Four Times Blessed, page 22
I melt with the heat and relief. Lium rubs my back with steaming hands, speaking warm words into my hair. Even as I’m listening I don’t remember what he’s saying, but the words flow through me, taking some of the heat with them.
After a while, I’m drenched and so is he. I don’t know what he’s doing in the stillness, but I’m not doing anything. Not even thinking. So it surprises me when I speak.
“I’ll miss you.”
He pushes the little floating hairs back from my forehead and kisses my cheek. Curls lick the back of my neck. He is a great friend. I think someone blessed us. Lium’s arms run with trickles of water, and I watch them make their way, haltingly, then rushing down his skin, over the hairs and the drawings and the scars, and fall onto my legs, and our hands that rest there.
I squirm and look up at him, all flushed skin and darkened hair.
He tells me, “It won’t be the same. You won’t need a guard. And you’ll be busy.”
I don’t like the thought of being too busy for him, I find. It doesn’t seem right.
I think I’ve borrowed his dreamworld when I say, “But we’ll stay friends, though. We can be some of those old people, who sit around in chairs and gossip during family get-togethers, while everyone brings us food and asks us our advice. Can you imagine us two giving them all advice? We’ll have them running all around this island.” I watch his reaction, but I don’t understand the shifts in his features.
I stir in his arms, meaning to get some space and reason with him, but when I do I spot a tempting spot and before I know it I’ve settled my cheek into the luscious hollow by his shoulder, and gripped him tightly. He grips me too, the little movements he makes to accommodate me are genius. I never want to move again. My muscles become so very heavy.
“Hey.”
Lium jostles me so easily. I sit up and rub my eyes. He looks so warm, like he’s very sleepy. That’s how I end up feeling all day, and he seems to as well.
That evening, after a light supper of shellfish, salad, and bread, the brothers go and I have another dress fitting. It’s all in one piece finally, they’re just trying to get the seams all aligned with my edges.
When it’s done, I go outside and sit in a rocking chair on the front porch. I have faint, faint memories of sitting out here on the cool stone steps with my mother. She would say to me, “Crusa baby, come outside and look at the stars with me. They’re beautiful tonight.” And I would trundle out after her in my pajamas and we would crane our necks up and look at the sky in quiet.
She tried to point out the North Star, the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper, I think. I can’t really find them myself anymore because that was a long time ago and plus I was never exactly sure I was following her finger to the same star she was talking about. There were too many close together and the distance was too big. She didn’t really know any of the other constellations, I don’t think. If I wanted to know that I would probably have to go ask a fisherman. But my mother still thought each and every one was beautiful. I could tell it in her face, her soft, wondering smile. I liked to watch her as much as I liked to watch the stars.
Now whenever I picture her, I know the lines and contours mostly come from the photo of her I see every morning and night along the staircase. But sitting here, I don’t need to rely on an image so much to find her.
I don’t usually think about her, not because I don’t love her, but because she hasn’t been here for a long while. But tonight my zizi kept saying, your mother would’ve loved this dress, over and over again and crying. I wonder if she’s right. I know what kind of clothes Eleni and Cassie would love, so maybe she is.
Eventually, it gets a little chilly. I turn to go inside. Then I almost have a heart attack.
“Come here and sit.” My Uncle Groton beckons me over with a gentle wave. I take a seat on the very edge of the bench.
“You are marrying that Andrew.”
“Yes.”
“You do not have time for other things.”
“I know.”
“So what were you doing the other night with the dancing?”
“Nothing. Dancing, like everyone else.”
“Fine. You say you dance and that’s it, I believe you,” he says. Then he says nothing, and I wait, dying to be excused.
“Just don’t go ruining everything. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“The marriage you are having, it is good for you, child. We want for you to marry this good boy. We love you very much, but this far in, so close, anything is too suspicious. I wasn’t going to say it to you, but some people are talking.” I stay very quiet, very still.
“For now, it’s nothing. A sweet girl under the influence of a boy like that. You believe everything he tells you, I know you do, deep down in your little heart. But if you did do something that you could not deny, my dear, we would be disappointed.”
I’m too stunned to bow my head, so I turn to the side. I have to imagine it, how people would look at me, and the shame is…it’s fierce.
I’ve had enough, but my uncle, he goes on, “Do you know how hard it is to make an arrangement? At your age, people go quick. I would give you a new guard, but that would make things worse, I think.” I start feeling dizzy.
It seems my uncle’s done. He makes me hold his hand and swear that I have faith in his judgment, he says, I do, I say, and loyalty to the family, I do, I say. People here do this a lot when they’re making promises. You hold hands and you say I do. I’ve done it more times than I can remember.
But I think this is the first time I feel reluctance as I do it, because I don’t know what it is at first that makes me swallow hard when he grips my hand. It’s distracting, feeling so wrong and so right, so even when I realize my throat is too thick, I’m done with it.
The next night, I have a nice dinner with Andrew who tells me about his plans for when he gets back home. He’s a busy boy. Ambitious. I will have a husband with great ambition.
