The Return

As she spoke, Tru felt everything beginning to slip away. “And?” he prompted gently.

She stopped walking and turned to face him. “When he showed up, all I could think about was this week and how much it’s meant to me. Last week, I didn’t even know you existed, so part of me can’t help but wonder whether I’m crazy. Because I know that I love you.”

Tru swallowed, noting that her eyes were bright with tears.

“Even now, when I’m here with you, all I can think is how right this feels. And I don’t want to leave you.”

“Then stay with me,” he pleaded. “We’ll figure something out.”

“It’s not that simple, Tru. I love Josh, too. I know that must be painful for you to hear, and the truth is that I don’t feel the same way about him that I do for you.” Her eyes beseeched him. “You’re both so different…” She seemed to be grasping for something out of her reach. “I feel like I’m at war with myself—like two different people, who want completely different things. But…”

When she appeared unable to continue, Tru gripped her arms.

“I can’t imagine a life without you, Hope, and I don’t want one. I want you, and only you, forever. Could you really give up what we have without regret?”

She stood frozen, her face a mask of anguish. “No. I know there’s part of me that will regret it forever.”

He stared at her, trying to read her, already knowing what she was trying to tell him. “You’re not going to tell him about us, are you?”

“I don’t want to hurt him…”

“And yet you’re willing to keep secrets from him?”

He regretted the words as soon as they came out. “That’s not fair,” she cried, shaking off his touch. “Do you think I want to be in this position? I didn’t come here to make my life even more complicated than it already was. I didn’t come here because I wanted to fall in love with another man. But no matter what I decide, someone is going to be hurt, and I never, ever wanted that.”

“You’re right,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t have said it. It wasn’t fair, and I apologize.”

Her shoulders slumped, her anger slowly giving way to confusion again. “Josh seemed different this time. Scared. Serious…” she mused, almost to herself. “I just don’t know…”

It was now or never, Tru suddenly realized, and he reached for her hand again. “I wanted to talk to you earlier about this, but last night when I couldn’t sleep, I did a lot of thinking. About you and me. About us. And maybe you’re not quite ready to hear it, but…” He swallowed, his eyes on hers. “I want you to come with me to Zimbabwe. I know it’s asking a lot, but you could meet Andrew and we could make a life there. If you don’t like that I’m in the bush so much, I can find something else to do.”

Hope blinked without speaking, trying to absorb what he was saying. She opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again, even as she released his hand. She turned, facing the ocean, before finally shaking her head.

“I don’t want you to change who you are for me,” Hope insisted. “Guiding is important to you—”

“You’re more important,” he said, hearing the desperation in his voice. Feeling the future, all his hopes, begin to recede. “I love you. Don’t you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then before you say no, can you at least think about it?”

“I have,” she said, so quietly he almost couldn’t make out her voice over the sound of the surf. “Yesterday, when I was coming back from the wedding, I thought about exactly that. Just…running off to Africa with you. Leaving, without a second thought. And part of me longed to do that. I imagined explaining the situation to my parents, sure that they’d give me their blessing. But…”

She raised her eyes to his, her expression drawn in anguish. “How can I leave my dad, knowing he has only a few years left? I’ll need to spend these last years with him, for me as much as him. Because I know I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t. And my mom is going to need me, even if she thinks that she won’t.”

“I could fly you back home as often as you want. Once a month if that’s what you need. Or even more. Money’s not an issue.”

“Tru…”

He felt a surge of panic. “What if I move here?” he offered. “To North Carolina?”

“What about Andrew?”

“I’d fly back every month. I’ll see him more than I do now. Whatever you need from me, I’ll do it.”

She stared at him in agony, her hand clenched in his.

“But what if you can’t?” she asked. The words were almost a whisper. “What if there’s something that I need that you can never give me?”

At her words, he flinched as if he had been slapped. All at once, he understood what she’d been trying so hard not to tell him. That to be with him meant closing the door to having children of her own. Hadn’t she told him about her lifelong dream? Her treasured image of holding the baby she had just given birth to, of creating a human life with the man she treasured? More than anything, she wanted to be a mother—she wanted to give birth to a child—and it was the one thing he could not give her. In her face, the silent plea for forgiveness was as pronounced as her pain.

He turned away, unable to face her. He’d always believed that anything was possible when it came to love, that any obstacle could be overcome. Wasn’t that a truth that nearly everyone took for granted? As he struggled with the implacability of what Hope had just said, she hugged her arms to her body.

“It makes me hate myself,” she cried, her voice cracking. “That there’s this part of me that needs to have a baby. I wish I could imagine a life without a child, but I can’t. I know it would be possible to adopt, and now there’s even amazing medical technology, but…” She shook her head and let out a long breath. “It just wouldn’t be the same. I hate that this is true for me, but it is.”

For a long time neither of them spoke, both of them staring at the waves. Finally, Hope said in a ragged voice, “I never want to think to myself that I gave up my dream for you. I never want to have a reason to resent you…the thought terrifies me.” She shook her head. “I know how selfish I sound, how much I’m hurting you. But please don’t ask me to go with you, because I will.”

He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it. “You’re not selfish,” he said.

“But you despise me.”

“Never.”

He drew her into his arms, pulling her close. “I’ll always love you. There’s nothing you can ever do or say that will take that away.”

Hope shook her head, trying and failing to keep the tears from spilling out.

“There’s something else,” she said, her voice thick as she began to cry in earnest. “Something I haven’t told you.”

Inwardly, he braced himself. Somehow he knew what she was going to say.

“Josh asked me to marry him last night,” Hope said. “He told me he’s ready to start a family.”