Chapter 3: The dark and the cold

Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...

Upstate, New York, December, 2016

Jules watched as Reese walked down the lawn from the road. At the front door she wrapped her arms around him in a hug, and he bent forward to give her a kiss on the top of the head. She slid her arm around him and they walked together down the hallway.

"Want some coffee?"

He nodded, and Jules let him go, heading for the kitchen. She could hear him sliding off his heavy coat, and the sound of it on one of the hooks in the hallway.

"It's always so much colder up here," he said.

"Umm. Remind you of something?" Jules was running the water in the sink, to freshen the water coming out of the pipes, and then filling the glass carafe with cold water. She poured it into the top of the coffeemaker, and then measured out the beans into the grinder. For a few moments she couldn't hear if he'd responded, while the grinder turned the beans to grounds. The smell of it, released by the grinding, made her breathe deeper. That was a smell that was so deeply embedded in her brain, like a kind of aroma therapy. It always made her soul-happy when she smelled fresh coffee brewing.

Reese had gone into the small powder room off the hallway, and splashed water on his face after the long ride up from the City. He didn't mind the drive – it gave him time to change gears himself, mostly highway driving until the last half-hour or so, when he was winding through back country roads in the dark. The dark and the cold.

Did it remind him of something? At first, he'd thought of Colorado – the mountains where he'd grown up, left alone with his grandfather while his father was deployed. It was his duty, his father had said, to take care of his grandfather, who was ailing with some kind of breathing problem. He didn't get around much, and at night he had the oxygen on in his room. So, when he was young, Reese had spent most of his time outdoors – in the woods and the streams, hiking all over the mountainside. He'd learned to hunt and fish, but he didn't care for trapping. Something about catching them that way. It bothered him, and he never wanted to do it.

But, in the Rangers, and later on in the CIA, he'd spent lots of time in the dark and the cold. Patrols in the mountains of Afghanistan. It was the extremes in the desert. As hot as it could get in the daytime, it could get so cold there at night. Clear skies with all the stars shining like bits of diamond overhead. And cold that would eat right through – teeth-chattering cold. There was not enough coffee, and not enough layers of clothing to help.

When the coffee was done, Jules found Reese in front of the fire, sitting with the poker in his left hand, staring at the flames. She sat his cup down on the stone seat at the front of the fireplace, and took hers back to the couch behind him. He was silhouetted there by the light from the fire.

It wasn't necessary to talk. She just let things take their course. Jules wasn't much for talking, anyway. But she could sense that there was a lot going on over there. Sometimes a phrase or a word would come to mind, and saying it out loud was just what was needed. She took no credit for that. It wasn't a gift, or anything like that. It just happened.

She curled up on the couch with her feet underneath her, sipping coffee. Reese was quiet, drinking, staring into the flames. And little by little, the energy was changing, coming down from high up inside him, near his shoulders, to lower down in his chest. But definitely not from the ideal – an inch below and an inch deep to his navel, at dan tien. He was scattered, all-over-the-place with his energy, and that made him like this, the way he was tonight.

He poked at the fire, and then, satisfied, laid the poker down, and stood up, turning to face her on the couch. She raised her hands, gesturing to come over, and for a moment she could see something – in his eyes and the way he held himself that made her want to weep for him. It tore at her heart.

But she stayed where she was on the couch. It was up to him. He had to choose. Maybe it was too soon. You can't push the river. She waited. And his eyes were aimed at the floor. She could feel the turmoil. She found herself saying her favorite mantra: the highest good for all concerned, slowly, over and over, as she emptied herself of any urgency or stake in the outcome. His choice.

Reese stepped forward toward her, and laid himself down on the couch, with his head on her lap. She swung around facing him, with her hands under his head, cradling it on her crossed legs. She held his head there for a moment, and she could see him closing his eyes, taking deeper breaths, giving himself over to her bit by bit. She needed to get him comfortable before they started. He would get too cold if she didn't.

So, she slid herself out from under his head, and reached over him to the back of the couch, lifting and rolling an afghan to push under his knees. That would flatten his back down on the couch and relax his muscles.

Then she twisted around to the trunk at her side, and lifted the lid. The smell of cinnamon wafted out, and she rummaged inside for one of her thick flannel sheets. Jules unfolded it most of the way, keeping it doubled over for warmth. The thickness of the flannel felt luxurious in her hands, weighty and soft on the skin. And just for good measure, she pulled one of her summer-weight quilts to throw over the top.

Reese had already done this with her – a few times, so she didn't need to explain anything. She just flipped off the lights, and poked the logs in the fireplace one more time, then slid back under his head like before.

Music. She needed some music to play in the background. She told him what she was doing and hopped up once again, crossing to the CD player nearby. She pulled out the one she wanted from its sleeve, and started it, then went back to sit, with Reese's head in her hands.

Piano, oboe, and breathy woodwinds lifted, swirling around them in the darkness, the phrasing insistent, like asking something softly, over and over. Five minutes, six minutes. Soon it was over, and the next one started right after.

Each took them more deeply into black velvet space, suspended there with the swirl of sound, snake-like, entwining them.

Her hands were on him, gently, turning him, with her fingers lightly sensing and adjusting, coaxing the tissues to release, allowing more freedom to move. Heat from her hands warmed his skin.

He was asleep already, breathing softly, twitching every once in a while – as the sound penetrated through, like warmth.

By two in the morning she had him just where she wanted. Balanced, his energy retrieved and restored to dan tien. When he woke, she thought, he would be a different man.

As she ended her session, she leaned forward over his head, whispering a silent prayer, for his peace of mind.