Mikalo's Flame (19 page)

I couldn’t speak.

This was much more than a door in my kitchen
leading to his. This was knocking out the walls, joining the two
spaces. A complete renovation of both his place and mine.

This was huge.

Living together. For real.

Yeah, this was big.

And my head was still swimming.

I needed more coffee.

“It is a big thing to decide,” Mikalo then
said apologetically. “I will make you breakfast and we will talk,
if that is what you want.

“Yes,” he said as he stood and walked to the
stove. “Eggs will help.”

The plate sat before me, untouched.

Mikalo sat across from me, happily tucking
into his omelet.

I couldn’t eat mine.

It looked disgusting.

Somehow he had made my omelet both
dangerously undercooked as well as overcooked to an inedible
degree, the gelatinous whites creeping through the canyons of firm
white as they slid to the edge of the plate where they mingled with
the yellow of the broken yolk.

It wasn’t even an omelet, really. It was a
half-stirred mess buried under an avalanche of salt and pepper.

And I literally couldn’t bring myself to eat
it.

I mean, I loved that he tried. Loved that he
was willing to get in the kitchen and cook. And I loved that, as
with the coffee, he quietly talked to the eggs as he worked,
apologizing to the shell as he broke it, thanking the eggs for
sliding into the pan, encouraging them to cook “beautiful and
tasty”.

But if I ate this, I’d get sick.

And my weekend was exciting enough.

He was watching me.

“Is it good?” he asked with a small
smile.

Oh man, I had to say something. But I
couldn’t lie and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt his
feelings.

But I had to be honest.

“Thank you so much for this, Mikalo,” I said.
“It’s so sweet of you.”

I took a sip of coffee. Thank god he got that
right.

“So, you enjoy it?” he asked. “You want
more?”

Oh god no, I wanted to say.

I had to tell him the truth.

“I’m so sorry, but I can’t eat this.”

He stopped, putting his fork down.

“What do you mean? What is wrong?”

“Well, the eggs are raw here and then
overcooked and really tough here. And I think there’s, yeah, now
that I look, I’m absolutely sure there’s a bit of shell here and
...”

Mikalo started laughing, leaning back in his
chair, his hands to his face as they wiped away his sudden
tears.

“Are you okay?” I asked, more than a little
confused.

I had expected a reaction, of course. But
this? Laughter to the point of tears?

“You are right, my Grace,” he gasped, his
face now red. “It is very horrible.”

He suddenly stood and, his eyes dancing and
his wet cheeks flushed red, leaned forward, grabbed my head in his
hands and planted a big kiss on my forehead before taking the plate
from me.

Walking back to the stove, still fighting
fits of giggles, he dumped the eggs in the garbage, put the plate
in the sink, got a new one from the cupboard, and, once more at the
stove, got back to work.

“I thank you,” he said as he broke the eggs
into the bowl, apologizing to the shells, of course.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m not sure
what’s really happened here. Did you mean for the eggs to be
horrible?”

“Of course,” he said, quickly looking at me.
“I wanted to see if you would eat something that could not be eaten
or if you would trust me enough to say ‘No, my Mikalo, this is
wrong and is something I cannot eat’.

“And you, my Grace, you made my heart so
happy by being brave, even if this courage would hurt my feelings,
by being brave to be honest. It is not an easy thing to do
sometimes, being honest.

“But you love me enough to trust that I will
open my ears and hear you and not be hurt.”

He watched me again, my new omelet cooking in
front of him.

“This is why I thank you,” he finished. “You
are a wonderful woman and that is one of the many reasons I love
you with all of my heart.

“And, of course, I would not let you put them
in your mouth to eat them.

“No, no, of course not,” he then said before
focusing again on the eggs.

I couldn’t help but smile.

He was right, of course. It was a difficult
thing to do. And I was afraid of hurting his feelings. But I knew I
could be honest and, even if it wasn’t something he wanted to hear,
he’d know I was coming from a place of love.

In all honesty, I thought as I watched him
quietly coaxing “his lovelies” to cook up “beautiful and tasty” for
“his beauty who is very hungry”, we were at a great place, Mikalo
and I.

There was love, there was trust, there was
great sex and a lot of laughter. We had passion and honesty,
occasional doubt followed by clarity, and we talked. A lot.

What we had really could be the foundation
for something long term. And that was something I really
wanted.

I mean, who wouldn’t? He teased his food
while cooking it. If that wasn’t sexy, I didn’t know what was.

And his eyes had danced. When he laughed.

I thought of Radek Byzan and his lovely
Ronish, then. How she had looked forward to seeing his eyes dance
even when they were old and grey. And how he had cradled her photo
in his hands.

Mikalo now approached, a new omelet on a new
plate quickly placed in front of me.

It looked perfect.

