“Were there any particular signs?” she asked. “Indicators that made clear your preference for each other’s company had grown into the early stages of an emotional commitment?”
Still defiant and unwilling to entertain their demands without a fight, I simply answered, “No.”
Mo wasn’t amused, but her questions were at least understandable and nothing I hadn’t asked myself long before. I remembered that time and the confusing moments when images and “visions” appeared suddenly and for no reason, but I had no intention of pouring those memories out for her to inspect.
ALINE WALKED ME to the door and watched again in the cold air as I made my way down her meadow where the tree line guided me around our hill. The snow was gathered in patches where sunlight couldn’t reach, but as I went, the quiet of the forest wrapped around me like an old, familiar blanket and was no longer a place of mystery or worry. When I hung my coat on an ornate wooden lattice screwed into the kitchen wall, my laptop showed an unread e-mail from Vienne.
Her message detailed the last sign offs with a finance firm she’d hired to transport most of the contents from Damon’s safe deposit boxes into a vault somewhere outside London. The gold and silver, plus a few additional pieces of jewelry no one seemed to have mentioned earlier, would be assessed and sold outright or, for those pieces with historic value, auctioned off to the highest bidder. Bundles of hard currency in local banks were transferred into modest-yield savings accounts, simply to avoid the killing application of British tax laws. Vienne’s plan made sense and I replied to that effect, but the note only reminded me of my conversation with Birgit Nyström and an unresolved mystery still waiting somewhere in the future. I closed the computer and searched for my keys, determined to do the week’s grocery shopping while I had nothing better to do.
I went through the shops, chatting with clerks and owners the way most people do in small towns, enjoying acceptance among those who once referred to me only as “Damon Morgan’s very quiet brother.” How was it, they chided, a good Welsh boy couldn’t speak the language? Was there no one in all of America willing to instruct me? It was good-natured teasing, but I did look up some tutorials and grammar basics online when I returned home. Even butchered, an honest attempt at sorting out the confusing jumble of consonants and duplicate letters that makes Welsh a challenge would be noticed with an approving nod.
Dusk was settling and I went to switch on my front porch lights so that Aline would know I was home just as her truck swung around to a stop. I went outside to wait as she parked and stepped lightly through the slush to my door.
“Come in, come in,” I said, motioning with one hand in the fashion of a traffic cop. I took her coat and asked how it went, though I had no idea where she went or why. It seemed like a good question, and she held up an index finger to signal for me to wait.
“I have something for you,” she said, pulling from her handbag a small cardstock box.
It was wrapped with a narrow purple ribbon made of a cloth material, not the cheap plastic stuff, and I looked at her with a smile.
“What’s this?”
The ribbon’s bow fell away and I pulled the lid carefully to reveal a simple coin-shaped medallion made of pewter roughly the size of a nickel attached to a delicate curb chain necklace. I lifted it free from its velvet bed with a smile at the notion Aline had thought to buy me a gift.
“It’s beautiful—thank you! This is really very thoughtful, Aline.”
It was unpolished and on its face was a raised image of an ordinary oak leaf. She stood beside me and said, “There’s a man near Denbigh who makes metal castings from wooden patterns. I carved the original from oak and left it with him while you were in Canada.”
I placed it around my neck and let it dangle in the fashion of a St. Christopher medal for a moment, thumbing its texture and unable to stop smiling. I understood the importance of the moment, but Aline decided to finish the explanation anyway.
“You were away at Christmas but I wanted to give you something. I’m sorry it took so long.”
“Wait a minute; you made the original blank yourself?”
“An old oak became diseased two years ago and a branch fell behind my house in a windstorm. My father taught me how to carve when I was young, so I kept some of it because the growth ring pattern was beautiful.”
“But you carved it with your own hand and that alone makes it unique and special to me.”
“Do you like it?” she asked quickly.
“Yes—I like it very much,” I answered. “It’s going to stay where it is from now on.”
It was my turn. I grinned and told her not to move as I hurried to my bedroom to fetch the gloves and scarf. My wrapping efforts were sub-par but an obvious (and excessive) application of stick-on bows made her laugh. I know the gloves were nice, and the scarf would keep her warm, but it was clear the age-old truth of intent and thoughtfulness counted more to Aline than the gift itself, and she did nothing to hide a wide smile as she tried them on.
“They’re lovely, Evan; thank you very much.”
Her voice was soft and measured and she reached for my palm instinctively to squeeze it, uncaring if it seemed forced or overt. There was no signal—no menu for appropriate responses from the book of relationships—but we knew it was time. It was a gentle, soft kiss, but I could feel my heart begin to pound inside my chest. That moment is still burned into my memories as if its meaning soared above all others. Aline’s smile faded and she placed her hand against my cheek before a second more purposeful kiss that seemed to go on for minutes. When we stood away at last, I looked again at the little medallion.
“The oak leaf…a Celtic symbol of life.”
“It joins us,” she whispered.
Aline positioned herself on a stool in my kitchen where she usually sat whenever she came to visit. She gathered her knees close and crossed her feet to capture them in place as I stood beside her.
