chapter 7
Decca, Flower Moon in May
Gus lingered on the stone path. From the darkness behind the screen door, I watched as he’d take a step, then hesitate. He looked lost, both in his thoughts, and among the overgrown perennials I’d desperately need to hack through once I finished my project at work.
The rain had stopped and the clouds unveiled a setting sun that was too bright, too orange, like the tissue thin petals of a California poppy, painting the corrugated tin roof and white walls in glowing watercolor.
Gus’s hand swept out, brushing the tops of the lupines that bloomed alongside the walkway. Cone-shaped hues of deep purples, lavenders, pinks, and blues bent inward, too heavy for their stems after the rain, the colors contrasting beautifully against the last of the day’s light.
I followed his gaze across the property, bracing myself for his distaste.
It was a lot, this garden. Too wild, too whimsical, and definitely too much to keep up with. To my eyes, it was a witch’s cottage dream sprung to life. To others, like my closest neighbor, it was an eyesore, and reason enough to burn me at the stake.
But this garden was mine. And before it was mine, it was Granny’s. There was nothing I loved more than our garden. The one thing she and I would always share.
When Granny moved us out of the mountains of Appalachia and into this house, I was seven. The first thing she did was rip out the lawn, slowly replacing the shallow-rooted, big box store fescue with native plants, stone walls, woven willow fences, and great, bushy native species. Over the years, she had created a half-acre Eden. Berry brambles and climbing roses lined the gravel drive. Crepe Myrtles shaded the house from the midday sun in the South, while old-growth linden and maple trees shielded the property on the western edge like sentries.
After Granny died, everything changed.
Now, curving stone paths meandered through invasive weeds instead of indigenous meadow. I no longer had time to cultivate beds for medicinal herbs, plants, and vegetables. Between work and more work, I barely had time to sleep.
In this soil, my hands learned the habits of the earth. My heart once beat in sync with the spirits of the plants. My body used to be governed by the cyclical nature of the seasons and their bounty. This garden had been my primer to life, and I’d let it become yet another place of decay and neglect.
Now Gus was walking within its boundary, and I felt exposed, naked. Something akin to embarrassment washed over me. I almost rushed out to him, needing to explain myself, that the lemon balm wasn’t usually quite so out of control, but I’d forgotten to cut it back when it went to seed last summer and now the little seedlings were everywhere. That no matter how important dandelions were for the bee population, they were too many for me to keep up with. And yes, I needed to prune the Wisteria, but it finally bloomed again this year and I didn’t have the heart to cut it back, so now it was going to take over the whole garage and I’d just have to be okay with that.
My fingers rubbed the worn aluminum knob on the screen door. As I debated whether to turn it or not, his eyes turned to my small movement, searching the shadows. A wide, good guy smile spread across his face and warmed my whole body.
That smile, that warmth, flooded me with an easy sense of rightness.
All is well, it told me.
This was Gus. My friend. There was no need to be nervous. No need to suddenly second guess every choice I”d made for the past decade. Gus brought out the me in me. Just because we were going to be spouses didn’t mean that had to change.
“Are you coming in, or do you want dinner in the front yard?”
He hustled up the walk and found the creaky third step on the porch. A few feet in front of me, that smile lingered on his lips, but quickly sobered into something more like awkwardness. “I didn’t know you lived so far away.”
“I considered buying a place closer to Bethany and Soula, but the state government pays my salary, and sadly, that doesn’t make me a bajillionaire. I’d hoped we could live here. After... you know.”
I hadn’t really hoped we’d live here. Honestly, it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I might have to give up this house. “Is it too far? Do you need to be in Franklin? Is Spring Hill a deal-breaker for you? Because, with my student loans, I don’t think I could swing even half a mortgage up there.”
He looked up at the corners of the porch. The ceiling was haint blue, of course, same as his, because this was the south, and haints and hags couldn’t cross water, or water-colored porch ceilings, apparently.
There was a lot to be desired about this house. It was in need of a paint job.
It was in need of every job.
Suddenly, the summer night had lost its heat. The incessant mating call of the jar flies roared in my ears. I held my breath as I followed his eyes over the spots where the white paint had flaked off the weathered gray clapboard, awaiting his disapproval.
“Decca, I live in a mortuary. This is incredible.”
I could almost breathe again. Except I couldn’t, because the way he looked down at me, it was like he’d never seen me before. His look was bolder, heavier, seductive. It melted my frozen feet and defibrillated my heart.
