These Three Words (11 page)

“
A reminder
, he said. Addie, he looked at me and was so serious when he said,
It’s a reminder of what I’m working toward
. Then he smiled at me. I think it’s the first time I ever saw him really smile.”

“I used to tease him that he was a smile hoarder,” I said. And sometimes when I teased him about it, he’d smile.

“Yeah. Well, after that date when he came in so happy, I was a bit freaked out,” Ash said. “And I said something like
What did you do tonight?
He said,
I went out with the woman I’m going to marry.
”

I knew that Ash had to be rewriting history. “No, he didn’t. I wasn’t sure there’d be a second date. We both worried about how it would affect our friendship.”

“Yes, he did. He said he’d gone out with you and I said something about him knowing you all his life, but he clarified,
Since the first day of kindergarten
. As if he wanted me to be clear on it. As if he regretted those first five years he didn’t know you.

“Then he said something like
I didn’t know I was going to marry her until tonight. We sat at the table together and I put my arm around her. And I thought, I could spend the rest of my life listening to her and holding her. That’s when I realized I loved her
.” Ash paused a moment, then added, “He said he thought he’d always loved you.”

Ash stuffed the papers back into the envelope and handed it to me. “He’ll never sign them.”

I couldn’t imagine Gray saying any of those things. Maybe Ash saw my skepticism, because he nodded. “The thing about Gray is, he doesn’t say much, so when he does say something, people pay attention. I’m pretty sure I’m close to perfect on what he said. He loved you. He still does. And he’ll never sign those,” Ash said with complete conviction.

His utter certainty shook my own.

“Gray’s a man who likes things orderly,” I said hesitantly. “He’ll see the logic in divorcing now when we might go back to being friends.”

When I’d talked to JoAnn this morning, I’d believed that. But now? I wasn’t so sure of Gray’s reaction, and I was even less sure about what I wanted.

“You were never his friend. You were—are—the love of his life.” Ash got up and said, “Were you going home?”

I still didn’t know which place to go to. Neither felt right. “No. I’m staying for a while longer.”

“You’ll call me if you need anything? If anything changes?”

I nodded.

“Did he really say all those things?” I asked, needing to hear Gray’s words, even if they were coming from Ash.

Ash nodded. “Addie, I know it’s been a rough year and I’m so sorry for everything . . .” He stopped as if he didn’t know what else to say.

Most people didn’t know what to say about what happened.

Not even Gray.

Ash continued, “. . . but you should know, it took everything Gray had not to come after you. He was giving you time and space, but he never stopped loving you, and he never stopped believing you two would find your way to the other side.”

“I did find my way to the other side,” I said simply, not that there was anything simple between the two of us. I found my way to other side and discovered it didn’t include Gray.

Ash started to walk to the elevator and then turned around. “He’s started listening to Broadway.”

“Pardon?” Gray listening to Broadway tunes sounded implausible at best.

I had season tickets to Erie’s Broadway series. Most of the time I took JoAnn. But when she couldn’t go, I dragged Gray with me, kicking and screaming.

“Broadway tunes?” I repeated, sure I must have heard wrong.

“Yes. It kinda freaks me and the staff out. He said you sing songs from your favorite shows a lot and he missed them. So he plays them.” He paused a moment then added, “And he said you taught him that sometimes the music can say things more eloquently than words. I don’t know what those show tunes were saying, but I just thought you should know.”

“Thanks,” I said, not sure what I was going to do with that information.

“Call me,” Ash said as he got on the elevator.

“Yes.”

I tried to imagine Gray listening to Broadway musicals, and it just seemed too incongruous. He was not a music fan. He didn’t turn on the radio for background noise. He didn’t even turn it on when he was driving.

He never seemed to mind when I did, but I don’t think he’d have ever done so on his own.

I felt odd sitting in what was nothing more than a nook in a hallway, so I got up and thought I’d go get some coffee.

As I got off the elevator and turned toward the cafeteria, I realized I didn’t want coffee.

I saw the double doors of the chapel I’d noticed earlier.

No one would notice just one more person sitting in there. So I made a beeline.

There was only one other person in the room. Her hair was like an announcement—
look at me
, the fire-engine color said.

The rest of her said,
don’t look
. She had on black yoga pants, an oversize sweatshirt, and UGGs. Her head was bent, so her hair spilled over her shoulders, shrouding her face.

I sat behind her, trying to give her space. I thought about Gray listening to Broadway tunes and tried to have that make sense.

Suddenly her shoulders heaved and she made a quiet, low, keening sound.

I reached out and started to put my hand on her shoulder, then thought better of it. Instead, I said, “Are you all right?”

She sat up and turned around. I realized that she was my age . . . maybe a little younger, but she was somewhere in those ambiguous years between youth and middle age.

She wiped at her eyes and nodded. We both knew it was a lie.

“Okay then,” I said, not wanting to intrude.

I sank back in my seat and she surprised me—surprised herself as well, if her expression was any indication—by saying, “How do you miss someone you hardly know?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. The utter longing in her voice reminded me of my own longing. I’m not sure I recognized how much I missed Gray until now, until I had no way of reaching him.

