I didn’t want to leave our little habitat of twisted sheets now smelling of our bodies. But all good things must come to an end. We both had another life and other places to be.
I dressed and went straight to the bathroom, then I packed my travel bag and followed Trey into the house. Nicholas and Elaine were sitting at the table already.
We had a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes with maple syrup. Then we loaded up the car. I hugged Elaine goodbye and shook Nicholas’s hand. From the twinkle in his eye, I could see he was a man of kindness.
He reminded me a great deal of Trey.
“I hope you both come back soon,” Elaine said.
“We will. I promise,” Trey said, pulling her in close to him.
As we drove off, I was absorbed, my head leaning toward the open window, contemplating the landscape as the wind blew through my hair. I couldn’t stop thinking, reflecting, trying to figure out the meaning of all that was happening.
The barrier that had separated me from Trey the night before had collapsed when he’d told me about his mother and his regrets. His sunken shoulders, his evasive eyes, the heavy silences that pointed at secrets unconfessed, were no longer a part of him. I could see that in his relaxed bearing, in the lightness in his smile.
As he drove, I wondered why he’d thought there was anything in his past I’d ever hold against him. How could I judge him for something he’d been pushed, almost forced to do? And who was I to say whether anyone was a bad person? Anyway, for me, he wasn’t one. Forme, he was marvelous: complicated, maybe, a little macho, maybe, but still, he was exactly what I needed.
He pulled off and stopped the car.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I got out and followed him down a narrow path, about two hundred yards into a clearing with views of the sea. He stopped and stared out at the horizon.
“Over the last hundred years, this island has lost more than three hundred acres of land. The water’s swallowing it up. See that church over there?” In the distance, there was a bell tower. I nodded. “My mother’s buried over there in the cemetery. The community had to spend a fortune to build a rock wall to protect it. Otherwise the sea might have destroyed it.”
“Really?”
“In the long term, there’s no stopping it, but I’m working on raising money to help people with this kind of problem… It’s not an overnight solution, but I don’t want a quick fix anyway. I want something sustainable.”
“That’s amazing, Trey. I mean it. It’s just wonderful.”
“Sure. Well, I just wanted you to see it.”
It was moving to see how shy he was, and I hugged him around the waist, standing there with him a while, just watching the waters of Malpeque Bay.
“Tell me about your mother,” I whispered.
After a pause, he began, “You told me the other night that your memories of your mother are like postcards. Mine too. I didn’t…I didn’t really know her. I just know the things Elaine and my grandfather told me about her. She liked music and art, and she worked as a tourist guide for visitors on the island. She was good at it: she knew all the history, the customs, the old legends. And people enjoyed listening to her. Everyone here loved her. Her death was a big deal for them.”
He brooded for a minute, then shook it off. His mood seemed to shift just like that. He smiled wickedly at me and grabbed my hips.
“Don’t you realize I’m trying to behave? Trying to be polite, a gentleman, and all that. But you’re making it awfully hard on me…”
By now, his hands had crept into my waistline and were toying with the hem of my panties.
“If this is going to work, I need you to be yourself,” I said.
He kissed me deeply, then said, “Fine,” drew a breath, and went on. “If I’m being myself, then I’d have to tell you all I want to do is fuck you and look in your eyes and see you telling me how bad you want it. I want to stare at your face while I’m doing it and see you dying for more.”
Who needs poetry when the man of your dreams is whispering nasty thoughts in your ear? This was the most romantic moment of my life, and I loved it. No one had ever talked to me that way, and it made me feel alive, powerful.
“Is there much traffic on this road?” I asked.
He caught the drift of my words. And a few minutes later, we were making love in the back seat of his car.
We made it back to Petit Prince late in the evening, and we were exhausted. We stopped briefly at the grocery store and afterward went straight home.
I felt strangely calm, almost as though the little time I had left on the island would never run out. Summer was reaching an end. September had started, and soon autumn would be setting in.
