I must have been feeling particularly bold or in some sort of terrible mood, because “You’ll manage” is all I responded before returning to my book.
Charlie tipped his hat at me, and I watched his figure retreat across campus.
That was a Thursday, and I thought about him all weekend. I wondered if I should have accompanied him. It was a short interaction, and I was a bit mystified why I kept seeing his face float up in front of my pages. It was the dimple, his smile, and the way he said, “Ma’am.” I assumed he had left campus. I didn’t know his sister, but most visitors only stayed in town for a day or two at best.
The following Monday, I saw him again. There he was, cutting across the quad, walking on the stone steps. I was reading on the same bench. Maybe I hoped if I stayed in the exact same spot,he would come by again and I would get another chance. Well, as it happened, I was right. I straightened in my seat, pretended to keep reading, going over the same sentence again and again. I had freshly applied lipstick and pursed my lips as if in pretty concentration.
But this time, Charlie didn’t stop. He didn’t even seem to see me. He kept walking, his head looking up at the clouds, and his expression serious.
He was just about to pass by me—the moment was ending, the opportunity narrowing—when I stuck my foot out. Charlie tripped over me, stumbled. When he straightened and saw who his assailant was, he was smiling and the dimple returned.
“Did you trip me?” he asked, but from the way he said it, I could tell he wasn’t mad.
“That’s ridiculous,” I denied. “You must be lost again. Where are you headed today?”
It was the way he smiled, the look in his eyes like I was something marvelous and unexpected, a present to be unwrapped. It was the way I was waiting to be looked at my entire life.
“You’re right,” he said, hands in his pockets. “I am lost. Could you help me find the dining hall?”
We walked together that afternoon, and a few short months later, we were engaged. I later found out that he had just discovered his sister was too sick to continue at Sarah Lawrence. She passed before our wedding.
“You tripping me was exactly the distraction I needed,” he told me years later.
After that April day, I stopped dreaming of magazines and big cities. We moved to the island. We bought the cottage. We made a home. I tried to have kids but couldn’t. My students became my children instead, and you, of course, most of all. I kept writing but onlyfor myself, and later for the local newspaper. I had once dreamed of a big life, and instead, I found a beautiful one.
I loved Charlie. I adored him. I loved teaching and the rewardingpingI felt when my students understood a difficult concept. I loved watching their minds form and their opinions strengthen. I loved when my students graduated and then returned to visit. They always marveled at how tiny the desks looked. They seemed proud when they said it, and I was proud, too.
And yet, even as class after class graduated, I stayed put. My room, my lectures, remained largely the same. Habit took over and, later, comfort.
Sometimes I wondered about that other life. Sometimes I even wished that I hadn’t tripped Charlie. He could have kept walking by. We could have easily missed each other. It would be as simple as taking the later train.
You know how I adore nineteenth-century novels from authors like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. I love the narrative tidiness, the misunderstandings that get in the way of the love interests and then the inevitable reunion, all the more sweet because it’s been hard-earned. I love the comfort of the so-called marriage plot, in which everything is resolved by the end, love triumphing always. And yet, I also rebel against it.
As a feminist, I always resented the false idea that marriage was somewhat a cure, a destination. It made sense in those novels, during a time period where matrimony was socially and financially necessary for a woman. The stakes were high. Where would Charlotte Lucas inPride and Prejudicebe without marriage? Destitute? Cast out? Marriage was survival. Now it’s not. Now we have the luxury to choose our own path, to make our own names.
Still, we fall in love, and when we do, it feels like the single most important movement in the universe. It seems absurd that everyonearound you can’t see that the world has changed direction, begun rotating around a new gravitational center.
When Charlie died, I realized that my entire life was built around him. The most important element of a garden is the soil. Without healthy, nutrient-rich soil, nothing grows. Charlie was like that for me, and without him, I was bereft. I didn’t want that for you. I’m not excusing my actions, but I didn’t want you to make my mistakes. I wanted you to enjoy the freedom of youth unburdened by love. I wanted you to make your own mistakes. When Thomas proposed to you, I saw myself. You were too young. You didn’t even know who you were yet. I wanted you to explore. I wanted you to be free. The older you get, the harder it is to take risks.
So, I wrote to your father and persuaded him to tell you to end the engagement. It was cowardly of me. I didn’t have the nerve to say it to you myself. You are my only child, and I couldn’t bear being on the receiving end of your resentment.
I know now that I was wrong to interfere. I will live with that regret for the rest of my life—however long that may be. You should know I tried to remedy it. I wrote to Thomas after James left, but it was too late. He was already married.
At every stage of our lives, we ask ourselves, “Who am I going to be?” which is really just another way to ask the more pertinent question, “Am I going to make it?”
Try not to be so concerned with the latter that you forget to enjoy the ride. Don’t be stingy with your dreams either. Ask for everything out of life and see what you get. It won’t be all that you asked for, but it will be a great deal more than if you made your desires smaller to begin with.
More than anything, I hope you get a second chance. Because I know now that love is as important as anything else you may do with your life.
And maybe I can get a second chance, too. Lord knows you have done enough for me already, but maybe you can do me this one last kindness. The following pages are the manuscript I’ve been working on for over ten years since Charlie passed. It might be bad. I never had the guts to find out.
Maybe in death I can be braver than I was in life.
My dear Rose, this is for you. Do with it what you please.
Chapter Thirty-FiveLily
July 30
