Bittersweet Passion
Page 19
“Hmmm.” They lay quietly together while the stars lit the night sky. They seemed brighter in the mountains. Closer.
“Daniel,” Skylar whispered. “When two people truly love each other, showing that love in a physical way is the most spiritual experience I know.”
Daniel shifted them, and when he entered her, he whispered, “I truly love you, Sky.”
It was a long, long while before either of them could speak, and then she said, “I truly love you, too.”
The wedding party wore ski pants and thermal underwear. They stood in a tight circle around the bride and groom, who held hands and smiled at each other. The sheer ice-covered face of the mountain was their cathedral, and a boulder was their altar.
Daniel stood in front of the boulder to officiate his sister’s wedding. He didn’t ask, Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? Everyone knew the answer to that question.
Michael gave his daughter to Jake. No one else could take his place, and no one else attempted it.
Emily and Jake were waiting. Daniel looked out over the mountain for a moment, searching, and then placed his hand over theirs and began.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the wedding of Emily and Jake…”
A chilled breeze touched the back of his neck and he looked up at the circle of family. The empty space beside Anne suddenly glowed, filled with sunlight. And inside that light appeared the figure of a man. He reached for Anne’s hand, and he was smiling.
Daniel didn’t speak of what he’d seen on the mountain. They hiked back down and put Anne on a plane going home.
Emily and Jake flew out that same day for a honeymoon trip to Venice. Hannah left for her assignment while Daniel and Skylar stayed behind for a long-delayed real honeymoon.
They took a hotel room with wide windows facing the Himalayas. Two days after the wedding they lay in bed holding each other and watching the sunrise. It started on the highest peak and descended the mountain, lighting each face on its descent.
Neither of them spoke until a golden light filled the room.
“Did you see it?” Skylar asked, and Daniel knew instinctively that she wasn’t talking about the sunrise.
“Yes. I saw it.”
“What do you think it was?”
“Not what. Who.”
Skylar leaned on her elbow so she could look at him. “Then it was the figure of a man?”
“Yes, it was my father.”
She shivered as if she were suddenly cold, and he wrapped her closer.
“If anything had happened to him, we would have heard. Right?”
“Yes. Dad’s okay.”
“Then, what was it, Daniel?”
“I don’t know. I think that his love for Mom is so strong he found a way to send his spirit here to be with her.”
He traced his wife’s breasts with his fingertips, reveling in the familiar feel of her soft skin, delighting in the way she became instantly aroused. And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had found the kind of love his father and mother had. He knew that no matter what happened, no matter where her career took her or his took him, they would always be together.
“Love me, Daniel.” Skylar shifted on top of him, and as he slid home he said, “Always, my love. Always.”
Chapter Forty-Six
From the diary of Anne Beaufort Westmoreland:
October l9, 2001
I’m sitting here in seat 2B sipping a Baileys and coffee and trying to remember every detail of Emily’s wedding so I won’t leave out a thing when I tell Michael. Also, I want to record everything that happened just in case…
Well, I’m not even going to finish that thought. When you’re more than thirty thousand feet in the air, the last thing you should think about is being caught in your own tragedy. One in the family is enough.
Oh, I know, I know. I have to quit thinking of what’s happened to Michael as a current tragedy. The worst part is over—seeing him like that. God help me, I’m getting used to it. But I don’t like it, not one little bit, and I refuse to accept it. I guess I’m a bit of a Southern belle after all, a bit like Scarlett when she went into the radish patch and swore to the Almighty that she would never be hungry again.
Well, I’m swearing here and now that I will never accept Michael’s absence. Swearing it in purple ink. I’m going to bring him back even if I have to comb the ends of the earth to find a way to do it.
One thing I have to do is be more optimistic and less warrior-like. Clarice tells me that all the time. She knows because she reads all kinds of books about positive thinking and Eastern philosophies with names I can’t even pronounce. Of course, I could if I wanted to, but I always say that to Clarice because she gets such a kick out of being smart.
God bless her for staying with my Michael. If she hadn’t I couldn’t have gone, but I can tell you the honest truth. I can barely endure being apart from him. Every part of my body aches for him, every muscle, every sinew, every bone. There hasn’t been a single day that I didn’t yearn for him with such a fierceness I thought I’d break apart in a million pieces.
I can’t wait to see him again, to hold him, to kiss him, to tell him I love him. No, I don’t merely love him. He’s my heart, my life, my entire universe.
Oh God…
Well, I certainly made a fool of myself right here in the first-class section of the airplane. But I don’t care. Not one bit. I got to missing Michael so much I started crying into my Baileys and coffee. Two flight attendants came over to pamper me, and it felt good. They gave me scented tissues and got a cool cloth to wash my face, then fixed me a fresh coffee. I guess all that attention worked because I’m feeling better now and am writing once more. Trying to get it all down. The wedding, but first the mountain.
I can hardly find the words to describe how I felt when I first saw the summit of Everest rising out of the mists. The most formidable of all mountains was suddenly before me and I didn’t think about Michael’s accident at all. I was wonder-struck by its magnificence and spellbound by its power. I literally felt a tug as if this awesome mountain were exerting some sort of magnetic power over me.
I know that’s what Michael felt. Without even asking I know that’s why he kept going back.
I’ll have to ask him when he returns to me.
That’s how I’m thinking of him now. Not as being asleep and getting ready to wake up, but as being gone and getting ready to come back.
I know he’s coming back to me because he came to the mountain. I didn’t tell any of the children this, but Michael was there at Emily’s wedding. Not the whole time, and not right away.
He wasn’t in the Himalayas when we first arrived, nor on the climb to Base Camp. He wasn’t there beside me as I slept under the stars, awestruck by the same view he’s had dozens of times.
No, my husband didn’t appear until Daniel started the wedding ceremony. Then suddenly there was Michael. Standing beside me.
I felt him before I saw him. Felt a whisper of a breeze against my cheek, like a caress. And then there was a brilliance unlike anything I’ve seen. It filled the empty space I’d insisted we leave in the circle. Michael’s space.
And I knew it was him. Knew it before I saw the shadow. Knew it in my heart.
Then he reached out and caught my hand. I knew it was him. No one has hands quite as beautiful as my Michael. Quite as strong. Quite as wonderful.
I shivered when he touched me. I shiver still, just thinking about it.
You’re here, my darling, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. The children would have thought I’d gone mad. And perhaps I have. Perhaps this longing for his return has driven me over the brink.
But I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t think so.
Here’s what I believe, what I know…there is a mystical connection between Michael and me, one that transcends time and space. For we are not only husband and wife in this life, but we’ve been lovers through the ages, true soul mates who will alwa
ys find each other, no matter where we are, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the time.
Michael is my destiny and I am his. I know this truth deep in my bones.
There’s another truth I know: He’s coming back to me…. Michael will always return to me.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4026-1
BITTERSWEET PASSION
Copyright © 2002 by Peggy Webb
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*The Westmoreland Diaries