Authors: Katherine Leiner
He pulls my T-shirt over my head and looks at my breasts and again into my eyes. “Is this okay? Are you all right with this?”
I put my fingers on his mouth to quiet him. “I think I started it, didn’t I?”
He kisses me again, lifting me off the table and into his arms. And then we are both struggling to get our trousers off as quickly as we can. And before I know it we are down in the tall grass. Half sitting, I wrap my legs around his waist, drawing myself as close to him as I can, my chest against his, holding him, his strong muscular back, feeling the long-ago familiar shape of his head, his ears. My face so
close I smell the faint scent of the lavender soap and I kiss him again. He moves me so he can inch my panties off and I guide him, feeling his warmth as he slips inside me. His hands embrace my buttocks firmly as he pulls me toward him, kissing me back. Then he lays me back on the grass, his arms cushioning me, and goes so deep. I am completely lost in Evan. After a while we are both crying.
And then, under the moon, we sleep, naked in the field. Several moments, a half hour later, I awaken and roll onto Evan. In this quiet dark I feel as close to him as I have ever been to anyone.
“Do you miss him?” he asks, so quietly.
I wait for Marc’s presence to manifest beside us. Instead, there is emptiness, as if I am the sand as the sea pulls away from it.
“I will always miss him.”
“It was a stupid question. I shouldn’t have asked it. Of course you will always miss him. How could you not?” Evan pulls away, if only slightly. I have ruined the moment for him. He wanted me to say something else. I turn and wrap myself around him there in our field—legs, arms, shoulders.
“It wasn’t a stupid question. You can ask me anything you want. I might not always have an answer. At least not immediately, but it feels good that you want to know me now. I want to know you, too, Evan.”
Putting my lips on his for only a moment, I am not surprised at how quickly I am wet and ready for him. When he is inside me again, I pull his buttocks to me, arching up so that he goes so deep I feel myself begin to disappear. I sit up and wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him toward me until we are both sitting. When I put my arms around him, I feel light and free. And it is all fire and I am burning, burning, not at all afraid. Through a long tunnel I hear him say, “Alys, I love you. My God, how I love you.” I can see his face in the faint moonlight, in our field. It is beautiful. Evan is so beautiful. I try to come back to him but I am throwing myself through the waves again and again, until there is one I can ride, and it is so wild all I can do is hold on for dear life.
A
s the dark really takes hold, the temperature drops. After our dinner, we wash up and Evan gathers our sleeping gear to the back field.
At dinner I had asked him if he knew how many stars there were in the sky. It is a rhetorical question, but he goes along with me.
“You know, I’ve wondered that myself. I’ve a map of them. We could sleep out tonight if you like. Count them. I happen to have one of those subzero sleeping rolls in case the temperature drops.”
I think he is kidding, but before much time passes he gathers a flashlight and binoculars and his star map. But by the time we get out, the sky has hazed over a bit and we can’t see all that much. We locate the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and Orion, his bow and sword so bright I feel I can almost reach out and touch him. As Evan points out the constellations for me and begins a favorite story about “Leo the Lion” his mam used to tell him, I roll closer to him. Soon, the two of us, tucked up snugly in Evan’s sleeping roll, fall asleep. The next thing I know, I am pulling the bedroll over my head to escape the misting rain on my face and neck, like someone is watering us with a watering can.
“Have we ever made love in the rain?” Evan asks, kissing my neck. “Let’s just open the roll and do it right here.”
By the time we gather everything up, we are both drenched to the bone, slogging ourselves and all the gear down the hill, with Evan shouting at me not to forget the flashlight or the pillows.
Despite the fact that I don’t sleep in the guest room but rather in Evan’s bed, it is a wonderful night’s sleep.
The next morning is Saturday, and after a good long sleep in, we build a fire, I mix up some griddlecake batter and Evan picks blackberries from the garden. The sun begins to come out from behind the few clouds left from the night before. The batter made, I luxuriate in front of the fire wrapped in an old Oxford shirt of Evan’s, thinking about how incredible it is that we have this time between us to begin to feel things out. No, it’s much more than that—it is like a gift from the gods. We’ve discussed the possibility of a hike before I go over to my parents, or even more lovemaking. Looking out the kitchen window, Evan says, “For goodness’ sakes, there seems to be someone walking up the drive! Two someones to be exact. I’m not expecting anyone. Don’t move a muscle, Alys. I’ll deal with them.”
