I come to slowly, taking note first of the warm sunshine on my skin, second the cool earth underneath me, molding to my body as though I have been laying in this field for several hard rains, or all of a dry planting and sowing season; or maybe someone planted me when they planted the corn, and I grew here. The corn has an earthy, sweet smell. It groans as the tall stalks bend in the wind.
My grandfather used to say that corn grew so fast that you could hear it growing, and now I do. I open my eyes and I can see it grow, too. It’s all around me and the silks that escapes some of the husks whisper in the pleasant breeze. The stalks extend in little spurts, grow inch by inch until they’ve all but blocked my view of the clear, blue sky.
I should get up, I think. There is no reason to, and my arms and legs feel like warm Jell-O, amazingly relaxed… but I think I was trying to get back to someone. I don’t remember who, but they are not here.
I push myself up. My head spins, it takes a moment to orient myself, but then I stand on bare feet. I wiggle my toes, and the cool dirt sifts between them. I’m wearing a floral sundress, white with little red flowers.
I remember wishing that I looked better in soft dresses like this one. They tended not to suit my square shoulders, and strong arms. Just nothing dainty about me. But it doesn’t really matter, on a day so beautiful. The hair that bounces into my line of sight is brown and wavy, and that does give me pause, but I can’t remember why, just like I can’t remember who I was looking for, or how I ended up in this corn field. I’m not worried about any of it, my body knows it will all work out.
I pick a direction and start walking, knowing it will be the right one. The rows of the corn field are wide enough to walk through if I turn sideways and step carefully. I hear flurries of bird song up ahead, carried on the wind. Then the chirping and tweeting turns to giggles, little girls’ laughter, and my heart reacts, a smile grows on my lips. I would know those little laughs anywhere.
I push through the last rows of corn and find them sitting there, on a green grassy hill, in the shade of a big tree, I think it’s a willow. There’s a swing made of a single plank of wood and fraying rope hung from one of its lower branches. The land slopes down to a sparkling pond a stone’s throw away. It's beautiful, and so are the three figures enjoying a picnic on an old plaid blanket. Caesar, Astrid and Josie. The girls are in matching dresses, white with red flowers, the same as mine.
“Mommy!” Josie’s face lights up.
“There you are,” Astrid taps her Hello Kitty watch after climbing to her feet. “Where were you?”
“I’m not sure.” I open my arms and pull them to me, squeeze their little bodies tight and swing us gently back and forth. “I must have wandered off.” I’m emotional, suddenly, absolutely pierced by the joy that swells up in me, and my tight throat makes my voice come out sounding high and girlish.
“That’s alright,” Caesar says. “We waited for you.” He’s wearing a finely made blue button down rolled up at the elbows, and jeans, and leaning back on the blanket with a content smile of his own. He looks delicious.
So do the assortment of foods spread on the picnic blanket. “Here,” he says, seeming to read my mind. He builds me a plate. “Try some of everything.”
There are quartered cucumber and chicken salad sandwiches, fresh grapes and pineapple, fresh veggies with a homemade dip, and a sponge cake with strawberries and cream. I try the dip first, on a green pepper, and it has a pleasant kick.
“Mm.”
“Tea, Mommy?” Astrid pours for me without waiting for an answer. She pours a little too much; when a sugar cube is added a few brown drops spill over the rim of the teacup. “Oops.”
“That’s okay.” I pick it up and lift it carefully to my lips, taking a long drink. It’s lukewarm, but sweet. “Very good, thank you.”
“Try the cake, Mommy. I helped Caesar make it.” Josie is already eating a big piece of cake, herself.
“There might be some shell,” she admits. “Eggs are hard.”
“I think we got it all.”
“Delicious. Very well done, all of you.”
“Can we go swim?”
“Stay in the shallows, and where I can see you.”