Inside, I gave him the grand tour.
It was a simple, small four-by-four, built in 1904. There were two bedrooms upstairs—the larger had been Granny’s until a few weeks ago, when I’d finally felt less guilty about taking it over. Downstairs was the kitchen, living room, dining room/office, plus a powder room under the stairs.
Of course, the kitchen doubled as an herbal apothecary and my office spilled out into the living room where, adding to the old-lady vibes, were crocheted afghans in 1970s oranges and browns, and a boxy tube TV that still worked, although since I no longer subscribed to cable, it was just another thing collecting dust.
“Well?” I asked, after his silence told me nothing of what was inside his head.
Don’t make me move. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have this place to come back to.
“Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of a formal dining room, but I could definitely do without the centerpiece.” He smirked. “These are real, I’m guessing.” He gestured to the near-complete set of skeletal remains resting in anatomical position on a sheet of thick plastic covering the dining room table.
“Oh! I hadn’t even—that’s just Barry. He’s kind of a pet project.”
“Is your pet a permanent fixture?”
“Sorry. Definitely not. He shouldn’t even be here. I just felt bad for him.”
“You felt bad. For a skeleton?” I couldn’t tell from his crooked grin whether that amused him, or whether he thought I was unstable enough to call off the wedding immediately.
“Well…” I didn’t plan on doing this now, but it was better he knew exactly what he was getting into with me. “Look at this fracture here. All we have of the left femur is the head and a bit of the neck, which makes sense when you look at this.” I switched on the task light and beckoned Gus closer. He bent his head but didn’t step forward.
His body stayed rigidly upright.
I opened my mouth to say something. But when he didn’t follow me, I realized why.
My comfort with death was an occupational hazard. These bones were nothing, hardly any organic matter left clinging to them. I was used to… well, a lot worse. And practically everyone I knew worked in deathcare and felt the same. I’d forgotten there were people who weren’t desensitized to human remains, even remains as old and desiccated as Barry.
I’d forgotten one of those sensitive people was Gus. He may have grown up in a funeral home, gone to mortuary school, and still occasionally lent a hand to transport bodies when his family was desperate for the help, but he wasn’t case-hardened like the rest of us. Even now, standing here among bones that were barely more than dust, he looked green around the gills.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have to—”
“Show me,” he demanded, taking a step closer. His voice had a roughness to it that made my cheeks hot.
I picked up the femur again. “On the distal end of the neck, right at the fracture line... Can you see that spherical impression?
“Bullet?”
“Exactly!” I grinned. “Well, musket ball.”
“Is that cause of death?”
“We can’t really tell if the bullet broke the head off the femur or if that happened in the grave, but if the bullet wasn’t cause of death, it certainly happened around the time of death, since there’s no evidence of bone remodeling.”
He looked at me blankly.
“The body starts healing right away. There’s no evidence of healing here.”
“So he got shot in the leg in the Civil War. Why do you feel bad for him? Do you know what side he fought on?”
My smile fell. “My sympathy only extends to bones, not moral failings. Anyway, he was shot in the hip. You know what blood vessel passes over this exact spot?”
“The femoral?”
“You must pay attention to Soula.”
“Learning anatomy from a textbook wasn’t my problem. The grossness was.”
It would be good to have him around, reminding me that not every life revolved around death. “So we have probable cause of death. Exsanguination. He bled out.”
“Can you make a positive declaration?”
“In anthropology, yes. That’s where we differ from what your sister does. The stakes are a lot lower when the case is nearly two-hundred-years old, and no one cares. And besides, we can use the narrative to shape our analysis.”
“The narrative?”
“The objects buried with him. The dating, and so on. Although no one cares about Barry enough to date him.”
“Except you.” The words lingered in the air; his faint smile was entrancing. The longer he looked into my eyes, the harder it was to hold his gaze. It was too penetrative. Like he could look into my soul and know all my secrets.
“Except me.” I ignored the attraction that was always rising up inside me, threatening to spill over at the worst moments. I hadn’t been able to keep it at bay since the first time I’d seen him in his high-necked, floor-length black robe he’d worn to the hospital when his dad had just been diagnosed with leukemia. It was one of the most shameful moments of my life.
We’d all been huddled in one of the waiting rooms. All the Smythes and soon-to-be Smythes. And me. Unaffiliated, but inserting myself anyway. I was framily, though. That counted for something.