It doesn’t even occur to me to put a robe on, expecting Evan will handle it. Chase the intruders off. He’s gone for quite a long while. I sit quietly, not a serious thought in my head for once, watching the flames chasing each other. Then the door opens and Evan comes in. “Alys …”
The way he says my name, I turn quickly and see Dafydd and Hannah.
“Seems your children missed you, Alys.” Evan’s smile says everything.
I am stunned. For a moment we just stare at each other. And then I shout, “Ohmigod!” Hannah runs into my arms like she used to when she was five or six, grabbing me and burying her head as far between my breasts as is possible. Hard to believe, but she is taller than when I left her in Colorado less than a week ago, and sturdier. “What’s going on, sweetie, Dafydd?”
Dafydd stands quietly, a kind of smirk on his face. “Sorry, Mom.” He shrugs. “Hannah was homesick.”
It takes me a moment to fully grasp what he’s said. “Homesick? Oh, sweetie, no.”
And then I stop and ask as calmly as I can, “What exactly do you mean, ‘Hannah was homesick’?”
“I mean, Hannah was homesick.” He stands there, all six feet of him, with his hands in his pockets now, a sheepish grin on his face. I realize he is playing with me. He wanted to come on this trip and so he found a way.
“Why didn’t someone from the camp tell me?” While I say this, I pull Hannah close to me; she smells of something sweet, oranges. I rub her back in the spot that’s quieted her since she was a baby.
“I tried to call, but you’d checked out of the hotel. You didn’t leave your parents’ phone number. There are twenty-four pages of Davies in the South East Wales area. I didn’t know how to reach you. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just thought, Well … it was one of those occasions where I just used my ‘better judgment,’ as you would say.” He smiles at me, straightening out his tweed sports jacket and adjusting his gray trousers.
“Better judgment? Ten hours on the plane and four thousand miles of traveling, not to mention the expense.” I realize I am standing there in my underwear, my bare legs hanging out of one of Evan’s old shirts, and Hannah and Dafydd have never before laid eyes on Evan. Hardly the perfect moment to be a sanctimonious parent. “Good thing I hadn’t gone back to the States, huh. Well.” I don’t know what else to say. “I suppose you’ve both met Evan.”
Evan nods. I hug Hannah closer. “Thank goodness you’re safe.” Dafydd comes over and puts his arms around me and gives me one of his air kisses.
“Where are your suitcases?”
“They’re at your parents’.” Dafydd smiles.
“Oh my God, you’ve already met my parents? How?”
“Well, just your mom. Your dad was sleeping. We took a taxi from Heathrow to Paddington Station, a train to Cardiff and then another taxi from Cardiff to Aberfan. The first door we knocked on—Garland, I think their name was—they knew where your parents lived.”
“A taxi? The Garlands?” I say, disbelieving. It’s not the taxi, of course, or the Garlands that astonish me. How, where did Dafydd get the—well, balls, to just hop a plane and come, to locate Mam and Da? What must she think of me now, my two children arriving on their doorstep, neither of them knowing where I am? And then I remember all the things my family has lived through in this small town that didn’t do them in. And of course this won’t either.
“Your mom said we could stay with her. She didn’t think Evan had enough room for all of us,” Hannah says, eyeing me suspiciously, her voice more grown-up than I remember. “She showed us your room. I asked her if she had any of your stuffed animals or
other stuff and she said that she’d kept a small box with some of your favorites. She’s going to get it out of the attic so I can look through it.” I can’t believe Mam still has anything left of mine.
Hannah looks first at me and then at Evan, up and down, her eyes squinted. “Are you staying here
alone
with Evan?”
Fortunately my open suitcase is in the guest room, although my clothes from yesterday are strewn out all over Evan’s floor. I rub Hannah’s head and try to ignore the question.
“Not exactly, Hannah,” Evan says, covering for me. Thankfully, he diverts her attention. “Do you like cats?”
She nods.
“Would you mind terribly helping me over here for a moment?” She moves slowly toward Evan. “I have these three wild kitties that live outside but need feeding. Could you take their bowls out for me? I’ll bring the food.”
