Chapter 24
Once, We Were Lovers
Elise
Every time I saw Nolan, I experienced the same contradiction. He looked familiar enough to hurt and changed enough to frighten me. I wanted to believe he was still the boy I had loved, but the man standing in front of me had survived a marriage, a divorce, and fifteen years without me.
After he brought me the chocolate and peanut butter pies, he tried to leave. I followed him to the door in my nightgown, determined not to beg him to stay.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night.”
He touched my waist, kissed just below my ear, and walked away before I could decide whether to stop him. I remained in the doorway, angry at him for leaving and more angry at myself for wanting him to turn around.
The following afternoon, I visited Arthur at Green Acres. The convalescent facility had peeling paint, narrow hallways, and a smell from the bread factory next door that never quite disappeared. Arthur’s daughter had placed him there after his wife died, but I visited at least once a week.
He no longer remembered my name. Sometimes he called me Marian. Sometimes he thought I was his sister. He always remembered chess.
“You’re late,” he said when I entered the common room.
“I’m sorry.”
“The queen has been waiting.”
We played in the courtyard. Arthur lost three games and accused me of cheating. I let him win the fourth. He smiled at the board as if the victory had returned something to him.
“You look distracted,” he said.
“I’m in love.”
He considered the statement. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Why?”
“Love makes people careless.”
“You loved your wife.”
“I did. I was careless anyway.”
I laughed, though the words landed too close to my own fear.
When I returned home, Nolan was waiting outside with coffee. He had asked Maya where to find me. I wanted to be annoyed, but the relief of seeing him was stronger.
“You tracked me down.”
“I needed to know you were all right.”
“I was playing chess.”
“With Arthur?”
“You remember him?”
“You told me about him years ago.”
The memory of those years rose between us. Once, we had been lovers who shared every detail. Then we had become strangers who knew too much about each other to speak easily.
“Come in,” I said.
He followed me upstairs. Ivy was at school, and the house felt unusually quiet. We sat at the kitchen table while I told him about Arthur’s memory.
“He forgets me,” I said. “But he remembers how to play.”
“Maybe people keep what they need.”
“What did you keep?”
He looked at me. “You.”
The answer was so direct that I turned toward the sink.
“You kept photographs,” I said.
“I kept every version of you I could find.”
“And what did that do for you?”
“It made moving on impossible.”
“You moved on.”
“I performed moving on.”
We sat in silence. I wanted to ask whether he had loved Victoria, whether he had been happy, and whether he had ever imagined finding me again. I was afraid of the answers.
“Did you love her?” I asked.
“I loved the life we were trying to make. I loved the way she made everything look certain.”
“And me?”
“You made everything uncertain.”
I looked down at my hands. “Once, we were lovers.”
“We still are.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Maybe it is for us.”
Before I could answer, the front door opened. Ivy came in with Maya, talking about a ceramics assignment. She stopped when she saw Nolan.
“You’re here again.”
“I am.”
“Mom said you were busy.”
“I was. Now I’m here.”
Ivy looked between us. “Are you two together?”
Nolan glanced at me. I did not know what to say, so Ivy answered for us.
“You are,” she said. “You just haven’t admitted it.”
Maya laughed and carried the groceries into the kitchen. Nolan looked at Ivy with open admiration.
“You’re very direct.”
“Someone has to be.”
She went upstairs to change, leaving Nolan and me alone again.
“She’s remarkable,” he said.
“She’s yours.”
“She’s yours, too.”
“Julian made her who she is.”
The name changed the air.
That night, after Ivy went to bed, Nolan asked about Julian. I had avoided the subject because I knew it would force us to confront the life he had missed.
“He was a good man,” I said. “Patient, funny, and stubborn. He knew Ivy was yours before we married. He loved her without making her carry the weight of that knowledge.”
Nolan listened without interrupting.
“He got sick when Ivy was young,” I continued. “For a while, we believed treatment would help. Then we understood that our time was limited.”
I told him about the month we spent in a beach house on Cape Cod. Julian watched Ivy play on the sand. At night, we built fires and listened to her read stories in the glow.
“He died on an ordinary Tuesday,” I said. “The hospice worker moved his bed onto the patio. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and watched the waves. Ivy cried for a few minutes, then went quiet.”
“And you?”
“I became the person you see now.”
He reached for my hand. “What does that mean?”
“I learned how to keep going without expecting life to be fair.”
“You shouldn’t have had to learn that alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. I had Ivy. And Julian.”
“You had me, too.”
The cruelty of the truth nearly broke me. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“Neither did I.”
He held me while I cried. I told him that Ivy had been strong, that Julian had been peaceful, and that I had never stopped thinking about the boy who made me feel seen before I had learned how to see myself.
“Why didn’t we tell each other?” he whispered.
“We thought silence would protect us.”
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
We fell asleep before dawn. The next morning, Maya texted that she and Ivy would have lunch and bring her home later. I left quietly so Ivy would not find me in Nolan’s bed.
For several days, neither of us called.
I told myself we were giving each other space. The truth was that the past had finally spoken, and neither of us knew what to say after it finished.
On the fourth morning, I found Nolan’s photograph on my desk. It was the picture he had taken of me beside the river, my face turned toward the wind. On the back, he had written only three words: “I am here.”
I held it for a long time. He had not asked me to forgive him, forget Julian, or promise that the next fifteen years would be different. He had simply left proof that he had returned.
I put the photograph beside my cello and went to wake Ivy for school. She complained about the hour, the weather, and a history assignment. I listened, smiling despite myself.
Before she left, she looked at the photograph. “Is that Dad?”
“No.”
“Is it Nolan?”
“Yes.”
She studied my face. “Are you going to call him?”
I thought about the boy we had been, the adults we had become, and the daughter waiting for us to stop treating love like a crime scene.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”