He walked downstairs with it and sat for a long time, looking at the envelope. It was obviously meant for him. He was sure this was some leftover handiwork from before Grace’s birth, when she’d been so certain her death was imminent. She’d chosen a perfect place to hide it if she wanted to be certain he found it after her untimely demise. He would have sorted miserably through those corsets and garters, remembering in his grief all the ways he’d known her, just as he reminisced, in happiness, over them now.
He turned the envelope over in his hand. It was heavy, too heavy to just be her notes on funeral arrangements. He struggled with his conscience, about whether to open it. He thought he should wait until she returned home and ask permission. But then, it was obviously meant for him. It had his name on the front, clear as day. If it was his, why shouldn’t he look inside? He ignored the fact that it said, in large black swirly letters,
If I Die
, since she most definitely hadn’t died, and he wanted to open it anyway. He undid the clasp and pulled out the papers, which were, in fact, a lengthy manuscript with a letter on top.
Dear Daniel,
If you’re reading this, I guess I died. I told you so. But I’m so, so sorry if I’ve left you. That wasn’t ever what I wanted to do. I wanted to be with you forever, because only with you did I feel truly loved.
He stopped reading, already choked up with sentiment, yet chuckling at the way she wrote so matter-of-factly from beyond the grave. He had to read it all now, start to finish. He sat back on the couch, cradling the pages in his hands.
I’m sorry I wasn’t more open with you, especially in the beginning. You know it was hard for me. It wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was just the weight of all I had to say. But I want to say it to you now. Everything. I want you to know everything I felt, everything I wanted, everything I loved about you, and everything you always wanted to know that I couldn’t express. So these pages are for you.
Please take care of our baby girl, Daniel, if she survived. When she’s older, if you think it’s a good idea, let her read this too, and every night, every night of her life, give her kisses from me.
I love you.
Wednesday
He thrust the note aside, as much as he loved it, adored it, to get at the manuscript. He couldn’t read the words fast enough. If she arrived home and saw him reading it, he knew she would take it away.
I was born on a Wednesday…
He read with his brows furrowed and his heart in his throat. Her voice was so true, so vitally
there
on the page, that if she’d really died, he didn’t know that he could have read it at all. It would have been like reading with her ghost right beside him. He could hear her voice, soft and sweet in his ear.
I didn’t have much of a childhood, but I made it through each day.
She went on about her youth, her experiences with her father, which were very hard to read. It was so bleak a story he was actually relieved when Vincent came into the picture. She spoke of him, also, matter-of-factly, just telling the story and not the deeper feelings, perhaps to protect Daniel. Or perhaps she still didn’t believe in her heart that Vincent loved her as much as he did, that she was worthy of that love Vincent held for her, like a secret, deep in his heart.
From Vincent, the story moved on to meeting him. He smiled and bit his lip, reading over her account of how she’d felt when they met. He was so touched at the carefully chosen words, each carrying so much weight. He had to say she’d nailed it exactly, every pang, every secret thrill he’d also felt.
She could never have said such things to his face. He knew that. That was just the way she was. But it was a gift of untold value to finally hear the things she felt. He was so captivated, so moved by her writing that he didn’t hear her come in. She found him there when he was at the end, where it abruptly cut off midsentence, during the abject misery of her ninth month of pregnancy.
No matter what happens, no matter how miserable I am right now
… Then it stopped.
He looked up at her, and he would have felt guilty if he hadn’t been so overwhelmed with emotion. She didn’t look mad or embarrassed. She mostly looked like she wanted to run.
“You weren’t supposed to find that. I forgot I’d hidden it there.”
“I found it,” he said. “I read it all, until the end. Come here.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Come here to me right now.”
She left Gracie sleeping in her baby seat and walked over to him. He put the manuscript down with an effort. He wouldn’t let her take it from him; that was for sure. He would have fought her tooth and nail before he’d let her take it away.
“Are you mad that I read it?” he asked.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No. Why would I be?” He gathered her in his arms and brushed her hair back. She wouldn’t look at him.
“I should have told you all those things. I wish I could have. But I couldn’t.”
“It’s okay, I know. I knew them anyway. I felt them in my heart. But your writing, Wednesday, it’s so beautiful. I had no idea you had all those words inside.”
She looked thoughtful then, as if she was remembering something, but she stayed silent. He reached down to pick up the manuscript and showed her the last page. “But the end here—you didn’t finish.”
She looked sheepish. “I tried to finish it a few times, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t find the words.” She sniffled, growing calm. “I couldn’t find any words that were big enough and deep enough to sum up what we had.”
“What we
have
,” he said, wiping away the single tear rolled down her cheek. “I still have you, and you still have me. I have you forever, Wednesday, and we don’t need any words for that.”
* * *
Long ago, or it seemed like long ago anyway, she had knelt at Vincent’s feet. She’d been bursting with words, reeling from the pain of keeping them inside.
Daniel had said to her, “
I had no idea you had all those words inside
.” But she didn’t, not anymore, because with Daniel, those trapped words finally found voice. Not in any one story or any one conversation, but over days, over weeks, over a lifetime of moments in two years. How could she possibly have distilled all that life and love Daniel had shown her into something as workaday as words? It would have been an impossible task, and she realized now she had been foolish to try.
