34
The noise is deafening. I bolt upright in bed, clammy sweat dripping between my breasts, my heart thundering.
The black is absolute. Not even the silver-gray of moonlight breaches the darkness. I feel around the bed, kicking the sweat-soaked sheets aside, and reach for the lamp. I turn the switch. Nothing. The room remains dark.
The air is humid, sticky-damp, and stagnant. I wipe my hand across the perspiration on my forehead and breathe in the stuffiness of a house hunched down and locked tight.
“Aaron?”
My voice is drowned out by the roar of outside. It sounds as if I’m standing in a tunnel and I’m seconds from being mowed down by a charging train. Rain thunders against the tiles of the roof and the wind slams against the cottage walls, howling and raging.
So this is the storm.
I resist the urge to cover my ears. Instead I inch to the edge of the bed and toe my foot toward the floor. I’m surprised to find cool stone tile. The cottage has wood floors, smooth and glossy.
I’m not in the cottage then. And Aaron isn’t here.
I stand and inch my way across the floor, my hands stretched out in front of me, until I hit a wall. I slide along the cool plaster until my fingers catch on a ridge of wooden molding.
My breath is loud and nervous. I grasp the metal doorknob and swing open the door.
The soft glow of yellow light spills across me and I breathe out a sigh of relief. I let my eyes adjust. The light is weak. It’s filtered down a long hallway.
I was right. I’ve never been in this house before. The walls are coral, the trim is white. The tile floors are beige and cracks run through them. The walls are crooked and the ceiling is low. There are two closed doors across from me, and at the end of the hallway there’s a kitchen with coral cabinets and a round table. A hurricane lamp glows on the kitchen table.
I don’t see anyone.
But just when I believe I’m alone in this house, I hear him.
It’s a sharp, unhappy cry. The type of whimper that makes every parent bolt upright from a dead sleep and rush into their baby’s bedroom.
I hurry down the hallway toward the sound of Sean’s cries.
When I step into the kitchen the lamplight spills over me. I turn toward the sound of his ragged cry and stop at the threshold.
Aaron’s there.
He’s holding Sean in his arms, rocking him, running his hand over his back, pacing the length of the small tile-floored living room.
Aaron’s back is to me, his head tucked next to Sean’s. He’s in a T-shirt, jeans, his feet bare and his black hair rumpled.
Sean’s head rests on Aaron’s shoulder. His cheeks are red and wet from tears, his eyes swollen. He tosses his head back and forth and lets out a heart-wrenching whimper. His ragged bunny hangs from his arms.
The wind continues to howl, raging against the house, yanking at the metal shutters closed over the windows. The house moans and Sean whimpers again.
Then above the noise I hear Aaron.
He’s singing a quiet, low melody that I can barely make out. It’s a whispered, hushed song. “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry, little one, your dad is here, he’ll make it all right.”
Sean clutches Aaron’s shirt and buries his face in his shoulder. Then Aaron turns. When he sees me standing in the threshold he stops. His hand stills on Sean’s back.
Something flashes in his eyes. As quick as lightning. Impossible to decipher.
“Hey,” he says.
At his word Sean twists in his arms. When he catches sight of me he bends toward me, holds out his chubby arms, and cries, “Mamamama,” as if he’s telling me all about how scared he is, how terrible the noise is, how much he needs comfort. And once he says it, his lower lip wobbles and he says, “Mama.”
I hurry forward, taking him in my arms. He cuddles into me, burying his face in my long cotton T-shirt. His cheeks are damp and his tears wet my T-shirt. I wrap my arms around him and take his weight.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, rocking him. “You’re okay.”
Aaron watches me, his face clear of emotion. Something prickles in the air between us—something electric and storm-like.
I want to ask him where we are, what happened, but instead I rub slow circles over Sean’s back and rock him as I pace the small living room.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize where we are. The furniture is overstuffed floral rattan. There’s a weathered wooden coffee table with a collection of conch shells and sea glass in a bowl. Near the window is a tall bookshelf. The bookshelf is key. On it are two dozen framed photographs. Most of them are of Aaron—from baby to teen—with his parents, with friends, with his Grandma Essie. A few are of Aaron with Amy as a baby. The rest are of a man and a woman who look like Aaron. He has his mom’s eyes, his dad’s height.
It looks like for the storm we’ve moved inland to his parents’ house. It makes sense. The cottage is so close to the beach it would be dangerous if there was a storm surge.
As I turn I glance at him. He’s watching me, the quiet from the last time back in place.
“When did he wake?” I ask.
Aaron looks at the clock hanging on the wall near the kitchen table. “Eleven.”
It’s three now. Aaron’s been up with him for four hours. “You should’ve come for me.”
It’s always better to have someone to share the load.
