28.
I sit beside the sun-drenched window, desperate as any house cat that was never, not once, let out of doors. Our curtains have fled. Our nightstands, our bureaus, our paintings, our china, our dining table, our lampshades, our trinkets, our dresses, our suits, our stashes of jasmine tea, have all deserted us. The house shivers with loneliness. Piles of boxes line the hallways. The only smells that remain are cardboard and must. Doors slam. All the wind has been let in. The house has forsaken gravity. It will just float away. Simon got a fine price, someone whispers. It feels like the changing of seasons, but from when to when, I no longer know. It is warm enough.
A crow perches on the windowsill, some warning of the darker future. I close my eyes and return instead to the old cemetery in New York. At last it feels like spring, but the grass is cold from the melting of the frost. Still, there shines the sun, warm on our stupidly bare skin. Our legs are intertwined. The red in his beard gleams in that sudden April. My hands spread over his back and I draw him closer to me. I have forgotten he has only just recently made me angry. But for what?
“Lyra,” Gabriel says. “Like the constellation. With Cygnus it forms the Summer Triangle.”
“The train leaves at seven in the morning,” I say, interrupting his lecture.
He kisses my mouth shut. “The train isn’t leaving.”
Gabriel is so close to me, I notice a small pimple forming on his inner eyelid. In the morning it will hurt him, I know. Everything will.
“I can’t bear to ever see you sad on account of me,” I say.
“Well, chérie, I’ll try not to die from it,” Gabriel replies. “Besides, we won’t be staying there long, right?”
“Oh, just a couple of centuries,” I say jokingly.
“You promised me, Elle Bell.”
And then it was morning. I stood between the two of them, wary of being too close to Gabriel. Simon shook his hand vigorously. “The famous cousin!”
“I’m so grateful for the opportunity.” Gabriel’s voice changed. Suddenly I was being held in Simon’s arms. “I’d been meaning to get back down to a warmer climate.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will be very happy on the island.” Simon’s voice was too sweet and his arms were so thin. I felt like a giant in his embrace. “Funny, you two don’t look a lick alike. Of course, that might be because Elle is so very beautiful,” Simon said. “No offense to you, Gabe. Can I call you Gabe?”
Gabriel hated the nickname. “I take after my father, she her mother,” Gabriel said quickly. “And, sir, you can call me anything you like.”
“Elle, I couldn’t get a ticket for Gabe in first class,” Simon said to me. What did my face do then? I’ll never see it. But Gabriel rescued me from it.
“Oh, it’s quite all right, sir,” Gabriel said. “I’ll see you two lovebirds on the other side of the rainbow.”