Beneath the Night Tree (18 page)

“He’s not feeling well,” Grandma declared.

I gave her a sharp look, but when I considered Simon’s recent emotional turmoil, I realized her words were hardly a lie.

“Well, I brought him a book, but maybe it’ll have to wait.”

“Just leave it here,” I told Michael. “He might enjoy reading it while we’re gone.”

Michael shrugged and lifted the last item from his bag, a colorful book with a picture of four children and a train car on the front. I sighed inwardly. Simon had read
The Boxcar Children
years ago. It was a nice effort on Michael’s part, but it reminded me that he didn’t really bother to keep up with the boys. Simon had moved on long ago to the classic Hardy Boys series, the Chronicles of Narnia, and autobiographies of his favorite historical figures. Since he often had his nose buried in a book, it didn’t take much more than a glance to stay current with his reading preferences. Maybe I could carefully point out some things to Michael later.

“You two better get going,” Grandma said as she settled back into her chair. “After all, your time is limited.”

“Too true,” Michael laughed at the same instant I was about to say,
We can stick around for a while.
I swallowed my words, and he took me by the elbow. “Have a lovely evening, Mrs. DeSmit.” He smiled, ever the gentleman.

“Nellie,” she reminded him with a smirk.

“We won’t be late,” I called over my shoulder as Michael ushered me to the door. “We’re going to the children’s museum at the Pavilion tomorrow, remember? The boys are going to love it.”

“The IMAX is playing a movie called
Wild Ocean
,” Daniel piped up. Besides his halfhearted “Thanks,” it was the first thing I’d heard him say since Michael came inside bearing gifts.

“We’re excited to see it, aren’t we?” I pulled out of Michael’s grip and crossed the space between us to lean over and give my son a good-bye kiss on the cheek. Daniel chose that precise moment to hop off his chair and head into the living room. I was stung. “Be good for Grandma,” I called after him, battling a desire to dash across the kitchen floor and scoop him up into my arms.

“He’ll be fine,” Grandma assured me. “We’ll have a wonderful night.”

“Thanks,” I mouthed. Michael was already tugging me toward the door, but for some reason I didn’t feel ready to leave. “The pizza coupons are in the—”

“Organizer by the phone. I know.”

“Don’t order too late or it’ll take an hour for delivery.”

“I know that, too.” Grandma nodded. “Now get going. Have fun.”

“We will.” Michael grinned. He waved good-bye and pulled me out the door; I had only a second to yank my coat off the hook before the screen slammed. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered against my temple.

I took his hand and let him lead me away.

* * *

Although we didn’t have to do anything special to enjoy being together, Michael surprised me with reservations at an upscale restaurant in a town that was nearly an hour away. It was one of those limited-seating places with a single dining room and a specialty cook who personally prepared every plate.

I felt a bit underdressed, but Michael didn’t seem to mind, and after he talked me into a glass of the house red, the evening began to loosen around the edges. I had no idea that I was wound so tight until Michael began the slow process of unraveling me.

“Eight weeks is too long,” he commented, reaching over his decimated plate of something French and unpronounceable to smooth my cheek with his thumb.

“You have no idea,” I moaned. “Are you sure you want to be a doctor? Didn’t we have a good thing going at Value Foods?”

“What? You want me to come back and work under you? I don’t think so, boss girl.”

“Boss girl?”

“Yeah, that’s what I call you behind your back.”

I laughed. “I can think of nicer nicknames. More appropriate ones.”

“Me too.”

“You do know I’m kidding, right? I want you to be a doctor.”

“You’d better. Because it’s too late now. I’m not quitting.”

“But eight weeks without seeing each other is too long,” I said, giving his earlier comment a more serious undertone. “And you told me that you had an idea. A plan?”

He shrugged and sat back in his seat with a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Something like that. But I think we should order dessert first. I’ve heard the crepes are great, but apparently the chocolate mousse is the cook’s specialty.”

“The mousse au chocolat? With candied orange peel and madeleines?” I questioned, reading from the small dessert menu adorned with patterns of fleurs-de-lis and exotic-sounding delights.

“That’s the one.”

“Sounds perfect.”

I watched as Michael signaled the waiter and pointed to our choice of dessert on the menu. A wordless understanding passed between them, and then the gentleman cleared our plates and disappeared like a mist. Michael turned his attention back to me. “Do you even know what madeleines are?” he teased.

“Of course I do!” I exclaimed, indignant. “What do you take me for, a hick?”

“More like a small town girl.”

“Hey, you’re a small town boy, remember.”

Michael just smiled. Though he loved to poke fun at the fact that most of my life had been lived between the boundary of my grandmother’s farm and teeny-tiny Mason, Iowa, there was a certain edge to his taunting that made me bristle. He would say it was all in fun, but I knew that he considered himself more sophisticated than me. More experienced. A year and some odd months in the so-called bustling metropolis of Iowa City had contributed much to his worldly wisdom. Or so he thought.

Normally, I would have fought back or at least let him know in no uncertain terms that his mild attempt at superiority didn’t amuse me. But I didn’t feel like participating in that sort of go-round tonight. I didn’t have the energy. Instead, I slanted across the table and kissed the smile off his face. Gave him something else to think about.

“Mmmm . . . ,” he murmured. “Nobody does that like a small town girl.”

I sat back, aghast at his subtle insinuation. “Are you telling me that you’ve compared?”

Michael’s eyes slid past mine and regarded something, or someone, over my shoulder. My fingertips turned to ice at the look that crossed his face. I had been teasing, but he didn’t look like he was joking around anymore. Was he trying to tell me something? to admit to a fling with some stylish tart who had a more desirable, urban flair?

