Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,78
a dimple in one cheek. There was something different about this man.
“Tell me another story, Charlie.”
“Anything you want,” he said, and he began to talk of sailing around the world to distant places like the Marquesas, Tuamotu Islands, Tonga, and Fiji.
Every word came like comfort, so she eased back into the pillows and basked in the warmth of Charlie’s caramel eyes. Slowly, her edges began to soften, and she wondered how she already knew that she could listen to this man for a very long time.
It was past midnight.
The doctors had finished checking Tess and, incredibly, had determined that her physical and cognitive functions were intact, and her memory would likely return to normal.
A writer and photographer from the Reporter had rushed over to ask questions and snap pictures for a special edition of the paper. Tink and the crew from the sail loft had paraded through with encouragement and news from the company. Her joy exceeding her energy, Grace had finally gone to sleep on a pullout cot in the next room.
Now all was quiet.
Wide awake in the waiting room, Charlie stared at the fish tank with its neon tetras darting back and forth. Grateful as he was that she was back, his mind stuck on one question: Would she remember him?
Their first kiss . . .
Their night in each other’s arms . . .
As friends and family surrounded her that evening, Charlie had watched as she gradually recalled Querencia’s struggle against the storm. She had even started planning her next solo race around the world, calculating that it would take one year to outfit a new boat and to train properly. Whenever her gaze turned to Charlie in the back of the room—and it was often—she had smiled but seemed unsure who he was or why he was there.
Who could blame her?
The doors opened across the waiting room, and a nurse beckoned in a hushed voice, “She’s asking for you, Charlie.”
“What?”
“She wants to see you.”
He covered the distance to her bedside in what seemed like five steps. Amazingly, she was sitting up, her face softly illuminated by the night-light. “I’m glad you’re still here,” she said.
“I’m glad you are too,” Charlie answered.
She was studying him intensely. Finally she said, “So you’re the one who found me.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“After everyone had given up?”
“Pretty much.”
“I need to know something,” she said. “It’s important.”
“Yes, I confess, I’m a Red Sox fan,” he said with a smile.
She threw her head back and laughed. “I can forgive that,” she said, “but there’s one thing I can’t remember.”
“What’s that?”
“How we met.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” she said. “Tell me our story.”
“Well,” he recalled, “it starts in Waterside Cemetery where a brave and beautiful sailmaker complained to the caretaker about a disturbance of the peace.” Charlie smiled. “The charming fellow tried to explain the importance of his geese-management program, but the unimpressed sailor only laughed.”
And so Charlie tenderly described their first encounters from a candlelit dinner with a Ted Williams cake to a midnight walk with weeping willows and a marble mausoleum. As her eyes registered every detail, he was filled with hope. He had let go of the past and reclaimed his life. And now, the greatest blessing of all, he and Tess were starting over.
AFTERWORD
I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, AND NOW YOU KNOW WHY.
I stand on a sloping hill in Waterside Cemetery, a place Charlie loved and shaped with his own hands. The seagulls fly in force. The iron gates stand open. A girl hangs upside down from an oak. A fuzzy old man puts a fistful of hollyhocks on his wife’s grave.
That’s the world you know. It’s the one you can see when you pass by the cemetery in your town. It’s the one that’s real and reassuring. But there’s another world here too. I’m talking about what you and Charlie can’t see yet, the level beyond the in between. It’s a place called heaven, paradise, or nirvana—they’re all the same, really—and it’s where I came when I crossed over. It’s where Mrs. Ruth Phipps can once again hold hands with her beloved Walter. It’s where Barnaby Sweetland, the old caretaker of Waterside, can sing with the angels. And of course, it’s where Sam and Oscar can explore the universe.
From this vantage point, I see everything now. My voice and thoughts are wind, and I send them toward Charlie. He’s with Tess in North Shore Medical, where she gets stronger every day.
Yes, that’s one of our abilities on