He smiles dimpleless. “Well, you still have plenty left to see. You’ve chosen to live with this for a while.”
For a while? Forever.
I kiss him. Here, in this garden that now has both our stories, not caring an atom who sees us. At first his kiss is light. Then it changes. His tongue and lips don’t move with their usual domination. Just a slow togetherness. For a long time, until the shade of the rose hedges falls over us. When he pulls away, he is as breathless as I am.
“You’re the first person—the only person—I’ve told that story to.”
“I’ll keep it well,” I say, kissing his scar. “What was Marshall’s name?”
“Jacob. Jacob Samuel Marshall.”
“Maybe we should plant a rose for him?”
He smiles. His voice is returning. “I don’t know. Flowers were not his thing.”
“What about a tree? In our new garden at home?”
The dimple forms. “If you want.”
“What tree should we pick?”
He shrugs. “You’re the scientist. Never asked him what trees he liked.”
I tuck it away for deep study tonight. It’s a giant leap that he is even considering it. He takes a deep breath and only now I notice how rare his breaths were during the story.
“Come,” he says, rising to his feet and tucking my hand in his arm again.
I follow him, not caring where. It makes no difference. We leave the Shakespeare Garden, snapping a picture of Lady Clare’s blooms. Benson walks large some distance behind us. Aiden retraces our first steps under the tunnel of climbing roses. Every time we see a passerby, we stop and wait for them to stroll away. His muscles never stop vibrating. All the way to the fountain in the center. He smiles and digs in his pocket.
“We can’t leave without your wish.” He tips a few quarters in my palm.
I kiss his hand and turn my back on the fountain. I have so many more wishes this time. For him to love me. For him to keep me. For the green card to come through. I ignore them all again, blow on the coins and throw them behind me. Plop. Plop. Plop. Then I turn, knowing his face is waiting for me exactly as our first night.
“What did you wish for?”
“If I tell you, it won’t come true.”
“Or maybe it will.”
“I wished for you to get better, to allow love in your life and to forgive.”
His eyes are now clear sky. Without looking away from me, he reaches in his back pocket for his iPhone and taps a few numbers from memory.
“Doctor Corbin, please… Aiden Hale… Yes, Doctor, this is Aiden Hale, you—oh, you remember…thank you…”
I listen to him make an appointment for next Tuesday with a clenched throat. He stares at his black sneakers, kicking an invisible pebble. He hangs up as soon as he politely can.
“This should be interesting,” he says with a most un-Aiden-like tight smile. He kicks the invisible pebble some more. I’ve never seen him more uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” I say, caressing his scar and reaching on my tiptoes to kiss him.
He frowns and for a moment, I fear I triggered another flashback. But it’s not me this time. His phone has buzzed again. Bloody hell! I almost rip it off his hand and throw it in the fountain, but he answers it before I can.
“Bob?… Yes, yes, she’s here.”
I’m immediately sober. He shoves the phone in my shaking hand.
“Hello?” I whisper, my voice all gone again.
“Elisa, this is Bob. We may have a problem, dear.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Rightness
The rose-covered horizon sways and tilts as if I’m falling. A strong arm clutches at my waist, holding me upright.
“What problem?” I gasp.
“Put him on speaker,” Aiden fires before Bob has a chance to answer. I try to press the speaker button but my hands are shaking so badly that Aiden takes the phone from me and does it himself.
“Bob, you’re on speaker. What’s the issue?” he demands in his hard business tone.
“Well, we just learned that the Department of Justice has launched a full investigation of Feign Art for consumer fraud and tax evasion. They’re inspecting everything, from his client roster to his personal finances.”
“What does that mean for me?” I splutter.
“It means that they’ll most likely discover your under-the-table work.”
“But how will they know my name? I’m not on any personnel files.”
“Apparently, there was video footage of you from the security camera, as well as sketches and some photos, dear. The DOJ did their normal procedure and ran them against the Homeland Security database. You’re on there because you’re a foreign national. So now, they want to question you to see what you know about Feign’s business and what you do for him. Our contact confirmed you’re on the list of persons of interest.”
The horizon tilts again. “Were there any other names on the list?” Not Javier. Please, not Javier.
“Ah, let’s see.” Some shuffling of papers. “Feign, his family, a Kasia Moss, accountant, financial advisor, landlord, a supply deliveryman. Why?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Nothing that could lead them to Javier. I say a silent thank-you to every power that Javier always followed the rules and used the secret back door. “Just…nothing,” I answer a little late. “What happens now?”
A small pause. “Well, if they learn you’ve worked illegally, that could mean anything, even—well, let’s meet in my office first thing tomorrow morning and discuss options.”
I know his unfinished sentence. Even denial of my green card. My knees give out. The same strong arm breaks my fall before my face hits the fountain edge.
“Not tomorrow, Bob. Now!” Aiden hisses through his teeth.
“I can’t, Mr. Hale. I’m due in court—”
Bob’s words become disjointed, scrambled, until his voice fades into silence. The garden vanishes. No gurgling fountain. No rose-scented air. All that’s left is a dark void. And me.
Oxygen, 15.999— A gust of cinnamon breath on my face reactivates my lungs. Once, twice. Slowly, the smell of roses seeps through. Then Aiden’s midnight eyes and his body heat around me. And finally his voice—back to its furious, dominant timbre.
“And Bob?”
“Yes, Mr. Hale?”
“I will say this only once. England. Is not. An option. I don’t want to hear it tomorrow, the day after or ever. Is that clear?”
A moment of silence follows his words.
“I understand, Mr. Hale,” Bob wheezes at last. “And, Elisa, please try to sleep tonight. We’ll do our absolute best on this.”
It takes another gust of cinnamon air for me to find my voice. “Thank you, Bob,” I choke.
Aiden hangs up and tightens his arms around me. “Hey! Shh, shh,” he murmurs, sitting on the fountain edge and folding me on his lap.
The shivers I was managing to contain break through, and I start convulsing.
“I’ve got you. I won’t let them hurt you. Just breathe, baby. I’m here.” He kisses my cheek, my temple, my hair.
But his words give me no comfort. They only remind me of what’s at stake. Of how much more there is to lose.
“Shh, baby, shh. Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003,” he recites slowly, in rhythm with the circles he draws on my back. He runs through the table five times before the shivers start receding. Still, his fingers never stop caressing my shoulders. I focus on their motion, imagining letters, words. L—o—v—e.
“Say something,” he croons, tipping my face up to look at him.
The moment I meet his eyes, the question I’ve never asked him breaks through. “What if I have to leave?”
His shoulders twitch once. “We’ll fight this with everything we have,” he says fiercely.
But I hear what he can’t promise me: that it will not happen.
“Let me see what I can find on that fucker, okay? I want anything that can get us leverage.” He sneers as he refers to Feign, and his foot starts tapping. Itching for action. I nod to give us both some relief.