The Return

“You’re a sweet man, Tru.” She smiled sadly. “You always were.”

She angled her face slightly to give him a gentle kiss, the brush of his whiskers triggering a sense of déjà vu. “I know you said that two glasses of wine is your limit, but I think I’d like another glass. Would you care to join me? There’s another bottle in the refrigerator.”

“I’ll get it,” he said.

While he was in the kitchen, Hope rubbed her face wearily, hardly able to believe that her secret was finally out. She’d hated telling Tru, but having spoken the words once, she knew she would be able to say them again. To Jacob and Rachel and her sisters. Her friends. Even Josh. But none of them would react like Tru, who had somehow eased her fears, if only for a moment.

Tru returned from the kitchen with a pair of glasses and handed one to her. As soon as he took his seat, he lifted his arm and she snuggled within his embrace. For a while they sat in silence, staring into the fire. Hope’s mind reeled with all the events of the day: Tru’s return, the book of sketches, telling him her secret. It was almost too much to process.

“I should have gotten on the plane,” Tru said into the silence. “I should have tried harder to find you.”

“I feel like I should have tried harder, too,” she said. “But knowing that you thought about me all these years means everything to me.”

“Me too. Just like today…it’s been all I ever dreamed of.”

“But I’m dying.”

“I think you’re living,” he said with surprising firmness. “And day by day, that’s all any of us can ever do. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be alive a year from now, or a month from now. Or even tomorrow.”

She let her head drop back against his arm. “That’s what people say, and I know there’s truth to it. But it’s different when you know for certain that you only have so much time left. If my dad is any guide, I have five, maybe five and a half years. And the last year isn’t so good.”

“In four and a half years, I’ll be seventy.”

“So what?”

“I don’t know. Anything can happen, and that’s the point. What I do know is that I’ve spent the last twenty-four years dreaming of you. Wanting to hold your hand and talk and listen and cook dinners and lie beside you at night. I haven’t had the life that you did. I’ve been alone, and when I learned about your letter, I realized that I was alone because I was waiting for you. I love you, Hope.”

“I love you, too.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time. It’s finally time for us. For you and me. No matter what the future has in store for either of us.”

“What are you saying?”

He kissed her neck softly, and she felt the blood rush to her stomach, like it had so long ago. Tucking some strands of hair behind her ear, he murmured, “Marry me. Or don’t, and just be with me. I’ll move to North Carolina and we can live wherever you want. We can travel, but we don’t have to. We can cook together, or eat out every meal. It doesn’t matter to me. I just want to hold you, and love you with every breath that you or I ever take. I don’t care how long it lasts, and I don’t care how sick you get. I just want you. Will you do that for me?”

Hope stared at him, stunned, before finally breaking into a smile.

“Do you mean that?”

“I’ll do anything you want,” he said. “As long as it’s with you.”

Without a word, she reached for his hand. Rising from the couch, she led him to the bedroom, and that night they rediscovered each other, their bodies moving to the memory of another time, familiar and yet tenderly, impossibly new. When they were finished, she lay next to Tru, staring at him with the same deep contentment she saw in his eyes. It was a look she’d missed all her life.

“I’d like that,” she finally whispered.

“Like what?” he asked.

She moved closer, kissing him on the nose, then on the lips. “I’d like,” she whispered, “to marry you.”

Epilogue

I struggled with the ending of Tru and Hope’s story. I didn’t want to catalogue Hope’s drawn-out battle with ALS, or the countless ways in which Tru tried to ease her decline. I did, however, write an additional chapter about the week that Hope and Tru spent at Carolina Beach, as well as Hope’s conversation with her children, their wedding the following February, and the safari that they enjoyed on their honeymoon. I concluded the chapter with a description of their annual treks to Kindred Spirit, where they left the manila envelope in the mailbox so that others might share in their story. In the end, though, I discarded the pages I’d written—in my talks with them, it was clear that the story they wanted to share was a simple one: They fell in love, were separated for years, but found a way to reunite, partly because of the magic associated with Kindred Spirit. I didn’t want to distract from the almost fable-like quality of their tale.

Still, their story didn’t quite feel complete to me. The writer in me couldn’t help feeling that there was a gap concerning Tru’s life in the years prior to his reunion with Hope. For that reason, in the months immediately prior to publication, I called Tru to secure his approval for another trip to Zimbabwe. I wanted to meet Romy, a man who had played a minor, almost inconsequential role in the love story of Tru and Hope.

Romy had retired to a small village in Chegutu District in northern Zimbabwe, and the journey was a story in and of itself. Guns were plentiful in that part of the country, and I was worried about being kidnapped, but the driver I hired happened to be well connected to the tribes who controlled the area and ensured my safe passage. I note this only because it was a reminder of the lawlessness now present in a country that I nonetheless regard as one of the most remarkable places on earth.

Romy was thin and gray-haired, his skin darker than most of the other villagers’. He was missing a front tooth, but like Tru, he still moved with surprising agility. We spoke while sitting on a bench that had been assembled from cinder blocks and what had once been the bed of a pickup truck. After I introduced myself, I told him about the book that I’d written and explained that I was hoping for more background on his friend Tru Walls.

A slow smile spread across his face. “So he found her, yeah?”

“I think they found each other.”

Romy bent forward and picked up a stick from the ground.

“How many times you been to Zimbabwe?”

“This is my second trip here.”

“You know what happens to the trees after the elephants knock them over? Why you don’t see trees lying on the ground everywhere?”

I shook my head, intrigued.

“Termites,” he said. “They eat everything, until there’s nothing left. Good for the bush, but bad for anything made of wood. That’s why this bench has cinder blocks and metal. Because termites just eat and eat, and they never stop.”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”

Romy rested his elbows on his bony knees and leaned toward me, still holding the stick. “Tru was like that after he came back from America…like he was being eaten up from the inside. He’d always liked to be by himself, but now it was more…he was always alone. He would stay in his room, drawing pictures, but he didn’t show me his pictures anymore. For a long time, I didn’t know what was wrong, just that every September, he would start acting sad again.”