“I’m closer to one,” she said. She reached for her fork. “Do you remember when we had dinner at Clancy’s? And then went back and had a glass of wine at my parents’ cottage?”
“How could I forget?” he said. “That was the night we first got to know each other. You took my breath away.”
She nodded, a hint of color staining her cheeks. She bent over her salad and he did the same.
Tru nodded at the carved box sitting on the table. “What’s in there?”
“Memories,” she said, a mysterious lilt in her voice. “I’ll show you later, but for now, let’s keep talking about you. I think we’re up to around 2007? What happened after you finished your rehabilitation?”
He hesitated, as though trying to figure out what to say. “I found a job in Namibia. Guiding. Well-kept lodge and huge reserve, with one of the largest concentrations of cheetahs on the continent. And Namibia is a beautiful country. The Skeleton Coast and Sossusvlei desert are…among the most otherworldly places on the planet. When I wasn’t working or flying to Europe to see Andrew, I played the tourist, exploring whenever I could. I stayed at the camp until I retired and moved to Cape Town. Or rather, Bantry Bay. It’s on the outskirts, right on the coast. I have a small place there with a spectacular view. And it’s walking distance to cafés, bookstores, and the market. It suits me.”
“Did you ever think about moving to Europe to be closer to Andrew?”
He shook his head. “I get up there from time to time, and work brings him to Cape Town regularly. If he could, he’d move to Cape Town, but Annette won’t let him. Most of her family lives in Belgium. But Africa has a hold on him, the same way it does on me. Unless you were raised there, it’s hard to understand.”
Her gaze was full of wonder. “Your life sounds incredibly romantic to me. Aside from that awful three-year period, I mean.”
“I’ve lived the life I wanted. Mostly, anyway.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Did you ever think about getting married again? After your divorce?”
“No,” she answered. “I didn’t even feel like dating. I told myself that it was because of the kids, but…”
“But what?”
Instead of answering, she shook her head. “It’s not important. Let’s finish with you. Now that you’re retired, how do you spend your days?”
“I don’t do much. But I do enjoy being able to walk without carrying a rifle.”
She smiled. “Do you have hobbies?” She rested her chin in her hand, striking a girlish pose as she fixed her attention on him. “Aside from drawing and guitar?”
“I visit a gym most mornings for an hour, and usually follow that with a long walk or a hike. I do a lot of reading, too. I’ve probably read more books in the last three years than I’d read in the previous sixty-three combined. I haven’t broken down and bought a computer yet, but Andrew keeps insisting that I need to catch up with the times.”
“You don’t have a computer?”
“What would I do with it?” He seemed genuinely bemused.
“I don’t know…read online newspapers, order something you need, email. Stay connected to the world?”
“Maybe one day. I still prefer reading a regular newspaper, I have everything I need, and there’s no one I want to email.”
“Do you know what Facebook is?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Tru conceded. “As I mentioned, I do read the paper.”
“I had a Facebook account for a few years. In case you wanted to contact me.”
He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he watched her, wondering how much to say, knowing he wasn’t ready to tell her everything just yet.
“I thought about trying to reach out,” he finally offered. “More times than you can imagine. But I didn’t know if you were still married, or remarried, or whether you were interested in hearing from me. I didn’t want to disrupt your life. And really, I don’t know how well I would do with a computer anyway. Or with Facebook. What do Americans say? ‘Can’t teach an old dog new tricks’?” He grinned. “It was a big step for me to get a cell phone. But I only did that so Andrew could reach me when he needed to.”
“You didn’t have a cell phone?”
“I never felt like I needed one until recently. There’s no service in the bush, and besides, the only one who would ever call was Andrew.”
“How about Kim? Don’t you still speak with her?”
“Not very often, these days. Andrew is grown now, so there’s not as much reason for us to speak. And you? Do you still speak with Josh?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Maybe too much.”
Tru’s expression was quizzical.
“A few months ago, he suggested we try to make a go of it again. Him and me, I mean.”
“That didn’t interest you?”
“Not in the slightest,” she responded. “And I was a bit shocked that he had the nerve to bring it up.”
“Why?”
While they finished their salads, Hope shared more detail about Josh. His affairs and the divorce battles, his subsequent marriage and divorce, and the toll that life had taken on him. Tru listened, hearing only a trace of the anguish that all of Josh’s actions must have caused her, and thinking to himself that Josh was a fool. That she was somehow able to forgive him struck Tru as remarkable, but then it was just another thing he admired about her.
They lingered at the kitchen table, filling in blanks and answering questions about each other’s past. When they eventually brought their dishes to the sink, Hope turned on the radio, letting the music drift out of the kitchen as they wandered back to the couch. The fire was still burning, casting a yellow glow through the room. Tru watched as she took a seat and tucked the blanket around herself, thinking that he never wanted this day to end.
* * *
Until he’d learned that Hope had placed a letter in Kindred Spirit, Tru had sometimes thought that he’d died twice, not just once, in his lifetime.
