When You Come to Me (62 page)

Seeing his grandmother’s corpse in the open casket in the living room of the house, a couple of weeks before his twenty-eighth birthday marked approximately ten times he’d seen her in his entire life, including when she lived at the nursing home in Albany. He didn’t attempt to hide the unaffected expression on his face, looking at the body, her wrinkled hands crossed. She still wore her wedding ring. He’d remembered what she’d said to Natalie at dinner just days before his parent’s anniversary almost two years prior. How he’d hated her then, how he’d hated seeing his fiancée cry that way.

He glanced back at Natalie, who sat on the couch with the other two young Greene wives, wearing a black dress that he hadn’t seen before, that made her look homely, that made her look far older than her twenty-three year old heart.

They met eyes for a fleeting moment, and a slant of sunlight from the bay window bathed her cheeks. She then turned her eyes away and lowered them, pretending to pick something from her dress.

They didn’t say much to each other on the flight to the island. She didn’t look at him much, and when he tried to reach for her hand, she pulled away and glared at him, as if his touch were foreign, unwanted.

They shared one of the Abbott children’s old bedrooms, with his brothers and their families, sharing whichever room they could find, and when Natalie opted to take a nap following the wake, he left the room, headed down the stairs and out onto the sun porch, where he found his mother, crying.

He cautiously sat down next to her on the wrought iron chair, and waited till she composed herself. Though his anger still lingered, nothing made his stomach turn worse than seeing his mother cry.

“Where has my life gone?” she said quietly, looking at him.

He didn’t answer. He was too busy answering that question for himself.

“Where has my life gone?” she repeated, as he caught an escaped tear.

He still said nothing. He only thought about Natalie, looked out toward the sound, twinkling in the sun, through patches of drying stalks of sea oats, while he attempted to settle his anger that boiled inside of him.

He then put his arm around his mother, felt her fragility, attempted to simmer her trembling.

“I have missed you,” she whispered, burying her face in the lapel of his blazer.

He’d missed her too. But he remained silent.

“I’ve been foolish…”

He agreed. He allowed some of the anger to subside.

“Forgive me, my son,” she wept silently. “Forgive me…”

He couldn’t then, but he promised that he would one day. He kissed the top of his mother’s head and looked out toward the water…

Yes, one day.

#

She kept replaying the moment in her head; the moment that Brandon refused her. She couldn’t help but think that she now disgusted him in some way, that every moment that he looked at her, he’d curl his lip, planning his escape.

She would let him go if he so pleased! Why bother with her feelings anymore? She’d failed her past two examinations, had spent all night studying for both, and when she needed some comfort, he’d turned his eyes away.

She thought about tossing her ring to the wind at the wake just to get his attention. Would he have cared? Or would he have turned the other cheek? She wasn’t sure anymore.

Joanna told her that she’d lost her glow. Was she ready to admit that she’d fallen out of love? Would that have been too hasty?

Looking at him today made her believe that they weren’t meant to be…

Her uncertainty pushed her to believe that he wished he were with someone else…

She was ready to pull out of this if he was. It would only prove her mother to be right! It wasn’t too late for them to go on with their lives. She’d done it before; she could definitely do it again.

She awoke from her nap with a frightful headache, raised her head and body to darkness, the sound of crickets crying and the current beneath the bedroom window undulating. Brandon still hadn’t returned.

She swung her feet to the floor, reached for her brown sandals from her duffel bag, and headed out the door. She roamed through the quiet house, a whistling draft following her, coursed through shadows from the remains of sunset, the worn floor, creaking beneath her step, and down the main staircase, and out the front screen door. She ambled down a pathway of grainy, golden sand, the sky, a holding place for stretches of ambers, cool periwinkles, crimson and emerging stars…

The breeze, swift and light swept through her legs, across her cheeks, through her dark, coarse hair, and continued before her, towards the sound. She pushed through a bevy of sea oats, ascended and descended slick grey rocks, and found a home on a bed of sand that stretched farther than her eyes could see.

