21 Between You and Me, There’s Nothing But Us
21
Between You and Me, There’s Nothing But Us
I had the feeling I’d done and lived more things in a week than in the rest of my life combined. And that past life looked so far away from me in that tiny camper—that tiny space of belonging—where our bodies lay, full of peace.
I closed my eyes and held my breath when he moved, grabbing my waist and pulling me in to him. I could easily imagine a world inhabited by just the two of us. Two people lucky enough to find each other. Two people whose kisses and whispers told each other they had decided not to part. To give it a go. To see what would happen. To keep trying a thousand times if necessary until they got it right.
I smiled. When he exhaled, I could feel it on my neck, a perfect rhythm, like a soft pounding of drums. Outside, the birds were flitting about and chirping. One of them lighted on the camper. I could hear its tiny feet scratching the metal. The forest was full of life.
Trey kissed the back of my neck, and I turned around to look at him. We didn’t say anything. There was no need to, there were no words that could explain what we felt. Sometimes the lips, the hands can say it all… As we traced each other’s features in the bliss of the day after, a day that had followed a night that still felt as fresh as though it had only just began, I thought of how precious moments were: a thing could break, a thing could disappoint you, but a moment preserved in time was something that would last forever.
“Breakfast is ready!” Elaine yelled from the cabin.
“You hungry?” Trey asked.
I nodded, finding the question funny, somehow.
I didn’t want to leave our little habitat of twisted sheets now smelling of our bodies. But all good things must come to an end. We both had another life and other places to be.
I dressed and went straight to the bathroom, then I packed my travel bag and followed Trey into the house. Nicholas and Elaine were sitting at the table already.
We had a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes with maple syrup. Then we loaded up the car. I hugged Elaine goodbye and shook Nicholas’s hand. From the twinkle in his eye, I could see he was a man of kindness.
He reminded me a great deal of Trey.
“I hope you both come back soon,” Elaine said.
“We will. I promise,” Trey said, pulling her in close to him.
As we drove off, I was absorbed, my head leaning toward the open window, contemplating the landscape as the wind blew through my hair. I couldn’t stop thinking, reflecting, trying to figure out the meaning of all that was happening.
The barrier that had separated me from Trey the night before had collapsed when he’d told me about his mother and his regrets. His sunken shoulders, his evasive eyes, the heavy silences that pointed at secrets unconfessed, were no longer a part of him. I could see that in his relaxed bearing, in the lightness in his smile.
As he drove, I wondered why he’d thought there was anything in his past I’d ever hold against him. How could I judge him for something he’d been pushed, almost forced to do? And who was I to say whether anyone was a bad person? Anyway, for me, he wasn’t one. For me, he was marvelous: complicated, maybe, a little macho, maybe, but still, he was exactly what I needed.
He pulled off and stopped the car.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I got out and followed him down a narrow path, about two hundred yards into a clearing with views of the sea. He stopped and stared out at the horizon.
“Over the last hundred years, this island has lost more than three hundred acres of land. The water’s swallowing it up. See that church over there?” In the distance, there was a bell tower. I nodded. “My mother’s buried over there in the cemetery. The community had to spend a fortune to build a rock wall to protect it. Otherwise the sea might have destroyed it.”
“Really?”
“In the long term, there’s no stopping it, but I’m working on raising money to help people with this kind of problem… It’s not an overnight solution, but I don’t want a quick fix anyway. I want something sustainable.”
“That’s amazing, Trey. I mean it. It’s just wonderful.”
“Sure. Well, I just wanted you to see it.”
It was moving to see how shy he was, and I hugged him around the waist, standing there with him a while, just watching the waters of Malpeque Bay.
“Tell me about your mother,” I whispered.
After a pause, he began, “You told me the other night that your memories of your mother are like postcards. Mine too. I didn’t…I didn’t really know her. I just know the things Elaine and my grandfather told me about her. She liked music and art, and she worked as a tourist guide for visitors on the island. She was good at it: she knew all the history, the customs, the old legends. And people enjoyed listening to her. Everyone here loved her. Her death was a big deal for them.”
He brooded for a minute, then shook it off. His mood seemed to shift just like that. He smiled wickedly at me and grabbed my hips.
“Don’t you realize I’m trying to behave? Trying to be polite, a gentleman, and all that. But you’re making it awfully hard on me…”
By now, his hands had crept into my waistline and were toying with the hem of my panties.
“If this is going to work, I need you to be yourself,” I said.
He kissed me deeply, then said, “Fine,” drew a breath, and went on. “If I’m being myself, then I’d have to tell you all I want to do is fuck you and look in your eyes and see you telling me how bad you want it. I want to stare at your face while I’m doing it and see you dying for more.”
Who needs poetry when the man of your dreams is whispering nasty thoughts in your ear? This was the most romantic moment of my life, and I loved it. No one had ever talked to me that way, and it made me feel alive, powerful.
“Is there much traffic on this road?” I asked.
He caught the drift of my words. And a few minutes later, we were making love in the back seat of his car.
We made it back to Petit Prince late in the evening, and we were exhausted. We stopped briefly at the grocery store and afterward went straight home.
I felt strangely calm, almost as though the little time I had left on the island would never run out. Summer was reaching an end. September had started, and soon autumn would be setting in.
