by Ani Keating
That breaks through me. I’d rather he tear the Rover to shreds than go back. “Of course not! I want to be here. Take care of you.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “That’s wrong.”
“No, it’s right. I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me.” I’ll never tell him the flashback triggered my own memories. I’d never see him again after that.
He doesn’t say anything. I place my hand on his face, lest he really start driving back to Portland. “Will you please tell me what I did that made you upset? So that I don’t do it again.”
He looks at me and turns on the car light. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You calmed me. This is all me. Trust me on this.”
I search his eyes. They are calm now. “Yes, but I obviously said something that reminded you of something—”
He puts his hand over my mouth gently and shakes his head. “Elisa, reminders do nothing for me. I operate on triggers. And this—is—all—me.”
He seems resolute to take the blame so I tuck it away for deep analysis later. Was it about his parents? Can’t be, we’ve talked about them before. I nod, and put my hand over his where it is resting on my cheek.
He smiles. “That’s my girl.”
Maybe it’s his smile, or the fact that he called me his girl but I smile too. He kisses my temple, then my lips. “Let’s go. This place has been waiting for you for a while.” He turns on the car and pulls onto I-84 again. He presses a button on the steering wheel and looks at me.
“In your honor,” he says as the music starts. I expect “Für Elise” but no. “Ice Ice Baby”.
At that, I have to laugh. “My national anthem.”
He keeps changing the songs—all having to do with something terrible befalling ICE. “The Ice Is Getting Thinner”, “Break the Ice”, “Choc Ice Goes Mental”. I laugh at his version of a romantic mix tape.
“Baby, I can make you feel hot, hot, hot,” he sings in a low voice. My stomach starts fluttering. He is smiling again. And singing. And we’re getting closer to wherever we’re going. If I need this beautiful dress, it must be breathtaking too.
“Were you reciting the periodic table earlier?” Aiden asks, his voice lighter.
I blush despite the ice concert. “Yes,” I mumble.
“Is that a trick you use to calm yourself?”
“Too often,” I confess, feeling geekier by the second.
He chuckles. The sound is so beautiful that I would recite a million periodic tables to hear it again.
“That’s charming,” he says, caressing my jawline. “Very useful too. It calmed me as well. First your sight, now your voice.” He looks at me with a lovely glare. “What are you doing to me?”
“Teaching you chemistry?”
He shakes his head like he is arguing with a voice inside his head but his dimply smile is not listening.
“Almost there,” he says, taking an unmarked exit. There is only thick forest around as we start winding up the Cascades. The pressure of the ascent builds in my ears. He drives faster but there’s no anxiety in me now. Only exhilaration. Suddenly, we break through the forest onto an open field on the highest hilltop. The Rover comes to a screeching halt.
In the deafening silence, I press my nose against the window, squinting so I miss nothing. Moonlight floods the low grass, the soft rise of the peak, the contours of the craggy mountains above—turning them all silver. There is a soft glow some distance away, streaming between the sentinel trunks of ten or so evergreens.
Aiden rolls down the window. At first, I shiver. The winds are free up here. Then a sultry, floral scent stuns me. I sniff the air, trying to match it to any fragrance I know but cannot. It’s somewhere between gardenia, rose, coriander and brown sugar.
I turn to look at Aiden. He is facing me, his elbow propped on the steering wheel, his index finger pressing into his temple. There is a powerful emotion in his eyes, something I have no name for. His smile is soft. It hangs on his lips like the moonlight hangs on his lashes: enough to brighten them, but not enough to dim him. The tip of his middle finger brushes absentmindedly over his lower lip.
“Where are we?” I whisper.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Starry Skies
“I’ve never brought anyone here.” His voice is low, rough as though chafing against unspoken words.
Instantly, I know where we are. My pulse stutters, then starts throbbing, almost painfully. “This is your Alone Place!”
