Every Breath

by Nicholas Sparks

  They moved at a leisurely pace, though Tru didn’t seem to mind. She caught the hint of a limp in his stride, noticeable enough to make her wonder what had happened to him. It might be nothing—perhaps a touch of arthritis, or simply the by-product of an active life—but it reminded her that despite their shared history, they were in many ways strangers. She’d cherished a memory, but that wasn’t necessarily the man he was today.

  Or was it?

  Walking beside him, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that being with him felt as easy and comforting as it had back then, and glancing over at Tru, she suspected he felt the same way. Like her, he’d tucked his hands into his pockets, his cheeks turning pink in the chill, and there was a contented air about him, like a man just returned home after a long journey. Because the tide was slowly coming in, they walked at the very edge of the hard-packed sand, both of them watching for waves that might soak their shoes.

  They drifted into conversation, the words flowing unchecked, like an old habit rediscovered. She did most of the talking. She told him about the deaths of her parents, touched briefly on work, along with her marriage and subsequent divorce from Josh, but mainly found herself telling him about Jacob and Rachel. She told countless stories about their childhoods and their teen years, and admitted how terrified she’d been when Rachel had her open-heart surgery. Often she read reactions of warmth or concern on Tru’s face, his empathy plain. She couldn’t recall everything, of course; some of the details of her life were lost to her, but she felt that Tru instinctively grasped the patterns and threads of her past. By the time they’d passed beneath the pier, she suspected there was little about her life as a mother that he didn’t already know.

  As they moved through the softer sand and began to angle toward the path that led through the dunes, she walked ahead of him, realizing that unlike the arduous hike out to Kindred Spirit, she’d barely noticed the trek back. Her fingers felt warm and supple in her pockets, and despite doing almost all of the talking, she wasn’t winded.

  After skirting the path, they reached the street and she noticed a car parked in the spot next to hers.

  “Yours?” she asked, pointing.

  “A rental,” he said.

  It made sense that he’d rented a car, she supposed, but she couldn’t help but realize that their cars were close to each other, as if drawn together by the same magical forces that had allowed Hope and Tru to reunite. She found that oddly touching.

  “How about you follow me?” she offered. “It’s a bit of a drive.”

  “Lead the way.”

  She hit the button to unlock the doors and slipped behind the wheel. The car was cold, and after starting the engine, she cranked the heater to maximum. Beyond the glass, Tru got into his rental. She backed out, then stopped in the street to wait for him. When he was ready, she removed her foot from the brake and the car began to roll forward, toward an afternoon she couldn’t have foreseen and a future she couldn’t imagine.

  Alone in the car, her thoughts began to wander and she continued to peek in the rearview mirror, making sure Tru didn’t disappear. Making sure she hadn’t been hallucinating, because part of her still couldn’t believe that he’d learned of her letter.

  But he had learned of it, she thought.

  He was here. He’d come back because she’d wanted him to. And he still cared for her.

  She took a breath, steadying herself as the car finally began to warm. His car trailed behind hers through the turns and over the bridge. Onto the highway, where, thankfully, most of the lights were green, then finally toward the turnoff that led to Carolina Beach. Another small bridge and a few turns later, she pulled into the driveway of the cottage she’d rented.

  She left room for Tru to pull in alongside her, watching as he finally came to a stop. She stepped out, listening to the ticking of her engine as it cooled. In his car, Tru was turned around, reaching for something in the back seat, his hair silver through the glass.

  As she waited, thin strands of clouds drifted overhead, softening the glare. The breeze was steady, and after the warmth of the car, she felt herself suddenly shiver. As she crossed her arms, she heard a cardinal call from the trees, and when she spotted it, she flashed to the memory of Joe’s letter to Lena that Tru had read to her when they’d visited Kindred Spirit long ago. Cardinals, she thought, mate for life. The idea made her smile.

  Tru stepped out of the car, moving as gracefully as he had in the past. Holding a canvas bag in his hand, he squinted toward the cottage.

  “Is this where you’re staying?”

  “I rented it for a week.”

  He scrutinized the cottage again, then turned back to her. “It reminds me of your parents’ cottage.”

  She smiled, feeling a sense of déjà vu. “That’s exactly what I thought when I first saw it, too.”

  * * *

  The autumn sun slanted down on them as Tru followed her to the front door. Once inside, Hope set her hat, gloves, and scarf on the end table and hung her jacket in the closet. Tru hung his jacket beside hers. The canvas bag went onto the end table, next to her things. There was something reassuringly domestic about the ease with which they entered the house, she thought, as if they’d been doing it together all their lives.

  She could feel a draft coming through the windows. Though she’d adjusted the thermostat earlier, the house was struggling against the elements, and she rubbed her arms to keep the blood flowing. She watched as Tru took in the surroundings, and she had the sense that his eyes still missed nothing.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said. “I never thought in a million years you’d come.”

  “And yet, you were waiting for me at the mailbox.”