And she looked toward the horizon…

Brandon knelt, his knees buried in the sand, his head lowered…

She withdrew slightly, crossing her arms at her chest, lowering her eyes.

She knew that this wasn’t right, and she questioned the course her short life had taken. She knew that she was better than this…

She knew that they were better than this…

She walked toward him. She tried to breathe. Suddenly, she was nineteen again, writhing under an alien feeling…

She knelt before him, breathed in his proximity and felt a lump rise in her throat. She’d missed his smell, missed his nearness, missed the color of his hair, the way it felt against her cheek, the way the sky looked in his presence, the way the breeze felt against her skin…

She placed her hands on his knees slowly. He raised his head. She’d missed the way his blue gaze exposed every sensation within her.

And a tear glided down her brown cheek. And for the first time in months, she felt her heart beat…

She lifted a hand cautiously extended it toward his face as another tear fell. She’d forgotten the feel of his skin, forgotten how warm he felt…

He touched her hand and rolled his eyes closed.

“Brandon…” she whimpered, as the tears caught hold of her voice.

He pulled her into him swiftly, their foreheads touched gingerly, igniting every lost sensation, every lost memory, every lost moment…

She pressed her fingers to his chest and closed her eyes.

“I’m weak,” she whispered to him.

He nodded in accord.

“We’re married,” she said quietly, partially to herself. “We’re married…”

He pinched her chin, tilted her face upward and pressed his lips against hers. Natalie savored the taste, the warmth, the wetness…

And when they parted, she whispered, “I’m not giving up…I’m not giving up on us…”

“Never,” he replied quietly, kissing her again…

That night, when Natalie stood before him in the bedroom that they shared and started to unbutton his knit shirt, he didn’t stop her. He lifted her up, laid her down on the bed and he made love to her, the kind they were both certain they hadn’t had since their honeymoon, the kind where he buried his face in Natalie’s neck, the kind where he writhed under her stifled whimpers and thighs, clenching against him, the kind that made them both sorry for their actions, for their strange thoughts. How dare they think that nothing thrived between them anymore? How quick they were to forget their past, their connection, their exertion to be together.

They’d loved each other since they lurked around the pond in the dead of night at the end of Trent Road; they’d wanted each other since they skirted the waves off of Jekyll Island, since they waded in Lake Hartwell beneath the moon.

#

Natalie slid a pan of chocolate cake batter into the oven the morning of August fifteenth. It was Brandon’s favorite and she thought it just the thing to cheer him up, and help him forget about the fact that he was one year closer to turning thirty, something he dreaded more than anything. Her hope was that she’d initiate sex as a birthday present that morning, but she hadn’t felt up to it.

Her body was just too tired.

The night before, they’d gone to Harrell’s for dinner, and when she returned to the house, she’d thrown up the entire contents of her meal. The remainder of the night, she’d felt nauseous, and found herself, running in and out of the bathroom with Brandon trailing close behind her.

“Was it the fish?” he’d asked her, holding her close in the bathroom. Sure, for now, she’d write the illness off as temporary. Food poisoning.

She’d awakened that morning with the same empty feeling in her stomach, and she only hoped that the feeling would subside in time for the dinner she’d planned for her husband and Asha and Scotty. Brandon wanted nothing more, he’d said, than to spend his twenty-eighth birthday with his closest friends, and his wife.

Brandon entered the kitchen, wearing nothing more than boxers and sleep-filled eyes.

“Hello there, baby,” she said, greeting him with a smile. “How does it feel to be twenty-eight?”

“Natalie…” he whined.

“What? Is that an inappropriate question?”

He didn’t answer, only lurched toward the refrigerator, peering into it while he scratched his belly.

“I’m baking you a cake,” she told him, placing a hand to her hip.

“You feel well enough to do that?” he asked her, popping open a carton of orange juice to drink. “I mean, after last night?”

Natalie sighed. “Well, I suppose I do…besides it’s your birthday…I can skip out on your birthday, can I?”

“Tal, I think you should be laying down…”

“Brandon, I’m fine…” she assured him, setting the timer on the cake.

