by Willow Aster
The ticking of the clock sounds like a bomb, ready to go off. Each second that ticks by feels like I’m losing him all over again. Just when I think I can’t take another ounce of silence, Isaiah takes his hands off the wall and sniffles. He doesn’t look at me, but takes a deep breath.
“You knew me better than anyone. I don’t understand how you could have kept the truth from me. It was hard enough that you left the way you did. I would have done anything for us to be together, Caroline. Anything.” He swallows hard. “You disappeared on me…I’ve never gotten over that.”
“I thought I had to,” I whisper. “I thought I was doing the right thing for you.”
“That you’d think I’d move on so quickly…” He shakes his head. “Surely you have more faith in me than that. I loved you.”
It feels like a slap across the face. Loved.
“I love you now,” he whispers.
My heart quickens with those words.
“But I never dreamed of this,” he continues. “I can’t believe we have a child.”
For a moment I think he’s going to hit the wall, but he doesn’t. He balls his hands into fists and looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He keeps speaking in a monotone voice.
“I would have raised her even if she wasn’t mine. You know I would have.”
I nod, but he doesn’t see me. And then he looks at me and the air in the room feels less stifling all of a sudden.
“By the time you sent a letter, there was no house for it to be mailed to…” He rubs his eyes and wipes his hands on his pants. “We moved so much, I doubt the post office knew what to do with all our mail around then.” He looks away but laces his fingers through mine. “I wish you’d told me the minute you found out, Caroline. I wish you’d never left,” he admits. “I wish I’d had this time with my baby girl. I’ve missed so much.” He shakes his head. “But,” he bites his lip to keep it from shaking, “you’re here now. And I have wished every single minute of the last FORTY MONTHS that you were here.” He pinches his arm. “Right? You’re here? I can’t believe this is happening! I know, I can’t stop sayin’ it! We have a lot of time to make up for…”
When he finally looks my way again, the hurt is still there, but it’s tempered with a tentative smile. “It’s gonna take me some time to wrap my head around all this, but I’m…well, just tell me the rest,” he says.
I tell him about the bed and breakfast and then Davis…
“He was my best friend and then overnight, practically, he was more. I was going to marry him.”
“You love him,” he states, no question. He looks worried.
“I did love him. No one could ever take the place of you, but I did love Davis in a different way.”
He nods. “That’s hard for me to hear, but I get it.” He looks up at the ceiling and then back at me, his eyes ashamed. “I tried to fill the hole that you left…but couldn’t. I just gave up trying a week ago, as a matter of fact.”
I don’t even want to know. I just want to take what is happening right now and live in that moment. He wants to know, though.
“So why haven’t you married him?”
“He died before I could.”
“Oh, Caroline. Really? I mean…I’m so selfish to be relieved you didn’t marry him, but I’m sorry you lost him.”
“Thank you. The truth is, I would have never been with him if you’d been there. We would have all been friends, though, I know that.”
“I love you, Caroline.” He closes his eyes and when he opens them, they’re shiny. “I’ve always been honest with you and I have to more than ever now, while I have this chance. I’m angry with you right now, but I…I feel like I’ve been given too much of a miracle in having you back to waste time on that. The day you left me, I wished I could die. And at the same time, I understood why you felt you had to do that. I didn’t agree, but…I understood.”
He’s quiet for a moment, just looking at me.
And then he says, “Are you here to be with me now, Caroline?” He puts both hands on my face and looks into my eyes. “Please say that you are.”
“Once I knew where you were and that you’d been looking for me for so long, I had to let you know about Gracie.”
“I can’t believe we have a daughter. I love her, already I do…” He studies my eyes. “But is that it? Are your feelings for me gone?”
I bite my lip and his eyes follow my mouth.
“No,” I whisper, “that’s not it. I still love you.”
He draws a deep breath. “You do?”
“Always.”
“Are we gonna do it right this time, Caroline? Are we gonna be together? No matter what?”
“I don’t want to be without you another second,” I tell him. “No matter what.”
He leans down and kisses me, and every nook, chink, crack, fissure, cranny, fracture—crevice—that has been broken or dried up or closed off or frozen or dead…sparks back up in full, living, breathing color.
I’m awake and I’m never going to let go of this feeling again.
GRACIE AND I decide to stay a couple of days with Isaiah and Sadie. She sets up a little pallet for Gracie in the room next to mine. Gracie wanted to sleep in there because it’s pink.
“Is this okay?” he asks before he crawls into bed with me. “I was gonna take some time to process all this, but…I know that I don’t want to live another moment without you.”
“Is your mama okay with this?”
“Because it’s you, yes. She knows I already belong to you. And that I don’t want to miss another thing. Not with you, not with Gracie. Never again.”
“After all this time and all I’ve done, you still want me?”
“I’ll never stop, Caroline.”
I’m complete.
We make love, all night, after not seeing each other in so long. And it feels right. There is nothing tentative or awkward about it, even though we’re silent, so nothing can be heard. It’s perfect, just like coming home.
