Spirit of the Ruins

by Jenny Lykins

  “This is wonderful!” She looked up at him as they strolled toward the bench. “You...Tylar was…is…ever so talented.”

  A silence fell between them at her slip. She didn’t know if she could bear another denial from him. Even the little time she’d stolen with him the day before had been spent with him insisting he was not her husband. She might have to accept his leaving, but she didn’t want his denials and wild stories to be the memories that would haunt her. No, she wanted something very different; a perfect day, a perfect memory, and no one but Tylar himself would keep her from having it.

  “Don’t move!” Tylar took her arm just as she ducked under a cluster of wisteria.

  She froze, wide-eyed, heart racing.

  “Is it a snake?” she whispered, as if that would stop it from striking. She couldn’t abide snakes, even the little green garden snakes.

  He laughed out loud, that wonderful laugh she had missed so much.

  “No. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just the flowers framing you…. I’d love to take your...do a drawing of you like that. Do you mind?”

  Did she mind? A chance to sit and stare at him? To be near him? To let him see the love in her eyes?

  “Not at all.” She made the words an invitation. An invitation to anything he wanted.

  He stared for a moment, and his Adam’s apple bobbed again in that strong, corded neck right before he cleared his throat and said, “Well! Great!” He clapped his hands together and looked around. “Let’s get you comfortable.” Grabbing the dingy white bench with its peeling paint, he pulled it over under the vines. The orchid clusters hung in heavy tendrils, full and lush, showering the seat with a sudden blizzard of tiny purple petals.

  “Let’s see...” He stood back and studied the setting, then guided Callen over to one end of the bench where she sat surrounded by a curtain of orchid wisteria blooms. He turned her a bit, angled her head, draped one of the dangling clusters across her shoulder, shook his head and removed it, then told her to relax.

  Relax? With his hands touching her, his gaze studying her, his face so close at times she could feel his breath on her skin, smell the clean, soapy scent of him?

  She made an effort to lean against the back of the bench and look “relaxed.” He fiddled with placing her hands just so, fluffed the skirts of her gown as if it were totally proper, plucked one last bit of bread caught in a piece of grosgrain trim and tossed it to the ground. Hobson strolled over, head bobbing, to see if the offering was worthy of him. He snapped it up, gave that ear-piercing shriek, then fanned his tail for them.

  “Go find yourself a woman, you overgrown turkey, and take your singing voice with you.” Tylar settled himself on the root of a live oak and muttered, “Elvis, you’re not. Hell, you’re not even Bob Dylan.”

  “Who are they?” It had never occurred to Callen that he might remember other people; men he’d fought with, traveled with, someone in the void of his memory. A little voice whispered Why them and not me?

  He glanced up, his hand already skimming across the paper, his mind concentrating on his work.

  “They’re singers.” He glanced back down at the paper and shrugged. “Well, one was a singer. The other one just thought he was and nobody ever told him different.”

  “Singers?” That was quite the last answer she might have expected, and it cut her to the quick. “You remember singers?”

  His concentration faltered for a moment, his hand stilled, then he went back to making quick, sure strokes.

  “Uh, yeah. Lift your chin just the slightest - perfect. So, does Hobson there have a Mrs. Hobson somewhere, sitting on a bunch of baby Hobsons?”

  The transparent attempt to change the subject did not escape her, but she’d not pursue the topic further. Doubtless – she tried to convince herself - these were people he’d concocted in his mysterious future, and she would avoid that conversation at all costs.

  “No, actually the poor fellow is quite alone. There’ve been no peahens around since the war.”

  “No wonder he’s so grouchy.” Tylar said it under his breath, but Callen heard him just the same.

  Perhaps he was...in need...

  Her thoughts raced. Would he then remember her? Surely nothing could ever wipe the memory of their night together from her mind. Would another such night bring back his memory?

  She gave the notion free rein in her imagination as Tylar continued the repetition of glancing up, then down, sketching her with studied diligence. Yes, she convinced herself, perhaps he needs the most personal of reminders.