They shuck off their dresses and race down to the water in their swimsuits. Caesar repositions himself so that he is leaning back against the willow tree, and facing the pond. He pats the space next to him, and I slide over, fitting myself against his side, laying my head on his shoulder and lifting it only when he feeds me a bite of something from the full plate. When it is my turn to feed him, he reaches up and takes hold of my wrist, guides my hand closer, and holds it there, sucking pineapple juice from my fingers and kissing the tips. He kisses my wrist, where he can surely feel my pulse on his lips, a long, slow kiss, then up my arm. He kisses my shoulder through the fabric of the dress, then my bare neck. Shivers course down my spine and race out through my legs. I shut my eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling.
I pry them open a moment later, when my heart jumps into my throat and I jerk upright. I forgot to watch the girls, and am suddenly sure I will open my eyes to see them both facedown, floating, their dark hair fanning out around their tiny corpses, and their skin sallow and sunken, changed by the water -and miraculously so- in that one unsupervised second.
But they are splashing and laughing in the shallows, just as they were. Josie sputters, getting a little more water in her face than maybe she bargained for, and starting to whine. Astrid shushes her, stealing a glance up toward us under the tree on the hill, and then they troop off though the reeds to catch frogs that I can hear croaking.
“It’s alright,” Caesar gently pulls me back against him, wraps both arms around me. “They’re safe here. We all are.”
It scratches a part of my brain that reminds me that this is all strange. Parts of it are not right. My body knows it, keeps waking to the fact in little ways and feeling either unease or panic. It’s like a dream, but it’s not. I can feel, taste, smell, all vividly. But it’s not reality, either.
I can feel Caesar’s arms around me, they make me feel safe and loved, just like the real Caesar’s. His presence -that intangible thing I was drawn to and intrigued by from the start- is as clear and sharp as in reality. I almost think it should be impossible to fabricate. But I’m not sure. Maybe if you love someone, you can make a perfect replica.
Maybe this Caesar is even better than the one I know, or, at least is better suited, if he is untroubled by life, status… If he is content to sit and relax and watch my girls play, have I robbed him of some complexities, and done him a disservice? Or are we the same, just in a world where none of that matters? Heaven? I decide to just ask him, even if I’m scared of the answer, because this all suddenly feels fragile, existing because I believe it does, choose it to…
He notices my furrowed brow, or maybe he knows everything I’m thinking because he exists in my mind. “What is it?”
“Are you really here with me?”
“Of course.”
“Not just as I remember you, as a figment of my mind, or, whatever this is?”
“Yes, Ceely. I’m here. Don’t pick it apart. We’re all together and safe and happy.”
“Right.” I try to take his advice and enjoy the moment as Astrid and Josie come running over to show us a frog. Josie holds it, fearless, and Astrid won’t touch it, declares that it will give her warts. They launch into a debate fit for the presidential stage, mostly shrill cries of, ‘No it won’t!’ and, ‘Yes, it will!’
Their dark hair shines in the sun, their little face scrunch in anger, their voices are sharp and healthy. I think that if they are mirages, they are damn good ones. I created them once, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to do it again, if only in my mind.
I don’t know if it matters if they are real, or not. The hole in my heart that that they left was real, I remember it even though I don’t remember much else. Without them I’m something gaping and wounded, dead on my feet, unnatural like a beast of prey mauled viciously and somehow still alive. While I am here, that hole is gone, filled by their presence. That’s real enough.
*
The house is a two-story farmhouse, which hasn’t been updated in decades. Antique appliances in the kitchen, floral wallpaper, upholstered furniture with fine wooden accents. Chair rails and crown molding, fine china in a large cabinet, a decent collection of books in the study. The only modern touch is a flat screen mounted over the fireplace. I know where everything is, and everyone else seems to, as well.
The girls go upstairs to their rooms, to change and then seem to occupy themselves. They do not come back down. Caesar picks a book and kicks off his shoes, stretching out on the sofa. I move around from room to room, not sure what to do. I go halfway up the stairs with every intention of finding something to do with the girls, but I hear them talking, hear Josie’s giggle, and realize I’m being silly. They need their playtime, it’s good for their imagination, expands their minds. And all parents need to enjoy a little alone time, when they can.
