Page 48 of A Wilderness Within

“You could literally chooseanyhouse to stay in, Lincoln.” She seemed surprised by his choice.

“Is any house going to be as cool as a library?”

“Touché. I didn’t know you were a reader.”

He chuckled. “I read. A lot.”

“Seriously? What’s your favorite book?”

“The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald. I thought you would have seen it when you snooped through my go-bag.”

She blushed. “I didn’t get all the way through your bag, just half of it.” Caroline brightened again. “So Gatsby? Really? Why that one?”

“I suppose…” He paused. He’d never before really voiced what drew him so deeply into that particular book. “I feel a bit like Gatsby reaching for the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock across the water. The belief in something pure, wishing forever that I could have my deepest dreams come true, yet knowing that in those final moments I’ll face reality, that what I long for is forever out of my reach, forever in the past.”

Caroline’s eyes widened, and her lips parted as she drew in a breath of surprise. “A lot of people think it’s a love story, how Gatsby spent his entire life trying to be good enough for a silly woman like Daisy, but it isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “It’s a story about hope, about never giving up on one’s dream.” He smiled ruefully, realizing only now that perhaps he was more like Caroline than he’d wanted to believe at first. Perhaps he was a dreamer after all, and no matter what, he’d be like Gatsby, waiting by his pool for the phone to ring just as autumn leaves began to fall, signaling his death was imminent. But would he die still full of hope? Or would he live and have that hope whither?

Caroline quoted his favorite passage by heart as though she’d written it herself. “And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his skin broke out in goosebumps.

“What’s your green light, Lincoln?” she asked softly, her gaze so ancient in understanding that he couldn’t doubt that his entire life had led him to this moment with her where civilization lay in ruins and he stood on the steps of the library speaking of dreams drifting endlessly back into the past.

“My green light?” He swallowed thickly. “It’s you.” He wasn’t sure what he expected her to say or do after he’d just laid bare part of his soul. Perhaps he expected her to kiss him, or to confess that she felt the same, or that she might laugh it off and speak of his foolishness. Instead, she merely spoke a single line fromThe Great Gatsbyto him, the line that had never seemed to make sense to him until she said it right then.

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” Reflected in her gaze wasn’t hope this time, but knowledge. Knowledge that whatever the winter had stolen away, spring, summer, and fall would bring back to them. Life, however small and fragile, would still be life, and they would cling to it and defend it with everything they had.

They broke into the locked library by using a pair of bolt cutters to take the chain off the door. Caroline carried Ellie and her crib inside while Lincoln and Kirby explored the rotunda of the library’s interior, making sure it was completely empty. Despite the lock on the door, there were plenty of ways someone could have broken in. But all was quiet, all was empty. The sun set, leaving them in darkness except for the lanterns they’d brought in. He used the gas stove top to make a pot of beans and to warm up the formula for the baby.

He let the chickens run about the restroom and scattered the corner of one stall with chicken feed he’d gotten along with the extra dog food. They used the rolled-up sleeping bags from the sporting goods store back in Omaha and made up one large sleeping bag for them to share.

Caroline curled into him, her warm breath on his throat as he wrapped one arm around her. “Lincoln…”

“Yeah?” He waited, feeling her settle against him after a long moment.

“We almost died today.”

“But we didn’t. Just like we haven’t a dozen other times.”

“I know… But today was so close. I didn’t want to make you say you love me too. I know you thought you had to say it back, and I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t resist chuckling. “For a brave, intelligent woman, you sure are dense sometimes.”

“What?” She pulled away from him, but he dragged her back into his arms.

“I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean. There’s nothing you could do to make me say something like that unless I wanted to.”

“You mean that?” she asked.

“I do. You’ve made me feel love is possible. You are my hope, Caroline.Always.” He wished he could make her understand what was in his head and in his heart.

“Can we take some books with us tomorrow?”

“Sure, it’s not like some librarian is going to get angry if we don’t return them,” he replied, mentally rearranging the space in their vehicle to accommodate a box of books.

Caroline laughed, and the sound made his blood hum. He’d never considered himself a funny guy, but whenever he managed to win a laugh from her, he felt like a hero.

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