As soon as I walked in, I headed to the bathroom for a shower. I’d been in a spell those past few days, even if I remembered now and again all the things I’d have to do when I got back to Montreal, and those thoughts upset me. I wasn’t ready, but I had to admit I might never be, and even that visceral fear couldn’t stop me.
There’s a phrase I love, one that gives me hope and strength when I think about it: Everything passes . I used to dip my head under the water and repeat it to myself like a mantra.
Trey took a shower of his own while I went to the kitchen to make dinner—the last meal we’d share in that house. Burritos with grilled vegetables.
I cut everything up into little slices and roasted it with a little oil, heating the tortillas in the oven. In ten minutes, everything was ready.
I laid our dinner out picnic-style on the porch, with a blanket and pillows to make us more comfortable. The night was gorgeous. Alongside the dishes, I poured us each a glass of wine. Once more, I savored the beauty of the landscape, waiting for Trey to appear. His hair was damp, he smelled of soap, and I felt a shiver up my spine. He sat across from me, crossing his long legs. The candles I had lit made his eyes twinkle and cast deep shadows across his face.
During dinner, he told me more about the Mi’kmaq, including legends about their gods that I tucked away in that part of my head where I liked to keep ideas for future stories. I couldn’t help it; I did it without thinking. Every detail awakened my imagination: a phrase, a song, an image…and then the gears started turning. And the pieces of the enormous puzzle that is a novel started to come together: people, scenes, dialogues…
I still don’t know how to explain it. How a book is born. How it develops, grows, weaves together. It’s something that just happens.
As we finished our bottle of wine, we planned the next day.
Our farewell day.
The day we’d return to the real world.
“Now you can go ahead and tell me how my sister found this house.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, he replied, “For a long time, I didn’t tell them the truth about my mother.”
“Are you talking about my brother and sister?”
He nodded. “I never told them, and I never told Scott. The day after the party, though, after Hoyt took you to the airport, the four of us had lunch together, sort of to say goodbye. I guess they could tell something was up with me, and you know how they are. They wouldn’t stop pressuring me. So finally I let it out.”
“What did they say?”
“Nothing. They didn’t say anything. They just packed their bags and bought plane tickets and dragged me to Lennox for the funeral. No one reproached me, no one was angry with me, nothing.”
I could tell the memory was bittersweet, and for a moment, it seemed to have sucked him in. I knew he was thinking about them.
“You really care about them, don’t you?” I asked.
“They’re the closest thing to a family I’ve ever had. We ended up staying on the island a few days, and once, when we’d gone out to Charlottetown, Hayley saw the ad for this house in the window of a real estate agent. It was love at first sight. She made us catch the ferry that same day to come see it.”
“That’s Hayley for you. I struggle sometimes to understand how a person that rational, that methodical, can be so impulsive at the same time. I’ve always wanted that self-assurance of hers, that resoluteness.”
“You have those things, though, just in your own way.”
I took a sip of wine and smirked. I wished I could see myself the way he did. “What happened once you saw the house?”
“She never told you?”
“No.”
He cradled his glass in his hands. “There’s not much to tell, really. Scott bought the house, but he kept it a secret until he’d renovated and furnished it. He used Hoyt and me as free labor. It was the perfect engagement gift. He was always the romantic one, out of all of us.”
When we were done eating, we lay back and looked up at the sky. Trey reached over and pulled me on top of him and held me.
“So now what?” I whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“You. Me. Montreal. Us.”
I slid off him, and he toyed with my hair as he responded, “Honestly, I just assumed we’d turn into one of those corny couples that I’ve always hated.”
“I’m serious!” I said.
“Me too! We can call each other all the time, go to the movies to feel each other up, kiss late at night on some deserted street while I walk you home after a date. Stay over at each other’s places. I could make you breakfast!”
“I like how you think.”
“Do you? Because there are more ideas where that came from. I’m talking lovemaking… Every night. And at all hours of the day.” He leaned over and kissed the corner of my lips. “I could be the only person allowed to kiss you here.” He touched my breast. “And here.” He slid his hand between my legs. “And here. Especially here.”
I wanted that, too. I wanted to be a corny couple. I wanted him to kiss me all over. I wanted him to kiss me other places, too. I had imagined it so many times that the dream had worn thin. I turned and kissed him, tasted him, reached into his pants and elicited a moan.
He got up and pulled me up, too. We stumbled into the house, our lips joined the whole time. He kicked the door shut, and I threw my arms over his neck. I felt wide awake and hungry—hungry for him. We took the steps one at a time until we reached the top, threw each other against the wall, felt our way along until we found his room.
He undressed me as my hands sought out his belt buckle. Our clothes wound up on the floor, and I felt every inch of his beautiful bare body as the throbbing inside me grew more powerful. I was in control. I pulled him toward the bed and he sat back, propped up on his arms. I loved him so much it hurt. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me into his chest.
Our bodies met.
Our eyes got lost in each other.
My muscles tensed as I took him inside me.
I made love to him slowly, my mouth seeking his, drinking in his exhalations and groans, losing myself in the sensation of it.
“I wish I could spend my whole life this way. I’m crazy about you,” he whispered.
“And I’m crazy about you.”
“I don’t know what’s happening between us, but I don’t want it ever to end.”
My lucky accident.
“Between you and me, there’s nothing but us,” I said. “And there’s no reason it ever has to end.”