Authors: Connie Falconeri
“I know.” Maddie looked at the table and tried to be mature about the whole thing.
“I’ve known all along, but I just kept hoping something else would miraculously happen
that would make everything . . . possible.” She reached across the table. “I don’t
want dessert.”
“Good. Me neither.” Hank raised his hand to the very penitent waitress as she passed
nearby. He asked for the bill.
For the next three days, they clung to each other. Maddie was surprised they were
able to have such a lighthearted good time—they ate oysters at B & G, they went to
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and stared at paintings by John Singer Sargent.
On Saturday afternoon, Maddie asked if Hank would mind if they spent a few hours at
the Houghton Library at Harvard. It would save her a trip in the fall. There was one
bit of research she wanted to see in person, and it wasn’t eligible for inter-library
loan.
They decided to walk from the hotel over to Cambridge. It took about an hour, but
it felt good to be out of the hotel room and near the river and just holding hands
and walking along together. They got to the Houghton Library around two o’clock, and
the librarian wouldn’t let Maddie into the stacks after all, because she didn’t have
a letter from her dissertation advisor.
Hank was standing to the side with his hands in his pockets. Maddie made one last
attempt, but the librarian merely shook her head slowly and seemed genuinely apologetic.
“I’m so sorry, but I can’t help you.”
Maddie walked back to where Hank was standing. “Let’s go. I’m sorry I dragged you
all this way.”
“Do you really want to see this book?”
Staring into those green eyes of his, Maddie wasn’t sure if Hank was going to whip
out a gun and blow his way into the stacks or if he had more traditional means for
getting them in. Maddie shrugged. “It’s not the end of the world. I just wanted to
hold it in my hand, if you know what I mean.”
“Give me a second,” Hank said, then leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. He walked
over to the librarian and she smiled up at him. They spoke quietly for a few minutes,
then Hank handed Madison a temporary visitor’s card.
“How did you do that?”
“I have my ways, Post.”
“I’m starting to see that.”
“The research project in Woods Hole has a reciprocal agreement with lots of libraries.
We got lucky.”
She grabbed his hand, and they walked into the reading room of the Houghton Library.
Maddie got a thrill at the idea of the place, just being under the same roof as pieces
of history that were thousands of years old, papyrus scrolls and medieval books of
hours. She requested the manuscript from 1610 that she was looking for and, a few
minutes later, a librarian set it on one of the angled reading stands.
Hank sat next to her and watched as she put on the archival gloves that the librarian
had provided and carefully opened the book. She read the sections that were of particular
relevance and took a few brief notes on a couple of note cards. After about an hour,
she looked up at Hank.
“Aren’t you bored?”
“Not at all. I could watch you all day.”
She took off the gloves and set them next to the book. She got up and told the librarian
she was finished and thanked her for her assistance.
They walked out, and the late afternoon sun was starting to cool down a bit.
“You want to sit under a tree for a few minutes?” Maddie asked.
“Sure. You getting wistful?”
“I think so.”
They walked over to an English oak in front of Harvard Hall. Hank sat with his back
against the trunk, and Maddie slipped easily between his legs, leaning her back into
his chest and looking up at the green-and-blue pattern of sky and leaves.
The two of them were quiet, and the warm air settled around them. Their breathing
was easy and gentle. To Maddie, it felt really safe.
“I love you, Hank,” Maddie said, out of nowhere. “I don’t want to have all this time
pass and not have said it out loud. You don’t need to say anything because I’m pretty
sure you love me too, but you probably won’t ever say it and I think I’m okay with
that.” She was crying again, not bawling or anything, just tears flowing down her
cheeks. But even the tears had become such a normal occurrence in the past twenty-four
hours that she barely noticed. He squeezed her so tightly, and she knew he couldn’t
say it, but he could feel it, which was something. In fact, maybe he felt things very
deeply, and that was why he tried so hard not to feel them at all. She reached her
right hand up and touched his cheek. He turned his lips into her hand and kissed her
so sweetly, and then she felt the moisture of his tears between her fingers, and the
two of them just rode it out, sitting there under the English oak in Harvard Yard,
their hearts breaking to the hushed rhythm of the leaves that scratched and whispered
above their heads.
