“Of course it is.” Talisha sounded almost grateful. “Just head through the hallway, into the dining room, and through the back door. We’ll leave you be.”
“Unless you need something,” Hal offered. “I’ve got thatPoetry of Hope and Resiliencebook Mom gave me. Do you think that would help?”
“No poetry,” Anne and Talisha said at the same time, and the empathetic smile Talisha gave Anne made her feel warm.
The backyard was decently large, encased by three rows of tall, clumping bamboo. In the far corner stood a tiny prefabricated house, less than a quarter the size of Hedge Nettle. Hal had said once that it was a nice option for guests, one that afforded some extra privacy—and if Sadie ever wanted to come live with them, she had a place waiting for her. Anne had a sneaking suspicion Talisha wouldn’t be enthusiastic about the prospect.
Faintly nauseous with anticipation, she made her way to the tiny house’s front porch—about the size of a postage stamp—and shifted her shoulders back, standing a little taller. Somehow, she found the courage to knock.
“Sadie?” she called out. “It’s me.”
Silence.
She knocked again, harder and for longer.
Still nothing.
“Sadie?”
No answer. But the silence felt thick and fertile. Somehow, Anne knew—deduction, intuition, both—that Sadie was right on the other side of the door.
“You can hear me, can’t you?”
A very long nothing.
“I think so,” Sadie said finally, her voice muted. “I’ll do my best. What about you? Can you hear me?”
Anne immediately picked up on the underlying layer in Sadie’s questions. “I’ll try, too. Will you open the door?”
“If you—if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to keep the door closed. We don’t just need to talk, we need to hear each other. And if I’m only using that one sense, then it’s a lot harder for me to jump off an emotional precipice.”
That actually made sense to Anne, who began to nod in agreement before she realized that Sadie couldn’t see her reaction. It was already easier to talk without the added complication of Sadie’s physical presence. “Believe it or not, I understand.”
“It’ll help us concentrate. There’s a lot to concentrate on.”
“Like you turning tail.” Another thing Anne hadn’t meant to say. Well, she couldn’t take it back, and the longer it sat between them, the less she wanted to. Sadie had pulled away from Anne: not just in deciding to leave, but in her unsubstantiated panic over the possibility that history would repeat itself.
Finally, Sadie said, “I won’t apologize for telling you what I need, even if it’s not what you want from me. But Iamsorry for letting my fear sit in the driver’s seat.”
Anne pressed her fingers against the cool door and wondered if Sadie was doing the same on the other side. It was her turn now. She took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have compared you to Fred, or said you weren’t as strong as I am. It was unkind. Cruel. I’m sorry, too.”
“The Fred comparison wasbelow the belt. And wrong. But I don’t know that you were wrong about my strength. Strong people don’t choose their fear. Sweetheart, I’m just—” Sadie stopped. “I probably shouldn’t call you that at the moment, should I? Or anything else other than your name. Not after I told you I needed time. Mixed signals.”
The sensible thing would be to agree with that statement. Maybe in a different world, where any endearment from Sadie didn’t feed a lifelong emptiness, Anne would. Instead, she said quietly, “Youarestrong. And you can call me whatever you want. Anything.”
“I know what you want me to call you,” Sadie said softly. “Wife.”
Startled, Anne pulled her hand back from the door, not sure she was ready for whatever Sadie was about to tell her next.
“I’ve imagined it before, you know. On and off over the last year, when I knew there was no way it could ever come true. I daydreamed about holding your hand. Feeling a little gold band on your finger press into my skin. A ring I put there. I told myself how silly I was. So many times.”
Anne couldn’t speak.
“I thought about that ring on your finger, and I wanted it there so badly, it made my back teeth ache.”
Wanted. Past tense.
“Then you kissed me,” Sadie continued. “And for the first time, what I’d fantasized about actually seemed possible.” She sounded so distressed—maybe with herself. “What do you do when your heart’s desire is right in front of you and you realize you’re too goddamn cowardly to grab it with both hands? What do you do when you know you can’t live without someone but you’re still terrified to move forward with them?”