CHAPTER SIX

“Who was that?” Angela asked, plunking her purse on the table. Coffee splattered over the rim of his mug.

“Uh . . .” Henry sopped up the coffee with a napkin. How did he still not know her name? “Not sure.”

Angela narrowed her gaze for a moment as if assessing the truth in that statement. He must have passed her test. She shrugged, then flopped into the chair across from him. “Didn’t you get my messages?”

“I guess not.” Henry tried focusing his attention on Angela and not the woman walking away. She waved goodbye to Julie, scratched Chester behind the ears, leaned over to grab something from the floor—

“Are you listening?”

“Huh? Yeah. Of course.” Henry forced his gaze on Angela. “You said, ‘You’ll never believe this. They loved us.’”

Angela’s fingers flew across the screen of her phone. “Of course they loved us. They want to fly us on their private jet—their private jet, Henry!—to Chicago.” She held up her phone and showed him a picture of a jet.

Henry murmured some sort of acknowledgment.

“If everything goes like we think it will, they’re going to fly us out to their villa—I told you that they have a villa, right? It’s gorgeous!” She swiped across several pictures. “I bet these don’t even do it justice. They want us to photograph everything leading up to the wedding. I leave in like, two minutes. I’m only here to grab some coffee before we fly out. I’m glad I was able to see you. Oh, by the way, what did you want to talk about?” She looked up from her phone. “You sent me a message yesterday that said we needed to talk.”

Oh yeah. Yesterday he was going to break up with her. Then this morning he wasn’t.

“Henry?” Angela said, thumbs paused above her phone. “Was there something you needed to tell me? Because there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

He searched out the window, gaining a glimpse of blonde hair under a flash of red. Forget her. He looked back to Angela. “Why don’t you start?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but—” Angela dropped her phone in her purse. It must be serious if she was putting her phone away. “I think we should use this time apart to figure out where our relationship is going. I’m not saying this to make you panic.”

Henry shook his head. No panic here. If anything, a weird sense of relief.

“I know you want to get married and start a family. I do too.”

Okay, a bit of panic now. “I’m listening,” he said, aiming to keep his voice steady.

“For some reason it’s never felt like we’ve been on the same page.” Angela stood and grabbed her purse. “That’s why I think we just need to take this time to regroup, come back together, and decide whether to get married or break up. Sound like a plan?”

“Uh, sure.” Get married or break up. Nothing life-altering about that decision.

“Great.” Angela stood next to his table a moment. Henry didn’t know whether she was waiting for a kiss or a high five. How did a man say goodbye to a woman who was soon to become either his fiancée or his ex-girlfriend?

Her phone pinged, saving him from having to do anything. “That’s probably Chad, wondering where I am. Bye, Henry.” She patted his shoulder and spun away with phone in hand, heels clacking, fingers tapping.

Hours later, Henry sat in his blue Chevy pickup. He rolled the front windows down to catch a breeze before cutting the engine. The clouds from this morning had moved on about the same time Angela had. He tried not to read too much into that.

Now evening sunlight beat through the windows, a gentle heat soaking into the skin on his forearms. It felt good after spending the afternoon in the air-conditioned trailer-office he shared with his office manager, Peg, who would find the Arctic too warm for her liking.

Henry stared out the windshield at an open field overgrown with weeds. Beyond it lay a dozen acres of wooded land and a future that seemed even further out of his reach than when he’d first stared at it fourteen years ago. “We’ll build a house here. Raise a family. Get some chickens, horses, goats, whatever you want, Maggie. Someday this will be ours. I promise. We’ll make this work.”

Other than putting in an offer for the land two years ago, which was soundly rejected, Henry had never come any closer to making it work. No wonder Maggie had run. She must have known all along a future with him would never amount to more than a field of weeds.

Last Henry had checked, the land was still for sale. He didn’t know why he tortured himself coming out here when he would never be able to afford it. All he knew was something about this place had always felt right. Familiar. Like it already belonged to him.

Sort of the same way he felt whenever he saw her. Which was crazy. She didn’t belong to him anymore than this land did. Why couldn’t he be content with what he did have? A family business to run. Angela. A woman willing to marry him and start a family. He should have dropped down on one knee in the coffee shop and proposed before she left.

Somehow the idea left him restless. Before he could spend too much time figuring out why, he pulled Edith’s letter out of his shirt pocket. He’d found it on the kitchen island after he swung by the house on his way to work. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, so she must have set it there while he was at the coffee shop. Once again, they probably just missed each other.

He unfolded the paper covered in handwriting becoming as familiar to him as his own, as peacefulness settled into his bones like the sun on his skin.

Dear Henry,

You want to know about my husband? I must say, it’s not something I usually like to talk about. But for some reason I don’t mind telling you. Maybe because you’re such a good listener. You let me talk without so much as a single interruption. Now that’s the sort of quality that will always make a girl swoon. Although a pair of gorgeous eyes sure doesn’t hurt either.