“You told me it would be interesting as we got to know each other, remember? I was surprised because you seemed to know I was staying in Wales permanently, even before I did.”
“Yes, I remember.”
She nodded again, but her expression changed—pensive and almost sad. I saw it clearly as she looked at me and spoke.
“You worried about this,” she whispered again.
I wondered what she meant, but there was no clue in her eyes.
“Worried?” I said.
“You were concerned about how we would get on.”
“I just didn’t want to show up out of the blue and…”
“May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Does it bother you now, knowing I was in hospital? We aren’t just acquaintances anymore, Evan.”
It was a matter of time, and I always knew we would return to the question at some point, but it seemed so sudden and abrupt. I wished at once she hadn’t asked but there was no way out—no clever, easy escape.
“I thought about it when I first heard, I guess, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Well, as you said, we’ve become more than just friends, and you never gave me a reason to be bothered.”
She walked toward the windows.
“You don’t know why I was in that place.”
“No,” I answered slowly, “but I’m not sure it makes any difference. Should I worry about something that happened a long time ago and long before we met?”
“Others do,” she replied, looking away quickly.
“I’m not them.”
Aline turned and looked again through the window toward the trees.
“Some will tell you to keep your distance; they’ll warn you I’m trouble to be avoided.”
“Who will—the people in town? I got the impression from Jeremy they’re cheering for you; they like to see you’re healed and doing well, Aline.”
She looked over her shoulder and said, “Not them. But there will be others—people y
ou haven’t met.”
“I don’t understand; have I done something wrong?”
She turned and shook her head quickly.
“No, not at all! I just don’t want you to think of me that way—as if I’d gone mad and had to be cured of something that went wrong inside my brain.”
I watched her closely for an indicator to guide me when people who’ve endured emotional shock are forced to confront those most painful things. Instead, she spoke in a direct manner and not with the voice of a recovering patient holding fast to a lifeline connecting her with sanity suddenly threatened. Her tone made it clear the experience in Scotland had left unfinished business, and I guessed the ordeal was forced upon her against her will.
In my thoughts I saw them: pale inmates in striped pajamas and shabby bathrobes, curled in the fetal position on a metal-framed bed painted the institutional shade of white to match the walls of an isolation ward. I could see reddened eyes peering out from a tangle of matted, unkempt hair in desperation at the clank of locks and a rattle from key rings that make such places sound fittingly equivalent to prisons. Was it that way for her? Did an emergency room doctor see the signs of mental distress and call for special help? I know the images were contrived and only what my imagination conjured up from the memories of movies or television shows, but it bothered me. I hoped Aline wouldn’t notice, but she sat again and smiled sadly.
“You’re worried right now; I can see it in your eyes. We’ve grown closer but you’re wary of becoming attached to a crazy girl.”
“That’s not it,” I replied evenly. Had my expression told her something she waited to see? “I like our friendship just the way it is, and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I thought only of myself.”
She stood and walked toward the door where her boots and jacket waited. Did she not believe me, I wondered?
“I like our friendship, too, Evan; I like it very much. But one day you’ll understand why I was there. They will tell you to turn away; that you’re a fool if you let yourself be drawn in.”
“The doctors?”
“No; they were only trying to help me, but there are others. It’s inevitable, but I want you to know I understand if you prefer our relationship remains casual—to keep it as it is. I don’t want you to feel obligated or moved by pity because I don’t need any.”
“I’m not afraid, Aline, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Are you sure?” she replied at once. “I can smell the fear inside you. I know you want to fight back against your instincts with logic and intelligent reasoning, but the fear is still there.”
Her words came at me like machine gun fire—staggering and without pause. I listened to her but in those brief seconds, when our minds judge and compare what we hear against what we know, I felt suddenly lifted by a strange, steadfast purpose.
“You’re wrong,” I declared. “I know how I feel better than anyone, and you’re dead wrong if you think I’m looking for a convenient excuse or a way to get out of this gracefully.”
She moved closer, but her brow had furrowed.
“Don’t say these things out of bravado, Evan; it’s easy to pretend when you need to believe.”
Was it Aline’s way of closing the book before the first chapter’s conclusion? I’d seen the trick enough times to recognize it and I threw it back as fast as I could.
“If you’d rather be left alone, I will, but only if you want it that way and not because I’m worried about your time in Scotland.”
She reached for my hand and we stood before each other in silence. A gate opened and through it I saw the first glimpses of those things I know today but couldn’t have contemplated then. Aline moved us both past the existing boundaries of our growing relationship and into the next, but she stopped it to offer me an escape—a way out—even if I couldn’t understand what it would mean. I think of that moment sometimes, but I have no regret for where it led and my part in it. We held onto each other for a while in the silence, and I felt the strange sensation of knowing my life was changing. There was no hesitation or reason for concern; it simply was and I had no interest in going any other direction.
