The wake of the moment is the silence that hangs after a fireworks grand finale, ringing ears, chests echoing from the beauty that lit up the dark and shook the world.
Ragged breaths, gentle hands, we touch each other, see each other, and kiss once, long and slow. And then it’s the intimacy after intimacy—naked walks to the bathroom, lying on the bed afterward, watching his big bare body move, warming water in the sink, wetting a washcloth, gently cleaning me between my legs as he kisses me.
After that, he’s back under the sheets, pulling me close, weaving his legs with mine. The world is dark and still but for the faint firelight glow, its silent dancing flames. I wrap my arm around his waist and sigh deeply, staring into the fire.
His fingers stroke softly through my hair. He presses a kiss to my temple. “Penny for your thoughts,” he says.
I peer up at him. “For once, my mind is blissfully blank. No sight of my brain’s typical chaotic twenty-five open browsers.”
His fingertip drifts down the slope of my nose. Down, over my cupid’s bow, around my lips. “Blissfully blank or practically overheating, I think your brain is pretty wonderful, Kate.”
“You do?”
I hear his swallow. His fingertip sweeps up my cheekbone, landing gently on my temple, which he circles. “I do. I used to be afraid of—well, I probably am, still, but I’m working on it—how bold it made you, how brave and uncompromising. How you’ve always known what you believed and spoken your mind and done something about it. Now I just see what chickenshits most of us are, compared to you. How I wish the world was filled with Kates.”
“Even with their chronic inability to stay on top of their laundry? Their propensity to lose their phone weekly? Their restless legs and regular struggle to stay in one position or place for longer than five minutes? You’d really want a world filled with Kates?”
“Especially with all of that,” he says quietly, kissing the tip of my nose. “There’d be Christophers in the wings, to keep things running smoothly.”
My heart does a wild leap in my chest. “Christophers do laundry?”
“Christophers love doing laundry.”
“And finding phones?”
He shrugs. “They bathe nightly in money and have time on their hands, after inventorying their empire. It’s no big deal to buy a replacement or go on scavenger hunts to find them.”
A bittersweet lump thickens my throat. “And are Christophers patient when Kates get wiggly and desperate for adventures?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Christophers want Kates to wiggle their wiggles and have their adventures . . . even if they take them far away. So long as they try their very best not to fall off cliffs or get in vans with questionable strangers. Whatever makes Kates happy. It’s all worth it, for a world filled with Kates.”
My heart swoops and dips, then settles like a bird that’s danced the day through the air, finally landing on its branch, settled its feathers for rest, at long last, content. I snuggle into Christopher, sighing happily as he tucks me tighter against him. “A world filled with Kates,” I whisper. “There’d be a doughnut shortage of catastrophic proportions.”
“That’s the beauty of capitalism, Katydid. Demand drives supply. The proliferation of Kates would lead to unprecedented doughnut-industry growth.”
A sleepy laugh jumps out of me. Christopher’s fingertip grazes my forehead, then swirls around my other temple. My eyelids feel heavy. “Probably for the best there’s only one me.”
He’s quiet, his touch circling my temple slowing. “There could only ever be one you.” His mouth presses gently to my forehead as he breathes in.
I’m so relieved, so exhausted, so happy, as I drift off in the bliss of a heavy blanket, a soft kiss to my forehead, two strong arms, the warm, safe place of his chest holding that heart whose beat I treasure.
Whose closeness I hold fast to all night.
? THIRTY-FOUR ?
Christopher
The kitchen is quiet but for the faint chirp of a few stubborn birds who stick it out here this time of year, hovering on the windowsill. I smile at them and sip my coffee, savoring how different it is to have slept well, wrapped around Kate. Even with the handful of times her long wiggly legs kicked my shins, those sharp knees and elbows poked me, her wild hair spread over my mouth, tickling my face, it was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.
The peace I’ve never felt before, holding her, was knowing she was safe, she was with me. I know the day will come, God, do I hope only briefly, that I’ll have to give that up. Let her get on a plane and go on an adventure and trust her to come back to me in one piece. That’s something I’ll have to seek help for, and I’ll take all the help I can get, whatever it takes to make it possible.