  With her mind made up, she set about planning his seduction. With only one night remaining, she could not afford to fail. Though she knew nothing about how one goes about seducing a man - especially a man who thought her a veritable stranger - she would rely on her instincts, and, according to her mother, the predictable nature of all men.

  She glanced up at him then, a small smile on her lips.

  He was staring at her, unblinking, the want in his eyes as clear as if he’d spoken the words aloud. That gaze set her blood racing, her heart twisting in her chest like a flag in the midst of a hurricane. Her breath froze. He was going to kiss her. Though he had not moved a muscle, she knew. And when he did, he would come to her side, cradle her face in those beloved hands, and kiss her until her head spun and her body ached for so much more.

  The sound of a carriage turning up the drive broke the spell, threw water on them both, slammed that barrier back into place.

  Callen stood, murder in her heart and a curse on her lips. This had to be Stephen’s doing.

  “Looks like you’re getting company,” Tylar said, filling in the awkward silence, his voice husky with disappointment.

  When the carriage rolled into sight, she recognized the old driver with his hat pulled low over his eyes, and her heart nearly ripped in two.

  Connor!

  Part of her soared with joy; part of her cringed in panic. This wasn’t the way she wanted Tylar to find out. How would she explain Connor to him? Would he leave? Would he remember? Would he look at their son in disgust?

  When the carriage rolled to a stop, the veiled woman - Lord, she didn’t even know what she looked like - opened the door to the closed brougham from inside and lifted Connor down.

  Callen glanced at Tylar. He showed no signs of revulsion. Yet.

  She ran to her son then, skirts held high as she raced toward the drive. Connor, with his awkward gait, moved as fast as he could, his arms upraised. He fell just as she got to him and she scooped him up, swinging him round and round in a circle.

  *******

  Ty worked at the sketch, getting every detail, every nuance, making every effort to show the emotion in her face, her eyes. The drawing had to be perfect. This would be the picture he remembered her by.

  She wore her hair loose, with only the sides pulled back and tied with a slim blue ribbon. The wind caught and lifted several raven-colored tendrils, and he raced to get that look on paper. With the final, satisfied stroke, he looked up from his finished drawing to tell Callen she could move. Her thoughts, however, were somewhere else. Her eyes stared off into the distance, with her face all soft and dreamy.

  The pull of her drew him like one magnet to another. As a photographer, he’d met his share of women in his lifetime, but none of them had ever caused this stirring. This need to know her. To do for her. To slay dragons for her. He wanted to crawl inside her head, know what she was thinking, feel what she was feeling. Her beauty attracted him, yes, but beauty alone would never be enough to raise these longings so foreign to him.

  She looked up then, her eyes inviting, promising, asking. They locked gazes, she so ready to be kissed, he so ready to kiss her.

  When the carriage turned up the drive, he thought sure she might utter a curse, then her face drained of color, and a moment of...something...fear, panic, flashed in her eyes. She glanced at him, almost as if looking for a reaction, then she ran toward the coach, toward a little boy strugg
ling to run. He’d seen that same struggle only once before, in the future, but the person with two club-feet had been an old man.

  She grabbed up the little boy, swung him around, filled the air with childish giggles and womanly laughter.

  He wandered toward them, not quite sure if he would be welcome, but he would at least excuse himself and leave her to her company. The visiting woman, however, climbed back into the carriage and it rolled away while Callen still swung the child in circles.

  Ty stopped just a few feet away. Whoever the little guy was, he sure had a thing for Callen, and she for him. She finally lowered him to the ground, then sank to the grass beside him, swaying from her spin, laughing.

  Ty was just about to jokingly ask who her boyfriend was when the little boy tugged at her hands.

  “More, Mama! Do it again!”

  Ty froze. His heart, his blood, his brain, his muscles, all froze at the word “Mama.” And then he looked at the child. Hair nearly as dark as hers, skin almost as olive. The resemblance was there, even in the facial structure.

  “Mama?” Ty asked quietly, conversationally, yet almost choking out the word.

  She looked up at him, stood, dusted off her skirts, then pulled the little boy over in front of her, her hands on his shoulders.