Seeing him again, I know I’m willing to endure any persecution that might come. And I can’t sacrifice my happiness for his anymore, not in that way. I could if it was giving up that extra pork chop or letting him have the better pillow…but not my love. I can’t withhold my love from him for another second. Because that could never be better for him. Our love is like air and we need each other to breathe.
THE NEXT NIGHT Gracie falls asleep in our room while we’re talking. Isaiah watches her sleep. He’s enchanted with her. When we start to get sleepy, he carries her to her pink bedroom and then has to check on her one more time before getting back in bed with me.
“She is so beautiful. I think she knows I’m her daddy, don’t you? She can tell there’s something different with us. I feel it,” he says.
“Yes, she absolutely does,” I assure him.
“Are you sure you’re ready for me full-time?” he asks.
He’s looked into transferring credits to the University of Louisville and has already gotten the process started. I love him for being willing to do that without ever even setting foot there.
“I’m positive,” I tell him. “And Bardstown has been good to us. It will be easier there, I think.”
“Just promise you won’t leave me again and I’ll go anywhere you want to go.” He kisses my shoulder and makes his way down my neck, stopping to kiss along my scar.
We let our bodies say the rest of what needs to be said.
SADIE DECIDES TO stay long enough to sell the house, but she doesn’t have ties to Memphis without Isaiah, so she agrees to come see what she thinks about Bardstown in a few weeks. I know she’ll love it.
I never dreamed I would be bringing him home. I get giddy when I think about Papa and Ruby knowing him. To have my family all together, it’s more than I can take.
Papa and Ruby welcome him into their lives, just as they have me. They’ve heard so much about him, it’s like they already knew him, but when he’s actually here, he has this way
of making everyone know how important they are to him. He thanks Papa and Ruby for taking such good care of us, for loving me and Gracie and embracing him. I look at him with Papa every day and realize that he needed Papa just like I did. We don’t take it lightly, we recognize what a gift we’ve been given.
Dad goes back to Tulma to be with Grandpaw. And I have to admit that I’m sad to see him go. We write letters back and forth and he comes to visit every couple of months. I’m finally trusting my heart to him, and he’s not disappointing me.
All my concerns that it might be odd to have Isaiah in the place where I’ve spent so much time with Davis are put to rest the moment he’s here. Because, really, Isaiah was never out of my thoughts. He has already been part of every memory. Even if I was trying to push him out, he has always been a constant.
But in the flesh is so much better. I look at him every morning and inhale him. We’ve moved out to the carriage house and it feels like a dream. We can hear Gracie’s feet pitter patter across the floor as she runs to our room every morning. She dives into bed with us and lands right smack-dab in the middle of us every time.
Isaiah and Gracie are head over heels with each other. I hear her telling him all the time. “I yove you, Daddy. You stay here with us forever?”
And he’ll reassure her that he’s not going anywhere.
I know it will take time for us to believe we really get to keep all this happiness.
IN APRIL, A tornado comes through and wipes out all the gardens and a lot of the grapes. The shell of my house with Davis is also destroyed, and I grieve the loss of him in my life all over again. It hasn’t been long, but it feels like an eternity since he died. I thank him every day for healing my heart enough to get through my time without Isaiah. He didn’t fix things completely, but his love covered my bruises and got them on their way to healing.
His truck is just fine and what I drive most of the time.
Since there’s less to work on right now with the gardens, I spend more time writing. It’s something I’ve neglected for a while. Once I’m done with my responsibilities for the Inn and usually while Gracie is napping, I’ll sit down with my notebook and pour it all out. I think the therapy I got from working out in the garden was worth more than I knew. I’m starting with my story, in hopes that, in time, every past wound will at least scab over…I know I’m not there quite yet.
Writing is like taking all your insides out, stomping on them, and stuffing them back inside hoping they’ll fit. Especially when you’re writing your history.
All that, and yet, I still feel like it’s helping.
One night, when the air is not so chilly, Isaiah, Gracie and I take a walk outside.
Isaiah is holding Gracie and his hand is around my waist. He seems to be leading us somewhere and I let him. We walk to my favorite archway. All the wreckage and it remains untouched.
Isaiah pulls me under the structure and we look up at it. It’s still beautiful. Weathered, but strong.
“This survived, just like we did,” Isaiah says.
“It sure did.” I smile at him.
“Listen, I know we’ve tried to get married a couple of times…”
We haven’t been able to get anyone to marry us…we’ve tried three places. Mixed marriages are apparently against a few religions.
“How about we get married right now and then plan a big party once we get it looking pretty out here again?” Isaiah raises his eyebrows. “What do you think? Will you marry me now?”
“Yes!”
“Just us. Right here, right now.” Isaiah smiles.
“Okay. I like it.” I smile back.
“I, Isaiah Cornelius Washington, take you, Caroline Josephine Carson, to be my wife. I will cherish you forever, live to make you smile, love you beyond the day I die, and do whatever it takes to make you happy, so long as we both shall live.”
I lean up and kiss him.
Gracie giggles.
