It Happened One Night (29 page)

She put the minivan in park and took off her seat belt to climb out, but Lana stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’m glad
you and Gene are going to adopt the baby. It deserves good parents. And there’s no one better than you.”

Karin didn’t smile. She heard the tinge of sadness in her sister’s voice and she wondered what it meant. “I hope you don’t
mind if I say this. I know you feel sort of out of control all the time. Trying to figure out what and who you want in life.
But sometimes I think that you still look at the future through the past, and it warps things. If you could see it for what
it really is, you’d be surprised.”

“Maybe.”

“What I’m saying is, I think you should talk to Calvert.”

“Just because you made peace with him doesn’t mean I have to.”

“If you’re nervous about the future, you have to figure out why by looking at the past,” Karin said. The day that Calvert
had arrived in town, Karin had believed she’d needed to fight to keep her sister from reconciling with him. Lana was always
the nice one. Lana was more forgiving toward Calvert than Karin had been. But now Karin wondered if all Lana’s projected goodwill
toward their father hadn’t been just for show. Amazingly, somewhere along the line they’d traded places. Karin was the one
making peace while Lana was still all bottled up, pretending she didn’t care. “Eli loves you. And you love him. There’s no
reason in the world it shouldn’t work.”

“But history repeats itself. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Last time you ruined it on purpose. It’s different now.”

Lana looked down. “I hope so.”

Karin pushed her car door open all the way. “Just stop worrying so much and enjoy it. It’s the beginning of something. Not
the end.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lana said. And yet as they climbed out of the minivan, Karin wasn’t sure she’d convinced her.

That night Lana lay in Eli’s arms, pressed to the smooth warmth of his skin. His hand played absently in her tousled hair.
Not a moment after they’d arrived at his house, all of the pessimism she’d felt earlier in the day was shed like the clothes
he’d slid from her body. She was unable to get enough of him. She felt an uneasy sense of immediacy, that she needed to make
the most out of every moment and every second, that she needed to memorize the sound of his breathing and the smell of his
skin. She clung to every word he said, as if they might slip away from her if she didn’t listen carefully enough.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Something you’ve never told me before.”

She laughed and arranged herself to lay on her side, her head propped on one hand. “Something I’ve never told you before…
hmm
. There isn’t really a lot… I can’t think of anything!”

He scooted away so he could see her better, rolling onto his side to face her. A light was on in the hallway outside the door,
and it cast soft yellow shadows over their faces and flesh. “Tell me when you lost your virginity.”

“Haven’t we already talked about that? I mean, I know when you lost yours.”

“That’s old news. The exchange student, with the corsage, in the science lab. How come I don’t already know about you?”

“I don’t know. I think it was pretty normal.”

“Tell me.”

“But why do you want to know?”

“I’ve always wondered. But I didn’t feel like I could ask until now.”

Lana fluffed up her pillow under her head. “Well, his name was John. I was sixteen and he was… I don’t know. Early twenties?
He came to the boardinghouse every few months. I don’t remember much about him—nothing concrete. It’s more like a feeling
of remembering what he was like. He was a musician. A rebel. Aloof. I used to lay white daisy petals along the headboard of
my bed for each day I didn’t see him, and I’d watch them curl up one at a time. Silly, right?”

“Everything’s silly when you’re sixteen. So what happened?”

“The usual,” she said, laughing. “He used to show up every few months and I just thought he was the most wonderful thing that
ever happened on the whole earth. He had these sunglasses like John Lennon, and I thought I was in love. I had this vision
of him showing up one day and asking me to leave with him. I had this idea we’d be vagabonds living in his car and getting
by on his music. It made sense to sleep with him.”

“Karin let you get away with it?”

“I told her I was going to watch a movie at a friend’s house. But afterward, from the way she looked at me, I think she knew.”

Eli stroked her hair in long, smooth sweeps, but said nothing.

“Anyway,” she said. “We obviously didn’t run away together. One day, he said, ‘See you next time.’ And then I never saw him
again.”