But in answer to your question about how long we were married, I better start at the beginning. (You’re probably already regretting you asked. Too bad.)

We were high school sweethearts. As soon as I turned sixteen and my dad gave me permission to date, Brian was on my front porch asking me to the movies. He was the first and only guy I ever dated. We were inseparable. I married him two weeks after I turned eighteen. To describe my parents as unhappy about it would be like describing a great white shark as a fish.

Looking back, I understand now why they were so disappointed. I’ll spare you from all the boring details (I know what you’re thinking—too late) but growing up, I had big dreams. Dreams my parents listened to me talk about nonstop. Dreams that included traveling the world and helping people in areas nobody else wanted to go to. My dreams never included marrying straight out of high school.

But that’s what I did. My parents tried warning me I’d be throwing my dreams away. They tried convincing me to wait until at least after college. I just figured they were being overprotective. We fought about it. A lot. They eventually said if I was old enough to get married, I was old enough to not need them. They were so mad, they didn’t even come to the wedding.

Right away I discovered my dreams were going to require a few adjustments. Especially when Brian informed me he wanted to pursue a law degree. Not only that, he wanted to start a family right away. So for the next few years, while he went to school, I worked. Waitress, teacher’s aide, nanny, whatever would pay tuition and put food on the table. Whenever I brought up traveling or my own education, he didn’t see the point since we were trying to start a family.

He used that excuse for years.

Eventually Brian’s career took off. An uncle to a good friend owned a law practice and helped Brian quickly climb the ranks. I didn’t have to work anymore to support us. But nothing was happening like we’d hoped at home. My doctor assured me I was healthy and that it was only a matter of time. But the more time went by, the more pressure we each began to feel. And the more pressure we felt, the more we wanted to avoid it.

That was our way of fighting, I realize now. Instead of raising our voices, we became polite. Painfully so.

Before long, Brian was spending more and more time at the office. He’d come home late and leave early. Me? I’d go to bed early and sleep in late. Our marriage was sinking, but neither of us wanted to be the one to admit it. That would be too impolite.

In all this time I never talked to my parents. Never tried. But one afternoon my dad showed up unexpectedly. I saw his car in the driveway after I’d been out getting groceries, but I was too afraid he’d see what a mess I’d made of my marriage. Too proud, really. So I drove on past.

I can’t tell you how much I regret that decision. He died two weeks later from a heart attack. Not a day goes by I don’t wonder what he came there to tell me. When I went to his funeral—alone—my mom wouldn’t even acknowledge me.

Not sure what else to do at this point, I decided to get my nursing license. In the back of my mind I knew if our marriage did end, I was going to need something to fall back on. I had no idea what to expect from Brian if it really did come down to divorce. There’s always a job to be had in health care, I figured.

So while we continued our quiet charade of a marriage, I became a registered nurse. Once I had my license, I went to work in the emergency department. I loved it. I picked up every shift I could, trying to build a nest egg for myself. Now it wasn’t a question of if the marriage would end, only a question of when.

Until the night one of Brian’s partners from work called me.

I had never spoken to this man before, and I didn’t know what to tell him when he asked me if I had noticed the changes going on with Brian. A stranger I had never met had to inform me that my own husband was falling asleep at work, having difficulty concentrating, and taking pills around the clock for headaches. I had no idea. Apparently it had been going on for months.

The man I was married to, the man I was supposed to be sharing my life with, had a rapidly growing brain tumor, and not only had I been clueless, I had been planning to leave him. What kind of wife was I?

His initial prognosis gave him one to two years. He made it fourteen months. As much as it pains me to say this, those were some of the best days of our entire marriage. We were talking again. We were sharing again. We were together again. And when he died, I can say in all honesty I loved him again.

You want to know how long we were married? There was a time I would have told you, too long. But now my answer is not long enough.

What about you, Henry? You just got me to say things I don’t normally go around telling people. Now it’s your turn. What’s kept you from marrying all these years? Surely there’s been at least one woman who’s caught your eye, if not your heart. What’s holding you back? Take it from me, life’s too short to watch from the sidelines. If you find your Goldie Hawn, you go after her. And then you better tell this old soul all about it.

Your friend, Edith

PS—(You know I can’t ever stop without at least one PS.) I just remembered you asked where I was going after this summer. It’s a little village in South Africa. Okay. Enough. My hand is cramping. I’m calling it a night.

Henry slowly folded Edith’s letter and slipped it into his front shirt pocket, the paper crinkling against his chest.

She must have still been rather young when her husband died. He hadn’t expected that. He wondered if she had ever come close to remarrying. And South Africa? What was she going to be doing in South Africa?

He could think of at least a dozen more questions for her.

But it looked like if he wanted to find out more about the interesting woman living under his roof, he was going to have to provide a few answers of his own.