My heart skips and I’m almost afraid to breathe.
“So I wondered if you might want to stay with me, here, because I honestly can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, or anyone else I’d rather be with. I love you and I don’t ever want to be apart from you again.”
I stare up at him, stunned. My brain explodes in fifty different directions, like fireworks being set off all at once.
“Please say something.”
I reach for the words, pulling them out of my heart so easily, I wonder how long they’ve been hiding there, waiting for me to find them.
“I love you too.”
He leans down and kisses me until I can barely breathe, then he pulls away, grinning down at me with unbridled joy. That smile, those teeth, the way his eyes sparkle and crinkle at the corners. I can’t remember ever seeing him smile like this before.
It’s been so long that I don’t remember how it feels to be complete, but I’m pretty sure this is it. It has to be. I feel whole. The parts of me that were ragged, torn, broken, feel like a memory. A dull, distant, vague memory.
We grin at each other like a couple of kids for the longest time, then he looks down at our hands and gives mine a squeeze. When he looks up at me again, the smile has faded.
“Do you want to go next door, take a closer look?”
I don’t want to, but I have to. I can’t face the future until I’ve faced the past, I know that now. No matter how much it hurts, the two are linked and they must find a way to live inside me in harmony. I nod, and he leads me out of the cottage and through the trees.
I stop halfway across the lawn, and he stops beside me. The cottage, my home, my sanctuary, is a shell. Blackened and almost ground-level, the only thing standing tall is the brick fireplace, rising above the ashes like a sentinel. Charred timber and the remains of my life are piled into a heap in the centre, and I swear I can still smell the smoke that turned my stomach that night.
Luke moves behind me, lacing his arms around my ribcage, holding me together as the memory of the fire tries to overwhelm me again. I lean back against his chest, listening to his heart beating strong and clear behind me. A lifetime’s worth of memories flood through me as we stand there in silence, facing my past, together.
Nanna. Grandad. James. Kieran. Ana. Chris.
And Luke.
He squeezes me gently, leaning down to murmur gently in my ear.
“You okay?”
I’m not sure. It hurts, but the pain is different. I’m not sure how I feel. I know how I
should
feel, but I’m not really sure that’s how I
actually
feel. I don’t think I can describe this to him, so I just nod. I think I’m okay. Or I will be, eventually.
“I have something to show you,” he says, pulling away from me and taking my hand again.
I don’t question him, I just allow him to take the lead, as we head back through the trees to his place. Instead of him taking me to the front of the cottage though, he takes me to the back. He lets go of my hand and kneels down, pulling away a loose panel in the original base of the building. It looks like it was just leaning there, not attached to anything.
“Take a look,” he says, moving away so I can see.
I kneel down, not sure what I’m meant to be looking at, and peer inside. It takes a moment to recognise what I’m seeing, then it hits me so fast, I lose my balance, falling forward onto my hands and knees.
A small selection of seemingly innocuous objects, piled haphazardly on the dirt.
A box of matches. A pen. A candle. A sponge. A teaspoon. A postcard.
All mine.
“Geezer is your thief,” he murmurs from behind me. “I caught him in here about a week ago. He must have been taking your stuff and stashing it under here, his own little treasure chest.”
I can’t believe it. My head spins and I push myself backwards onto my knees again. Geezer? All this time it’s been Geezer?
“But –“
“I know. That’s why I wanted you to see for yourself.”
“So it wasn’t –“
“Apparently my dog is a kleptomaniac.”
He smiles. It’s a tentative smile, not a triumphant one. He’s letting me make up my own mind about what that means.
I feel sick. I fall back onto the grass with a ragged sigh, staring at Geezer’s stash. Luke sits beside me, his long legs bent at the knees, waiting.
“Are you disappointed?”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “A bit. I was so sure… y’know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I kinda feel a bit relieved, too. And guilty.”
“Guilty? Why?”
“Because I shouldn’t feel relieved.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
He drapes his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. I lean into him, so grateful for his penchant for not having to over-analyse everything. I do enough of that on my own.