When Maddie finally had the courage to open her eyes and the most intense emotions
had subsided for the moment, she turned to face him. He had wiped his tears away but
he looked kind of disoriented. Wrecked. “Let’s go back to the hotel. Maybe I can take
your mind off things.” She smiled and stood up, holding out her hand to help him up
from where he was seated on the grass. He reached overhead and took her hand, not
that he needed any assistance doing anything he wanted with his body.
“Let’s see if we can get a taxi. I want my mind taken off things right away.”
“Thought so,” Maddie said, and squeezed his hand in hers.
They never left the room again until they checked out on Monday morning. They ordered
room service and watched movies naked in bed, and Maddie felt like they were John
and Yoko during their bed-in. Neither of them really said much, Hank because he couldn’t
really, and Maddie because she had said everything that she wanted to say. She had
told him she loved him. So that was done.
It was liberating to be able to shout it out as loud as she felt like when she had
spent all these weeks, especially in bed, making sure that she never let it slip out.
Now she had become all full of I-love-you swagger, telling him how much she loved
his mouth and his green eyes and his sensitive ears and his amazing shoulders and
how he knew her body and moved around her in that stealthy, knowing way. And he didn’t
seem to mind all her enumerations and recitations of why she loved him. At first he
looked like he was tolerating it, but after he saw that she wasn’t going to let up,
he got into the swing of it. He would smile or do something that would demonstrate
why said body part was indeed lovable, which usually involved touching Maddie. So
everybody was happy.
Until Monday at noon. Then, nobody was happy.
Monday. At. Noon. Just the sound of it was like being penciled in by the Grim Reaper.
For the rest of her life, Maddie would never schedule appointments for Monday at noon.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
The poor people at the Ritz must have thought the Park View Suite had not lived up
to the unattainable expectations of Mr. Gilbertson and Ms. Post, for the dismal expressions
both of them sported when they checked out.
“It was the absolute best!” Maddie exclaimed when they asked if they’d enjoyed their
stay, but she had to turn away quickly before she started crying again.
When they left the hotel and were standing on the sidewalk waiting for the valet to
bring the truck around, Maddie looked up at Hank and said, “I think I’ll walk over
to North Station and take the train home. Give me a little time to decompress, you
know?”
“Oh, come on, Maddie. I’ll drop you in Weston, it’s not a big deal.”
“Where? At the end of my parents’ driveway, by the mailbox? Or will you come up the
drive and then come in and stay for dinner and pet the yellow Labrador retrievers
and talk fiber optics with my dad? Or maybe you’ll stay over, and my mom will put
you in the blue guest room—”
“Maddie. Stop.”
She looked away, toward Boston Common. This was definitely the way to go. Leave the
hotel. Say good-bye. Don’t get back in the truck. Don’t have to say good-bye again.
All of a sudden, she felt like she’d been saying good-bye ever since the first day
she met him.
“Hank. Let’s just say good-bye. Here. Okay?”
He looked so tormented that she almost wanted to help him, but it was all his deal,
all that torment. She’d tried to talk to him. The man simply refused. The minute the
conversation turned to his time in the military or hey-what-a-coincidence-that-you-are-also-an-inventor-of-things-Ted-Lodge-sells
or what kind of research have you done at the Houghton Library . . . Maddie knew all
of these things were facts, but until he chose to share them, none of it really amounted
to anything.
Maddie could feel how badly he wanted to touch her, to stop her. She moved into him,
dropping her duffle bag from her shoulder and hugging him as hard as she could. “I
love you so much, Henry Gilbertson. Now let me go.” Her words were clear, but she
had sort of exhaled them into his chest, through the fabric of his gray T-shirt. She
looked up and smiled. “This is what you wanted, remember?”
He stared at her, his eyes raking over her like a digital scanner, taking in every
detail. “Madison.” The desperate way he said her name nearly leveled her; it was a
plea and a defense all rolled up in one.
