Epilogue
MAX
The light at the bedroom curtain in April is grey at five-fifteen and white at five-forty-five and gold at six, and at six the line of light comes in at the gap at the rod and crosses the quilt at her hip and goes up the wall to the corner where it stops.
I have watched the line cross the quilt at her hip on every clear morning since the snow broke in March, and I have watched it on the mornings the snow has not broken too, and the morning is clear today, and the line is at her hip, and her hip is at my hand under the quilt, and her hand is at the back of my neck, and her face is at my throat, and she is asleep.
She is so beautiful as she sleeps.
She makes the sound at the back of her throat and I move down her naked body moving the quilt until I am between her legs and I let my mouth move to her pussy, running my tongue through it in long slow strokes enjoying the taste of her.
“Max,” she murmurs as she wakes and her voice is thick with sleep. Her eyes are still closed. But she is soaking wet and her hips are moving in response to my tongue.
It isn’t long before she is moaning and grinding into my mouth. I love the grinding, the way she rolls her hips to take her own pleasure.
She comes, gushing in my mouth and it is so exquisite, the taste of her. She smiles as she pulls me up to her face, kissing me, licking her own come from my mouth and chin.
She rolls me onto my back. She puts her hair at my throat.
She kisses down my body in a way that I never used to let anyone before her.
Her mouth reaches the surgical scar low-right, and the surgical scar low-right is a scar I told her the story of in February at our kitchen table over a tin cup of coffee, and the story of the scar is a story of an ovarian thing in 2014 and Val drove me to the hospital at four in the morning and sat in the waiting room until eight, and the surgical scar low-right is Evangeline’s now, and she licks across it before moving down between my legs.
She dips her head between my legs pushing them apart as her mouth finds my pussy, soaking wet.
Again this is something I never would have done before her.
But after all this time, I am so comfortable with her and she wants to do it so badly.
Her tongue feels incredible as it runs up my slit in long slow strokes, each one taking me closer to the inevitable.
I close my eyes and lean back, relaxing into it. It turns out I like long slow oral that builds slowly. And that is what she gives me, licking me with hunger and care until I come apart and shatter in her mouth, crying out.
She keeps her mouth on me as I ride out my orgasm, then she puts butterfly kisses all across my pussy, my groin, my pelvis, my hips, my scar.
She laughs and kisses all the way up to my mouth where I taste myself on her tongue.
She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
I tell her so.
She puts her lips to my collarbone as though worshiping me.
She does not answer.
She does not have to.
---
I make the coffee at the percolator on the stove in the tin cup with the chip on the rim and the tin cup with no chip on the rim, and I set the cups on the table by the window. The bread is from the loaf she made last night. The butter is in the small brown crock.
She comes out at six-twenty-five in my flannel and her own jeans and the wool socks and her hair down at her shoulders.
She sits at the table.
She drinks the coffee black.
"Max."
"Evangeline.”
"The plumber is at the new house at eight."
"Yes."
"He is rough-ing in the master."
"Yes."
"He needs to know whether the tub is at the window or at the wall."
"Window."
"You said that yesterday."
"I am saying it again today."
"Window."
"Window."
"And the kitchen island."
"What about it?”
"Marble?”
I look at her.
"Marble."
"Marble, Max."
"All right."
"It is a kitchen."
"All right."
"It is going to be the kitchen at the new house, and that will be a real home for us.”
"All right, Evangeline.”
"You are not going to tell me marble is not a thing for a kitchen at a cabin in the woods."
"I am not."
"Because the new house is not a cabin even if it is in the woods.”
"Max,” she says. “Are you happy?”
I look at her.
The truth is I have never been happier. I find her obsession with the details of the new house endearing.
We are building something for both of us, but a lot of the details don’t matter as much to me. The ones that do matter, I say. Such as the big bath next to the window. I want to sit in it with her and bathe her. A lovely house in the woods.
My cabin is nice but I know it has its limits. It is more of a one person part time home.