Just then, I feel another pair of eyes watching me. My heart pounds, and I look over towards the trees. It’s Geezer, standing there, watching us both from the shadows.
“Speak of the devil,” he says, as Geezer walks over to sit beside us.
He glances at the space under the cottage, at his stash of treasure, and then at me, as if he knows. I don’t think he’s apologising though. He doesn’t look sorry. He just looks like he was waiting for this moment, and now it’s here. If anything, he looks relieved. I reach out and rub his head gently. It’s a rare moment of understanding between species. Throughout the silent exchange, Luke says nothing.
Then he pulls away and reaches for my hand, placing it over my heart and holding it there. I look up at him, tears gathering in my eyes.
“Feel that?” he murmurs, his sensuous, patient, loving blue-green eyes locked onto mine.
I feel his hand, enclosing mine, and my heart, beating wildly beneath my fingertips.
“That’s where they are. That’s where they’ll always be. Not in a house, or a photo album or in material possessions.
Here.
Right here. Safe.”
He’s right. I know he is, yet I can’t help the shudder of disappointment that slides over my soul. I haven’t heard or seen them since the fire. They’re gone, at least from this world. He laces his fingers through mine, over my heart, and then forms a fist. He’s giving me his strength, his support, and I can feel my heart expanding with it. His eyes don’t leave mine and I can barely see him through the tears. They’re not tears for James and Kieran though, and they’re not tears of pain this time.
They’re not even tears at all. They’re tiny capsules of hope, sliding down my face and captured in his fingertips as he collects them for both of us, for safekeeping.
And then he kisses me.
Two Years Later
I sit on the bench seat that hangs beneath the porch in front of our cottage, swinging gently in the stillness of the afternoon. The lake ripples with the slight breeze and the air is alive with birdsong and chirping cicadas. Luke has been gone for a couple of hours, and although I try to deny it, I feel as if I’m off kilter when he’s not here. I kept myself busy with housework and laundry, but now that’s all done and I’m too hot to do anything else.
So I sit, and I watch for him.
Geezer whines from his place beside me, on the deck.
“I know. He’ll be back soon.”
He looks up at me, and it looks like he’s lifting an eyebrow in reply. Sometimes I swear I can hear what he’s thinking.
“Come on,” I say, getting up off the bench seat. “Let’s go for a walk. It’ll give us something to do.”
Obediently, he follows. We make our way along the side of the cottage slowly, because this heat is an energy-sapper. I stop to kneel and pull out a stray weed from between the deep pink and blood red begonias that line the side of the house, tossing it onto the grass. The display of flowers stands out markedly against the white weatherboards of the cottage, and the contrast is so pretty it never ceases to make my heart sigh. Some things are like that. Just looking at them brings happiness. Or maybe that’s just me.
Walking through the path in the trees, Geezer takes off ahead of me, disappearing through the undergrowth. Luke cleared this path not long after we moved in, chopping away some of the overhead branches and making it easier to access. Walking across the grass towards his workshop, it seems to glow in the sun, the white weatherboards bright and clean and new. It’s a stunning representation of how life has changed, for the both of us. It was the right thing to do – the only thing to do.
You can’t go back. You can only go forward, taking the memories with you. Eventually, they find a place in your heart to settle, where it doesn’t hurt so much.
We didn’t rebuild the cottage after the fire. Instead, we built Luke a workshop, a place where he could saw and hammer and glue, creating beautiful furniture to his heart’s content. The business was going well, and word was spreading. We had enough steady clients and referrals to make a good living, and he loved it so much he said it never really felt like work.
I open the ranch slider and step into his workshop, Geezer crowding through after me and doing a circuit of the room, as if looking for Luke, or scanning for danger. I’m not sure which. He’s even more protective of me these days. Closing my eyes, I soak up the scent of raw timber and oil, of sawdust and metal – the peculiar masculine smells I always associate with Luke. Exhaling evenly, it balances me, being here, surrounded by the things he loves. I open my eyes again, slowly. This place is all Luke. No longer do ghosts linger here.
