bittersweet symphony
(made of bitter dreams and sweet regrets)
10: love
"I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on Earth. I hold myself supremely blest - blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together - "
The novel falls from her hand with a clatter, the hard cover rattling against the cool marble floor. Feet, small and bare, tuck themselves beneath a lithe body, full and youthful with all of the elasticity and beauty that comes with ageless existence. Hands, exquisite, fold themselves neatly into a lap.
The window is open; she can feel the breeze brushing against her skin. Her hair sways with it, brushing, soft as a baby's breath, against her cheek. She can smell the fresh air (they are too high above the city for the stink of petrol), along with her shampoo (lavender) and the remnants of her tea (chamomile with lemon). Another smell lingers, that omnipresent scent of ozone that she has known since birth.
Her eyes alight on that innocent looking novel that lies sprawled on the cold marble tiles. She is loathe to pick it up again - even this book, usually one of her favorite "children." And yet today those pages have lost their charm; today nothing is as it was, and she is disturbed by this fact.
Her hand rests against that ever-growing swell upon her waistline, and she feels a tiny life inside nuzzle against her hand. She smiles, but it is filled with sadness; her smiles often are these days. She knows Father asks why; she knows everyone must be worried...after all, it is not as if she has never had children before...
But this time was different, because she had been the fool for once. When it came to her children, she used only the smartest, most cunning, most intelligent men...but she used them. They were her tools...
When she had met him, she hadn't even meant to meet him. She had been watching another, a classmate of his, when he had run into her with a book cart from the library, knocking her down and throwing books all over the place in the process. Dazed, she had sat back and watched him worry over her and the books. He was handsome; sandy hair fell over the lenses of his slender glasses, which almost obscured clear, bright hazel eyes. He was tall, well-built...
They had gone out for coffee; they had talked. There was no seduction. No "study sessions." Just...friendship. And then more...so much more. She pressed a hand against her growing stomach and wept, her tears burning her cheeks as the fell. "Never," she whispered, rubbing her child's - her daughter's - tiny abode. "Never will I let you suffer like this."
She knew now a new depth of pain...she suddenly understood, of all people, Aphrodite...love was, indeed, all-powerful. It had surpassed logic; it had surpassed planning; it had surpassed care and caution, throwing them aside without a second glance...and now she was alone, spent, and heartbroken; the only reminder of the love that she had thought was shared was the tiny life nestled inside of her. "I will never let you fall in love."
She watched, eyes narrowed, as He spoke to her daughter. She watched as He made her laugh, made her smile...she saw her inhibitions, her carefully structured walls begin to slip away. She saw her watch Him as He talked, and she saw something shifting in those eyes, so very like her own...
She raised a hand to her temple and sighed softly. Echoes came back, singing gently on the breeze of her memory...sweetened tea and bitter, burnt toast with butter and boysenberry jam; two-day-old coffee, black, with French vanilla creamer; posters, colorful and bright, on the walls, the ceiling, the doors...; singing together on a day-long trip to Southern California. Her hand pressed hard against her mouth and her eyes stung at the corners, but she held on.
She saw something in His green eyes (too much like his father's), something in His smile, and then she knew.
She felt like she was a million pieces and one soul, and she was falling apart and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She suddenly felt empty inside, useless - a piece of darkened sunlight, or the sadness behind a smile (her smiles are always sad these days) and she knows that no matter how much she promises, no matter how long she delays that pain and happiness, it will come...love.
"Annabeth," she whispers, and as her daughter laughs all she can see is Frederick and his sandy hair and his hazel eyes shining in the sun. "I'm so sorry," she says.
I'm so sorry. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
A/N Passage one is from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; third printed version in the United States; page 464, third paragraph. End passage is from the New American Standard Bible, 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8.