At the end of our date, he walks me back to the green. He takes my face in his hands, and looks at me. Maybe it’s because he’s comes and goes and comes like he does, that my senses are on high alert.
Now, so close, the tangibility of his body and my own are startling. I notice the little hairs on his skin, the way the tissues are warm, twitch and tug. Words I’ve studied and forgotten become music behind my eyes. I hear his breath and it’s husky and shy.
He leans forward, and his hands are very hot and a little moist but I don’t mind. I hold very still. Curious and excited and scared. All the attention of his body on mine goes to my head, I think. I think he’s braver than I thought when he touches his lips to mine, and I feel brave too when I accept it.
It’s a funny touch. Sweet and soft. We pull apart. Our faces are still very close and Andrew’s cheeks are brushed with scarlet. It’s pretty. He squeezes my shoulder before he steps backward down the porch. It’s a little funny. I should find a place for it in the portrait of our life I’ve been working on, that’s washing over the back of my mind now, but something keeps me from it.
I go to bed exhausted, but I can’t sleep. Eleni is out in Milo’s old room, but I don’t want to wake her to tell her about my first real kiss. I finally splash cold water on my face and go lay down again. This time, I just feel stretched and drained.
I try to study before breakfast, but I end up disassembling and reassembling my pen instead. “That one’s your mother,” Cassie says, out of hand but it leaves me with a strange rush. I nod. She carved it here when she was little. Lucia Marie. My zizi’s is there too, Angelina Marie. I feel a wish my mother wasn’t dead that pulls me out like the tide. I do notice when Larissa appears and puts her hand over mine. I also notice my engagement bracelets, a moment after, cool and thin.
I take my hand back and focus again on my page. The black and white is too mesmerizing, though, and instead of reading, I imagine my mother is here.
Still alive.
She kisses me.
She really is so beautiful.
I tell her I’m afraid to marry Andrew. That I don’t want to anymore. She asks what he’s done, and I tell her it’s my fault because I just don’t think I can be married. I’m not strong enough. Not womanly enough. Not selfless enough. She coos and hugs me because she’s my mother. And to her, I’m a child so I’m small and girlish and must be given everything, even as I’m hers, so I’m really strong and womanly and selfless. She tells me don’t marry him, don’t.
I’m cool and shaky. I decide to go up to the lab without Lium. I hold the bracelets in my fist while I’m at my station. Their clacking is messing with my analysis. I miss my mother for a bit, then yes, then no, then yes then no, then I’m fiercely glad she’s not here to see that I’m a failure. I sit still in my spinning chair and wait, because I miss her again, and my zizi says that time can insulate just like water.
The next week rushes by. I take my final boards and become a certified AIS at the Great Proficient level, New England Colony Base-Specific. They tell me I get the highest score on one of the tests, but I don’t listen anymore. I’m good. That’s what they wanted, so they don’t need to act so surprised.
The next Saturday morning is alright because I pretend Andrew isn’t coming today for me to marry him in seven days. I serve people breakfast, wash dishes, chop vegetables, it’s all very nice except for the knot in my stomach which I also ignore.
Then I knock over a tray of waiting crostini and my zizi tells me I need some fresh air. I spend all day in the graveyard, cleaning it.
That evening, Andrew sets us up a picnic on his boat with no help from his crew. Neither has he ordered from the base mess or so I assume from the overcooked, sticky pasta and lack of vegetables, but this just makes it all the sweeter. I thank him sincerely.
“Really? Because I wanted tonight to be special, but then I realized I don’t cook. In the army everything just comes prepackaged and…”
“It’s beautiful. Really.” He smiles in relief and I hate myself. I hate that I put him on edge like that.
“Andrew…”
“Wait, I have something to say.”
“You know you don’t-” he cuts me off with an upheld palm.
“Let me go first.”
I catch myself. I sit back and nod.
“Crusa. I grew up hearing about you. What your mother was like and what you would be like. I heard about how you were chosen for an academy and how you were at the top of your class. I even subscribed to your newsfeed tag so I could get all of your publications, just so I could feel you close to me, hear your words, your voice.
“I heard you were beautiful and that you were sweet, quiet, and kind. There were many other girls, but I always told myself that I had you waiting for me. You were everything that I could ever want in a bride. In a wife.” This is a very long speech. I’m quite sure he’s rehearsed it as well, because there are no pauses for me to jump in and spare us both. He’s continuing still.
“And when I came to this island and stepped off my boat, I found it all to be true.” I can’t help the puckering that twists my mouth, or the yelp in my head that begs him to let that be enough.
“I’m officially relocated. I was offered a transfer to the c-b center here, and I know you wish to stay near your family, so I took it. That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re so loyal to your family. So, Crusa, I’m saying to you…” he takes a big breath. “I am so pleased you will become my wife in a few days,” and he kisses the back of my hand.
I seem to be frozen. He notices, so he adds, “And we’ll be married.”
Oh, Sweet Mother of God, this is just so far off from where I wanted us to go.
“Andrew…” I have the strangest compulsion to add a “sir,” to the end of that. I try again.
“Andrew. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?” His expression becomes faintly curious.
“I mean, I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you on Saturday.”
