These days, answers eluded her. Lately, she’d found herself asking why about many things, and while there were people who claimed to have all the answers—daytime television shows were replete with such experts—Hope was rarely persuaded. If there was one question she could have answered by any of them, it was simply this: Why does love always seem to require sacrifice?
She didn’t know. What she did know was that she’d observed it in her marriage, as a parent, and as the grown child of a father who’d been condemned to slowly waste away. But as much as she’d pondered the question, she still couldn’t put her finger on the reason. Was sacrifice a necessary component of love? Were the words actually synonyms? Was the former proof of the latter, and vice versa? She didn’t want to think that love had an intrinsic cost—that it required disappointment, or pain, or angst—but there were times when she couldn’t help it.
Despite the unforeseen events of her life, Hope wasn’t unhappy. She understood that life wasn’t easy for anyone, and she felt satisfied that she’d done the best she could. And yet, like everyone, she had regrets, and in the past couple of years, she’d revisited them more frequently. They would crop up unexpectedly, and often at the strangest of times: while she was putting cash into the church basket, for instance, or sweeping up some sugar that had spilled on the floor. When that happened, she would find herself recalling things she wished she could change, arguments that should have been avoided, words of forgiveness that had been left unspoken. Part of her wished she could turn back the clock and make different decisions, but when she was honest with herself, she questioned what she really could have changed. Mistakes were inevitable, and she’d concluded that regrets could impart important lessons in life, if one was willing to learn from them. And in that sense, she realized that her father had been only half-correct about memories. They weren’t, after all, only doorways to the past. She wanted to believe that they could also be doorways to a new and different kind of future.
* * *
Hope shivered as a chilly gust swept through the back porch, and she knew it was time to head inside.
She’d lived in this house for more than two decades. She and Josh had purchased it shortly after they’d taken their vows, and as she breathed in the familiar surroundings, she thought again how much she’d always adored the place. It was Georgian in style, with large columns out front and wainscoting in most of the rooms on the main floor. Nonetheless, it was probably time to sell it. It was too much, too large for her, and trying to keep all the rooms dusted felt Sisyphean. The stairs, too, were becoming a challenge, but when she’d mentioned the idea of selling, Jacob and Rachel had balked at relinquishing their childhood home.
Whether she sold it or not, it needed work. The hardwood floors were scuffed and scraped; in the dining room, the wallpaper had faded and needed to be replaced. The kitchen and bathrooms were still functional, but definitely outdated and in need of remodeling. There was so much to do; she wondered when, or even if, she’d be up to it.
She moved through the house, turning off lights. Some of the switches on the lamps were notoriously hard to turn, and it took longer than she expected.
Her suitcase stood near the front door, next to the wooden box she’d retrieved from the attic. The sight of them made her think about Tru, but then again, she’d never really stopped thinking about him. He would be sixty-six now. She wondered whether he’d retired from guiding, or still lived in Zimbabwe; perhaps he had moved to Europe or Australia or someplace even more exotic. She speculated about whether he lived near Andrew, and whether he’d become a grandfather in the years they’d been apart. She wondered if he’d married again, whom he had dated, or even if he remembered her at all. Then again, was he even still alive? She liked to think she would have instinctively known if he was gone from this world—that they were somehow linked—but she admitted that might be wishful thinking. Mostly though, she questioned whether the final words in his letter could possibly be true—whether, for them, anything would always be possible.
In the bedroom, she put on the pajamas that Rachel had bought for her last Christmas. They were cozy and warm, exactly what Hope wanted. She slipped into bed and adjusted the covers, hoping for the sleep that so often eluded her these days.
Last year at the beach, she’d lain awake thinking about Tru. She’d willed him to come back to her, reliving the days they’d spent together with vivid intensity. She remembered their encounter on the beach and the coffee they’d shared that very first morning; she replayed for the hundredth time their dinner at Clancy’s and their stroll back to the cottage. She felt his gaze on her as they sipped wine on the porch, and the sound of his voice as he read the letter on the bench at Kindred Spirit. More than anything, she recalled the tender and sensual way they’d made love; the intensity of his expression, the words he’d whispered to her.
She wondered at how immediate it all still felt—the tangible weight of his feelings for her; even the implacable guilt. Something had truly broken inside her that morning she left, but she wanted to believe that in the break, a stronger element had eventually taken root. In the aftermath, whenever life seemed unbearably difficult, she would think of Tru and remind herself that if she ever reached the point where she needed him, he would come. He’d told her as much on their last morning together, and that promise was enough for her to carry on.
That night at the beach, as sleep remained out of reach, she’d found herself attempting to rewrite history in a way that gave her peace. She imagined herself turning the car around at the corner and racing back to him; she imagined sitting across the table from Josh and telling him that she’d met someone else. Dreamy images of a later reunion at the airport, where she’d gone to pick up Tru after his flight back from Zimbabwe, played out in her mind; in this fantasy they embraced near the baggage claim and kissed amid throngs of people. He put his arm around her as they walked to her car, and she pictured the casual way he tossed his duffel bag into the trunk as though it had actually happened. She imagined them making love in the apartment she once called home, all those years ago.
But after that, her visions had become clouded. She couldn’t visualize the kind of house they would have chosen; when she pictured them in the kitchen, it was either at the cottage her parents had sold long ago or the home she owned with Josh. She couldn’t imagine what Tru would do for a living; when she tried, she saw him returning at the end of the day dressed in the same kind of clothing he’d worn the week she’d met him, as though coming in from a game drive. She knew he’d regularly return to Bulawayo to see Andrew, but she had no frame of reference to even conjure up how his home or neighborhood might appear. And always, Andrew remained a ten-year-old, his features forever frozen in time, just as Tru remained forever forty-two.
Strangely, when she fantasized about a life with Tru, Jacob and Rachel were always present. If she and Tru were eating at the table, Jacob was refusing to share his french fries with his sister; if Tru was drawing on the back porch of her parents’ cottage, Rachel was finger-painting at the picnic table. In the school auditorium, she sat beside Tru as Jacob and Rachel sang in the choir; on Halloween, she and Tru trailed behind her children, who were dressed as Woody and Jessie from Toy Story 2. Always, always, her children were in the life she imagined with Tru, and though she resented the intrusion, Josh was there as well. Jacob in particular bore a strong resemblance to his father, and Rachel had grown up thinking that one day she might become a doctor.