“I can bake a cake, you know…”

“You shouldn’t do anything on your birthday but rest…you deserve it…”

“Fine…but if you feel the slightest headache or stomachache…you’re going to bed, you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied with a grin and a mock salute.

Scotty and Asha arrived around noon, entering a house of walls painted in pale greens, soft blues and yellows, abundant sunshine, and cream-colored furniture. They each hugged their married friends, and later, while Natalie started to prepare dinner, Brandon decided to show Scotty around the town.

Natalie showed Asha to the back deck, overlooking a humble backyard, with short trees and drying grass. Jack Greene had stained the wood planks of the deck himself, and Natalie was particularly proud of the wrought iron outdoor furniture set she’d found at such a reasonable price. She was more than anxious to use the backyard more often, and she couldn’t have thought of a better occasion than Brandon’s birthday.

Asha placed her hands at her hips, took a deep breath, gazing out into the small plain of grass.

“Wow, Nat,” she breathed. “It looks great out here. It’s so quiet and peaceful, and private…”

Natalie followed Asha’s gave and sighed. “Yea, I know…”

Asha turned to look at her friend and grinned. “And you’re married…you’re really married…”

“I know,” Natalie replied, smiling back.

Natalie couldn’t believe it as much as Asha couldn’t. She couldn’t believe that they’d survived a year, though she was sure at some points she wouldn’t have. Since their turn on the Vineyard, things returned to some semblance of normalcy, and she even began to appreciate her husband and his quirks as easily as she’d done when they first married. It made her realize how foolish they’d been, how crazily they’d acted, how rash her thoughts were of their situation. She’d spent the past few days, gazing at her husband the way she’d done over the past seven years; she was confident that she’d always love him, as she’d loved him for those years. She was confident of the future, confident that she’d always need him; always value his smile in her direction, the strength and appearance of his hands, his enveloping touch. She was as confident now as she had been the moment that they sat on the dock, their feet submerged into Lake Hartwell, inferior to the stars in the sky, knowing that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, so much so, that it scared her.

She regained the happiness she’d known and felt dearly when she was seventeen, and all the world was knew to her…

Natalie sat down on the patio furniture with her girl, her confidant, her partner in crime, and she appreciated her; she appreciated her patience, her loyalty, her laughter when Natalie felt like crying, for understanding her and her thoughts when she was sure than no one else did, for pushing her to express her feelings for Brandon, when she was sure that she couldn’t…

“You look different,” Asha remarked speculatively, looking at her with an arched eyebrow.

Natalie could recall the last time that Asha sensed a change in her; Natalie was eighteen, and she’d just come back from attending a party in the neighborhood adjacent to Brandon’s house. He’d held her hand lingeringly as they coursed through the house, her in tow, as Brandon spoke to his friends, as he sipped on a can of beer, protecting her, whispering, “Come on, Nat, keep up.” Her heart raced the entire time…

Natalie remained silent as Asha studied her face.

“What is it, girl?” she’d asked, flopping her back against the seat, crossing her arms. “Tell me what it is…”

Natalie took a deep breath, closed her eyes in a fleeting moment, reopened them and murmured, “I’ve got a secret…”

Asha nodded, cleared her throat and replied, “I know…”

#

Seven years
. He couldn’t remember a moment in that passage of time when he didn’t love her. Sometimes he’d question why he did so much, why he needed her so much. Something about looking at her soothed him. Often, she simply looked so at peace, so content with her life, so graceful, so comely…

He couldn’t help but love her, want her, need her…

There was always a part of him that felt he needed to protect her, to cover her, to shield her. Her ingenuousness still prevailed, even after so long, and to this day, this very moment, it still perplexed him, still, to the point that he got lost in it, succumbed to it.

He would always succumb to her…

She’d grilled seasoned steaks, corn on the cob and had tossed a fresh salad for him. When he offered his help, she refused.

“Sit down, you silly thing,” she’d told him, flipping a steak with one hand and slapping him on the butt with another.