58
I lie down on my bed, the gold pocket watch nestled in the palm of my hand. It’s heavy and warm, and the blue enamel swirls with the enchantment of dreams.
The warm noonday light shines across me in ripples and waves. The gold satin duvet pools beneath me as I settle deeper into the soft folds. Aaron takes me in, his gaze traveling over the naked line of my shoulders.
The chateau is quiet, buried in snow and a sleepy winter light. Outside, a winter bird sings and another calls back. Inside there’s the sound of the duvet whispering beneath me and Aaron dragging in a shaky breath.
The sheets rustle as he shifts closer. My bedroom is filled with warmth, an electric, tingly energy. An expectant pull that rushes between us.
“This is the watch?” Aaron asks, his voice scraping over me. “That let you dream?”
“This is it,” I say, holding it out to him.
On the drive here I told him about the watch, about how I thought he wasn’t real, about how I learned of his death and how I was able to save him. I told him how I forgot him until he came to me and said my name.
He held my hand as he drove along the winter-blue lake, the snowdrifts lining the edges of the curving road.
I asked him, “How are you so calm about all this?”
And he said, “I’ve had two years to accept it. The first few weeks I was shocked. The next two years I just wanted you.”
“Did Becca remember me?” I ask, wondering what she thought of it all.
He shook his head. “No. She didn’t. She left for New York with Robert the day after Christmas.”
“And Amy? Sean?”
“Amy wants to meet you.”
“She figured it out?”
He grinned at me, the snow-covered trees flashing past. “She’s too smart not to. Dostoevsky? Becca would never have pulled out those quotes.”
Becca left. She and Robert married last year. She didn’t want to exercise her parental rights. She hasn’t seen the kids in more than a year. It’s something I know a bit about—something I can relate to.
Amy is at the bookshop with Sean. Maranda came too. She wanted an international adventure. Later today they’ll all come to the chateau and have dinner with me and Mila.
Aaron slowly takes the watch. He turns it in the light and the gold glints in the sun shining through the window.
“You dreamed me first.” He sets the watch on the nightstand. “But Fi, I’ve been dreaming of you for the past two years.”
I smile at him. “Even though you didn’t know what I looked like?”
“I knew your heart.”
“Did you always recognize me when I was there? When I wasn’t me?”
He reaches out, stroking his hand over my cheek, down my jaw, to the edge of my mouth. “You were always you. Looking back, I knew each time I was with you. How could I not? And today, when you walked into the room and I saw you—soft hazel eyes, fiery auburn hair, intelligent and generous, your kind smile, the warmth of your touch—you were my Fi.”
“It’s not hard for you to believe?” I ask, thinking he didn’t have a childhood like mine, where I was prepared to accept there are more things unexplained in the universe than explained, and to accept the things we don’t understand.
“I believe in love,” he says. “I think just about anything is possible with love.”
“You love me?”
He smiles, leans forward, and pushes me back to the bed. I fall beneath him and he straddles his hips over mine. “I love you,” he says. “Fiona Abry. Fi.”
Instead of saying yes, I whisper, “I love you.”
Then we’re lips and mouths and hands. I pull off my dress, the satin scraping over my skin. Aaron slides my bra free, catches my nipples in his mouth, and presses a kiss to each freckle, each fairy kiss. He slides his hands over my skin, caressing the curve of my hips, stroking the softness of my abdomen. His jeans whisper over my skin, abrading me like the sand of the beach. He rocks against me. His mouth is hot, his movement a gentle wave.
I reach for his jeans, tugging them free. I pull off his shirt. Then I run my hands over the smooth muscle of his abdomen and the dark ink of his tattoos. I roll my hands over his shoulders and arch up to him.
I tug his boxers down and he springs free. He closes his eyes and draws in a shaky breath as I move against him.
I reach around him, holding him over me. He’s as hot as the sun, as welcome as the warmth of the sea sliding over me.
He takes his mouth to mine, kissing me with all his love. “I love you.”
I reach up and pull him closer. Taste the sweetness of his mouth, the promise of a life well-lived and well-loved, a future of dreams.