  She acknowledged his observation with a sheepish smile, combing her fingers through her windblown hair. “I’ve done most of the talking, so now I want to hear about you.”

  “My life hasn’t been all that interesting.”

  “So you say,” she said, her expression skeptical. She touched his arm. “Are you hungry? Can I make you some lunch?’

  “Only if you’ll join me. I had a late breakfast, so I’m not famished.”

  “Then how about a glass of wine? I think this calls for a little celebration.”

  “I agree,” he said. “Do you need help?”

  “No, but if you wouldn’t mind getting the fire going, that would be great. Just flip the switch near the mantel. It’s automatic. And then make yourself at home. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Hope went to the kitchen and peered into the refrigerator. Pulling out the bottle of wine, she poured two glasses and returned to the living room. By then, the fire was going and Tru was on the couch. After handing him a glass, she set hers on the coffee table.

  “Do you need a blanket? Even with the fire going, I’m still kind of chilled.”

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  She gathered up a throw from the bed in her room, then took a seat on the couch, adjusting the blanket over herself before reaching for her glass. The heat from the fireplace was already seeping into the room.

  “This is nice,” she commented, thinking he was as handsome as when they’d first met. “Wildly unbelievable, but nice.”

  He laughed, a familiar rumble. “It’s more than nice. It’s miraculous.” Lifting his glass, he said, “To…Kindred Spirit.”

  After clinking glasses, they both took a sip. When Tru lowered his glass, he gave a faint smile.

  “I’m surprised that you’re not staying at Sunset Beach.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said. Nor has it been since I met you, she added silently.

  “Have you been here before?”

  She nodded. “I came here the first time after I separated from Josh.” She told him a bit about what she’d been going through back then and how much the visit had helped her clear her mind, before going on. “At the time, it was all I could do to keep a lid on all the emotions I was experiencing. But the time alone a
lso reminded me how much the kids were struggling with the divorce, too, even if they weren’t showing it. They really needed me, and it helped me refocus on that.”

  “You sound like you were a great mother.”

  “I tried.” She shrugged. “But I made mistakes, too.”

  “I think that’s part of the description. At least when it comes to being a parent. I still wonder whether I should have spent more time with Andrew.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “No, but he wouldn’t. And yet, the years went by too quickly. One day, he was a little boy, and the next thing I knew, he was heading off to Oxford.”

  “Did you stay at Hwange until then?”

  “I did.”

  “But then you left.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I looked for you,” she said. “Before putting the letter in the mailbox, I mean.”

  “When?”

  “In 2006. After I divorced from Josh, probably a year after my first visit to Carolina Beach. I remembered where you worked and I contacted the lodge. Other places, too. But I couldn’t find you.”

  He seemed to contemplate that, his eyes unfocused for a few seconds. She had the sense there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t. Instead, after a few beats, he offered a gentle smile. “I wish I’d known,” he said finally. “And I wish you would have.”

  Me too, she thought. “What happened? I thought you liked working at Hwange.”

  “I did,” he said. “But I was there for a long time and it was time to move on.”

  “Why?”

  “There was new management at the camp, and a lot of the other guides had left, including my friend Romy. He’d retired a couple of years earlier. The lodge was going through a transition period, and with Andrew off to college, there was really nothing to keep me in the area. I thought that if I wanted to start over someplace else, it was better sooner rather than later. So I sold my place in Bulawayo and moved to Botswana. I’d found a job at a camp that sounded interesting.”

  So he went to Botswana after all, she thought.

  “They all sound interesting to me.”

  “A good number of them actually are,” he agreed. “Did you ever get to go on safari? You had said that you wanted to one day.”

  “Not yet. I’m still hoping to, though.” Then, circling back to what he’d said earlier and remembering how many camps she’d contacted, she asked: “What was so interesting about the camp in Botswana? Was it well known?”

  “Not at all. It’s more of a middle-tier camp. The accommodations are a bit rustic. Bagged lunches instead of prepared meals, things like that. And the game can be fairly sporadic. But I’d heard about the lions in the area. Or rather, a specific pride of them.”

  “I thought you saw lions all the time.”

  “I did,” he said. “But not like this. I’d heard a rumor that the lions had learned to hunt and bring down elephants.”

  “How could lions bring down an elephant?”

  “I had no idea, and I didn’t believe it at the time, but eventually I met a guide who used to work there. He told me that while he hadn’t actually seen an attack, he’d come across an elephant carcass the following day. And it was clear to him that lions had been feasting most of the night.”

  She squinted at him doubtfully. “Maybe the elephant was sick and the lions came across it?”

  “That’s what I thought initially. People always talk about the lion as being the king of the jungle—even that Disney movie The Lion King played up the mythology—but I knew from experience that it wasn’t true. Elephants are, and always have been, the king of the bush. They’re massive and scary, truly dominant. In the hundreds of times I watched an elephant approach lions, the lions always backed off. But if the guide was right, I knew it was something I had to see for myself. The thought of it became something of an obsession. And again, with Andrew gone, I thought, why not?”

