Gwaltney Corner near Carsley, Eveningtide

It was near evening and the house was quiet downstairs.  Outside was the color of nickel, a storm nibbling the edges of the evening and while no rain had fallen it was harkening.  The front screen door stirred slightly, bumping against the door jamb as a random gust would shudder.  The floor creaked above as he heard her footfalls and the plumbing behind the walls grew noisy as she started her bath.  He was alone in the kitchen, the heart of the home.  It was too early to be drinking bourbon but with her it's what she drank in the tub so he was having some now, the ice winnowing down into little slices in the amber liquid.  He swirled it a bit, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, imagining her as a young child sitting near by.  Or swinging open the front porch screen, announcing the start of the rain.  He drained his glass and stood up to go to the refrigerator. He opened the freezer door, pulled out a handful of ice and poured himself a double.  

He picked up the handful of papers on the table, typed passages from an actual typewriter, the top page with a still-wet ring from where the bourbon glass had stained it.  He had attempted, perhaps poorly, to find some words...words from others, that he could share with her, that he could read to her, and perhaps let the letters from another come from his mouth to her ear and maybe sound pleasing and impactful to her mind.  

He heard the wood floors creaking and he took to the stairs where they groaned a little under his weight.  

Ascending he looked out the window across the farm, where he finally heard a little growl of thunder, still far off and no lightning.  The dark trees slightly melted into a sky still lighter than black but graying quickly.   

As he neared the bathroom door he heard the faint sounds of a trumpet...Chris Botti was playing off of her phone in the background...the water was still flowing into the tub and she had the light on in the bedroom but not the bathroom so it was soothing.  He knocked slightly on the door, a tiny slit of view showing as it wasn't completely shut.

Hey, before you come in could you please bring up the bottle and some ice?

He smiled, said yes and retreated downstairs.

 

Minutes later, he was sitting on a stool slightly behind her...she was immersed up to her neck in the long tub, white and gray bubbles making it completely opaque...her brightly lit toes sticking up at the end and her arm piercing up with the glass in its hand.  

Chris Botti was still playing...a slow and low tune across the room.  Outside was now dark, and a few sprigs of fireflies appeared, but then again so did a Kodak flash of lightning now and again.

So where was I? he asked.

You were about to read me something from Stephen King, which I was saying isn't probably very romantic or anything...her voice was low like the trumpet music, but it was because she was relaxed.  She took a sip of her drink and he shuffled his pages around a little bit.  Found what he was looking for and started reading... 

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.” Stephen King, Different Seasons 

 He wrote that?  She took another sip...the longest parts of her hair floated slightly on the water, gently curling them.  The water was growing a little more transparent, just the music and the evening flickering outside.

He did. 

Hmmm, she murmured into her glass.  He shuffled his papers looking for the next thing to read...I liked that, she said.

So he pulled out the John Green passage…uhm, this one isn’t the most applicable but I liked it, particularly because of some of the imagery.   She pulled her feet down and they disappeared under the water.  She reached up and turned the hot water spigot.  Starting to lose some of the heat, she said.  Well read it to me.

So he did:

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.” ― John Green, Looking for Alaska

 

It was quiet.

The drip of the water made a surprisingly large noise. 

I don’t know about that one…it feels like it was more of younger self.  Maybe not current day.

Not current day?

Yeah, like something written in the past about early days…but…not today.  Not tonight.

He nodded, knowing she couldn’t see him from behind her, but also agreed.

Yeah, but I liked the rain reference.

You always did.

I do.  Okay, let me see if this next one works…

Go ahead.  Try me. 

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.”

― Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation  

Outside it had started to rain…that slow syncopation of random raindrops…perhaps a blink of lightning and the answering thunder letting them know the storm was upon them.  They both sat quietly, the outside collapsing but inside the air steamy and warm.  They felt like it was one of those empty moments he had just spoken about…and the company they were now keeping. 

You know I wrote you something, she quietly allowed. 

You did?

Yeah, I just don’t really want to show it to you. And I need more drink.  He picked up the bottle and grabbed some ice and walked over to her outstretched arm with the glass held up.  The bubbles were fading and he could see the outline of her…and it stirred a bit of him, the sweet shape diffused under the water.  He marveled at the mirrored slope from the bottom of her rib cage to her hip bones, a dainty angle.  Her skin looked like pearl beneath the soapy water.

I would love to read it…

I don’t know.  She lifted her glass to drink.  He moved back to the chair so he wouldn’t seem hovering.  He just stayed quiet, letting the music play and the rain keep up.  He knew this was her debate. 

After a bit, she said bring me my phone. 

He got up to go over to the phone, turning off the music and bringing it to her with a hand towel to dry her hand.  She thanked him, turning in the tub so she could grab the phone and open the Notes page.  She stared at it, re-reading it first, making a final determination.  Okay.  Here.

He started with the opening words…and read slowly.

It was a reveal.  It was exposure.  Insight and opening up to the syntax of her mind…he read descriptions and emotions.  Tone and environment.  It was an autobiography of an evening, her evening and her words and the way she was feeling.  Because of him.  It was a paragraph and it was the longest she had ever shared and it was raining harder outside and she was naked beneath him, a drink in her hand and his last words still echoing in the small room hovering with the steam of the bath. 

That was something worth reading…that was something way worth sharing. 

She turned in the tub to see him.  Her dark eyes were visible and she wasn’t smiling but she was questioning him with them.  Do you really think so?  It isn’t…you know…stupid?

He let out a slight laugh.  God no…it was exceptional. 

A particularly close lightning strike and then a brief flash and the lights went out.  They were in perfect darkness, and he could hear her stirring in the water. 

Please don’t move he started…don’t try to get out.

I’m not.  I’m making room…. He heard her sit up, the water dripping off of her, a shadow of her body against the white tub. 

He unbuckled his jeans and pulled off his shirt, delicately stepping into the water which was still warm and smelling slightly of her.  She was there to greet him.

I mean it.  Exceptional he said again.

She kissed him, quiet and gently. 

Well I’m glad you liked it.

 

The electricity came on much later, they were already entangled in the sheets, hair askew and their cheeks brightened.  The sudden light in the room made them laugh, and they fell asleep quickly, the night fallen and the moon now high over Carsley.