Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (19 page)

“I couldn’t tell you, Charlotte, and I didn’t want to,” I said, stroking her hair. “It’s not what was important.”

She lifted her head. “It’s important to me! When I think—I mean,
really
think—how it was for you…It’s astonishing, and I feel like such an idiot. That first night, in Salzburg, you told me about your trip, but I didn’t listen. I heard but I didn’t listen. I was too happy to see you, and you…you hardly described it at all.”

“On purpose,” I said.

“But why?”

“Because, Charlotte, I’d have felt like I was taking advantage of you. I had to leave you, and that was fucking awful. But I didn’t want you to forgive me just because the trip was hard. I wanted you to forgive me because it was the right thing to do. Charlotte…” I held her sweet face in my hands. “It was my trial by fire. I don’t need to tell you how badly it burned. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know you’re worth it. I’d do it again a hundred times over if I had to. For you.”

“You don’t have to, Noah,” she whispered. “You don’t have to work so
hard.
And, my god, there is absolutely
nothing
to forgive. Don’t you know how much you have given me? Even before my tour started? Noah, the tour
only happened
because of you. Your love and belief in me brought my music back to life.”

“You would have found it without me, baby.”

“
No.
When? After another year of scraping by? Another year of lackluster practices, and skipped auditions?” Her hands tightened their hold on mine. “You were the one who got me to really look at what was slipping away. You caught it and held it out to me, and said, ‘Take it, it’s yours. Now is your time.’ And I had to go and dig it out of myself. I had to do it alone the same way you had to cope with your blindness alone. Only I wasn’t strong enough to leave you. But
you
were strong enough. Strong and brave.”

“I didn’t feel brave,” I murmured against her hair. “I wanted to quit every day. Every minute.”

“But you didn’t,” she said. “I’m so grateful to you for doing the right thing for both of us, no matter how hard.” She burrowed against me tighter. “You are brave, Noah. So brave…”

I held her and kissed her until her hitching breaths became even. I thought she might have fallen asleep, but she sniffled and pulled away to settle herself on the pillow facing me.

“Do you have it with you?” she asked.

“Have what with me?”

“The ring.”

I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut again. “You read about Paris.”

“I read everything.”

“Then you know I kept trying to find the right moment and couldn’t.”

“Right now,” she said softly. “Right now is the right moment.”

I scoffed. “God, no. Here? That would be the least romantic proposal in the history of matrimony.”

“That’s why it’s perfect,” she insisted. “No grand gestures. If you asked me what my dream proposal would be, it’s just you and me, anywhere, starting the rest of our lives together.”

God, this woman. I wanted to jump in with both feet, and do whatever she asked. To ask
her
, finally, the only question left between us. But the sound of my own pulse came back to me on a machine, reminding me of exactly where we were and what it could mean. 

“The doctors are going to come in this room any minute now and God knows what they’re going to say. It feels selfish.”

“Be selfish, then. For once, be selfish, Noah.”

“And if it’s bad news? What do we do then?”

“We get married.” I felt her soft hands on my jaw. “I’m yours, Noah. In sickness and in health, and nothing is going to change that.
Nothing
.”

Warmth flooded me, driving back the hospital cold and my fear and doubts. I kissed her fiercely, and held her face after, my eyes searching, then relenting. Charlotte was there, on the side of the black, and she always would be.

“Jacket pocket. Left side.”

She slipped off the bed and returned quickly. She climbed back into that narrow old hospital bed with me, and pressed the small black velvet box into my hand.

“You read the book. You already know what it looks like,” I muttered, turning the box over and over.

“I have an idea. That’s not the same as reality.”

I nodded and opened the box. Her sharp intake of breath sounded reassuring and goddamn, I was suddenly a nervous wreck.

“I didn’t think you’d want something flashy,” I said. “And it’s old as hell, which I thought you’d appreciate.” I cleared my throat. “So…uh, do you like it?

“Oh, Noah. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It felt like the right one…for you.”

I felt for the ring and pulled it from the box, and the hospital fell away: the beeping machines, the sterile air, the tubes and wires. It’s just Charlotte and me in this moment, because she was absolutely right. This was the time and place, however improbable it seemed.

We were sharing my pillow, face to face, and I inched closer. “Come here.” I pulled her to me and pressed my forehead to hers. “I want to ask you something, baby, and I want to look you in the eye when I do it.”

Our foreheads together, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I knew I was looking right at her. My eyes met hers precisely, because I felt her body react, her breath catching. 

Without breaking contact, I find her left hand and take it. “I love you, Charlotte. You’ve given me everything. You showed me I could walk the earth alone, in the dark, but I don’t want to. I want you by my side, now and forever.” I sucked in a breath, my heart pounding like a sledgehammer.
My Charlotte…
“Will you marry me?”

“Yes, Noah,” she whispered, and her voice is filled with happy tears. “Of course, yes. Yes.”

I slipped the ring onto her finger, and kissed her, and of all the thousands of kisses between us, none were as sweet or good as that one.

After, I pulled her into my arms and held her, vowing that if the doctor had bad news, I’d fight as hard as I needed to. As hard as I did the first time when the rocks broke me. And I wasn’t afraid. I took hold of that perfect moment, of the feel of that extraordinary woman in my arms, and let it in, to keep it for all time.

