Limerence: Book Three of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  But instead he says, “Do you know Elgar?”

  My head whips around to him. I stare, I can’t help it. I think some part of my spirit has broken free and floated up into the sky. “What?”

  “It’s okay.” He shakes his head to dismiss the idea.

  “Luke.” I clear my throat. “How do you know Elgar?”

  “You know it?”

  “The cello concerto?”

  Now he looks unsure. “I think so.”

  “Why do you want me to play that? I’ve never played it for you before.”

  “But you know it?”

  I nod slowly.

  Luke breathes out. I wait, feeling strangely adrift. He’s never once said a single word to me about a classical piece of music, never so much as hinted at having heard any before he met me.

  “I used to know it well,” he murmurs. Then, “It was Dave’s favorite. He played it day and night for about a year straight.”

  The little piece of me finds its place. It’s too strange a coincidence, or maybe it’s simply an example of the undeniable grace of the world. I so easily forget it.

  I try to explain but my words come out poorly. “I first heard Elgar’s concerto being played by a woman called Jacqueline du Pre. I saw this old black and white video of it when I was eleven. I wasn’t supposed to be on the computer but my foster brother had left it open so I stumbled upon this ancient recording and I think …” I shake my head and smile. “It was the end of me.”

  Luke looks at me through narrowed eyes as though he can’t quite believe what I’m saying.

  “She died,” I say. “She was the most wonderful thing, this marvelous thing. She had this mad passionate affair with her conductor and then she got multiple sclerosis and had to stop playing when she was only 28 and she couldn’t move and her soulfulness was trapped inside this withering body until she died … And I just remember … It was such a tragedy to me at eleven.” I meet his eyes. “Her playing Elgar was the loveliest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s my favorite piece of all.”

  Luke closes his eyes and rests his arms over his face. It’s too sweet, too bitter. Ships passing each other in the night. I miss his brother as though he was my own flesh and blood. Now more than ever I feel connected to him, to this shared desperate love of a piece of music. I’m not sure the profundity of such a thing can be expressed or believed if it isn’t experienced; I think maybe poor Dave is the only one who might understand how it feels.

  “Play it?” he asks.

  I wipe my eyes. “I can’t. I’ve never played it before.”

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head – I don’t know.

  “Why?” he presses.

  “I’m scared of it.”

  Here’s my secret: I’ve never played it, not a single note of it, but somehow it’s playing inside my heart on a constant loop.

  He doesn’t argue or tell me not be scared, he just nods a fraction and lets me be scared. And I decide that I will play it for him as a wedding present. I will. When, and only when, Phillipe has woken.

  *

  December 17th, 2067

  Josephine

  My leg hurts like skin and muscle and flesh being peeled off bone. Which is what’s happened. Zach is repairing it. He recommended pain medicine, or failing that, liters of alcohol, but I’ve eschewed both. I don’t feel comfortable enough to lose my senses. So instead I have fire and grinding bone and raw screaming nerve endings in my right leg. I keep my eyes closed. I think of the sky. It’s not pain like I’ve come to know pain, after all. Anything’s bearable until it’s not and then you die.

  Luke and his brother arrive at the infirmary. They’ve made it home safely and I’m glad. Luke and his brother. His brother. Whatever else I’ve become incapable of, I’m not incapable of a flicker of true joy. Here and then gone again, but here just for a moment. Pain has other ideas about any moments I might be feeling. I clench my jaw shut tight as red-hot pokers plunge into my body.

  “Sorry,” Zach murmurs. His hands are very gentle, as far as I can tell. His eyes are more so. I don’t want gentle.

  I don’t want anything.

