Love Is Red (24 page)

“Yes . . .” He is doubtful.

“How are you? What did you do today?”

“Nothing.”

I don't like the way he sounds.
“Nothing?”

. . .

Lucas, talk to me.
“That doesn't sound like too much fun.”

“Kat?”

“Yes, baby?”

“When are you coming to see me?”

Oh God.
“Oh, babes . . .” I hear her voice in my head:
It can take hours for him to calm down.

If she finds out about this I'll never be able to speak with him. What do I say? Oh God, what do I say?

“Why can't you come now?” He's close to tears.

How do I answer this? What do I say? What do I do?
“Lucas, I'll come to see you as soon as I'm back in the city, okay?”
Screw Mrs. Kaskow, she'll have to deal with it.

I hear it, down the phone a tiny sigh. It's heartbreaking that a four-year-old has a reason to sigh like that. “Okay.”

“Sweetie, can I ask you a question?” I don't want to ask, but I need to know.

“Yes?”

“How are the ladies, have you seen them around?”

“No.” He sounds genuinely surprised now. I'm actually relieved that my question has taken him away from the sadness, just for a moment.

“Well, that's good, right?” I hazard.

“No.” He hesitates. “It's because the ladies is with you now.”

“Oh.” My voice is normal, but my veins carry chips of ice; the
hair is standing up on my arms. “Why do you think that is?” I have a sudden desire to look behind me.
What would I see if I did?

“They want to take care of you.”

“Well, that's nice.”
Take care of me, like for good?

“Kat?”

“Yes, hon?”

“I miss her. I miss Momma.”

“Oh, Lucas.” My throat tightens, my eyes prick, I swallow hard. “I know you do. I miss her too.” I would give anything to be able to hug him, but he can't cry, so I think hard for a moment and then say, “Knock knock!”

“Who's there?”

“Boo.”

“Boo who?”

“Don't cry, it's just me!”

. . .

“Sael's been teaching me,” I explain in the silence that follows this. “Want to hear another one?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, knock knock!”

“Who's there?”

“Canoe.”

“Canoe who?”

“Canoe help me with my homework?”

“You don't
have
any homework.” He is almost reproachful. “You a grown-up.”

“Now you tell me! Why have I been doing all these math problems all night long?” And amazingly I hear a weak, waterlogged giggle. I close my eyes, blinking back tears. “That's better, that's what I like to hear.”

“Kat?”

“Yes, hon?”

“You promise you'll come and see me soon?”

There's a lump in my throat.
This kid is killing me.
“I promise.”

“Okay.”

“Honey, you should probably go.”
Before she wakes up and I never get to speak with you again.

“She's still sleeping.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Kaskow.”

How did he know that?
“Well . . .”

“But she'll wake up soon.”

“Lucas?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe don't tell anyone we spoke today.”
That's good, Katherine, encourage deception.

“It's a secret?”

“That's right, it's our secret.”
Jesus, I sound gross.

“Kat?”

“Yes?”

“Can you tell me one more?”

“Just one, here goes. Knock knock!”

“Who's there?”

“Noah.”

“Noah who?”

“Noah a good place where I can get something to eat around here?”

He laughs. “You're silly, Kat.”

“I noah, I noah.”

He laughs again.

“I love you, Lucas.”

“Love you, Kat.”

And he's gone.

Sael is coming down the path toward me. He opens his arms. I walk into them.

We stand for a long time not saying anything, then, “Not so good, huh?”

“No.” My face is against his shoulder, my voice muffled.

“I'm sorry.”

“I don't know what to do. I can't help him. I mean, he's asking me when I'm coming to see him. She didn't even tell him that I called. I hate that he's with that woman!”

“Boy”—he sighs—“I can't believe they haven't found it yet.”

“I know. It's insane.”

We have discussed options for hours, trying to be practical, trying to keep calm, yet each time we speak of it my rage and incredulity flares up again.

“Any other family members found?”

“Andrea's half sister, supposedly.”

“She wasn't at the funeral was she? I don't remember meeting her.

