The Wall (The Woodlands) (39 page)

I could have walked away. Maybe I shou
ld have. Let him cool off or tried harder to convince him I was right. Instead, I took two steps towards him and connected with his lips before he could speak again.

His arms were slack at
his sides for a moment, like I’d shocked him into submission. But I pressed hard against his chest. I literally threw my body at the problem, holding the two crushing walls, the opposing opinions, at bay with my twig-like arms. I felt heat taking over, lips colliding and kissing deeper than they had before. I thought,
He may set me back, put me in my place, be the sensible one as always and tell me to stop
. But after a few seconds, his arms gripped me tightly. They dragged up my back and under my shirt with such pressure I could barely breathe.

He pulled
my shirt over my head and threw it on the ground. Lifting me up, he moved towards the bedroom door, bracing my back against the doorframe as he kissed my neck and slipped my bra strap off my shoulder to kiss my collarbone. I shivered, goose bumps growing all over my skin. He ran one hand over the lace of my bra and wound it behind my back to release the clasp. When he did it so swiftly, I resisted the urge to ask him if he’d done it before. Then words would never have hoped to find me as he brushed his lips across my chest and I thought I would die.

Joseph lowered me onto the bed
, keeping his hand in the small of my back, my body arcing over his strong forearm. He paused and looked at me for what seemed like forever. The curtains were closed, sunlight creating a golden frame around the fabric. It felt like the room might burst into flames, the light sparking and curling upwards. I sat up and pulled his shirt over his head. Pressing my palms to his chest, I marveled at his body. Strips of yellow light danced across his sun-kissed skin. Undeserving didn’t really cover it.

This was the point of no return. But we were already too far
gone. There was no going back from here. He tugged back the covers and folded me into them, sliding in next to me. I wiggled out of my pants, kicking them to the side. The world was melting around us. Breath was quick, taken between lips meeting each other, to skin, to be lost in layers of fresh-smelling hair. Hearts were beating strangely. We didn’t know what we were doing but we knew exactly what to do. He rolled over until he was hovering above me, just like he had done a hundred times before, but now there was nothing between us. All I could think was,
I want to be closer. I want every bit of my skin to be touching every bit of his.
I pulled him down, feeling the warmth enveloping me. The soft pressure of his lips on mine, drawing me in, tasting dewy and sweet.

He pulled back, coasting above me
, too much space between our bodies. His arms flexed under his weight. His beautiful, green eyes were glistening like faceted emeralds, roaming all over my tiny frame, waves of heat touching every inch of my skin.

S
hyness disappeared. I felt desperation, an aching need, and I tried to pull him into me. But he hesitated.

“
I love you,” he said.

I thought
,
Don’t speak. Don’t stop. Show me.

And then the whole room was humming gold as we discovered more about each other
than we’d ever imagined. We were undone and pulled back together. Even the dust in the corner was sparkling like dying stars.

N
othing prepared me for it, the moment. I was moving on a river, my body ebbing and moving with the current and then, suddenly, I was pulled out and cracked open, a fissure of gold light pressing out of my chest and skimming forth over the room.

I was nothing
before this.

This was forgetting.

This was living.

Somewhere,
I lost my thoughts. I was weightless, tied to a hundred birds in flight, soaring through empty space. Thoroughly warm and entirely safe.

This was everything.

Now I know you. I know me. And I know how much you will hate me when you find out I am gone.

It was still dark. I shuffled out of bed, carefully lifting Joseph
’s heavy arm from my waist without waking him. A lamplight shone from the lounge room, casting heavy shadows across the door and softly illuminating his sleeping face. I stared at him for one terrible minute, watching him breathe, the pulse in his neck beating slowly, calmly, my own heart stretching through my shirt and reaching out to lie back in his arms.
Could I leave him?
All of my doubts sprung up between the floorboards and wrapped around my ankles like vines, threatening to tie me to this spot, hovering over him forever.

My mind s
hifted back through the night and the notion I might not be able to do what we did again weakened every joint in my body. I wanted to fold up like a wooden puppet and give in. It would be easy to lose myself to this, to the shrug of love, let it wrap me up and ignore all the horrible things going on around me. I sighed deeply, feeling it catch in my throat. Maybe someday that’s what I would do, but not today.

