Chapter 5 - What Wesley Left Behind
The handwriting was a child's — big, careful, uneven letters, the kind you make when you're concentrating so hard your tongue presses against your teeth.
Dear Claire,
My mom says I have to write this down because I might not get to see you again. I don't want to write it. Nate is making me because he said a promise isn't real unless it's on paper.
I'm sorry we left without saying goodbye. I wanted to knock on your door but Dad said there wasn't time and Mom was crying in the kitchen. I stood at the window and watched you come outside and look at our house. I wanted to wave but I didn't, because I didn't want you to see me crying too.
I promised you I would come back and marry you. I meant it when I said it. I still mean it now. But the doctors say my heart isn't working right and Mom cries when she thinks I'm asleep, so I think maybe I won't be able to keep the promise myself.
So I'm giving the promise to Nate. He's five and he's annoying but he's the best brother anybody could have. He said he'll do it. He said he'll find you when he's grown up and tell you everything and make sure you're okay.
Please don't be sad. You're the bravest person I know. You never cried in front of anybody the whole time I knew you, and I thought that was the most impressive thing I ever saw.
I buried my best marble in the tin under the tree so you'd have something of mine. The blue one with the silver swirl in the middle. You can keep it forever.
Your friend always,
Wesley
P.S. Nate is a good person even though he's annoying. You can trust him.
I read it three times through. Then I sat on that altar step in my grandmother's veil and I cried the way I used to cry up in the oak tree — with my whole body, but quietly, so nobody would ever hear it.
I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough for the candles to burn down another inch. Long enough for the light through the high windows to shift and slant.
The door opened softly. Not Nathan.
Priya.
She came and sat beside me on the step without saying a word. She didn't read anything over my shoulder. She didn't ask what it said. She just sat close enough that our arms touched, and she stayed exactly like that.
After a while she said, "Do you want me to get your mom?"
"Not yet."
"Okay."
Another silence.
"His name is Nathan," I said.
"I heard."
"He kept his brother's promise for twenty years."
Priya didn't answer right away. Then: "Is that the worst thing he's ever done, or the most extraordinary?"
I looked down at the letter still in my hands. The careful, uneven handwriting. The blue marble, mentioned like it was the most precious thing in the world.
"I don't know yet," I said.
"That's fair."
"I'm furious at him."
"Also fair."
"And I —" I stopped.
Priya waited.
"I need to find out who Nathan Cole actually is," I said. "Not Wesley's brother. Not the man who kept a promise for twenty years. Just — who he is. On his own, without any of that attached."
Priya was quiet for a second. "That sounds like someone who isn't ready to walk away."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
I folded the letter carefully along its original creases. I looked over at the crumpled program still sitting on the rail. Claire and Wesley. A name that had never once actually belonged to him.
"I need to talk to his mother," I said.
Priya stood and held out her hand. I took it, and got to my feet, my dress rustling against the stone floor.
At the church door I stopped. Through the small window beside it I could see the parking lot. Most of the guests had already left. A few small clusters of people still stood around talking quietly. Nathan was sitting alone on the low stone wall at the far edge, his tuxedo jacket off and folded beside him, his face turned away from everything.
His mother was on a bench near the gate, watching the church door like she'd been waiting for it to open.
May you like
When she saw me in the window, she stood up immediately.
I pushed the door open and walked out into the afternoon light.
