She said it simply, and he didn’t bother to argue. New relationships, especially for people in their fifties with lives, kids, and jobs, were hard. Maybe not scary, but challenging. Theirs was no different.
“When I was in Ithaca,” she said, “I kept thinking about what it would be like to come back here and see you.”
He hated that he held his breath, waiting for the rest.
“And in every version,” she finished, “I realized I’m…not okay without you.”
And he exhaled. He stopped walking and turned to face her. “Neither am I,” he confessed.
The breeze caught her hair and pushed it across her face, and he tucked it behind her ear without thinking. She leaned into his hand for just a second.
Yes, they had things to work out. But at the root of this relationship was respect and love, and surely they could grow something lasting from that.
“Kate.” His voice was rougher than he intended. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. I’ve prayed about us more than I’ve prayed about anything, and that includes Lakeside.”
He added that last bit to soften the mention of prayer, but he saw the small shift in her expression anyway. Not a flinch, not quite, but a flicker of something that dimmed her eyes.
“You’ve been praying about us?”
“Of course I have. I pray about everything that matters. You know that.”
She nodded slowly, looking as though she didn’t want to wade into this but had to.
“Eli, I love that your faith gives you peace. I do. And I love that you bring that steadiness into everything, because it’s one of the things that makes you…wonderful.” She hesitated, clearly considering every word. “But when you say you’ve been praying about us, I don’t know what to do with that. Because for me, the last month was about thinking and analyzing and weighing what I want against what I’m afraid of, not asking some…thingfor answers.”
He tried not to wince onthing.
“And those are different processes,” she said.
“They don’t have to be in conflict,” he said gently.
“They don’t have to be, no. But at some point, you’re going to want me to share that with you—really share it, not just tolerate it. And I…don’t know.” She blinked, looking up at him. “I can’t pray any more than I can fly.”
The words had a punch he didn’t enjoy, so he stayed quiet.
She wasn’t wrong. That was the hardest part. Kate wasn’t hostile to his beliefs—she was honest about her inability to understand it, and her honesty was one of the things he loved most about her.
But she was right that it mattered. Not because he needed her in a pew every Sunday—he didn’t care about that. It mattered because to him, God wasn’t a hobby or a habit. His faith was the lens through which he saw everything, including her. Includingthem.
How could he build a life with someone when they couldn’t agree on what held the foundation? He was an architect. If he knew anything, it was the importance of a firm foundation. Still, he understood her hesitancy.
“I’m not asking you to convert, Kate.”
“I know you’re not, but you will eventually.”
He started to respond that he would not do that, then stopped.Wouldhe ask that of her? He should, but the time and place hadn’t felt remotely right yet.
“And I’m not going to stop being who I am,” he said instead.
“I’d never want you to.” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. “That’s the problem, Eli. I love exactly who you are. I just don’t know if I can be the right partner for who you are.”
He took her other hand, holding both, facing her on the beach with the Gulf behind her and the sun backlighting her like a halo. She looked up at him through those dark-rimmed glasses, and he saw the thing that Kate tried so hard to hide from the world.
Fear.
Of him? Of God? Of their belief divide? He didn’t know, but he sensed that whatever it was, she couldn’t solve it with intellect or effort and that terrified her.
“Hey,” he said softly. “This is a day to celebrate and reunite. We don’t have to figure this out now. We have the rest of the summer.”
