You’re acting like he’s a little boy and had his first full day of school, she mocked herself. He’s a grown man and will have to deal with some ups and downs in this process. You can’t do it for him.
She knew she had to remember that. But she loved him, and if Daniel was happy, she was happy. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to be?
He walked up to the porch, and she flung her arms around his neck, greeting him with a long, sweet kiss. She was determined not to blurt out, “So, how did it go?”
“I missed you today,” she said instead.
“I missed you, too.” He answered her embrace with another hug, then he pulled back and grinned down at her. “Anything to eat around here?”
“Oh, right, enough of this goopy romantic stuff. You are a guy, after all,” Liza said, laughing at him. “Don’t worry, I think we can find a few crumbs for your dinner.” She took his hand and led him through the house to the kitchen, where she had saved him some dinner.
Daniel sat at the table and poured himself a tall glass of iced tea as Liza began to set covered dishes on the table. “We have quite a selection,” she told him. “Leftovers from the weekend. The lobster salad is amazing.”
“It all looks great,” Daniel said. “I was so busy today, I skipped lunch.” He dug in quickly and was soon talking around a mouthful of food.
Liza sat across from him. The kitchen was dim and cozy, with only the low lights over the sink and under the cabinets turned on.
“You must be starving. How did you make it through class this afternoon? Snack machine?”
Daniel took a forkful of lobster salad, trying not to laugh. “They do have some healthy choices in those vending machines these days. But mostly, I drank coffee. It’s the only way to get through those classes. I’d forgotten just how dense medical texts can be.”
“I can imagine. Actually, I can’t imagine,” she said more truthfully. “I bet I wouldn’t understand a word of it.”
“It is like a foreign language at times, partly because there’s so much Latin in the terminology. But I’ve been there before. I should remember this stuff.”
“I’m sure it will come back to you. The first day is always the hardest, right?”
Daniel nodded, helping himself to more food. “That’s what they tell me. The teacher seems tough, but maybe he’s just trying to scare us. Weed out the weak links,” he added with a small smile. He looked at her seriously. “I’m going to have to spend a lot of time studying if I’m going to have any hope of passing these exams.”
Liza nodded. “I know. And it doesn’t help that you have to spend what—four or five hours every day?—driving back and forth from Boston.”
“Just five days a week,” Daniel said with a grin. “But I met up with a guy who lives out past Worcester. He’s rented a little studio apartment in the city, and we talked about chipping in on it. If I bunk with him a few nights a week, I’ll have more time to study. And it looks like I’m definitely going to need it.”
Liza hadn’t expected that solution. It made perfect sense, and it was lucky for Daniel to have figured it out so quickly. But it meant he would be away for most of the week. Maybe all of the week. You’ve been separated before, she reminded herself. Daniel had been away last summer in Maine, building a house with a friend. But that had felt . . . different. His evenings were free for long phone calls, and he came home frequently. She had a feeling the next two months were not going to be like that.
“Good idea,” she said quickly. “When will you start doing that? Next week?”
Daniel looked surprised. “I’m going to start tomorrow. I’m packing up some stuff tonight and will get more on the weekend. The sooner, the better. We already have a test at the end of this week.”
He was going to move to Boston tomorrow? Liza tried to hide her shock. She picked up a few dirty dishes and got up from the table. “Well, you were lucky to meet up with him,” she said finally. “He sounds pretty friendly.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all in the same boat, so people in the classes are pretty friendly, though most of them are much younger than me.” He practically winced as he noted that last observation.
“Maybe, but I bet you’re the cutest returning doc there . . . Not too many women in that class, I hope?” she asked with mock concern.
He smiled at her, tiny lines around his eyes crinkling in a way that never failed to make Liza’s pulse quicken. “Oh . . . I guess there are a few. More women go to medical school these days than men. Did you know that?”
Liza’s eyes widened. “No, I didn’t. If I had, I may have told you to rethink this back-to-school plan.”
Daniel laughed, looking pleased at her concern. “If there are any women in my classes, I didn’t notice them. I’ll check tomorrow and get back to you.”
“Good plan. I’d like a full report, please. Or I’ll have to stop by and check for myself.”
Daniel laughed at her. “Does that mean you’re going to miss me?”
She had found a blueberry pie Claire had left on the counter and looked around for some small dishes and a knife. “A little, I guess. But I’m so busy around here this time of year. And we do have a new handyman signed on, thank goodness.”
“Just a little?” Now it was Daniel’s turn to look bemused. “I’ve been so easily replaced. It’s positively frightening.”
Liza put her arms around his shoulders and her cheek close to his, feeling his rough stubble. He obviously hadn’t taken time to shave that morning. “Of course I’m going to miss you, silly. I’ll miss you like crazy. But I understand you need time for studying instead of spending four or five hours on the road.”
“I know you get it. And I know the apartment is a good idea. But I am going to miss you like crazy, too.” Daniel pushed his chair out and pulled her down to sit on his lap. He buried his face in the crook of her neck. “This is going to be hard, Liza. No two ways about it. Hard for me and hard on our relationship. I told you it wasn’t easy to be in a relationship with a doctor. This is just the start of it,” he warned her.