No, it wasn’t words that could define her and Daniel. It wasn’t words that would make sense of their lives and the strange, intense love they felt for each other. No, it was moments, those moments he gave her like magic. Moments like a pot full of gold at the end of a rainbow, each glittering disk infused with its own priceless story. Moments like stars in the sky, impossible to quantify or understand, but magnificent all the same. There were so many of them, each a droplet in a waterfall, and they poured on her whenever she needed to remember she was loved.
“
I’d like to have her alone
.”
“
What do you want, Wednesday? Where do you want to go next
?”
“
Well, you know why it hurts, don’t you, Wednesday? Why I hurt you
?”
“
You were made to wear white, a sweet girl like you
.”
“
I do own you! That’s not in question! You’re mine like water is wet
.”
“
I won’t let anything happen to you. Believe me
.”
“
Stockings, Wed. Wear stockings tonight
.”
“
You’re such a mommy now. I knew it all along
.”
“
Do you understand me, Wednesday Carson
?”
Yes, she understood. She understood everything deeply, elementally, although she could never have put it all to words. She finally realized what really mattered—that Daniel loved her, and that she was, as he’d always insisted, worthy of that love.
Later, Wednesday drifted in thoughts of him. She was secured to his bed by soft white restraints. He knelt over her, taking his time. He ran his fingers up to the tops of her white stockings, then down to her ankles, avoiding her ticklish spots. Every few seconds he looked into her eyes, a deep gaze of fondness. She found herself blushing under his scrutiny.
Oh, Wednesday, really
? She hadn’t thought she’d still retained the capacity to feel embarrassment.
He parted her with his fingers, moving with slow and gentle deliberation. Her gaze was riveted on his lips, the way they parted and then pursed in concentration as he touched her. She wrapped her hands around the restraints and held tight as he leaned to drop teasing kisses down her belly, over her white garter belt, and to the pale scar just above the apex of her mons. She twisted, feeling the tickle of soft lace as he slid his tongue between the lips of her sex and blazed a path of delicate torment right down to her very center. She jerked her hips as he flicked his tongue in and out of her.
Yes yes yes
. He twisted his fingers around her elastic garters and licked from one edge of her cleft to the other, then nipped lazily at her clit, a delicious, concentrated ache. Her pelvis throbbed with building arousal. “Oh God, Daniel, please.”
His mouth left her, and she moaned helplessly. He kissed up her belly again, then over to her hard nipples and the curves of her shoulders. She turned her head to kiss him back, feeling his light stubble brushing against her cheek. She licked behind his ear and drifted on the fresh, heady scent of him. She was acutely aware of the heat of his cock lying heavily against her thigh. When she moaned, he took her head in his hands and kissed her mouth, a long, lingering kiss of heat and secret, urgent breaths. He caressed her nipples at the same time. Then he pinched them, stirring the fire into a frenzy.
“Please,” she begged in a whisper against his lips.
“In a minute. When I want.”
His control was epic while hers was nonexistent, but she tried like a good girl to please him. She tried to behave and not plead for satisfaction as he dipped inside her just a little, then out, then in again. She moaned as softly as she could, but it was impossible for those sighs and moans not to escape.
“Quiet. Shh.” He silenced her with one light finger against her lips. “I’m going to fuck you. And you can come, Wednesday, as many times as you like, for being a good girl, such a very good girl to me today.”
He spoke about the book he’d found, the book she’d written for her daughter and for him. The book that had made his eyes glaze over with emotion and love and things she couldn’t grasp. Had she wanted him to find it there at the bottom of the armoire, under all those stockings and garters? She’d left it there even though she hadn’t died, and let herself believe she’d only forgotten. But deep inside she knew she’d wanted him to find it. She’d needed him to know all the things she couldn’t say.
Now he knew. Yes, that much was obvious. She could tell just from the way he came inside her, grasping her close as if he were one with her. He ran his fingers over her, everywhere. Suddenly she wanted to do the same. She wanted, more than anything, to hold him close too, to touch his soft, unruly hair, the mat of fur on his chest, his muscular, powerful buttocks as he thrust inside her, making her his again and again.
She was his, completely and without question. He owned her as much as he owned himself, their daughter Gracie, and his white house of possibilities, with the strange tree that grew from the center of it. He owned all of it, and his ownership was absolute. To be fair, they owned him too—she and Gracie. He was theirs every bit as much as they were his. Wednesday needed him to release her just for a moment, to undo those velvet cuffs that held her in his power, so she could touch him as he was touching her.
“Untie me, Daniel,” she said. He stopped midthrust and looked down at her.
“What hurts? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not safe-wording. I just need you to unbind me. I need to hold you. I want to touch you. Please!” Her voice grew stronger with each word. “I want to put my hands on you. Please, let me go. Untie me, Daniel.”
Rrrrip. Rrrrip
. With an indulgent smile, he released her. She pulled him close and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.
“Better?” he whispered in her ear.