A Moment in Time

  It was New Year’s Eve, 1940, and I was in New York visiting my sister. The air was brutally cold, and I wrapped my wool scarf tighter around my neck as I gazed out at all the people surrounding me. Cheeks were rosy, eyes were sparkling, and there seemed to be a smile on each face, but I also sensed unease on every expression. There was talk that America couldn’t hold off much longer in joining the war in Europe, and after the first world war, everyone was terrified of another.

  Someone bumped into me then, and I looked up into what I thought at first to be a familiar face, only to realize after a quick intake of breath that it wasn’t him. Nodding his head apologetically, the man continued to push his way through the crowd, and I watched him go with a sigh.

  Why do I have to see him everywhere I look? I thought, reaching up to adjust my hat.

  Frank had been my high school sweetheart; we’d started dating in the tenth grade, and by graduation, he’d already proposed and we’d set a wedding date for August. I’d been so caught up in planning the wedding that I hadn’t noticed how he’d begun to withdraw, and when he broke up with me right before July 4^th, I was totally unprepared and my heart was crushed.

  “You need to get away for a while, Ada, and come for a visit,” my sister had written to me last month. “Why not come up for the new year? We’re going to watch the ball drop in Times Square, and I know you’ll have a good time.”

  I’d been hesitant at first to make the trip by myself, and I’d wondered how it would feel not to celebrate the New Year at home, but I was glad I’d decided to come; it would have been too painful to stay at home. Abigail, my sister, kept saying I needed to forget Frank and move on, but I was afraid. If one man hurt me, wouldn’t another?

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  Turning in surprise, I looked up to find a handsome young man smiling pleasantly down at me. His eyes were a soft shade of blue, and I remember thinking they were the kindest eyes I’d ever seen.

  “I…how do you know that?” I stammered, eyeing him skeptically.

  “Even with the scarf, gloves, hat and coat, you still look like you’re freezing,” he replied, his eyes sparkling.

  Unable to stop my lips from twitching, I laughed lightly and said, “You’re right; I’m from Georgia. You’re very observant.”

  “Only when it comes to pretty ladies,” he grinned.

  My cheeks flushing, I glanced away and cleared my throat awkwardly, ignoring the way my sister kept eyeing me.

  “I’m Nate,” the young man spoke out again as he reached a gloved hand toward me. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Ada,” I replied, accepting the handshake. His hand was twice the size of mine, and through our gloves, I felt the warmth of his fingers as they wrapped firmly around mine.

  “Ada, we’re going to get some hot chocolate,” my sister said, motioning to her husband. “Would you like us to bring you some?”

  I nodded, watching as the two pushed their way through the crowd, leaving me alone with the stranger.

  “You’re lucky to have family to spend the holidays with,” Nate said, his voice wistful as he, too, watched my sister and brother-in-law’s retreating figures.

  “Don’t you have any family?” I asked, tilting my head slightly.

  Nate shook his head, a look of sadness coming into his eyes. “No, I was raised in an orphanage, so I never knew my family; I don’t even know what my real name is.”

  My heart clenching, I said softly, “I’m sorry, Nate. You…you were raised here in the city?”

  “Oh, no, I’m from New Jersey,” he replied, smiling down at me as the sadness quickly passed from his eyes. “Now that the depression is finally over, I decided to celebrate extra this year by coming to see the ball drop; this is my first time seeing it.”

  “Mine, too,” I replied with a smile.

  We continued to talk, and time seemed to stand still as the conversation flowed effortlessly. We discussed the long trip from Georgia to New York, my family, our favorite books, and Nate had just broached the subject of the war when my sister and brother-in-law arrived back at my side with the promised hot chocolate.

  “We also brought a cup for you,” my sister said with a friendly smile as she handed Nate the steaming cup of chocolate.

  His eyes lighting with surprise, Nate took the cup and said, “Thank you; that was very thoughtful.”

  It was almost time for the countdown, and I was finally starting to feel the excitement of the night. The crowd kept pushing Nate and me closer, and each time our shoulders bumped, we would smile shyly at one another.

  Finally, the countdown began, and I could barely contain my eagerness as I joined in. The sound of thousands of voices joined together sent chills down my spine, and I clutched my sister’s hand as we cried, “Three…two…one. Happy New Year!”

