Found in Silence

by Lisa Sorbe

  I don’t care that he’s my boss. That he’s a dirty mechanic with a heart of gold and I’m just a pretty face with an inside full of rot.

  Because when I’m with him, I want to be more. I am more.

  We shed our clothes as if we’re in a race and the prize is life over death, as if the sparks from the fire have kindled in the cloth itself and is burning every inch of our skin. And when Miles slides into me, pushing against me for the first time, I truly understand what it means to be with someone who actually wants me.

  Not the idea of me. But me.

  Because he’s moaning my name into my neck and digging his fingers into the soft curve of my hip, claiming me, like he’s never going to let me go.

  And I don’t want him to. I catch every breath, every whisper, every touch and sensation and fluttering heartbeat before it can escape, drift away forever in the cool autumn air. I catch it all, everything, and hold it close.

  We’re equal, him and I, in this dance. I give and take, and he gives and takes. And I’ve never, ever had that before. Our movements are sweet and rough, desperate and mindless – hot bodies beading sweat and pressing into each other over and over and over.

  Miles is doing more than turning me inside out. He’s bringing me back to whole.

  And when I roll on top of him, place my palms on his chest and tilt my head back toward the night sky, the crisp air kissing my front and the burn from the flames licking my back pushes me over the edge.

  My cries slice though the silence.

  We’re under a blanket under the stars, and the night chill is starting to cool the sweat on my brow. The fire’s dwindling and the cold is starting to creep in, and I have a feeling we’re just moments way from being too cold to stay out here.

  But I don’t want this night to end, so I snuggle closer to Miles and twist my legs up with his. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He brushes a kiss over the top of my head, the simple gesture pinging my nerves all the way down to my toes. Chills tickle their way down my back like a light caress, whispering fingers against my skin.

  “And I suppose you want it to be something about me, not just some random fact. Am I right?”

  I nod, my cheek smooth against his hard chest. “Yep.”

  He groans, but hugs me closer so I know he’s not annoyed. Too much, anyway.

  “I can’t wait to move out of that loft.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, other than the obvious reasons, I want my dog back.”

  I rise up a bit and look at him. “You have a dog? I thought it was just you and Lucy?” That damn cat who still, after all these months, hates my guts.

  He chuckles. “Well, if Lucy had it her way, it would be. But I’ve had Lady since she was four months old. Which would make her, shit, five already? Wow.” His voice softens, and I know he’s not talking to me when he says, “Hard to believe that much time has gone by.”

  “Lady?” That name sounds familiar, and then I remember the blue pit bull that Miles’s mom brought to his game back in July. “Is she the same Lady your mom had with her that night at the game?”

  “It is. I brought her to my mom’s when I moved into the loft. Lady loves her, and my mom has a huge yard for her to run around in. I hated leaving her, but at the same time I knew it was the right thing to do, you know? Lady wouldn’t be happy living above a garage in the middle of downtown with no greenspace and me working almost seven days a week. I get over to see her as much as I can, of course. And she’s happy, so that makes me feel better.”

  “Does she get along with Lucy?”

  “They’ve never met. I got Lucy a few months after I moved. I grew up with animals – dogs, cats, even a ferret – and being in that big space all by myself was starting to drive me crazy, to be honest. Then one day about nine months ago, Lucy showed up at my door. Skin and bones, no microchip, no collar. I gave her a can of tuna I had in the cupboard and the rest is history.”

  “Why did you move into the loft in the first place?” I know I’m on shaky ground, because I’m pretty sure I know the reason. But I ask anyway.

  Because I want to know him. Everything about him.

  So I can take care of him.

  “Nice try, Princess. But I think it’s your turn.

  “Fine, fine. My brother and I are twins. There, okay. Your turn.”

  Miles tweaks my side, making me laugh. “No way. I already knew that. Something else. You have to give a little if you want to get something back.”

  I groan. “Okay, okay. Let me see… My brother recently got engaged and is totally wishy-washy happy about it – everyone is, actually – except me. I’m a horrible person because I’m jealous.”

