Page 82 of That Birthday in Barbados
“I wanted to see you. Make sure you’re okay.”
The words are sincere, and the look in his eyes tells me he means it. “I don’t know what to say.” I shake my head, overcome with emotion.
“Just say it’s okay I’m here.”
“It is. I?”
“Look like you could use a hug.”
The tears well up then, and I have no ability to stop them. He reaches for me, pulls me into the circle of his arms and locks me there. I tuck my face to his chest, sobs shaking my shoulders. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I melt beneath the need to be comforted by a man I cannot deny caring about.
In a few moments, he takes my hand and leads me from the cafeteria. We walk outside and into the small park to one side of the hospital. He leads me to an enormous tree lending shade to the grassy area. He leans against the wide trunk and pulls me to him again. He feels as strong as this tree, able to weather the darkest of storms, and I’m not ashamed to admit nowI need his strength. I slip my arms around his neck and press myself to him. I cry against his chest, sobs pouring out from somewhere deep inside me, shaking my shoulders and leaving me weak beneath the release.
And he just holds me, rubbing the back of my hair with one hand, saying nothing, as if he knows there aren’t any words that will dissolve the pain. There is only comfort for acknowledgement of this, and it is only in receiving it that I realize how much I need it.
I don’t know how long we stand there, anchored against that tree trunk with a soft breeze whispering against us. But at some point, my tears stop, and I am now quiet against him, weak with release.
He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me back far enough to look into my face. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“There are plenty of reasons we don’t make sense. I get that. They don’t matter though. Because I know how you make me feel. I love where I live and the life I’ve made there. But since you left . . . it’s not the same.”
I absorb this admission, and wonder if I’ve imagined what he’s just said. This man. . .this beautiful man wants me. And I want him. All the reasons I presented to myself as to why we wouldn’t work won’t materialize in my brain. I grapple for them, but they no longer form into anything I can make sense of. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
I put my hands to either side of his face, lean up and kiss him. Softly at first, and then deeper, gasping when he swoops me up and takes the lead, kissing me with physical proof of his confession. And I have no desire to hide what I feel for him. What is the point? Life is here. Right in front of us. We can reach for it and find the happiness being together provides us. Or let it slip away to be nothing but a memory of what could have been.
I reach for it with no intention of ever letting it go. And he feels the change in me. Because he slips an arm to the back of my legs and swoops me up, carrying me to a nearby bench and sitting down with me on his lap. We kiss until we both begin to believe we really are together, and that we’ll find our way forward to a place where a life with each other is not only possible, but definite.
“I love you,” he says, leaning back to stare into my eyes so I can see that love like my own reflection in a perfectly still lake. “What I’ve been thinking is that just because I recognized it nearly from the moment I met you, does that make it a lesser love? It doesn’t,” he adds, answering his own question.
My heart is full, so full that I have nothing but truth for him. “I love you. I do.”
He kisses me softly.
And then I say, “It won’t be easy.”
“No. But it will be worth it.”
“Yes. It will.”
We sit for a while, peaceful in the knowledge that whatever lies ahead, we’ll be facing it together. And when we’re ready, I stand, take his hand and lead him inside the hospital to meet the rest of my family.
Epilogue
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
?Albert Einstein
Anders
IT’S ONE OF those days that could be used for a postcard shot of Needham’s Point Beach. The sun has dipped its lowest against the horizon, pink tendrils of light lacing the still blue sky. There’s a crowd on the beach this evening. Over one hundred babies to release tonight, according to Hannah. The most they’ve had in a good while.
“Da-da!”
I turn to see Evie toddling toward me in the sand, her arms outstretched. Her blonde hair hangs in braids, a pink ribbon at the end of each. I swoop her up, parking her on my hip and brushing sand from her sun-brown little feet.
