“You’re not old, Gram, and once your vision’s restored to what it can be, you’ll be as active as ever. Not being able to see has gotten in your way. You would’ve gone on the cruise to Victoria with Helen and Winifred, you know you would have, if you hadn’t felt uncomfortable about making the trip from Sarah’s Orchard to Seattle. The thought of trying to read signs in airports, and finding your way in unfamiliar places in what felt like darkness…don’t you think that influenced your decision not to go?”
“I don’t know, Elizabeth. Since Granddad died, everything’s been difficult.”
“Of course it has, Clara,” Nick said. “The loss is immense. But that’s all the more reason to fix what can be fixed.”
“The two of you spent the afternoon rehearsing your pitch, didn’t you? I feel like I’m in the middle of one of those interventions.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Maybe we rehearsed a little, Gram. Is it working? If not, we have reams of information downloaded from the Internet that we’re prepared to read aloud to you.”
“You’re dear things, both of you. And I’m very grateful for your concern. But—”
“You could at least have an ophthalmologist do an exam. Cataracts or not, having your eyes checked is a good idea.”
“I’m not going to have an exam unless I’d be willing to have surgery if something was found. I’m all right the way I am. I’m getting along fine. I see the two of you quite well. And you’re both gorgeous.”
“Just think how much more gorgeous we’d be, Gram, not to mention how colorful.”
“Nice try, Elizabeth. But it’s really my decision, isn’t it?”
“Entirely your decision,” Nick said. “Just promise us that you’ll consider it.”
“I promise. Now, can we please talk about something else?”
An hour later, Nick announced he was going home to get a good night’s rest before the painting project that would commence the following day.
Elizabeth walked him to the porch.
“What do you think?”
“That she’s her granddaughter’s grandmother.”
“Argumentative?”
Nick smiled. “Determined. And smart. Like you, she’s able to listen and argue at the same time. She heard every word we said, and she’s going to give it some serious thought. Ultimately, though, it’s her decision.”
“You’re the man who likes to fix things.”
“That’s right. But we can’t make her do this.”
“And pushing her is likely to backfire.” Elizabeth sighed. “You’re probably thinking we shouldn’t mention it again?”
“Not unless she brings it up.”
“And we don’t tell her about the appointment you made.”
“No,” he said. “We don’t. Not yet.”
She admired the reasonableness of his approach. When she shook her head, it was with resignation, not protest. But her movement was forceful enough to dislodge a strand of auburn hair from where it belonged, behind her ear, into her eyes.
As she reached up to tuck it away, another hand moved to touch it—touch her—too.
Her hand was quicker. Impatient. She watched his hand, as if in slow motion, drop away.
By the time she looked up, it was too late to tell what expression had accompanied his gesture.
It was just as well, she told herself after they’d said good-night. Gram’s eyes were seeing too little, and hers were seeing too much.
Nick was a sensual man. He undoubtedly touched women, casually, all the time. And he was polite. Chivalrous. He’d brush a lock of hair from a woman’s eyes as reflexively as he’d open a door for her.
She might have misinterpreted his expression as longing. And completely misunderstood his touch….
Eight
The sanding of teal-colored paint, to create a pastel canvas for the cream that would cover it, was hard work, hot work, even in the morning.
Elizabeth appeared, at 9:00 a.m., with a glass of lemonade.
“Thanks,” Nick said.
“You’re welcome. Gram probably has a cooler somewhere. We could fill it with ice and a few pitchers of lemonade, and you could—”
“I prefer this.” You. Nick raised the glass in a silent toast and met her eyes over its frosted rim. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Good. What have you and Clara been doing since breakfast?”
“I’ve been scanning. She’s been puttering.”
“And?”
“The scanning’s going to work. It’ll take time, but I have time, and the result will be worth it. That’s the good news.”
“Clara hasn’t mentioned her eyesight.”
“No.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Not really. But I’ve been watching her. And you’re right. The impairment’s significant. And that’s from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in. I keep thinking what it must be like for her, peering through prisms that both block her view and scatter light.”
“She’s thinking about it, too.”
Elizabeth nodded, and frowned. “I lay awake last night worrying. What if she decides not to do anything? She could get in an accident, Nick. Even in broad daylight on a familiar route. The idea of her being hurt is terrifying enough. And if she injured someone else…She’d never forgive herself.”
“We’re not going to let that happen, Elizabeth. No matter what she decides.” There was nothing idle in Nick’s reassurance. It was a quiet promise. A solemn vow. “Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
After a moment, he smiled. “I could use another one of these in forty-five minutes or so.”
