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The wind is biting, and the rain unforgiving. She misses the sunshine, and the warmth and the palm tress. She dreams of the sound of the Pacific Ocean outside her window and blames her freezing and forgetting on him. She grips the collar of her coat and thinks that maybe she’s not supposed to be here. She can’t bring herself to cross the street, can’t bring herself to face the hostile glares and unspoken accusations. And so she watches the others huddle together as they make their way through the simple doors. She recognizes a few townspeople from years before—a lifetime ago, she reminds herself—and realizes that there are so many more she doesn’t know. It is intimidating. Her hands are trembling and she is not courageous enough to enter the church, not even to sit in the back. She will run back to the hotel to gather her things and catch the next train back to California. And then she will send a sympathy note to Rachel. Better this way, she thinks. She jumps slightly when she is bumped from behind. Her body tenses at the muttered ‘Pardon me’ because she would recognize that voice anywhere. Hears it echoing in her mind, along with the others, sometimes when she is feeling particularly nostalgic. She turns her head and averts her eyes because she feels it is the right thing to do. But maybe he recognizes the bloom of her cheek because he doesn’t move on, and his hand is gently gripping her elbow. “Lou?” “Noah,” she says when what she means is ‘I’ve missed you’. Despite the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes and the lines around his mouth, fifteen years has done little to alter his appearance. His face is still somewhat guarded, but his smile comes easily. She is self-conscious about the expensive cut of her clothes and manicured hands. She is worried about her clipped words, any trace of her old accent gone from years of trying to teach precise English to immigrants. He is beaming, however, and some of her doubts melt away. “You takin’ off?” he asks, but she hears ‘please don’t go’. She wants to explain things to him, wants to make him understand that she is a different person. She is not as strong as she used to be. She is vulnerable and one look of recrimination will be enough to crush her. But he is shivering in the cold and she is scared, and so she only nods. “I thought I could do this, but I was wrong.” “He never blamed you, Lou. He was never angry, and he would’ve wanted you to be here.” “He’s not the one I’m worried about,” she admits quietly. “Rachel sent a telegram and I…I’m just going to go.” He is disappointed, she can tell, and when he sighs his breath forms a white cloud between them. He is close enough to touch and she runs a naked hand down the side of his face, startled at how warm his skin is. He lowers his head for a moment and she thinks he is crying. But he is memorizing her scent, the way her long hair falls across her shoulders and into her face, her expressive eyes filled with trepidation, the curve of her wrist and the pattern of her breathing as she observes him. She tries to pull away, but he won’t let her. His fingers are needy as they dig into her palm and she wonders why she ever left in the first place. He had been tender with her, almost worshipful, that night. But even love has its limits, and she knows this better than anyone. “Noah.” “Lou.” “You’re going to be late.” “Come in with me.” “I can’t.” He looks off into the distance where a tree is bending beneath the burden of January snow and thinks that used to be her. She follows his gaze off into the distance, to the tree, and to the snow, and thinks that just once she’d like to tell someone what she is really thinking. Somewhere they lose track of time because the organist begins playing the entrance hymn and even outside they can feel the sorrow, almost tangible in its weight. When their eyes meet again, she sees what he is thinking, and she gestures to the grand hotel down the street. “Come on, I’ll buy you breakfast.”
