CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #2
I fussed over Jahnu’s wound, applying pressure so the bleeding would stop, just as I searched frantically for something to staunch the roaring accusations that gushed from my mind. You want this man? This man you cannot have…you are crazy!
He sat in a chair near a small table where all my supplies were laid out.
The cut ran down the inside of his bicep, long and menacing, but not terribly deep.
Still, I wished for a suture kit. Stitches would help prevent scarring, but I had a feeling Jahnu wouldn’t care.
He already had a great many scars across his bare torso that I had noticed over the past few weeks.
I unwound my hasty binding. It was a miracle Hani hadn’t hit the brachial artery.
“You could’ve died if he’d cut much deeper, you know,” I was terse, but it helped quell my quivering heart.
“I’ve almost died many times…it has not happened yet,” he said, but sat silently as I worked. “I am sorry I did not step in sooner,” he looked up at me, but quickly away at my swelling lip and I felt his self-blaming, even as my cheeks bloomed with heat.
“It’s not your fault. I offended him. I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“That is true,” he nodded.
I laughed out loud at his simple admission, thankful for something to break the tension inside me. He laughed with me.
We sobered and fell into a silence charged with the mutual awareness of our proximity. My heart beat wildly in my chest again as my hands touched his smooth skin, cleaning the now-dried blood. I felt him looking at me and our eyes locked.
“You are good at what you do.”
“Am I? I feel a bit lost without my usual tools.”
“A person’s skill is not in their tools. It is in their hands…in their heart.”
I smiled at his poetic view of life. I liked it—I liked him, a lot. The thought unnerved me, so I called up the logical nurse-brain to quell the irrational feelings inside.
“Your tribe would benefit from an actual medical team. We could bring medicine, antibiotics, better sanitation, and education.” I was ready for him to disagree, but he sighed gently.
“You are probably right,” he admitted, to my surprise. “T’ings were much different when I was a child. I am fighting a losing battle with the outside world, one my father did not have to fight. The world is changing so much faster now—especially in our young people—even here.”
“The world is changing fast, but why fight it?”
“Because!” Jahnu’s raised voice was out of character.
I jumped, and dropped my cleansing cloth on the floor. I bent to retrieve it to dip into the hot sterilizing water once more.
“I am sorry…” Jahnu’s contrition seemed real.
“it’s just that I must believe we can hold onto our values as the world changes.
Often it is change that threatens the values which guide us.
Once you take the foundation out from under somet’ing, it falls.
Just as an animal or human has legs and arms to take them from one place to another…
so they also have a backbone that holds everything in place.
This is how we must operate if we are to survive.
I want to be able to hold both together,” he said using his hands to illustrate. “Our traditions—and change.”
“The thing about life is, you don’t always get what you want,” I whispered, feeling the old cynicism slink its way into my voice. Everything I wanted seemed to be just out of reach.
I finished my task, reluctant to step away from him. I rubbed my hand down the length of his bandage and met his eyes—brooding, and searching mine intensely.
“And what do you want, Sid-de-nee?” he asked me, leaning forward.
I swallowed, unable to find my voice. I’d never been asked that before—never thought to even ask myself. What did I want? Family. Love. A child. A life without loss. A world where I didn’t have to be so damn strong all the time.
“I want,” I stammered, looking briefly at his lips, “I want…”
And then I got what I wanted. His lips pressed mine in a gentle nip at the corner of my mouth where it was not busted, as if to test the water. But I leaned into him, asking for more.
He stood, the chair screeching the floor as his kiss grew insistent, hungry, as if he would find the answers to his tortured soul on my lips.
His hand cradled my jaw as longing coursed through me like the river outside.
I met his intensity, my hands roaming his bare shoulders, his chest, until we were battling with our mouths, an anguished assault against the control we’d tried so desperately to hold onto, fighting the war each of us felt inside.
I pulled away, breathless, when I tasted blood, my lips throbbing.
“I’m sorry,” he panted. “I have made you bleed again.” He grabbed a clean rag and dipped it in the warm water on the table.
I let him dab my lip, even as I wanted him to press his thick lips on mine again.
I searched his face as he worked. Fuzzy black hair dimpled his clenched jaw. I was unable to think of what to say.
He met my eyes. “You are an infuriating woman, Sid-de-nee” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine as if he could erase me from his memory.
I closed my eyes and he kissed me again, slowly, tenderly, desperately, our hands clasped together at our sides which was the only thing keeping me from toppling over.
And then he walked out of the longhouse before I could tell him that he was an infuriating man.