Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Bancroft
He looks older here, or maybe just more tired. The house must feel so empty now. I want to ask but don't know how without it sounding like pity.
“What's scaring you?” he asks, trying not to pull too hard. But the words settle between us like fallen leaves after a storm. What’s scaring me? Too many things to name.
I pull my legs up onto the bench, wrapping my arms around my knees like I used to do when we'd spend hours here as I waited for him to be done. Because even when he became a professor, and committed to teaching full time, he always came back here like he could never abandon the roots he planted.
Guess that makes one of us.
He used to say that every person who's ever stood in front of these paintings has brought their own story to it and left with it changed, somehow. Even in tiny ways. I look at him, and know, no one has left as much of a story here as he has. This bench being the support in all of it.
“I’m absolutely terrified what will happen to you if I go. The idea of leaving you alone, in that house…”
That’s what’s made this all so hard.
It’s not the decision, I know it’s time.
But I can picture him there still, standing at the kitchen sink in the fading light, staring out into the garden beyond. In the farthest corner of the yard, past where the grass gives way to wild things, there's a perfect view of the stone bench nestled amidst what's become an unexpected forest of basil. The same bench where he used to watch me with my books and steaming mugs on Sunday mornings. Each plant a story of rescue. Valentine's Days, anniversaries, birthdays, celebrations where roses were never enough to capture the depth of love that existed. No matter how many times they withered under, he'd just smile and carry them out to the backyard, one by one, transplanting them into soil that seemed to understand exactly what they needed. Now years of nearly-dead plants surround that bench like faithful guardians, their leaves reaching toward the sky as if stretching for second chances. He always did that. Believed in saving things that seemed too far gone, saw life in places others had given up on. Even the most wilted stem could find its way back to blooming, and that's how I know I need to go. But he treats himself as the keeper of these things. These memories are his obligation, the cornerstone he's built his life around, the ship he would sink with. Like gravity will keep him here.
He's grown roots here, anchored himself to this place where every leaf and stone holds life that was built. But some things need to be transplanted to grow, need to stretch toward different skies. I learned that from him, though I don’t think either of us were prepared for the moment I was the one stretching away from him.
“ That house has some of the greatest moments of my life . ”
It had been just the two of us for so long, that now, I think about when that all began to change. It’s almost as if he has the same thought I do. He spins the wedding band on his finger, and I look down at the one on mine, stacked with another that holds the weight of a love story much greater than just mine.
“Do you ever think about the wedding?”
“Some of the greatest moments of my life…” he repeats softly.