I led her up the stairs, turning toward the master bedroom. As I pushed open the door, I aimed the flashlight and then stepped aside so Jane could see.
In the room was the only piece of furniture that I’ve ever bought on my own: an antique canopy bed. It resembled the one at the inn in Beaufort where we’d made love on our honeymoon.
Jane was silent, and I was suddenly struck by the thought that I’d somehow done something wrong.
“I can’t believe you did this,” she finally said. “Was this your idea?”
“Don’t you like it?”
She smiled. “I love it,” she said softly. “But I can’t believe that you thought of this. This is almost . . . romantic.”
To be honest, I hadn’t thought of it in that way. The simple fact was that we needed a decent bed, and this was the one style I was certain that she liked. Knowing she meant it as a compliment, however, I raised an eyebrow, as if asking, What else would you expect?
She approached the bed and ran a finger along the canopy. A moment later, she sat on the edge and patted the mattress beside her in invitation. “We have to talk,” she said.
As I moved to join her, I couldn’t help but remember the previous times she’d made this announcement. I expected that she was about to ask me to do something else for her, but when I sat down, she leaned in to kiss me.
“I have a surprise, too,” she said. “And I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
She hesitated for the barest second. “I’m pregnant.”
At first, her words didn’t register, but when they did, I knew with certainty that I’d been given a surprise even better than my own.
In early evening, when the sun was getting low and the brunt of the heat was breaking, Jane called. After asking about Noah, she informed me that Anna still couldn’t make up her mind about the dress and that she wouldn’t make it home that night. Though I assured her that I had expected as much, I could hear a trace of frustration in her voice. She wasn’t as angry as she was exasperated, and I smiled, wondering how on earth Jane could still be surprised by our daughter’s behavior.
After hanging up, I drove to Creekside to feed the swan three pieces of Wonder Bread, then swung by the office on the way back home.
Parking in my usual spot out front, I could see the Chelsea Restaurant just up the street; opposite was a small grass park, where Santa’s village was set up every winter. Despite the thirty years I’ve worked in this building, it still amazed me to realize that the early history of North Carolina could be found in any direction I looked. The past has always held special meaning for me, and I loved the fact that within blocks, I could walk through the first Catholic church built in the state, or tour the first public school and learn how the settlers were educated, or stroll the grounds of Tryon Palace, the former home of the colonial governor that now boasts one of the finest formal gardens in the South. I’m not alone in this pride in my town; the New Bern Historical Society is one of the most active in the country, and on nearly every corner, signs document the important role New Bern played in the early years of our country.
My partners and I own the building where we keep our law offices, and though I wish there was an interesting anecdote concerning its past, there really isn’t one. Erected in the late 1950s, when functionality was the single criterion architects valued in design, it’s really quite drab. In this single-story, rectangular brick structure, there are offices for the four partners and four associates, three conference rooms, a file room, and a reception area for clients.
I unlocked the front door, heard the warning that the alarm would sound in less than a minute, then punched in the code to shut it off. Switching on the lamp in the reception area, I headed toward my office.
Like my partners’ offices, my office has a certain air of formality that clients seem to expect: dark cherry desk topped with a brass lamp, law books shelved along the wall, a set of comfortable leather chairs facing the desk.
As an estate lawyer, I sometimes feel as if I’ve seen every type of couple in the world. Though most strike me as perfectly normal, I’ve watched some couples begin to brawl like street fighters, and I once witnessed a woman pour hot coffee onto her husband’s lap. More often than I would ever have believed possible, I’ve been pulled aside by a husband asking whether he was legally obligated to leave something to his wife or whether he could omit her entirely in favor of his mistress. These couples, I should add, often dress well and look perfectly ordinary as they sit before me, but when at last they leave my office, I find myself wondering what goes on behind the closed doors of their homes.
Standing behind my desk, I found the appropriate key on my chain and unlocked the drawer. I put Jane’s gift on my desk and gazed at it, wondering how she would respond when I gave it to her. I thought she would like it, but more than that, I wanted her to recognize it as a heartfelt—if belated—attempt to apologize for the man I’d been for most of our marriage.
Yet because I’ve failed her in ways too frequent to count, I couldn’t help but wonder about her expression as we’d stood in the driveway this morning. Hadn’t it been almost . . . well, dreamy? Or had I simply been imagining it?
As I glanced toward the window, it was a moment before the answer came, and all at once, I knew I hadn’t been imagining it. No, somehow, even accidentally, I’d stumbled onto the key to my success in courting her so long ago. Though I’d been the same man I’d been for the past year—a man deeply in love with his wife and trying his best to keep her—I’d made one small but significant adjustment.
This week, I hadn’t been focusing on my problems and doing my best to correct them. This week, I’d been thinking of her; I’d committed myself to helping her with family responsibilities, I’d listened with interest whenever she spoke, and everything we discussed seemed new. I’d laughed at her jokes and held her as she’d cried, apologized for my faults, and showed her the affection she both needed and deserved. In other words, I’d been the man she’d always wanted, the man I once had been, and—like an old habit rediscovered—I now understood that it was all I ever needed to do for us to begin enjoying each other’s company again.
Chapter Thirteen
When I arrived at Noah’s house the following morning, my eyebrows rose at the sight of the nursery trucks already parked in the drive. There were three large flatbeds crowded with small trees and bushes, while another was loaded with bales of pine straw to spread atop the flower beds, around the trees, and along the fence line. A truck and trailer held various tools and equipment, and three pickups were packed with flats of low flowering plants.
