’d told her that once he started to read, his fear fled as he got into the words.
Don’t thank me for the things I’ve done
Don’t curse me for them either.
I’ve written suicide notes with blood
that say Wake up. Keep moving.
You don’t know how you’ll act under fire
Be the hero or frozen in fear?
Some say you fight for your comrade, your brother.
Others say Wake up. Keep moving.
Will I let you love me before it’s too late?
Save me from a dishonorable fate?
Is there one more chance to be a hero?
You tell me Wake up! Keep moving.
I’ve killed more men than I can count
In the name of country and duty.
How does God take a man’s measure?
The ghosts tell me Wake up. Keep moving.
His voice was strong and steady as he read his words in a marching cadence, bringing to life a hidden place of suffering. Harper’s heart kept beat with the tempo while he read, completely immersed in his words. She leaned forward to catch every syllable, each nuance. Her heart went out to the pain he must’ve endured.
Since the first moment she’d seen Taylor, she’d been attracted to him. As the days passed, she came to admire his tenaciousness, his capacity for long hours of labor without a break, his neatness and unerring politeness. He was a Marine, after all. With animals he was gentle and firm. With Nate she’d seen his compassion and capacity for caring. She also grew aware of a restless energy simmering beneath his calm facade.
Tonight, listening to his poetry, Harper understood the misery he wrestled with, the guilt he carried, and the depth of feeling that he struggled to keep under wraps. He was intelligent, with an artistic soul. She listened in awe and with a new respect for the courage it took to share his feelings. For his battle to keep those raw emotions under restraint.
Tonight she was seeing Taylor with opened eyes.
When he finished, there was rousing applause. Everyone in the room knew that he’d spoken from the heart. As Taylor walked back to the table, many people stopped to talk to him, shake his hand. Harper saw how people liked him, how this was a group of his friends, a world of his that she’d not known about before tonight.
“You were incredible,” she said excitedly when he sat down again at their table. “I understand now what you meant when you said sharing your writing is a gift. A giving of a part of yourself. I felt that when I listened to you tonight. That you were telling your story. It was so powerful.”
He didn’t respond right away. He doused his thirst with a long swallow of beer and set the bottle on the table. Then he reached out and took her hand. The gesture surprised her. It was so unexpected. So intimate. Suddenly it felt as though her whole being were captured in that one hand.
Taylor looked into her eyes. “I was reading to you.”