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you always wanted to know that I couldn t express. So these pages are for you.
Please take care of our baby girl, Daniel, if she survived. When she s older, if
you think it s a good idea, let her read this too, and every night, every night of her
life, give her kisses from me.
Owning Wednesday 179
I love you.
Wednesday
He thrust the note aside, as much as he loved it, adored it, to get at the
manuscript. He couldn t read the words fast enough. If she arrived home and saw
him reading it, he knew she would take it away.
I was born on a Wednesday&
He read with his brows furrowed and his heart in his throat. Her voice was so
true, so vitally there on the page, that if she d really died, he didn t know that he
could have read it at all. It would have been like reading with her ghost right beside
him. He could hear her voice, soft and sweet in his ear.
I didn t have much of a childhood, but I made it through each day.
She went on about her youth, her experiences with her father, which were very
hard to read. It was so bleak a story he was actually relieved when Vincent came
into the picture. She spoke of him, also, matter-of-factly, just telling the story and
not the deeper feelings, perhaps to protect Daniel. Or perhaps she still didn t believe
in her heart that Vincent loved her as much as he did, that she was worthy of that
love Vincent held for her, like a secret, deep in his heart.
From Vincent, the story moved on to meeting him. He smiled and bit his lip,
reading over her account of how she d felt when they met. He was so touched at the
carefully chosen words, each carrying so much weight. He had to say she d nailed it
exactly, every pang, every secret thrill he d also felt.
She could never have said such things to his face. He knew that. That was just
the way she was. But it was a gift of untold value to finally hear the things she felt.
He was so captivated, so moved by her writing that he didn t hear her come in. She
found him there when he was at the end, where it abruptly cut off midsentence,
during the abject misery of her ninth month of pregnancy. No matter what happens,
no matter how miserable I am right now& Then it stopped.
180 Annabel Joseph
He looked up at her, and he would have felt guilty if he hadn t been so
overwhelmed with emotion. She didn t look mad or embarrassed. She mostly looked
like she wanted to run.
 You weren t supposed to find that. I forgot I d hidden it there.
 I found it, he said.  I read it all, until the end. Come here. His voice was
thick with emotion.  Come here to me right now.
She left Gracie sleeping in her baby seat and walked over to him. He put the
manuscript down with an effort. He wouldn t let her take it from him; that was for
sure. He would have fought her tooth and nail before he d let her take it away.
 Are you mad that I read it? he asked.
 Are you mad at me?
 No. Why would I be? He gathered her in his arms and brushed her hair back.
She wouldn t look at him.
 I should have told you all those things. I wish I could have. But I couldn t.
 It s okay, I know. I knew them anyway. I felt them in my heart. But your
writing, Wednesday, it s so beautiful. I had no idea you had all those words inside.
She looked thoughtful then, as if she was remembering something, but she
stayed silent. He reached down to pick up the manuscript and showed her the last
page.  But the end here you didn t finish.
She looked sheepish.  I tried to finish it a few times, but I couldn t. I just
couldn t find the words. She sniffled, growing calm.  I couldn t find any words that
were big enough and deep enough to sum up what we had.
 What we have, he said, wiping away the single tear rolled down her cheek.  I
still have you, and you still have me. I have you forever, Wednesday, and we don t
need any words for that.
* * *
Long ago, or it seemed like long ago anyway, she had knelt at Vincent s feet.
She d been bursting with words, reeling from the pain of keeping them inside.
Owning Wednesday 181
Daniel had said to her,  I had no idea you had all those words inside. But she
didn t, not anymore, because with Daniel, those trapped words finally found voice.
Not in any one story or any one conversation, but over days, over weeks, over a
lifetime of moments in two years. How could she possibly have distilled all that life
and love Daniel had shown her into something as workaday as words? It would
have been an impossible task, and she realized now she had been foolish to try.
No, it wasn t words that could define her and Daniel. It wasn t words that
would make sense of their lives and the strange, intense love they felt for each
other. No, it was moments, those moments he gave her like magic. Moments like a
pot full of gold at the end of a rainbow, each glittering disk infused with its own
priceless story. Moments like stars in the sky, impossible to quantify or understand,
but magnificent all the same. There were so many of them, each a droplet in a
waterfall, and they poured on her whenever she needed to remember she was loved.
 I d like to have her alone.
 What do you want, Wednesday? Where do you want to go next?
 Well, you know why it hurts, don t you, Wednesday? Why I hurt you?
 You were made to wear white, a sweet girl like you. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]