Blue Wide Sky

by Inglath Cooper

  And then there’s the voice inside me, all but screaming to stop this craziness, turn back before it’s too late. But I already know it is. Even as Sam sets his coffee cup on the deck railing, even before he reaches out and touches my face with the back of his hand. Even before the soft sigh of acquiescence slips past my lips.

  Some things that you’ve thought about for a long time have a way of not living up to the hype you’ve given them. Sam’s kiss isn’t one of them. He takes his time with it, easing in until his lips settle on mine, and any reason I might have been able to come up with as to why this is a bad idea flies off into the night.

  I slip my arms around his waist, and the feel of him is so familiar, it’s as if nearly two dozen years instantly dissolve, and we are exactly as we once were, two people who simply fit one another.

  The kiss is sweet, and, at the same time, full of fire.

  Since the day he showed up at the dock, I’ve done a decent job of concealing his effect on me. A person can alter the tone of their voice to hide emotion, school the expression on their face to show something other than longing. But not here. In his arms. Under the old magic of his kiss.

  Here, I’m the very same girl who first fell in love with him. The same girl who wanted him beyond anything resembling reason. As I do now.

  He runs a hand up the side of my bare arm, and electricity scatters throughout my body. His mouth finds the side of my neck, the hollow of my throat. I drop my head back and sigh with surrender.

  “It’s only felt this way once for me,” he says against my throat. “Only with you, Gabby.”

  I want to make him stop, tell him not to say things that inspire regret in either of us. It does no good, after all. We can’t go back and change any of it. But the truth is, I want to hear that he never forgot me, never forgot what it was like between us.

  “For me too, Sam.”

  There, honesty. With all its pointy edges and potential pitfalls. But somehow it feels good to let it out, release it from that place inside me where I’ve forced it to hide for so long.

  He leans back and stares down at me. I feel him drinking me in, like someone who’s been too long without vital nutrients and only now realizes his need.

  And this time, I kiss him. Pull his face to mine with open urgency.

  We kiss with the kind of abandon I haven’t known since we last made love, and I don’t know whether that’s tragically sad or simply wonderful that we’ve found it again.

  At some point, he backs me to a nearby lounge chair, eases me down onto the cushion and then follows, stretching out alongside me. I yank his shirt from his pants and slip my hands up his back, splaying them across his shoulders. The muscles there are taut and firm, and I remember the breadth and strength of them.

  Sam pulls my blouse from my jeans and slips his hand inside, finding the bareness of my waist and then the curve of my breast. All the while, we’re kissing with a deliberation that can only lead to one conclusion, and it is this thought that brings common sense swooping to the front of my mind.

  “Sam,” I say, his name ragged on my lips. “Not here.” I glance at the sliding glass doors, suddenly aware that Kat could come back out at any moment.

  I sit up, drawing in a couple of deep, return-to-sanity breaths.

  Sam runs a hand over my hair. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be. It’s just—I’m not ready—”

  “It’s okay.” He slides to the end of the chair and sits for a few moments with his hands on his knees. I know he’s forcing himself back to reason, and I keep my gaze on his back as his breathing slows.

  Still not facing me, he reaches for my hand, linking his fingers through mine. “I never thought I would hold you like that again.”

  I know I shouldn’t ask this. It feels like I’m asking him to admit to infidelity. But I can’t help myself. “Did you think about us? Ever?”

  “I’m not sure a day has ever passed that I didn’t think about you, Gabby. I know what I lost, when I lost you. I’ll never get that back. But I never stopped loving you. There were periods of time when I tried to convince myself that what I’d felt for you was just teenage love, and couldn’t compare with the kind of love that adults with life experience come to know. And then at some point, I just let myself accept that the place in my heart where you had been would never be filled. And I was going to have to live with that.”

  I should feel some kind of vindication for the revelation, but I don’t.

  I find myself feeling simply grateful. To know again what we knew so long ago. To feel the petals of that love begin to peel back and lift their faces to the sun.

  What we’re going to do with it, I have no idea. It’s at once fragile and sturdy, new and not new at all.

  “I should go, Gabby,” Sam says, standing. “Even though I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want you to,” I say, finding that I can’t be anything but honest with him.

  I get to my feet, and we stand for a moment. It no longer feels as if there’s a canyon of distance between us. I feel the reconnect like a lock that has gently clicked back into place.

  Sam reaches for my hand, laces his fingers between mine, but says nothing. He kisses my forehead, then releasing me altogether, walks to the sliding glass door and lets himself out. I wait a few moments until I know he’s had time to leave the house and then go to the front living room window.

  The light from the front porch allows me to see him clearly. He walks toward his car with purpose, as if he doesn’t trust himself not to turn around and come back in. I can’t help it. I wish that he would.

