I am not okay. Just hearing him brings tears to my eyes, knowing what I’m about to do. “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
“I’ve been going out of my mind, worrying,” he says. “You took off like that, half-cocked and frantic and whatnot, and then the Garter was all over the news. I’m so sorry, Clara. I know Angela was one of your best friends.” He lets out a breath. “At least you’re safe. I thought you were—I thought you might be—”
Dead. He thought I might be dead.
“Where are you?” he asks. “I can come meet you somewhere. I have to see you.”
“No. I can’t.” Just do it, I tell myself. Get it out before you lose your nerve. “Look, Tucker, I’m calling because I have to make you understand something. There’s no future for you and me. I don’t even know what my future is, at this point. But I can’t be with you.” A lone tear makes its way down my face, and I wipe at it impatiently. “I have to let you go.”
He gives an aggravated sigh. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” he says, his voice laced with anger. “All that I said to you before, about us, about what I feel, it doesn’t matter. You’re making the choice for both of us.”
He’s right, but that’s just how it has to be. I push on. “I wanted to tell you that wherever I am, whatever happens, I’ll always think of you, and the time we spent together, as my happiest time. I’d do it all over again, if I had the choice. No regrets.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “You’re really saying good-bye this time,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s asking me or simply trying to get his head around the idea.
“I’m really saying good-bye.”
“No,” he says against my ear. “No. I won’t accept that. Clara …”
“I’m sorry, Tuck. I have to go,” I say, and then I hang up. And cry. And cry.
I sit on that swing for a long time, in the rain, thinking, trying to get a grip on myself. I try to picture Chicago, what it will be like, but all I can conjure in my head is a giant silver bean and a bunch of tall buildings. And Oprah. And the Bears.
I gaze up at the gray, shifting clouds.
Is this my destiny? I ask them. To be with Christian? To go with him? To protect Web because his mother can’t be here?
Is this my purpose?
The clouds don’t have a lot of answers.
For the first time in my life, I wish for a vision. I almost miss having them, which is ironic, I know. Every night lately as I lay me down to fragile sleep, I wonder, will it come? Is this the night when the mysterious scene will play like a movie trailer behind my eyelids and the whole process will begin again: sorting through the fragments, the details, the feelings, trying to understand what they add up to? In that moment before I close my eyes and give in to the darkness of night, to sleep, my body tenses under the sheets. My breath quickens. Waiting.
Hoping that a vision will steal over me, and there will be something God wants me to do. Anything.
Hoping for a direction. A path to walk. A sign.
But the vision doesn’t come.
From behind me, bells start to toll the hour from a towering redbrick church a couple blocks away. I count the beats—ten of them—and stand up. I should get back to Christian.
But then, as the last notes from the clock fade away, an idea comes to me, a thunderclap of sudden inspiration.
I could make myself have a vision. Or, at the very least, I could try.
I glance around. There’s no one else in the park, which makes sense. You’d have to be crazy to go out in this downpour. I’m alone.
I smile and close my eyes. Focus.
And the glory comes, like it never left me. It comes. Thanks largely to the congregation, I think.
I imagine sunshine. A line of palm trees. A row of red flowers along a path of purple-and-tan checkered stones.
I think of Stanford.
I cross.