Firebird (The Flint Hills Novels) (33 page)

On his third morning, he caught a ride into town and found a shop that specialized in hiking gear, and he got himself some comfortable walking boots and dropped his cowboy boots into a shopping bag and strolled down to the White Hart for breakfast. Despite his growing disappointment at Katie Anne's silence, he looked forward to his trips into Windermere each day. That afternoon he broke down and bought himself a walking stick, and early the next morning, he ventured out along the Penine Way, passing scores of walkers who were making their way from coast to coast along the trail.

* * *

Toward the end, he quit going in to meet the train. He went into Grasmere and visited the cottage where Wordsworth had written his most beautiful poetry, and took a ferry across the lake and walked along the trails, all of which he'd been hoping to do with Katie Anne. On his last day he came down early to the pub and the barman poured him a nice Scotch. Ethan had unloaded a lot of his worries to the fellow throughout the week, and he'd been grateful for his humor and sympathetic ear.

"So might you be heading home tomorrow?" the barman asked.

"I guess I am. Alone."

"I've been wondering, if you don't mind my asking, why didn't you go to Paris to meet her? If that's where she's living."

"Ah, that's a long story, friend." With a wistful smile he added, "I told someone once they'd never get me across the ocean, and I figured coming to England was a big enough stretch."

He sat there staring into his drink and remembering that conversation with Annette. He recalled how willingly she had agreed to give up her life in Europe to spend it with him, on his ranch in his Hills, and he wondered if in the end she wouldn't have been unhappy. But she'd been willing to risk it, and here he was with just a narrow sleeve of water between him and Katie Anne, and he wasn't willing to take the leap. Because he didn't like the idea of wandering around a city where people didn't speak English, where he'd have to swallow a few of his prejudices, where he'd be the outsider and the foreigner.

He started thinking about the other choices he'd made in his life when things had been tough, and how he'd never seemed to have had the courage to risk his whole heart, to make that one final step, believing the muddle and the sacrifice would be worth it. He didn't want to be that man anymore.

He looked up at the barman and announced with conviction, "On second thought, maybe I just might do that."

"Sounds to me like she's worth it."

"She is."

The barman went off to serve another customer and left Ethan contemplating the irony of chasing Katie Anne all the way to Paris. Her words still haunted him. Words he'd never forget.

Don't drive us away. You've already made one mistake you'll regret for the rest of your life.

I died, didn't I? What brought me back?

For all the beauty of heaven, I could not leave this earth. I love you too much.

Once he thought he had a glimpse of something beyond all understanding; he thought he had a miracle in his hands. Now it seemed like an illusion. Annette had been dead just six months, but he could no longer conjure the whole of her face. Only her lips, that was all he could see now in his memory, her mouth when she held it a certain way, when he had made love to her and he had opened his eyes and seen her mouth, moist and warm, with her breath flooding his face. He could recall only this about her. Everything else was fading.

He didn't know how long she'd been standing behind him, perhaps seconds, perhaps minutes. But now he felt her presence, and the emptiness that seemed like a huge cavern in his soul was suddenly flooded with warmth. That's how he knew it was her.

Katie Anne didn't speak, just slid onto the stool next to him and placed her hand on his knee. He grasped it tightly, and they sat that way for a few moments. Once she withdrew her hand from him to adjust the long woolen scarf that had slipped from her shoulders, and he waited impatiently to take it back again.

"Well, is this the Mrs. Brown we've been expecting?" asked the bartender with a smile as he cleared away Ethan's empty glass.

"This is she," said Ethan quietly.

"Welcome to the Drunken Duck, madam," he said. "How do you like our country?"

"It's lovely," she said, and Ethan thrilled at the sound of her voice.

"Will you be staying longer now, Mr. Brown? You'll not be going on to Paris tomorrow?"

"No. Not now."

"Well, I'm glad to be hearing that. Will you have another Scotch? And what would you be having, madam?"

"The same, please."

They watched him pour the drinks, and Ethan caught their reflections in the mirror behind the bar. The light from the fire touched her hair with streaks of golden red, and her skin glistened milk white in the darkness.

He turned to look at her, and she said, "Am I still so repulsive to you?"

He lifted a hand to touch her lips.

"You're beautiful," he replied.

Then he took her hand and kissed it.

She waited a long while, studying him closely.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come," he said gruffly.

"I almost didn't."

"Why did you?"

She waited for a long time before she spoke. "Why did you send me that book?"

