CHAPTER TWO THOUSAND

It was sunset, as it always was for them in Central Park. The caviar glistened in its tub as Edward skated a blini across the top and fed the first bite to his wife.

“Happy anniversary, Collins.” His pet name for Elizabeth was her maiden name; it was how they were first introduced, and over the years it had stuck. “Here’s to fifty more.”

“Do you believe your life passes before your eyes when you die?” Elizabeth asked, dabbing her napkin to her lips. They had been discussing their mortality since their first date. Her husband was a poet, after all. But recently the timbre of the conversations had changed. Her sister had died the month before. His oldest friend, Theo, had passed that spring.

“I hope it isn’t only a flash,” Edward said. “I’d want to taste the caviar.” He leaned toward her. “And your lips.”

How could fifty years of kissing the same man still evoke that stir within her? The answer was that it hadn’t always, not every single time. There were kisses given for the children’s benefit—see how steady Mommy and Daddy are? There were kisses on ballroom stages, after one of them gave a speech accepting an award. There were kisses one whole summer when she might as well have spat in Edward’s face. But that was decades ago by now. And today, at seventy-seven, the most surprising thing of all: He could still kiss her in Central Park and make her want to take him straight to bed.

“Which of our picnics would you most like to experience at the end? With all your senses.”

“You want me to list my favorite of our picnics? We’ll be here all night.”

She sipped her wine and smiled at him. “I’ll cancel my other plans.”

He took another bite of blini and gazed across the Pond, where a lovely young woman jogged across the Gapstow Bridge. “All right, you want my favorites? We could start with last week’s picnic.”

“Is that because your memory is going?” Elizabeth teased.

He took her hand across the table. “It’s because of the red dress you wore.”

When I come to the end of the first scene, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I love how Noah chose to open the novel with this prologue set in the present before we zip back in time to how they met.

I’m also relieved by his characterizations. I’d been nervous he might turn my Edward and Elizabeth into a couple I didn’t recognize. But from this opening scene, the lovers I’ve long admired feel true. They read like the people I’d hoped they would be, as vibrant on the page as they’ve always seemed to me when I’ve marveled at them from the Gapstow Bridge.