The Water Keeper(107)

I needed a few days to acclimate, so the climb was slow; I had yet to fully recover from my wounds. Actually, my climb was anemic. I had a ways to go yet. I made it to the Nest just before sundown. Although late summer, the temperature had dropped into the forties and the wind had picked up. Cold for a Florida boy. I built a fire, made coffee, and stared down from the porch at Freetown. I could recognize the body shapes and sizes. The cadence of each person’s gait. I knew most by sight. And each sighting made me smile.

I would make my way down tomorrow. Tonight, I only wanted to see one person. Having some time and distance behind us, I needed to know if the sight, the sound, and the smell of her tugged on me. Or was my emotional connection to her just a function of the trauma we both had suffered in our ordeal? I stood staring down on the town, needing to know if I could give my heart to another. Was it healthy enough, and did I have control over it such that I could give it away? Was it even givable? I didn’t know, which explained my staring through binoculars at the chateau where Summer, Angel, and Ellie had lived the last month or so.

Angel and Ellie were cooking dinner. Singing. Twirling over a pot of boiling water. Angel held pasta in her hand like a conductor’s wand while Ellie sang into a microphone that looked like a wooden spoon. Angel looked healthy and happy; she’d even put on a few pounds, which she needed. Her hair had returned to its normal color—an auburn brunette. Ellie looked lighter and carefree. As if her new life was agreeing with her.

The radio had been turned up loud, and the two of them were currently blaring the Supremes. “Stop in the Name of Love.” Every time Angel sang the chorus, she’d scream, “Stop!” at the top of her lungs and hold out a stop-sign hand, followed by more conducting with the pasta in the other. Quite comical. It also showed how far she’d come in her own healing and the loss of inhibitions. She had become comfortable in her own skin. Ellie continued singing into the spoon, her voice slightly louder than the projection from the speakers. I studied the house, the windows, and all the doors. The kitchen table had been set for four, but there was no sign of Summer.

The sun fell and the air grew cooler so I pulled on a Melanzana hoodie, stoked the fire, and wrapped my hands around a warm mug. I was about to retire to the couch when the sound of footsteps echoed from the shadows. They were light and quick.

Like a dancer.

Two hands wrapped around my waist, and I felt a woman’s warm bosom press against me. I didn’t need to turn.

She whispered, “Missed you.”

I was struck by how healthy she looked. I was also struck by how incredibly glad I was to see her. Something in me actually fluttered.

She smiled. “You owe me a dance.”

“I have a question for you.”

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“Which thing is that?”

“The thing where you ignore the hard question by saying something out of left field.”

I tilted my head. “Maybe.”

She smirked, hands extended. “I’m waiting.”

I struggled to find the words. I lifted her right hand off my neck and pressed it flat across my chest. “A long time ago, I gave my heart away. And I spent something like twenty years without one. I mean I had the organ, but part of it was missing. Then, here recently, it came back to me. And I have it again. The problem is that it doesn’t fit in me anymore. While it was gone, it grew. The place in me where it used to go is too small to hold it. So it needs a home. And I was wondering if . . . you’d hold on to it. Maybe take care of it. I’m wondering if you’d be the keeper of my heart.”

Summer leaned against me and pressed her face to my chest.

We stood swaying. I whispered, “For a long time, I felt my life was over. Measured in faces returned to those they love—most of whom never knew me. It can be an occupational hazard to get close to the girls and women I find. So I quit thinking about love a long time ago. Figured that was beyond me. Passed me by. Maybe I’d had my chance.

“Then I’m motoring south down the ditch, minding my own business, when I see you steal a boat and venture off into deep water when you couldn’t even swim. And I thought, What kind of woman does that? Then you told me about Angel and you were so honest and self-effacing and just spilled your heart across my eggs and coffee. And you have that little twirl thing you do unconsciously when you’re thinking or you’re hurting.

“By the time we returned to the boat, I was swimming in the thought and smell and presence of you. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, and something in the center of my chest started hurting. Some part of me that had been dead, or dormant, was waking up and coming back to life. And the pain I felt wasn’t something dying but a muscle being flexed. And I thought, Can’t be. I’ve forgotten how. It’s been too long. Who would think twice about me?

“Yet ever since I stood on the tarmac and watched you all disappear into the clouds, you’ve been on my mind. Often. Most days I can’t get you off my mind. I find myself rehearsing what I’d tell you if you were there, and then I say it out loud and it sounds stupid so I back up and say it again and sometimes again. ’Til I get it right. Then I’ll walk up from the water and catch myself in the mirror and I see all these scars and I think, There’s no way. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll walk away. Knowing that every time I answer this phone and run toward trouble, I might not walk back . . .