“You must have been crushed.”

“Brutally. But now I wonder what I saw in him in the first place.”

“An exit sign.”

“Something like that.”

He drew her closer, his hand at the small of her back, pressing their bodies as close as was possible. Lana sighed, content.
They lay in silence for a long time.

“I’m not going to leave,” Eli said, his voice thick with sleepiness. “At least, I won’t leave without coming back.”

She thought of the way she’d been tethered to the boardinghouse all those years, watching the men come and go. She pressed
her forehead flat against his chest. “I know.”

“I don’t like traveling all the time,” he went on. “I plan to spend more time here, now.”

“But will you miss it?”

“Well, no. I’ll still have to do some traveling. But I never meant to travel quite so much. It just… happened. I guess I just
never had a strong enough reason to stay.”

Lana was quiet, emotions mixed. She heard what Eli was telling her—that he wanted to settle down. She was touched by his vision
of having a future with her. If they made a life together, it would be a good life, full of love. But birds-of-paradise were
winking orange in her mind.

She rubbed her cheek against Eli’s chest and kissed him lightly. The streetlight imbued the room with a soft luster; the lights
of the alarm clock glowed gently red. She stroked his arm in the silence and listened to the sound of his breathing as it
slowly deepened and evened out. She felt so peaceful and blessed, to be able to lay like this with him, to feel with her body
the moment he fell asleep.

“I love you,” she said. She knew he couldn’t hear her, but she wanted to say the words out loud. “I’m in love with you. No
matter what happens, that’s true.”

She felt him stir. For a moment she held her breath, worried he’d heard her and yet wishing he had at the same time. She thought
she was in the clear until a moment later, when she heard him whisper, soft as falling snow, “Then why not marry me?”

She didn’t move, didn’t speak. He lifted slightly onto his arm, to look at her in the moonlight.

“Do you… do you mean that?” she said, breathless.

He didn’t reply. He stood and walked naked to the other side of the room. The top drawer of his dresser squeaked as he opened
it, and when he returned to sit down on the bed he was holding a ring. No box, no velvet. Just a ring, lustrous in the moonlight
between his index finger and thumb.

“It was my grandmother’s,” he said, turning it so it caught the light. “I’ve been holding on to it for a long time.”

The ring was beautiful, classic yellow gold and an unpretentious diamond. She didn’t reach for it, but she could imagine the
feel of it on her finger; it would be snug and warm.

He let his hand fall, the ring along with it, and he leaned forward to kiss her shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me yes or
no.”

“You mean,
ever
?”

“For as long as you love me, the invitation stands.”

She watched as he put the ring back where he’d found it. On some level, she felt the fundamental and quiet rightness of what
he proposed. She was connected to him. Her life was bound up with his so tightly that she would always love him, regardless
of whether they would succeed as a couple in the end.

But how long would he wait for her if she went away? And if they were both coming and going, what kind of marriage would that
be? Maybe the question would have been easier if he’d proposed
after
the baby was born.
After
she’d lived out her dreams for a while. If the timing was better, the word
yes
might have slipped effortlessly off her tongue.

“I’m sorry,” she said, getting out of bed, the air cool on her naked skin. “This is just… it’s a lot for me. Everything at
once. A couple months ago, if you’d asked me what my future looked like, I wouldn’t have said
this.
I never saw myself having a baby. Or getting married. Or… sleeping with you.”

He was quiet as he came to stand beside her, the ring back in his dresser.

She tried hard to explain. “I have some things to work out in my own head before I can say yes.”

When he looked at her, his gaze was firm, something hard yet beseeching in his stare. “Just promise me that if you have to
end this, you won’t do it badly. I don’t think my heart can take another jolt like last time.”

“I promise I’ll never do anything like that again.”

She didn’t miss the narrowing of his eyes, the slight flicker that said he didn’t entirely believe her. She smoothed back
his hair, feelings of tenderness welling up inside her. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a long, firm kiss on his forehead.
The urge to comfort him was strong. “Do you want me to go home for tonight?”

