“I’m sorry I’m taking your husband from you,” I whispered, taken with the beauty of the photo. “I’m being so selfish.”
“You’re not taking him from me,” My sister looked at me suddenly, “I’m letting you borrow him.”
I didn’t know quite what to say. I couldn’t read her expression. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Silvia, it’s all right. As far as my husband and you go, I understand. I really do. I used to be jealous, but I figured it out a long time ago. It’s Oliver that the two of you have in common, that brutal love for Oliver. There is no one in the world Alexander ever loved more than his brother. It’s what binds you two. And Oliver and I shared the same ferocity for Alexander. It bound us as well.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
She smiled, “Don’t you really? It’s simple. What you and Alexander have goes beyond brother and sister and it goes beyond friendship. It goes beyond physical. It’s a trust that comes from the heart. A long time ago Alex was confused by the closeness, but now it’s just love. Pure and simple. You love each other. And that’s a beautiful thing.”
“I do love him.”
“I know. And I know that right now you need him and he needs you. Oliver’s gone and you’re both left with all this passion and the object of it is not here. I’m not threatened. Alexander chose me,” Lucy smiled again, “He’s given me fifty four wonderful years with him and I know he wouldn’t have given me a day if he didn’t love me. So why should I be jealous and why should you be sorry? It’s a waste of energy.” My sister took my hand and squeezed it, “And anyway, I adore him. I always have. Losing Oliver is killing him. I can’t do anything for him. I watch him suffer. I watch him die slowly from grief and I can’t touch the place in him where he’s hurting. But you can, because you loved Oliver as much as him. You’re helping him like he’s helping you. I’m thankful to you both for that. I just wish I could do more for either of you. I feel so helpless…” She turned a page in the book again. A photo fell out from between the pages and she caught it. This one got her full attention. It was her, taken only a few months earlier, standing beside Oliver with her head pressed into the middle of his chest. His arms were around her. Both of them were grinning. Lucy stared at it and was quiet for a long time before she whispered, “I wish that I could have done something to help him.”
“None of us could.”
“I never thought it would be him,” She put her hand over her mouth and spoke through her fingers, “Of all of us, he was the most cheerful. He was so alive. How could he have gotten so sick like that and left us alone?”
I put my arms around my sister. I could feel her begin to tremble, “Lucy,” I said softly, “Please don’t cry. If you do, I’ll start up. I think I’ll die if I cry any more. I can’t cry anymore…”
“I can’t believe he’s gone!” She wailed, “Oh, Silvia! I can’t believe he’s really gone! I miss him so much! I can’t believe I’ll never see him again! It’s like it’s not real! It’s a bad dream and I want to wake up! Please, God! Please, wake me up!”
“I wish I could wake us both up!” I swore.
“I’m so sorry, Sil! I’m so sorry! I want him back! I want my brother back! I couldn’t help him! I want him back! Damn it!” She stomped her foot against the ground, “I’m so goddamned sorry that I couldn’t help him! Oliver!” She shouted to the sky, “Oliver! I’m sorry! I’m so, so, so sorry…Oh, God! Please! Come back! I want to help you! Please!”
“No, no,” I rocked my sister in my arms, “We all want him back, but we can’t have him. Can we?” My heart ached so bad I was sure it was splitting apart, “Lucy, we’re all in a nightmare and no one can wake up. But you’re here. I’m here. Alex is here. We still have each other, Sissy. We still have each other. Oliver doesn’t need us to take care of him anymore. We have each other to take care of. That’s what he wanted! That’s what matters! Not what we couldn’t do for him then, but what we can do for each other now.” I smoothed her hair the way Oliver always did mine, “You’re here, Lucy. I love you, Alexander loves you. That’s what matters now. Oliver’s all right. I can feel him, I swear it! He’s all right and he wants you to be all right, too.”
“I’ll be fine,” She assured me through her tears, “It’s my husband I’m worried about! I need you to help me take care of him, Silvia! Please, help me keep him alive! I can’t imagine living without him! I know you just lost your husband, but I can’t lose mine, too! He needs you! Please, Silvia, please! Help me make sure Alexander doesn’t die, too!”
“I promise, Lu! I promise I will keep him alive. We both will, won’t we? We won’t let him go! We won’t! I swear it!”
It was the only time Lucy allowed herself the luxury of losing her composure. She never did in front of Alexander. It would have killed him to see her fall apart and she knew it.
The children were always coming around to check on us after Oliver left. The morning he died, however, Alexander, Lucy and I followed the medics out into the garden as they carried Oliver’s body to the van to be taken away. When they had gone, we sat together on the front stoop. None of us called any of the children. None of us said a thing. We just sobbed and held each other, three old farts sitting on a stoop with snot rolling down our faces.
Finally, knowing that someone was bound to arrive soon, I called Nigel and told him that Oliver had gone away.
“We’re all together,” He told me, “Having breakfast. Gryffin knows. You know how he is about knowing things. He told me earlier, but he doesn’t want to say anything until everyone’s had a bite. But I’ll tell him,” He paused, “And when we’re through I’ll tell the rest. You tell me. Are you all right, Sil?”