He smiles, eclipsing the moon, the hill and even the astonishing fragrance in the air. He looks so beautiful that I close my eyes. For only a few seconds. When I open them, his face is inches from mine. “I think you have wanted to see it since the Rose Garden.”
I nod, not exactly speechless. For once, the words are there but I’m having a tip-of-the-tongue moment. A stutter. Not in my pulse or in my brain, but somewhere deeper. So I kiss him hard, like the words I am searching for are in his mouth. He unbuckles my seat belt and rips me from my seat onto his lap. His fingers twist in my hair, pulling me close to him—so close that I feel his heartbeat against my corset.
He ends the kiss abruptly, holding my face in his hot hands. Then he smiles the full dimple-and-scar smile and reaches in the backseat, bringing out a soft cream blanket. He throws it over my shoulders.
“Come!” His voice is exhilarated.
We topple out and I clutch the blanket around me. Why did I need a dress and heels for this? Then again, we dress up for man-made affairs. Why shouldn’t we do the same for natural wonders?
“Look,” he says, pointing at the sky.
“Oh!” I gasp, gazing at the thousands of stars twinkling above us. Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Draco, Cassiopeia—all closer, brighter.
“Of cloudless climes and starry skies,” he recites slowly.
“Oh!” I breathe again in understanding.
He scoops me in his arms easily—chuckling at my squeal—and starts heading to the edge of the cliff. I rest my head on his chest, listening to his strong heartbeat. It gallops in my ear just like mine. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
In fourteen heartbeats, he stops walking and sets me on my feet. “And now look here,” he says, turning me in his arms.
I follow his gaze…and scream. My own heart plummets in the ravenous depths below. We are at the start of a thin strip of land jutting out into the sky, nothing but air and stars around us.
“You’re okay,” he soothes, his arms tightening like steel around me. Then, he grins. “Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003.”
A shaky laugh bursts from my lips.
“You’re not afraid of heights?”
“Not with you,” I say because right now, I’m afraid of nothing. Nothing except losing him.
He smiles. “Then welcome to my other home.”
He walks slowly onto the strip, holding me tight. He sits away from the edge, cocooning me in his arms and legs and the soft blanket. I grip his neck, tucking my head in his chest again. We stay like this an immeasurable moment. Minutes, maybe even hours. I try to commit everything to memory. For once, I don’t want to photograph even a blade of grass. This place seems so intimate that any eyes other than ours—even artificial camera eyes—would spoil it.
“What do you think about when you come here?” I say after a while.
“Everything. This is where Hale Holdings was born. Where most of my decisions are made. And since I saw your painting, I’ve thought only of you.”
I almost take off the edge and start flying. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” he whispers in my ear. I shiver.
“I’ve only thought of you too.” My face burns as I admit this out loud.
He doesn’t say anything. The silence makes me shiver in a different way so I start talking. “Do you come here often?”
“About twice a week.” He tears his eyes from
the sky and looks at me. “Sometimes I sleep here.”
“S-sleep here?” I look at the little meadow behind us.
He nods. “The ground still feels more natural at times.”
I grip him closer, trying to repel the image of him on cold ground. “I like it better when you sleep next to me.”
His muscles flex around me. “That can’t happen again, Elisa,” he says in a low voice.
My heartbeat stops, then starts racing in terror. “What?” My voice trembles.
He cups my cheek. “I can’t take that risk. What if the next nightmare is not as mild?”
Mild? That was mild? “I don’t care. I want to fall asleep next to you…see your face when I wake up.” I shut my mouth because my voice is approaching near hysteria.
“If you wake up.” His voice is hard.
I need to move away from this. Right now. “What is that light behind the trees?”
His eyebrows arch in surprise at my sudden change in direction. Then he shakes his head and smiles. “Well, now, I’m glad you asked, Elisa. Come, let me show you.” He emphasizes the word as though it should mean something more.
He rises, pulling me up. I start to stumble in my heels but he picks me up and strides across the meadow toward the soft glow in the trees. A few more days with him and I bet walking will start feeling alien. Good riddance.
