Chapter 2:
The Tree and the Treasure Map
I knew when Carlisle was coming home.
I didn't even have to be familiar with his schedule, or overhear when he planned to wrap things up at the hospital. He could have left our house in the morning or in the middle of the night, without a word regarding when he would be back, and I would still know the moment of his return.
It was a change in the atmosphere, I supposed – a fleeting, warm signal from afar. It was as if he could stretch his spirit out to me, touching me with his presence long before he arrived. As if we were ethereally connected.
All it took was this fragile sensation and I would leave behind whatever it was I was doing to greet him. His timing was uncanny.
He walked through the door, tall and proud in his white doctor's coat, his briefcase at his side. He expected me to pounce when he came through that door. He knew it was coming, and I could almost sense that little spark of giddy energy he tried to hide right before I leapt into his arms.
He dropped everything he was holding to make space for me only, his arms wrapping tightly around my waist as he drew me close and let me kiss him with abandon. This moment never changed, no matter how many years we had been together, no matter how many times he came home to me at the end of his day. It was always the same – just as intense, just as assuring – and it promised the same fulfillment every time he opened the door. We were familiar with this contentment, this complete security of having one another close. There was nothing in the world that could compare to it, and we never needed to search for anything more than what we had.
Today was different, however, and we both knew it. Our 20th wedding anniversary was tomorrow – finally, it had fallen on a Saturday – finally, we would be free to enjoy the entire day without interruptions or obligations. Twenty years we had been married… The thought seemed to surge between us, both of us remembering the little detail in the backs of our minds as we kissed in the doorway.
I kissed him harder whenever I had these kinds of thoughts, reassuring my lips that their mated pair would never disappear into thin air. I held his shoulders tighter, reassuring my hands that his presence was and forever would be real, all mine to hold.
He seemed different somehow as he kissed me. I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but something in the way his lips moved under mine was noticeably cunning. He would pull back slightly to allow himself a moment to look into my eyes – something he always did when we kissed – and his gaze was sparkling with affection, contentment, and something akin to mischief.
Before I could give him so much as a questioning glance, his lips were pressed to mine again, softer this time, though I wanted more and he knew it.
"What's this?" he asked suddenly, breaking our heated kisses to pat at the side of his coat.
"Hmm?" I groaned lightly, unappreciative that he seemed so intent on disrupting our passion.
"In my pocket." He slowly guided my hand into the inner pocket of his lab coat and pulled out with it a crinkled piece of aged paper. His fingers helped mine to unfold the page.
"It's... a map," I answered, staring blankly at the swirling lines and markings that made up its confusing composition.
I looked up to find my husband smirking mysteriously at me. "Well then, why don't you follow it and see where it leads you?"
So this was what he was being so cryptic about. I thought he had been keeping a secret from me, but I never had expected this. Smiling, I flipped the page around in my hands, excited to decipher the puzzle he had given me.
"I don't even know where to begin," I admitted with a laugh as I tried to understand his illegible markings.
"I'll give you a hint to help you start out," he said, leaning over my shoulder as he pointed to a small purple dot on the far corner of the map. "You're right here."
As I squinted thoughtfully down at the drawing, it slowly began to make sense to me. I fit together the separate lines and squares, recognizing the familiar layout of the house I had designed as it took shape before my eyes. "I see..." I murmured as I traced my finger over the dotted blue line that appeared to lead outside. "And I'm guessing I'm meant to find the treasure?" I asked as my finger stopped on the scarlet 'X' that marked a tree in our yard.
"'X' does mark the spot," he teased, giving my bottom a gentle nudge in the direction of the door.
I scooted ahead of him with his encouragement, not bothering to put shoes on before I pranced barefoot into the sunless spring afternoon.
My feet went faster when I saw the familiar pear tree on the far western side of our property. I double checked the map he had drawn to be sure this was the tree he wanted me to find.
Of course it was.