In front of the trucks, workers congregated in groups of five or six. A quick count showed that closer to forty people had come—not the thirty that Little had promised—and all were wearing jeans and baseball caps despite the heat. When I got out of the car, Little approached me with a smile.
“Good—you’re here,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been waiting for you. We can get started, then, yes?”
Within minutes, mowers and tools were unloaded, and the air was soon filled with the sound of engines rising and falling as they crisscrossed the property. Some of the workers began to unload the plants, bushes, and trees, stacking them into wheelbarrows and rolling them to their appropriate spots.
But it was the rose garden that attracted the most attention, and I followed Little as he grabbed a set of pruning shears and headed that way, joining the dozen workers who were already waiting for him. Beautifying the garden struck me as the type of job where it is impossible even to know where to begin, but Little simply started pruning the first bush while describing what he was doing. The workers clustered around him, whispering to one another in Spanish as they watched, then finally dispersed when they understood what he wanted. Hour by hour, the natural colors of the roses were artfully exposed as each bush was thinned and trimmed. Little was adamant that few blooms be lost, necessitating quite a bit of twine as stems were pulled and tied, bent and rotated, into their proper place.
Next came the trellis. Once Little was comfortable, he began to shape the roses that draped it. As he worked, I pointed out where the chairs for the guests would go, and my friend winked.
“You wanted impatiens to line the aisle, yes?”
When I nodded, he brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled. A moment later, flower-filled wheelbarrows were rolled to the spot. Two hours later, I marveled at an aisle gorgeous enough to be photographed by a magazine.
Throughout the morning, the rest of the property began to take shape. Once the yard was mowed, bushes were pruned, and workers started edging around the fence posts, walkways, and the house itself. The electrician arrived to turn on the generator, check the outlets, and the floodlights in the garden. An hour later, the painters arrived; six men in splattered overalls emerged from a run-down van, and they helped the landscaping crew store the furniture in the barn. The man who’d come to pressure-wash the house rolled up the drive and parked next to my car. Within minutes of unloading his equipment, the first intense blast of water hit the wall, and slowly but steadily, each plank turned from gray to white.
With all the individual crews busily at work, I made my way to the workshop and grabbed a ladder. The boards from the windows had to be removed, so I set myself to the task. With something to do, the afternoon passed quickly.
By four, the landscapers were loading their trucks and getting ready to head back; the pressure washer and painters were finishing up as well. I had been able to take off most of the boards; a few remained on the second floor, but I knew I could do those in the morning.
By the time I finished storing the boards under the house, the property seemed strangely silent, and I found myself surveying all that had been done.
Like all half-completed projects, it looked worse than it had when we’d begun that morning. Pieces of landscaping equipment dotted the property; empty pots had been piled haphazardly. Both inside and out, only half the walls had been touched up and reminded me of detergent commercials where one brand promises to clean a white T-shirt better than the next. A mound of yard scrap was piled near the fence, and while the outer hearts of the rose garden had been completed, the inner hearts looked forlorn and wild.
Nonetheless, I felt strangely relieved. It had been a good day’s work, one that left no doubt that everything would be finished in time. Jane would be amazed, and knowing she was on her way home, I was starting for my car when I saw Harvey Wellington, the minister, leaning on the fence that separated Noah’s property from his. Slowing my pace, I hesitated only briefly before crossing the yard to join him. His forehead glistened like polished mahogany, and his spectacles perched low on his nose. Like me, he was dressed as if he’d spent most of the day working outside. As I drew near, he nodded toward the house.
“Getting it all ready for the weekend, I see,” he said.
“Trying,” I said.
“You’ve got enough people working on it, that’s for sure. It looked like a parking lot out there today. What did you have? Fifty people total?”
“Something like that.”
He whistled under his breath as we shook hands. “That’ll take a bite out of the old wallet, won’t it?”
“I’m almost afraid to find out,” I said.
He laughed. “So how many you expecting this weekend?”
“I’d guess about a hundred or so.”
“It’s going to be some party, that’s for sure,” he said. “I know Alma’s been looking forward to it. This wedding’s been all she can talk about lately. We both think it’s wonderful that you’re making such a big deal about it.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
For a long moment, he held my gaze without responding. As he watched me, I had the strange impression that despite our limited acquaintance, he understood me quite well. It was a little unnerving, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. As a pastor, he was frequently sought for counsel and advice, and I sensed the kindness of someone who’d learned to listen well and sympathize with another’s plight. He was, I thought, a man whom hundreds probably regarded as one of their closest friends.
As if knowing what I was thinking, he smiled. “So, eight o’clock?”
“Any earlier, and I think it would be too hot.”
“It’ll be hot anyway. But I don’t think anyone would care one way or the other.” He motioned toward the house. “I’m glad you’re finally doing something about it. That’s a wonderful place. Always has been.”
“I know.”
He removed his spectacles and began wiping the lenses with his shirttail. “Yeah, I’ll tell you—it’s been a shame watching what’s become of it over the last few years. All it ever needed was for someone to care for it again.” He put his spectacles back on, smiling softly. “It’s funny, but have you ever noticed that the more special something is, the more people seem to take it for granted? It’s like they think it won’t ever change. Just like this house here. All it ever needed was a little attention, and it would never have ended up like this in the first place.”
There were two messages on the answering machine when I arrived home: one from Dr. Barnwell informing me that Noah was back at Creekside and another from Jane saying that she would meet me there around seven.
By the time I arrived at Creekside, most of the family had come and gone. Only Kate remained by Noah’s side when I reached his room, and she brought a finger to her lips as I entered. She rose from her chair and we hugged.
“He just fell asleep,” she whispered. “He must have been exhausted.”