Chương 14
“You pushed it toward me.”
“I know.”
“You made a joke.”
“Yes.”
“So how were you trying to tell me not to do it?”
“I wasn’t. I couldn’t.”
Emily walked toward the window.
Daniel stayed seated.
“I was trapped,” he said quietly. “I could hear you. Not everything. I knew you were there. I knew something was happening. I was scared.”
She pressed her fingertips to the glass.
“I thought you were choosing me.”
“I was.”
She turned.
“Which is it?”
“Both.”
“That’s convenient.”
“No.”
“You wanted me and didn’t want the wedding.”
“Yes.”
“You called me wife.”
“Because that was the word I could get out.”
Emily shook her head.
“Do you know what that moment did to me?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He flinched.
The irony reached her immediately.
She closed her eyes.
“Sorry.”
Daniel waited.
Emily pressed both hands over her face.
“For a year, that moment was proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That you were still there. That I wasn’t insane for believing you were still there.”
“You weren’t.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is?”
She lowered her hands.
“I built everything after the accident around that second. You moved your thumb. You said wife. I thought if nothing else ever came back, I would have that.”
Daniel stood carefully.
He did not approach her.
“I don’t want to take it away.”
“You just did.”
He looked hurt.
Emily hated that she had caused it.
She hated him a little for making her responsible for that too.
“I need to go out.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Daniel nodded.
She grabbed her coat.
At the door, he said, “Emily.”
She stopped.
“I loved you then.”
She closed her eyes.
“That isn’t enough right now.”
She left.
Emily drove nowhere for forty minutes.
Then she parked outside a grocery store and sat with both hands on the steering wheel.
People came and went carrying bags.
A teenager pushed carts across the lot.
An older couple argued beside a minivan about whether they had bought bread.
Emily cried until she became embarrassed by herself, though nobody could see.
The pain was not that Daniel had rejected her.
He had not.
It was that the memory she had protected most carefully had belonged partly to him all along, and his experience of it was different.
She had made his thumb movement into a vow.
He had experienced it as effort.
She had heard wife and built a bridge.
He had been trying to say no to the ceremony.
Both could be true.
She hated truth when it refused to choose sides.
She called Father Michael.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Emily?”
“Did you know?”
There was a pause.
“Know what?”
“That Daniel didn’t want me to finish the wedding.”
Silence.
Her stomach dropped.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“I hesitated because I’m trying to understand what you’re telling me.”
She closed her eyes.
“He remembers hearing me.”
Father Michael was quiet.
“He says he wanted to tell me not to marry him while he was unconscious.”
“I see.”
“I don’t.”
Another pause.
Then Father Michael asked, “Where are you?”
“In a grocery store parking lot.”
“Are you driving?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Please don’t be pastoral.”
“I’m asking because I prefer not to conduct counseling while you merge.”
Despite herself, Emily laughed.
It disappeared quickly.
“I thought that was our miracle.”
Father Michael said nothing.
“I know how stupid that sounds.”
“It doesn’t.”
“He spoke.”
“Yes.”
“He came back.”
“Yes.”
“And now he says the thing I thought meant yes was happening while he was trying to say no.”
Father Michael breathed out.
“Emily, he may not be changing what happened. He may be giving you the part you couldn’t know.”
“That’s worse.”
“I imagine it is.”
She wiped her face.
“I wanted one thing to be simple.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She stopped.
Then laughed bitterly.
“I really need to retire that sentence.”
Father Michael chuckled softly.
Emily looked through the windshield.
“What do I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s useless.”
“I’m a priest, not a warranty department.”
She laughed again.
Then her throat tightened.
“Do you think I was wrong?”
“To try the ceremony?”
“Yes.”
Father Michael took a long time to answer.
“I think you were terrified and trying to honor something Daniel had clearly wanted before the accident. I also think when new information appeared, you stopped.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
“I almost married a man who was trying to tell me no.”
“You did not finish the marriage.”
“Because Dr. Shah stopped us.”
“No. Dr. Shah gave you information. You made the decision.”
Emily stared at the steering wheel.
That was true.
She did not feel absolved by it.
Maybe she was not supposed to.
When she returned home, Daniel was on the couch.
The television was off.
The ring sat on the coffee table.
Emily took off her coat.
Daniel stood.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head.
“No. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For making that day mine.”
His face tightened.
“You were the one standing there.”
“You were there too.”
“I couldn’t exactly contribute.”
“You did.”
He looked at the ring.
Emily sat in the armchair.
“What did you want to say?”
Daniel remained standing.
“In the chapel?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the window.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Try.”
He swallowed.
“I wanted you to wait.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“Why?”
“Because I could hear you promising your life to someone who couldn’t answer.”
She looked down.
Daniel continued, “I wasn’t afraid you were making a mistake about loving me.”
Her breath shook.
“I was afraid you were making a decision because you thought I might die.”
“I did think you might die.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I waited, I might lose the chance.”
“I know.”
“That was the point.”
“I know.”
She laughed once through tears.
“Stop knowing everything.”
“Sorry.”
Silence settled.
Daniel sat on the opposite end of the couch.
May you like
Emily rubbed her palms together.
“What did wife mean?”
