“Soon! Monday twilight. Find me on Bow Bridge.”
“I’ll be there!”
Luke smiled at Elsa. “Is this going to be a habit now? Are you adding this to your job description as ornithologist at the museum?”
“Yes and no.” She told him about her meeting with Mr. Chapman, and her decision to offer bird-guiding on her own.
“That’s perfect. It suits you. I’m proud of you for recognizing what makes you happy and going after it.”
“What about you?” She wondered if his work remained as satisfying as it had before.
He smiled at her. “I’m looking at what makes me happy. And I’m going after it, too.”
A wave of heat rolled through her. She wrinkled her nose. “It?”
“You. I’m looking at you. I’ve spoken with your parents, because I want to do this right. So unless you object, I’m going after you.” He bowed his head toward hers.
Elsa placed a hand on his chest, applying gentle pressure. “That does sound a tad proprietary and hostile though, doesn’t it?” she teased.
He scratched his chin, feigning deep thought. “You’re right. How about this: Thursday night, I thought I might lose you. The idea carved a hole inside me that I thought would swallow me up. And now you’re here, and so am I, and I want nothing more than to be with you. I want to court you, Elsa. If you’ll let me. I’m not perfect, and I might make mistakes along the way. But my heart is yours. Maybe not literally, but metaphorically, consistently, perpetually, and voluntarily.”
Tears glazed her eyes. “That was so much better,” she whispered and kissed him.
But her conscience tugged at her. She hadn’t yet told him what Dr. Clay had said about her changing health. She needed to but wasn’t quite sure how. Was it wrong for her to want to savor the moment without considering the challenges the future might hold?
The carriage rolled over mats of fallen leaves. When they passed the Sheep Meadow, Luke commented on the crowd gathered there. “Do you know what that’s all about?”
“George Bernard Shaw’s playMan and Supermanis showinguntil tomorrow night,” Elsa said. “I read in the newspaper it’s supposed to be a comedy of manners, but the underlying theme is the evolution of man into a superior version, as you can tell from the title.”
“More eugenics claptrap,” Luke muttered.
Elsa tightened her grip on the chickadee cane. Eugenics said she was weak and defective. It said the same of Tom, whose wartime experience left its mark on his spirit, and of Danielle, whose mind worked differently from her peers. Eugenics said Birdie’s baby, Sarah, didn’t deserve to live, and that neither did all of Dr. Couney’s Incubator Babies.
“We are all made in the image of God,” Luke reminded her. “All of us.”
“Yes.” Elsa squeezed his hand while she ordered her thoughts. Luke was so patient with her, so supportive. She agreed she’d been made in the image of God, but it was equally true that they lived in a fallen world inside bodies that broke down—some quicker than others. Hers quicker than his. He needed to consider what a future with her could look like. She had to tell him.
“Luke, I consulted with a different doctor yesterday. Ivy insisted I get checked out at a walk-in clinic after the ordeal at Elmhurst Thursday night.”
He sat at attention. “Good. What did he say?”
“I didn’t breathe smoke in long enough to require medical treatment. But that’s not all we discussed.” Briefly, she told him about their conversation.
“And? Please tell me he didn’t say you were imagining your condition.”
Elsa forged a small smile. “No. He was very interested. He has other patients who survived childhood polio, and some of them have reported similar symptoms. In all of us, our health started getting worse between fifteen and twenty years after first contracting the illness.”
“So what does that mean? What did he prescribe?”
She drew in a breath. “It means my experience isn’t an anomaly. The doctor—and colleagues with whom he has consulted—don’t understand why, but some of us simply have long-term effects from polio that took years and years to show up. It may not get worse than it is now. But it could.”
She thought of how when she exerted herself even her strong leg grew sore from compensating for her weak one. She didn’t want that to happen to Luke. She didn’t want the burden of her condition to wear him down. “I want you to think about what that means for us. What if—what if this is as good as it gets? Could you see yourself with me long-term—just as I am?”
His grey eyes misted. “Sweetheart, as far as I’m concerned, being with youisas good as it gets.” He looked away for a moment, then captured her gaze with his once more. “You once told me you wanted to fly.”
“Now we know how that ends,” she said on a laugh. “In a heap, with bruises if not broken bones, for you and me both.” He was lucky she hadn’t truly hurt him when he broke her fall from Birdie’s bedroom window.
He brushed a lock of her hair from her face, then let his hand linger on her neck. “What I mean is, I will always be your safe place to land. I can’t give you wings, but I’ll be your solid ground.”