  Stiffening her spine, lifting her chin, she met his gaze straight on and said, “Tylar, I’d like you to meet my...” - she lifted her chin a bit higher - “...our son, Connor.”

  Our son. Our son. Our son, the words echoed.

  Ty discovered the definitive meaning of speechless.

  She had a son! Ty was only supposed to stay, let her get to know him well enough to see he wasn’t her husband, let her say her goodbyes to Tylar. He wasn’t supposed to play a husband walking out on a wife and son!

  Uh uh. No way. This act of the play was canceled.

  “You and Tylar had a son?” he asked, deliberate with his words.

  Callen stared at him, set her jaw.

  “Our son.”

  He softened his gaze, gentled his voice.

  “Your husband’s son, Callen.”

  Her eyes glistened, but she stood ramrod straight.

  He couldn’t do this to her. But, hell, he couldn’t not do this. He had Daniel to think about.

  He plowed his fingers through his hair. Why in the name of everything holy had he ever walked through that column?

  “Mama, swing me again!” Connor broke the heavy silence by trying to swing himself from her hands.

  “C’mere, big guy, and let me give you a whirl.” He had to do something to change that look of defeat on her face, yet make things clear where he stood. “I used to spin my little brother all the time.”

  Connor stopped yanking on Callen’s hands and suddenly buried himself in her skirts, peeping up at Ty with an uncertain gaze.

  Ty knelt down and stretched out his hand, man to man.

  “My name’s Ty. McCall,” he added for some reason completely unknown to him. “You want me to give you a spin? I bet I can swing you higher than your mama can.”

  Connor let the skirts drop a little.

  “My papa’s name was like yours. He lives with Jesus.”

  Ty glanced up at Callen, who looked ready to speak. He narrowed his eyes and shook his head no.

  “So whatdaya say?” he said to Connor, still kneeling. “Wanna see how high you can fly?”

  That brought him out from the protection of his mother’s skirts, all shyness gone. He took Ty’s hands, and Ty lifted him, spinning in circles until Connor’s little turned-in feet flew out and his giggles filled the air. Ty spun him high, then dipped low, then high again, generating squeals of joy until his own head spun and he had to lower Connor to the ground. They both fell to the grass, laughing, lying on their backs as blue sky and green leaves swirled around them.

  “Would you stop moving?” he teased Callen, who stood there, her hands clasped at her waist. When he could focus on her, the defeat had left her eyes, replaced by...cautious wonder?

  He sat up, pulled Connor up with him, then invited Callen to join them. He had a dozen questions for her, and more with every moment that passed. She sank to the grass in a billowing cloud of blue, hesitant, her eyes glowing when she looked at Connor, wary when she looked at Ty.

  “You wanna turn, Mama?” Connor asked with total innocence. “He’s strong. He can swing you!” He pulled at Callen’s hands but she put her arms around her son and sent a miserable, embarrassed glance toward Ty.

  “No, sweetheart. Mama’s are too big.”

  Before Connor could argue the point, Ty got to his feet, his muscles still protesting from the abuse of his “duel.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone. I’ve got...” - his mind went blank - “things to take care of.” He leaned over and shook Connor’s tiny hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Connor.”

  The little boy leaned into his mother’s bosom and peered up at Ty.

  “Will you spin me again?”

  Ty looked at Callen – misery in her eyes, her chin quivering just the slightest - then he forced a smile at Connor.

  “You bet, big guy. But after while, okay? You have some fun with your mom now.”

  He turned and escaped. Literally. There was no other word for it. His head reeled, not from spinning Connor, but from Callen’s betrayal.

  How could she have asked what she did of him without telling him she had a child? Did she really believe Ty was her dead husband, or did she hope to snare a father for her son - a clone of the real father?

  He walked through the gardens and down the path to the cottage, numb, angry, more questions popping into his mind than he would ever have answers for.

  He wanted to run off his anger, but not in broad daylight. These people would never grasp the concept of jogging, and he was in no mood to explain. He stomped around the grounds for a while, which only served to stir his thoughts. At one point he considered just heading for the cellar, and damn the perpetual presence of someone in the kitchen, but he wanted the satisfaction of an explanation. She would answer a few questions before he tried to go home, like it or not.