When she hugged me a last time and turned for the door, Aline made me promise not to be late for our breakfast date the next morning, reminding me she was eager to try her hand at a new recipe for eggs Benedict. The understanding between us had been formed in rough shapes, like the oak leaf medallion she’d made for me, but the days and months ahead would become a lathe to shape and refine its contours into what she already knew it would become. I felt better about things, alone in the quiet of my kitchen, when she drove up to the road. Tame though it may have been, our first physical encounter was a signal and one of the few I did manage to interpret successfully.
I looked at the television for a while, but it was more a distraction while I pretended the past hours had been nothing out of the ordinary. After a while I caught myself nodding off when a blaring commercial about margarine woke me with its loud, irritating beat. I crawled into bed still thumbing the little oak leaf and thinking mostly of her. Sleep found me quickly but barely an hour passed when it began.
DREAMS ARE FUNNY things. They can be goofy, amusing romps in a made-up world where anything is possible and limited only by the boundaries of our imagination. Sometimes, a dream is so disjointed and surreal it becomes a bizarre, inexplicable slide show of disturbing horrors we would rather not recount, grateful “it was just a dream” when we wake. When this one began, I could hear the sound of voices echo in the darkness until they faded to a uniform whisper.
The unmistakable aroma of charred wood and freshly wetted earth surrounded me, but there were no visual cues—no reference points—until finally I watched from a featureless, empty room as a shape moved toward me from the shadows and into the light. I couldn’t see a face but I knew it was Aline in that odd moment when the transmitter of memory sends instructions we accept without question. The voices of others faded in and out, though I couldn’t see them, and her hair had been pulled up into a high knot on her head like an upside-down shock of wheat. I could smell her, too, and the unique odor of her skin was unmistakable.
She spoke at last but I couldn’t make out the words as she moved closer. She wore a strange gossamer material around her shoulders so sheer and thin that her naked body glistened beneath it in the dim light, and upon it was a swirl of tattoos, like elaborate commas, in groups of three. I think of them today and the image created was cryptic—primitive—as though applied at random and not by a skilled artist.
“Wake up boy; wake now and take your share!” she said with a distant, lurid giggle, and it was clear what she meant when her hands moved along my body, trailing scented oil from a thin glass tube. Her hands guided mine and I felt no hesitation or reason to withdraw as the encounter slipped deeper into the primal, instinct-driven frenzy of animals. A montage of images and sensations held me like a vise, and I watched it as if suspended from above or looking on during an out-of-body experience. No dream is so powerful and as real as any living moment, but today, of course, I know more than I did then.
The sequence was profoundly erotic—raw and graphic in the extreme—yet I was a willing participant; I wanted to do those things. I felt cheated when it ended abruptly and it was difficult to shake away the powerful visions as I hovered between consciousness and a place where there were few behavioral limits and no restraints. Throughout the compelling moments I could hear, taste, and smell, and I remember hoping in the midst of it all no one would intrude and discover us. This was not from modesty, and only because I didn’t want the dream to end, but when it did I felt cold where my perspiring head soaked the pillow.
At last, I sat on the edge of my bed while the final images were replaced slowly by consciousness. I could feel the rapid pulse at my temples and shallow, measured breaths like a runner forced to hide with terror that his panting gasps will give him away. It took a few moments—I can’t remember how long—until I tasted the disti
nctive flavor of blood. I went quickly to my bathroom and squinted against the harsh light but there was no injury—no pain. I looked and felt about in tentative probes with the tip of my tongue, expecting a wound where I had bitten a lip or my cheek, perhaps, but there was nothing. I swirled warm water again, spitting out the pink solution into the sink, and as I splashed and dried my face, the reflection stared back with dark, dilated eyes like a stranger struggling in a haze of confusion.
I resented waking from the dream before it could reach a conclusion, though few dreams ever do, and I nearly sulked from being denied the climactic ending such dreams suggest. The feeling stayed with me for many minutes despite nagging echoes of shame pecking at me from the fringes of my conscience as a reminder good people of character don’t do such things.
When I returned to my bed the sheets and blanket had been pulled from where I tucked them neatly, and my pillow showed three blood spots: one on the left and two others on the right. Had I swung my head back and forth, dribbling out the stains with each motion? It was quiet and I worked slowly, gathering the sheets to swap out for fresh linen, and a deep breath seemed to settle things at last.
I switched off the light and lay quietly in the aqua glow of my bedside clock with memories of the raw sequence fresh in my thoughts. I hoped with an absurd desperation Aline would never find out the depravity made by my dream state and the animal behavior my imagination assigned to us both. She never would, I decided, but mostly I was grateful being relieved of the need to explain why I dwelled on graphic details without the slightest regret. As I settled, a faint smell of wet soil drifted through and I sat up, awake and alert.
Maybe it’s understandable, but I worried my subconscious had somehow assumed authority to revive the dream and invite the puerile images waiting inside. Of course, that was wishful thinking; instead, I simply missed the clues and signals offered by impossible realism no dream can match. There wasn’t a rational explanation for me to grasp and hold tightly, even if some sell it as a rare window into the human psyche. To me, interpreting dreams is emotional snake oil and another reminder of the darker corners of my nature I’d rather not reveal.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 11