  The shouts, the lights, the magnificent shining ball…it all filled me with a giddy sense of wonder and happiness that I hadn’t felt in months. Everyone around me was hugging and kissing as they welcomed in the new year, and I blinked in surprise when Nate leaned closer and pressed a kiss against my cheek.

  “Write to me, Ada,” he said warmly, our faces only inches apart. “I’ve got to return to New Jersey tonight; my train leaves in twenty minutes. May I have your address?”

  I was caught completely off guard by the request and hesitated. Would it be crazy to write to a complete stranger, especially after everything that happened with Frank? I would be setting myself up to be hurt again, but there was something in Nate’s eyes that made me pause. In the depths of those two soft blue pools, I saw strength and honor and integrity, and I felt deep in my soul that I could trust him.

  “Alright,” I said softly, and the look of pleasure on Nate’s face made me smile.

  We wrote to each other for ten months, and I quickly realized that agreeing to write him was one of the best decisions I’d ever made. In the pages of our letters, we shared our lives, thoughts, dreams…and our hearts. I told him about Frank, and he told me more about the pain of being raised in an orphanage without any family or anyone who truly loved him. I found myself responding to this man, one that I’d only met once, in a way I never had with Frank, and I looked forward to every letter he sent. I kept each one in a special box and read them hundreds of times. Nate touched me in a special way and seemed to understand me better than I understood myself.

  “I want to see you again,” he wrote to me in November. “You’re not by any chance coming back to visit your sister for the new year, are you? If not, I’d like to come to Georgia to see you, if that’s okay.”

  With excitement filling my chest, I told him that I was, in fact, planning to visit my sister again the following month.

  “Meet me in the same place we met last year,” he wrote. “When I saw you for the first time that cold night so many months ago, I knew you were special, and I want to relive that moment again.”

  I agreed, but a couple of weeks later, destiny took its own course. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, America joined the war, and Nate left to fight in Germany. I was heartbroken and wished that we’d had a chance to see each other one more time before he left, but that just wasn’t meant to be. So, we wrote more letters. He told me about the war and of the many struggles a soldier faced, but I knew he didn’t tell me everything.

  “One day, when this war is over, I want to see you again, surrounded by all the lights and laughter of Times Square as we pass from one year to the next. I want to feel your presence beside me, and I want to see your beautiful smile as delight in the moment fills your face. It’s all I dream about, Ada; it’s what keeps me going. Promise you’ll meet me there some wonderful New Year’s Eve, when life is peaceful again and I can hold you in my arms the way I wanted to that first night.”

  I treasured his letters like precious gifts, and with each passing day, I realized more and more how much I loved him. The thought of seeing him again propelled me through each day, and dreams of his beautiful eyes guided me through the night. When his letters suddenly stopped after the invasion at Normandy in '44, my heart stopped as well, and life became very dark and dreary. I did everything I could to find out what happened to him, but it seemed that he’d simply disappeared.

  I went back to Times Square for New Year’s Eve in '45, after the war ended, but he wasn’t there. I stood in the exact same spot as before, when I first met him, but his face wasn’t among the others crowded around me. I even waited until well after midnight, when all the partying had finally begun to die down, but still he wasn’t there. The night was dark, and my world was even darker.

  Thirty years passed, and at times it felt as if life crawled by agonizingly slowly, while others it flew by at an alarming speed. Frank made his way back into my life the summer of '46 and managed to see me through some of my darkest days. It’s strange how he was the one who hurt me the first time, and if not for him, I never would have met Nate. Because of that, I forgave him for hurting me, and we were married a few days before Christmas. He suggested going to New York for our honeymoon, but I couldn’t; in fact, I haven’t been back since that last New Year’s Eve when Nate never showed up.

  Until now.

  It’s 1975, and as I stand in the midst of the crowd, I think of all that’s changed. When I was here last, I was a brokenhearted young woman with no clue of what my future held for me. I didn’t know I would end back up with Frank, and we’d go on to live a happy life together with two wonderful children. You may ask if I ever thought of Nate during these last thirty years, and the answer is “yes”. I often wondered if he’d died at Normandy, and if he had, was his body ever shipped home? Then I was reminded that he had no true home, and no family with which to be buried. During the times that I would think of him, I would hold my children close and thank God for my family. My life might not have turned out like I thought it would, but I’d still managed to find happiness. I guess I’ll always wonder, though, what life would have been like if Nate had been there that night to meet me.