“You’ll have it,” Elizabeth said as she took the empty glass. “More lemonade coming up.”
“Not just lemonade,” he said. “Lemonade and conversation.” Lemonade, he thought, and you.
By midafternoon, forty-five minutes or so had become forty-five minutes on the dot from when the last lemonade-and-conversation rendezvous ended.
And, for both of them, forty-five minutes had never felt so long.
By late afternoon, when the sun blazed its hottest, they’d moved to the shade of a nearby apple tree.
And talked.
And talked.
She wanted to know all about him. He said there was really nothing of interest to tell.
She responded in kind about herself. He proved her wrong, greeting her replies to his questions—question after question—as if he’d spent his life waiting to hear them.
She told him, because he wanted to know, about her girlhood summers in Sarah’s Orchard.
“My happiest memories are here,” she said as she gazed at the orchard. “I wonder if I’ve ever realized that before.”
“What made you happy?”
“Everything. Being with Gram and Granddad, of course. And spending time with the trees.”
“With them?”
“Until I was big enough to be in them. I remember Gram’s horror the first time she saw me scrambling up. Little did I know that I’d inherited my tree-climbing ability from her.”
“You didn’t fall?”
“Never! Nor,” she added, “did any of these trees ever so much as creak in protest. I was a sturdy girl. Heavy.”
“Healthy,” Nick countered.
Elizabeth smiled. “Very. But the trees held my weight as if I was just another bird dropping by.” She shook her head. “Poor trees. My weight was the least of what I subjected them to. I’d climb up, as high as I could go, and sing to the orchard at the top of my lungs.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said the man whose life had been joyless until, as a boy, he’d discovered the same joy. “Singing to the trees.”
“It wasn’t bad for me. I loved it. Love to sing. Unfortunately, I can’t begin to carry a tune.”
“I’m sure the trees didn’t care. You said they never creaked in protest.”
“They’re pretty gracious. Like my grandparents. I serenaded them endlessly, too. The price of unconditional love, I suppose.”
“A price they were delighted to pay.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “They’d even suggest that I sing, if I hadn’t for a while.”
“Happy memories.”
“So happy. So lucky. What about you, Nick?”
“Go right ahead,” he said. “Sing for me.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking.” I wasn’t asking, she thought, for your unconditional love. But the serious eyes that met her startled ones seemed willing to offer it. Another mirage, she told herself. And a lingering one…“I—What I meant was, are you a singer? Do you love to sing?”
The questions were logical. Their answers, she’d have imagined, straightforward.
But Nick frowned.
“I can sing,” he said at last. “And there was a time, when I was a boy, that I loved singing. Since then, I’ve only sung when people needed me to.”
“Needed you to? Because you sing so well and your voice is so comforting?”
“Something like that.”
“You don’t love it anymore?”
“I haven’t sung for a while. Perhaps if I sang with someone who loved to sing, it would come back to me.”
“Assuming that someone could carry a tune.”
“It wouldn’t matter a bit.”
“I can’t just break into song.” Not now. Not yet.
Nick smiled. Neither could he. Not now. Not yet. “Maybe later.”
“Maybe.”
“You probably like Christmas songs.”
“I do.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
“I’ve never thought about it. But I suppose, if I had to choose, I’d say ‘Jingle Bells.’ What about you?”
“If I had to choose,” he answered softly, “I’d say ‘Jingle Bells,’ too.”
During the three days until the Tuesday afternoon when Nick would have to cancel Gram’s Wednesday-morning eye appointment, he and Elizabeth ate breakfast with her, and lunch and dinner.
And, at forty-five-minute intervals in between the home-cooked country meals, Nick and Elizabeth talked.
And, in between that, Elizabeth scanned the letters she’d already read, and read several more. She wasn’t searching for proof that Nick was right in saying Charles would withhold from Clara the horrors of war. But she found it. Even when war claimed the life of a friend.
May 18, 1942
My dearest love,
Danny died in battle three days ago. We brought him back to camp with us, and he’s on his way home to Cedar Rapids.
I need your help, my darling. As you know, Danny’s family opposed his decision to enlist, and there was anger on both sides when he boarded the train.
Danny never regretted his decision. He wouldn’t regret it even now. But he regretted the pain he caused his parents, and that he hadn’t made things right with them before he left. He’d been planning to write, to apologize for hurting them and to plead—again—with them to understand. Of all of us, Danny had the clearest vision of the importance of what we’re doing, and must continue to do.