Chapter 18 Cora #3
He paid attention.
He undid the button at the side of my shirt the way he had in the truck cab and his cool palm came in at the small soft warmth of my ribcage where he had counted my heart-rate at ninety-eight on day eighteen and where he had stopped counting at ninety-eight because Sylvia had told him at the half-way point on the return road that a heart-rate count was not what a body wanted to do in this moment, the body wanted to feel, and Drew had had to put the clinical-count down for one night and feel.
He had been practicing the not-counting since.
I felt him not-counting now.
The not-counting was its own register. The not-counting was Drew the body-person, not Drew the medic-trainee, and the body-person was the man who had been at the perimeter for nine months and had not been let in until I had signed the paper.
The body-person was the man who had handed Brecca a bandage two years and four months ago and had walked out before she said thank you.
The body-person was the man who had stood in the supercell for six hours to keep a paperback dry.
The body-person was the man Cora had been thinking about without naming for nine months. The body-person was now in my hands.
I undid the button at his shirt.
The scar at his side was the size of my palm.
The Hess-blade had gone in two-and-a-half inches under the floating rib and had exited at the back.
The closed wound was the pink-and-pale of half-Vampyren healing at three weeks.
Sylvia had told me at the second medical sweep that the scar would silver to a pale line by August. The scar was now still raw enough to be a thing the hand registered.
I put my hand on the scar.
He did not flinch.
I said: "This is mine."
He said: "Yes."
"The blood I gave you closed this. Sylvia told me at the boiler room. The half-Vampyren healing rate accelerates with the human transfusion. My blood is in the closure. The scar is the place my blood went in and where your body kept it."
He said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"That is the most honest thing you have ever said to me."
"I know."
"You did not say it on the road."
"I could not say it on the road. The road was the road. The road was Sylvia's hands and Renn at the gap and the count holding. The tent is not the road. The tent is the place where the things that the road could not hold get said."
He put his hand on top of mine on the scar.
The cool of his hand was on the warm of mine was on the half-Vampyren-warm of his side was on the pink-pale of the scar. The four temperatures were a small sequence. The sequence was a count I would not write because the count had become a feeling.
He kissed me.
The second kiss was the kiss of two people whose tent had a door and whose door had a clay shape and whose shelf had the two Steinbecks and the stone and the chipped diner mug and the Polaroid and the carving with the 7 burned into the bottom.
The kiss was the kiss of two people who knew where the kiss was happening.
The truck-cab kiss had been a kiss in motion. This was a kiss at rest.
I had not been at rest with anyone in eight years.
I had not been at rest with anyone the way I was at rest with Drew, ever.
The body-knowledge of I am safe here came up under my ribs. The body had not known the safe in eleven years. The body found the safe and recognized it and decided to stop bracing. The stop-bracing was its own physical event. The body went soft against him. He felt it.
He said: "Cora."
I said: "Yes."
"You just."
"I know."
"Your shoulders."
"I know."
He held me.
He just held me, for a long minute, the way a man held a woman whose body had stopped bracing for the first time in a decade.
He did not move further. He let the holding be the holding.
The half-Vampyren cool of his arms was the temperature my body had been wanting without knowing.
The arms held the count of breath. He breathed eight per minute.
I breathed fourteen. The two rates went into each other and came out steady. The steadying was the count.
I said: "Drew."
"Yes."
"I am going to."
"Yes."
"Slow."
"Yes."
He shifted us back onto the cots. The two cots pushed together were one cot in effect. The two blankets were folded at the foot. The lantern was at the south wall. The clay shape was on the doorframe. The shelf had the books.
The body was the body.
The body did the body-thing it had been practicing on the road and was now practicing at home.
The body had Drew's hands on it and Drew's mouth on it and the half-Vampyren temperature on it and the cool palm at the scar where the blood had gone in.
The body had Cora's hands on Drew and Cora's mouth on Drew and the warm of the human heart-rate that the half-Vampyren cool of his palm registered through the thin skin under the ribcage. The body had us.
I lost the count of seconds at about sixty.
I lost the count of everything at about one-twenty.
The lantern at the south wall flickered once when the canvas door shifted in the small breeze the camp got at this hour.
The shift moved the rosemary smell deeper into the tent.
The rosemary was Mara's rosemary, and Mara was in the rosemary now, and the rosemary smell was Mara's smell, and the tent smelled like Mara, and I cried for one moment, briefly, and Drew kissed the corner of my eye where the tear had been before I had registered the tear, and he said: "She is here.
The rosemary. She is in the camp. She is going to be in the camp.
You can have her here. You don't have to put her down. "
I said: "Drew."
He said: "Yes."
"Ours."
He said: "Ours."
The body finished what the body was doing.
The body finished slow. The body finished the way bodies finished when they had decided that the finishing was not the point and the going was the point.
We went for a long time. The lantern was low when we stopped.
The canvas had gone the slow dark-warm of canvas when the night had found its temperature.
He was against me.
I was against him.
His cool palm was on my heart at the rib.
My warm palm was on the scar at his side.
The two palms held the count.
He said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"I have a count tonight."
"Tell me."
"Two of us in the tent. Two cots pushed together.
Two Steinbecks on the shelf. One stone. One mug.
One Polaroid. One carving with a 7 on it.
One scar at my side. One bandage scar at your elbow.
Two clay-shape sticking on the doorframe, one outside that Auriel pressed in this morning and one inside on the frame that I put up there an hour ago because the inside frame was the inside frame and the outside frame was the outside frame and the symmetry was the symmetry.
One lantern. One rosemary bed sixty feet west. One Mara in the rosemary.
One Talia in our names, in our mouths. One camp around us. Two people."
I said: "Drew."
"Yes."
"That is the count."
"Yes."
"That is the right count."
"Yes."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Welcome home."
He said: "Welcome home."
He kissed the top of my head.
The lantern hissed and went out.
The tent held.
The count was holding.
We slept.
The tent held.
The count was holding.
The camp was sleeping.
Outside, Crystal was at the rosemary bed.
She was sitting on the ground next to Mara's grave.
She had been there since sunset. She would be there until midnight.
Mark had brought her a blanket at ten and had sat with her for an hour.
Then Mark had gone back to the family tent because Deedee was sleeping and Mark needed to be at the family tent in case Deedee woke.
Crystal sat with Mara.
She did not say anything to the grave. The thing to be said had been said at the funeral. Now she just sat.
The camp slept.
In our tent, Drew and I slept.
The count was holding.