The Aeolian Harp ~ Chapter 14
She slept late the next day. Dominique could tell by the pattern of sunlight on the floor that it was not more than fifteen or twenty minutes past her usual reveille, but still she suspected Legato's hand at work.
He was gone. She hadn't thought that he might leave without a word, but she was not surprised. When she set a hand on his side of the bed, it was not yet cold but it was not warm, either. The pillow was sunk a little in the center, but it no longer held the shape of his head.
Dominique squeezed her eyes shut for a second, and pressed her palm into the indentation. It held no memories. They had evaporated, like the warmth and the weight of his body. His side of the bed was clean; there was not so much as a stray hair left on the sheets.
It was just as well, Dominique thought briskly. He would have been as bad at goodbyes as he was at hellos, and at everything that came in between.
When she had dressed, and tightened the silk scarf around her Eye, and brushed out her hair, Dominique waited another few minutes before leaving her room. She didn't want to seem too eager, even to herself. She didn't want to think that she was rushing, or else she was afraid she might really begin to.
In the kitchen, a pot of coffee was warming on the stove. Dominique poured herself a cup and began to open the curtains to let in the sun. Before the big window in the front of the house, she paused, and looked out over the desert.
There wasn't much to see. The dunes looked the same as they had the day before, though she knew that the wind would have moved them slightly. Changed the slant of the sand imperceptibly, made the desert migrate a little further. Straining, always, towards some goal that only the collusion of the wind and the sand knew. If they came upon a canyon in their travels, they would spill over the edge and fill it. If they came upon a mountain, they would batter themselves against it until it was worn down.
They chased the horizon, until it inevitably curved around on itself and brought them back to where they had begun.
In the distance, almost where the road converged with the main highway, she thought she saw a red haze, like a cloud of dust kicked up by a car as it moved away. She could not be sure. One sun was high in the sky, and the other was at the horizon, and where their rays intersected mirages could sometimes be seen.
Besides, Alexandra was coming up from the henhouse now with a basket of eggs in her arms, and Dominique didn't want to be caught staring. The woman had an excess of sympathy, and practically no one to spend it on. There were days when Dominique appreciated it, but this was not one of them. She wasn't exactly miserable, and she wasn't quite angry. But whatever she felt, she felt it very strongly, and she wanted to be alone with it for a little while, to explore all the corridors and hidden rooms that had opened up inside her.
When Alexandra came in, Dominique caught her frowning a little. All of the concerned and curious looks she kept casting in Dominique's direction might have gone unnoticed had Alexandra known to stand on her blindside. But it was a trick she'd never quite gotten the hang of.
Dominique finished opening the curtains, and she said, "I'm sorry you had to get the eggs again this morning. I don't know how I overslept."
"It's all right, dear," Alexandra replied briskly. She was still watching Dominique's turned back, watching it very closely, as if unaware that Dominique knew. "It's good for these old bones to get some exercise once in a while."
"All the same. I don't want you thinking I'm getting lazy on you."
"Well." Alexandra began to unpack the eggs, lining them up on the counter. "Let's just not make a habit of it, shall we?"
"By the way," Dominique said. "You'll only need to make breakfast for the two of us. Legato's not here."
"I know. I sent him off this morning."
Dominique didn't reply right away, wondering if Alexandra could be coaxed into saying more. Surely, Legato had not stayed long, but Alexandra was good at cutting to the heart of things. They'd talked, mostly about him, but, Dominique thought with a thrill of vanity, surely about her, too.
But Alexandra was silent, and after a while Dominique said, "He got an early start."
"Yes. He said he had miles to go."
"Nowhere around here he would have had business, that's for sure."
Alexandra had arranged a quartet of eggs on the counter, and now she wrapped up the rest and put them away in the icebox. Had Dominique counted the seconds, they would have been no more than ten or a dozen, but it seemed to take much longer. A long time seemed to pass indeed before Alexandra sighed and said, "I am sorry, dear."
"Don't." Dominique said. She had not shouted, but it was a sharper tone than she had ever used with Alexandra before. She was a tough lady, impervious to rust and erosion, but it never seemed right to raise your voice around her. A careless word might knock her back like a slap.
Dominique scowled, but did not apologize. "I'm not going to say there's nothing to feel sorry for. But I already feel plenty sorry for myself this morning. So if you don't mind, let's not talk about it."
"If you like, dear."
"Give me a week," Dominique said, in the same voice she used when placing a bet at poker. "Then I'll be able to look back and laugh."
"And until then," Alexandra replied. "You'll have to eat just the same. Now, come over here and help an old woman reach the frying pan."
They cooked, and ate in a silence both familiar and familial. While Dominique finished washing the plates, Alexandra tied on her straw hat, and took her parasol from its hook by the door.
"If you wait," Dominique said. "I'll walk into town with you. I'm almost done here."
"You take your time, dear. Come along when you're ready." Alexandra reached into the pocket of her dress, and drew out a square of paper. "He left this for you. He said to give it to you once he was gone."
Dominique took a deep breath, and didn't raise her gaze from the sink. "All right. Thanks."
Her voice didn't shake at all. And after Alexandra had gone, Dominique forced herself to finish drying the plate in her hand without hurrying. She rubbed her hands absently on her jeans; even after she had dried them, her palms felt clammy.
Alexandra had left the note on the low table by the door. It was a postcard of an adobe wall with a swirling mural of a lush green garden painted on it. Heavy willows tumbled into the foreground, and the trees that receded into the back were studded with flowers like small jewels. Raised yellow letters across the top of the card read, Keep Babylon Weird.
The handwriting on the back was Alexandra's tidy script, but the words were Legato's. He'd never learned how to write because he had never needed to.
"Everything has happened just as it was meant to. I know that you understand this, and so you will not take anything I have done as an insult or an error in judgment. You have always been good at understanding. Nothing has changed. I am still glad you will walk this planet a little longer."
He hadn't signed the card, but below the last line of text there was a stutter of ink spots, as if Alexandra had expected him to say more but he had not.
Slowly, as if in a trance, Dominique went to the front door and pulled it open. She stood on the threshold looking out, unable to take that first step onto the porch. She could see Alexandra's calico dress against the dunes, her footsteps not yet swallowed up by the sand, but where she had thought she had seen the red cloud on the horizon there was nothing but sky.
If she hurried, she knew she could catch him. And yet she did not move.
She could not leave, not even to die with him. She was condemned to stay, here amongst the things he had touched, in the bed that had grown cold almost the moment he left it. She did not hope for his return, nor for the oblivion he had fought for.
She hoped for nothing. And yet she felt expectant. It seemed inconceivable to her that the intersection of their lives could have affected him at all, but still she knew, as long as he lived, the time of cruel and unexpected miracles was not yet past.
~End