“How often do you work out?” I ask, fascinated by the fact that I can barely feel him move.
“About two hours a day. I’m a wimp by my gunny’s standards.”
I laugh at the ludicrousness of Aiden as a wimp. “How do you work out if you don’t like anyone sneaking behind you?”
“I have my own gym.”
See? Simple. “What was your rank by the way?”
“Lieutenant. Now, close your eyes,” he orders in a tone befitting his grade. I obey but open wide the rest of my senses. The stunning scent is getting stronger. Twigs crack under his quiet feet. He comes to a stop and I feel his lips press gently on my eyelids.
“Open,” he says.
I open my eyes. And they almost fly off my face. My breath whooshes out of me, sharper than the hilltop wind.
“Oh!” I gasp for the third time this evening.
We are on a small, round paddock, the evergreens surrounding us. In the center is a pergola tent. The white curtains are drawn but something glimmers and flickers behind them. I’m having another tip-of-the-tongue moment so I point at the tent, my finger tapping the air impatiently.
Aiden laughs, pulling me closer to his body. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, and starts marching with his infallible Marine step. At the tent, he sets me down and opens the curtains.
“After you,” he whispers in that way that means for you.
I step inside…and freeze. Even the “oh” that is singing in my brain stops on my lips. I watch the impossible sight, unable to blink or breathe. Flameless candles. A low sini table made of wood. Covered silver plates. Ivory silk pillows for chairs. A small polished dance floor. And everywhere else, from the table top to the clusters of crystal vases surrounding the floor, are hundreds upon hundreds of the rose I never thought I would see. Aeternum romantica.
“Oh my God!” I cover my mouth with my hand as hot tears brim over and roll down my cheeks. I walk to the closest roses in a trance. They are more beautiful than even in pictures. The large, cupped rosettes are open, an infinity of neatly clustered petals nestling within. They are the palest of apricot, their hearts deepening to copper and the edges fading to vintage pearl. And their scent!
I wipe my tears because they are blurring the sight and turn to look at Aiden. He is watching me with a vivid smile, his eyes the stillest blue.
“Aiden, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Except you,” I breathe in awe, stumbling back to him.
“Hmm, I have to disagree.” He arches me to him. For a while, we are only kissing. A slow, potent kiss full of unsaid things. Then, he pulls away, his eyes blinking once or twice like shutters.
“Wherever did you find them?” I marvel, taking his hand and tiptoeing through the vases.
“They arrived from Nairobi late this afternoon.”
I stop, almost colliding with the table. “W-what?”
He chuckles. “Well, you were right. They really don’t grow anywhere else. I researched them after the Rose Garden.”
“B-b-but how did they get here?”
He laughs now. “In a private jet. Then in Benson’s Rover to here, with Cora’s help.”
“Bloody hell!” I shout.
He tenses, looking panicked. “What’s wrong?”
“Aiden, how much did this cost?” I’m still shouting.
“Ah, fuck,” he says but his shoulders relax. “You’re not going to do that now, are you?”
I look at the roses, the pillows, the Baci on the table. He is right. “No, not right now. I’ll yell at you later. And don’t say fuck around the roses.”
He laughs his rare waterfall laughter. I throw myself at him.
“Thank you,” I say, hating the words for their inadequacy. That tip-of-the-tongue feeling tickles my mouth again. “I love, love, love every part of this,” I mumble, looking up at him.
A deep V forms between his eyebrows. His Adam’s apple rolls once, as though he swallowed hard. The tectonic plates shift, then still again. For a moment, I’m terrified that this is the end. That this is his send-off gift to me.
But he reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a tiny silver remote. A song I know—one of my favorites—floods the tent. “Amado Mio”, by Pink Martini. It’s flowing from a wireless set of speakers in the corner that I had apparently missed in my astonishment.
“May I have this dance?” he asks, holding his hand out to me.