But there are no dishes in the sink, I am not needed for work anytime soon, there’s not even a project on my shoulders, with a deadline near or far. It wrinkles my brain. I make another lap around the first floor. Caesar looks up from his book.
“You really can’t enjoy the peace and quiet for long, can you?”
“I need to feel like I’ve done something today.”
“Alright… you could clean out the fireplace. And I’ll chop some wood.”
“You can relax, it’s fine.”
“Not while you’re working, I can’t. I’d feel lazy. It’s alright. I could use the exercise, and then we’ll have a fire going and we’ll relax together.”
“Okay.”
He goes, stripping his shirt off as he does. I watch his broad shoulders, the muscles of his back and the dimples at his hips as he goes out the glass double doors at the patio. There’s a large stump and an ax out there, along with a small stack of wood already chopped. I think he’s doing this mostly for my benefit. It’s plenty warm out, but not so warm that a fire is unthinkable. A fire does sound cozy, and it will get colder once night falls. I watch him take a few swings, his tattooed muscles rippling and powerful.
Only a minute, I allow myself to watch. Then I get to the dirty job of cleaning the ash out of the fireplace. In no time, I have it spotless, ready for Caesar, who carries in an armful of wood. His skin is glistening. I think that I could lick the sweat off his chest with no qualms. I listen upstairs for the girls. All quiet, there. Maybe they have fallen asleep…
Caesar stacks the logs in the fireplace, leaving it unlit for now. When he stands, I am right beside him, and run my fingertips down his spine. I wrap my arms around him, propping my chin on his shoulder, and he smiles, and leans his head back against mine. His hands reach for me, finding bare skin on each thigh at the hem of my dress, then sliding up and squeezing my hips, pulling our bodies tight together. He has a fantastic ass. He’s almost flawless. I feel hunger, like I could take a bite out of him, want him between my teeth.
I do get my teeth around his earlobe and give him a little nip. Then a slow, firm bite on the skin where his shoulder meets his neck, making sure to leave an imprint of my teeth. I have a good view of where his hairline ends, and of the little mole there. I give it a kiss.
It’s the kiss, not the bites that gives him pause. Maybe he isn’t in my mind; maybe he was taught to see moles as ugly, imperfections. “What are you doing?” He tries to turn, but I hold him tight.
“I’ve wanted to kiss that mole a hundred times. But I couldn’t.” I don’t remember exactly why, but I have an inkling. We were in a place less forgiving; I was fighting myself, as I was fighting the world. Here, I can be as soft as my heart always meant me to be. I kiss the mole again, long and slow. When I look at him next, Caesar has closed his eyes, seeming to enjoy the feeling.
“Do we have time?”
“All the time in the world,” I assure him. I am beginning to understand this place.
“Alright then.” He stoops, grabs my thighs firmly, and I don’t understand what he’s doing until I’m hefted into the air, landing astride his back and instinctively throwing my arms around his shoulders to hang on. I hear myself laugh, a real laugh, completely free and coming up from my chest riding on a surge of joy, and I think it has probably been a long time since I laughed like that.
He carries me to the bedroom, as easily as if I weigh ten pounds, and drops me on a soft bed of clean sheets.
We undress and explore each other with patient reverence. I have never exactly been shy, or inhibited, but I do remember being close to those things, the first time that we were together. I didn’t really care for him yet, so I didn’t really care what he thought about me, but I was uncomfortable in my old skin, grey hair, thicker body. Now I am thrilled for him to experience this body, in its prime, and he is as mesmerized with me as I am with him.
Every touch lights us up, turns cells to live wires, we’re charged and buzzing and vibrating at the same frequency. Even his slow, tender movements send me to an overwhelming place, over the edge and crashing back down for more, pleasure is limitless and yet somehow still builds higher, until we both are satiated and slouch into restfulness with our bodies feeling pleasantly stretched like cats in sunbeams, used, spent, and with the slight ache that often accompanies long and passionate sessions of love making the only twinge of physical discomfort I have felt since waking in the field. It doesn’t last long.
