T
he morning Tilda went back to West Village Stationery, she surprised Penny in the act of rolling up the metal screen. She crossed Hudson, jaywalking between eddies of traffic. “Good morning,” she said.
The screen clanged up while Penny turned, her eyes widening with surprise, then softening with sympathy. “Oh, honey, hi. How are you?”
“Fine,” Tilda said, and accepted the quick hug that came with the cheek kiss. “I could sleep all day, and I cry at the drop of a hat, and I’ve got the mother of all headaches, but it looks like I’m going to stay married, so . . . fine? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m fine.”
Penny squeezed her hand, then gave her a little smile. “You should take another week off. Everything is under control here.”
“I really think work might do me good. And you haven’t had a day off since I left.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome,” Penny whispered back.
“The windows are fabulous,” Tilda said. Penny had somehow created chameleons and whimsical spiders out of papier-mâché using outdated samples and incorrectly printed cards. The chameleons sunned by tide pools collected between large gray rocks. Tilda peered into the tide pools and saw glints of jewelry and silverware. “Fabulous.”
“Palimpsests,” Penny said archly, and tapped the side of her nose. “I was inspired.”
They let themselves in, then locked the doors behind them. “We sold out of the stock Sheba gave us.”
“I’m going to see her later this week,” Tilda said. “I’ll ask her if we can have a few more pieces.”
“Double the price,” Penny said. “I sold to three A-list movie stars using Black Cards to pay.”
Tilda’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really. Once we hold the second show, the sky will be the limit.”
“How bad is the stack of mail?”
“I threw out junk mail, handled what was obviously business, and left the rest for you. Quality must have added you to a mailing list because you’re getting invitations to all kinds of trade shows.”
“About that,” Tilda said quietly. She looked around the tiny shop, the oasis of gleaming wood and brightly lit shelves, and heard the words
this is enough
whisper in her soul. “I’ve decided not to take the deal.”
Penny’s face didn’t change. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Tilda said, and waited for her to offer her resignation.
“Good. I mean, it was a great opportunity, but I’ve been thinking about some things we could do together. You and me.”
Tilda felt her eyebrows rise. “What kinds of things?”
Penny reached under the counter and withdrew a portfolio. “I mocked up some invitations for Sheba’s next show. They’re not our usual style,” she said as she opened the flap and fanned out the designs. An art deco look in silver and blue, a seventies look in an orange that shouldn’t have worked, but did, an exquisitely layered Brooklyn Bridge creation of tissue paper from pencil drawing through ink sketches to the bridge’s iconic swoops in fine black cord. “I thought we could put out some feelers in the couture stationery market. It’s even more rarefied than what we sell now, but the market is there. With your connections and clientele, and my designs . . . we could see where it goes. When you’re ready.”
“On one condition,” Tilda said. “I’ll teach you the business side, and you’ll teach me the creative side.”
“I’m terrible with numbers.”
“I don’t have a creative bone in my body,” Tilda said.
“Everyone is creative,” Penny protested.
“Anyone can learn to make a balance sheet,” Tilda said. “You’ve got the talent to branch out on your own, Penny. When you’re ready, I want you to have the skills you need.”
She sorted the mail and caught up on business correspondence. Then she closed the door to her office and called Colin.
“Miss Matilda,” he said cheerily. “Bringing me good news on this fine summer day, I hope. Papers signed, everything tickety boo, yes?”
“Colin, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to let the deal go.”
Over the phone connection, she heard a siren wail past. “Is this about the percentages?” Colin asked finally.
“It’s about my grandmother dying, and about what’s best for me right now.”
“Tilda, darling, we’re willing to wait a few weeks while you process your grief. More than that, and I can’t guarantee that this offer will be available,” he said. She heard the whoosh of steam, a barista calling out a mocha for Gerry. “Be very, very sure you want to take that chance.”
