Even Lon was ignored, and though both of them noticed the omission, neithermentioned it. Afterward Allie tried to remember the last time she and Lon had talkedthis way.
Although he listened well and they seldom argued, he was not the type of man to talklike this. Like her father, he wasn't comfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings.
She'd tried to explain that she needed to be closer to him, but it had never seemedto make a difference.
But sitting here now, she realized what she'd been missing. The sky grew darker andthe moon rose higher as the evening wore on. And without either of them beingconscious of it, they began to regain the intimacy, the bond of familiarity, they hadonce shared.
They finished dinner, both pleased with the meal, neither talking much now. Noahlooked at his watch and saw that it was getting late. The stars were out in full, thecrickets a little quieter. He had enjoyed talking to Allie and wondered if he'd talkedtoo much, wondered what she'd thought about his life, hoping it would somehowmake a difference, if it could.
Noah got up and refilled the teapot. They both brought the dishes to the sink andcleaned up the table, and he poured two more cups of hot water, adding teabags toboth.
"How about the porch again?" he asked, handing her the cup, and she agreed, leadingthe way. He grabbed a quilt for her in case she got cold, and soon they had taken theirplaces again, the quilt over her legs, rockers moving. Noah watched her from thecorner of his eye. God, she's beautiful, he thought. And inside, he ached. Forsomething had happened during dinner. Quite simply, he had fallen in love again. Heknew that now as they sat next to one another.
Fallen in love with a new Allie, not just her memory. But then, he had never reallystopped, and this, he realized, was his destiny. "It's been quite a night," he said, hisvoice softer now.
"Yes, it has," she said, "a wonderful night." Noah turned to the stars, their twinklinglights reminding him that she would be leaving soon, and he felt almost empty inside.
This was a night he wanted never to end. How should he tell her? What could he saythat would make her stay?
He didn't know. And thus the decision was made to say nothing. And he realized thenthat he had failed.
The rockers moved in quiet rhythm. Bats again, over the river. Moths kissing theporch light. Somewhere, he knew, there were people making love.
"Talk to me," she finally said, her voice sensual. Or was his mind playing tricks? "Whatshould I say?"
"Talk like you did to me under the oak tree." And he did, reciting distant passages,toasting the night. Whitman and Thomas, because he loved the images. Tennysonand Browning, because their themes felt so familiar. She rested her head againstthe back of the rocker, closing her eyes, growing just a bit warmer by the time he'dfinished. It wasn't just the poems or his voice that did it. It was all of it, the wholegreater than the sum of the parts. She didn't try to break it down, didn't want to,because it wasn't meant to be listened to that way. Poetry, she thought, wasn'twritten to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch withoutunderstanding.
Because of him, she'd gone to a few poetry readings offered by the Englishdepartment while in college. She'd sat and listened to different people, differentpoems, but had stopped soon after, discouraged that no one inspired her or seemedas inspired as true lovers of poetry should be.
They rocked for a while, drinking tea, sitting quietly, drifting in their thoughts. Thecompulsion that had driven her here was gone now‐‐she was glad for this‐‐but sheworried about the feelings that had taken its place, the stirrings that had begun tosift and swirl in her pores like gold dust in river pans. She'd tried to deny them, hidefrom them, but now she realized that she didn't want them to stop. It had beenyears since she'd felt this way.
Lon could not evoke these feelings in her. He never had and probably never would.
Maybe that was why she had never been to bed with him. He had tried before, manytimes, using everything from flowers to guilt, and she had always used the excusethat she wanted to wait until marriage. He took it well, usually, and she sometimeswondered how hurt he would be if he ever found out about Noah.
But there was something else that made her want to wait, and it had to do with Lonhimself. He was driven in his work, and it always commanded most of his attention.
Work came first, and for him there was no time for poems and wasted evenings androcking on porches. She knew this was why he was successful, and part of herrespected him for that. But she also sensed it wasn't enough. She wanted somethingelse, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybequiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not beingsecond.
Noah, too, was sifting through his thoughts. To him, the evening would beremembered as one of the most special times he had ever had. As he rocked, he
remembered it all in detail, then remembered it again. Everything she had doneseemed somehow electric to him, charged.
Now, sitting beside her, he wondered if she'd ever dreamed the same things he hadin the years they'd been apart. Had she ever dreamed of them holding each otheragain and kissing in soft moonlight? Or did she go further and dream of their nakedbodies, which had been kept separate for far too long ....
He looked to the stars and remembered the thousands of empty nights he had spentsince they'd last seen each other. Seeing her again brought all those feelings to thesurface, and he found it impossible to press them back down. He knew then hewanted to make love to her again and to have her love in return. It was what heneeded most in the world.
But he also realized it could never be. Now that she was engaged.
Allie knew by his silence that he was thinking about her and found that she reveledin it. She didn't know what his thoughts were exactly, didn't care really, just knewthey were about her and that was enough.
She thought about their conversation at dinner and wondered about loneliness. Forsome reason she couldn't picture him reading poetry to someone else or even sharinghis dreams with another woman. He didn't seem the type. Either that, or she didn'twant to believe it.
She put down the tea, then ran her hands through her hair, closing her eyes as shedid so.
"Are you tired?" he asked, finally breaking free from his thoughts.
"A little. I should really be going in a couple of minutes."
"I know," he said, nodding, his tone neutral. She didn't get up right away. Instead shepicked up the cup and drank the last swallow of tea, feeling it warm her throat. Shetook the evening in. Moon higher now, wind in the trees, temperature dropping.
She looked at Noah next. The scar on his face was visible from the side. She wonderedif it had happened during the war, then wondered if he'd ever been wounded at all.
He hadn't mentioned it and she hadn't asked, mostly because she didn't want toimagine him being hurt.
"I should go," she finally said, handing the quilt back to him.
Noah nodded, then stood without a word. He carried the quilt, and the two of themwalked to her car while fallen leaves crunched beneath their feet. She started totake off the shirt he'd loaned her as he opened the door, but he stopped her. "Keepit," he said. "I want you to have it." She didn't ask why, because she wanted to keep
it, too. She readjusted it and crossed her arms afterward to ward off the chill. Forsome reason, as she stood there she was reminded of standing on her front porchafter a high school dance, waiting for a kiss.
"I had a great time tonight," he said. "Thank you for finding me."
"I did, too," she answered.
He summoned his courage. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
A simple question. She knew what the answer should be, especially if she wanted tokeep her life simple. "I don't think we should," was all she had to say, and it wouldend right here and now. But for a second she didn't say anything.