I spare a thought to pregnancy with more than a bit of longing. I don’t know if this place would let us change so much. Sex in this place has, however, helped us channel our words. Finally. And we say it again as we hold each other after the frenzy has passed, just to make sure they still stick.
“I love you,” I murmur. It’s a whispered promise that I hope will stay with him forever, or reach him, if he is, in fact, not really with me in here.
He strokes my hair. “I love you. I adore you.”
If I have been loved before, I know with certainty that I have never been adored. I have been wanted, chosen, and appreciated, but never with Caesar’s specific brand of knowing and treasuring the unique depths of me. And with such ease as to make me feel proud and beautiful and damn near perfect. It starts me crying happy, warm tears.
It rains outside. Drops ping down onto the skylight over our bed. The day is dimmer, with the rainclouds, but time does not rush by. We lay like that awhile, hours should have passed, but the girls don’t come looking.
Eventually, I hear their voices in the living room. We dress and go out. Astrid has gotten an apple for each of them, slice and smeared with peanut butter. Offered slices, we accept.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Let’s go have a look.”
We all troop to the kitchen, where we find we are working with a fridge and pantry fully stocked with fresh and dry and canned ingredients.
“Soup,” Caesar declares. “We have guests coming, best way to feed them all.”
“What kind?”
“I see corn, and black beans, and chicken. Let’s make a southwest style chicken tortilla soup.”
The girls approve, and eagerly follow him to the counter with all the ingredients. They follow Caesar’s instructions, Astrid is older so she gets to chop things, Josie helps by measuring seasonings to add to the broth base he puts together. He tells Astrid to chop an onion and they both gasp.
“No onions!
“Ew!”
“What?” he is aghast. “No onion? Onion is delicious.”
They start to chant and pound their small fists on the counter. “No onion! No onion! No onion!”
“Alight, fine, you win.”
They cheer.
I have been working on a dough for fresh bread to accompany the soup. “That’s just about the only thing they don’t like.”
“Maybe someday they’ll appreciate the beauty of an onion…” He has started to trail off at the end, realizing as he says it out loud that it’s the wrong thing to say. The girls don’t notice the way that he stops stirring the peppers and garlic cooking in a pan, or when he looks over at me to see if I’ve noticed, or if that simple sentence has shaken me the way that it has him. I knead dough and glance over, then down, continuing to work.
“Chicken,” he says, refocusing.
It’s interesting. I find a dry spot on my lip and pinch it in my teeth and pull. Blood wells up, metallic. When I go to poke the sore spot again with my tongue -so the pain can keep me in the present- it is gone. This place is endless and pleasant, unchanging and still in time. It is also trying to make me forget the outside world, and forget my reservations, but I can’t let that happen. I am enjoying this all for now, it feels as natural as breathing, but I need to keep my faculties and make sure I don’t fall into this uncanny valley.
Caesar misspoke, he didn’t do that for my benefit, he is not manifesting my doubts. He regretted it immediately, reminding me that the girls will never grow and never change in here. I am sure now that this is the Caesar I know. His consciousness is here with me. It is not just my mind, or his, it’s some neutral secondary location. Knowing that he is really here with me is comforting, but also disconcerting. The real Caesar can put up a fight. He has almost convinced me to do things I didn’t want to do, before. On the ship. He almost convinced me to stay.
We are going to have to have a hard discussion, soon.
But not while the girls are still around, not before the guests arrive and the soup is served. I knew they were coming, too. I can feel it.
*
They all arrive at the same time, right after the girls finish setting the table with the fine china. Caesar frowned when I suggested using it, probably knowing where my head was at based on the suggestion, or maybe just finding the idea of serving such a simple meal in them preposterous. But the girls are excited by it, and he lets it slide. Regina and Aaron bring a bottle of wine, she gives kisses to everyone as though my girls are her real grandchildren, and the resemblance is there, if I really look for it. The girls are tanner than I am, with shiny, black hair. I think they are perfect replicas of what they were, so maybe it is a coincidence, or maybe this place is infecting my memories, too… spreading deeper into my brain. Maybe they will call him ‘Daddy’ if we stay here much longer, and we will all forget the truth.