  When Magnolia came with his lunch, he stomped into the cottage, tossed the book of sketches on the table, then flopped into a chair in front of the tray.

  “You feelin’ poorly, Mistah Tylar?” she asked as she uncovered a plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, stewed apples, and enough biscuits for three men.

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. No sense telling her to call him Ty. He wouldn’t be around long enough for it to matter.

  “I’m fine, Magnolia.” He looked up at her and made himself smile. “Lunch looks great. Thanks. And thanks again for washing my clothes last night.”

  She nodded at him, lips pursed, but simply said, “I be back to pick up them dishes directly.”

  He almost stopped her, to ask her the story of Callen and her son. But Callen, he decided, would have the honor of answering those questions herself.

  The food in front of him smelled delicious, but his appetite had disappeared, as surely as he would disappear later that night.

  He hoped.

  He choked down enough so as not to insult Magnolia, then shoved away from the table and took the drawings upstairs. The ones he’d drawn would go with him. The ones his...doppelgänger drew would stay behind.

  After pacing like a caged animal for what seemed like hours, he stood at the window, one arm braced against the frame, and stared through the trees. Connor and his mother came into view with a picnic basket and blanket. They were almost out of sight when Callen stopped and spread a quilt under the gnarled limbs of a moss-hung oak, with Connor, clumsy in his efforts, helping her.

  Ty watched them; saw the love even from that far away. Without even thinking, he picked up the sketchbook and charcoal, then straddled the windowsill and set to work. Damn, he wished he had a camera that would work. Just one picture to take back with him. He’d even settle for a daguerreotype like the one in
his wallet.

  Yeah. He sneered. Wish in one hand and - no, he wouldn’t even finish the cynical thought - his old man’s favorite saying whenever Ty or his mother had wanted something. He wouldn’t sink to the old bastard’s level; the bastard who had walked out on them even though his mother had been pregnant with Dan. Instead, Ty worked on the drawing, watched it evolve into a picture of the love between this mother and son.

  The afternoon faded and shadows stretched across the lawn, and still Ty watched from his perch on the windowsill. After a round of what looked like hide and seek, chasing an indignant Hobson, rolling balls across the grass, Connor climbed into Callen’s lap and she rocked him, slipping the shoes off his turned-in feet, kissing his dark, shiny hair, then she gently laid his limp little body on the blanket and curled up beside him. Not until the same carriage that had brought Connor rolled back up the drive did either one of them stir. Ty was certain Callen hadn’t slept for even a moment of that time.

  When they gathered up their picnic things, Ty ducked his head and swung back into the room. He’d wait until Connor went to bed, and then he would have a talk with the little mother.

  As he rolled the drawings so they wouldn’t get creased, a timid knock sounded at the door. When Ty came down the stairway, Connor’s little face peered up at him from the porch. Callen stood on the weed-choked path a few feet away, her eyes swimming in unshed tears.

  “Can you swing me now?” Connor asked in a near whisper.

  Try as he did to fight against it, Ty’s heart went all soft at those huge brown eyes looking up at him, hopeful, half scared, trying to be brave and wanting that promised swing enough to face this towering stranger.

  Ty didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to involve himself in this family any more than he already had.

  But a promise was a promise.

  “C’mere,” he said, scooping Connor up as he left the cottage and tucking him under his arm like a football. Callen made some kind of startled squeak as he trotted down the steps, but Connor squealed with unbounded delight. Ty whipped around in a dizzying circle, then flipped his passenger up to lie, belly down, on his shoulder. “Stick those arms out there, big guy,” Ty yelled above the breathless giggles. “Fly!” Connor stiffened out and raised his head, but instead of the classic Superman pose, which of course he’d never seen, he flapped his arms like a bird, squawking almost as loud as Hobson. Ty zoomed him around the garden paths, past the reflecting pond, and onto the lawn, where he swung him off his shoulder and into the promised spin. By this time Connor’s laughter had turned into giggling hiccups, until Ty finally lowered him to the ground and they both landed on their backs in the grass again.