I wasn’t—I loved Brendan!I hadn’t shut out love, but look where it had gotten me. I mopped my face with tissues, then stared at the empty rows of chairs lit by harsh white light. Outside the window, the street whined with a thin stream of traffic whizzing past. I felt so alone at the hospital.
The minutes passed slowly. Eventually an hour went by. I would have called Sam again, but it was too late.
I finally dug into my handbag and lifted out the last packet of her letters. I untied the frayed red string and fanned out the envelopes. My name danced across the length of them in her clear and distinct hand.
I bought a cup of coffee from the machine, stirred in several packets of sugar. Then I pried open an envelope flap. “I need to hear your voice, Sam,” I said.
In the endless white night of the hospital waiting room, I began to read the end of Sam’s story.
Seventy-three
Dear Jen,
Here’s what happened—everything changed in an instant.
Doc knocked on my kitchen door one pathetically hot day in August, and the moment I saw him, my heart started banging around in my chest. I was stunned and maybe even scared. Jennifer, he had never been to my house like that before.
“Is something the matter?” I asked. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”
All he said was “Come take a ride with me.”
“Right now? Like this?”
“Yep. You look just fine, Samantha. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“A good surprise?”
“The best I could come up with. I’ve been waiting a long time for this one.”
Whatever he was up to, I was having none of it in my dirt-stained overalls and gardening clogs. So I let him inside the house and went upstairs to change. Fifteen minutes later I was wearing a pretty blue linen dress, my hair was neat, and I’d even put on some lipstick.
When he saw me, Doc smiled. “God, you’re gorgeous,” he said. Of course, he would think I was gorgeous if I were wearing a trash bag with a tuna casserole on my head. I told him so, and we both laughed, because it was true.
And then he grabbed both my hands. “Samantha, everything changes today.”
“And you’re not going to tell mewhatchanges today?” I asked.
“No, I want to show you.”
He wasn’t just enthusiastic, he was very mysterious, Jen, which added to the fun. Of course, I was excited just to see him, to look into his face and see how happy he was.
And you know what? I really do like surprises!
Seventy-four
Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer,
That whole week the Venetian Festival had been going full blast in the village, and the streets were mobbed with tourists who’d come to the annual end-of-summer bash at the lake. Doc parked in a municipal lot a block north of Main Street and fed a pocket full of quarters into the meter. It seemed that we were going to the fair, and apparently we would be staying for a while.
“Is this your surprise?” I asked. “Because I kind of knew the festival was in town.”
“This is just the venue,” he said. “Don’t be such a wisenheimer.” Which was one of Doc’s favorite words, if it even is a word.
Kids were screaming on the roller coaster, the air smelled of buttered popcorn and cotton candy, and it suddenly struck me that I was in a moment I thought would never come. There we were, Doc and I walking hand in hand together in downtown Lake Geneva. I looked up at him with a big question written across my face. “Is this your surprise? Because it’s a great one, actually. Are we out of the closet?”
Doc told me that he had just dropped his youngest off at Vanderbilt University. “The nest is empty. No more Mr. Mom,” he said. “I’m free.”
Suddenly Doc pulled me into his arms and kissed me in front of God and everybody else in Lake Geneva. His kiss was so full of love that tears popped out of my eyes.