Tommy and Jessica are our other guests for the night. She is a round, blonde woman with a pretty and brightly shining face, glowing, actually. Her belly is big with child. She offers us a red velvet cake, and we find a place for it on the table.
Tommy offers his hand in the same moment I go for a hug, blushes fiercely and accepts, grumbling, “Oh, sure. How you doin’, Ceely?”
“Wonderful. It’s good to see you. And congratulations.”
I’m remembering, now. This was his house, but I guess not here… He let me stay, it was a business arrangement on my end, but he was lonely, glad for the company, and cared for me right away as if it were his duty. Really, it was just his nature. I remember him helping me off the dusty ground, carrying my jacket, strapping me into the seat of his bush plane. Bringing me sandwiches and tacos and beers, refusing my money. I suppose I consider him the best of us. I’m glad to see him, proud to introduce him to my girls, even if it’s only in this place. “This is Astrid, and this is Josie.”
He shakes each of their little hands in his big, meaty ones. “Pleased to meet you, ladies. Did you help make this dinner? It sure smells good.”
“Yes, we did!” they exclaim in unison, and it sends a little pang through me.
They might as well have been twins, for how similar they were. Astrid small for her age and Josie big for hers. Always thinking alike, wanting to be like each other, reinforcing each other. I was glad for it, their closeness, but knew they would grow out of it, eventually. I couldn’t wait to see them change, find divergent paths, become their own people. They would have been exceptional women, someday.
Everyone gathers around the table. Caesar gets me to serve, ladling out two big scoops of the fragrant, creamy, orange-brown soup into a bowl and then passing it off. The bowls make their way around to our guests, while the basket of fresh, warm bread goes the other way along with the butter dish. Caesar pops the cork off the wine bottle, starts to pour for the adults.
He sits at one end, I sit at the other, with a daughter on each side and a couple further down.
“Toast, anyone?” Aaron holds up his wine glass, looking around.
Tommy offers, “Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat?”
“Boo,” Jessica jeers her husband, making him go red again but then kissing him on his flaming cheek.
Caesar stands and holds his glass out, looking at me. “We’re together, and we’re safe, and we’re happy. That’s all that matters. To a beautiful life. Salud.”
“Salud,” people toast around the table.
They sip, first, then try the soup and sing its praises.
When asked what he is up to, Tommy tells of a fine crop for the season, and building a crib for the expected little one. Nothing fancy, he says. Jessica puts a hand on his and assures that he is being too modest, that he has built their little boy a beautiful and safe crib, from a tree from their own backyard, and that they have painted the nursery, gotten him lots of toys for stimulation, and that their son will know right away that his parents are proud, and that he’s loved. It sets Tommy to crying, almost. He hides his face in his napkin and sniffles.
I feel an ache again for my friend, for all that he deserved and lost come back around to him in this place. It’s the righteousness of it that is most tempting, I think. A place where people get what they deserve, based on the kindness of their hearts, and nothing can hurt them or take what’s theirs away. No sickness, no bad luck, no Fates twisting and spinning and snipping threads for their own amusement.
I think I know what this place is, now. I think Tommy, and Regina, and Aaron, and everybody will end up here, someday. I also think that the way my mind can still reach outward, back, mans that I am not truly here, yet. Not for good. I am still in between. Everyone laughs at something, their joy is loud and infectious and makes me smile even though I was not listening to what was said. Caesar beams with white teeth the entire length of the table away, but his smile turns troubled when he looks to me a moment later.
The guests don’t overstay their welcome. Eat and drink and laugh and then leave.
