With or Without You
Part 1:
"Something happened here," she whispered, placing a hand gently against the pulse that raced against his chest, "but something…I've never thought that was possible, not after the things we said to each other."
"I meant all those things," he pleaded, burying her fingers in his even as she slipped away, "I still do."
The memory rose before him as once again, the thin fingers pulled away from his grasp and with an almost dreamlike expression on his face he gazed first at his now empty hand and then at the pair of eyes before him, darkened with pain and glistening with unshed tears.
"Michaela…" he breathed yet the mere utterance of her name seemingly increased the distance between them, as though the privileges that intimacy engendered no longer belonged to him.
"Catherine…Daniel…the Indians…after I lost the baby…every time Sully, every time you walked away and left me behind, every time."
Her voice was soft but broke almost unwillingly beneath the strain of emotion hitherto kept under rigorous control. For so long, the battle to secure his freedom, to bring him back home to her had occupied her every waking moment and taken precedence over such trivialities as fear, anguish and sheer loneliness. Each morning had brought fresh hope, a promise of success and every night, as she snuffed out the lamp in the great emptiness of their bedroom, the thought of his warm hand reaching out to caress her cheek had dried the involuntary tears and lulled her into fitful slumber. Yet the man that had finally returned to claim his seat at the now laughter filled dinner table and bobbed Katie on his knee before the hearth was a stranger, bearing little resemblance to the gentle soul who with a single glance could read the inner musings of her heart as though they were inked in words across a page. A shadow had fallen between them, an impenetrable shroud that smothered the love which in its desperation to bridge the distance had turned futile, and untended, grown cold.
"But Michaela I was just…" he began moving towards her.
"I wasn't enough," she stated neutrally, the amber haze of the lamp waxing bright upon her pale, hollowed cheeks, "I never was."
"No, Michaela," he interjected angrily, "you know it aint like that but I couldn't just…"
"Couldn't what Sully?" she retorted acidly, raising her chin in defiance, "couldn't talk to me? Couldn't tell me what you were going to do? Tell me Sully, Did you even spare a thought for what our lives would be like with you gone?"
"How can ya ask me that!" he interposed angrily, "'course I did but I …"
"But you did it anyway," she finished, her voice rising as fury brimmed thick in her chest, "maybe it would have been better for all of us if you'd just stay'd gone."
A stunned silence fell between them as her words reverberated around the homestead that had once glowed with an almost palpable joy, engraining its potency into the very walls of the humble sanctuary. A blistering agony flooded his eyes and unable to meet the wretched gaze that burned into her own, she turned away, her hand rising to cover her mouth in shame.
"You don't mean that."
The words broke from his lips as a fervent supplication and her heart instantly responded, eager to reach out and abate the anguish.
"No I didn't," she whispered wearily, "but I'm so tired and I don't want to argue anymore."
Sensing his approach, she hastily brushed away the pearls of moisture that had meandered unchecked down to her jaw and folding her arms across her chest, turned to face him.
"I need some time."
Her words checked his fervent embrace and dropping his arms he forced her to meet his gaze.
"I need some time away," she explained softly, briefly raising her eyes before retreating to the whirling pattern in the wooden floor, "I'm going home."
"But ya are home," he urged, grabbing her upper arms in desperation and pressing his forehead against hers, "please…"
"Perhaps once I was," she murmured sadly, "but not anymore."