I wrap myself around him, and then he pauses, keeping himself still at the heat of me.
“Fi?” he asks—a question, a proposal.
I smile up at him. “Yes,” I say, and then he kisses me and slowly, gently, plunges into me.
My breath catches as I stretch around him, taking him in. His heart pounds against my chest as he stills over me. I clutch his back, the heat of him searing me.
He looks down at me, a fierce, wild-love expression on his face—the same one he wore when he promised to love me, to wait for me, to find me. I drag in a breath, overwhelmed by the feel of him.
“Please,” I say, tilting my hips, “love me.”
And then he does. He loves me with the same passion I dreamed of. He loves me unreservedly and wholeheartedly. He doesn’t hold any of himself back. So when I cry out and my heart shatters and then mends, all in the same moment, I know?—
He gives a ragged cry, whispers my name, kisses me.
I know?—
This love. It’s a forever kind of love.
Aaron pulls me onto him. His sweat and heat slick over me. His heart beats wildly as he rubs his hand over the curve of my back.
“I’m going to spend my life with you,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “I thought I’d let you know.”
I smile, burying my face against his chest. “After knowing me in real life for a few hours?”
He drops a kiss on my head. “Fi. It’s fate. I’ve already dreamed it.”
With that I close my eyes and fall asleep in his arms.
Epilogue
We marry a month later.
The wedding is on the beach, a new shoreline on Saint Eligius. Aaron and I stand beneath a wooden gazebo. The turquoise sea crashes against the reef, sending a cool sea breeze over us. Vanilla-and-jasmine-scented tropical flowers hang from the trellis.
The sun shines over the sandy beach and falls in golden dappled light through the twining flowers. The lace of my wedding dress blows in the wind as I clasp Aaron’s hands.
Mila is our flower girl. She spread a path of fuchsia, coral, and sun-yellow petals collected from gardens around the island. She loves Amy, who is a worldly sixteen. And she loves Sean, her new brother, who, now that he’s four, can’t stop talking. He’s memorized all of Amy’s poems and loves to regale everyone with stories of his outdoor adventures.
Amy, my maid of honor, stands next to us under the gazebo. When we finally met, the first thing she said was, “Fi, I have a quote for you.”
“Isn’t it too early for quotes?” I asked.
“It’s never too early for Dostoevsky.” And then she said, “‘We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.’” She smiled then and said, “That’s how I feel about you. I think we were always meant to be friends.”
I agreed. Later, at the bookshop, I asked, “Now that you’ve left the island, do you feel as if you’ve lived?”
“Oh yes. I’ve lived. But I have so much more living to do.” She smiled then, a pile of books in her arms, her little brother clasping her waist.
And so Mila and Amy and Sean have new friends and a bigger family.
At the edge of the gazebo, Daniel smiles at me. He’s unbearably happy for me, believing he’s the reason I opened myself to love, and that if it wasn’t for him, I would never have met Aaron.
I don’t mind letting him think that. I only want him to find someone. He deserves happiness too.
Outside the gazebo, in the shade of a stand of whispering pines, the islanders—our friends and family—watch the ceremony. There’s Dee, Essie, Maranda, Junie and Jordi and their little girl. Sue and Odie. More. And at the edge of the gathering, standing in the shadows, is Max.
He’s happy for me. Incredibly happy. But I get the feeling he’s also wondering what will become of him now I’ve found love.
I don’t know. I only know I’ll always be his friend.
The breeze whistles past and Aaron grips my hands. It’s that moment, the one he told me he dreamed about, where I look into his eyes and say, “I do.”
He smiles at me, the edges of his eyes crinkling, his lips turning up, the light of a thousand I-love-yous in his eyes.
I once told myself Aaron didn’t change my life right away. That I didn’t fall in love with him at first sight.
But now that I’m standing under this gazebo marrying him, I think this was always meant to be, and I’ve always loved him. I loved him, had a space in my heart for him, even before I met him.
And so I fall into the love in his eyes and say, “I do.”
And then, even though it wasn’t the word “Fi,” Aaron still pulls me into his arms and kisses me.
I decide then and there that this is a life that dreams are made of.
* * *
THE END