  There. I said it.

  A cool breeze feathers my hair, whipping it over my face. Before I can reach up and swipe it away, Miles does it for me. “Being jealous doesn’t make you a horrible person, Jenny. We all get a little envious of other people’s good fortune now and then. We’re not perfect. We’re human.”

  I shake my head. “No, not just jealous. For a while there, I hated them. All out hated them. And last May, when I heard they got engaged? I hated them even more. Like, I wanted something bad to happen so they’d break up.” I bite my lip, embarrassed by my confession. But like Miles said, you have to give a little to get something back.

  I wait, certain he’s going to go hate me again. That all the personal growth I’m done over the last few months and our budding relationship is going to suddenly backpedal. How can it not when I admit something like this?

  When he still doesn’t say anything, I blurt out, “I just want you to know what kind of person you’re getting involved with. I’m…” I sigh. “I’m bad news.”

  And then Miles laughs. He laughs so hard my head starts bouncing on his chest and I have to sit up or I’m going to get whiplash.

  “I’m glad you find me so amusing.” But my words are acid, because he’s laughing at me – at me and not with me, because I’m certainly not laughing – and it’s ticking me off.

  His eyes are glassy from his laughing fit, the corners crinkled in a smile. “You just sounded like some badass rebel from one of those teen flicks from the eighties. Like you’re going to corrupt me or something.”

  I flip him off.

  “Oh, come on. Come here.” He reaches for me, trying but failing to compose himself.

  When I hesitate, he loses it and laughs harder. “Seriously. I need you to warm me up. I’m freezing and you’re holding the blanket.”

  I grumble as I resume my position.

  “Okay,” he concedes. “That… Well, that kind of makes you a borderline horrible person. But listen, I already knew you were a bitch going into this, so…”

  I smack his chest, which makes him laugh again and my own lips to turn up. “I don’t feel that way anymore, if that makes any difference.”

  He grows quiet, reaches down, slides his hand under my thigh, and pulls my leg back up and over him. “Much warmer,” he jokes. Then, “It does. Make a difference.”

  I sigh. “It’s just that, when I saw them together and how in love they were, it shined a spotlight on my own failed relationship. And I’m kind of bitter, so…”

  “Your ex-husband. Right?’

  I nod. “Yes and no, actually. Back then, seeing the way they treated each other made me realize they had something that Julian and I never had. They were – or, are – completely smitten with each other. On every level. You can tell. He loves everything about her. Like, she could gain a hundred pounds or lose all of her hair or become a total crazy person who wears pajamas all day and serenades the refrigerator, and Fox would still love her. They have a connection. And when I’d see them together, it wouldn’t remind me of what I’d lost with Julian. Instead, it would remind me of what we never had in the first place.” I snort. “We weren’t in love with each other. We were in love with the idea of each other, sure. That and our own images, to be quite honest. You giving me a job, it…” I
pause, bite my lip. “You kinda saved my sanity.”

  Miles, sensing I’m done, takes a deep breath. “Jacob – he was my son – died when he was just a little over three months old. Three months, nine days, and fifteen hours, to be exact.”

  Something in my chest clenches, right where my heart should be. I suck in a breath, hold it. But I don’t interrupt him. Or tell him I’m sorry. Because I know he’s not done. Like me, he has more to purge.

  “Jake was such a good baby. Rarely cried, if you can believe that. Never fussy, ate well, and even let us sleep through the night a few times.” He chuckles. “I swear that kid could look me straight in the eye and read every thought I was having, right at that moment. He was my buddy; our connection was almost telepathic. And I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. It used to piss Sasha off, although she never admitted it. But you know how most kids bond with their mothers more at first? With Jake, it… It wasn’t that way at all. I used to totally rib Sasha about it, too. Which, now that I look back on it, was probably something I shouldn’t have done. But Jake wanted me around, all the time. And I loved it. Every minute of it.”

