“Maybe this way leads to the center, my lord?” he says at last, trailing back by a right-hand turn.
“Perhaps. But we are not going that way.”
“Oh.”
“You’re disappointed?” I turn around to look at him, at the way he’s frowning—or I assume he is, under that mask.
“It’s just…isn’t thepointof a maze to get to the middle?”
“Isn’t the point of a maze to find a way through?” I counter.
“I mean, I guess…”
I suppose itisrather a philosophical question. “Oliver.” I reach out a hand. “Come with me.”
He comes. I change my original direction at the next corner. And when we step into the central clearing, his face lights up.
“This is it, the middle!” he exclaims, pulling me over to the state of Eros in the middle. “This is the statue Ezra talked about.”
I release his hand and watch him examine the statue from every angle, enjoying his excitement. But soon enough the frown returns, and he looks across to me. “You know what, my lord?”
“What is it, Oliver?”
“I think I like the other one better. Can we go there instead?”
There’s a part of me that wants to put my foot down. To say,No, we followed your demands, and your disappointment is yours to own. To point out that, had he simply gone whereIwanted him to go in the first place, we’d be standing in the other clearing right now.
But none of those thoughts are worthy of me. This time with Oliver is holding up a mirror to my behaviors, and I don’t much like what I’m seeing.
I hold out my hand and he takes it again. It feels…natural.
“We can go to the other clearing,” I tell him.
* * *
This time, when we reach the eagle and the cupbearer, Oliver takes his time looking over the sculpture. I know when he’s seen the plaque with details, because he lets out an involuntary “Oh!” And then he peeks around the eagle’s wing to catch my eye. “Youcommissioned this?”
“I did.”
“Are you, like, into birds?”
“I am ‘into,’ as you put it, Greek mythology. I read Classics at Oxford.” At his blank look, I rephrase. “Imajored inClassics at Oxford.”
“Oh. Cool.” He takes another perambulation before he continues, “You didn’t study music?”
“I undertook graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music.”
He nods, but I can see he’s still puzzled by the sculpture. “Why did you commission this?”
I’m about to tell him. To let it all spill out. Maybe it would be a relief, to get it out into the open…but then there’s a rustle of leaves as a breeze touches the tops of the hedges, and a sunbeam finds its way into the clearing, gilding the heads of Ganymede and the eagle. Oliver lifts his face up toward the warmth automatically, and I see red and gold lights glinting through his hair.
I want so badly to see his face.
“My lord?” he asks, curious now at my reticence.
“I commissioned it because I’m into birds,” I tell him, and it makes him laugh. “And now we should return. We’ve been out here for almost an hour.”
As we make our way back through the maze, I take his hand again. It’s comforting, somehow.