I padded out
of the room as quietly as I could, feeling less and less sure. I couldn’t say goodbye. He would only try to stop me or follow me. This was best. Oh God! I hoped he would forgive me.

As an afterthought
, I grabbed Orry’s carved train, clutching it reassuringly to my chest. I touched it to my chin, feeling the roughness, the unfinishedness of it. I’d broken so many promises.

I c
hanged into my camouflaged clothing in the lounge room, grabbed my backpack, and placed the train at the bottom. Without a flourish, without an admittance or noise, I slipped out the door. I didn’t look back but my whole body was straining against my will to climb back into bed with Joseph. I walked down the street, feeling as if I was tied to my home and, with every step, the ropes were stretching and snapping. This was so much harder than I thought it would be. But I couldn’t regret what we did. Never.

What was I going to do for
two hours? We were leaving at dawn. I felt restless and wasted. Tears started to come and I found myself kicking into a run and tearing down the dark streets towards the one place I thought I might find some consolation.

I rapped on the
worn, wooden door frantically, my chest feeling hollow, a painful lump rising in my throat as I became more and more hysterical. No one responded so I started knocking more loudly, the skin on my knuckles busting and white. A light clicked on and I heard her creaking across the floorboards, surprised her weight even made a noise. A shadow passed in front of the curtain.

“
Addy, let me in. Please,” I pleaded, pressing my forehead to the door, the ‘please’ sounding more desperate than I meant it to.

The door opened a crack and the old woman peered out into the darkness
hesitantly. When she recognized me, she relaxed. “Rosa, what are you doing here? It’s four AM. Goodness child, come inside before you freeze to death.”

“
I’m sorry to wake you. I’m sorry, I… oh, damn it.” Addy raised her eyebrows at my cursing but she softened when I succumbed to crying. Nothing I tried to say came out right. Nothing made sense.

Addy led me to the living room and sat in an armchair. I laid my head across her lap and soak
ed her dressing gown with salt water. She shushed me and stroked my hair until I calmed down long enough for me to tell her what was going on.

I l
ifted my head and stared into her grey eyes. “He’s going to hate me. He thinks I’m leaving him. I don’t know, maybe he’s right. Maybe I am, but not forever. Oh Addy, do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

She took
both my hands and squeezed them hard, looking deep into my defective eyes, looking past them and into me.

She said,
“I was told once, we can’t choose when we are born. We can’t choose when we die either. The important thing is what we do with the time we have.”

I stared at her blankly.
“What do you mean? Do you think I am doing the right thing or not?” I was shaking her arms. It was like shaking a handful of barley.

“
Think about it, Rosa,” she said, winking one crinkled eyelid at me.

I scrunched up my blotchy face. I wasn
’t in the mood for riddles. I stared around her cluttered dwelling. Handmade dolls and little porcelain ornaments covered every available space. Crocheted rugs and scarves dripped off the ends of coffee tables and chairs. There was a lifetime of possessions here, a lifetimes worth of making, sharing, living.

Right
then, I got it. This wisdom, this unearthly knowing that the crumpled-up woman had inside her, was more valuable than most things I could think of. That’s why they separated us. We can never be full, never have that understanding, when we are forbidden to seek counsel from our elders. It was very clever. Clever and evil.

Without
it, we were like a packet of shiny pins, all looking for a hold, always ending up clattering to the dirt, half-buried or finding someone else’s sharpness. I felt gratitude and guilt for the privilege of being able to pin part of myself to her. The other thing I knew was, like she said, I had to make my time count for something. I had to try to save my mother and her child. Whether it was right or wrong, I was going to try and Joseph might never forgive me. The realization filled me with renewed hope and a plummet of dread.

Addy insisted on making me tea and feeding me
. I knew better than to argue with her. But as the sun rose, I said my teary goodbye, hugging her and kissing her forehead, which felt like dry hessian and smelled like dried lavender.

As I walked towards the
hospital, pictures of Orry floated around in my head. Orry smiling at me, blinking his odd eyes, and gurgling. The pain I felt for leaving him was so strong I could barely breathe. I should have said goodbye to him but I was too much of a coward. I knew if I saw him, saw the adoration in his eyes when he looked at me, I would never go. I felt bad I was leaving Odval out of the loop but Orry was safe with her and she knew where to find Joseph.

Goodbye,
my loves. Please wait for me
.