“You tango?” I squeal. Bloody hell, I’m melting. Inert gases have more substance than I do right now.
My favorite dimple puckers on his cheek. “Since this afternoon.”
“You learned tango…in one afternoon?” Where is my jaw? It was here somewhere, around the Aeternum.
He chuckles at my incredulous expression. “In the ninety-two minutes it took you to get ready, to be precise.”
When I open and close my mouth a few times, unable to produce sound, he smiles, tapping his temple. “There are some benefits to this beast and YouTube.”
I blink and close my mouth. “That’s just…just…” Brilliant? Stunning? No, I can only think of one word. “That’s just Aiden.”
His chuckle becomes a true laugh as he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me into a close embrace. He starts moving. At first a slow cadencia, then the caminada, his long legs parting mine. Aiden leads in his dominant, protective way, but the real change is in me. For the first time in my life, tango does for me what tango does for women. I am not a daughter. I am not a sister. I am not a friend. I am a woman. Aiden’s woman. My leg hooks and wraps around his with a new confidence, sultry, feminine and powerful. I watch our entwined shadows on the tent’s curtains, looking very much like Mum and Dad’s when they danced. Yet, in this moment, I’m discovering a new bliss that belongs to me alone. Not to ghosts, and not to memories.
I bury my face in his chest, inhaling the Aiden-and-Aeternum scent.
“Are you going to distill the fragrance?” he asks, his thigh pressing between mine.
“You already have it bottled,” I mumble, embarrassed to be caught sniffing.
He chuckles. “I meant the roses, but it’s good to know I don’t smell the way I did after training with my gunny.”
I blush enough to turn the roses red. “Oh! Umm, yes. They’re perfume grade—that’s why I like them. Only six varieties out of five hundred meet that threshold. Plus, they promote fair trade in Kenya and support the wildlife there.”
He slows down to cadencia. “Responsible even about the type
of rose you like but not about the kind of man you give yourself to.”
My fingers clutch his arm and neck. “Not now, Aiden.” Not ever, in fact.
He kisses my hair. I shiver because I sense that he is simply waiting. Biding his time to end this.
“Why did you do all this?” I ask to distract myself and him. “I love it but I would have been happy here with just hot chocolate and you.”
I start the ochos but he stops. He watches me with that unnamed emotion again, the V between his eyebrows deepening. He lowers our intertwined hands.
“You asked me today to show you what it would be like to be with me,” he starts in an even voice.
Blood drains from my face as he confirms my worst fear: this lovely evening was simply a means to an end.
“Please, don’t!” The words whoosh from my mouth like a final breath. I try, really, really try to fight the tears brimming in my eyes. How can he take all this away? All this life teeming inside me, it will go dark if he is not around. And the calmness I give him, that will go away, too.
“Elisa, look around you,” he says. “What do you see?”
“The most beautiful night of my life,” I answer with no hesitation.
He nods as though that’s the answer he expected. “That’s what I hoped it would be. But, baby, this here—this is the best that it would ever get for us.”
I frown, trying to see where he is leading me. “If this is the best, you’re failing miserably at showing me why I shouldn’t be with you.”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I can do all this for you. Ship roses across the world, buy you dresses that no one but me will see, rent bookstores for you. But that’s all I can give.”
I open my mouth to protest but he clamps his hand on it gently. His fingers are cold.
“Listen, please. At the end of each night, no matter how beautiful I make it, you will sleep alone and it will hurt more because the evening was so perfect. And during the days, you will be torn in half, choosing between your family and me. It will be graduation parties and holidays and birthdays first. Then gradually, you will get sucked in my world, camping here on this hilltop with me. I cannot give you your own family. I won’t give you children just so that Daddy can break them by accident. One by one, you will lose everything. And this is the best scenario, if I don’t hurt you first. I cannot give up my structure, Elisa, and I refuse to buy you life just so that I can steal it.”