Bethany and I had snuck away to the nurses’ station when Gus swept toward us in his cassock, and I was struck dumb by his appearance. Like some Old Testament prophet. Except my eyes hadn’t encountered God or one of their angels, but a lowly servant of the Lord. Suddenly, I understood Mary Magdalene’s desire to wash Jesus’ feet. Although she probably didn’t have the same instinct to crawl into Jesus’s lap and perform explicit acts.
Now Gus wore jeans and an olive plaid shirt, and though the green flannel didn’t quite elicit the same scandalous desire in me as the sober black crepe, it looked really good stretched across his straight, broad shoulders. The color did wonderful things to the golden flecks in his rich brown eyes and the chestnut tones in his hair and beard. And his thighs in those jeans… yeah, Laymen Gus was every bit as hot as Priest Gus.
It was hard to pull myself away from those eyes, but if I didn’t, I’d never be able to get through tonight, let alone the rest of our marriage.
I turned my attention back to Barry, who’d been a good boy, patiently waiting. “I’m still examining the fragments for any signs of disease or injury. After that I’ll put his bones in a cramped plastic box, take him to the office, and leave him on a shelf to sit in the basement for eternity. At least here he has a little breathing room.”
“He can’t be buried?”
“No one’s claimed him, and I haven’t been able to identify him.”
“It’s actually better than what I grew up with. I much prefer old bones to fresh bodies any day. And it’s not like there’s a skull staring at us.”
“Yeah, no. I wish we had the skull, but what can you do?”
“Right.” He nodded and put his hands in his pockets. We both stood still, waiting for the other to talk. God, this was awkward. We were never awkward as friends.
Instead of prolonging the awkwardness, I led us back into the kitchen and focused on dinner.
“I hope wine’s okay?”
Gus stepped behind me and peered into the sparse fridge over my shoulder. My mind windmilled in an attempt to explain. “I’m never home for long enough. I buy food only for it to rot in the crisper. I have flour, salt, and butter on hand at all times for biscuits. Cornmeal and dehydrated buttermilk in the pantry. If I’m home for more than a day, I’ll fix a mess of soup beans with a frozen ham hock, but…”
When I turned around, there was a glint in his eye as he listened patiently to my meal prep strategy.
“How about you tell me where the glasses are? Might as well start getting the lay of the land, right?”
Right. The lay of the land. This was going to be his house. Gus. Kosta. Constantinos Smythe was going to be living in Granny’s house.
I pointed to an upper cabinet. The kitchen was small, its footprint taken up with additional cupboards and bookshelves that housed dusty jars of Granny’s homegrown herbs and home-brewed remedies: oils and salves, poultice blends and tinctures. Most of which were so old, they needed to be thrown out, but like everything else in this house, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
He pulled two glasses down and held them by the stems, looking at me thoughtfully.
“Thanks, Dec. This means a lot.”
“It does. Mean a lot. For me, too. I guess I should probably give you an explanation. I had one prepared that night I came to see you, but I don’t know if I should... nothing makes any logical sense in our age anyway. Maybe it comes from my anthro training. My undergrad was in cultural anthropology, and I still love exploring rites-of-passages and rituals of people groups and civilizations, especially the ways they dealt with marriage and the family unit.”
“Dec—”
“And of course I’ve considered that, throughout history, most humans were not conceived inside of a loving, partnered marriage, and I’ve very strongly considered that remaining single might be the primary way our future society progresses, but I don’t like that... for me.”
“Decca—”
“And then I think of my own parents, and my grandparents, who had somewhat unorthodox relationships, sure, but they were also traditional in their own way. And it’s not like marriage didn’t exist outside Abrahamic faiths, even in the Patriarchal era, not that Jewish or Islamic archeology is anywhere near my field. Look at Mesopotamia. It predates Christianity, anyway, and they signified marriage with a legal written contract, and I do very much value the ethos of rule-abiding. The Code of Hammurabi—“
“Decca.”
“I’m babbling. I know.” I squeezed my temples with my cold hands, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. “I’m nervous. And I don’t know where to go from here, now that we’ve made such a huge decision.”
Gus put the glasses on the counter and closed his hands around mine, pulling us together. I’d just been talking and talking and filling up the space between us with words. But his face was earnest and warm. He closed the gap.
“I just meant dinner. It smells fantastic and I appreciate that you put so much effort into it. It means a lot, and I appreciate it.”
“Oh.” Yeah, not the proposal. I’d totally jumped the gun on that.
