Here to Stay (41 page)

“Shoot.”

“You said my dad wrote you letters. When you were in the Coast Guard or at college.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you keep any?”

A thoughtful silence in which Erik could see Mike pulling at his beard. “Well, that’s a good question,” he said. “I don’t remember having a ceremonial disposing of them, but that’s not to say they didn’t get scooped up and tossed during one clean-up or another.”

“I just wondered,” Erik said. “You told me in one of them he talked about the struggle after Pete went deaf. How hard it was when things were beyond your control. I don’t know. I got to thinking I’d like to read that if I could.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll look. I have some boxes in the attic with old papers and such. I’ll certainly look and if I find any, I’ll send them to you.”

“Thanks,” Erik said. “No rush. I’m not expecting you to have kept them, but I thought I’d ask.”

They chatted a little and then hung up. Erik laced his hands behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling. Footsteps came into the living room behind him and he extended his fingers out. Daisy took them in hers.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” she asked, leaning over the back of his chair.

He didn’t. Then her perfume curled around his nose and he looked up. She was wearing her favorite black cashmere sweater, her necklace with the gold fish and the pearl and the matching pearl earrings. Her hair was fixed and she had a little lipstick on. She looked pretty and Erik could see the effort it took. He ran wet hands through his hair and put on a clean shirt before they left.

They parked in town and walked. No destination, just crisscrossing the grid of Saint John. Watching boats come in and out of the harbor, watching people going about their business, watching the world continuing to spin.

Hunger made a surprise appearance so they went into the Wharf Tavern. Nick behind the bar came around to hug them. “It’s good to see you out. I’ve been thinking about you guys. Come sit down.”

They sat kitty-corner at a little table with a bottle of wine and shared an order of fish stew, hot and creamy and loaded with good things. They dunked bread and fed each other shrimp and scallops and haddock. Not saying much but never breaking physical contact, their ankles woven under the table.

And over the rims of their wineglasses, they stared.

“I love nobody and nothing,” Erik said, “the way I love you.”

They ambled down Chester Street. Stopped in A Drink With Bread and Jam and bought a half-pound of their favorite loose leaf tea. Wandered through a bookstore. Looked in windows. Looked at each other.

“I’m having a good time,” Daisy said, picking a bit of something off his jacket then smoothing her hand down his chest.

He hooked his arm around her neck and inhaled deep on the crown of her head. Breathed in fresh air and the warm, clean scent of her hair.

“So am I,” he said.

They walked around a flea market at Lalille Pier. One booth had the perfect little silver box for Kees’s ashes. Sleek and handsome and simple. When the vendor learned what it was for, she pressed it into Daisy’s hands and wouldn’t take their money.

“Que Dieu vous bénisse,” she said, kissing their cheeks.

Her blessing on their faces, they turned down Palace Avenue. The sleek black awning of Ink & Think, the tattoo parlor, beckoned from across the street. Not a glance or a word was exchanged as they crossed over.

Just a K, they decided. The artist copied the letter’s style straight out of Daisy’s fish tattoo and inked it into them in black. Erik’s on the inside of his right wrist. Daisy’s in the hollow of her left hip bone.

She came to him that night. The tiniest green flicker in her eyes as she wound her arms around his neck and found his mouth with hers. He slid his hands up the back of her sweater and unclipped her bra. His touch was careful, knowing her breasts were still sore. Their sorrowful weight filled his palms but they stayed dry.

Her hands trembled as she pulled his shirt off and pushed his jeans down. She eased him to the bed and lay on top of him, the full length of her body all along his. Her head on his chest, her toes against his ankles. Naked save for her jewelry. Every bit of adornment she wore was something Erik had given her. On her finger. At her ears. Nestled in her throat.

He held her, thinking he was in no mood for sex, but then he was growing hard under her empty belly and filling up with a hungry and desperate mood to connect.

“Can we?” he asked, his hands buried in her hair. Wanting to be inside her skin and her body and her heat.

“Not yet,” she said, sliding down the mattress. “Soon.”

“You don’t have—”

“Shh. I want to.”

Her hair fell over his chest and stomach and her arms curved like wings over his legs. He hadn’t the strength to savor her touch, instead he gave in, gave over and she quickly brought him around with her soft hands and her warm mouth. He came with a thunderous shiver through his chest and a wet hiss of air through his teeth.

“Dais,” he whispered, another shiver going across both shoulders. Then one more out his ears and he was still.

She pulled the covers over them. They fell asleep side-by-side. Shoulders nestled, his right arm along her left flank, the tattooed K’s pressed tight together.

“COME HERE,” CHRISTINE SAID from Key West. “It’s beautiful. You can take the studio apartment and live on the beach. Come here and be in the sunshine. Fall into the ocean. Do nothing. You can come here.”

“Come,” Francine said. “It’s beautiful here. It’s apple blossom time. We’re rolling in eggs and strawberries. You can be in the carriage house. Come here, darlings.”

“I guess we could,” Daisy said, washing dishes.

“If you want to,” Erik said absently.

“I don’t know. I mean— Shit…”

A wine goblet slipped out of her soapy fingers and smashed in pieces on the tile floor. She jumped away, screwing up her face. “God dammit, I
hate
that sound,” she said.

Erik froze, staring at the glistening shards.

