EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
I was just packing up my bag to go home at the end of the day when my phone buzzed several times, letting me know I had new texts.
It took me a minute to find my purse in my art bag. Now that I was teaching full time and needed to bring supplies with me on the El every day, the bag I carried around with me was the biggest one I’d ever had. It seemed like the thing had at least a dozen interior pockets—pockets my keys and my cell phone were constantly disappearing into.
By the time I managed to locate my phone, Frederick had sent nearly a dozen texts.
I am waiting for you outside the entrance to the Fine Arts building.
I am wearing an outfit I selected myself this afternoon.
That green Henley you like, paired with black trousers.
I think you would approve.
Or I hope you will approve, anyway.
But I suppose only time will tell.
I miss you.
A laugh bubbled up inside of me.
Frederick J. Fitzwilliam, age three hundred and fifty-one, was texting using emojis.
It was nearly impossible to believe.
I have to put a few things away before I’m ready to leave
We’ve been working on plastics this week
So my room’s a mess
Give me 15 minutes
I miss you too
I found him where he said he’d be, in a shady spot right outside Harmony Academy’s fine arts building. He was leaning against the brick wall of the building, legs crossed at the ankle, engrossed with something on his phone.
As I approached he looked up and gave me a bright smile.
“You’re here.”
“I am,” I agreed. I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “How was your day?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It was fine. Boring. I spent most of it tied up in communication with our realtor, who seems to think we should be able to close on our new home by the end of next month.” He paused. “The rest of the day was spent listening to Reginald wax amorously about his accountant.”
A group of students from my afternoon welding class passed by. They waved at me, and I waved back at them, smiling. It was still so hard to believe I was in this job, with students who respected me and wanted to hear what I had to say.
When I turned back to Frederick, he was looking at me with an expression so heated it was almost inappropriate, given that we were not only at my place of employment but also in front of a whole bunch of kids.
“Reginald has an accountant?” I asked, pushing the strap of my bag up a little higher on my shoulder. “Really?”
“So it would appear.”
“Why?”
“It takes a lot of expertise to manage wealth that began accruing two hundred years ago.” He gave me a lopsided smile. “Reginald has never had a head for business—that should be no surprise—but over the years he has amassed a fortune more than large enough to subsidize his lifestyle. Anyway, it appears he has become infatuated with his very human accountant, which has led to all the problems you might imagine and quite a few you probably cannot.”
He was likely right about that. “Let’s not talk about Reginald anymore,” I suggested. I nodded down the hill the fine arts building perched on, towards the small man-made lake sitting in the center of Harmony’s campus and the path that circled it. My impression of it when I interviewed here a year earlier—that it was probably a popular place to go walking when the weather was nice—turned out to be accurate. It was a favorite place to go walking at lunchtime, after lacrosse games, and on Friday afternoons. “Go for a walk with me?”
It was warm for early December, and I wanted to spend a little more time outside enjoying it before going back home. The overcast sky wouldn’t make things too uncomfortable for Frederick, who was recovered enough from his century of accidental slumber to be able to handle daytime excursions provided there was adequate shade. Besides, it was four o’clock on a December day in Chicago; the sun wouldn’t be up for much longer either way.
To my surprise, Frederick hesitated, a pained look flitting across his face.
“What is it?” I asked, concerned.
“Nothing.” He shook his head, then schooled his features into a semblance of his normal expression. He squeezed my hand. “A walk around the lake sounds lovely.”
The path was more crowded than usual for a Tuesday, with clusters of students and even some people unaffiliated with Harmony enjoying the unseasonably mild weather with a lakeside stroll. While walking around campus was usually one of our favorite midweek activities—Frederick’s ability to be awake during the day for longer stretches was something he liked taking advantage of—the walk didn’t seem to have lessened his earlier agitation. He visibly startled every time a particularly rambunctious group of students passed us on the path, and the fingers of the hand I wasn’t holding drummed a constant staccato beat against his right thigh.
When Frederick nearly jumped out of his skin at the approach of a duck quacking noisily at something it must have seen in the grass, I stopped walking and tugged on his hand.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“What?” His eyes were on the duck, who was now waddling its noisy way back into the water. “Nothing’s wrong. Why would you think something was wrong?”
His voice was half an octave higher than usual, the words spoken at nearly twice his normal rate of speech.
“Just a guess,” I said, peering at him.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said again. His jaw worked as he stared down at his feet, at the water, at the clouds in the sky. “I promise. Shall . . . shall we keep walking?”
The last time I had seen him this agitated was when we’d talked about moving into a new apartment together. One that didn’t feel like it was only his. One that didn’t carry with it the bad associations of the century he’d spent too incapacitated to notice the world around him.
Something was definitely on his mind.
“Whatever it is,” I said in as gentle a voice as I could, “you can tell me.”
He closed his eyes on a shuddering sigh.
“There’s something I would like to ask you.”
He shoved his hand deep into the pocket of his slacks. When he pulled it out again, in his hand was a small velvet box.
My heart stopped.
“I don’t have the right to ask you to stay with me forever,” he said. His voice had recovered its normal cadence and pitch. I wondered if he was starting a speech he had practiced during my long hours away from the apartment the past few months, since I started my new job here. “But I never said I wasn’t a selfish man. Or that I was a good one, for that matter.”
“You are not selfish,” I insisted. “And you’re one of the best people I know.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Points upon which reasonable minds can differ, I suppose. But what I want to ask you is—” He broke off. Closed his eyes. Shook his head. “What I came here today to talk to you about is—”
“You want me to think about it,” I said, interrupting him.
A flock of ducks waddled across the path a few feet away from us, quacking noisily at each other as my entire world tilted slowly on its axis.
Frederick nodded slowly. “Yes,” he whispered.
Then he opened the box in his hand.
I’d never given much thought to what I’d want my engagement ring to look like if I were ever to be on the receiving end of one. I’d always found diamonds to be sort of pretty, but in a bland and characterless sort of way. I’d never been able to imagine myself wearing one—on my hand, or anywhere else.
The ring that lay nestled within the black-velvet box had a blood-red ruby in its center that was the size and general shape of a dime but with interesting facets cut into it that caught the sunlight when Frederick’s shaking hands jostled it a little.
I may have never thought much about what I wanted in an engagement ring, but all at once I knew I’d never see one more beautiful, or more perfect, than this.
“If I say yes,” I said, my breathing starting to come too quickly, “you’ll need to teach me what to do.”
I chanced a look up at his face. He was gazing down at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Teach you what to do?” he repeated.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve lived with you for over a year now, but you’ve been so careful to keep me from the . . . more detailed aspects of things. I’ll need to know exactly what I’m in for if I . . .” I trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase the rest of what I was thinking in a way that wouldn’t frighten any passersby.
“If you . . . ?” Frederick prompted.
“If I take the plunge,” I said bluntly. There. That should cover it. I raised my eyebrows meaningfully.
All at once, he understood what I was trying to say.
“Yes, of course. Darling—I’ll tell you everything,” Frederick promised, his words coming out in an earnest rush. “I’ll show you anything you want to see. If, after you see and know what it would be like for you, if you still say no—”
“I understand,” I said.
“And so will I,” he vowed. “Whatever you decide. This ring is just a promise that you will . . .”
“Think about it,” I agreed.
“Yes.”
Satisfied, I grinned up at him. And held out my left hand.
The ruby felt cool against my skin as he slid the ring onto my finger. Once it was in place, we both stared at it, unable to quite believe what had just happened, until the sun began setting in earnest.
Still beaming up at him, I took his hand.
He took me home.