He frowns. “I did. You told me to let you sleep. Said you were dreaming.”
Is that what I said?
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. You should get some sleep. I’ll stay with him.”
Aaron rubs a hand down his face and smothers a yawn. “I’ll make you a coffee. Room temp, instant, but a coffee all the same.”
“Make two,” I tell him.
He flickers a smile at me as he crosses to the tiny kitchen.
Sean grows heavy, and soon he feels as heavy as Mila when she was five and too tired to walk any further. She’d always beg to be carried and I’d hoist her in my arms, gasping at how big she’d grown.
His head has lolled to rest against my chest, his mouth hangs open, and his eyelashes flutter on the edge of sleep. His body is soft and boneless against me. Slowly I pace the room, swaying him in my arms, whispering, “Shhh shhh shhh,” until finally his fingers loosen from my T-shirt and his hand falls free. His head drops forward and he lets out a little sleep whimper.
“He’s asleep,” I whisper.
Aaron looks up from the mugs he’s stirring packets of instant coffee into. When he sees Sean’s eyes are closed, his limbs relaxed, his shoulders drop and he lets out a sigh of relief.
“He’s always been scared of the noise.”
“Did Amy wake up too?”
He smiles. “No. You know Amy. She thinks it’s an adventure, and then when she’s tired of the noise she rolls over and sleeps like the dead.”
That does sound like Amy.
A raging gust slams against the house, beating with renewed vigor. I look toward the walls, worried.
“This house has stood for a hundred years. Through a Cat 5, countless 3s, innumerable 1s. Don’t worry, Becca. A little storm isn’t going to blow it down.”
I glance back at him. “This is a little storm?”
He gives me a tilted smile and picks up the mugs. “You never did like hurricane season. You’re like Sean that way.” He sets the mugs on the wooden coffee table. “I’ll make him a bed out here. Hold on.”
He pulls two thin coral cotton blankets from the couch and piles them on the floor in a little nest. My arms are aching enough that I gladly lean down and carefully roll Sean onto the blankets. His eyelashes flutter and he tenses for a moment, so I set my hand on his chest and murmur, “Shhh, shhh,” until he relaxes back into sleep.
“I can stay out here. Sleep on the couch next to him,” I offer, glancing again at Aaron.
He has purple lines under his eyes, tired hollows in his cheeks. His hair stands up from where he thrust his fingers through it and stubble lines his jaw. He looks as if he could fall asleep standing up.
But instead of taking me up on my offer, he sits on the couch and rests his elbows on his thighs. He leans forward then and stares at the mugs of coffee.
So I sit next to him and reach for a cup. I take a hesitant sip. It’s exactly as I thought it would be—bitter and dark, cold—but since Aaron added about three tablespoons of sugar it’s also delicious in a middle-of-the-night stormy drink sort of way.
“Thank you,” I say, cupping my hands around the mug. I scoot closer to him until my bare thigh rests against his and my arm brushes the warmth of his.
My T-shirt inches up my thigh. Aaron looks down at my leg pressed to his. Then he looks back at the table and reaches for his cup of coffee.
He takes a long drink and then, looking down at his hands balancing the cup on his knees, he asks, “Where did you go?”
I glance quickly at him. Does he mean where did I go since I last dreamed? As in, Geneva? Or . . .?
“What do you mean?”
He looks at me then, and his eyes are as storm-filled as the night outside. Thunder rumbles and the house shudders. Lightning flashes. The light leaks through the hurricane shutters and streaks across his face.
He looks into me. I swear. He isn’t looking at Becca—the woman everyone sees. He’s looking at me. Fiona.
“Two days ago I asked you if you felt what I felt?—”
“Two days?” My hands shake. I set the mug back on the coffee table. Some of the coffee spills on my hands.
“You made it clear I’m not . . .” He looks up at the ceiling, then back to me. “And I couldn’t disagree, because I didn’t feel it anymore either. We were friends again. Parents. What we’ve always been. What we agreed to. That feeling was gone. But now here it is again. You walk in the room and all I want to do is kiss you. All I want is to love you. Tell me I’m wrong.”
The wind rises with his words and the house groans. I grip the hem of my T-shirt. Hold it tight.
“I can’t,” I whisper, my words barely heard above the storm.
He nods as if he knew that was how I’d answer all along. “Then it’s a dream,” he says. “You’re just a dream.”
Maybe so. Maybe that’s what reality is when you’re inside a dream.
When you’re awake your dreams aren’t real. When you’re dreaming your life isn’t real.
He glances over at me then, the yellow light of the hurricane lamp glowing softly over the room. “Fi?” he asks, his voice hopeful.
Slowly I nod, my cheeks heating. “Yes.”