Love is judgment’s sacrifice, he thinks. Love the chameleon, changing as much in the presence as the absence of the object. The variety of his feelings for Lou enthralled him. One day it was fascination. She was the most interesting person he had ever known and her movements were magic. The next day it was lust, pure unadulterated lust: the smoothness of her neck and callused hands clutching his shoulders in passion. Another day it was her beauty. If her eyes hadn’t been that large, if she hadn’t been as petite, if her voice hadn’t rolled out in husky tones, he is convinced she would not be the woman whose loss he mourns. And sometimes, often he tells himself, it is admiration. She was the strongest of them all, even if none of them realized it at the time. She was sincere and, most days now, he feels he is not. And it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t seen her in fifteen years because his heart swells with something he is afraid is love when she lifts the coffee cup to her lips, sipping delicately at the steaming liquid. She eyes him carefully as if she can read the truth in his face and it is only when he looks down that she allows herself to smile. “I like your hair,” he says conversationally because he thinks it is something women like to hear. “Thanks,” she replies not unkindly, although she would rather he had said ‘I liked your book’. But that is impossible of course because her nom de plum is Antigone Lear, and a man like Noah would never have had the time to read When I Was a Boy. ‘Vividly inquisitive’ some critics had said. ‘Inspired’ and ‘highly intelligent’ raved more. ‘Alternately hilarious and tragic’ they all agreed. The publishers had no explanation for its failure to sell and her literary agent promised her a better deal the next time around. But she knew she would never write for anyone again. “Did you like living in London?” he tries again because an uncomfortable silence has descended. “I never went to London,” she returns quietly as she stirs in more sugar. “I lied.” “Where did you go then?” “A girl’s gotta have her secrets, Noah.” “Fair enough,” he agrees readily because he doesn’t want to argue. He knows she really spent two years somewhere back East, and another traveling California, before settling in Napa. But he doesn’t want to scare her and instead leans back in his chair and rubs his jaw. “How have you been?” They both laugh at the absurdity of the question, and the tension is broken. He reaches across the table and pats her hand several times before drawing away. “We always talk about you when we get together. Everyone misses you. They would’ve been happy to see you.” “You’re trying to make me feel guilty.” “I’m trying to make you feel loved,” he counters. “Isn’t it the same thing?” “Maybe.” “I wrote you a letter once,” she says suddenly. He arches his eyebrow in surprise and smiles slightly. “I never received it.” She looks down at her hands. “I never sent it.” “Ah.” “Yeah, I chickened out at the last minute. I thought…” “What?” She smiles broadly. “I thought you’d send it back unopened.” He nods, because a few years ago, he might have. And he tells her as much. Her smile fades, and she bows her head. Her fingers reach blindly across the table until they find his, and when she links them together, she squeezes. And it is only then that she notices the simple gold band adorning his finger, burning into her flesh until she feels branded by sin. “You got married?” “Did you think I’d just pine away for you while you were off being seduced by foreign men?” He says the words lightly, but she hears the hurt beneath them. He pulls his hand away and she feels the cold creeping into her bones steadily. He makes no mention of her wedding band. “Children?” “And a dog, too.” Silence settles again, and the years stretch before them. She doesn’t ask about his wife, and he doesn’t inquire about the dark-eyed Italian in the photograph she sent Rachel. She realizes that he is not the man she left behind, and he is painfully aware that she isn’t disappointed. He hates what they have become, hates that he still wants her, hates that she doesn’t feel the same. But he tries anyway. “You want to show me your room?” he asks boldly. Unhesitatingly, “Yes.”
Fifteen Years Previous She is numb from exhaustion and shock and maybe, just maybe, the whiskey. The music and revelry continues outside even though her heart has just been shattered into tiny pieces, and she knows that she will never be whole again. There is nothing left for me, she thinks. She is only vaguely aware of the barn door opening from her place on the floor and doesn’t bother hiding the silver flask clutched tightly in one hand as though her life depends on it. And maybe it does. He slides down beside her in an undignified heap, smiling crookedly. “I’m sorry Lou,” he whispers, and she detects something foreign on his breath. Alcohol, she realizes. “Kid’s a fool.” “Maybe,” she answers noncommittally because she is the fool. If only she had said ‘yes’ when he asked her, she would be the one by his side tonight and not Mary Williams. And she hates herself. He studies her quietly for several moments and realizes that he is scared of her. Scared of her eyes, and her hands, and the hollow dip at the base of her throat. He is entranced by the shape of her face and gentle heaving of her chest. Maybe it is the scotch that makes him lean forward and press his generous lips to her cheek, because if he had been in his right mind, he never would have attempted it. She is forbidden, and dangerous. “He is,” he reiterates. The taste of whiskey sits heavily under her tongue, mixing in with the betrayal that has resided there since Kid announced his engagement to Rock Creek’s resident schoolteacher. She knows she is drunk, but that doesn’t stop her from tracing random patterns on the back of Noah’s hand. Her touch is sensuous and teasing, and his ragged breathing convinces her that she is still desired. He tries to pat her knee comfortingly, but he misses, and his fingers spread intimately across her thigh. “I think the liquor is kicking in,” he mutters, but doesn’t remove his hand. She can’t concentrate on anything but the warmth that spreads through her stomach when he meets her gaze and smiles. She knows that if they weren’t both drunk, that if they weren’t both mourning—she because Kid is married now, and he because that same man is leaving in a week to fight on the wrong side of the war—then she would never have closed the distance separating their bodies. But they are both drunk, and they are both mourning, and so she leans forward to capture Noah’s lips with her own. Their movements are clumsy at first, and tentative, but soon his tongue slips past her teeth to tangle erotically with hers, and he is the only truth she knows. Hours later in the pre-dawn light, he pulls a moth-eaten blanket that smells of hay over their naked bodies and tightens his arms around her waist. She smiles at him but he sees the good-bye in her eyes, and he suddenly regrets the passion, and the desire, and the need. She is leaving, and he won’t be able to stop her. He’s not sure he even wants to. They are not meant for each other, she knows. The world would never allow it, and she’s not even sure she loves him. But she doesn’t feel guilty because love has always meant loss to her, and she doesn’t want to experience that with Noah. She rests her head on his smooth chest and sighs. “I’m goin’ to London.” He doesn’t ask where she will get the money, or where the sudden desire comes from. He knows she is dreaming out loud, and he is honored that she would share this secret part of herself. He rests his chin on top of her head and says, “OK.” Three days later she is gone, a hastily scrawled note and forgotten trunk the only signs she was ever amongst them. They all blame Kid, but he knows she just couldn’t bear the pity she was sure would be written in her friends’ eyes. And life goes on.