  I glance at the brothers, looking at their mother. They’re very different in appearance. Luke is a head taller, broader wider stronger, all the things one might want to be. Dave is worryingly lean. They have the same hair color, the same jaw lines, the same mouths. Not the same noses or foreheads, not the same eyes. Dave’s are hazel, more brown than his brother’s green ones. I don’t know why I’m lying here making an inventory but I am. Maybe I’m making it to stem the pain of my leg but more likely it’s because Claire has turned and seen them. I’m making lists of unimportant things because I think it might be too much to see her first glimpse of her dead son.

  When she hugs Dave, Luke sits down on the end of my bed. He sits like he just can’t stand anymore. I could reach to touch him. I should. Of course I should. Once upon a time my hands would have known to do that before my mind formed the thought. Muscle memory. But now they stay clenched in my lap, now they want nothing less than to touch him.

  My eyes catch sight of my missing finger and I feel a sharp stab of panic that rears me backwards. I don’t move an inch but inside my body I have reeled and recoiled and shuddered. Nothing passes my face but beneath the planes of skin and bones and cartilage I am breathless and panting. This roof is way way way too low and these walls are closing in. The tunnels are unbearable: I don’t belong here.

  I don’t reach to touch my husband.

  No music plays within me. I’m silent inside.

  I’m even silent when Tobias finally hobbles his way into the room and his face is too much, his bright brilliant wail is flung free of his lungs, his tears and his sobs and his shaking shaking endless shaking. Dave reaches in time to catch his fall; Tobias trembles so violently that he can’t hold himself up but his son is there. They both slump to the ground and they’re holding each other so they’re both shaking and all I can hear is “My boy, my boy, my boy, my boy.”

  Luke doesn’t move from his spot at the end of the bed, he just watches.

  And that’s when Dave looks up over his father’s shoulder. But he doesn’t look at his brother, strangely. He looks at me. He tries to communicate something, some silent message, but I can’t interpret it. I’m no longer the sort of person who can read such messages. So we just stare at each other. Two lost, vacant souls, drowning.

  I think of Elgar’s cello concerto, I think of Jacqueline du Pre: I can’t help it. I think of how, when Dave was dead, that piece bound us together. I think of how transformative it was for me as a child, how formative it was for me as an adult. I think of how it connected me to this dead man, to this part of Luke’s family that was beyond Luke, to something that was even more than him, to something that was his brother.

  And I see in Dave’s eyes now that he wouldn’t recognize it. His soul wouldn’t know the concerto, not like it once had.

  What’s more, nor does mine.

  The tragedy is all those marvelous notes and all that heart being sliced free of their connection to our bodies and left to soar up and away and gone. The tragedy is immense; I don’t feel even a scrap of it.

  *

  March 16th, 2067

  Josephine

  “Ummmm … I’ve been hearing some very concerning rumors about you.”

  I turn from washing dirty dishes to glance at Pace languishing in the doorway. “What?”

  “Offensive rumors. The kind I might have to denounce friendship with you over.”

  “I’m distracted and not really in the mood for this, so could you get to the point please?”

  “People are going around saying you’re engaged,” she announces.

  My eyebrows arch and I quickly turn back to the dishes. There are six other people on clean-up duty, and they’re all studiously pretending not to hear this conversation. I can feel their gossipy ears waggling for more info.

  “Answer!” Pace commands.
<
br />   “Jesus, chill out.” I scrub a tray with burned dough stuck to its edges.

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  “Your silence screams, traitor.”

  I turn to face her and spread my hands. “How am I a traitor?”

  “We’re meant to be single sisters in solidarity forever!”

  My mouth falls open. “You had a baby. I see you about point five percent of what I used to.”

  “I’m still single!”

  “And sociopathic, apparently.”

  “Are you really?” she asks seriously.

  I hesitate. A thought grabs me and I find myself striding out into the dining room. Everyone is still lurking, listening to Malia play her guitar (still terrible, even after dozens of lessons) and Blue telling some stupid story about Batman that he ripped off a movie.

  I climb up onto one of the tables, my heavy boots rattling the wine cups. “Excuse me!” I shout.