“But about the marriage...” he continued, “I still haven’t figured out a way to show you what it means to me that you’d do this. Give up your freedom. Let me move into your cozy little house and alter your whole world. For me. Words will never be enough.“ The corner of his lip quirked in a coy half-smile. “I’m pretty sure I can find a better way to demonstrate my thanks.”
I ignored the flirtation in his deepened voice. The eyes that kept flickering with inadequately expressed gratitude. “Gus, I’m not giving anything up. I don’t see it like that, and I’m sorry you do. I have my reasons. Even selfish reasons for asking you.”
His mouth parted. He started to shake his head no, but he stopped himself, looking down at my lips for the barest hint of an instant, as if he wanted to kiss me. I wished he would. Not out of gratitude, but desire. “What reasons? Selfish?”
He glanced at my lips again before he seemed to realize how close we were. He leaned back. Did he desire me? Even a little bit? Or was he being gaslit by his own relief and happiness that I’d swooped in and fulfilled his dreams for him?
I pulled away from him and attended to dinner, hoping it would clear my head. “Gus, if this is going to work, you can’t be thanking me all the time. You’ll have to trust that I know what I’m doing. Let’s just go back to being friends. You’re my best friend. Well, I have a lot of best friends, but they’re all partnered up now. You’re now my best single friend. So, just be my friend and we’ll have fun with this. Maybe it turns into something more down the road. Maybe, down a different road, we hate each other and have to live in separate houses, but... be my friend? For now?”
He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest, looking at me, deciding if I was telling the truth. His studying gaze made me want to shrink within myself or fold my tiny body into an even tinier compartment.
“Okay, then. Let’s get down to business.
I groaned. “I don’t know if I’m ready—”
“Opening presents on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve?”
Oh, thank God.Light was what we needed right now. Light I could do.
“Yule,” I said.
He chuckled. “I’ll wait for Santa, if you don’t mind. Uh, joint financials or every person for themselves?”
“Does it matter? We both have a ton of debt and get paid nothing. Joint. Share the poverty.” I shrugged.
There was a long pause as he watched me sauté the shrimp. “Kids?” he asked. His tone was different, but I could tell he was trying not to be.
So much for light.
A shrimp bounced out of the skillet as I overshot my strength. He wasn’t going to like my answer. It would probably end the conversation—probably end our very short —but it was best to spit it out.
“I got my tubes tied in grad school. I’m sorry if that’s a deal-breaker, but I’ve never wanted kids, and even if I did, I’d rather just foster or something. I understand—”
“I got a vasectomy. Just don’t tell the church—we’re supposed to be fruitful and all that.”
“Still? That’s surprisingly Catholic of them.”
“How dare they?” he drawled. A long moment passed between us, where neither of us looked away. Too long.
“Love language?” I asked.
He laughed and looked at his crossed feet. He looked so at ease in my kitchen—our kitchen. This wouldn’t be easy to go from zero to one hundred, mashing our lives together into something resembling a sustainable marriage, but there would be a lot of lovely moments along the way. Like watching this indomitable man get boyish and embarrassed. “Physical touch. Yours?”
“I don’t know. They all sound nice.”
His brow crinkled in the center and he angled his body toward the stove. “I can do all of them. And we can explore what works for you if you truly don’t know.”
I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t expect you to love me, okay? Especially not enough to put the work into what exactly makes me feel loved. You’re not the only one with a past, Gus. And I don’t feel like talking about mine yet. Or ever.” It came out with more heat than usual. I flipped another shrimp too hard, and it skidded under the burner.
“Hey, I...” He pulled the spatula out of my grasp and flicked the burner off before pulling me into his arms. It was the first time we’d hugged since the proposal, and I’d forgotten how much I’d missed being in his arms. There was something too easy about him. He already felt like home.
He didn’t finish what he started to say. He just held me against his body, wrapping his arms tightly across my back, his height curving around me, shielding me from what he didn’t know, allowing me to melt against him.
And melt I did. I nestled my head under his chin and laid my cheek against his chest. His heartbeat rocked me, and our breaths synced.
“This. This must be my love language. Your hugs.”
He chuckled low. I felt it inside my body.
“I think we both needed this,” he said. It was warm in his arms. Like standing in front of an oven on a cold winter day. Safe enough, I could let go of all the tension I carried from job to job. It made it so much nicer that it wasn’t just me.
“Do you always wear that perfume?” He asked.