Upon his return to Zimbabwe in 1990, he’d spent time with Andrew, but he could remember feeling numb to the world, even as he’d played soccer or cooked or watched TV with his son. When he went back to the bush, working with the guests was a distraction, but he could never escape thoughts of her. When he would stop the jeep on game drives so the guests could photograph whatever animal they were seeing, he would sometimes imagine that she was in the front seat beside him, marveling at his world in the same way he continued to marvel at the world they’d briefly inhabited together.
The evenings were hardest. He couldn’t concentrate long enough to either draw or play the guitar. Nor did he socialize with the other guides; instead, he would lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Eventually his friend Romy grew concerned enough to mention it, but it was a long time before Tru could even bring himself to say Hope’s name.
It took months for Tru to return to his normal habits, but even then, he knew he was no longer fully himself. Prior to meeting Hope, he’d dated occasionally; afterward, he lost all desire to do so. Nor did that feeling ever change. It was as though that part of him, the desire for female companionship or the spark of human attraction, had been left behind on the sandy shores of Sunset Beach, North Carolina.
It was Andrew who finally got him drawing again. During one of Tru’s visits to Bulawayo, his son asked whether Tru was angry with him. When Tru squatted lower and asked why he would ever think such a thing, Andrew mumbled that he hadn’t received a drawing in months. Tru promised to start sketching again, but on most evenings, when he put pencil to paper, it was Hope he sketched. Usually he recreated from memory something from their time together: the sight of her staring at him as he held Scottie that first day on the beach, or how ravishing she’d looked on the night of the rehearsal dinner. Only after he’d made good progress on a drawing of Hope would he turn his attention to something he suspected Andrew would like.
The drawings of Hope took weeks to complete, not days. There was a newfound desire within him to match them perfectl
y with his memories, to capture those images with precision and care. When he was finally satisfied, he would save the drawing and start on the next. Over the years, the project became something of a compulsion, feeding an unconscious belief, perhaps, that re-creating Hope’s likeness perfectly would somehow bring her back to him. He made more than fifty detailed sketches, each of them documenting a different memory. When he was finished, he put them in order, a chronicle of their time together. At that point, he started to draw the corresponding sketches of himself, or how he imagined he’d looked to her in those same moments. In the end, he had them bound in a book—drawings of himself on the left-hand pages, and Hope on the right—but he had never shown it to anyone. He’d finished it the year after Andrew went to college. It had taken nearly nine years to complete.
That was another reason he lost much of his sense of purpose as the century wound down. He paced the house with nothing to do, leafed through the book every night, and dwelt on the fact that everyone who mattered in his life was gone. His mother. His grandfather. Kim, and now Andrew. Hope. He was alone, he thought, and would always be alone. It was a hard time, maybe as hard as his recovery from the accident would later be, but in a different way.
Botswana and the lion quest, as he referred to it then, had been good for him; but always, he kept the book of sketches at hand, among his most vital possessions. After the accident, the book was the only thing he really wanted, but he didn’t want to ask Andrew to bring it. He had never told Andrew about it, and he didn’t want to lie to him or Kim. Instead, he had his ex-wife make arrangements to box up all of his things in Botswana and place them in storage. She did, but he spent much of the next two years worrying that the book had somehow been lost or damaged. The first thing he did after moving out of the rehab facility was make a short trip to Botswana. He hired some youths to help him open box after box until the book was found. Aside from being dusty, it was in perfect condition.
But the compulsion to relive in images the days that they’d shared together began to dim not long after that. For his own good, he knew he couldn’t keep dreaming that they would someday be together again. He had no idea that around that time, Hope had been trying to find him.
Had he known, and despite his lingering injuries, he told himself he would have moved heaven and earth to go to her. And there’d been a moment when he’d come close to doing exactly that.
* * *
Twilight came softly to Carolina Beach.
Hope and Tru, their limbs brushing occasionally, sat on the couch, continuing to talk, heedless of the waning light as they delved deeper and deeper into each other’s lives. The glasses of wine, long since empty, gave way to cups of tea, and generalities gave way to intimate details. Staring at her profile in the lengthening shadows, Tru could hardly grasp that Hope was actually with him. She was, and always had been, his dream.
“I have a confession to make,” he finally began. “There’s something I haven’t told you. About something that happened before I took the job in Namibia. I wanted to tell you earlier, but when you told me that you tried to find me…”
“What is it?”
He stared into his glass. “I almost came back to North Carolina. To look for you. It was right after I finished my rehabilitation, and I bought a ticket and packed my bags and actually made it to the airport. But when it came time to head through security…I couldn’t do it.” He swallowed, as if recalling his paralysis. “I’m ashamed to say that in the end, I just…walked back to my car.”
It took a moment for understanding to dawn on her. “You mean that when I was looking for you, you were trying to find me, too?”
He nodded, conscious of the dryness in his throat, knowing she was thinking about the years they’d lost—not once, but twice.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said slowly.
“I don’t think there’s anything to say, other than that it breaks my heart.”