He grabbed her wrist. “Do you want to go?”

“No.”

“Then stay.” He pulled lightly, until she was close to him again. His mouth was soft. “Stay.”

She gave in, felt the need behind his kiss and answered it, fed it with a desire of her own. The down comforter crinkled softly
between them as he pulled her to the bed, and he tugged hard to get it out of the way, seeking access, asking with his hands.

Once again, the future and the past became momentarily meaningless. All she knew right now was that she was
his
—that she always had been and always would be. He’d asked for her promise that she would not end it badly. She didn’t know
how to tell him the truth: Marriage or not, being with Eli so completely after so long was the best thing that had ever happened
to her. She was not ready to give up her dreams of traveling, of leaving, for a while. But what he’d started, she would never
end.

November 22

When the November wind blew in from the north, down through the Champlain Valley, the old boards of the Wildflower Barn hissed
and moaned as if in pain. The sky was low and dark; sprinkles of snow were whipping through the bare tree branches and diving
fast toward the brittle ground. Lana was alone at the computer. And though the store was technically open—they stocked some
indoor plants from their small greenhouse and also carried gift items—the bell on the door was silent. Most of the ordering
done at this time of year came through the company Web site. Flowers were always blooming somewhere.

Lana opened the next e-mail in the queue—her eyes were bleary and she ached from head to toe with fatigue. She knew she shouldn’t
have been staying up so late, but the rewards of spending a hot midnight in Eli’s arms were far greater than the sleep she’d
sacrificed for it.

Almost a month had passed since the night he’d brought her to the field behind the college, and with each day, Lana felt as
if she was healing. She was happier than she used to be. The joy she felt being Eli’s friend could not compare to the joy
she felt being in his arms and bed. She’d believed it was impossible to take a perfect relationship and make it more perfect,
to take two people who were so exceptionally close and bring them closer. She was learning, happily, that she’d been wrong.

She forced herself to focus on the e-mail before her. A customer was complaining that he’d been charged $23 for a high-end
lawn rake that he purchased online, while his neighbor had paid only $16 for the rake in the store. She arched her back, then
rubbed hard at the muscles above her hip bones. Massage was futile. Her backache felt deeper than her bones.

She hadn’t gotten very far across the room to check on the price of the rake when the doorbell rang and Calvert was in the
Barn, wearing his same old work boots, jeans, and a big black coat. She was getting a little tired of him sneaking up on her
like this.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, walking gingerly toward him, step over careful step until the pain in her back subsided.

“I came to say bye.”

She tilted her head. “Well then. Good-bye.”

“But I want to talk to you first.”

She frowned. “Forget it. Just go.”

He looked at her for a long minute, the faded-denim blue of his eyes as sad as a winter day. He’d opened the Barn door but
stopped shy of leaving. “Please just let me say this one thing. Then I’ll go.”

She laughed. Pain shot through her, deep and low. She grabbed for her stomach uselessly, and she felt her belly harden under
her hand. This wasn’t a backache. She put her free hand on the shelf beside her for balance, breathing out to let go of the
cramping. The force of the pain made her angry enough to lash out. “All these years later and
now
you can’t wait anymore?”

“I think I should have handled things differently,” he said. “I wasn’t good to you girls. I know that now. And it bothers
me. I won’t be able to go on with my life until I set things right.”

She couldn’t speak. A hot sting slid through her abdomen, a knife slicing a crescent into her lower half. She tried to tell
him, to say
help
. But her breath came in short, fast pants. She bent forward, cradling the ache.

In the distance she heard the sound of her father speaking, the most words he’d ever said to her at one time in her life.
And yet his voice was only a blur in her ears. The muscles in her abdomen twisted and gripped; she could feel something moving,
shifting. Karin had told her about Braxton-Hicks contractions—those painful practical jokers that sent first-time parents
running for their overnight bags. But this didn’t feel like what she imagined contractions would be. She doubled over, her
arms wrapped tight around her belly, and her whole body cried out with pain and with something else, with
loss
.