Dafydd stands in front of me looking guilty. Next to Evan, the likeness is uncanny: the blue-green eyes, the dark hair, the height—even the way they stand, kind of balancing on one foot.
When the door slams behind Hannah and Evan, I ask Dafydd, “So?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, exactly what happened, Dafydd?”
“Apparently she called home for two days straight, leaving messages on the machine. Then she called me,” he explains, pausing. “She was tearful, wanted to go home. That same afternoon, not being able to get ahold of you, her counselor called me. We agreed she should try to stick it out. They started out on a three-day backpack trip, and by the second night, Hannah wanted out. The next morning, the camp director called me to say he’d gotten her to agree to stay the course of the backpacking trip, but it was his feeling that she was having a very difficult time being separated from you. Then
I
tried to find you and couldn’t.” His worry and anger are evident.
“But I called the camp two nights ago. I spoke to someone ’How come no one said anything to me?” I’m backpedaling and he knows it. “And I called
you
several times,” I say.
“Yes, I got your messages, Mom, but you didn’t mention you were leaving the hotel. You didn’t leave a number. It’s so unlike you.”
Shit.
“I was worried when I called and they said you’d checked out. So, being her guardian in your absence, I asked the camp to put her on a plane and send her to me.”
“Dafydd. Omigod—are you telling me Hannah flew by herself? To New York?” I grab the back of the rocker. “That’s not just one plane—it’s two.”
“She’s almost nine, Mom. Plenty of children fly by themselves at an even younger age. I arranged for an escort.”
“How did you get time off?”
“I took it. I felt this was’well’ kind of an emergency.” He looks me straight in the eye.
I think about the conversation we’d had the night before I left Los Angeles for Wales. “You used the opportunity. I told you I wanted to do this on my own.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll agree. I
seized
the opportunity.” He smiles at me, almost wickedly. “Kind of caught you with your pants down, didn’t we?” He laughs.
“Dafydd, that’s neither appropriate nor funny,” I say sternly, trying to stifle my own smile, angry at myself for all the years I haven’t managed to keep the boundaries between parent and child somewhere in line.
“Sorry,” he laughs. “I couldn’t help myself.”
I know this blase act is a front, but I play along with it. “I think I’ll just go put some trousers on. Perhaps you should go get to know Evan or something.”
My anger is rising. I feel like a complete idiot as I slither into the bedroom. I grab my leggings and T-shirt from the floor and quickly push everything else under the bed. Why didn’t I leave a forwarding number at the hotel? What was I thinking, or not thinking? What kind of mother am I? I knew it was too soon to leave Hannah. I let her talk me into it. I quickly pull the cozy up on the bed and fluff the pillows and look around to see what other signs of me there are in Evan’s bedroom.
I try to pull myself together and get out there, but before I can move, Hannah is peeking in at the door.
“Are you mad at us, Mommy?” She doesn’t move from the doorway.
“Mad?” Yes, I’m mad, totally over the top, but I can’t tell her that. “Oh, Hannah, no, I’m not angry. The only one I should be
angry at is myself for not leaving a number when I checked out of the hotel. Come here, sweetie.” I put my arms around her. “I am so sorry.” Her small body next to mine makes me realize how much I have missed her.
“Your mom seems really nice. We couldn’t see your dad ‘cause he was sleeping. We left all our stuff there, but Dafydd told her we had to wait and see what you said about us staying there. Are you really staying here?”
I bite my upper lip and nod. Hannah looks around the room. Her eyes rest for a moment on my backpack. Somehow I missed it in my search. “In this room?”
’Well, yes, Hannah,” I finally say. After all I am an adult, able to sleep where and with whom I want to sleep, right? And then, quickly changing the subject, I add, “You must be hungry and tired. Let’s get some breakfast for you right now.
“I’m so glad to see you.” I kiss her on the neck. “So you actually flew by yourself? Were you scared?” We hold hands as I usher her out of the bedroom, thinking about 9/11, thinking about terrorists the world over.
“Not even a little bit, I swear. I can’t believe you’ve never let me fly by myself. It was soooooo much fun. The flight attendant from Denver to New York kept asking me if I was all right and giving me lots of nuts and pretzels and Cokes. I had two desserts.