  He took a swallow of wine before going on. “When I started working there, I learned that none of the guides had ever seen it, but they all believed it, too. Because every now and then, a carcass would turn up. If it was happening, it was incredibly rare, which made sense. Even if a pride of lions could take down an elephant, they would undoubtedly prefer easier prey. And during my first few years there, that’s all I ever saw. The main source of food for the pride was what I’d always seen in the past—impalas, warthogs, zebras, and giraffes. I never encountered a single elephant carcass. Halfway through my third year there, though, a drought set in. A bad one. It lasted months, and a lot of the regular game either died off or began migrating toward the Okavango Delta. Meanwhile, the lions were still around, and gradually grew more desperate. Then late one afternoon, while on a game drive, I saw it happen.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded, retreating into the past. She watched as he swirled his wineglass before going on. “It was a smaller elephant, not one of the big bulls, but the lions separated it from the herd and went to work. One at a time, almost like a military operation. One of them attacking the leg, another jumping on the elephant’s back, while the others surrounded it. Just sort of wearing the elephant down over time. It wasn’t violent, either. It was very calm, very methodical. The pride was cautious and the entire attack probably took thirty minutes. And then, when the elephant was weakening, they ganged up, several attacking at once. The elephant went down, and it didn’t take long after that.”

  He shrugged, his voice growing softer. “I know you might feel bad for the elephant. But by the end, I was awed by the lions. It was certainly one of the most memorable experiences of my guiding career.”

  “Unbelievable,” she said. “Were you alone when it happened?”

  “No,” he said. “There were six guests in the jeep. I think one of them ended up selling the video footage he took to CNN. I never saw it, but over the next few years, I heard from a lot of people who did. The lodge where I was working became very popular for a while after that. But eventually the rains resumed and the drought ended. The game returned, and the lions went back to easier prey. I never saw it happen again, nor did I see another carcass. I heard that there was another occurrence some years later, but by then I was no longer there.”

  She smiled. “I’ll say the same thing to you that I did when we first met: You definitely have the most interesting job of anyone I’ve ever known.”

  “It had its moments.” He shrugged.

  She cocked her head. “And you mentioned that Andrew went to Oxford?”

  Tru nodded. “He certainly ended up being a better student than I ever was. Incredibly bright. He excelled in science.”

  “You must be proud.”

  “I am. But truly, it had more to do with him—and Kim, of course—than me.”

  “How’s she doing? Is she still married?”

  “She is. Her other children are grown now, too. Ironically, she actually lives near me again. After I settled in Bantry Bay, she and her husband moved to Cape Town.”

  “I’ve heard it’s beautiful there.”

  “It is. The coastline is gorgeous. Beautiful sunsets.”

  She stared into her glass. “I can’t tell you how many times I found myself wondering about you over the years. How you spent your days, what you saw, how Andrew was doing.”

  “For a long time, my life wasn’t all that different from the life I had led before. It was mostly centered on work and Andrew. I went on two, sometimes three game drives a day, played my guitar or made sketches in the evening when I was in the bush; and in Bulawayo, I watched my son grow up. Saw him become interested in model trains for a year, then skateboards, then the electric guitar, then chemistry, and then girls. In that order.”

  She nodded, remembering the phases Jacob and Rachel had gone through.

  “How were his teenage years?”

  “Like most teens, he had his own social life by then. Friends, a girlfriend for a year. There was a period there when I felt a bit like a hoteli
er whenever he was around, but I recognized his desire for independence and accepted it more than Kim did. It was harder for her to let go of the little boy he once had been, I think.”

  “It was the same with me,” Hope admitted. “I think it’s a mother thing.”

  “I suppose the most difficult time for me was when he went off to university. He was a long way from home, and I couldn’t visit often. Nor did he want me to. So I’d see him over the holidays or between terms. But it wasn’t the same, especially whenever I returned from the bush. I felt restless in Bulawayo. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, so when I heard the rumor about the lions, I just picked up and left for Botswana.”

  “Did Andrew visit you there?”

  “He did, but not as frequently. I sometimes think I shouldn’t have sold the house in Bulawayo. He didn’t know anyone in Gaborone—I had an apartment there—and when he was on break, he wanted to see his friends. Of course, Kim wanted time with him, too. Sometimes I would return to Bulawayo and stay in a hotel, but that wasn’t the same, either. He was an adult by then. A young one, but I could see he was beginning his own life.”

  “What did he study?”

  “He ended up taking a first in chemistry, and talked about becoming an engineer. But after he graduated, he became interested in precious gems, especially colored diamonds. He’s a diamond broker now, which means he travels to New York City and Beijing regularly. He was a good lad who turned into a fine young man.”

  “I’d like to meet him one day.”

  “I’d like that, too,” he said.

  “Does he ever go back to Zimbabwe?”

  “Not often. Nor do Kim or I. Zimbabwe is experiencing some difficult times.”