Every Breath

It was Andrew who finally got him drawing again. During one of Tru’s visits to Bulawayo, his son asked whether Tru was angry with him. When Tru squatted lower and asked why he would ever think such a thing, Andrew mumbled that he hadn’t received a drawing in months. Tru promised to start sketching again, but on most evenings, when he put pencil to paper, it was Hope he sketched. Usually he recreated from memory something from their time together: the sight of her staring at him as he held Scottie that first day on the beach, or how ravishing she’d looked on the night of the rehearsal dinner. Only after he’d made good progress on a drawing of Hope would he turn his attention to something he suspected Andrew would like.

The drawings of Hope took weeks to complete, not days. There was a newfound desire within him to match them perfectly with his memories, to capture those images with precision and care. When he was finally satisfied, he would save the drawing and start on the next. Over the years, the project became something of a compulsion, feeding an unconscious belief, perhaps, that re-creating Hope’s likeness perfectly would somehow bring her back to him. He made more than fifty detailed sketches, each of them documenting a different memory. When he was finished, he put them in order, a chronicle of their time together. At that point, he started to draw the corresponding sketches of himself, or how he imagined he’d looked to her in those same moments. In the end, he had them bound in a book—drawings of himself on the left-hand pages, and Hope on the right—but he had never shown it to anyone. He’d finished it the year after Andrew went to college. It had taken nearly nine years to complete.

That was another reason he lost much of his sense of purpose as the century wound down. He paced the house with nothing to do, leafed through the book every night, and dwelt on the fact that everyone who mattered in his life was gone. His mother. His grandfather. Kim, and now Andrew. Hope. He was alone, he thought, and would always be alone. It was a hard time, maybe as hard as his recovery from the accident would later be, but in a different way.

Botswana and the lion quest, as he referred to it then, had been good for him; but always, he kept the book of sketches at hand, among his most vital possessions. After the accident, the book was the only thing he really wanted, but he didn’t want to ask Andrew to bring it. He had never told Andrew about it, and he didn’t want to lie to him or Kim. Instead, he had his ex-wife make arrangements to box up all of his things in Botswana and place them in storage. She did, but he spent much of the next two years worrying that the book had somehow been lost or damaged. The first thing he did after moving out of the rehab facility was make a short trip to Botswana. He hired some youths to help him open box after box until the book was found. Aside from being dusty, it was in perfect condition.

But the compulsion to relive in images the days that they’d shared together began to dim not long after that. For his own good, he knew he couldn’t keep dreaming that they would someday be together again. He had no idea that around that time, Hope had been trying to find him.

Had he known, and despite his lingering injuries, he told himself he would have moved heaven and earth to go to her. And there’d been a moment when he’d come close to doing exactly that.

Twilight came softly to Carolina Beach.

Hope and Tru, their limbs brushing occasionally, sat on the couch, continuing to talk, heedless of the waning light as they delved deeper and deeper into each other’s lives. The glasses of wine, long since empty, gave way to cups of tea, and generalities gave way to intimate details. Staring at her profile in the lengthening shadows, Tru could hardly grasp that Hope was actually with him. She was, and always had been, his dream.

“I have a confession to make,” he finally began. “There’s something I haven’t told you. About something that happened before I took the job in Namibia. I wanted to tell you earlier, but when you told me that you tried to find me…”

“What is it?”

He stared into his glass. “I almost came back to North Carolina. To look for you. It was right after I finished my rehabilitation, and I bought a ticket and packed my bags and actually made it to the airport. But when it came time to head through security…I couldn’t do it.” He swallowed, as if recalling his paralysis. “I’m ashamed to say that in the end, I just…walked back to my car.”

It took a moment for understanding to dawn on her. “You mean that when I was looking for you, you were trying to find me, too?”

He nodded, conscious of the dryness in his throat, knowing she was thinking about the years they’d lost—not once, but twice.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said slowly.

“I don’t think there’s anything to say, other than that it breaks my heart.”

“Oh, Tru,” she said, her eyes growing moist. “Why didn’t you get on that plane?”

“I didn’t know if I could find you.” He shook his head. “But the truth is, I was afraid of what would happen if I did. I kept imagining that I’d finally catch sight of you in a restaurant, or on the street, or maybe in your yard. You’d be holding hands with another man, or laughing with your kids, and after all I’d just been through, there was part of me that knew I wouldn’t be able to endure that. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to be happy, because I did. I wanted that for you every single day in the last twenty-four years, if only because I knew that I wasn’t happy. It felt like part of me was missing, and always would be. But I was too afraid to do anything about it, and now—after hearing about your life—all I can think is that I should have had more courage when it mattered the most. Because it means I wouldn’t have wasted the last eight years.”

When he finished, Hope glanced away before pushing the blanket aside. Rising from the couch, she went to the front window. Her face was in shadow, but he saw the wet shine of her cheeks glowing in the moonlight.

“Why did fate always seem to conspire against us?” she asked, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Do you think there’s a greater plan at work, one we can’t even fathom?”

“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely.

Her shoulders slumped ever so slightly and she turned away again. She stared out the window without speaking until finally drawing a long breath. Returning to the couch, she took a seat beside him.

Up close, he thought, her face looked the same as it had in all the drawings he’d ever done of her. “I’m sorry, Hope. More sorry than you know.”

She swiped at her cheeks. “I am, too.”

“What now? Do you need some time alone?”

“No,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want right now.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

Instead of answering his question, she scooted closer and readjusted the blanket over her legs. She reached for his hand, and he cradled it, relishing the softness of her skin. He traced the tender, birdlike bones on top, marveling that the last time he’d held a woman’s hand, it had been hers.

“I want you to tell me how you learned about my letter,” she said. “The one I put in Kindred Spirit. The thing that finally allowed us to find each other again.”

Tru closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s hard to explain in a way that makes sense, even to me.”

“How so?’

“Because,” he said, “it started with a dream.”

“You dreamed about the letter?”

“No,” he said. “I dreamed about a place—a café…a real place, just down the hill from where I live.” He gave a wistful smile. “I go there when I’m in the mood to be among people, and it’s got a fantastic view of the coast. Usually I’ll bring a book with me and while away a couple of hours in the afternoon. The owner knows me and doesn’t mind how long I stay.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Anyway, I woke one morning, knowing I’d just dreamed about the place, but unlike a lot of dreams, the images didn’t fizzle away. I kept seeing myself sitting at a table, like I was seeing myself on camera. I had a book with me, and there was a glass of iced tea on the table, both of which are ordinary parts of my life. It was afternoon and the sun was shining, and that’s typical as well. But in the dream, I remember noticing a couple walk in and take a seat at a nearby table. They were strangely out of focus, and I couldn’t make out their conversation, and yet I felt this urgent need to speak with them. I just knew they had something important to tell me, so I got up from the table and started to approach, but with every step I took, their table seemed to get farther and farther away. I can remember feeling a rising panic about that—I had to speak with them—and it was in that moment that I suddenly woke. It wasn’t a nightmare, exactly, but it left me a bit unsettled the rest of the day. A week later, I went to the café.”