The Sun
First man I ever loved. When I met Rafe I was young and he was tall and fearless. I never regretted marrying him. I loved the man he was when we met. He was as bright and warm as the sun. His love made me bloom. A part of me will always love the sun.
Even in our darker times, I could still see glimpses of the man I loved. That's why it hurt so much when he up and left instead of finding his way back to us.
Looking back, I realize that the reason I loved Rafe was as much the goodness in him as it was his struggle with his inner demons. Rafael McCall was the poster boy for the FBI, the perfect recruit with no doubts about what was right and wrong. His black and white vision made him a perfect agent.
If it hadn't been for the good sex and his sense of humor, we as a couple would have never made it past the first few months. I had what the perfect FBI agent would call superstitions. I had intuitions. I had this feeling that there was something more to the world that the things we saw during the day. I was always attracted to the dark. He was always grounded in reality. Always believed that working hard would get you where you wanted to go. He always believed that good would triumph over evil, from a purely sociological point of view.
Rafael McCall battled darkness with all the wrong weapons except one – a pure heart.
I remember exactly when his world started changing.
It was almost dawn when I heard the key in the door. I jumped out of bed where I'd been tossing and turning for hours and ran to the door. He was on a stakeout that was meant to last all night. He wasn't supposed to get back home before I left for the hospital. But I could feel there was something wrong. Something bad was happening to him. I'd been staring at the phone since about seven. When the sun set, I went to bed and tried my hardest to fall asleep.
He was moving slower than usual. More careful. He let the keys drop on the table by the door. Took his coat off and hang it with such deliberation as if it was the first time doing it.
"Rafe," I called out to him.
The sound of my voice seemed to bring him to reality. He looked at me and even in that near perfect darkness, I could see that he seemed surprised to see me. I couldn't stand it anymore. I ran to him and he opened his arms instinctively.
"Hey, what are you doing still up?" he asked kissing my temple.
His voice was his but he sounded ten years older than the man who left for work ten hours ago. It was scary to sense such a profound change in one of the most straightforward man I had ever met. I had this distinct impression that for the first time in his life, this man of black and white had seen gray.
"Baby, what's wrong?" I asked, squeezing him tightly.
"Everything's fine," he said, and I knew he was lying. "I'm fine now," he added and that sounded more honest.
We held each other for a few minutes and while we were doing this, I was monitoring his vital signs. I was quite proud of my new found knowledge of the human body and I was desperately wanting to understand what had happened. His breath was even, and his heartbeat was becoming less erratic.
I smiled broadly when I felt recognized the other pattern of breathing and heartbeat. Even if I wasn't attuned to the way his heart sped up when we were about to make love, there was another part of him that signaled his arousal. I felt his erection poking me in the belly and I was not surprised to be lifted in his strong arms and carried to bed.
"I love you," he whispered when he made his way inside me.
He'd never been quite so gentle before. He'd always had to be careful when we made love because of his size, and sometimes it felt he treated me like a porcelain doll. This time it was different. His tenderness and intensity brought tears to my eyes. It was so beautiful, it was breaking my heart. I'd always remember that night as the first and only time I cried during an orgasm.
"I will always love you," he promised when he came.
I believed him.
We usually fell asleep or went to the kitchen to eat after sex. I was nineteen and he was twenty-four. We used to treat sex like the best game ever. Until that night. He held me in his arms and neither of us fell asleep. The sun was rising and the first rays were getting through the small window of our small apartment.
"Yesterday, at 7.15 I killed a man."
He said it quietly. Whatever was going on inside him had been settled. He was trying to live with this. I felt my heart breaking to feel the light dim inside him.
About nine months later, Scott was born. In the grand scheme of things, I can almost believe that we were trying to bring the world back into balance.
I still love that twenty-four years old boy who looked for salvation in my arms when his world was starting to crumble.