“I don’t know her. My mother. My birth mother. And he said—her husband—he said that they’d been waiting for me. I believed him, but I thought it was waiting like waiting for your vacation, or even like a kid who’s waiting for Christmas. I thought she was looking forward to meeting me someday. But that’s not it. She wrote this”—she held out a worn leather journal—“and when I read it, I can feel her . . .
aching
. That’s the word. She was
aching
with the waiting.”

Her hand went to the locket around her neck. She clasped it tightly, as if it were a lifeline. “I occasionally thought about finding her, you know. But I put it off. I knew I’d look for her someday . . . but life got in the way. And she was out here waiting for me. Aching.”

I understood what she was saying today more than I would have understood it yesterday.

I said, “I thought earlier that maybe the word
waiting
comes from the word
weight
. I thought I’d be crushed under the weight of my waiting.”

She nodded, her hair undulating as she did. “Yes. I can feel her aching under the weight of it on every page. Now the tables are turned and I’m the one who’s waiting . . . aching under the weight of it all.”

“This is not a normal conversation for two strangers.” I didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but I was pretty sure this woman realized it as well. I thought about Maude, James, and Harriet. “I think that everyone here who’s waiting has a common bond. It means none of us are strangers, even if we’ve never met before. I’m Addie.”

“I’m Siobhan. Who are you waiting for?” she asked.

I was getting better at answering this question. “My husband.”

The designation came out with more assurance than it had earlier in the day.

Gray was my husband. That wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

“He had heart surgery today,” I added. “They kicked me out of ICU and told me to go home for the night, but I couldn’t.”

“My . . . I don’t know what to call her.
Mother
isn’t right. I had a mother who loved me and raised me. A mother I adored. But
birth mother
seems too formal. Everyone else calls her Piper or Pip, but she’s more than that to me.” She shrugged.

“Maybe giving her a name doesn’t matter. It’s hard to watch someone you love suffering.”

“I’ve only just met her. How can I love her? How can I love any of them?” she asked.

I thought of that moment I found out I was pregnant. In that instant, I was in love. “Sometimes love comes quickly, sometimes more slowly. Real love comes in its own time.”

Siobhan nodded. “She always loved me. It’s on every page. Every single one of them. She built a life around me and loved me. Every day of my life, she loved me so much. How could I not have felt it? Even not knowing her, how can someone be loved that much and not be aware of it?”

I thought of Gray and answered, “I don’t know. You’re right, it seems as if that kind of love should be palpable. And maybe if someone loves you that much, it’s hard not to love them in return.”

A man came into the chapel. “Siobhan?”

“Logan, is she okay?” my new friend asked.

“She’s fine.”

Siobhan stood up, clutching the worn leather book to her chest. “I hope your husband’s okay.”

I took her hand and squeezed it. “I hope
she
is as well.” I didn’t refer to the woman in question as Siobhan’s mother, or her birth mother. She had to make her own decision about what their relationship was.

She noticed and smiled her thanks, then rushed out of the chapel with the man.

Siobhan had clutched the book and I realized I was holding the envelope just as tightly. I couldn’t read it and find comfort in the pages, as she’d been doing. These pages were filled with regret that love sometimes wasn’t enough.

Once, I’d thought it would be.

And yet, I’d so blithely assured Siobhan that love came in its own time. And that maybe when someone loved you that much, it was palpable. Her birth mother had filled a notebook with words, describing her love.

Gray would never have the words for something like that.

He’d told me as much once.

I knew exactly what day it was.

We’d just officially bought the house. The closing was right before the end of the business day, so we couldn’t move in that day, but Gray—being Gray—was prepared.

He’d bought an air mattress, and Peggy had packed another picnic. Keys in hand, we’d let ourselves into the house. We’d toured it again, and I’d talked about my plans for each room while Gray listened and nodded. He’d built a fire and we had our dinner in front of the fire.

And then . . .

Memories of the first time we’d made love in that house threatened to overwhelm me. And I realized that while I loved the house on Willow Lane, and even the house on Ferncliff, the only place I’d ever felt truly at home was in Gray’s arms.

Afterward, on that air mattress in front of the fireplace . . .

“I’m so utterly content right now,” I murmured as I slid a millimeter closer to him. I wanted to obliterate any separation. I wanted to hold on to him—to this moment—forever. “This is how we should spend the rest of our lives.”

Gray grinned at my words and I didn’t need him to say anything to know that he was teasing me. In his head, he was being literal, thinking we should be naked in front of the fireplace for the rest of our lives.

As if to confirm I was right, he quirked an eyebrow, inviting me to stay this way a bit longer.

Someone else might miss that he was teasing, but I recognized the signs.

I shoved him. “Be serious.”

“I am” was all he’d said as he brushed some imaginary hair back from my cheek. And he’d pulled me back into his arms. “I’ll never be able to put things into words as easily as you, but Addie, I’m
. . .
”

He paused.

I waited.

I knew he wouldn’t spout an epic poem to describe how he felt, but I didn’t need epic.

“. . . happy,” he’d finally finished.

I snuggled even closer. No epic poem had ever put it so sweetly. I tried to imprint that moment in my memory, knowing that I never wanted to forget it.