That tree was special to us, for reasons we tended not to share with anyone besides ourselves. On our first day visiting this property, we had gotten a bit distracted when viewing the quality of the yard. Somehow I'd found myself up in that tree, reenacting the day I fell as a sixteen-year-old rebel on the farmlands of Ohio. I recalled Carlisle watching me from below with utmost fondness, the look on his face bordering pure exuberance as he promised to catch me if I fell.
Oddly enough, I did manage to slip from the tree. True to his word, he caught me in his arms.
The innocently teasing scene ended with the deed to the house held by our joint hands. We couldn't bear the thought of leaving that tree behind. From that day forward, it became a secret meeting place of sorts for us. If one of us was feeling withdrawn, we could always find the other there beneath the shade of that simple pear tree. We visited it in the middle of the night to soak up the romance from its sweet blossoms. We spent chilly autumn mornings curled up against its warm bark as we shared kisses and poetry. It was almost a sacred site by this point, and I was sometimes overcome with bittersweet regret at the thought that we would have to leave this property one day and find a new tree to spoil with our love and attention.
If there were any place most appropriate to mark on a treasure map, it was that tree.
Its cheerful green leaves seemed to stir in greeting as we came upon it. I had always marveled at how full of life that tree was, how it seemed to recognize us as the couple who had deemed it as the most special one in our backyard.
At first I circled the base of the tree, digging my toes in the dirt to look for hints that he had drawn an 'X' in the ground somewhere close by. Carlisle watched me pace with a deeply amused expression, and I knew from his look that I must have been searching in all the wrong places.
Curious, I turned my gaze upward and leaned closer to the tree, staring up through the clusters of leaves to see something perched on a high branch above me. I glanced back at Carlisle to find him staring innocently back at me. A grin broke over my face. I knew I had found the treasure.
Quickly I climbed the tree to see what he had hidden inside for me to find. Lying there on the branch I found the sketch of my imaginary island, along with a curious piece of long white paper covered in small print, and an envelop with my name written in bright blue ink.
I tore open the envelop with all the clumsy enthusiasm of a child opening her birthday presents, unable to wait another second. From the tattered envelop I untucked a brief note.
Esme, my dearest,
There is an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro that now bears your name. It sits at -23.9 degrees latitude, -42.8 degrees longitude, amidst the warm blue waters of the South Atlantic Ocean. Now you no longer have to dream about your paradise, my love. In honor of our 20th wedding anniversary, paradise belongs to you.
Yours for eternity,
C.
For a moment I could do nothing more than stare at my husband's written script, trying to piece each bit of the puzzle together. One thing I knew about Carlisle – he would never, ever joke about something so important to me. If he said it was real, and it was right here between my hands in his writing, then it was as real as could be.
Breathing frantically, I reached for the formal document beside me. I took in every section with wide eyes – a long paragraph in Portuguese, then a long paragraph in English, countless stamps scattered over the margins in faded blue and red ink... a small number measuring the miles from the South American coastline... an obscenely large number preceded by a dollar sign... my husband's name and the name of a foreigner which I did not recognize. At the end of the document, my eyes skimmed the bold, black words in their simple, serif type-face. Confirmed property ownership on November 20, 1940... Isle Esme.
Isle Esme.
Vaguely I could hear the branches below me straining with the weight of another. My mind was spinning so fast I had hardly realized that my husband had climbed the tree to join me. He found one thick branch to support him standing and settled his elbow on the branch I was sitting on to balance himself. His hand caught my back gently, breaking me out of my stupor of shock. I must have looked close to fainting.
His fingers grasped one side of the document in my hands to keep it from shaking so much as I held it.
"You don't know how long it took me to find an island that fit the description of the one you drew," he said softly, rubbing the tip of his nose against the shell of my ear.
I stared back at him, incredulous and still utterly speechless.
"Granted, it isn't an exact replica, but I think you will be very pleased with it," he said, a gorgeous smile on his face. "I found it enchanting."
"How... how have you been organizing all of this behind my back?" I demanded, still too shocked to speak without stuttering.