“I, Caroline Josephine Carson, take you, Isaiah Cornelius Washington, to be my husband. I will spend every second of the rest of my life loving you and only you. I will always be grateful that we were given another chance, and when hard times come, I will know that we’ve already endured the worst. We can handle anything as long as we’re together.”
Isaiah nudges Gracie and she says, “Now?”
“Now,” he whispers.
“You may kiss the bwide,” Gracie says proudly.
Isaiah kisses my lips and Gracie kisses the rest of my face and then moves on to his.
ISAIAH GETS DONE with the school and the very next day we have a huge birthday party for Gracie. She’s three years old and very excited about it. Everybody’s there—Papa, Ruby, Sadie, Brenda, Charlie, Shelby, and right before it starts, Dad and Grandpaw arrive.
I get to Grandpaw’s side of the car before he even gets out good.
“Why, look at you,” he says and gives me a big hug. “You’re prettier’n a tom-cat’s kitten!”
“Grandpaw, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you. I’m glad to see you so fine. Now, what’s this I hear about you giving me a nigger baby?” His stomach starts bouncing up and down while he laughs and shakes his head.
“Grandpaw, if you’re gonna talk like that, you can just get right back in your car and go back to Tulma. I’m not having my daughter or my husband hear our family say that. You hear?”
“Oh, Caroline, don’t be actin’ above your raisin’ just because you’re out here on all this.” He waves his arm out over the plantation. “You are who you are.”
Isaiah comes up behind me then and puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Hello! Welcome,” he says to Grandpaw.
Grandpaw nods at him but doesn’t say anything.
I open my mouth to say something and Isaiah nudges me. I look over my shoulder at him and he gives me a subtle shake of his head. He walks around to Dad and they hug.
Grandpaw behaves the rest of the day. He doesn’t say much, but that’s just as well. He probably hasn’t gone a day in his life without telling one of his racist jokes, so I guess we can’t expect to retrain him all in the course of a day.
GRACIE DOESN’T EVEN know what to do with herself—all her favorite people, all in one place.
It’s fun to watch Brenda and Charlie. They’re really happy together. I think they’ll be getting hitched soon, if Brenda has anything to say about it. I look around at all the adults and realize we need to get Gracie around more children…fast…she needs some little friends. Or a sibling. Pretty soon…I might be convinced to work on that before too long. For now, I want Gracie to have her time with her dad. And I want to enjoy Isaiah as much as I can just like this. I smile over at him and he smiles back.
“What?” He comes over and nuzzles my neck.
“Nothin’.” I smirk.
“Oh, you’re thinkin’ somethin’,” he says.
“I’ll tell you later—when I can actually do something about it.”
His eyes light up and he kisses the back of my neck.
Sweet Jesus, I love him.
MY BIRTHDAY COMES a few days later and Isaiah takes me camping to celebrate. He says we’re around such splendor all the time at the Inn, we should get out and enjoy the nature around it. So we hug Gracie, who is happy for her own little adventure with Ruby, and we head out in the truck with a tent.
We park not too far from a lake we found a few weeks ago and find a good place to put the tent. I pull out the huge picnic basket and laugh at our version of camping. Ruby has sent food for twelve.
There’s no one around. It’s our very own secluded hideaway.
We go swimming and talk about that day so long ago when we were swimming in our clothes. The subject comes up because Isaiah has stripped me of my suit.
“If we had just done this back then, it could have all been settled,” he teases.
“You think so?” I laugh.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I wish I’d know
n back then that it would all work out.”
“I do too, but you know what? We might not have seen all the good if we hadn’t gone through all the bad.”
I give him a scowl and he shrugs.
“It’s true,” he says.
“You’ve always seen the good.”
“You’re right. Because I’ve always seen you.” He wraps my legs around him and kisses me. “You are the good.”
I lean my head back in the water, which happens to bring my breasts right up to him in easy access…
“See what I mean? It’s your birthday, but here you are, giving me presents.” He leans down and kisses them one at a time.
I laugh and bring my head back up to meet his lips. “I already have everything I want, so I might as well give you something.”
This time we have a hard time even getting our lips to meet because we’re smiling so wide.
ISAIAH WILL BE here soon. We’re adding onto the carriage house and since I’m paranoid that he could have an accident like Davis did, he has to always work with someone else. After weeks of bad weather and workers canceling, he finally had help this week. We have to get it done soon, if we want it ready before the baby comes. We rode down with Ruby and once she got here, she went to visit her family. She didn’t want to leave me; I forced her out the door. She takes care of me enough, as it is. Papa and Sadie will be making the drive with Isaiah.
I promised him I’d be all right. But I should have known better. I’ve been a wreck being in the house without him or Dad.
I hear a noise and jump a mile. I shake my head and stand up to see where it came from. All the times I spent in this house alone…how did I ever do that? I feel like more of a child now than I did then.
The door opens and Daddy walks in. I rush over to him and hug him. He hangs on tight for a minute and then pulls back.
He wipes the tears off my face. “I’m so sorry—I got held up with the funeral arrangements. You takin’ it hard about Grandpaw?”