  “Ten…nine…eight…”

  In just a matter of seconds, a new year would be upon me, and I wondered what it would hold. Frank had passed away two years ago, my sister was spending the holiday with her husband’s family, and our parents were gone. My children had wanted me to stay home and spend the holidays with them and their families, but I’d told them there was something I had to do this year. I needed to come here one last time, to say a final “goodbye”.

  “Two…one…happy New Year!”

  The claps, shouts, whistles, and dazzling lights were so much the same that I fought against the tears that suddenly flooded my eyes. How had I gone from a girl to a woman in her fifties in such a short amount of time?

   “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  The words floated past my ears and I smiled softly, the sweet memory filling me with warmth. I closed my eyes, relishing the moment, when I suddenly felt a warm and familiar presence beside me. Turning, I looked up into those same soft, blue eyes, and everything around me faded into the distance as my world began to spin.

  “It’s really you,” he whispered as two tears slipped down his cheeks.

  I couldn’t say anything at first; all I could do was stare at him. He’d changed…grown older…but it was him. Reaching out, I rested my hand lightly on his arm and whispered, “You’re alive.”

  He pulled me into his arms, and the fireworks that exploded over our heads were no match for the pounding of our hearts. We stood that way, clinging to each other like only a few moments had passed since our last meeting, instead of thirty-one years. How could all the feelings I’d had for him come flooding back so quickly, so easily? I felt overwhelmed and overjoyed, and I raised my head to look up into his dear face.

  “I waited for you,” I whispered, my throat tight with emotion. “But you never came.”

  “I was injured at Normandy and was in a coma for months,” he explained, reaching up to touch my cheek gently. “When I finally woke up, it took over a year for me to heal. I asked one of the nurses to write to you, to let you know I was alive, but she forgot to send the letter and never told me.” His face was filled with pain at the memories from so long ago, and I rested my hand against his heart as I listened. “When I didn’t hear back from you, I thought you’d moved on, and when I finally made it back to the United States, I went to Georgia and discovered that…that you were engaged to Frank. So, I left.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I asked, my heart breaking all over again. “If only I’d known.”

  Taking a deep breath, Nate took both of my hands in his and said, “I didn’t want to cause you any unhappiness, Ada. I knew that you’d loved Frank once before, and I’d never told you how I truly felt about you, so I had to let you go. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  Wiping the tears from my eyes, I asked, “Did…did you ever marry?”

  “No,” he replied, a wistful expression crossing his face. “I couldn’t love anyone else after knowing you.”

  “How is it that you’re here tonight?” I wanted to know, my heart in my throat.

  He smiled then, his blue eyes growing even warmer. “I’ve come here every New Year’s Eve for the last twenty-nine years and relived the memory of when I first met you. When I saw you here just now, I couldn’t believe my eyes. You’re just as beautiful as I remember.”

  Suddenly, a look of darkness passed over his face, and Nate stepped away. I felt cold and confused as the warmth of his presence moved from me, and when I reached out to him, he shook his head.

  “I can’t, Ada,” he said, his eyes full of sadness. “No matter how much I love you, I still can’t have you. You’re married and have your own family, and I’m okay being able to see you again and just knowing that you’re happy. I guess it was never meant to be for us, but I’d like to thank you for agreeing to write me that cold night so long ago; your letters kept me going, and I’ll always cherish them.”

  He turned to go then, his shoulders stooped, and I quickly reached out to grab his arm. When he turned to look back at me, I dropped my hand and shrugged, tears filling my eyes once again.

  “Frank is gone, Nate,” I said in a raspy voice. “He was a good husband, a wonderful father to our children, and my best friend. I’ll always love him and cherish the years we had together, but just like that first night I met you, I think my heart is ready to heal and move on. I’ll admit that I’m frightened, but I’m willing to try if you are.” Stepping forward, I took his hand and said softly, “I fell in love with you a long time ago, Nate, and I don’t want to lose you again.”

  A beautiful smile lit his face, and although everyone continued to cheer and sing and dance all around us, it felt as if we were the only two people in the whole world. Pulling me into his arms, he said softly, “I don’t want to lose you again either.”

  With a sigh of happiness, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek as I whispered, “Happy New Year, Nate.”