Chapter 18 Weeping Willow Conversation #2
"All the fucking time." How deeply his words hit her was astonishing; how fiercely he said them without hesitation and without qualm, like they were pulled from the depths of him. "There are so many little things I have thought of that I will never have, things that men don't even think about."
"Like what?"
He gave her a look. She smiled.
"Give me a couple," she pleaded.
"You might laugh," his dimple flashed but he looked anything but embarrassed. She liked that about the detective; he strode through life comfortable in his skin.
"I can give a woman a bouquet of flowers, but they'll never mean I love her.
I'll never be able to say the words and mean them and I've tried lying before but it's like lime and vinegar on my tongue.
It actually settles inside of my belly like a weight if I say the words.
I could get married to someone I admire or deeply like," he paused, the words finding her like they were thought of with her in mind.
"But I could never look at her with that immeasurable feeling of love. "
As he talked her heart filled with such sadness that it felt like something was splintering inside of her. He would never have what everyone could, even if they chose not to or didn't find it, or worse, had what too many threw away.
Being in love was like asking underneath your words and inside of all the small and large things, the important and the mundane, "do you really love me?
" And the answer is always "yes." It's extraordinary, that kind of love and he would never have it.
She could never fathom not having that possibility in her life.
And he could never give her those things.
"And love letters. I'll never write one. I don't know why, but that one has always struck me as," he heaved a heavy sigh, "fathomless. Want to know something pathetic?"
"Always. I love pathetic things," she said.
A quick smile. "Every now and then I write a love letter.
To no one. I just have these feelings inside of me, and I don't know what they are but I wonder sometimes if it's all the love I can never give to someone.
It's like I have it in me but it can't go anywhere.
I can't give it out. I can't give it away.
" He punctuated his words with a tight fist beating against his chest where the love in his heart that he couldn't give was trapped.
And her heart cracked. A sliver of a cool breeze lifted a few of the willow's branches and slid into their warm space.
It carried on it his smell of oranges, not as sweet, and hickory.
Next to her was a man who was cursed to never love a woman; cursed to know what love could be, but unable to let it out.
She wondered if love wrapped around his bones like climbing roses looking and reaching for a place to bloom.
"How did you come to be cursed?"
His sad smile looked like it weighed him down. He hung his head shaking it slowly and she sat next to him, not pushing the question, as the steady sound of the tree crickets and the breeze pushing against wands of the willow rocked them into a gentle peace.
She suddenly felt, as the world softened around them, that everything was going to be alright.
Sitting here with him and the night speaking loving whispers she felt a well of peace she hadn't felt in days.
"My dad passed away." He lifted his head and she quickly added, "It was a few years ago.
Actually, a month before Ursula and I had our falling out and I left for Florida.
I have never been able to talk about it.
" She swallowed a roughness in her throat.
"I'm still not sure that I can. Something gets caught," she pressed light fingertips against her collarbone as she watched the sway of the willow branches, as words dried out and turned to dust in her mouth like they did every time she tried to talk about him.
"Maybe I'm cursed too," she said with a tremulous smile.
Ursula's words wove through her mind. "I've been running from facing my grief. "
"I've known you for a short time, but you don't strike me as someone who runs away."
She thought of Ursula's words.
"This one is too big," her words were whispered because the threat of the breaking dam of tears was sharp.
"Anyways, Ursula slipped away because of a cruel, unkind and boring man.
I ran away because I couldn't handle facing the grief of losing my dad while also losing her.
" She shrugged. "And we haven't dealt with it all yet. "
A warm hand wrapped around hers in the perfect offering of steadiness.
Sulphur was asleep next to her, her warm body purring against her leg and Taylor sat on her other side with her small hand curled into his large one.
She didn't need to explain anything else, didn't need to tell him why she would sleep under the canopy of the tree when she asked if she could.
He simply tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, his blue eyes running over her face like a warm caress and then leaned in to kiss her softly on her forehead.
And she thought, is there anything more delicately intimate than a forehead kiss?
She felt it like a wave of warm water lapping over her body the moment his lips pressed against her skin, held for a few secret beats, and then released her.
When he ran his rough thumb over her cheek she felt a lurch inside of her at his intense gentleness.
She wondered if his hands had become roughened by building his cabin on the hill.
If he sometimes looked at his hands, empty, the regret of never being able to fill them a lament that had somehow not made this man's heart rough.
"I wish I could say so many things to you," he said gruffly as if the words had passed over sandpaper before being released from his mouth. As if there were things inside of him trying to hold them back.
And she wouldn't ask which words. She wouldn't dwell or hope. She knew that would pain him.
"Can we let the other night be," she bit her bottom lip and implored with her eyes what she wasn't sure she wanted to say.
His eyes flickered to her lips. He blinked and then they were staring into hers again. "Yeah," was all he needed to say.
A tremulous smile, a sad mirrored expression and then he got up from the ground.
He parted the curtained willow and looked down at her looking up at him. "Eloise?" His mouth melted into a soft smile. She wasn't sure if it was sad or honest or both. "I wouldn't take it back."
She didn't need to ask what he spoke of. The passionate moonlight kisses where for a spell of time she felt seen and like she was a part of him. She wondered if he'd felt that way too. How far can a heart go and feel before it butts up against love?
Neither of them were smiling, but they stared at each other in that simple way of soft desire before it is muddled with the mind and world. It was only a few moments, but it was theirs. "I'm just up that way if you need anything."
She nodded and watched as he left her underneath the weeping willow.
The night swallowed the world in its darkness and gentle, lulling sounds.
As she lay down, finding the perfect patches of thick Kentucky bluegrass as a pillow under her quilt, she willed her heart to find rest tonight.
Rest from the darkness of her past, the losses, and the wound between her and her dearest friend. Tomorrow was a new day.
And as she drifted off, her mind softening around the edges for a few hours of relief the willow branches shook and danced as its magic called to the surrounding world to take care of this woman who had a bruised heart and a long road of healing and dazzling life ahead of her.
And the world answered without hesitation as the stars twinkled a little brighter that night.
The wind carried the perfect warmth that would keep her tucked in and asleep.
A cooper's hawk nestled into the tree above her, keeping a golden eye open and sharp.
As her mind emptied the loving and anxious thoughts of her friend, they slipped into the ground where they stirred and grew roots.
When she woke the next morning, a rejuvenation of the kind of deep sleep she hadn't gotten in so many years, she was surrounded by bluebells, their periwinkle heads bowed to the ground.
Thousands of them had popped up overnight.
She ran the tips of her fingers over their velvety petals and smiled.
When she parted the curtain of the willow tree the sunshine, still low and rising as it brought along the young golden day, highlighted the sea of bluebells covering the field.
Her smile spread into the perfect stretch as she laughed giving back to the earth her gratitude in mirth and hope.
Before she and Sulphur walked the mile back to The Lost Souls house, she gathered a perfect armful of bluebells, placing one in her hair which had been braided by the mothering branches of the willow tree.
"I'm ready," she said to no one, or perhaps to the world and its magic that had so lovingly taken care of her when she needed it most. And then she was on her way to face an old wound and start healing.