Of course that they hadn’t come together was a reminder of the ways things were different between them; so, too, was the way they’d both, from the beginning, kept a strained sort of physical distance from each other. Around them, couples strolled with their fingers interlocked, or with hands set gently on one another’s backs—casual, natural touches that all of a sudden, Will constantly noticed. He’d wanted to get Nora out; he was glad to get her out. But now that he had her here, he wanted what they had when they werein, too. He wanted his hands on her while she moved. He wanted to set his mouth against hers every time she looked up at him, delighted by something she’d seen.
Instead, he kept his hands in his pockets. His mouth to himself.
But even in spite of this restraint, something about being with her here felt undoubtedly loose, freeing. Away from her apartment, he didn’t think about the way his footsteps sounded beneath him, or the way his voice carried. He didn’t think about the next project they’d use as an excuse, or about what would happen when they finally ran out of them.
“Oh, look at this,” Nora said, bending over a sign. “Cycads can live for five hundred years! What a plant, huh?”
Will smiled. Of course Nora would like an old plant.
“Let me take a picture of this for Emily,” she said, and lifted her phone. When she finished, she looked down at the screen and gave a tiny, satisfied smile that made Will shift on his feet with longing for her. When she turned, he watched her skirt sway, watched it gently catch at the edges of the ferns that draped lazily over the path. He stayed a few steps behind her, enjoying it—the shape of Nora, surrounded by all this living, breathing green.
When he came even with her again, she was looking up at giant, swaying fronds above her.
“This is so good,” she said quietly. “I’m going to do more things like this.”
He felt a strange pang at thatI’m, this imagined future of Nora alone, out exploring places that made her feel good. He thought idly, aimlessly, recklessly of a routine: meeting Nora here every month, one night after work. A different dress every time. His hands out of his pockets. His mouth ready and waiting.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
She nodded, keeping her eyes up, but he could see something pass over her face, something strained and sad that he knew meant she was thinking of someone specific.
He waited.
“At first when I came back, I was so focused on”—her eyes closed, too long for a simple blink, before opening again—“Nonna, and making sure I took care of things the way she had. The way I knew she would want me to. And then it was winter, and I was pretty sad, and then right when things started to . . .” She trailed off, lowering her head, her cheeks flushing.
“Donny,” he said. “Me.”
She looked over at him, her expression embarrassed. “I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay,” he said, because it actually was. In her apartment, with the rental two floors below, maybe it wouldn’t have been; maybe it would’ve felt strained or maybe it would’ve fallen silent. But right now, to Will, the past felt safer, more comfortable than the future.
So he stuck with it.
“Did you always know you’d come back here?” he asked. “To live, I mean. For good.”
When she stayed quiet at first, he worried he might have misstepped—that what felt safer to him in this moment didn’t feel the same for her. But after a second, she cast her eyes upward again, and he could tell she was thinking through her answer.
“When I was younger, I did. I used to talk about it all the time, to my grandmother. And to my parents.” She lowered her head again, and they both continued on the path. A slow stroll, unconscious of closing time. “But I don’t know. I was always going to do college in California, because I could go for free where my parents teach. I still came back here, but not as often, not for the full summer.”
She paused, and he looked over at her, caught her pulling gently at the ends of her hair before she released it and smoothed her hand down the side of her skirt.
“And then I guess I got busy, and I got a job I loved. I kept in touch with everyone in other ways, and visited when I could. My grandmother, she was always so supportive of that.”
She shrugged a familiar shrug, the one that communicated the exact opposite of carelessness. Guilt and sadness and doubt, instead.
“I guess I always had two lives, in a way. Maybe I picked the wrong one, back then. Maybe I should’ve come back sooner.”
“Nora,” he cautioned gently. “Don’t do that.”
Even as he said it, he didn’t feel all that gentle. He thought about that dark home office, that tiny space she was allowing herself. He thought about going back to her place and shoving everything that wasn’t Nora’s into one tight, stacked-up corner, so she could see how much room she really had.
But even that was looking ahead, and he’d resolved not to do that tonight.
She sent him a wan smile. “I know.” She took a breath, her posture lengthening. “I’m glad I came back when I did. I’m glad I get to be here now.”
It was a good reminder, thatnow, and for the next few minutes—while he and Nora and the few remaining patrons made their way around the paths that would take them toward the exit—they only talked about what they saw around them, Nora snapping photos and once asking Will to take one while she stood beneath a gigantic palm, her arms stretched out wide, her mouth opened in an exaggerated O. When he handed the phone back, he joked about how she’d need to make a slideshow of all the photos she’d taken, and instead of laughing she set a finger to her chin and said, entirely without irony, that it was a really good idea.
“I could use my projector,” she said. “So I could show everyone at once!”