“Oh, Tru,” she said, her eyes growing moist. “Why didn’t you get on that plane?”
“I didn’t know if I could find you.” He shook his head. “But the truth is, I was afraid of what would happen if I did. I kept imagining that I’d finally catch sight of you in a restaurant, or on the street, or maybe in your yard. You’d be holding hands with another man, or laughing with your kids, and after all I’d just been through, there was part of me that knew I wouldn’t be able to endure that. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to be happy, because I did. I wanted that for you every single day in the last twenty-four years, if only because I knew that I wasn’t happy. It felt like part of me was missing, and always would be. But I was too afraid to do anything about it, and now—after hearing about your life—all I can think is that I should have had more courage when it mattered the most. Because it means I wouldn’t have wasted the last eight years.”
When he finished, Hope glanced away before pushing the blanket aside. Rising from the couch, she went to the front window. Her face was in shadow, but he saw the wet shine of her cheeks glowing in the moonlight.
“Why did fate always seem to conspire against us?” she asked, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Do you think there’s a greater plan at work, one we can’t even fathom?”
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely.
Her shoulders slumped ever so slightly and she turned away again. She stared out the window without speaking until finally drawing a long breath. Returning to the couch, she took a seat beside him.
Up close, he thought, her face looked the same as it had in all the drawings he’d ever done of her. “I’m sorry, Hope. More sorry than you know.”
She swiped at her cheeks. “I am, too.”
“What now? Do you need some time alone?”
“No,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want right now.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
Instead of answering his question, she scooted closer and readjusted the blanket over her legs. She reached for his hand, and he cradled it, relishing the softness of her skin. He traced the tender, birdlike bones on top, marveling that the last time he’d held a woman’s hand, it had been hers.
“I want you to tell me how you learned about my letter,” she said. “The one I put in Kindred Spirit. The thing that finally allowed us to find each other again.”
Tru closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s hard to explain in a way that makes sense, even to me.”
“How so?’
“Because,” he said, “it started with a dream.”
“You dreamed about the letter?”
“No,” he said. “I dreamed about a place—a café…a real place, just down the hill from where I live.” He gave a wistful smile. “I go there when I’m in the mood to be among people, and it’s got a fantastic view of the coast. Usually I’ll bring a book with me and while away a couple of hours in the afternoon. The owner knows me and doesn’t mind how long I stay.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Anyway, I woke one morning, knowing I’d just dreamed about the place, but unlike a lot of dreams, the images didn’t fizzle away. I kept seeing myself sitting at a table, like I was seeing myself on camera. I had a book with me, and there was a glass of iced tea on the table, both of which are ordinary parts of my life. It was afternoon and the sun was shining, and that’s typical as well. But in the dream, I remember noticing a couple walk in and take a seat at a nearby table. They were strangely out of focus, and I couldn’t make out their conversation, and yet I felt this urgent need to speak with them. I just knew they had something important to tell me, so I got up from the table and started to approach, but with every step I took, their table seemed to get farther and farther away. I can remember feeling a rising panic about that—I had to speak with them—and it was in that moment that I suddenly woke. It wasn’t a nightmare, exactly, but it left me a bit unsettled the rest of the day. A week later, I went to the café.”
“Because of the dream?”
“No,” he said. “
By then, I’d largely forgotten about it. As I mentioned, I eat there frequently. I’d had a late lunch, and was sipping a glass of iced tea and reading a book on the Boer wars. At that point, a couple came into the restaurant. Almost every other table in the place was free, but they sat down right near me.”
“Kind of like the dream,” she said.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head, “everything to that point was exactly like the dream.”
Hope leaned forward, her features softened by the firelight. Outside, night gathered at the window, collecting darkness, as Tru went on with his story.
* * *
Like everyone, Tru had experienced feelings of déjà vu in the past, but in the moment he glanced up from the book, he felt the previous week’s dream come rushing back with utter clarity. For a moment, the world seemed to swim at the edges, almost as if he were back in the dream again.
However, unlike in his dream, he could see the couple clearly. The woman was blond and thin, attractive, and somewhere in her forties; the man sitting across from her was a few years older and tall, with dark hair and a gold watch that glinted in the sunlight. He realized he could also hear them, and decided he must have subliminally picked up bits and pieces of their conversation, which was the reason he’d glanced up from his book in the first place. They were talking about their upcoming safaris, and he heard them mention their plans to visit not only Kruger—a massive reserve in South Africa—but Mombo Camp and Jack’s Camp, both of which were in Botswana. They were speculating about the accommodations and the animals they might see, topics he’d heard discussed thousands of times over the past forty years.
Tru didn’t recognize the couple. He’d always had a good memory for faces, but these people were strangers. There was no further reason to be interested in them at all, and yet he couldn’t look away. Not because of the dream. It was something else, and it wasn’t until he zeroed in on the soft twang of the woman’s accent that he felt a jolt of recognition, one that made the feeling of déjà vu come rushing back again, even as it mingled with his memories of another time and place.
Every Breath Page 24