  He comes to a sudden stop and puts a hand to the back of his head, and I watch him waiver, as if he’s had too much to drink. A knot tenses in my stomach, and then he walks on, getting in his car and sitting for a moment, leaning his head against the seat.

  Questions run through my mind all at once—Is he regretting what just happened between us?—Is something wrong?—Should I go out to check on him?

  But he is starting the car and backing from the driveway before I can force my feet to move. I consider calling to ask if everything is okay, but I stop myself under a feeling I can’t explain.

  Kind of like when you’re about to see something you don’t want to see, and so you look away right before you have to process what it is. When you can’t handle the reality of what it might be.

  Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

  ~ Mark Twain

  Analise

  I wake up with the kind of headache that feels as if every speck of moisture has been sucked from my brain.

  I roll over and pull the pillow over my face in an attempt to block the sunlight streaming through the blinds of my room. I need to get up for class, but the thought of moving makes me instantly nauseous.

  Helen lived up to her reputation and then some last night, getting us into a club on the outskirts of London, where we were over-served and then put in a taxi back to school when it was clear we weren’t going to be able to hail one on our own.

  It would be nice to think that the alcohol somehow managed to douse the anger that seems to be a permanent fixture inside me. But as soon as I think of Mom and our phone call yesterday, it’s back to raging volume.

  I swing my feet over the side of the bed, and the whole room seems to list. I so want to throw up.

  My phone buzzes. I fumble for it and find it under the covers. It’s a text from Evan.

  Hey. What up?

  I type back, my fingers quick.

  Twenty four hours later. Is that the best you can do?

  Ease up. Have a life here.

  Everyone is gone.

  What do you mean?

  You’re off doing your own thing. I’m here in this dungeon of a school. Mom’s married to her yoga now. And Dad’s in Virginia.

  What?

  At least he didn’t tell you either.

  When did he go?<
br />
  A week or so ago.

  Do you know why?

  No.

  Hmm.

  Thanks for the in-depth analysis.

  How long will he be there?

  He said he wasn’t sure.

  That’s weird.

  Brainiac.

  There’s a b word I could throw back at you, but I won’t.

  Ever the gentleman.

  If you’re so miserable, you can come visit me in the city this weekend.

  And hang out with your stodgy friends? No thanks.

  I’m reconsidering the b word.

  I just wish things were the way they used to be. That we weren’t all separated.

  What? You don’t even like being around Mom and Dad.

  I liked having a family.

  You still do.

  Some family.

  This time when it hits, the nausea isn’t taking no for an answer. I bolt off the bed and run into the bathroom where I drape myself across the toilet and vomit until there is nothing left to throw up. And when I’m done, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so empty.

  It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat. It is a philosophical animal… one that does not place its affections thoughtlessly.

  ~ Theophile Gautier

  Sam

  I sleep until noon the following day, the medicine I’d taken for my headache blocking my brain’s normal alarm clock. When I come to, I feel groggy, but the pain is gone, and I lie in bed staring at the ceiling fan while memories of last night with Gabby come floating up.

  I close my eyes and feel the imprint of her against me, the sweet smell of her hair, the softness of her mouth. She’d felt different in my arms in a way I don’t know that I can explain, but at the same time, so much the same. I’ve never had that sense of belonging with anyone else, not before Gabby or after. I know I should feel guilty for the thought. During the years that Megan and I worked at our marriage, I wanted to give her all of me.

  I tried.

  But I know now that was never possible. A part of me has always belonged to Gabby. It was never within my power to alter that, even though I honestly believed that I could.

  From here, it seems so obvious, the impossibility of it. Like trying to alter the timing of a sunrise.

  But even as I admit this to myself, guilt stirs up a sick feeling in my stomach. I have no right to start anything with Gabby.

  I should leave. Just go to Baltimore and wait for Ben to get back. To do anything other than that makes me someone who could never deserve her.

  I get out of bed and make my way to the shower, my steps tentative with the hope that my head will not start pounding again. Thankfully, it doesn’t, and I stand under the cool shower spray with my eyes closed, knowing I have to leave this place that could so easily feel like home to me.

  By the time I get downstairs and start to make some coffee, I am resigned to doing the right thing. I pick up my phone from the kitchen table, and it immediately rings.

  The marina number flashes across the screen. I take a deep breath and answer with a neutral, “Good morning.”

  “Hi.” Gabby’s voice, hesitant, unsure. “How are you?”

  “Good. You?”

  “I just—I was wondering if you would be willing to go with Kat and me to Duke on Monday morning? We have the appointment with Dr. Lanning. Which I can’t thank you enough for. And—”

  “Gabby,” I interrupt. “I would love to go with you, but I’ve been thinking, and last night—”

  “You’re regretting,” she says.

  “Who could ever regret kissing you?”

  She doesn’t say anything for several moments, and I’m wondering if I should have curbed the honesty when she says, “I don’t regret kissing you, Sam.”