It was no risk at all. She was a connoisseur of risk, and this was nothing compared to sitting on ledges or throwing her marriage away. If she took the extension on the offer, it would keep her and Quality up in the air. Even though Colin couldn’t see her, she shook her head.
“I can’t guarantee I’ll be ready to move forward in a few months, let alone a few weeks,” she said. “I’ll send a note to the head of Quality, and explain my decision as best I can. It’s an incredible offer, and I’m very grateful for the chance, but right now I need to be in New York, and only in New York.”
She’d always suspected Colin used his charming public school persona to mask a rather sharp mind. “I understand,” he said, and from his tone she knew he did. “Best of luck to you, and keep in touch.”
“I will,” she promised.
—
A week later, while Daniel was off on a long Sunday training run, Tilda packed the letters and pictures back into the vintage suitcase and trundled it through the West Village to SoHo along with a batch of homemade scones. Talk therapy still wasn’t right for her. Instead, she was going to put her faith in the power of art to heal past wounds. After all, she represented the current darling of the art world, someone who knew all about getting lost and found again, and had the tools and language to help her work through it.
She owed this to Nan, to herself, to Daniel, to the life they would share. Art didn’t feel like therapy. It felt like joy. If she followed joy, it couldn’t be wrong.
Penny was waiting outside the building’s door, clutching a coffee and a bundle of flowers for Sheba. “Good morning,” Tilda said as she gave her a swift kiss on the cheek.
“I’m so nervous I’m shaking,” Penny confessed. “Seeing her studio, watching her work. It’s unbelievable.”
“It certainly is,” Tilda said, and then rang Sheba’s bell.
Sheba was standing in her doorway when Tilda climbed the last flight of steps. The scent of strong Earl Grey tea drifted into the hall. “What’s in there, child?”
“My life story,” she said, pulling pages from envelopes and flattening them on the worktable. “One of my grandmother’s letters to me, and one of mine to her. I have hundreds of these. You said once that I was a created thing, a work of art. I want to make these letters into art.”
Sheba smoothed her palm over the pages. “An elegant hand,” she said of Tilda’s page. “All angles and lines. Your grandmother’s writing is straight out of the copybooks from that era. Copperplate, I think they called it. What do you have in mind?”
“Absolutely no idea,” Tilda admitted. “I’m going to scan them and the pictures I found to ensure I always have the text and picture, but then, once they’re digital files, I thought I could print close-ups of certain words or pages, off center—”
“So you lose the context of the letter and keep only the lines and angles—”
“Exactly, yes, change the color of the font, or the page I print it on, include photos, that kind of thing—”
“Which you can do both digitally and with the actual letters and pictures—” Penny tossed out around a mouthful of scone.
“And create a palimpsest,” Tilda finished. “I have no idea how to do this. Will you help me?”
“You know the word comes from Greek and Latin roots that mean ‘twice scraped.’”
“No,” Tilda said, but she was no longer surprised by the synchronicity.
Sheba considered her. “The Romans wrote on wax tablets, which were heated and reused again and again, and the practice carried over to parchment. Nothing was thrown away until it was exhausted. That image resonates with me,” Sheba said. “Everything we’ve done and been is scraped over, melted down, but remains a part of what we become.”
She wandered off, pausing to check the adhesive holding a sketch to a larger image, then went into her storage closet. She returned with a stack of her own work, which she set down beside Tilda. “Take your time, child,” she said. Sheba crossed from the workspace to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and withdrew a key. “I miss having students. You two can use my space,” she said, and set it on the table at Tilda’s hip.
Yes. Tilda would take time and the actual historical documents, the letters and pictures, and transform them. She would claim her history, badly remembered, create something that revealed it, revealed her.
“Thank you,” she said, and picked up the key. “Thank you very much.”
—
The windows were open to Perry Street, the sheer curtains lifting on the early morning breeze. Dressed for a casual Sunday in a button-down blouse and jeans, Tilda sat in the garden, a cup of tea steaming in her right hand, the paperweight sitting before her. At this angle the lotus flower was foreshortened in the domed glass, distorted, nearly invisible. She sipped her tea and considered the paperweight.