I tried to pull my hand away when he reached for it, but Michael caught my fingers and wove them through his own as if our hands belonged like that. Tangled. Together. He squeezed, leaned closer to me over the dim flame of the single candle that lit our table.

He was so beautiful. So familiar and foreign, so safe and wild all at once. I trusted him and feared him in the same breath; he held the key to make my dreams come true and yet had the power to destroy me. It was like being suspended above the world where I could soar. Or fall. Whether it was foolishness or true love, I didn’t know. But I let myself go. I held on to him, too.

“No,” Michael said, a certain gravity in his low voice. “I haven’t compared. And I have no desire to measure you against anyone else. You’d win, hands down, every time.”

“Who, me?” I demurred, trying to deflect the solemnity of the moment. Michael wasn’t the sort to wax poetic on his feelings. He told me that he loved me, but it seemed almost factual. As if he was stating the truth instead of giving expression to something that knotted him up inside. I wasn’t used to such flowery professions.

But Michael wasn’t done. “I don’t tell you enough,” he continued, almost whispering. “I don’t take the time to tell you that you’re amazing. You’re absolutely . . . perfect. Gorgeous and funny and strong. You take my breath away every time I see you.”

The lights were so low in the restaurant that I was sure he couldn’t see the fierce blush that rose in my cheeks. “Michael, don’t be silly. It’s just me. You’ve known me for five years. Surely I don’t leave you breathless anymore.”

“You do.” He grinned. And then he sat back to make room for our dessert.

The uniformed waiter was carrying a shallow bowl with two polished silver spoons. He placed it carefully at the very center of our table, where it glimmered in the candlelight like a piece of art. Coils of sugared orange peel decorated the soft rise of a dark, dense hill of chocolate. There were two crisp madeleines pressed into the shape of leaves and an impossibly delicate filigree of dark chocolate in the very center of it all. I was grateful for the distraction and ready to grab a spoon and dig in when I realized that I hadn’t quite accounted for everything. On the highest tip of the chocolate latticework dangled something that glowed, that sparkled and danced with a hot, white light.

I would have gasped if I could breathe, but as it was, the only thing I could do was whirl to face Michael. He had slid off his seat and was kneeling beside me.

“You said I’ve known you for five years,” he whispered. “But I want to know you for fifty more. And Lord willing, another fifty after that. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Julia. Will you marry me?”

I was speechless. Completely beyond any sort of reasonable reaction because this was the last thing I expected when Michael told me that he had a plan. I couldn’t even open my mouth.

But Michael took my silence as a yes. He reached for the engagement ring, the graceful white gold band that cradled a diamond like the fragment of a promise. Singling out the ring finger of my left hand, he slipped it past my knuckle to the place where it would fit for all my days to come.

Forever.

Decisions

I was engaged.

Beloved. A wanted woman. A wife-to-be.

Ever since I was a little girl, I had longed to hear those four incomparable words—
Will you marry me?
I believed they would validate my existence, affirm my worth, make me feel cherished and special and deserving of love. Marriage was a thing of beauty, a promise of “till death do us part” underpinned with declarations of commitment, devotion, and happily ever after.

But after only five minutes of wearing the ring, I knew that engagement was a different thing altogether.

As Michael drove me home, we talked about the particulars. Or at least, we tried to.

“I was thinking a June wedding,” he told me as he turned out of the restaurant parking lot. “Early in the month.”

“June?” He might as well have said next week, June felt so close.

“Yeah. It’ll be perfect timing. I’ll finish up classes in the middle of May, and then we can get married, move, and have a week or so to settle in before I start my summer program.”

“You’re doing a summer program?”

“Well, I’m applying. I just heard about it a few days ago. It’s eight weeks long, but it’ll give me a big head start if I’m accepted. I’ll be shadowing a physician, working in an emergency room, doing a clinical care-based case study . . .”

I managed to utter, “Sounds exciting,” but the only thing I could think about was how Daniel, Simon, and I would spend those long hours in a new city while Michael slaved away at the university hospital.

“Don’t worry,” he said as if reading my mind. “There will be lots for you to do. Iowa City is a great place to live. We have tons of parks and trails, a couple of nice lakes nearby, and a really cool summer rec league. I’ve already checked into it.”

“Daniel’s in kindergarten,” I said softly.

“He’ll be eligible this summer. He could play soccer, tennis, or T-ball . . . or you can sign him up for swimming lessons. He’ll love it!”

“And Simon?”

Michael glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. It was too dark for me to read his expression, but I bristled a little when he asked, “Is Simon coming with us?”

The realization that I didn’t know the answer to that question made me deflate like a slashed tire. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “What else would he do?”

“Stay with Nellie? What about Janice? Have you heard from Janice lately?”

Of course I hadn’t heard from Janice. What was he thinking? But I bit back my prickly retort and said, “I don’t know what Simon wants. I guess we’ve got some things to work out.”

Michael laughed. “That’s marriage! Compromise, fighting over the blankets, and sacrificing for the one you love.”

But I couldn’t help feeling like I was the only one who had to sacrifice anything.

We drove in silence for a few minutes, Michael’s hand over mine on the gearshift of his car. When he had to switch gears, he pressed my hand against the smooth ball of the shaft and slid the car from first to second or third to fourth. It was how I had learned to drive a standard. I had ground the gears and popped the clutch on more occasions than I could count, but Michael’s patience with me knew no bounds. And while I had mastered the art of the manual transmission years ago, he still guided my hands through the motions so that I never forgot.

It was one of our small, unspoken connections—a way to remind ourselves that the time and distance between us didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things—and I was startled when Michael tapped the brakes for an upcoming stop sign and nudged my hand off the gearshift. He downshifted quickly, and I folded my hands in my lap as if nothing had happened. But it was hard to pretend. Michael had never before removed my hand.