  I can hear the emotion in his voice, but it’s not grief. It’s wonder, awe. It’s almost as if he’s enjoying telling me this story. Like Jacob is still alive and well somewhere, and he’ll get to see him soon.

  Instead of never again.

  “Sasha was the one to find him. That morning he died. Just passed away, right there in his crib. They said it was SIDS – you know, sudden infant death syndrome? There was nothing wrong with him physically. He was, and had been since the day he was born, a healthy baby. It didn’t make any sense. One day he was there, happy and drooling and kicking his little legs and rockin’ his AC/DC pajamas… And the next day, he was just gone. I’ve,” his voice finally cracks. But he clears his throat and continues, his words clear. “I’ve never felt so cold in all my life. Not even when my dad died. I was so fucking cold, and no matter what I did I couldn’t warm up.”

  “Miles…” I scoot up and press my lips to his cheek, nuzzle my nose into his neck. And now I’m the one pulling him closer. “I’m so sorry.”

  He rubs my arm, hugs me to him. “Thank you,” he whispers.

  “You mentioned before that you were engaged. Was she – Sasha – the one?”

  He nods, his chin rubbing against my forehead. “We lasted a couple months after Jake died, but nothing was the same. She told me that she couldn’t get over losing him as long as I was still around. I guess I was too much of a reminder or something?” His laugh is bitter. “I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t get it now. I wanted to grieve together, learn how to go on together. But she had no desire to move on. With me, anyway. I lost my child and my fiancé – all in under a year. Now all I have is my shop and this rundown place that we were supposed to turn into a home but she chose to walk away from. And I can’t afford to live anywhere else, because all my money is tied up here and at work.”

  Fuck. And I thought I was a bitch.

  Miles reads my mind. “And you’re probably calling her a bitch in your head right now, am I right?”

  “Um, yeah. Because she obviously is.”

  But he just kisses my forehead. “Well, she has her own issues to deal with. There’s always another layer to the story. Everyone has their demons. Their reasons.”

  “You’re more forgiving that I would be.” Julian’s face flashes in my mind as I say this, and I curse his dark features. His dark hair, his dark eyes. All dark. Like his soul.

  “Yeah, well. I’ve lived with anger. Spent the majority of my youth in bitterness and rage. Wasn’t until Bob Eckert took me aside during one of his workshops at The Rothchester House and offered me a job cleaning his shop that I started to cool down. Even then, though…” His voice trails off, like there’s more to this story than he’s letting on. Than he’s willing to tell.

  “You took classes there?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Not by choice,” Miles clarifies. “Court ordered. I was sort of a delinquent when I was in high school. Nothing serious, but after getting busted for underage drinking a couple times and,” he sighs heavily, “petty theft when I was sixteen, the judge gave me an option – juvenile detention or furthering my education. And obviously working on cars was better than the alternative. Changed my life, though. Now I try to support the place any way I can.”

  “Which is why you helped me that first day we met. You weren’t going to budge until I mentioned the pies for their soup kitchen.”

  He laughs. “Ah, yes. That day. The pies that you took credit for, if I’m not mistaken.”

  I kick him under the blanket. “And that you forced me to serve.”

  “Yeah, sweetheart. But you so deserved it.”

  “Whatever,” I mutter, but smile. And then I shiver.

  “Cold?” Miles asks.

  “No,” I lie. “Okay, yes. But I don’t want to go yet.” I sound like Emilia asking for five more minutes before bedtime. But being out here, in the silence of the night and with Miles by my side, has a surreal sort of quality that I’m scared I’ll never be able to get back if we leave.

  Because tonight is… magic. And magic, in my experience, doesn’t last. Instead, it fades. Faster than the puff of nothingness it came from.

  When it comes down to it, all magic is an illusion. And I want to revel in this illusion for as long as I can.

  “Well,” he says, and sighs like the weight of the world has just been placed on his shoulders. “I guess I’d better find a way to warm you up.” He rolls on top of me, presses his lips against the hollow of my neck. “How does this do?”

