CROSSROADS

Summary

Anne Nelson leaves Noah with a final goodbye, never looking back. Then, he goes inside, but quickly returns to the porch when he realizes that Allie needs to be alone. Eventually, she comes out, and they begin to talk about what her decision will be. He can see in her eyes that she is not going to tell Lon about them. Allie responds, . . . I keep asking myself what I really want in my life, and do you know what the answer is? The answer is that I want two things. First, I want you. I want us. I love you and I always have . . . But I also want a happy ending without hurting anyone. And I know if I stay, people will be hurt. Noah says that she can't live her life for other people, and that she has to do what's right for her. Allie's thoughts deal more with being able to go forward and not look back anymore. Noah does his best to convince her to stay, including telling her that it will kill a part of him if she chooses to live with someone else. But once again, her eyes tell him what he doesn't want to hear – she isn't going to stay. Finally, he tells her, Allie, I can't force you to stay with me. But no matter what happens in my life, I'll never forget these last couple of days with you. I've been dreaming about this for years.

Allie then goes back inside and gathers up her things. The last thing she gives him is the drawing she had made the day before. It is a dual image, one of Noah in the foreground as he looks now, and the other the front of his house as if she had sketched it from the oak tree. He is visibly shaken by its beauty, but makes no effort to hold her back as she walks to her car. She climbs in and starts the engine, reaching out her hand to him for one more moment. He mouths the words, Stay with me. However, Allie knows if she doesn't go now, she never will and puts the car in gear. Noah carefully watches her drive away, taking his heart with her. But, like her mother, he realizes sadly, she never looks back.

Notes

This chapter is extremely poignant as Allie makes the decision to leave Noah. It is, however, totally unexpected for the reader who is no doubt convinced that their reunion has sealed the feelings they have rekindled.

A Letter From Yesterday

Summary

All the way back to the inn, Allie tries to find some way to clear her mind, but nothing helps. However, by the time she reaches the drawbridge, she is at least enough in control to think she can speak with Lon. She drives by people going about their everyday lives in spite of the quandary that Allie finds herself in. She pulls into the parking lot and sees Lon's car, but parks several spaces away from it. She looks in the mirror and sees her puffy, red eyes. Then, she takes a moment to look once again at the article that had brought her here in the first place. It seems like a lifetime since her dinner with Noah. Then, Allie looks out the window and sees that the clouds are clearing and it's going to be a beautiful day. It is the kind of day that she would have liked to spend with Noah.

Just as she's about to face the consequences of her decision, she notices the letters her mother had given her. She stops for a second and reaches for the first one. Then, she changes her mind, more interested in reading Noah's final letter to her, perhaps wondering how he said goodbye and maybe how she will. She sees it is dated March 1935, two and a half years after receiving no answer to any of his letters. She imagines that she sees tearstains on the paper, and then she begins to read. It is a letter full of pathos, one in which Noah acknowledges that they came from different worlds, but that she had taught him more about the value of love than anyone ever had. He says, I am not bitter because of what has happened. On the contrary, I am secure in knowing that what we had was real, and I am happy we were able to come together for even a short period of time. He ends the letter by hoping that she will always savor the memories they had shared. It is so like the parting that they have just experienced that it could have been written only minutes before.

For a moment, she debates reading another and then decides she can't delay any longer. Lon is waiting for her. However, she still isn't sure what she is going to say to her fiancé until she opens the door and sees him standing in the lobby of the inn.

Notes

This chapter is full of ironies about how life goes on no matter how difficult our own lives, how the day can be beautiful even when we are in agony, and how a final letter from twelve years before can be so much like a goodbye in the present.