He smiled the way he did, grandly, twin dimples bracketing his mouth. “Deal.”
For a moment longer we stared at each other, slowly realizing the terms and conditions of our stay here. How flimsy they were, how easily surpassable. Our silent understanding, which at one point had seemed solid and sensible because, yes, I was in a very vulnerable position, and yes, he was not the kind of man who would take advantage of a woman distressed, confused, and quite limited in her remembered experiences, was suddenly rendered moot. These were all fine enough arguments in terms of logic, but there was not much space for logic in desire. And this thing between us hardly felt like attraction anymore. It was something forged in time now. Not an urge but a longing.
Feeling hot, liquid, I cleared my throat and pointed at yet another picture, the ornate brass frame sitting prettily on the nightstand. “Your mom is very beautiful. You take after her.”
Kai nodded gratefully, and after another nervous, pulsing moment, he asked, “Hey, are you sure you’re alright? You seem a bit preoccupied.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“About?”
“Oh, so many things,” I exhaled. “Parents, I suppose. My parents. Who are they? Where are they? I mean, obviously, they’re dead. Otherwise, they would have contacted me by now, right?”
He took a few steps in my direction, the space between us narrowing. “Do you think grief is what made you go through with the procedure?”
I shrugged, trying to maintain my composure as I voiced the one possibility I had trouble processing even in the privacy of my thoughts. “Maybe. Or maybe something happened to me. Something I wanted to forget but was too terrible to extract selectively. Maybe it all connects, and to erase it, they had to erase all of me.”
With lowered brows, wary, Kai asked, “What do you mean?”
Prickles of discomfort spread under my skin, and I had the sudden urge to hide myself, even from him. Quickly, I turned away. “Nothing. Let’s just forget about it.”
I could sense him watching me still, could feel him moving closer, the palpable heat of his nearness gathering against my back. “Anya,” he pressed, and as if carried by the momentum of our proximity, he reached for my arm as well, his fingertips brushing over the fine fabric of my sweater. “Look at me.”
Shivering, I obeyed.
His fingers moved lower, tracing a whispering line from my elbow to my wrist. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
“No, I know,” I croaked. “You can tell me anything too.”
“I will,” he whispered, his eyes wandering to my mouth. Then, correcting himself, “I am.”
Too distracted by his closeness to continue this conversation, I leaned into him, into his hand holding my wrist. “What do we do now?”
“Laundry?” he suggested. “Get the fire going in the meantime?”
“And then?”
“We nap. We change. We go to the convenience store because I have absolutely nothing here.”
“There’s a convenience store?”
“Of course there’s a store,” he laughed, his thumb under my sleeve still moving in circles over that tenderest spot. Almost unconsciously. Almost as if he couldn’t help but keep on touching me. “It’s only a twenty-minute walk from here.”
I wasn’t sure why this surprised me so. I almost felt like we’d crossed the borders to some previously undiscovered realm. It was strange, absurd even, to think that we were still Inside. There was nothinginward about this place. Everywhere you looked it was open. The sky, the land, the sea. A purelyoutside-land where Kai and I were two nameless souls at the very dawn of time. History had not written itself yet. There was no one and nothing to experience but each other.
???
The sun moved high, then higher. The clothesline swayed in the wind, linen sheets and fluffy cotton towels smelling crisp and faintly floral.
It was cold out here, reminiscent of winter, the air so clean it was almost painful to breathe, but once I found a satisfying enough rhythm, I stuck to it: moving mindfully, pausing to listen to the shushing of the reeds and the exhalations of the ocean, watching the sheets billow out and brush up against each other, the cold, wet fabrics in the equally cold, wet air making the skin of my hands tingle. The change of pace and scenery had somehow released me from the confinements of everyday life so that the task did not feel mundane at all but an ode to the beauty of ordinary things.
“Fire’s ready,” announced Kai, sprinting toward me from the porch in his huge blue sweater. He bent and fished a pillowcase from the woven basket at my feet, heedlessly entering my space, the side of his arm touching mine. “Let me help.”
By the time we finished hanging the rest of the laundry, both of our fingers and faces were shining bright pink. Kai caught my hands in his, brought them up to his mouth, and blew his hot breath into them while shifting his weight from one leg to another to keep himself warm. I loved the ease with which he did such things. Never invasive, never expectant of something more, just giving in to his spontaneous need to experience my tactility.
“Let’s go get warmed up,” he said, releasing only one of my hands as we headed back into the house.
Inside, the cottage was deliciously balmy, waves of heat emanating from the fireplace, the orange glow streaming in fragments through the hive-like screen.