"Let's just say the charity work Edward and I have been doing in Bolivia for the past year was not only for the homeless."
As an addict for altruism, my husband's efforts in third world conditions had always seemed nothing more than a necessary hobby. I never would have held suspicions against him in any regard, much less something as monumental as this. I never saw it coming.
"I can't believe it," I murmured, staring hard at the fine print.
"You will when I take you there," he whispered.
My eyes shot back to his face, questioning.
"Tomorrow morning," he confirmed, his eyes sparkling like fireworks as he dragged his fingers through my hair. "We'll leave our lives behind and pursue a dream..."
The ecstasy flooding my heart and the look on his face finally spurred me into a bout of unrestrained laughter.
"Some things are better said in writing, darling," I giggled, pressing a finger to his lips.
He chuckled bashfully. "Your efforts at being overly romantic may backfire from time to time, too, dear."
"I'd hardly call it backfiring," I mused, kissing the invisible blush on his cheek.
"Would you rather I have blindfolded you from the moment I came home and dragged you all the way there without ever knowing where we were going?" he asked, trying to suppress his laughter.
"That might have been interesting."
He smiled at me, making no further remarks, the joy in his eyes purely incomprehensible as he reached for my hand.
"An island?" I shook my head in disbelief as I lifted the documents back up under the sunlight to make sure they were real. "...an island!" I cried out, still trying to make sense of it all. "Carlisle, you're utterly outrageous, do you know that?"
I was thoroughly convinced that my husband had never looked more proud in his life. "I know this is all very sudden," he said, raising himself up slightly on the branches to bring his body closer to mine.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," I assured him. "It's all so... perfectly insane," I gushed, touching my fingers to the words Isle Esme at the bottom of the page. "An island..." I repeated the phrase once more, wondering if it would ever sound natural. This was his gift to me… I would never be able to comprehend just how fortunate I was for his inhumane generosity.
"You deserve nothing less," he murmured, his voice smooth but husky, like bits of gravel in silk. "If it weren't so suspicious I would find you ten islands in every corner of the globe."
I looked up into his face, stunned to find that his expression was utterly serious.
"Why do you do this for me?" I asked him, already knowing his answer. "I already have everything I could ever want, and you give me more?"
His gaze brightened in the shifting rays of sunlight, his smile fond and tranquil as he stared deeply into my eyes. He tipped his head to one side and let his eyes wander over each of my features in turn.
"Because I love you," he finally whispered, stroking my cheek with his knuckle. It was the sheer simplicity of his words and expression that made them so striking to me, and I felt close to tears.
The birds chirped whimsically above us as he leaned in to kiss me. The longer his lips pressed against mine, the more light and impossibly giddy I felt. Eventually my joy overflowed and I could no longer hold it back. He continued to kiss me even while I lost myself in waves of intrusive giggles, his lips finding other ways to occupy themselves when my laughter made kissing impossible.
Somehow I found myself tumbling over the edge of the branch, slipping between his arms as he just narrowly missed catching me. Gravity ensured that he reached the ground moments before I did, allowing me to land awkwardly in his lap. The various pieces of paper he had placed on the branch floated down slowly to land in the grass on either side of us.
"I think you've broken my leg, sweetheart," Carlisle managed to say between breathless laughter. His hand reached down to clutch his kneecap, rubbing it as if to make the hurt wear away.
"Did you, now?" I mused, drawing my hand up the side of his leg until I reached his waist and he shuddered.
"One of us is always falling out of trees," his deep voice echoed softly in my ear.
"I'd like to try falling out of a palm tree when we visit my island tomorrow…" I said, and he laughed robustly at my proposal. I wondered if he knew I was entirely serious.
He feigned an irresistible wince as he stretched his leg, shifting on the ground as if in pain. "I think I may need a doctor," he whispered suggestively.
I grinned knowingly at him before reaching discreetly for the buckle of his belt.
"Let me see what I can do to take care of it."
