Nicholas Sparks - The Best of Me

“It’s incredible,” she breathed.

“Did you know about this?” His voice mirrored her own sense of wonder.

“No,” she answered. “This was something that was meant for just the two of them.”

As she said it, she had a clear picture of Clara sitting on the porch while Tuck leaned against a column, reveling in the heady beauty of the wildflower garden. Dawson finally removed his foot from the brake and the car rolled forward toward the house, the colors blurring like droplets of living paint stretching for the sun.

After parking near the house, they climbed out and continued to take in the scene. A small, winding pathway was visible through the flowers. Mesmerized, they waded into the sea of color beneath a patchy sky. The sun reemerged from behind a cloud, and Amanda could feel its warmth dispersing the perfumed scent that surrounded her. All her senses felt amplified, like the day had been created specifically for her.

Walking beside her, she felt Dawson reach for her hand. She let him take it, thinking how natural it felt, and she imagined she could trace the years of labor etched into his calluses. Tiny wounds had scarred his palms but his touch was improbably gentle, and she knew then, with sudden certainty, that Dawson would have created a garden like this for her as well if he’d known she wanted it.

Forever. He’d carved the word into Tuck’s workbench. A teenage promise, nothing more, yet somehow he’d been able to keep it alive. She could feel the strength of that promise now, filling the distance between them as they drifted through the flowers. From somewhere far away, she heard the distant rumble of thunder and she had the strange sense that it was calling to her, urging her to listen.

Her shoulder brushed against his, making her pulse quicken. “I wonder if these flowers grow back, or if he had to sow seed every year,” he mused.

The sound of his voice brought her out of her reverie. “Both,” she answered, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. “I recognize some of them.”

“So he came up earlier this year? To plant more seeds?”

“He must have. I see some Queen Anne’s lace. My mom has it at the house and it dies out when winter settles in.”

They spent the next few minutes wandering along the path while she pointed out the annuals she knew: black-eyed Susans, blazing stars, morning glories, and prairie asters, intermingled with perennials like forget-me-nots, Mexican hats, and Oriental poppies. There seemed to be no formal organization to the garden; it was as if God and nature intended to have their way, no matter what Tuck’s plans might have been. Somehow, though, the wildness only enhanced the beauty of the garden, and as they walked through the chaotic display of color, all she could think was that she was glad Dawson was with her so they could share this together.

The breeze picked up, cooling the air and ushering in more clouds. She watched as he raised his eyes to the sky. “It’s going to storm,” he observed. “I should probably put the top up on the car.”

Amanda nodded but didn’t let go of his hand. Part of her feared that he might not take it again, that the opportunity might not arise. But he was right; the clouds were getting darker.

“I’ll meet you inside,” he said, sounding equally reluctant, and only slowly did he untwine his fingers from hers.

“Do you think the door’s unlocked?”

“I’d be willing to bet on it.” He smiled. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Could you grab my bag while you’re out there?”

He nodded, and as she watched him walk away, she recalled that before she’d loved him, she’d been infatuated with him. It had started out as a girlhood crush, the kind that made her doodle his name on her notebooks while she was supposed to be doing her homework. No one, not even Dawson, knew that it hadn’t been an accident that they’d ended up as chemistry partners. When the teacher asked the students to pair up, she’d excused herself to go to the bathroom, and by the time she got back Dawson was, as usual, the only one left. Her friends had sent her pitying glances, but she was secretly thrilled to be spending time with the quiet, enigmatic boy who somehow seemed wise beyond his years.

Now, as he closed up the car, history seemed to be repeating itself, and she felt that same excitement. There was something about him that spoke only to her, a connection she’d missed in the years they’d been apart. And she knew on some level that she had been waiting for him, just as he’d been waiting for her.

She couldn’t imagine never seeing him again; she couldn’t release Dawson to become nothing but a memory. Fate — in the form of Tuck — had intervened, and as she started walking toward the cottage she knew there’d been a reason for it. All of this had to mean something. The past was gone, after all, and the future was the only thing they had left.

As Dawson had predicted, the front door was unlocked. Entering the small house, Amanda’s first thought was that this had been Clara’s refuge.

Though it had the same scuffed pine flooring, cedar walls, and general layout as the house in Oriental, here there were brightly colored pillows on the couch and black-and-white photographs artfully arranged on the walls. The cedar planking had been sanded smooth and painted light blue, and the large windows flooded the room with natural light. There were two white built-in bookshelves, filled with books and interspersed with porcelain figurines, something Clara had obviously collected over the years. An intricate handmade quilt lay over the back of an easy chair, and there wasn’t a trace of dust on the country-style end tables. Floor lamps stood on either side of the room, and a smaller version of the anniversary photograph perched near the radio in the corner.

Behind her, she heard Dawson step into the cottage. He stood silently in the doorway, holding his jacket and her bag, seemingly at a loss for words.

She couldn’t hide her own amazement. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

Dawson slowly took in the room. “I’m wondering if I brought us to the wrong house.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, pointing to the picture. “It’s the right place. But it’s pretty obvious that this place was Clara’s, not his. And that he never changed it.”

Dawson folded his jacket over the back of a chair, setting Amanda’s bag alongside it. “I don’t remember Tuck’s house ever being this clean. I figure that Tanner must have hired someone to get the place ready for us.”

Of course he did , Amanda thought. She recalled Tanner mentioning his plans to come here, and his instructions that they wait until the day after their meeting to make the trip. The unlocked door only confirmed her suspicions.

“Have you already seen the rest of the place?” he asked.

“Not yet. I was too busy trying to figure out where Clara let Tuck sit down. It’s pretty obvious she never let him smoke in here.”

He thumbed over his shoulder, in the direction of the open door. “Which explains the chair on the porch. That’s probably where she made him sit.”

“Even after she was gone?”

“He was probably afraid that her ghost would show up and scold him if he lit up inside.”

She smiled, and they set off to tour the cottage, brushing up against each other as they navigated through the living room. Just as in the house in Oriental, the kitchen was at the rear, overlooking the river, but here the kitchen was all about Clara, too, from the white cabinets and intricate scrollwork in the moldings to the blue-and-white tile backsplash above the counters. There was a teapot on the stove and a vase of wildflowers on the counter, obviously plucked from the garden out front. A table nestled beneath the window; on it stood two bottles of wine, red and white, along with two sparkling glasses.