The screen door opened and Daniel slid into the chair next to her, yawning and scratching his stubble. He wore only a pair of sleep shorts. With only a few weeks until the ultramarathon his body was little more than skin over muscle and bone. His shoulders and chest flexed as he yawned. “Morning.”
“Good morning,” she said. A slow beat of heat pulsed low in her belly. She wanted to kiss the fine edge where his beard gave way to his lips, and lower, where it smoothed out to the soft skin of his throat, below his ear. But for the first time in her life, she didn’t know how to tempt a man into having sex with her, and he showed no signs of coming there on his own.
He looked at the paperweight and his gaze sharpened. “I need coffee to deal with that.”
“There’s a fresh pot on the counter,” she said.
He emerged a few minutes later with a cup of coffee, then opened his arm and beckoned her in. Without hesitation she curled up on his lap, stroking down his throat, touching his pulse everywhere she could find it. He yelped when her bare feet found his inner thigh, and shifted her in his lap. After a sip of coffee he nodded at the papers and paperweight. “Time to talk about that?”
In response Tilda lifted the paperweight. “Yes,” she said.
He made a noncommittal noise and sipped his coffee. His face, his dear face, was still a little puffy from sleep, the groove by his mouth cutting a little deeper from long days, late nights, and a difficult time at home. She leaned over, cupped his cheek with her hand, and kissed that groove. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“Whatever brings you peace,” he said finally. “He never meant that for me, only you. What you do with it is up to you.”
His ring gleamed in the sunlight striping across her thigh, and her heart seized in her chest. Daniel, oh, Daniel. Being so strong for her, never asking her to be anyone other than who she was, holding space for her to come to terms with her past.
He took it from her, tilted it to see the blossom from different angles. The morning light slid over the dome, then pierced deep, then disappeared again. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Would you miss having it around?”
“No,” she said candidly. “He meant it as Andrew has always meant things, a combination of arrogance and neediness. I want it gone.”
Daniel hefted it one last time, then set it gently on the table. “Did you have any plans for it?”
“I rather thought we might sell it and use the money to take a rather nice honeymoon.”
Daniel chuckled. “I like that idea,” he said. “Very much. Where would you go?”
“Somewhere new to both of us,” she said. “Somewhere warm, quiet, where we can see the stars. Near the ocean, too.”
“It’ll be nice to have an excuse to get out of the city’s sloppy, frosty winter.”
“That sounds perfect,” she said quietly.
“What about the house?” he asked.
“What about the house?”
“Your mother gave us the house as a wedding present. Do you want to get rid of that, too?”
She thought about it for a second. “No. We began our life together in this house.” Tilda’s throat closed again. “Mum never lived here; it was a post-crash investment. She only stayed here once or twice. My memories here are of you. Us. I don’t want to sell those.”
He kissed her temple. No one ever talked about the joy, the unutterable exultation roots and shoots feel as they spread free from the kernel, the seed, the pod. The act of expansion was primitive, bone-deep, surging inside her; only once she began did she understand how much effort she’d expended to hold it back. She nuzzled into his throat and inhaled his scent, warm sleep and coffee.
“Are you running this morning?” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “Tomorrow morning.”
“Come upstairs with me?”
S
he lifted her mouth to his. Daniel opened his mouth, touched his tongue to hers, then waited as she rubbed her nose along his, then tilted her head to kiss him again. He fisted his hand in her hair, gripped her hip, and held her tight as his cock thickened to hardness. It had been so long since they’d had sex, and so much had happened in the interval. His heart started to pound, blood thrumming in his ears.
“I love you,” she breathed against his lips. Then she lifted her chin, waiting for him to respond. Sitting in front of him, bare right down to the bottom of her soul. His eyes stung with a sudden wash of tears. This woman. This stubborn, strong, ridiculous, broken, defensive, searching, healing woman. This walking paradox of strength and vulnerability.