I tell the girls it is bed time, they whine to stay up longer, but I have always been firm and stick to my guns. Structure is important, even in this place. We troop upstairs, while Caesar puts the food away. He joins us a couple minutes later, after the girls have put on their nightgowns, and I have called them over to sit on Josie’s bed with me. I pull them close and hold them tight, smooth their hair and inhale the scents of them, remember the way they feel, every detail, hope I can recall the feeling when I need it. How holding them makes me feel whole. They start to fidget, want to be free. Tears rain down my face. I have to let them go. It doesn’t come naturally to me, not at all.
“A story?” Caesar suggests, earning their cheers and distracting them so that I can mop up my face as I pull away. “Go ahead and pick.”
Astrid picks, gives him the book as he wheels a chair in between their beds. But he stoops and covers Josie up first, makes sure she is tucked in tight while I do the same for Astrid. He sits, then, and pats his lap for me to join him. I shake my head. I stand watching, in the doorway.
He reads them a story about an angry, purple platypus. His voice is normal at first, low and urgent as if he’s riveted by what he is reading, as though it’s some urgent dispatch. But when he gets to the place in the story where the platypus itself speaks, he pitches his voice up bizarrely, his face scrunches and makes the girls giggle. I smile, watching, loving him more every second and also falling deeper into sorrow than I have ever felt before. I am looking at my family, but I’ve never felt so alone.
Josie has dosed off moments after the story is over. Astrid tells us goodnight and turns over, heading for sleep herself. Caesar turns off the light and shuts the door, and we stand close together on the landing. I fold my arms, take a deep breath. Before I can work up the courage to suggest that we talk, Caesar speaks.
“We should get to those dishes.”
I blink. “Sure.”
He puts his hand on my lower back as we descend, then splits off to the living room, where he starts a fire crackling in the hearth, and switches on the radio to a classics station, just loud enough that I can hear it over the rushing water from the faucet as I fill the sink.
Where, usually, one of us would wash and the other would rinse, here Caesar comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, laces his fingers through mine. We grip the sponge, the dishes, and wipe and scrub in the same movements as though we have one set of hands, as though we are the same person. We can sort of read each other’s minds, whether by virtue of being in this place or just knowing each other and being so in love, being in no hurry.
Caesar kisses my cheek, my neck, my temple every so often. As if there were any risk of me forgetting he is there, or that he adores me. It makes my heart ache. My loins, too, but I can’t let him distract me for much longer. It’s like a Band-Aid. Easier to get it over with.
“We need to talk,” I remind him, pulling the stopper to drain the sink as the last dishes are stacked on the rack and drying.
“Shh,” he whispers. “Not yet.” He takes my hand and pulls me into the living room, over to stand in front of the fire. He pulls my body tight against his, arms wrapping around me, a hand on my ass and one between my shoulder blades. I lean against him and let him lead me in gentle swaying. On the radio, Bob Marley is crooning, “Stir it Up.”
I let him have that one song, hold him as tightly as he is holding me. I wish I could give him the world. I wish I could give him the life and the family that he deserves. Another resounding ache in my chest, all for him this time. It’s enough to make me start crying again, burying a little sob in his chest that tears its way out of me.
It's his cue to stop, as the last seconds of the song die out. He sniffs, I hear emotion in his voice and pick up on him trying to stay strong. “I know. Chin up, kid. Let’s have that talk.”
He switches the radio off. I wipe my face and leave the warmth and coziness of the living room for the empty formality of the dining room. I sit at the narrow end of the table, and he takes the nearest chair, reaching for my hand across the top. He squeezes mine in both of his for a long minute. Then he lets me go, leans back and crosses his arms, ready to do battle it seems.
“You’re going to have to start,” he says. “I don’t know how to.”
“Alright… I think I know what this place is. I thought it was the afterlife, for a while. But it’s not. It’s not a final state, you can feel that too, probably?”
He nods. “What then, Purgatory?”