“I can’t say I’m happy about you staying in the city all that time. You know I’m not,” she admitted honestly. “But it’s for a good reason, and it’s only until the middle of August. We just have to take it one day at a time. I think we’ll be fine . . . I know we will,” she added, trying to sound more sure of that.
He nodded and sighed, then pressed his cheek to hers. “I was sitting in class today, remembering how I felt as a young med student. I wanted it so badly . . . If the professor had told me to come down in front of the lecture hall and walk on hot coals, I would have done it.” He pulled his head back and looked up at her. “I still want it, but . . . I’m just older. I’ve been through things. I know I won’t die if I’m not a doctor. Do you know what I mean?”
Liza nodded slowly. “I understand. You don’t have that fire in your belly anymore. You have some perspective. Which is generally a good thing.”
“Generally,” he agreed. “But maybe not in this case. You have to be so . . . single-minded to scale this mountain. Even a second time. I was looking around at the other students in my class, wondering about their stories. I watched them listening to the lecture and tried to guess which of them wants it the most. Which of them will make it across the line. I can almost tell,” he added.
“What about you? What would you guess if you looked at yourself the same way?” she asked, curious.
He didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t know . . . but I’m willing to find out. I’ve been there, and I know what being a doctor really is . . . and what it’s not. So it’s different for me. I can’t have the same naive, blind ambition, you know? Maybe it’s just a low-key thing that will build as I get closer and remember more and more how much I loved it.”
“You did love it, didn’t you?” she asked softly. She’d never heard him admit it
before.
He met her gaze and slowly nodded. “I did. And I think I can love it again.” He touched her cheek with his hand. “But I know one thing I’ve never stopped loving . . . You, Liza. I love you.”
He pulled her closer and kissed her deeply. Liza clung to him. She loved him so. Sometimes she felt she wanted his happiness even more than her own. Maybe that’s what really loving someone meant.
After Daniel finished his dinner, including a huge slice of pie, they sat on the porch swing awhile, just holding each other and looking out at the night sky.
Daniel covered a big yawn with his hand. “I’d better get going. I still have some homework to do,” he said with a youthful grin. “Can you believe that? A grown man is telling you he has to leave you here on this beautiful summer night because he has to do homework? Is that pathetic or what?”
Liza laughed and stood up, then held out her hand to pull him up, too. “I have to go in anyway. It’s almost past my curfew,” she joked back.
They kissed again, and Liza reluctantly let Daniel go. She watched as his truck pulled out of the drive and disappeared on the black ribbon of road.
She lingered on the porch, gazing out at the sea and starry sky. Like most worthwhile endeavors, the initial excitement was wearing off and the hard, tough work was beginning. This was going to be a hard road for Daniel, no doubt.
And hard for her, too. Hard in ways she hadn’t expected—and maybe didn’t even know about yet.
She already missed him, staring at the place where his truck had disappeared down the road. She felt an empty place inside her and knew she would need time to adjust to the fact that she wouldn’t see him tomorrow morning, or during the day . . . or even tomorrow night. He wasn’t just a text or a phone call away anymore.
When Daniel had told her about the way his ex-fiancée had grown so frustrated with him for the time he spent away from her and how much they had fought about his job, Liza had always assumed that the unknown woman was self-centered and selfish.
But now you’re getting just a little taste of that, and you don’t like it much, do you? she asked herself honestly.
But she had to keep her eye on the big picture. Once Daniel passed his exams and started practicing again, their life would go back to normal. Or some new normal that would be comfortable for both of them, and not so different as this, she decided.
They were in a committed relationship, and each had to make a few sacrifices now for a better future. Missing him during the week this summer might be the worst of it, Liza comforted herself. She would look back at this time and see how silly it had been to worry about this.
She felt a great calm spreading through her as she gazed out at the night sky and heard the sound of the waves breaking on the shore. She had faith in God and faith in the love she and Daniel shared. They had nothing to fear.
Chapter Six
LIZA wanted to call the trash-sorter and conveyor Nolan’s Recycling-Cycle. But Claire liked her name better—the Green Machine. Though it wasn’t quite as clever as Liza’s and didn’t entirely make sense—since Nolan had not painted it green—she liked the name because it made their efforts to be mindful of recycling and ecology sound efficient and even cool.
Being cool was not a state that Claire usually worried about, but she did feel strongly that the ecology movement wasn’t just for young people. Any effort to respect and protect the beautiful planet and the natural, abundant world God created was a spiritual act, Claire felt—though she was sure Nolan wouldn’t agree.
The Green Machine was just the first of his innovations.
It seemed that any mundane chore on Nolan’s to-do list was an opportunity for him to devise a more efficient strategy, one that usually included rigging up an odd-looking homemade apparatus.
Days after the unveiling of Nolan’s trash collection invention, Claire and Liza stepped outside one morning to check the progress of the tomato plants. Liza wanted Claire to try a new recipe, a tomato avocado salsa that could be served as a side dish or topping for grilled fish or poultry.