“I’m so happy,” I say pulling her close and kissing her neck. “I’ve never felt happier since life with you.” And I mean it. Every word.
"You are going to fuck me in every room of the new house."
"I am going to fuck you in every room of the new house."
"Promise me."
"I promise you."
"Including the laundry room."
"Including the laundry room."
"Including the pantry."
"Including the pantry."
"Including the mud room."
I laugh. “Everywhere, baby.”
She puts the cup down seemingly reassured. She smiles.
The phone on the wall by the door rings.
The phone is the landline.
The landline is the landline I have had on the wall by the door since 2009.
The landline rings never rings.
The landline rings now.
I look at her.
She looks at me.
I get up.
I cross to the door.
I take the phone off the wall.
"Hale."
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Put it on speaker."
I put it on speaker.
I set the phone on the bench by the door under the wool hat.
I sit on the bench beside it.
Eve gets up. She walks to the bench. She sits beside me. She puts her hand on my thigh.
"Chief."
"Hale. Mrs. Clark.” Val won’t stop calling her Mrs. Clark and it drives her mad.
"Yes."
"I am calling you both because I have just got off the phone with Detective Warren and she has informed me that last night a federal grand jury in Reno returned an indictment against one Frank Vaccaro on twenty-three counts, and the twenty-three counts include murder, arson, racketeering, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit murder.
The murder count is the count for the homicide at the house on county road seventeen on the fourteenth of October.
The arson count is the count for the records storage on the east industrial spur on the twenty-first of October.
The conspiracy to commit murder count is the count that names a person of interest in Reno who was in the witness box yesterday afternoon for six hours. "
"Chief."
"Hale."
"The grand jury?”
"Returned the indictment. Frank Vaccaro is in custody in Reno. Frank Vaccaro will be in a federal courtroom in Reno on Monday. Frank Vaccaro will not be out of a federal building for the next thirty years."
I look at Evangeline.
She does not look at me.
Eve is looking at the phone on the bench under the wool hat.
"Mrs. Clark."
"Chief."
"You did a good job."
"Thank you, Chief."
"You are going to have more work, Mrs. Clark, now that you are part of the family."
Evangeline looks at me. She knows what it means.
"I am happy to be part of the family, Chief."
"Lena says hello."
"Hello, Lena."
"Hale."
"Chief."
"You are off the line for the day."
"Chief, I am due at."
"You are off the line for the day, Hale. I am sending Doyle to cover. You are at the cabin until oh-six-hundred Monday."
"Yes, Chief."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Chief."
The line goes.
I put the phone back on the wall.
I sit on the bench beside her.
She looks at me.
The chain is at her throat with the gold band on it.
The gold band is mine.
The gold band has been on the chain since the night of October twenty-first.
The gold band is not on her finger.
I have been waiting six months.
I have been waiting six months because the chief said I was waiting six months, and the chief said I was waiting six months at the kitchen table at the cabin on the night of October twenty-second when she came up the road with a bottle of bourbon and Lena in the truck, and the chief said six months, Hale, and not a day before, because if you are going to do this you are going to do this on the other side of a federal indictment, and if you are not on the other side of a federal indictment you are not going to do this, and the chief said and you are going to put it on her finger in this kitchen.
I look at her.
She looks at me.
She knows.
She has known for six months.
She has worn the chain at her throat with the gold band on it.
I get up.
"Evangeline.”
"Yes."
"Stay there."
I get down on one knee on the boards at the bench.
I put my left palm on her left knee.
"Evangeline.”
"Yes."
"Marry me."
She looks at me.
She does not answer straight away, but I already know her answer.
She takes off the chain and hands it to me.
"Yes."
I put the ring on her finger.
The ring at her finger is gold and the band is from 1962 and the small green stone is a peridot.
She puts her hand at my jaw.
She puts her mouth on mine.
She kisses me deeply.
She lifts her mouth.
"I love you, Max.”
"I love you, Eve."
She puts her forehead at mine.
This is the beginning of everything for us and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her.