“No. I think it’s what happens when anyone dies. It’s where the tunnel of light and peaceful presence and our lives flashing before our eyes all happen. Synapses firing in the last moments, memories resurfacing, and that last bit of energy -the one that makes us what we are- carries it all onward so that the last moment feels like it lasts forever, if only in our minds. It’s comforting to think that Astrid and Josie experienced the same thing, that they’re living their perfect days, forever-.”
“-Astrid and Josie are upstairs.” His voice is a low murmur.
“No. They’re dead and stuffed in an ice chest, right next to where I’m lying unconscious or dead. Even if the power didn’t short out when we were struck by the creature’s defense mechanism, it still won’t last forever. If I stay here, they’ll start to rot. So will I. So will you.”
“I’ve never been a philosophical person,” he says. “But what does it matter, Ceely? Those are just bodies, they’re not what makes us who we are. I fell in love with you, not your body. Everything that we are is here, along with everything that matters, it’s- it’s everything a person could ever want. At least a sane, normal person. We could be happy here, forever.” He stabs his finger down on the table to punctuate the word.
“We could. Part of me wishes that I could.” I hope he can hear it in my voice. Here’s a man who can actually keep up, I think. Thirty years too late.
“Then just do it!” He captures my hand again. I realize that he is angrier than I have ever seen him, hardly able to hold in his rage and desperation. “Stay here, with me, with us. It might be hard at first, it might make you sad, sometimes, but I’ll be right there with you to help you through it. And I know that if we stay, you’ll forget eventually. It will be like this is the only life we’ve ever had.”
“I can’t forget. I know it would be easy, and good, but being a mother is not about taking the easy way out. I brought my children into the world so that they could have life, it was hard and painful, but I did it with my eyes open. This is going to be even harder, even more painful, but I have to do it for them, for that slim chance that I can bring them back and give them the possibility of changing, and growing, and everything that is supposed to come with life. Good and bad.”
His mouth is a tight line. “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
He nods, I can see that he is processing it all through his dark, expressive eyes. “If you weren’t such a good mother,” he says, after a long minute, “I wouldn’t love you so much. I saw this coming, I just hoped I was wrong.”
“If you wanted to stay, I’m sure it would seem to you that I never left. You would forget. You would be happy. I would understand-.”
“-No. If you’re going back, I’m going back. I told you, you’d always have me… If there’s no version of this where we get to be happy together, then I’ll just have to chase after you while you chase after that thing.”
“I don’t want that for you. I want you to salvage the rest of your life. I’ll be fine.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
I huff. I reach across the table and he takes my hand again. I know that asking him to give up on me is almost as hopeless as asking me to give up on them. “If things were different,” I say, slowly, “…nothing could keep me away from you.”
“I know.”
“Do we just leave?”
We both look at the wooden door.
“I would think so. Are you really ready, though?” His thumb traces softly across the lines of my palm.
“No. I never will be. We have to do it, before I lose my nerve.” I look back at the stairs. They’re sleeping up there, and they will stay that way while I live the rest of my life, trying -and probably failing- to get them back. Someday I’ll come back through the door, go up there, and it will be morning. We’ll have banana pancakes and we’ll all be together.
I push myself to my feet. I slide the chair back into its proper place against the table; always leave a place better than you found it. Caesar stands, too. He brushes himself off, takes a deep breath. I watch him for a moment while he’s lost in thought.
“What’s on your mind?” I can’t help but to ask.
He sighs. “I’m thinking of how lonely it’s going to be. Good thing I grew up lonely; I’m pretty much used to it.”
“That makes two of us.” I hold my hand out again and he takes it. He would never have said something like that out loud, in the real world. I hope I remember it all when I wake up. If I wake up. “Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Remember me like this.”
He looks at me for a long time, memorizing little details, I hope. “You’ll always be a knockout.”
He kisses me. I breathe in deep the scent of him, savor the taste, the softness of the kiss, the warmth of his tongue. Lightheaded, I tear myself away. Without another word, we make for the door, which he holds open for me. I see nothing but darkness outside. I keep hold of his hand and we walk out into it together, squeezing tighter as the feeling of each other fades.