  I moan and wrap my legs around his waist. My breath quickens.

  “It’ll do.”

  While September ended on a warm note (or hot, if you count the heat between me and Miles), October blew in blustery. Two days into the month, a wind storm knocked the power out for all business within three blocks of the shop, frying Bane and making the ancient computer more useless than it already was. Chaos inevitably ensued, but the fall of Bane gave me the ammunition I needed to confront Miles and demand a new computer. Fortunately, he had no choice but to agree, and now the front room officially runs as smooth as butter.

  The second week, Emilia fell off the jungle gym at school and broke her arm. Since it happened while I was at work, Miles closed the shop, drove me to the emergency room, and didn’t even bother correcting the physician when he addressed the both us as her parents. He told us it was a stable fracture, or buckle fracture, and fortunately didn’t require surgery to correct. We were told six weeks in a cast would heal everything up just fine, and the news immediately had her reconsidering her Halloween costume for the umpteenth time.

  The third week, my mom finally broke down and told me she had a brain tumor. After I ran through the expected emotions of shock, denial, and rage – all within a matter of minutes – she told me that with everything finally going right in my life, she didn’t want to worry me until she knew exactly what she was dealing with.

  “The last thing a mother wants to do is worry her children. And I had your father,” she told me, holding my limp hand and handing me a tissue, “and, like he always does, he held me up. That man,” she laughed, “is the strongest man with the softest heart I know.”

  “Like Fox,” I said, wiping my eyes and already chastising myself about all the years I’ve wasted flinging Emilia at her and never once spending time with her myself.

  “Yes,” she said, taking my dirty Kleenex and not even blinking at the grossness of it. (A total “mom” move.) She dipped her head, cupped my cheek in her hand, and looked me in the eye. “And you.”

  And that’s when I cried even harder, finally spilling everything about Julian, our toxic marriage, my hesitant feelings regarding Emilia up until this point, and the guilt that my behavior during the first five years of her life will – despite what anyone says – forever plague me. She held me, and I allowed myself to be held, all the while expelli
ng the rot that had been building up in me, corroding my insides these past six years. Maybe even longer.

  And my mom – being the way she is – already had a plan in place. Turned out the tumor was benign (thank heavens), a slow growing meningioma that could be treated with surgery and, if necessary, radiation. She’s also putting all resources to use, and both of my parents plan to attend a workshop taught by a chiropractor from the Pacific Northwest who specializes in combining neuroscience, epigenetics, and quantum physics with meditation and consciousness to bring the body back into alignment. I’d never heard of such a thing, much less considered it, but she sent me to bed that night with one of his books, which I devoured in just under a week. The sense of hope it instilled was priceless.

  Since her surgery was scheduled for the first week of November, my parents opted to forgo the traditional masquerade party they throw every year on Halloween and we all just hung at their place. Fox and Elise returned from Scotland the night before, so after Miles and I took Emilia trick-or-treating (my first time taking her, ever) we all sat around drinking wine and discussing wedding plans and listening to Elise swear they saw the Loch Ness Monster while Fox interjected repeatedly that it was just a branch floating in the water. It was a quiet evening, but nice, and I think I had more fun with my family and Miles than I would have had at the usual party where snobby people dress up in expensive costumes, drink too much, and gossip about who’s ass looks the biggest in her dress. In fact, the only drama of the night was when Fox’s German Shephard, Kevin, snuck a chocolate bar out of Emilia’s plastic pumpkin and Elise made him throw it up by pouring a spoonful of peroxide down his throat.

  Yeah… That absolutely made me gag.

  And during the entire month, I painted. I painted like a madwoman, like my very life depended on it. It was my therapy, and I splashed every feeling, every emotion out onto the canvas with bitter strokes and jagged slashes. My corner of the shop became so quickly overrun with canvases in various stages of completion that we started hauling the ones ready to dry up to Miles’s loft and setting them against the wall in front of a pair of industrial-sized fans.