The memories are safe, right where Luke said they would be; in my heart. James, Kieran, the three of us, the love we shared, our life together – it was all still there. I hadn’t lost any of it, despite my constant fear that I would. I think, looking back, most of that fear was really just grief. I still have memory lapses, but it was more of an inconvenience than anything else. I’m stronger now. I rationalise it by telling myself that without the constant fear, my brain was able to focus on healing. I have Luke to thank for that.
Walking slowly through the room, I run my fingertips along the chair frame sitting unfinished on his workbench, surrounded by tools. He’s in town, buying more supplies, probably to finish this one off before he could get started on the other commission pieces. There’s a mug of cold coffee sitting on the bench beside it, as usual. The same cup Ana had given him a while back. Sometimes, he got so caught up in making something, he let several cups go cold. His passion is one of the many things I love about him.
I walk slowly through the room, amid the scent of him and his creations, to the staircase at the rear. It’s an open staircase, with a bannister he turned himself, on his own lathe. It was, as all his creations were, a work of art. I let my hand slide over the silky smooth railing on my way up the stairs, looking out over the lake through the massive half-round window above the ranch slider. At the top of the stairs, the guest suite opens out. White walls and floors with a gorgeous black wrought-iron bed and fresh pale blue linen bedcoverings, a handmade second-hand quilt in shades of denim folded neatly over the end.
An over-stuffed two seater sofa in the same blue is positioned in front of the large window, poised to take in the view of the lake, and there is a matching wing-back chair in the corner. Both were made by the two of us, him dealing with the woodwork, me with the upholstering. It was a fairly new skill for me, but I enjoy it and it gives me an opportunity to work with Luke. I love watching him work, but I love working beside him even more.
There is a small bathroom off to one side, with a white pedestal basin, black and white tiled flooring and a re-enamelled cast iron bath, sourced from a demolition yard just outside of Hamilton. The whole building took several months to complete, but it was a labour of love, for both of us.
I walk over to the bed, straightening out the quilt, carefully running my hand over it. Everything has to be perfect. Luke’s parents would be here in a little over four weeks, their second visit to New Zealand. Last time, they’d had to stay in a hotel because we didn’t have the room. This time, they had their own space, which was just as well because they’d be here for four months. Tina and Burt felt like family from the moment I met them, and they treated me the same way. It was Sara and Danielle’s turn next year and I was looking forward to meeting them in person at long last.
Casting one last critical glance over the rooms, I turn back to the staircase and head down to the workshop, where Geezer is waiting for me by the door. He looks up as I approach, tail wagging lazily.
“Any sign of him?”
He just stands up in response, ready to leave. If Luke had arrived back already, I know that Geezer would’ve let me know. As it was, we both make our way across the lawn and back over to the cottage together. We resume our positions, me on the swinging bench seat, he on the deck at my feet, and wait.
We both hear the hum of an outboard motor across the water at the same time, and a minute later, Luke’s boat is in sight. I stand up, my heart racing as it always does when he returns home, and we walk out across the grass to the jetty to greet him. Geezer whines excitedly, letting out a sharp bark that’s more of a shriek. I think he misses Luke more than I do sometimes.
The boat approaches and I can finally see him, the butterflies in my stomach kicking up a notch as he raises a hand in greeting. He cuts the engine and coasts in to the jetty, throwing me the rope to tie the boat up.
“Hey,” he drawls. “It’s my favourite welcome party. Miss me?”
It’s been two years, and I still love that accent. I love how he teases me about mine, too.
“Always.”
I tie the rope to the mooring and he climbs off the boat, which is chock full of lengths of timber in various widths, along with boxes of supplies. I stand there, waiting as he covers the distance between us with a few long, easy strides. All I can do is smile at him. He has that power over me, stopping me in my tracks, pausing time.
“How are my girls?” he asks, reaching for my swollen belly and rubbing it gently.
I’m barely six months gone, but I feel like a whale and this heat is just making it worse.