Claire wasn’t sure if enough tomatoes would be ripe in time or if Liza should pick some up at the farm stand. “They won’t go to waste if you do buy some,” Claire noted as they stepped out the back door. “There’s a thousand ways to serve a tomato in the summertime.”
Watering the garden was now one of Nolan’s jobs, and Claire had shown him how to work the tall pole sprinklers, which needed to be moved around the garden at intervals.
As the two women stepped outside, Claire heard the water spraying, and even felt a light mist carried in the air and settling on her cheeks and hair. But when she turned to the garden, she didn’t see the pole sprinklers, or any sign of them.
The first thing she saw was . . . a rainbow, arcing over the garden as droplets of water were caught in bright rays of morning light. It appeared to be raining, as if Nolan had engineered a mini rainstorm over one special square of the property. Water poured down from the hoses onto the rows of plants, while a shimmering mist rose straight above them in the sun-warmed air.
“For goodness’ sake . . . he’s created a tiny rain shower . . .”
“Complete with a rainbow. I wonder if I should pay him extra for that.” Liza laughed.
“Rainbow-making, or even rainmaking, was not on Nolan’s to-do list this morning,” Claire noted. “How did he do it, is the question. He’s rigged up some sort of new watering system. I’ve got to see this close-up. No time to get my umbrella,” she added with another laugh.
Liza followed as Claire quickly walked out to the garden. She could see that lengths of garden hose had been strung around the top of the high chicken-wire fence, which kept the deer, rabbits, and other hungry creatures from feasting on the vegetables at night.
The hose was pierced with tiny holes, and long streams of water arced out over the rows of plants—just on the plants, nowhere else. Claire wondered how he had gotten the trajectory of water to spray so accurately. But he was an engineer and a physicist.
“Just what the garden needs; a nice soaking of rain every day. At just the right time in the morning, too,” Claire observed.
Liza looked pleased and amazed by the apparatus, too. “Nolan is so overqualified for this job, it’s scary. I hope he doesn’t take all these gadgets with him when he goes. We could definitely use a few.”
“I’m sure he’ll leave us with one or two. They might turn out to be very valuable; the first models of some new inventions—like the watering rainbow-maker.”
“That’s a good name for it. You could help Nolan name his inventions, Claire. You could help him with a lot of things. You two make a good pair,” Liza said lightly. “Even Daniel noticed.”
Was it something in Liza’s smile—or just her tone—that made Claire blush and look away?
Claire smoothed down her apron, feeling flustered by the comment. “We’ve become good friends, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”
“I know that you’re friends. You’ve been very kind and patient with him. I would have never been able to manage him so patiently,” Liza admitted. “But your personalities balance each other perfectly. You’ve been very good for Nolan and . . . he’s been very good for you, too,” Liza said, surprising her. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think he likes you as more than a friend . . . and I suspect the feelings are mutual. Are they?”
“Well . . . I . . . I don’t know why you would say such a thing. I’m really not sure . . . I’ve never thought of it that way.” Claire knew she was rambling but couldn’t help it. She finally stopped and just shook her head. Liza’s words had struck a clear-sounding bell that seemed to resonate inside Claire’s heart. She knew it was true.
She did feel more for Nolan than friendship, or even sympathy for a nice man down on his luck. She looked forward to seeing him each day and spending time with him in the evening, when he
wasn’t busy working on his boat. She enjoyed their conversations and his curious, active mind. She admired and respected him, his talent and intelligence and persevering personality. Even his odd quirks.
Feelings were blossoming inside her that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Had Liza seen that happening before she had even admitted it to herself?
“How do you think Nolan has been good for me?” she asked quietly as they headed back to the house. “I’m just curious,” she added quickly.
“Well, let’s see . . . For one thing, he’s very considerate of you. I’ve seen him help you do your work and even serve you breakfast or lunch. Or bring you a cup of tea at night when you’re knitting,” Liza reminded her. “I think you enjoy his attention. And,” Liza continued before Claire could respond, “I’ve noticed that you’re looking especially lovely lately. The way you’ve been fixing your hair and wearing a little lipstick in the morning. You—”
“Enough said. I get the idea.” Claire quickly cut her off with a laugh. “My hair has been just the same for years,” she insisted. “As for the rest . . . well, wouldn’t you just chalk that up to having a new employee around the inn?”
“Nope. Sorry. Even without the lipstick, Claire. There’s been a certain . . . glow,” Liza added with a small smile. “You can’t get that from a bottle of face cream, even if you want to.”
“Oh, stop teasing me now, Liza.” Claire blushed again and began attacking a dirty frying pan with a scouring pad.
“I’m not teasing, honestly.” Liza gently touched her shoulder. “I think it’s sweet. You deserve some attention from a nice man like Nolan. You deserve some companionship, don’t you think?”
Claire didn’t know what to say. “I suppose so, but . . . it’s been so long since I’ve been involved with anyone. It’s all a bit . . . unexpected. I don’t know what to think of any of this.”
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