He was remembering another time. Another broken sound. A plate flung against the wall. A jagged rubble falling at his feet. His first marriage in pieces.

“You don’t fight for anything you love,” Melanie cried. “I can’t stand your complacency anymore. I plan our vacations. I plan our time and you just show up. Without an impassioned opinion, you just go where I tell you.”

Erik stared with a dawning realization.

She’s waiting for you.

Make a decision. Do something.

Lead your life, don’t just follow it around.

“Let’s go,” he said, opening the cleaning closet door and reaching for broom and dustpan. “We’re going. We’re getting out of here.”

She looked at him, her eyes brimming as he crouched down and started sweeping up the mess.

“Let’s just get in the car and drive,” he said. “Drive down the coast. We’ll stop in Maine, we’ll stop in Boston, we’ll stop in New York. We can make it up as we go along. Let’s head for La Tarasque and take it from there.”

“All right,” she said. “I want to take Kees with us.”

“So do I.”

“I can’t leave him alone in the empty h—”

“We’ll take him with us,” Erik said. “Not everything has to be a thing.”

The dustpan filled with broken glass, he stood up. He kissed her. Took a step away but then stopped and kissed her again.

“Go pack,” he said.

Friends offered their lake cabin outside Bangor, Maine so they made it their first destination.

They had been easing back into sex for a little while. Slow and careful and conscientious. Tonight they coupled with a savagery. It wasn’t making love. More like trial by fire.

It burned bright in the hearth, the charred logs slipping and crackling and popping. The clear yellow flames throwing shadows on the walls and the shadows throwing waves of heat onto the bed.

The bed was dead center of the cabin, like an altar. Erik lay on his back and Daisy was on top of him, going at him with a vengeance. They were still fully dressed, only what was necessary had been bared or undone. Over him, she was burning, too. Burning hotter, harder, and he was buried in the immensity of her need. She writhed under his touch, a wild and dangerous thing. Her lips were open, her throat strained, but still no sound came from her. Under normal circumstances, this would indicate she had reached the pinnacle of pleasure and he would coax her with his voice.

Come. Come to me.

But now the soundlessness only signaled how desperately she was still trapped in grief.

He took her hands in his. “Cry,” he whispered. “Cry to me.”

Her head lolled, her skin burned, something in her seemed to crumple and she came down off him, crashed gently down into the pillows. He rolled to her, ignoring the tangle of his clothes, slid his hand to the back of her neck, into the hot dampness of her long hair. His mouth found hers. He pulled his arms from his sleeves as she unbuttoned him, lay back long enough for her to pull his pants off. Then he was on her again, her mouth in his again. His hands were stripping her clothes off sure and strong. He wanted to throw them at the hearth, consign them to the flames and burn them. Burn all of the hurt away, reduce it to ash so he could show her who he was.

On fire with fearless purpose, he moved over her, held her down and pushed deep into her, kissed her open-eyed.

“I need you,” she whispered against his mouth.

“I’m here.”

“Help me.” Her teeth chattered by his ear. She clung to him, her face in his shoulder, limbs trembling as the storm rolled through.

“I’ve got you, Dais. I’m not afraid of what you’re feeling. I can’t love you without loving this too.” Gently but firmly he took her head in his hands, took it off his shoulder and made her face him. “Look at me now.”

She tried but could not focus on him.

“Look at me,” he said. “Look in my eyes.”

She breathed in, deep, held it a moment, her eyes trying to settle on his.

“Look at me,” he said again. “Look only at me.”

It took a few minutes, her breath hitching in and out of her lungs, but gradually her eyelids ceased flickering. Her gaze locked into his and her body grew still. His hand caressed her face, thumb running beneath her eyes and over her mouth.

They stared. They breathed. The heat of the room coalesced into a bubble, sealing them up in peace. Time relaxed. The flames were dying down to embers. The cool blue of a fire a thousand times more powerful. He kissed her, nudged her lips open with his and moved into her mouth, finding her tongue. He grew hard inside her again, reared his hips back a few inches and then settled deeper into her. She spread her legs further and her hand pressed the small of his back. He slid into her, out of her, feeling himself disappear into her body, down into the core where their halves had made a whole.

It was the most love we ever made. A new spire on our cathedral. I don’t have to tear it down. It can stay there and be beautiful.

An almost triumphant desire surged in him, strong, bright and true. It crashed through the roof of his mind and the fabric of time slowly split down the center.

“Come back to me,” he said, throwing out the hook.

“You,” she said, caught and drifting toward him. “Only you.”

He tried to keep looking in her eyes as she rumbled beneath the plate of his desire and bucked him up. He held on until the long line of her throat opened to the ceiling and her edge touched his. They came together, and this time it was her voice that turned inside-out and ricocheted off the walls, while he threw back his head and made no sound at all. His voice retracted, coiling around the inside of his skull. An enormous noise. Like a cathedral bell ringing.

Daisy. Daisy. Daisy. Daisy.

He fell down by her, his chest heaving, eardrums pounding. Her hand dropped heavy on his head. They were both soaked, salty and dripping and spent in the damp, twisted sheets. The windows were opaque with steam. The air of the cabin pressed down on them from all sides as the edges of the universe wove back together.

Slowly she got up, came around to his side of the bed, beckoning. He took her hand and followed her to the door. They stepped onto the porch and gasped together with visceral relief as the cool of the evening swept over their bodies.