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My eyes are tired and sad thinking about the strength women must possess to endure the things they do. Men are physically stronger in most cases, but women are sturdier in other ways.
“Can we do something mindless today?” she asks as she’s pulling a shirt over her head. “No deep conversation, no drama,” she’s smiling when her heads pops out, “no crying?”
“It’s our last day here. We’ll do whatever you want.”
“I want to go to The Metropolitan. I haven’t been there in years. Ooh, and now they have a sculpture garden on the roof with a bar that’s rumored to serve excellent mimosas.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Thanks again,” she tells me as we’re getting ready to walk out the door. When I go to say something back, she stops me. “Seriously, I feel better than I have in years. I may not look it,” she smiles as she points to her face, to the evidence of a night spent crying, “but I do feel better.”
And with the sun shining, we walk along Fifth Avenue heading uptown to museum row. She has three mimosas to my two—I’m thinking she needs them—and after we finish exploring, we grab sandwiches from a deli and eat them sitting on the grass in Central Park. Grace looks wiped out when she lays back on the grass, and I follow her lead. And in that moment none of it matters: our sad pasts, the uncertainties that lie ahead. Looking up at the passing clouds with her hand in mine, I can’t help but feel that this is the start of something good and real.
* * *
“Just another two hours in the car now,” she jokes as we put our bags into the trunk after we finally locate my car in the airport’s long-term parking lot. “Sure you’re up for it?”
“It’s no big deal,” I tell her, even though my leg is sore from all the walking we’ve been doing these past few days. “You could stay at my place tonight, though. Then I’d drive you home tomorrow morning.”
I’m glad to see she’s on board with the idea. “Sure…I’d like to see you in your natural habitat.”
“Good. I could go for a beer, some takeout, and watching tonight’s game on the couch. Are you down for a mellow night?”
“Put a warm bath into that line-up and I’m definitely down.”
I swat her butt as I hold the door open. “As long as I can get in there with you.” And now I can’t wait to get her back to my place.
This trip, as hard as it was in some ways, I’d still call it a win. To have Grace share something with me that she’s kept hidden for years? In some strange way that fills me with pride. And the fact that she’s come to know so much about what I’ve gone through with my injury puts me at ease. She’s seen my residual limb in all its deformed glory, and watched as I hopped around the doctor’s office when the tech took my prosthetic. I’m not self-conscious around her at all.
She looks around when we get to my place, making her way from the entryway to the living room and then the kitchen. “This puts my place to shame, Hanson.”
“It’s fairly new construction...All shiny and new. Yours has character.”
She rolls her eyes. “Nice try.”
“I can help you get some work done. I’m off until the end of July.”
“How would that work if you did decide to go ahead with the surgery?” She takes a seat at the kitchen island and looks down at my leg. “The rehabilitation time—”
“I’d have to take a full semester off. There’s no other way. So that’s officially on the back burner.”
“And your leg feels all right now?” I can tell by her face that she knows it doesn’t. “We put a lot of miles in this week.”
“I’m a runner, so I’m used to it, but every time you get a new leg it’s an adjustment.”
She winks at me and smiles as she gets up. “A good excuse for me to run that bath.”
“I’m ordering our food now,” I call out over the sound of running water. “There’s a great Thai place that delivers but they take forever.”
I pour us two glasses of wine and walk into the bathroom to see her lounging back with her eyes closed. Her hair is piled up on top of her head, showcasing her slender neck and her shoulders.
I realize in that moment that I was never attracted to Ava the way I am to Grace. No woman has ever made me feel so much.
“Solid move, bucking up for the oversized tub.”
“It came with the house. I don’t use it enough, but maybe now that you’re in the picture…”
“I’d just like to go on record as saying that shower and tub sex are highly overrated.”