  I’ve never yelled on a table before, and nor to my knowledge has anyone else, so they all turn curiously to see what’s got me acting like a loon. My eyes search the faces and spot first Claire, braiding Georgie’s hair (she has a weird thing about braiding hair and will launch guerrilla braid attacks if you aren’t careful), and then Tobias, whistling while he reads a book in the corner. I spot Luke sitting among Alo, Coin and Lawrence and playing some kind of sicko game where they flick a coin into each other’s knuckles as hard as possible for no conceivable reason. They all look up at me and I start to laugh a little. Slowly at first, and then harder.

  “She’s lost it,” I hear Eric say placidly.

  I shake my head and try to get a grip. I have music playing in my heart. I always do. Today it’s sweet and happy.

  “Just one thing,” I say. “For all of you who’ve been angling to get me into bed – you know who you are, it’s at least ninety percent of you – you can now consider yourselves failures and give up.”

  They stare at me quizzically. The comedy hasn’t landed well.

  I say, somewhat awkwardly, “I’m getting married.”

  There’s a pause and then Lawrence shouts, “To who?” and the rest of the tunnel explodes into laughter and applause.

  People are reaching out to pat Luke heavily on the back and give him rough hugs. He grins shyly, shaking hands and returning the hugs. I watch him and the mess of sound and movement turns to a blur around him. I see the duck of his head and the warmth of his expression, I see the fall of his hair and the dimple in one of his cheeks and the scruffy beard he’s been growing. His eyes finally find mine. Over the distance I wink and he smiles a smile I could die for.

  “I will not be involved in the wedding in any way,” I add. “Masochists need only apply for the job.”

  In the shadows by the door I spot Zachariah and feel a pit of sudden guilt in my stomach. I push through the excitement and follow him into the quiet dark. I can hardly see his face.

  “Sorry,” I blurt. “For not telling you.”

  “Why would you need to tell me?” His voice is cold. Way colder than it’s been with me. It makes me think of his father.

  “Look, I’m not gonna play games around this. You and I had a connection when we first met and I took advantage of it. I let you think something might happen between us when I’m not available for that. I’m sorry. It was cruel.”

  Zachariah’s head tilts. His eyes are black hollows. “So if you were available it would be a different story?”

  “But I’m not.”

  “But if you were.” He says this like a statement, not a question. Like he thinks he’s been given an answer and he likes it.

  I shake my head quickly. “Zachariah …”

  “Call me Zach. I’ll be here.” Then he disappears down the tunnel. I’m left staring after him and feeling distinctly uneasy about the exchange.

  “You okay?” Luke asks from the doorway. I have no idea how much of that he heard. I nod and we both look at the empty darkness.

  “He makes me nervous,” Luke admits.

  I clear my throat. “Why?”

  “Aside from you, I don’t know what he wants.”

  I realize he’s right. Which makes Zachariah the most dangerous person down here.

  *

  “I’m kidding, we’re not having a wedding, obviously,” I say an hour later in Claire and Tobias’ bed-tunnel.

  “What?” Luke asks. They’re all looking at me in very concerning way.

  “We’re not having a wedding,” I repeat.

  “So we’re not getting married?”

  “That’s not what I said. We’ll do the equivalent of going to city hall and signing a contract or whatever people do.”

  Now they’re looking at me like I’m an alien species.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Claire asks me.

  “I don’t think so, but it sounds like you’re about to tell me otherwise.”

  “You’re having a wedding,” she assures us. “For the sake of the world, you’re having a wedding.”

  I can’t help laughing. “Why would we want to get married in these tunnels?”

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “They’re depressing as hell and we don’t have the resources.”

  Claire brushes this off. “We’ll scrounge.”

  “Don’t argue,” Tobias tells me out of the side of his mouth. “She might murder someone.”

  “Well, I’m not being involved,” I say, raising my hands in surrender.

  “I will be,” Luke offers. There is a distinctive light in his eyes. It’s very much like eagerness. “I have a bunch of ideas.”