His lips curve into a slow, sad smile. “If I kiss you now, will it hurt much tomorrow when you don’t want me?”
He isn’t asking me. It’s a question for the storm and the dark of the night, but I answer anyway.
“I’ll want you.”
“Will you?”
It’s like he’s asking if I’m going to put him away, stop the watch, lock it in its box, and never open it again.
“Yes,” I say, moving closer, pressing against the warm line of him. “I wanted to tell you. The other night in the garden. I wanted to tell you I feel it too. I’m falling too.”
He searches my face, catching every glimmer and nuance of expression.
“You’re falling, but . . .” He trails off and waits for me to finish the sentence. He knew there was a “but” there, a hesitation.
“I’m a little scared,” I say, “of what happens when the music ends.”
“When the blackbirds stop singing?” he asks.
I swallow down the tight lump in my throat and nod. My stomach tilts and dips.
He reaches forward and runs a finger soothingly across my cheek. “Don’t be scared. I’ll be there too. When it ends.”
He looks solemnly into my eyes when he makes this promise. I reach up and hold my hand over his, then I link our fingers together.
“Tell me something else about you,” he says. “Something I don’t know.”
I catch the light glinting off his jet-black hair and it reminds me, “I love to sail at night.” I used to with my dad and Daniel in the Greek isles. “There are so many stars when you’re out in the middle of the ocean. You’ve never seen so many. It’s like the sky is painted with diamonds. When you lie on your back and stare at the sky you nearly burst from the wonder, the awe. You feel so small and so big at the same time. I love it.” I glance at him. There’s a glint in his eyes. “Someday we could go out together.”
“Yeah?”
My heart gives one hollow thump. “Yeah.”
“What else?” he asks, tucking me into his side. He leans back against the couch cushion and I settle into him.
I rest my head against his chest and his fingers tangle in the ends of my hair. “I have a brother.”
“I know that.” I can hear the smile in Aaron’s voice.
“Maybe. But you don’t know that I think he’s one of the best human beings on the planet. He’d do anything for me. And I’d do anything for him. When I was a kid I’d save my allowance and buy him marzipan because I knew he loved it. And even though I never liked the beach, I always took him because he’d beg—” I smile up at Aaron. “You’d like him.”
“I already do like him. We grew up together.”
“He’d like you too,” I say.
“Well, if Miami hasn’t changed him then he still does.”
And Max. Would Max like Aaron?
I don’t know. I think at first Max would be wary of him. Max is wary of everyone when he first meets them. I was the rare exception. It takes months, sometimes years, to earn his trust. But once you have it he’s loyal to the end. I think if Max met Aaron in the real world, at a gala or a business function, he would respect him, and that respect would turn to like.
My chest pinches at the thought, a bittersweet tug. Aaron at a gala? In my world? The real world? There isn’t even the slimmest possibility of that ever happening.
“One more thing,” I tell Aaron, leaning into his warmth. I breathe in the scent of coffee and cool pounding rain.
“What’s that?”
“I love coffee in a rainstorm.”
He smiles at me, the edges of his eyes crinkling.
“Now you tell me something,” I say.
He thinks for a moment, his eyes searching. Then his fingers curl in mine and he says, “Just being near you . . . it feels like all my rough edges are smoothed out. You make me feel like I can?—”
“Fly?”
“Get in the water again.”
I push off his chest and sit up. “You’d swim again?”
His jaw tightens and he gets a faraway look in his eyes, as if he’s considering the hundreds of kilometers he’d swim alone. Through currents, through shark-infested waters, through jellyfish stings and storms. “Before, when I thought about it, I could only see me, alone. If I lost myself again I’d be on my own. Now I see you there too.”
Me.
He means me, me.
Not the Becca who loves Robert. Who wants to leave the island. Who married Aaron as a friend to be a parent to their baby.
He means me.
He’s willing to dive into the water again. Face his fears.
Because he sees me there.
Am I willing to do that too?
To dive fully into love?
“I’ll be there,” I tell him. “If you need me, I’ll come in after you.”
He smiles at that, thinking I can’t swim. He’d be surprised.
“I didn’t mean you being on the boat. I meant in my life.”
I smile at him. “I know. Will you kiss me now?”
The rain is still lashing against the roof. The wind shudders over the house.
He pulls me to him and I straddle his lap. My T-shirt rides up and I feel the heat of him thick against me.
I sink against him. Then he takes my mouth in a soft, slow kiss, gentle and seeking, the opposite of the raging storm. I dig my hands through his hair, pull his mouth against mine.
I taste coffee and shared confidences, longing and dreams, and in the silence after the kiss, in that quiet moment, I lean into him, my heart beating in time with the rain, and I find one more thing.
In the stillness, in the quiet, I find his love.