The Wedding - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,93

as I stood behind her, I glanced around the room and realized that Noah had slipped away unnoticed.

He’d been strangely quiet most of the evening, and I thought he might have gone outside to stand on the back porch in the hope of being alone. I’d found him there earlier, and to be frank, I was a little worried about him. It had been a long day, and with the hour getting late, I wanted to ask him whether he wanted to head back to Creekside. When I stepped onto the porch, however, I didn’t see him.

I was just about to go back inside to check the rooms upstairs when I spotted a solitary figure standing by the bank of the river in the distance. How I was able to see him, I’ll never be sure, but perhaps I caught sight of the backs of his hands moving in the darkness. Wearing his tuxedo jacket, he was otherwise lost in the nighttime surroundings.

I debated whether or not to call out, then decided against it. For some reason, I had the feeling that he didn’t want anyone else to know he was out there. Curious, however, I hesitated only briefly before making my way down the steps. I began moving in his direction.

Above me, the stars were out in full, and the air was fresh with the earthy scent of the low country. My shoes made soft scraping sounds on the gravel, but once I reached the grass, the ground began to slope, gradually at first, then steeper. I found it difficult to keep my balance amid the thickening vegetation. Pushing branches away from my face, I couldn’t figure out why—or how—Noah had gone this way.

Standing with his back to me, he was whispering as I approached. The soft cadences of his voice were unmistakable. At first I thought he was speaking to me, but I suddenly realized that he didn’t even know I was there.

“Noah?” I asked quietly.

He turned in surprise and stared. It took a moment for him to recognize me in the dark, but gradually, his expression relaxed. Standing before him, I had the strange feeling that I’d caught him doing something wrong.

“I didn’t hear you coming. What are you doing out here?”

I smiled quizzically. “I was about to ask you the same question.”

Instead of answering, he nodded toward the house. “That was some party you threw tonight. You really outdid yourself. I don’t think Jane stopped smiling all night long.”

“Thank you.” I hesitated. “Did you have a good time?”

“I had a great time,” he said.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

“Are you feeling okay?” I finally asked.

“Could be better,” he said. “Could be worse, though, too.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m sure.”

Perhaps responding to my curious expression, he commented, “It’s such a nice night. I thought I might take a little time to enjoy it.”

“Down here?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

I suppose I should have guessed the reason he’d risked the climb down to the river’s edge, but at the time, the thought didn’t occur to me.

“I knew she hadn’t left me,” he said simply. “And I wanted to talk to her.”

“Who?”

Noah didn’t seem to hear my question. Instead, he nodded in the direction of the river. “I think she came for the wedding.”

With that, I suddenly understood what he was telling me, and I glanced at the river, seeing nothing at all. My heart sank, and overwhelmed by a feeling of sudden helplessness, I found myself wondering whether the doctors had been right after all. Maybe he was delusional—or maybe tonight had been too much for him. When I opened my mouth to convince him to come back inside, however, the words seemed to lodge in my throat.

For in the rippling water beyond him, appearing as if from nowhere, she came gliding over the moonlit creek. In the wild, she looked majestic; her feathers were glowing almost silver, and I closed my eyes, hoping to clear the image from my mind. Yet when I opened them again, the swan was circling in front of us, and all at once, I began to smile. Noah was right. Though I didn’t know why or how it had come, I had no doubt whatsoever that it was her. It had to be. I’d seen the swan a hundred times, and even from a distance, I couldn’t help but notice the tiny black spot in the middle of her chest, directly above her heart.

Epilogue

Standing on the porch, with autumn in full swing, I find the crispness of the evening air invigorating as I think back on the night of our wedding. I can still recall it in vivid detail, just as I can remember all that happened during the year of the forgotten anniversary.

It feels odd to know that it’s all behind me. The preparations had dominated my thoughts for so long and I’d visualized it so many times that I sometimes feel that I’ve lost contact with an old friend, someone with whom I’d grown very comfortable. Yet in the wake of those memories, I’ve come to realize that I now have the answer to the question that I’d been pondering when I first came out here.

Yes, I decided, a man can truly change.

The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it’s often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I’ve often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it’s possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there’s been a lifetime of disappointment between them.

I’m not sure what to think about the swan and what I saw that night, and I must admit that being romantic still doesn’t come easily. It’s a daily struggle to reinvent myself, and part of me wonders whether it always will be. But so what? I hold tight to the lessons that Noah taught me about love and keeping it alive, and even if I never become a true romantic like Noah, it doesn’t mean that I’m ever going to stop trying.