“No,” I answered honestly, “But don’t you dare repeat that.”
“Is my dad all right then?”
“He’s worse than me, but your mum and I are keeping him in an upright position. Take your time getting here, all of you. Be safe.”
“We will. We’ll see you soon.”
“Nigel?”
“Yes?”
“I love you. I don’t think I’ve told you for a long time.”
“I love you, too, Auntie Sil. You don’t ever have to tell me. I remember all the time.”
We had a memorial service for Oliver on a Friday. We did it at his parent’s house since there was more room there than anywhere else and Warren and Gwen had insisted. I wondered how quickly they had regretted it when the house became so crowded that a line had to form out in the garden that lead well past the fence. As Oliver had wished, two days earlier he had been turned to ash and sat in a beautiful blue urn, lovingly placed on his old lab jacket, and set in the centre of Warren’s grand piano.
The tears flowed freely. The laughter rang out. We shared stories with loved ones and stories with strangers. Adults who had once been Oliver’s patients as children told me how they remembered his kindness, how he’d helped them when they were helpless and hurting. Friends of our children, now with their grandchildren, stopped by to offer their support and condolences. Connor Stewart and his wife had tea with Carolena and Steffen. I sat with Lucy and Alexander in the sitting room, too sad and exhausted to entertain anyone or even to be receptive to their kindness. Someone brought us tea and sandwiches, but I couldn’t eat. I just stared at the photos on the tables and thought about how many times Oliver and I had gone into that room when we were young to snog where no one could see us. I was remembering a particular incident where we’d been going at it with such abandon that we’d fallen off a chair and broken his mother’s lamp when a voice cut through my thoughts.
“Silvia?”
I turned my head to see a man I didn’t recognize. Too thin, skin as white as his hair, he stood smiling at me from a few steps away. I blinked, trying to place him, but I had no idea. “Hello,” I smiled, not knowing what else I might have said.
“You look wonderful!” The man exclaimed, “Where is Alexander?”
“I…I don’t know,�
� I honestly had not noticed that Alex had left the room.
“I’m sorry about Oliver. I just heard the news last night. Karenna tracked me down and let me know. Such a shame. He was a good man. I have the fondest memories of him.”
“We’re all getting older,” I said as matter of fact as I could manage, still wondering who he was when Alexander came in from the other side of the room.
“I’ll be damned!” He nearly shouted, a smile spreading across his stony face, “Joshua McGuigan! How the hell are you, Mate?”
“Josh!” I screamed. I got up from that chair more quickly than I’d moved in ages. I threw my arms around the old goat and hugged him tight, “Oh, Josh! Do you have any idea what it means to Oliver and me that you’re here?”
How wonderful it was to see him, even under such horrible circumstances. We sat and talked for ages. After graduation he’d gone on to university in the States where he’d met and married and American girl. They’d lived in the Mid-West until he convinced her it was time to give Wales a go. He was home, he said, to finish out his days. He wished that he’d looked us all up sooner, he was so sorry that he‘d missed Oliver, but he was so thankful that he’d had the chance at least to see Alex and me.
None of us promised to see each other again when he left that evening. We just hugged again in the front garden and wished each other well. That was fine with all of us. We’d seen each other once more if never again, and that meeting we’d keep with us forever.
Days later, when Oliver was placed in the cabin on a shrine that we’d made in his honour and all the children had left the wood, I finally asked Alexander what I’d wanted to since Ollie had died. “Alex,” I caught him standing in the garden staring at the trees, “Oliver told you something the last time you spoke. You promised him to tell me. What was it?”
Alexander turned his head slowly toward me. He blinked thoughtfully a couple of times, “Ah, yeah. I’m glad you asked. I’d almost forgotten. He said he remembered exactly what it was about you that made him love you in the first place.”
“What was it?”
“The way you loved him back.”
Chills shot down my spine and prickled across my skin.
“Are you all right, Sil?” Alex reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.
I nodded, unable to speak and helpless against my tears.
Those words should have broken my heart, but instead they healed me.
In all the years we were together, Oliver had never asked me what it was that made me love him in the first place, but I had always known the answer. It was in his eyes and in everything that he did and said. I loved him without fear or restraint because I could take one look at him and I knew how deeply he loved me in return.
It struck me right then what magic we’d truly done.
“What does it mean?” I had asked him so long ago when he had spoken of love magic.
“Love is the oldest and greatest of all the magic in the world.” He’d said, “I guess we wait and see. We’ll know in our time.”
He’d given me everything I’d ever wanted. It wasn’t a huge house or luxurious gifts. It was him. I’d only ever wanted his love. I’d only ever wanted to love him with my whole heart. I had wanted to give him his children. I wanted to raise a family with him. I’d wanted to laugh and play and run free with him. And he’d let me and he’d loved me back with such an intensity that somewhere along the way we’d become a true and real part of each other.
“I love you, Silvia. I have always loved you. I loved you before forever began and I’ll love you still after forever ends.”
Oliver had told me that, standing in the snow by the lake at Bennington when we were sixteen years old. Sixty-nine years ago he’d said those words. That day they rang through my head and echoed through my heart.