It was astonishing to me that I could know this much happiness. Even amid the unknown, I felt it and understood it for what it was. It’s the sunrise I saw with my eyes in Peru, and the sunrise I saw in my heart with Charlotte’s music to paint it for me. It is the endless possibility of life. Pain seems inevitable. Or expected. We accept it, I think, as something unavoidable, and happiness is a gift hanging just out of reach; a privilege only a few of us are lucky enough to have.

But it’s not. It’s right there, all around us, if we just have the courage to reach our hands into the dark, and take it.

Take it. Hold on. And never let go.

Charlotte, three years later

I walked down the corridors of NYU’s Liberal Arts college building, though
waddled
is probably more accurate. I looked—and felt—like I’d swallowed a bowling ball.
I’m too short to be this pregnant,
I thought. And I still had twelve weeks to go. The mere idea that I was going to get even bigger was too exhausting to contemplate.

I stopped at the bench outside Noah’s office and gratefully lowered myself onto it. A clock on the wood-paneled wall opposite said I had ten minutes until his class got out. I eased a sigh, my hand running absently over my rounded belly. The baby stirred and I smiled. I smiled wider. I hadn’t stopped smiling all day, and I itched to take out the smallish box that lay snug in my bag, to look at its contents for the hundredth time that day. But I left it alone and closed my eyes, just for a minute…

And promptly dozed off.

I awoke with a jolt as the hall filled with the echoing voices and footsteps of dozens of students. Amid the crowd, I saw Noah, holding the arm of a colleague and coming my way; sunglasses on, white stick tapping from side to side.

My heart clanged madly just from the sight of my gorgeous husband. I silently thanked the NYU dress code that even guest instructors were required to wear a suit. Today, Noah wore light gray—my favorite on him—with a cobalt tie and gold paisley print. He looked devastating, and I could tell by the stolen glances from some of the female students that I wasn’t alone in that estimation.

The professor who guided him—Harry Albright, if I remembered correctly—saw me, and smiled brightly beneath salt-and-pepper mustaches. He spoke a few words to Noah, informing him I was here, I guessed. The way Noah’s face lit up was like a jolt of pure happiness straight to my heart.

“We’ve arrived at your office,” Harry Albright said as they approached, “where your wife awaits, as promised. Charlotte, you look radiant.”

“Thank you, Harry. I don’t feel radiant. I feel like a walrus.”

“A walrus? Yesterday it was a manatee.” Noah let go of Harry’s arm, and reached out his hand to me. “Pace yourself, baby. We still have three months to go and you’re going to run out of bloated sea animals to compare yourself to.”

“Oh, aren’t you hilarious,” I said, as Noah planted a soft kiss on my cheek, his hand going at once to my stomach. He always greeted us both at the same time.

“I can say that,” Noah told Harry, “because it’s utter horseshit. She’s gorgeous and that’s a fact.”

“Indeed she is,” Harry said, with a twinkle in his eye. “And Charlotte, are you welcoming a boy or a girl?”

“Girl,” Noah said automatically, infusing that one syllable with fierce pride and love. “We’re having a girl.”

Harry laughed. “Of course you are, Mr. Lake! You tell me and the rest of the department approximately sixteen times a day.” He turned and winked at me. “First-time proud father syndrome. Textbook.”

“Don’t you have an appointment, Harry?” Noah inquired, a small smile twitching his lips.

“Indeed. Charlotte, so good to see you, and congratulations again on your…what was it? Ah yes, a girl.”

With a wink for me, Harry rejoined the current of students flowing down the hallway. Some were likely Noah’s own students who took his Comparative Literature course: Writing Memory. He was a guest professor for the year—the success of his memoir allowing for that—but I think he liked teaching more than he realized. I think he liked it enough to make it a career. For a little while anyway. I couldn’t imagine he’d stick to one path for too long; he had too much wanderlust in him. We both did. We’d been traveling for the last year almost nonstop, until a little pink plus sign on a pregnancy test six months ago put the brakes on our travels. 

“If we have to stop,” Noah said when I told him the news, “then this is the best possible reason.”

Now, he kissed me again, beaming like the proud father Harry described him to be. “This is a nice surprise. What are you doing here, babe?” His smile faltered. “Are you okay? The baby’s okay…?”

“Everyone’s perfectly fine,” I said gently.

I never laughed off his worry. It was hard enough, I thought, to be an expectant parent. Even harder, when you had to travel that uncertain road in the dark.

Noah’s concerned frown lifted back into a smile, his hand gentle on my stomach over my flowered dress. The baby kicked or rolled or did whatever baby gymnasts do: punching my ribs and stomping my bladder at the same time.

“She’s awake,” Noah said quietly, a soft, sweet smile on his face I’m sure no one ever saw but me.

“You can say that again,” I laughed, wincing. “She hasn’t stopped moving all day. I was thinking you and I could take a walk, get her settled down. You’re done for the day, right?”

“I am,” Noah said. “Let me grab my stuff and we’re outta here.”

He unlocked the door behind me, and I watched him, my own fierce pride burning in my heart, as he made his way around his office with ease. It was dim—he never bothered with lights unless he had students. He gathered his Braille keyboard and laptop, and stuffed them into his bag, along with the latest book he was reading: a wide, thick novel printed in Braille. He’d studied hard at the Helen Keller Foundation, and in nine months was opening real books again, and I know it was like a whole new world opened up to him. I’d never been so proud.

We stepped back into the hall that was quieter now, though not by much. A student passed, gave my swollen belly a second take, and shouted, “Oooh! Way to go, Mr. Lake!”

I laughed while Noah pretended to be irritated, when I could see he was proud too.