He stood, and extended his hand to her. “I love you, too. Come with me.”
Her fingers were chilled. He led her up the stairs and down the hall to their bedroom, dropped her hand to arrange the cheval glass mirror in front of the bed, then picked up her hand again. He sat on the edge of the bed and guided her between his legs so they both faced the mirror. Both arms around her waist, he set his chin on her shoulder and looked in the mirror. His gaze sought out hers, asking a question he didn’t need to put into words.
Color stood high on her cheeks. Her hair swooped across her forehead, down to her eyebrow. She nodded.
He set his mouth to her nape, kissed it softly, starting slow. It had been weeks since they’d had sex. He wasn’t sure if they’d ever made love; he had, maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t, but it was in the past. This was their present, their future, this slow drag of lips and tongue over skin and bone so exposed and yet so hidden and vulnerable. She shivered in his arms, her hands crossing to his elbows, holding him as he held her. Her head dropped forward, giving him access. He kept at it, alternating teeth and tongue, blowing on patches of damp skin, feeling her shivers turn into subtle undulations.
Using his cheek he urged her head to the side. She let it loll back to rest on his shoulder, offering him tendons and ear. He explored the different textures, bit down on her earlobe, holding the bite while he glanced in the mirror and found her watching them. Her eyes were wide, defenses down.
“See?” he said. He wanted to kiss the hinge of her jaw, so he tightened his arms and pulled her closer. Her eyelids drooped as her rear snugged up against his erection.
She looked at herself, peering straight into her own eyes as he unbuttoned her blouse, spread the fabric to reveal her breasts and belly. He cupped her breasts, stroked his fingertips over her nipples until they peaked, then lightly pinched them through the silky fabric. Her eyes closed, then opened again. She shifted in his lap, rubbing against his erection, her hands sliding up and down his forearms.
“Daniel,” she murmured.
“Tilda.” He waited until she opened her eyes again, her irises rings of pewter fast disappearing into her expanding pupils. “Tilda,” he said into the slope where her collarbone met neck and shoulder. She all but purred at his voice, and he smiled into her shoulder. Such a ridiculous thing, what his voice meant to her. Smiling during sex felt so married. So right.
She gave a sweet little smile, languid and heated and totally present, letting him see her like this. He unfastened her jeans and worked them down her thighs. With her legs trapped closed, getting his hand between them wasn’t easy, but he managed it, gently parting her folds. Slick heat greeted his fingertips, easing his way to her clit. She jolted when he circled it, subsiding as the first touch gave way to slow strokes. Her thighs tensed and released around his hand, and the flush on her cheeks crept down her throat to her collarbone. One hand slid up to his nape while the other gripped his forearm. She arched in his grip, head thrown back, throat flexed. When she went taut, her head dropped forward. For a split second their gazes met in the mirror. The connection shocked him, vibrating and alive and electric, then her eyes closed and she went under.
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, and held her through it. “Tilda. Yes.”
When it was over she was limp and pliant, muscles and tendons relaxing in stages. “More,” she said, low and rough.
She roused herself enough to kick off her jeans and stretch out on the bed while he stripped himself efficiently. He braced himself above her, knees between her thighs, then hesitated, searching her face. Her brows flexed in uncertainty. She bit her lip, then slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders and flattened her palms on his shoulder blades. It wasn’t much pressure, just enough to ask, aware of everything that had come before, acknowledging what it meant to go forward.
He lowered himself into her arms, shifted forward, and felt the sweet, electric heat of his cock nudging into her folds, then sliding deep. Eyes closed, she made a low sound somewhere between a groan and a purr. He dropped his forehead to hers and fought to remember how to breathe because this was as vulnerable as he’d ever made himself to another human being.
He was here, bared to her. Where was she?