  I sit down on a kitchen chair and stare out the window at the lake beyond. I want to say yes. To be there for support even if I have little else to contribute. But I also know that the more I let our lives become entwined, the harder it will be to disentangle those threads again without immense pain.

  “Sam, I’m not asking you to marry me. It’s just a drive to North Carolina and back.”

  Her voice is light, as if she’s trying to convince herself as well as me that the situation doesn’t have to be complicated. Only she has no idea how complicated it really is.

  But I give in to my own desire to be with her again, to see this appointment with David through. And so I say, “What time are we leaving?”

  ~

  I SIT AT THE table, sipping coffee and skimming the New York Times on my iPad. And then even though I’ve told myself I’m not going to do it again, my fingers type in the search words as if on automatic pilot. I browse through the forums, reading the situations of a dozen different people who are facing the same future as I am.

  I look for hope there, but as has been the case each and every time I’ve done this, I finally back out of the screen and close the device cover, wishing I’d never given in to the temptation.

  I resolve yet again to wait for my brother’s opinion. To trust in his expertise and the fact that I know he will be honest with me because we’ve never been anything other than that with each other. He will tell me the truth. And that is what I need to hear.

  I sit for a while, reining my thoughts back to quiet from their temporary escape into panic.

  I hear a sound at the back door off the kitchen. At first, I assume it’s just the breeze brushing leaves against the screen, but then I hear it again. I walk to the door and pull it open.

  Sitting on the welcome mat is a black cat. Something about its posture makes me think of what a cat belonging to a rich Egyptian in pyramid times might have looked like. It is as poised and regal as any cat that might have laid claim to Cleopatra.

  That’s my first impression. But a closer look reveals that its recent circumstances most certainly did not involve royal treatment of any kind.

  “Hey, buddy,” I say. “When was your last meal?”

  The meow is instant and insistent, as if arriving on my doorstep included the assumption that a meal would be forthcoming. “I can help you out with that. What happened to your ears?”

  I squat down and see that the edges of both ears are bloody and infected. The cat stands tall on all fours and does a body swipe against my legs.

  “I’ll take that as a please,” I say. “Come on in.”

  I step back inside, and the cat follows me, tail sticking straight in the air, as if its appearance might be tattered, but its dignity is intact.

  I rummage through the pantry and find a can of chicken that Ben’s family must have left here at some point. I check the expiration date. It’s still good, so I pull a bowl from the cabinet and spoon the chicken in.

  I set it on the floor, and the thank-you meows are nearly deafening.

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “You could use some medicine on those ears, you know.”

  I search around until I find some cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide and then a tube of antibiotic ointment. I wait for the cat to finish its meal—which doesn’t take long at all. I pick it up, checking to see if it’s a boy or girl—boy—and then set him on the table.

  He’s surprisingly patient with my first-aid efforts, as if he knows his ears need the care. When I’m done, I run my hand along his back and he arches into the rub the way cats do.

  “Now what?” I ask him.

  Meow.

  “Does that mean you want to hang a while?”

  Meow.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. But I have to be up front with you. It can’t be a permanent thing. So temporary lodging at best. That good with you?”

  Me-owow.

  “You have a name?”

  Silence follows the question, but he rubs against my arm as if he’s okay with me giving him one. “Okay. Let’s see. Eli sound good?”

  No response, so I’m not sure we’re in agreement, but I guess we’ll go with it.

  Eli hops down from the table and cha
rts a path for the living room. It’s clear he’s owned a home before. I follow him and stick my head inside the doorframe just as he jumps onto the couch and curls into a neat ball in one corner. He closes his eyes immediately, as if he’s exhausted. I wonder if I’m actually being kind to let him stay when I know it can’t be for long.

  And then I realize I’m deliberating the same thing about the cat that I’m deliberating about Gabby.

  A wave of fatigue hits me, and I decide I don’t have the energy to question the rightness of anything that I’m doing.

  “As long as I’m here, Eli, you can stay,” I say and then leave him to his nap.

  When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

  ~ Helen Keller

  Gabby

  I drive out to Annie’s house Saturday afternoon, intent on delivering an apology, even as I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for. Possibly for being careless with my own emotions. In all fairness, I know that she has my best interests at heart.

  She waves at me from the entrance to the big red barn as I pull into the driveway. I get out and walk down to where she’s spreading feed to the chickens clucking at her feet.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey,” I say, and then with my arms folded across my chest, “How many do you have now?”

  “Fourteen,” she says, tossing another handful of feed.

  “You’re getting eggs every day?”

  “At least a dozen.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “They earn their keep and then some. Haven’t seen a mosquito in ages.”

  The chickens peck and dart, each one determined not to lose out. “Do they go in at night?”

  “Yep. We built the coop behind the barn. They let themselves in every evening just before dark. By the time I come down to close them up, most of them are asleep.”