“Make yourself at home and eat up,” I say, pushing Shreya onto the deck.
Soon after, Josh and Brian and their families show up and the house officially becomes way too small for the amount of people in it. We spill out onto the deck, where tiki torches and string lights keep it lit and cozy as the sky turns pink, and everyone is seated on various chairs and stools. Music pipes in from my speakers in the living room and I take a moment to take it all in.
I will not think about the future or the past. This is the moment.
And I feel her here—my mother. She’s in this house with allthese people I love, but most importantly, she’s with me. Always. Because she loved me inthislife. And that kind of love, it transcends time and space. It finds you life after life.
Ellis meets my eyes and his gaze scorches me. It doesn’t get old, this feeling. I lift up my glass and he lifts up Ozzie, who laughs hysterically and throws her arms around his neck.
He’s going to be a great father. I am as sure of this as I am that he loves me and I love him.
What a beautiful, scary, exhilarating thing: knowing this one thing in an unknowable future. A future spread before me to make my own.
53
Another Life
The mist settles in the green valley and makes everything brighter, full of teeming life. A small herd of horses gallops, one of them ridden by a young man who leads them across the gentle hills. His tall form creates a dark silhouette against the brightness of the clouds.
When he comes up over the hill, he stops the herd and spots the house at the base of the valley. Its low wood buildings are set around a dirt courtyard filled with chickens and jars of fermenting vegetables. He can see the women that live and preside over the home—they shake out straw mats, carrying babies in wraps on their backs. The matriarch sits at the edge of one of the rooms, the mulberry bark paper door pushed back. She’s sifting through a basket of vegetables, snapping off stems. But she looks regal while doing it and no one dares bother her. A bird squawks from its perch on a tree in the courtyard. It’s bright green and its wings flap when a younger woman walks by.
This woman, oh this one he knows well. She walks through thecourtyard laughing, holding a bundle of laundry on her head and saying something to the bird that makes it flap its wings more. Her face is lovely, one that makes him catch his breath every time. High cheekbones, eyes that shine, and a wryness to her beautiful mouth that alludes to a secret that only she knows.
She kicks the gate behind her as she balances the bundle on her head; he resists rushing over to help. It wouldn’t be appropriate, she’s married. Her husband is a noble and respected man in the village, one that has shown him kindness many times. The young man tries not to watch her, but he can’t help but follow her path as she heads to the nearby creek nestled in the woods behind the home.
He’s about to turn when one of his horses bolts. It runs down the hill, into the valley, toward the woods.
Cursing, he spurs on his horse, and they gallop after it. He can’t lose a single horse or his parents would give him hell. He’s already lost one due to staring up at the clouds too long. And he cannot let his parents down again—they are growing older and more impatient with him with each passing day for not getting married. But how can he get married when his heart no longer belongs to him?
He follows the runaway to the creek, and the young man is embarrassed to see the woman standing beside it, petting its soft ears.
“Apologies,” he manages to get out, never having spoken to her before.
She beams first at the horse, then at him, and it’s like being hit with a cannon. “Oh, that’s quite all right. This one just wanted to say hello.”
Her laundry is piled on a boulder next to her and she’s rolled up her sleeves for the task. He tries not to notice the smooth skin of her arms, the way her muscles work under her fine bones when she pets the gray dappled horse. He has never been more jealous of a horse in his entire life.
The horse finally trots back to him, and he throws a bridle on it and takes it by the reins. “Well, good afternoon,” he says stiffly before he turns, needing to run out of there before he makes a bigger fool of himself.
But he’s only a few steps away when he hears a splash and a cry. He lets go of the horse immediately and runs to the sound.
The woman has fallen into the creek, her laundry floating downstream. The creek isn’t deep, but she looks distressed as she tries to grab the laundry, swimming awkwardly in her billowing dress. Without thinking, the young man dismounts and runs into the water to pull her out, his hands strong and assured as he grips her under her arms.
She holds on tight to him for a few seconds once she’s out and she seems startled by their close proximity. He steps back and lets her go, but he can feel the press of her hands burned into his skin.
“Oh, there go all our linens!” she exclaims, distraught.
He immediately jumps into the water, wading through the shallow parts and swimming assuredly through the deeper parts. The water is ice-cold, coming straight from the mountains, which are still capped with snow. He grabs every piece of laundry—some straight out of the water, some lodged between rocks. But as he trudges back upstream, his arms heavy with wet fabric, his foot slips on a rock and he falls forward, the laundry flying.
The woman lets out a startled cry. “Oh!”
He wants to reassure her that’s he’s fine, but he’s fallen into a deeper part of the creek where the water runs faster. The heaviness of the current pushes against him, and he finds himself being moved quickly, his head dipping below the water. A flash:If I die helping her, it is worth it.But then he sees the faces of his parents and grimaces.
Willow branches whip at him as he moves downstream, impossibly fast. He tries to grab on to something, but his hands slip pastthe grasses, the slender branches. This peaceful creek has turned into a nightmare.
Then he sees a flash of pale blue and gray ahead—the color of the woman’s skirts. She’s lying, belly-down, on a log that has fallen across the river up ahead. Her pretty, strong hands are stretched toward him. Before he can think, he’s right there beneath her and she grips him firmly.
It gives him enough time to pull his upper body up against the log, and once he has that leverage, he’s out of the water. He rolls onto his back, staring up at the cloudy sky, catching his breath.