“Came forward a week later. Apparently high as a kite. Turns out she's a total junkie, clearly hoping to look after Lucas for money.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, it was horrible.”

He waits for a moment and then, “Knock knock,” he says.

I smile wetly. “Who's there?”

“Olive.”

“Olive who?”

“Olive you, Kat.”

“Olive you too,” I say.

I do. I love this Sael, this Sael who is tender, who is loving, this Sael who holds me in the dark. He lets me cry. He does not roll his eyes or sigh when I check again under the bed, again in the closet. He does not make me feel like I'm crazy, or a burden. Something hard and icy inside him has melted. We are still honest but now we are kind.

“Ice cream?” he asks.

“Ice cream,” I say.

As on the other nights we sit on the upper deck and eat our ice cream while the citronella candles flicker and the moths flutter. Then we lean back in our sloping mismatched beach chairs, drink our wine. The temperature falls and under old blankets we stare up into the skies. Sael names the stars and I pretend to listen. I like to hear his voice. I know I won't remember any of the names given for these uncomprehending stars. The names are only for us humans anyway.

Then Sael speaks, pulling me back from the edge of sleep.

“Katherine?” I can tell by his hesitant tone that there's something on his mind.

“Yes, what is it?”

He bends over and sits up. He is holding a box. It's a small wooden box, hand carved, a soft grain in a deep hue, a perfect thing within itself. I take it. It's smooth against my skin.

“It's gorgeous. What kind of wood?”

“Rosewood, now open it.”

My heart halts midbeat.

What's inside the box lies shining within. In the night's darkness it seems to float. At first I see a circle, but my fingertips decipher a designed roughness, a pattern of scales. I trace over them. The pin looks like a tiny sword. The metal gleams, as if it were used to moonlight, used to candlelight. A spider-thin silver chain snakes and curls around it.

“You can hold it.” Sael's usually confident voice has a slight tremble.

I pick it up. It's hard to breathe as I look at this shining scaled serpent, its mouth consuming its tail. What's the name for that again? I can't remember. It will come to me. I turn it over in my fingers, feeling its grooves. It is small but it has heft. There are
five stones set along the snake's sinuous tail and one more brilliant gem for its eye. In the darkness they sparkle black and I cannot tell what they are. It's a thing of perfection and it rests within my palm.

“It's—”

“That's an Ouroboros.”

I am standing in a dimly lit room in the Morgan Library, staring at a manuscript as David leans over my shoulder.

“—a ring brooch. The Romans used it as a clothes fastener. They used the pin”—he taps on the little sword—“to push through the cloth and hold up their cloaks.”

“How old is it?” I cannot tear my eyes away.

“Oh . . .” He smiles but I can hear him growing self-conscious. “Pretty ancient. It's been in my family for generations. But not the chain,” he adds proudly. “I had a chain made for it.”

I can see this. The delicate links shine as only new silver can, unlike the ring brooch, which could be older than Christ himself. Thousands of years cupped within my hand, touching my skin.

Will the chain bear the weight of the circle? Carefully, I let the ring brooch fall, swinging back and forth. The chain is thin but strong. Sael takes my free hand. He kneels before me. He's like a knight wearing jeans and a sweater. It should feel ridiculous, but somehow, it's right.

“The Ouroboros is said to represent infinity, things beginning anew.” And then, “Katherine, will you wear this?”

We are so rarely aware of the acts that truly shape our lives. I am still raw and recovering but I can see for a moment, as the doors swing open, everything: what has been, bed and betrayal, and Sael outside at the window, asking to be let in. I think of
my underwear on the floor, and first hearing of Sara from the mouths of others. David's face pale and calm, Margot whispering something into Sael's ear and the bitterness of the games we played. But then I think of the lazy days we've had, the nights, the sweetness, my feet on his legs, his head in my lap, how a room feels empty without him, his arms around me, both of us reading with fingers entwined, curled up in the dark, the terror of loss, and gaining back life, and all that might be in the future. The laughing, eating, arguing, remonstrations, car trips, fights, furies, broken hearts, reunifications, reminders, private jokes, walking together, apart, lingering, and maybe, maybe, maybe the future of a family, children, a child we would make, us and our and we, a family, and his mouth is solemn, his eyes are serious at the finality of the question, but they are filled with hope, with light.

