it’s a good question,” she says generously. She rocks her head from side to side like she’s thinking about it. “I guess I should be upset about it, huh?”
“Most women would be.”
“I guess that explains it, then.”
I’m confused. “Explains what?”
“Why my marriage didn’t matter as much as it should have.” She shrugs. “I should be absolutely wounded. I should feel like I took a dagger to the heart.” She shrugs again. “But I don’t. I don’t feel anything. So I guess that explains why he cheated.”
I stare at her. “He cheated because he’s a cheater.”
“He cheated because he wanted to be loved, and he found somebody who wanted to do it.” She bites her lips together and gnaws on them. “I don’t know that I ever loved him. I think I liked him a lot, and we had a few things in common, and we liked to do things together. But I think we probably should have stayed friends and never become lovers. I could have stayed friends with him forever and we would have been fine. But we didn’t make a fine husband and wife.” She throws up her hands. “And the thing is I really don’t care that he cheated. And that is…well, that’s really sad.”
“Huh,” I say, not knowing how to respond.
“What was it like when you met your wife?” she suddenly asks. “Fireworks?” She grins at me, and I find myself grinning too.
“No, we were friends first. Then one day I kissed her, and she kissed me back, and I felt like I could go on kissing her forever, so that’s what I planned to do.”
“And then she died.” She says it so quietly that I barely hear her.
“And then she died,” I repeat.
“You want to tell me about that yet?”
I shake my head.
“Okay,” she says. She looks up. “The rain is done.”
I nod, not quite ready to leave her.
“Why’d you come out here?” she asks.
“It was raining, and I knew you’d be here,” I admit. I feel shy all of a sudden and I don’t know why.
“That’s not a very good reason,” she says quietly.
“It’s all I’ve got,” I reply. “I find myself thinking about you an awful lot.”
“Oh, is that right?” She smiles at me, her teeth bright in the moonlight as the sky clears. The quiet of the night is like balm to my wounded soul, and so is she.
“I figured I might as well tell you.”
She points to her chest. “You wanted to tell me that you think about me?” She laughs out loud. “Thank you. Good to know.”
“You ever think about me?” I ask, and I hold my breath.
“Only all the time,” she says softly, and my heart starts to race in my chest.
“Is it too soon for you to fall in like?”
“What?”
“Is it too soon, after falling out of your marriage, to fall in like with somebody?”
“Fall in like?” she repeats. She motions from me to her and back. “This is falling in like?”
I nod. “I’m definitely falling in like with you.” I’m going to lay my shit out on the table, and I’m going to let her decide if she wants to deal with it or not. I wasted a lot of years, and I’m determined not to waste any more.
“I don’t…think…it’s too soon,” she says slowly. “To fall in like.” She raises her finger and points it at me, but she’s grinning at me all the while. “But don’t ask me to fall in love with you, because it’s definitely too soon for that.”
I grin at her. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“You had better go put your duck back to bed.”
I look down and find that he’s kicked up a little nest of grass to lie in, and he’s settled himself into it. “I’ll get right on that.”
She stares at me there in the moonlight, and I nearly lose all my wits.
“How long are you staying here, Abigail?” I ask. I don’t want to wake up one day and find that she has left me.
“It was only supposed to be for a week or two,” she admits, a sheepish wince twisting her face.
“Oh.”
“But I could rethink my plans, if I had the right reason.”
“I can try to come up with a good reason,” I say. I walk beside her all the way back to her cabin, where she leaves me standing at the foot of the steps. She stops under the porch light, and she’s never been more beautiful to me, even all wet with her curls flying all over