Back to Present Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine, he thinks as he watches her kneel before the freshly dug grave. Her shoulders are shaking, with tears or cold, he can’t tell, but he suspects a little bit of both. She is mumbling and it takes him several moments to realize that she is praying. When she stands again, her movements are less sure. “Rachel said he died in his sleep.” “Yes.” “He was in a wheelchair.” “Yes.” “And he was in the middle of writing a book, about his life.” She smiles at that because she can’t imagine Teaspoon having the patience to undertake such a time-consuming task. “Yes,” he repeats again because he isn’t sure where she is heading. “Can you believe Teaspoon was writing his memoirs? And now, well, it will never be finished.” “Do you how depressing that is, Noah?” “Yes.” She looks at him with such infinite sadness, but all he notices is the column of her elegant neck, and his fingers burn to touch her. And he is ashamed because he is married with three children, and a dog, and he thinks he would be willing to throw it all away if she asked. But she won’t, he knows. She shivers and sighs. “He never liked the cold.” “No.” “Are you just going to keep giving me monosyllabic answers?” “I don’t know what to say,” he admits honestly. “No one should,” she says quietly. “Come on, let’s go.” They are in front of the church again, and she is waiting for him to leave because she isn’t strong enough to do it this time. He looks at her, and she sees the unspoken promises and pleas written plainly in his eyes. She shakes her head subtly and looks away because his mouth is too tempting. “When you left, Lou, did you think you were doin’ the right thing?” he asks. He was angry for a long time, he remembers. She haunted him for years, even after he’d traveled halfway across the country to escape her memory. Even after he finally settled in New Mexico territory and took a woman with skin the color of midnight as his wife. He was angry because he had only spent one night with her, and he couldn’t erase the softness of her body from his mind. And he finally came to realize that he had loved her long before that night in the barn. And long after. But she is only one of many things he can’t have, and so he has learned to move on. She doesn’t look at him when she answers “Yes.” “We got over it…we all did. And I know Buck and Cody want to see you. Come to Rachel’s with me. Kid will be there, but--” “I don’t think—“ “Be a man, Lou.” She laughs and presses a chaste kiss to his lips before walking away. “Good bye, Noah.” She won’t ask him how he has come to forgive the betrayal of his friend because she doesn’t want to know. She has learned to live with bitterness, finds its presence oddly comforting sometimes, and would miss it should it fade. “It was good to see you again,” he whispers. “You too,” she answers because it is what one is supposed to say in these situations. But she really wishes that she had never seen him again, had never felt his lips against the inside of her thigh, had never whispered his name urgently against his ear that morning in her hotel room. “Keep in touch,” he calls after her. She nods, but they both know it is a lie.
Months later when she opens his package, she is incredulous and her hands are shaking as she leafs through the book, her book. The cover is worn, and ripped in two places, and her eyes fill with tears as she recognizes his handwriting in the margins on some of the pages. She is not strong enough to read them now, she thinks. Instead she glances at his hastily scrawled introduction and smiles. Lou, She smiles and leans back in the chair. Her attention is soon drawn away from distant and not-so-distant memories by her three black-eyed children who dance around the table, their feet stained purple with the grapes of their father’s vineyard. This is her life now, and there will be no more books. Email JessHOME |