He looked into her eyes.

Take a look at me now! And you remember what it looks like! When you're looking into her eyes, remember mine!

She had screamed those words at him. Once. Long ago. The shame of that moment, of the pain he had given her, washed over him and he had to look away.

"I sent you that book..." He hesitated. "I thought it might mean something to you."

"Should it?"

He shrugged. "Only if you want it to."

It didn't matter, really. His crazy notion that somehow this might be the soul he'd lost. It didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that he loved this woman to the very depth of his being. This one, right here, sitting beside him.

"I'm glad you're not talking so much at me. If you start talking at me, you might drive me away," she said.

He nodded, and once again he kissed her hand, and he clung to her, adrift in the convivial chatter and bell-like sounds of glass clinking glass.

"Do I understand that you were planning to come to Paris?" she said.

"Yes."

"To find me?"

"I would've gone to hell to get you back."

"I don't know if I want to go back, Ethan."

He rose and, holding her by the hand, he said, "Come with me."

Katie Anne hesitated. He laid his hand on her shoulder, standing behind her, looking at her in the mirror. Her eyes tortured him.

"It's all right. Come."

* * *

In the room he moved a chair over to the window for her to sit. Then he turned off all the lights and opened the shutters. The cold sweet air rushed in on them. Ethan stood behind her with his hands resting gently on her shoulders.

"What do you see out there?" he asked.

She was very still, and finally, after a long silence, she sighed. "Oh, Ethan. What do you want from me? What is it you expect from me? I feel like... like if I give the wrong answer, I'll lose you."

Ethan was momentarily stilled by her blow. He felt her shiver and he leaned down and wrapped his arms around her fragile body, protecting her. His breath warmed her neck and his deep voice fell softly against her ear.

"Then I will ask you one last question, and whatever you answer, regardless, I will lay you down on my bed and I will make love to you." Her body shifted ever so slightly and he could see her breasts rise, full and soft. "Katie Anne, will you marry me? Will you be my wife? Again and forever?"

He kissed her then to stop her reply, for he feared he might lose her again.

Epilogue

The English bed was very deep and soft, and the cool Irish linen that they lay upon that night felt good on their skin. And as they lay in each other's arms they could see, sparkling in the distance, the lights from Grasmere, the home of Ethan's beloved poet William Wordsworth.

Ethan never asked her again about the book he had sent her. It was not, strangely enough, Wordsworth, but the Irish poet Yeats. Nor did he ever ask her what she did with it. They lived many years together as man and wife, although not as many as Ethan would have liked. And although he knew his wife well, he thought, knew her intimately and profoundly, the scars on her body and on her soul, he never knew the whereabouts of his book of Yeats' poetry, the book he had given to her father to deliver to her in Paris. It was, of course, the very same book Annette Zeldin had borrowed from him and kept until her death, after which time Ethan retrieved it from Charlie Ferguson's home.

Much to his profound regret, Ethan outlived his wife.

By the time she died, his face was deeply lined from sun and wind, and a horse had crippled him a little, but he was still healthy and his heart was strong. Several days after his wife's funeral, Eliana, who now lived in New York with her husband, sent him a small package. The enclosed note said:

Dear Daddy,

I'm so sorry I had to leave so quickly after the funeral. I hope you're getting along all right. At least Adam's not far, although I know his studies keep him too busy to spend much time with you. All the same, we are only a phone call away.

Let yourself grieve. If Mama taught you anything, let it be this. But don't let your grief pull you down. You have two sons and a daughter who need you, and we all love you dearly.

We'll be back for Adam's graduation in the spring. I'm so sorry Mama didn't live to see him go this far. He'll make such a fine vet. And, Lord knows, you need a new vet in Cottonwood Falls. I envy him, you know. You remember when I wanted to be a vet? But other muses sang louder.

The enclosed is something Mama wanted you to have after she died. She said it was important that you not see it until after she was gone. She was very careful to keep it hidden from you all those years. Give my love to Jeremy.

Your loving daughter,

Eliana

P.S. The page that is marked is the one she marked for you. She said it would mean something to you.

Ethan carried the book outside and sat down in his chair on the porch. It was a warm morning, without a trace of wind. With trembling hands he opened the book to the marked page.

Although his eyes were blinded by tears, he knew what he would find. He knew the poem by heart.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face...

When his eyes cleared, Ethan noticed the tops of the cottonwoods in the grove down by the stream were perfectly still.

The End