  I share a grin with Tobias and then head for the door. “Okay, I’m on patrol. See ya.”

  “Josi,” Claire forestalls. She follows me to the door and then pulls me out into the tunnel. I can’t see the freckles on her nose in this light but I know they’re there. She takes my arm tenderly. “I have a lot of inefficient neural pathways and blocked emotional triggers. I’m an altered model. But they could take away every single thing I am and I’d still know how much I love you.”

  I suck in a startled breath; it catches in my throat.

  Claire reaches for my face and holds it in both hands. “He was worse than we are,” she murmurs. “Before you. He was a machine. Now he’s a man.”

  I swallow and whisper, “I was a monster and now I’m a woman.”

  “We love you, sweetheart.”

  I nod and it’s the second time she’s said it in thirty seconds and I still can’t say it back. I’m too uncomfortable. She doesn’t mind, I don’t think – she smiles and kisses me and goes back inside. I stand in the dark for a little while.

  Instead of going to my patrol I go to the infirmary. Zachariah is here – he’s always here – but I don’t speak to him tonight. I go straight to Phillipe and shake his shoulders.

  “That’s enough! Wake up! I’m tired of not having you.”

  “Josi, wait,” Zachariah says but I’ve spent too many hours waiting at bedsides. When Luke was dying I spent months waiting for him to wake up.

  “I’m not going to do this anymore,” I tell my father.

  And he opens his eyes.

  They’re black like neither of mine.

  “He woke a little while ago,” Zachariah informs me.

  I sit down hard. As relief replaces shock I take Phillipe’s hand. Mine is shaking.

  There is a gentle thing in his gaze, something infinite as we stare at each other. There are things I hate him for, things I can’t forgive him for, questions I need to ask. But right now they fade away and instead I’m just grateful to have him here and alive and awake.

  “You’re a jerk for not telling me,” I say.

  Phillipe sighs. Squeezes my hand. “There’s the obstinate, rude girl I know.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “I’m not very nice. Nor, as I recall, are you.”

  “I’m nice.”

  He mak
es a face.

  “I’m nice,” I repeat more firmly. “No thanks to parenting.”

  “You’re a whole lot of things no thanks to parenting.” He removes his hand from mine and I just stare at it lying there. It feels like a much bigger rejection than it is. “I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t real. Maybe once. But not for a long time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shakes his head and won’t meet my eyes. His gaze is clouded with pain and memory. “I’m not going to be your father, Josephine. And I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m just managing your expectations.” Then he makes a breathy sound. “I’m tired. I’ll sleep.”

  I nod faintly. He closes his eyes and rolls away from me.

  I feel surreal. I almost wake him up again, but instead I watch him drift off.

  “We have nothing to do with our parents,” a voice says and I turn to see Zachariah again.

  I have to clear my throat before I can reply. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “We don’t. They don’t get to choose.”

  “Choose what?”

  “The things that hurt us.”

  *

  It feels kind of like being the runt of the pack, the one that gets left to fend for itself. As I walk through the tunnel I try to convince myself that it doesn’t matter – I made it this long without family. And I guess I’m marrying into one now anyway. Phillipe Luquet can stay in that bed until he rots of bedsores, for all I care.

  I spot an orb of light and follow it to Will. He’s working on a new painting, this one undoubtedly of the ocean. I sit with my back against the opposite concrete wall and watch as smudges of grays and whites and blues form a vast unknowable landscape. At its center he forms a round smudge of red, a thing with edges that seem to throb in the candlelight.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  Will steps back to survey it. He shrugs as though he doesn’t really know. “Sea’s heart.”

  “I didn’t know it had one.”

  “’Course. Everything does.” He sinks down beside me. “Do you know I think Raven loved the sea as much as you do?”

  I immediately wrap my arms around myself. Please don’t make me think about Raven. “How do you know?”