I said so.

“No,” he quickly said after a brief pause,
suddenly taking the plate away and heading back to the counter.

“It needs the green on top,” he explained as,
his back to me, he opened a drawer, got out a knife, and started
chopping parsley.

“Mikalo, it’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need
it. It was fine without.”

He shook his head.

“No, no, it is the most important part.”

The chopping stopped and, once again, he
returned, placing the plate in front of me.

The yellow omelet sat on the plate, a light
sprinkling of green covering it.

And in the middle of that green sat a small
red velvet box.

My heart stopped.

The box was open, a diamond ring sitting in
its center.

He had kneeled in front of me, Mikalo.

“My Grace,” he was saying. “Please, say
yes.”

Yes.

Three letters.

One syllable.

One simple sound.

I’d said it millions, maybe billions, of
times in my life. Often without even realizing how important this
small word truly was. It was a throw away word. One said almost in
passing.

But today, this morning, Mikalo kneeling
before me, my omelet untouched, my coffee growing cold, the ring
still sitting in the box, the box on the eggs surrounded by
parsley, it was the most important word in the world. The most
important word I’d ever say.

And I couldn’t say it.

It lay trapped in my throat, somewhere
between the lump and the breath I couldn’t catch.

“My Grace,” he said, his voice almost a
whisper. “I cannot say how much I love you. There are no words for
such a feeling. Almost from that first moment I saw you with the
coffee and all those papers in front of you, in the coffee shop,
alone and working hard, needing someone to love and someone to love
you, I knew it would be you. I knew my life would be with you. I
just knew ...”

He stopped, unable to find the words to
describe what he felt.

“It is not a thing I can explain, my heart,”
he then said. “There is not an answer that is easy There is never
an answer that is easy.

“But my heart, it spoke and I listened and it
said ‘this girl is for you and you will love her until you are no
more and she will love you ... now go and speak and let her into
your life’.

“And so I listened and it was right. I did
love you. I do. Still.

“Always and forever until I am no more, I
will love you.”

He paused, bent his head low, his forehead
almost resting on my knee, and then continued.

“Even if you will not love me.”

His hand went to his face, then. I knew he
was wiping away tears.

No, no, no, I wanted to scream. I do love
you. So, so much.

But I can’t speak, Mikalo. The words, they
won’t come. Just like Blazen’s “I do”, they were there, yes, but
they wouldn’t come.

You are everything to me, I wanted to say.
You are a dream come true. Yes, we haven’t known each other long
and, yes, our road is long and there will be bumps and turns and
bullshit to get through.

Yes, yes, yes, I know all this.

But I cannot imagine my life without you in
it. And if I can walk this with you as your wife, then, oh my god,
yes. A million times yes.

The word just wouldn’t come.

For god’s sake, it was a simple sound. And I
couldn’t say it.

He lifted his head, his cheeks wet, and
reached up to take the ring from the box.

“This ring,” he explained, holding it in his
hand. “The diamond, it is new, a gift from me to you, but see the
emeralds on the side? Here? Those were my mother’s.”

He stopped, then. Another tear fell.

He wiped it away as he swallowed and then
cleared his throat.

“And the band, here,” he said, catching his
breath as he pointed out the silver ring itself. “This is what my
grandfather first gave to my grandmother when they were in love.
They had little, almost no money, and he had saved for a long
time.

“But this was a treasure to them, this simple
silver. It was then a treasure to my mother and my father.

“And now my heart hopes it will be a treasure
to us.”

I was crying now, the tears rolling down my
cheeks, my shoulders trembling.

And, still, that increasingly important Yes
wouldn’t come.

“My Grace,” he then said, his tone worried,
his voice revealing the fear he now felt that I would reject him.
“My days, they need to start with you, dreaming next to me. I need
to feel you there. And my nights, they will not be happy unless I
can hold you and kiss you and reach out with my arms to wrap you
into me, hold you close and feel your breath and your heart
beat.

“I want those days to be weeks and then
months and then years and then even more years. Those days with
you, I want them to be forever. I want you to be in my life always.
I want you to be my life.

“Always and forever, my Grace,” he then
repeated. “I will love you until I am no more. Please, tell me this
is what you want, too.”

He waited, watching me.

My hand suddenly in his, he slipped the ring
on my finger.

It fit perfectly.

“Please,” he said again, his voice now small,
his brow furrowed, the tears now unapologetically spilling down his
cheeks.

“Please.”

The lump in my throat remained.

The word still wouldn’t come.

But I could nod.

Yes, I could nod.

And so I did.

I nodded.

Tears rolling down my cheeks, my hand in his,
his ring now on my finger, I nodded.

And then I nodded again.

And then one more time.

I nodded.

Yes, my Mikalo.

Oh yes.