Her eyes opened. A single tear tracked from the corner down her temple, into her hair. He stared at her and saw only Tilda, the old, wild Tilda and the new, open, alive Tilda. Just Tilda, as she was, as she would ever be, giving herself back to him.
He laid his thumbs on either side of her jaw, then bent and licked the shiny trail of her tear, kissed each eyelid, the tip of her nose, her lips. Her hands slid down to the base of his spine and she rolled her hips up, coaxing a thrust from him, then another, and another. It felt so good, hot and slick and slow and potent. She kissed his mouth, his jaw, his neck, her hands playing up the length of his spine and back down to cup his rear. Heat coiled low in his balls, then climbed up his shaft. Her knees drew up, disrupting the relentless play of fingers and mouth as she surrendered for a moment, head back, throat bared. He nipped at the straining tendon, and she laughed.
“Oh, slow, slow,” she gasped, her voice high, breathy, urgent. “Not yet. Not yet.”
“Shh,” he replied, and slowed his pace. Her tight walls rippled around him, teasing him with the nearness of her release ebbing away. He worked one hand under her hips and tilted her up to meet him, sliding impossibly deeper with the new angle. Her ankles locked around his hips and she stopped caressing him, simply gripped his upper arms and lifted into each thrust.
He kissed her gently, a fleeting caress of lips. Her eyes opened almost immediately, glazed with pleasure, utterly defenseless to him, unwary and uncaring.
“God,” he said, giving into a brief stutter of his hips.
“Oh, yes please,” she said, and tightened everything: arms; legs; soft, clinging walls.
He tipped her over into the vortex, trapped her short, sharp cries with his mouth, and let them draw him into fire.
—
Afterward, she sprawled alongside him, her leg over his, her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around her back and idly scratched his abdomen with his hand.
“That was different,” she said.
It took him a moment to remember the conversation at the courthouse, when he asked her if sex on their honeymoon was different from their premarital sex. He smiled at her. “Good.”
She nodded. “Stay here,” she said, and slid from underneath the covers to the armoire against the opposite wall. She opened the doors, then the drawer that until recently held all the detritus from her past, and got out something he couldn’t see. She turned for the bed again, and he sat up with his back to the headboard. The pattern of sun-drenched leaves dappled her skin as she tucked her knees under her and her hair behind her ear, then opened her hand. In her palm rested her wedding band and the LOVE bracelet.
“I’m sorry I took them off,” she said. “Would you . . . ?”
The bracelet took a minute to fix around her wrist, as the tiny screws had to be set with care to avoid stripping the threads. When he finished he lifted his fingers to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. She slid the bracelet down, then nodded at it. “I love it,” she said. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome.” Totally right for Tilda. It was then, and it was now, and it would be forever. The very definition of a symbol.
The ring was such a small thing, thin, platinum, size four and a half, and even at that loose enough to slip up to her knuckle when it was cold. He couldn’t get it on his pinky past the first knuckle. As symbols went, it wasn’t much of one. No diamonds or rubies, no bling, no intricate setting. He balanced the ring between his thumb and middle finger, and offered it to her. She held out her left hand, palm down. He slid it on, then continued the motion and wove their fingers together, left hand to left hand, palm to palm.
She stayed on her knees, as if she meant to get up. “Can I see the first card you wrote to me after we met? The one you didn’t send?”
“Sure,” he said easily, as if his heart rate didn’t skyrocket at the thought of her seeing exactly what he wanted over a year ago.
“Where is it? Your shoebox?”
“It’s in your file,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“My received file?” she asked. “I didn’t see anything from you in that file, and I looked through it a week or two ago.”
“No. Your matched file.”
“Why is it there?”
“Look at it and see.”
She didn’t move. “I didn’t do anything for you. We haven’t done anything outrageous sexually. We go to soccer games and funerals.”
“And to dinner, and to gallery openings, and to breakfast at Sarabeth’s, and to bed together. All you did was be you. Tilda,” he said when she opened her mouth to protest. “Just read it.”