She smiled and shrugged her way out of his arms. “Well,” she pulled the duffle bag
back onto her right shoulder, “when you figure out why you think you can’t have me,
maybe you should give me a call.”
He smiled too, tight and sad. “I’ll try to figure that out.”
“Good.” Maddie nodded.
Agreed
, she thought stupidly,
glad we got that settled
. “Okay, then.” She took another deep breath. “Here I go.”
And she did.
She turned and starting walking, and she felt like she might be able to make it to
the end of the short block. After that, it would probably be conceivable that she
could head north and cross the green expanse of the Common. From there, she might
even be able to feel her legs beneath her as she followed Joy Street over Beacon Hill
and down again—how apropos, that descent on Joy. And then she would find her way to
North Station, the way she always did. And everything would be normal. By the time
she got home to Weston, she would be just like she always was. Maybe even better.
A senior at Brown. Captain of the crew team. All that promise.
Maddie called her mom from a pay phone at North Station to let her know she’d be on
the 1:20 train into Kendal Green.
“Oh! Maddie! We’ve missed you so much! I can’t wait to see you, honey! Your brother
is a horrible person for putting you up to this! I’ll be at the train station with
bells on!”
“Thanks, Mom. I can’t wait to see you, too.”
A little while later, Maddie stepped out of the train into the leafy suburb of Weston.
Her mother, Laura Post, was standing next to the old station wagon, one elbow resting
on the roof. She was tall and beautiful, much fairer and more feminine than Madison,
who’d inherited her father’s dark chestnut hair and strong shoulders. But it was Laura
who had passed down all that unbridled enthusiasm. She waved wildly to Maddie, as
if Maddie might not see her when, in fact, they were the only two people in the vicinity.
Maddie pasted on a smile and walked to the steps that led to the parking lot. When
she reached her mother, she dropped her bag and hugged her so hard she almost crushed
her.
“Oh, sweetheart, let me look at you. You are so gorgeous! Look at how long your hair
has gotten, and you seem . . . softer somehow.”
Maddie burst into tears. “Oh, Mom. I missed you so much.”
Her mother hugged her and patted her back and let her cry it out, the two of them
standing in the hot sun at the empty station. “Well, you’re home now. And now we know
that e-mails on Sunday are not enough. You were a beast not to call us one time in
three months. Not even to let me hear your voice.”
Wiping at her tears with the handkerchief her mother had handed her, Maddie picked
up her bag, put it in the back of the car, and walked around to the passenger side.
“Is everybody at the house?”
“Yes,” her mother said without taking her eyes off the road. Her mother had always
been an extremely cautious driver. Laura’s twin, Maddie’s aunt, had died in a car
accident when the sisters were in their twenties, and the lifelong consequence was
that Laura Post drove exactly at the speed limit and obeyed every rule of the road.
After she had stopped at the railroad tracks and looked in both directions, and then
into her rearview mirror just to be safe, Laura accelerated across the tracks and
began talking again. “We’ve finished lunch, but I made you a plate and left it in
the fridge. I knew you’d be hungry.”
Maddie stared out the window and was sort of resentful that her mother was right.
Life would just go on, hungry, tired. The usual. Eat, sleep. Everything was all so
much the same. She couldn’t breathe for a second when she pictured Hank alone in his
car, driving north on I-95. He was probably crossing into Maine right about now. That
would wear off too, Maddie told herself. The picturing him all the time. Soon enough,
she wouldn’t know his schedule or where he was or who he was with. Chances were pretty
good that he wouldn’t even be in America much longer.
He hadn’t said as much, but he’d hinted around future projects and other opportunities
enough for Maddie to get the drift. He needed to keep moving. He needed to stay isolated
and safe. Untethered.
“What is it, sweetheart? Do you want to drive around and talk a little bit before
we go home?” Her mother didn’t look away from the road, but Maddie knew she was concerned.
“It’s such a cliché, I guess. But I got my heart broken in Maine.”
“It wasn’t that Zander, was it?”
Maddie shook her head and kept looking out the window. “No. I never saw him again
after he was a jerk on the Fourth of July. I told you about that, right?”