In an instant, I finally knew what he had been trying to tell me. I understood what my pain over losing him meant! It wasn’t pain at all!
That empty spot in my heart was the piece of my soul that I’d given to Oliver when he was alive. It was my gift to him, given willingly, so that we would never truly be apart and we would always, always be able to find each other. He’d taken it with him across the veil. I had been mistaking his sweetness for torture. When my heart throbbed and ached, that was the gift that Oliver had given to me while he was alive, that was the part of his soul that I owned. When I felt that hurt, it meant he was thinking of me. Oliver missed me like I missed him. That twinge inside my soul was Oliver a million miles away telling me he loved me even more still now that he was gone.
He was my heart! That was the magic! Oliver had become my heart!
“Oh, Ollie!” I gasped. “It’s still our time! I’ve got it now! Our time never ends!”
We began before forever was born and we will go on after forever ends. Death may have taken him away, but he can never keep us apart.
We’d won. We’d beaten Death.
I wanted so badly to tell Oliver that I’d worked it out, but I knew he didn’t need me to.
I knew that he’d known it all along.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I am standing in the sitting room at the cottage of my nephew, Nigel, trying to get the attention of an old man who is deaf as a stone.
“I said hello, Alexander,” I shout as loud as I can, then thump him on the back of the head. “Turn on your hearing aids!”
He turns and sees me and breaks into that great Cheshire grin. My goodness he is indeed his brother’s twin. What a comfort it is to see his face.
“Silvia!” He pulls me into a long hug, squeezing me just a little too hard. “I thought you’d never return!” He tilts his head back and kisses me lightly, “Ready to go? There’s a couple of us already out there. Lucy’s keeping an eye on things,” He picks up his jacket. He is already on his way out the door, “No time to lose, huh, Sil?”
We head out, Alexander, Kitty, Nigel and I, and we all get into Nigel’s car. It’s about a fifteen minute ride to the wood and I am getting more and more excited by the moment. We drive up the path as far as we can go and Nigel stops the car. Alexander and I are out of it before the break is even set, both of us running as well as we can on our old legs, leaning on each other for support.
“Mind your ankle, Sil,” Alexander warns me. I shoot him a look and he falls silent, but smiles.
The climb up to the cabin is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be and we make it with little problem, although we are begging for breath when we get to the clearing.
My family is there when I get to the garden. Lucy hugs me tightly. “Oh, I’ve missed you, Sissy! You cut off your hair!”
Warren is there, too, with Gwennie, “Mum!” He kisses me right between the eyes, “It’s good to have you back! You look fantastic!”
I laugh, but I am too excited for idle chat. “Sorry,” I pat my son on the arm, “But I need to have a look around!”
“Go!” He grins. He has the dimple in his cheek same as his dad.
The wood is exactly as I remember it. Home, home, I am home! I go inside. Lucy has cleaned it up nicely and Alexander hasn’t changed much around. Nigel’s right, though, time has taken its toll on the original part of the cabin and dry rot has set in. It could stand for several more years, but it will collapse sooner or later. They will have to take it down.
Leaving the cabin I am more careful than I used to be on the stairs. A tumble off those and a resulting broken ankle was what landed me at Kitty’s house in the first place. Now that I am healed I have no intention of leaving the wood again.
I make sure that no one is following me as I head out to my old, favourite tree, "It’s been too long,” I put my hand against it and caress its rough bark, “Hello, my old friend. I’ve missed you! How have you been?” I lean against it, a sort of hug.
“I’m home,” I tell the winds as they wrap around me, “Hello!” I say to the whispers. An owl hoots somewhere in the dark.
I can hear voices coming from over by the cabin,
but it’s just Nigel and Warren standing on the porch debating restoration or rebuilding. I turn to watch them. The oldest and the youngest of all the children, they are, and in all the years they’ve shared as cousins, it never seems like they can agree on anything. Nigel says blue, Warren says green. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just exercise to them to fight. I don’t understand why they do it. Ultimately, when it comes to this place, neither of them will have a say. This place will be Gryffin’s and after that he will leave it to Kitty, who told him once she wants to grow old here. She and Lucy are sitting in chairs in the garden laughing about something I can’t make out. Warren and Nigel go on and on.
I see Alexander come out of the cabin and down the steps. He stops and gives the boys a look and they end their discussion immediately. He continues across the garden and I hurry to him. We clasp hands like school children and hurry to the faerie circle. Slowly, as the old must go, we scoot sideways down the hill to the circle’s side and kneel down.
“Oliver told me something I never told you,” He is speaking too loudly, but I don’t bother to tell him to quiet down. It is good to hear his voice. “You have that shard, right?”
I nod. I take the necklace off and hand it to him.
He grins, “See, they never talked to me, The Lord and the Lady. I could hear them, but I couldn’t ever decide what they were saying. Truth be told, I wished they’d quiet down sometimes, they kept me up at night. But Oliver, they actually talked with a time or two. And they told him that there was a tree here, right in this spot. It was the oldest tree in the wood and it was the tree that the Lord and the Lady lived in. Well, our great, great something Grandpaddy cut that tree down and used it to build that cabin there. That little piece of wood was the last sliver they had of what was once their home.”
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