“What did you dream, Rowan?”
She sat still, peering before her, and then she clasped her hands as if tearing at one with the other. And he was vaguely aware that he’d once seen her in that desperate gesture before.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what it was. It was this place … centuries ago, and these doctors were gathered together. And the body lying on the table was so small.” Her voice was low and full of agony and suddenly the tears spilled down as she looked up at him.
“Rowan.”
She put up her hand. As he sank down on the side of the bed, she pressed her fingers against his lips.
“Don’t say it, Michael, please. Don’t say it. Don’t speak a word.”
She shook her head frantically.
And sick with relief and hurt, he merely slipped his fingers around her neck, and as she bowed her head, he tried not to break down himself.
You know I love you, you know all the things I want to say.
When she was calmer, he took both of her hands and squeezed them tightly and he closed his eyes.
Trust me, Michael.
“OK, honey,” he whispered. “OK.” Clumsily, he stripped off his clothes, and he climbed in under the covers beside her, catching the warm clean fragrance of her flesh, and he lay there, eyes open, thinking that he would never rest, feeling her shiver against him, and then gradually as the hours ticked by, as her body softened and he saw that her eyes were closed, he slipped into uneasy sleep.
It was afternoon when he woke. He was alone, and the bedroom was suffocatingly warm. He showered and dressed and went downstairs. He couldn’t find her. The lights of the tree were burning, but the house was empty.
He went through the rooms one by one.
He went outside in the coldness and walked all through the frozen garden, where the snow had become a hard glistening layer of ice over the walks and the grass. Back around the oak tree, he searched for her, but she was nowhere to be found.
And finally, he put on his heavy coat and he went out for a walk.
The sky was a deep still blue. And the neighborhood was magnificent, all dressed in white, exactly as it had been that long-ago Christmas, the last one that he was ever here.
A panic rose in him.
It was Christmas Eve and they had made no preparations. He had his little gift for her, hidden away in the pantry, a silver hand mirror which he’d found in his shop in San Francisco, and carefully wrapped long before he left, but what did it matter when she had all those jewels and all that gold, and all those riches beyond imagination? And he was alone. His thoughts, were going round in circles.
Christmas Eve and the hours were melting away.
He went into the market on Washington Avenue, which was jammed with last-minute shoppers, and in a daze he bought the turkey and the other makings, rummaging in his pockets for the bills he needed, like a drunk searching for every last penny for a bottle he couldn’t afford. People were laughing and chatting about the snowfall. White Christmas in New Orleans. He found himself staring at them as if they were strange animals. And all their funny noises only made him feel small and alone. He hefted the heavy sack into one arm, and started for home.
He’d walked only a few steps when he saw the firehouse where his dad had once worked. It was all done over; he scarcely recognized it now except that it was in the same place and there was the enormous archway through which the engine had roared out into the street when he was a boy. He and his dad had sat together in straight-back chairs out there on the sidewalk.
He must have looked like a drunk now, for sure stranded there, staring at the firehouse, with all the fire fighters having sense enough to be inside where it was warm. All those years ago, at Christmas, his father dying in that fire.
When he looked up at the sky, he realized it was the color of slate now, and the daylight was dying. Christmas Eve and absolutely everything had gone wrong.
No one answered his call when he came in the door. Only the tree gave off a soft glow in the parlor. He wiped his feet on the that and walked back through the long hallway, his hands and face hurting from the cold. He unpacked the bag and put the turkey out, thinking that he would go through with all the steps, he’d do it the way he’d always done it-and tonight, at midnight, the feast would be ready, just at that hour when in the old days they’d be crowded into the church for Midnight Mass.
It wasn’t Holy Communion, but it was their meal together, and this was Christmas and the house wasn’t haunted and ruined and dark.
Go through the motions.
Like a priest who’s sold his soul to the devil, going to the altar of God to say Mass.
He put the packages in the cupboard. It wasn’t too soon to begin. He laid out the candles. Have to find the candlesticks for them. And surely she was around here somewhere. She’d gone out walking too perhaps and now she was home.
The kitchen was dark. The snow was falling again. He wanted to turn on the lights. In fact, he wanted to turn them on everywhere, to fill the house with light. But he didn’t move. He stood very still in the kitchen, looking out through the French doors over the back garden, watching the snow melt as it struck the surface of the pool. A rim of ice had formed around the edges of the blue water. He saw it glistening and he thought how cold that water must be, so awfully hurtfully cold.
Cold like the Pacific on that summer Sunday when he’d been standing there, empty and slightly afraid. The path from that moment seemed infinitely long. And it was as if all energy or will had left him now, and the cold room held him prisoner, and he could not move a finger to make himself comfortable or safe or warm.
A long time passed. He sat down at the table, lighted a cigarette and watched the darkness come down. The snow had stopped, but the ground was covered in a fresh clean whiteness again.
Time to do something, time to begin the dinner. He knew it, yet he couldn’t move. He smoked another cigarette, comforted by the sight of the tiny burning red flame, and then as he crushed it out, he merely sat still, doing nothing, the way he had for hours in his room on Liberty Street, drifting in and out of a silent panic, unable to think or move.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. But at some time or other, the pool lights came on, shining brilliantly up through the blackness of the night, making a great piece of blue glass of the pool. The dark foliage came alive around it, spattered with the whiteness. And the ground took on a ghostly lunar glow.
He wasn’t alone. He knew it, and as the knowledge penetrated, he realized he had only to turn his head and see her standing there, in the far doorway to the pantry, with her arms folded, her head and shoulders outlined against the pale cabinets behind her, her breath making only the smallest, the most subtle sound.
This was the purest dread he’d ever known. He stood up, slipped the pack of cigarettes into his pocket, and when he looked up she was gone.
He went after her, moving swiftly through the darkened dining room and into the hallway again, and then he saw her all the way at the far end, in the light from the tree, standing against the high white front door.
He saw the keyhole shape perfect and distinct around her, and how small she looked in it, and as he came closer and closer, her stillness shocked him. He was terrified of what he’d see when he finally drew close enough to make out the features of her face in the airy dark.
But it wasn’t that awful marble face he’d seen last night. She was merely looking at him, and the soft colored illumination from the tree filled her eyes with dim reflected light.