“Will you wear this, now and forever and always?”

The lake, the insects, the man who kneels before me—the whole world holds its breath and waits, waits in the gathering silence for my answer.

 

You sit in the dimness of an ill-lit bar. The small streaked windows defy the very day. The jukebox plays a sad, sweet country song. A woman sings about her man, how he loves her good but treats her bad. A time to drink and a time to think and now it is time for a toast.

You always like to toast your Ride before the Final Hunt. Afterward there will be no time.

Before you arrived, the problems that he had faced were by comparison as insignificant as a speck of dust in an infant's eye. Your Ride had not known suffering or hunger or thirst or pain.

You were grateful that this Ride, in particular, was a good one. In the prime of his life, good-looking and strong. Fair faces beget fair fortune and life is easier for the lovely.

You think back to the Rides of your past, who lived in darker days, who bore the brunt of wars and famine, hardship and brutality. This Ride has been so favored by his time and place, so educated and clever, at the pinnacle of health and happiness and success. He made your work so easy.

And oh, how you loved his city.

You who have run on stony roads and ridden horses over
dung-smeared cobbles, who have tossed upon turbulent seas and sweated through burning deserts, here you sauntered down the shining streets, the smooth pavements stretching out for miles. How you will miss his world, this now of nows, this present, this time where numbers one and zero allow everything to flow. To travel and to talk, to write, everyone knows, so everyone can know.

Oh, what an age, this beautiful twenty-first century, bright and brilliant and terrible and true and yours for the taking.

So yes, you are grateful and possibly a little sentimental. Good-byes are always sad, and after you depart he will not last long. For when you leave them your Rides inevitably plunge into madness, their ears harboring the endless screams, their memories unblinking witness to the endless upturned faces begging, cursing, pleading, the cutting and the bleeding. Rides have put out their eyes, sliced off their ears, hacked off their hands, and still the mind holds them close; still they see and hear in endless repetition your bloody acts caught in an endless bloody groove. Your Rides must be innocent in order for you to possess them. There must be no vestiges of evil, no foul or murderous thoughts or desire for harm. They must be clean tools with which you can do your work. You have turned them inside out and remade them, and they cannot be comfortable in their stained skins.

You, who are immortal, drink to the great and wasteful and delicious and terrifying gift of mortality as your Rides take their own lives, candles desperate to be snuffed. They leap from high places; they drown in dark waters; they take knives and let their own lives pour out while you, in your righteousness, thrive.

Your Rides do not understand the blood that must be spilled, the many colors that must be consumed. They do not delight,
as you do, in every drip and drop. They do not understand that there is truth in all fluids, that there is beauty in putridity; they do not rejoice in blood. For they cannot know the mission they allowed you to fulfill, your purpose, the reason for your being. It is better for them this way.

Of course, a few of your Rides were caught before they could end themselves. After you left they moved too slowly, stunned with horror, sickened and shocked. If a mob ended them, so much the better, but now there is modern medicine and trained professionals who ask
why
.

It makes as much sense to question a straw man, to berate a husk, to smash an empty jug upon the floor.

And each Ride speaks the terrible truth when he says, “I do not know.”

So you are grateful to your Ride, and grateful to the women who gave you their colors. Each cut you made was a dedication to them, each cry they gave a poem, each sacrifice a song. Their endless, endless hues, their bright blooming colors, allowed you to stay and seek the Vessel out.

And finally, a toast to the Vessel. To Katherine, Katherine who brought you out of nothing and who will send you back with her passing. From all the many, many you have had, she has been the hardest one to wait for. Still, the grape must ripen on the vine; the vintage cannot be rushed. You will have your drink.

And now you sing a little song, to Katherine.

Katherine, oh, my Katherine,

I loved you best of all.

Your heart is red, as red as red,

And I must heed the call.

Katherine, oh, my Katherine,

I have loved you so.

Drink up and fill my cup again,

For soon I'll have to go.

So come and fill my cup again,

For soon I'll have to go.