Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(77)
Addy finished the story she’d been reading to Troy. She set it aside, then kissed her son. Seeing them together always made him feel as if the world wasn’t all bad. He wondered what his own son was like and how he’d fit into Addy and Troy’s family dynamic.
Probably like he’d never left.
Addy gave her son a final hug and kiss. Troy reached out to Owen for one as well, which took him by surprise. He hugged Troy, then got a kiss on his cheek. Owen looked up at Addy, feeling a little lost. She just smiled that happy mom kind of smile.
“Are you having a sleepover with my mom again, Owen?”
“I am. She and I both sleep better that way.”
“She’s nice to sleep with. Can I come over if I have a bad dream?”
“You can. And if the door’s locked, you could call us like you did last night. Maybe call us first so we’re sure to unlock the door.”
“Why do you lock it?”
“Because sometimes we’re talking and having that grownup time,” Owen said. “Often, it’s best if that isn’t interrupted. It’s a concentration thing.”
“Oh. Like reading.”
Owen chuckled. “Yeah. Like that. Night, Troy.”
“Night, Owen. Night, Mom.”
“Night, honey. Sleep tight. Your water’s on the nightstand.”
He rolled over to his side. “Have fun grownup time.”
Owen grinned at Addy. No sooner did he get her into his room than he locked the door and started helping her remove her slouchy pajamas. When she was naked, he let himself feast on the sight of her. He touched his fingers to her ribs. What he had in mind for them wasn’t going to be easy to do.
“Grownup time sounds terrible,” she said, laughing against his mouth.
“It does, doesn’t it?” He took off his clothes, stacking them on one of his teak chairs. “Tonight, though, I have something else in mind.”
“What?”
“Do you remember the picture I left in your room the day I came to your house?”
“The one of the dead person?”
Owen laughed. “That wasn’t meant to be a dead person. It was me, when you drew on me when we had chickenpox.”
“I don’t really remember that time. I was a lot younger than you.”
“Well, it gave me an idea. Have you heard of wabi-sabi?” Owen asked.
“No.”
He took her hand and led her to his bed. “It’s a Japanese aesthetic philosophy. It’s been described differently by many people, but at its heart, it’s a principle that sees beauty in the acceptance of melancholy and longing. It’s the understanding that nothing lasts, nothing’s finished, and nothing’s perfect. Not things. Not people. Not societies. And not souls. What’s most magical about it is that the wabi-sabi of something can be seen and therefore appreciated. For instance, the Japanese who honor this principle sometimes do so by fixing broken things so that the breaks can be seen. They’ll take a broken vase and glue the pieces back together with thin veins of gold so that the break is shown and accepted.”
“I like that.”
“Sometimes, when we have soul injuries, they can’t be seen. They live in the darkness inside of us, festering there, growing, expanding until all we believe we are is darkness and broken and unheard.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I feel that way.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“I’m trying not to. I try to find things every day that are beautiful.”
“I felt broken and empty after I lost you. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only get angrier. And now, to find I could have helped you, but didn’t—it’s another break in my soul. All this time I was fighting ghosts, not the real enemy. My life was a waste, for all the hard effort I gave the right thing, it was still the wrong thing. I am wabi-sabi.”
“I am, too.”
He nodded. “Do you trust me?”
Her answer wasn’t fast in coming. She nodded, but somehow, without the words being said, her trust wasn’t fully given.
He showed her the metallic pen he’d taken from Zavi’s classroom. “I’d like to use this pen to draw the breaks that live inside you. The gold will let light in and let the scars out. I can’t heal you. I can’t undo what was done. But I can accept you as you are now, the beauty of your strength and all you’ve withstood. I’d like to show you that beauty too. We are all becoming…something, even you. You aren’t any longer the woman I abandoned.”
She caught his hands. “You didn’t abandon me. Your life was taken from you too. You can draw the wabi-sabi on me if I can on you.”
He nodded. “I’d like to let the light in.”
“How does it work?”
“I listen to your body, hear where it says it hides a scar. And I draw where it shows me.” He smiled at her. “There’s no actual cutting and breaking. It’s an energetic thing.”
Addy nodded, but felt trepidation about what was to happen. He lit several candles around the room, then switched off the lights. The flames flickered with the slightest shift in air current. He selected a song on his phone that was a mixture of instruments and a background of rain.
He had her lie down on the bed. He stood next to it, silently, observing but not focused on her body. It wasn’t anything like the other times she was stretched out naked in front of a man. She wasn’t bound. It was only the two of them in his room, and there was no malice in his eyes.