Morning Glory(59)

I smile and look away. I don’t ask him about Kellie or his daughter, and how they did or didn’t fit into his plans.

Alex pulls into a parking spot, and we step out to the sidewalk. The Space Needle towers overhead. It looks so much bigger up close, like a flying saucer on enormous steel stilts.

“We have a little time,” he says, eyeing his watch. “Want to walk around the Seattle Center for a bit?”

“Sure,” I reply.

He offers me his arm and I take it. Even in New York, I didn’t walk long distances in heels. I was one of those unashamed Manhattan women who wear sneakers with skirts, changing into heels only in the lobby of my office building. A podiatrist once stopped to congratulate me on my sensible choice of footwear. Joanie had a good laugh over that one.

He points to a pathway that leads through a park at the base of the Space Needle. “The city’s getting ready for the fiftieth anniversary of the Needle,” he says. “They’re collecting thousands of tiles made by the residents of Seattle in the late fifties and laying them in the ground over there to make a pathway.”

“That’s sweet,” I say. “Where were they before?”

“I think the article in the Seattle Times said something about their being found in a storage facility in the city’s administrative building.”

“Look,” I say, pointing ahead beyond the caution tape. I walk to the tape and kneel down to see a tile clearly painted by a child. Another features the name of a woman, Bethanne, painted in cursive handwriting, with squiggles and stars surrounding the letters. And then I notice a tile in the distance, with just three words painted inside a heart. “Forever my love.” Simple, and yet the statement of love pulsates with the poignancy of a Shakespearian sonnet.

“That one’s beautiful,” I say.

Alex nods. “It is.”

I shiver, and Alex drapes his coat over my shoulders. “Let’s walk to the restaurant now. Our table should be just about ready.”

We board an elevator at the bottom of the Space Needle and travel upward. Alex weaves his fingers into mine, and my heart leaps. The forty-three seconds it takes to get to the top feels like forty-three minutes, in a good way. I don’t let go of his hand as we step out into the lobby. And when we’re seated side by side at a table that faces directly out one of the windows, he reaches for my hand under the table, and I don’t pull back.

We order, and the waitress brings me a glass of wine and Alex an iced tea. I take a sip and feel warm all over.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“It’s beautiful up here,” I say, looking out the window. “You can even see Boat Street.”

“It looks microscopic down there, doesn’t it?”

I nod. “We’re all just like little ants, bickering and squabbling.”

“The way God sees us, I guess,” Alex adds.

I look away and don’t say anything for a few moments. God. Did he see Ella and James on the day of their death? Did he know what was about to happen? If so, why didn’t he stop them? Why didn’t he send an angel down to swoop them out of harm’s way? Why did he take them and make me watch every excruciating detail?

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

I bite my lip. “Sorry. I was . . .”

“You’re carrying such a huge burden,” Alex says, his eyes piercing mine. “You must be staggering under the weight of it.”

I want to shake my head and say, “No, James and Ella are not a burden. They are the loves of my life, and I will keep them with me forever!” But he’s right. My burden is heavy, and my pain is all-consuming. At any moment I’m liable to stumble, to crack under its weight. And I fear I can’t hold on much longer. It’s as if someone’s put me in possession of an enormous, rare crystal vase and told me to carry it for the rest of my life, but every day, every second, I’m on the verge of letting it slip from my hands, watching it shatter into a dozen jagged pieces, and I with it.

“You know what they say in church?” he says.

I shake my head and inwardly roll my eyes.

“They say that God can carry our burden for us if we ask him to.”

I think about that for a moment and decide not to be annoyed by Alex’s statement. He’s only trying to help.

“I can’t tell you much about religion,” he continues. “I don’t have all the answers, far from it. I still have a lot to learn, but I can tell you that this is a pretty kick-ass benefit from the Almighty. He says, ‘Here, I’ll take your worries, your worst fears, and deal with them for you so you don’t have to anymore.’”