A Thousand Letters(80)

I thought I'd never find freedom again. I thought I'd never know home, never know love. But in that moment, in her arms, against all odds, I found it all.





28





Only





For time cannot stop,

But moments,

Seconds,

A fleeting smile,

A kiss in the sunlight,

Can live forever.



* * *



- M. White





* * *



Elliot

The sun shone crisp in a cloudless sky, warming us in the cool in-between that spring so often brought. Wade stepped forward onto the mounded grass and placed a bouquet of flowers on Rick's grave, then another on his mother's. When he came back to me, he reached for my hand, and we stood silently, his final goodbye, for a while at least.

Almost two months had passed, bittersweet with grief over our losses and joy that Wade and I had found our way back to each other. Grueling and time consuming was the process of finalizing the details of the estate, paying off lingering debts and medical bills, setting up Sophie and Sadie to be able to manage the house with him so far away. But I'd been there through it all, and over the weeks, the hard shell of a man who'd come back after so long had cracked and fallen away, and I found Wade, my Wade, underneath it all.

I'd also submitted my work to a string of agents, a nerve-wracking and slow process. But I felt good and right, as if I were stretching my dusty wings for the first time in years and years. I found my light, my spark, and Wade had found his. We'd held each other's all that time.

I'd moved into the house with Wade and Sophie once Charlie's parents came to town and the new nanny was hired and settled in, and though I still went by every day to see them, they seemed to be just fine without me after all. Mary's absence was the likely culprit of their adaptability — she would have only made it harder on everyone, children included, strictly for the sake of doing it.

I hadn't seen or spoken to her since that night. I didn't know that I ever would again.

She'd disappeared, abandoning Charlie and the kids, and my father and Beth had disappeared right along with her. It should have made me sad, made me regret my part in the falling out, but I didn't. That they blamed me for their circumstances only made it easier to walk away.

I'd been freed from chains I hadn't known I'd been wearing.

The grass was still damp under our feet from the morning dew — Wade's flight would be leaving soon. My heart skipped a painful beat at the thought of being separated from him, but I reminded myself it was only temporary. I'd follow him in a few weeks, and then forever after. Warmth blossomed in my chest at the thought.

When he left all those years ago, I'd been afraid to leave home, leave everything I knew. But what I'd learned since was that he was everything that home meant to me. Without him, I'd been lost, wandering through my life without moving an inch, searching for something to make me whole.

Now that I had him, I could do anything. I was unstoppable.

He squeezed my hand and began to walk away, and I followed, neither of us speaking until we'd left the cemetery.

"I don't want to leave you," he said once we were in the cab headed for the airport and I was tucked into his side, my head on his shoulder.

"I don't want you to go, but I'll be right behind you."

He sighed. "Two weeks is too long."

I chuckled. "Seven years is too long. Two weeks is a heartbeat."

"I've spent every day for the last two months trying to memorize your face, trying to get my fill, but I can't. No amount of time will ever be enough with you to satisfy my heart."

I lifted my hand, touching his face as I kissed him. "Well, do you think forever would be long enough?"

He smiled down at me. "Guess we'll see."

My heart fluttered, and I rested my head on his shoulder again. "Do you think Lou is getting settled in?"

"Ben says everything's great. I just can't believe they ran off like that and got married without telling anyone."

"Oh, I dunno. It doesn't sound so crazy to me. And anyway, I'll be glad to have someone familiar in Germany."

"So I'm already not enough for you? I see how it is," he joked.

"You're a given. You're more familiar to me than my own reflection."

He kissed the top of my head. "I love you, you know."

"Almost as much as I love you."

He sighed again. "Two weeks is too long."

I laughed and wrapped my arms around his chest as we rode the final minutes in the cab in silence, the ticking of the infernal clock never stopping. And too soon, we were standing at the passenger drop at LaGuardia, his duffle bag at his combat boots, cap on his head, shielding his eyes from me.

"For so long I didn't want to come back, and now I don't want to leave."

"Yet let me not be too hasty,

Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really blended into one;

Then if we die we die together, (yes, we'll remain one,) If we go anywhere we'll go together to meet what happens."

He smiled, a crooked thing, surprised and teasing and full of love. "Quoting a Whitman poem about death is supposed to make me feel better?"