“Why not?” Now he’s got a spark in him. “What’s on Saturday? Nobody told me anything. Let’s just do it on Friday, then.” Imagining the wedding even sooner, albeit completely in theory, makes my heart flutter.
“Andrew, not Friday either. I mean to say, I’m not going through with it. I’m, I’m backing out.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No!” We haven’t even had sex. How would I be pregnant. He must think I’m a slut, I realize, and it hurts. And he still wanted to marry me?
I’ve been sitting with my legs folded to the side on the yellow picnic blanket he’d set on deck. Now, I push back towards the railing.
I find I’m not at all afraid to look him directly in the eye, and when I speak my voice is very even.
“I just can’t do it. Because…I can’t. It’s too much. I can’t. I can’t be everything that you want me to be. I know it. I’m not any of those things you said I was and I’ve never been them. I can’t be your wife. I can’t be a wife.” And that’s it, that’s the truth.
“What the hell are you talking about?” His voice is too high pitched, and I stifle a cringe.
“I’m so sorry…”
“So what’s all this been, then! Why did you make me waste all my time with you?”
My chest sinks, “Andrew, I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. I thought it would be perfect, just like you did. I’m sorry!” I don’t know what else to say. He stares at me as if he cannot comprehend my existence.
“Listen,” he says. He puts his hands on his hips. I settle down, because he seems to have regrouped.
“Maybe you’re just scared. Go talk to your aunt, and she’ll calm you down, I know she will. That’s part of why we need to live by her. See, it’s working out already.”
Tears swell in my eyes.
“No, I will not do that!”
“Why not, dear?”
“Don’t call me dear! And I’m not scared and I don’t want to be calmed down!”
“I understand. You can go home now, I need some space. I have to stick around at the base for a few days to work out the transfer so I’ll be around. You just come find me when you get over your jitters.”
I sit there, dumb. Then I stand, wanting to say something horrible but my teeth are clenched too tight so I can’t. Also, I can’t think of anything scathing enough. I do wrench off all the bracelets I have on and chuck them at his feet.
He rolls his eyes just as I turn, with military precision, thank you academy education, and stomp across the deck. Noticing the stairs aren’t down, I throw my leg over the edge of the boat with something less than grace but more than enough gung-ho attitude to make my physical education instructor proud. Which incidentally wasn’t hard to do, considering that most scholars proved athleticism and intelligence are definitely not genetically linked traits.
Clinging to the other side of the rail, I see he’s still standing there, right where he was.
“I won’t ever marry you, Andrew.”
“Babe…” he rolls his eyes.
“I won’t. I swear to God, I won’t do it!” I point fiercely at him.
“Crusa,” he says my name, but the taste of it in his mouth, he can’t take it. His mouth curls.
He shouts, “Just shut up!” and my stomach tenses sickly. His cool smoothness has disappeared. There are flat grey shadows raked across him.
“Just shut up!” he screams again. Spit comes off his lips. His eyes strain from wide open to squinted. “Why do you have to do this? I don’t understand!” he stalks towards me.
“Andrew…it’s fine, please…”
He glides the last two steps to me, as I throttle the railing. This is a horrible, horrible position. The boy hovers over me, so close I can feel his heaving, feel his trembling. See the purples, reds, and whites in his knotted fists.
I need to get out of here.
“Damn you, I don’t understand it!” He doesn’t touch me, his arms are by his sides, yet I shudder. I close my eyes, gone in a lukewarm daze.
He screams a torn up scream, spins, and punches the wheelhouse wall.
I’m done. This isn’t my fault anymore. He isn’t even aware that I’m here, in this rage. I’m gone.
With just whispers accompanying my movements, I drop into the water, swim a few meters to the dock, haul myself up, and sprint all the way to the meetinghouse. Simple as that.
I go straight to my zizi in the kitchen. She sits me down and pulls it all from me, slobbery and broken as my words are. She holds me to her breast and tells me we’ll fix it. That he was just upset, and he’ll still marry me. Just let her talk to him. I’m horrified. I tell her no, I’m not marrying him! She says yes, I just need to calm down. I scream at her to leave me alone.
I go to the old graveyard and sob by a thin shale marker that’s tilted.
After the tears roll off, I lay there for a while. And think. Hard. I go to the base early, sometime around when the bells toll three forty-five, so there’s nobody around but the security guards. Purposefully enough that none stop me, I go up to one of the kiosks in the Personnel Offices. I check a few boxes, type a paragraph about serving my country, give them my PSID, and promise them yes, this is really me. It’s easy, really.
Later that night, I sit out on the back porch while everyone has dinner. I stare off into the woods where the graveyard is. It’s comforting, knowing the dead people are over there. I feel like we have a lot in common. I wonder if I’ll be one of them soon.
Even though I’m a certified AIS, colonial units are often sent to the worst places. It’s not very fair, but if I’m going to deploy then I want to be in an area of significance. So it’s perfect, really.
I wander down to Lium and Hale’s boat to wish them farewell. Before I can even knock, though, Lium’s crashed through the door. He throws his arms around me and picks me up, and kisses me hard.
