Page 51 of What Maple Heard

Cade was next to me. He was holding my hand but we couldn’t stand too close because of the wingspan of the fairy wings. I knew that Cade had been silently there for River, building up his self confidence with each day, and in that moment, I felt an intense surge of gratitude for him.

“We present to you,” Matthew said, “The Hope of Chestnut Ridge.”

The sheet came down.

The whole crowd went quiet for one second.

Then they erupted.

The mural covered the entire wall. The Chestnut Ridge library. The bookstore on Birch Street. The falls near Sweetheart Hills. Ordinary people walking in fall coats and scarves, going about their ordinary Chestnut Ridge lives. And behind all of it, the fall foliage — layer upon layer of gold and red and orange, the thing this town was famous for, rendered in River’s careful, patient hand.

It was extraordinary.

Matthew announced that the town council had decided the mural would become a permanent installation in the community park, present at every future Fall Festival.

River turned around. He found me immediately in the crowd. He ran over and threw his arms around me. “I love you,” he said, right into my shoulder. “I love you too,” I said. “And I am so proud of you. Do you hear me? So proud.” When he let go, he looked at Cade. Something passed between them — a look that I didn’t have a word for but recognized immediately as something that mattered.

I looked at Cade too.

He was looking right back at me.

“Thank you, Cade, for everything. I don’t think I thanked you enough in the last few months.” I said.

He leaned in, and kissed me. Gently. The first time since everything had fallen apart. I felt like a teenage girl getting kissed for the first time by her crush. He pulled back. “Thank you,” he said, “for giving me another chance. I’ll make it worth it. I promise.”

And he did. He started by taking me on dates. Not dinners that would end in us having sex. But real dates, in which we would have long conversations, without any expectations after that except for a goodnight kiss. Sometimes he’d appear at the studio between meetings and take me out for lunch, just an hour. We went on long walks after work and talked about what we wanted in our lives, and about our dreams and aspirations, something we had not done enough of before.

Sometimes when he’d drop me back home, I’d invite him inside for coffee, but he’d volunteer to make the coffee instead, and we’d play video games with River until midnight. One night, I invited him in when River was staying the night at a friend’s place. As we were drinking coffee on the couch, he was stroking my hair, and then he leaned in for a kiss. The kiss kept getting deeper and more passionate. The kind of kiss that left you panting for more, the kind that made you feel like you were ready to cross the line between self control and desire. This taking it slow plan was getting too much for me. But then I’d think of how he had already broken my heart once, and I’d get more determined to take it slow with Cade.

“This is not easy for me either,” Cade said once when River was away again. He had pressed me against the wall in the hallway, and my whole core felt on fire, my body painfully tight and taut against his. I was on my tiptoes, and he pulled me in, and I stretched up as close to him as I could. He ruined me with his mouth, we kissed so deep that he had to pull away for breath and then come back for a deeper kiss. Again and again, teasing me, and it took me my whole resolve not to ask for anything more. I already knew that Cade would do everything in his capacity to keep his promise of taking things slow, although from the look in his eyes, I could see how hard it must be for him to control himself.

“This anticipation,” he said against my mouth. “Is killing me, this teasing, this longing that’s been building up within me since you left, it’s killing me. But in a fun way. It’s like the longest foreplay of my life, but I’m enjoying it. Is it just as hard for you?

You have no idea.

I just nodded. I felt him smile into my hair, and I thought of how much I liked that, how much I liked this man.

Along with taking me out on dates, he was showing up for River. “Is it okay if I took River out for fishing?” he asked one day. “Only if you’re okay with it?” I said yes immediately because River had completely missed out on that kind of male bonding his entire life. River wanted me to come along as well, so Cade planned an entire weekend for the three of us. I knew that he was not an outdoorsy kind of guy and when he first brought up the idea, I thought he’d book a hotel or a glamp. But he went the old school way instead. He booked a cabin and set it up. He showed River how to bait the hook and how to read the water and he told him stories about fishing with his own father when he was River’s age, and River sat next to him and listened to everything intently. While they were in the boat fishing together, I’d relax on the hammock outside the cabin, wrapped up in my blanket, reading a book in the crisp fall afternoon. River and Cade together caught a whole bucketfull of trout that weekend that they grilled as the sun slowly disappeared behind the maple trees.

After Cade dropped us home from the trip, River was keeping a few supplies away in the garage. I was handing him the supplies we took for the trip, and he was packing them away in storage boxes. “Did you forgive him?” he asked in a straightforward way. Trust River to ask a loaded question in the least expected moment. I smiled at him. “Yes. I think I have.” He let out a breath. “Thank god.” He said. “You know, I have never really prayed in my life, but I have been praying for you and Cade to get back together. I really like him, Maple. And I know he makes you happy.”

That night I told Cade what River had said. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “I really fucked up,” Cade said quietly. “I hate the way the entire thing went and how River must have felt as a result of that.”

“We all make mistakes,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

“Maple.” Cade said after a long pause. “I have been meaning to ask you something,”

My heart jumped immediately into my throat. I was not ready to take the relationship to the next level. I hoped Cade was not about to ask me the question I was not prepared to answer yet. I gripped the phone tighter.

“Did you really forgive me?” he asked.

I exhaled. And smiled. Cade had genuinely meant it when he’d said he wanted to take things slow. Real forgiveness was all that he was looking for. Not the next step, not a declaration, not anything more than the one thing he had been waiting for since the day he walked into Happy Steps.

“Yes,” I said. There was silence on the other end. “Yes,” I said again. “I forgive you, Cade.” I heard him breathe. Just once, slowly. Like something leaving him that had been there a very long time.

“Oh, thank God.” His voice was shaky. “I know what I said was irreparable.”

“It wasn’t. I said. “I forgive you, Cade.”