“No. It depends on the season. This one has soil and petrichor and oak moss. You like it? I’ve never met anyone who actually likes it besides me.”
“I hate it.”
I pulled back from him and held him at arm’s length. We stared at each other for several seconds before he cracked a smile and we both laughed.
“It is truly… yeah, it stinks like an old witch’s cottage.”
“Gus, look around.”
“No, not a good witch, like you. I’m talking one who eats children and leaves their bones outside to rot.”
“Shut up. I smell like the earth after a rainstorm, not rotten bones.” I smacked his arm. “It was a gift from Bethany. Actually, all my fragrances are. It’s kind of her thing.”
He nodded. “She bought me a very expensive-looking bottle of something for Christmas last year.”
“Is that what you’re wearing now?”
“Yeah.” He blushed. Or at least I imagined he blushed under his thick beard.
“I like it. It smells like actually being out in the woods, rather than in-your-face cologne.”
“To me, it smells like church.”
I closed my arms around his waist again as I looked up. “Dream vacation?”
He let out an audible breath, “Some island in the middle of the Pacific. In one of those huts built right over the lagoon. My tiny wife in a tiny bikini.” He looked down. “I’m allowed to say that now, right? We are engaged.”
I started to break the hug, but he held tighter. Our eyes met. Instead of shrinking into myself, like I usually did whenever an attractive man looked at me, he made me brave. Or I decided to be brave. I wasn’t sure which was which. It was entirely possible I’d never had anyone encourage me to be myself in a romantic relationship. That’s why I didn’t have them. Before now, they were a waste of time, a way to take my eyes off my career goals.
“As long as my bikini is black.”
He considered for a moment. “You look good in black. Shows off that blindingly white skin of yours. I bet you glow under moonlight.”
“You’ll find out tonight.”
“What’s tonight?” His eyes darkened.
“I’m building us a fire on the patio out back. There’s a full moon.”
He nodded slowly, a smile creeping across his face. “Sex?”
“What?” I really did break the hug this time. He let me, dropping his arms too, turning to stir the pasta. He didn’t elaborate. He just fished the stray piece of shrimp off the stove and popped it into his mouth, chewing at me questioningly with raised eyebrows. “After the wedding,” he said around his mouthful of shrimp. “Are we?”
“Oh! After...” God, I hoped my relief wasn’t that obvious. I hadn’t shaved, hadn’t even showered since yesterday morning, since it would’ve been stupid to shower before a bonfire. Even if I had, “Uh, well, I assumed we’d have to consummate the marriage.”
He shook his head. “Greeks don’t do that. Actually, I don’t know if that’s a legal requirement anywhere anymore. I just mean, I don’t expect you to feel comfortable, or want to right away. But eventually...” He smiled, but not at me, at the pot of linguine. “Yeah. We’ll get there.”
“It sounds as though you’re already there.”
“Decca.” He turned to me, giving me a look I couldn’t identify. He took a step forward, I took a step back. It was predatory in the best way. He took another step, and I did the same until my lower back hit the countertop. He moved in closer, pressing his body against mine. He didn’t move to do anything; didn’t touch me or kiss me. He just looked down at me, his arms hanging at his sides, his legs pressed against mine. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. He was pressing more and more and... oh. Oh. That was what he was... yeah, I felt it. The hardness between his legs, pressing into my belly. I couldn’t help but look down. He was definitely already there.
He nodded slightly, and I knew he was telling me this was okay.
“Every time I hug you.”
Somehow we managed to eat after that.
Through lingering eye contact that left me squirming on my seat and pressing my thighs together, I’d managed to down two glasses of wine and force myself to observe him under this new lens.
Gus let me watch him. We both took turns. I watched the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed at me telling him about the time I had to crawl into an excavator bucket ten feet in the air to identify whether the remains were human or not. (It was papier maché.)
I watched, entranced by the movement of his jaw, somehow still square through his short beard. I took note of the way he intentionally rounded his shoulders when he leaned closer to me, as if trying to make himself smaller, less intimidating. But the consideration it showed only heightened his commanding presence. Only a great person, meant for a great life, would consciously diminish his physical presence to balance it with another. It was yet another outward sign of his deep capacity for empathy.
It was what had drawn me to him in the first place.
I gnawed off a piece of garlic bread and swallowed painfully, the bread sticking in my throat as a thought formed in my head.
I was in imminent danger of falling in love with my fiancé.