Chapter 5: Missions; favorite place on earth
Manhattan, December, 2014
In the quiet of this night, she'd held him close to her.
For hours, after she'd finished smoothing on arnica and the clear gel squeezed from aloe leaves.
She'd held him close like this against her. Rocking him gently in her arms. The two of them propped on pillows in her bed, skin to skin, his back leaning against the skin of her chest.
She could hear his breathing; soft, regular, deeper now as he'd relaxed into deeper sleep there in her arms.
The warmth of his breath fluttered the soft hairs at the crook of her elbow.
He was so warm lying there against her. She didn't want to let him go. Nothing to disturb the peace in his face, the stillness in her room. This was something so rare, so precious - these moments with him like this, holding him, coaxing him into this private space with her. Where she could work her magic. It was as though he'd been sent to her and she'd been handed this personal mission.
She was to put him at ease first, convince him that he was safe there, with her. Not an easy thing. Reese was cooler tonight, more distant when he'd come to her door for Bear.
In his eyes, exhaustion, pain. Perhaps he wasn't ready for this. So hard for him to trust, so hard for him to allow someone close like this – just like the other night in her Call Room.
Better for him to hold back now, keep his distance, stay aloof. She noticed he'd avoided her eyes tonight. Those blue blue eyes that had captured him the other night. Her eyes, so blue against the creamy brown of her skin.
Her kisses and her touch would not be enough tonight. Something else, then. They needed something else in short supply tonight.
Trust.
She didn't know if she could, either, after everything that had happened. He'd appeared from the blue one night, with Bear in his arms. She'd seen the feeling in his eyes, for Bear. Such concern. Such feeling for a dog. It had melted her on the spot, made her work through the night to save Bear. And in the morning, as she was getting ready to leave, Reese had offered to take her to breakfast. They'd lingered, talking, and she was sure that she'd felt something from him. But instead of a warm embrace, and plans to meet again, he'd pulled back instead. And then, he'd disappeared.
Instead, another man, small and rather odd, had come to get Bear. No word from Reese. For days.
And then, from the blue, he was back again with Bear, injured in a fight. Reese, too. Limping, clothes torn, hands cut and bleeding. How could she turn him away?
Something in his eyes that night. He needed her. But it wouldn't be easy. That trust thing.
So she'd pressed him, there at the Call Room door. She wasn't going to take no for an answer. Strong. She needed to be strong with him to let her in.
That night, she had melted him to submission in her arms. She'd found a way. And for a few hours he'd held her close.
But, a phone call had changed everything, taken the peace from his eyes. And he was gone again. Missing. No word for days, until today. He was coming to get Bear tonight. She'd insisted that he come here, not the office. She needed to figure this out. But when she saw him at her door, things changed again. The exhaustion, the pain in his eyes. How could she turn him away?
It was her mission then to put him at ease tonight. And if she could find a way, then she could move on with him, open him a bit more perhaps.
Little by little, she would unwrap him tonight - find and tend each wound – at least the ones she could see.
This man healed by neglect.
He ignored each wound, starved it of attention, until it packed up and left him alone once again.
Something she should bear in mind.
His older bruises were healing on his ribs, just like the one on the right arm above his wrist. And the healing cuts on his face from a spray of broken glass – they were nearly gone. But the long purple bruise that ran from the right knee, down the calf to his ankle, and then to the arch of his foot – this needed work.
The knee was the worst of the older ones, still swollen and deep purple. She'd placed a pillow under the knee to lift it up. That knee begged to be bent, not straightened. Every time he moved it, she could see the pain in his eyes.
In her heart, this small fear. If she couldn't catch him tonight, if she failed and found no way to reach him, he would leave with Bear and disappear into the night.
Elusive.
Prey for someone else.
She'd never find him again.
The knee and the bruises on his chest were the only ones that made him wince with her touch. Her long thin fingers smoothed arnica on them. Arnica was perfect for bruising. But the damage there ran deeper. When she looked closely at his knee, and the ankle and the arch of his foot, she could see marks from the same weapon that had made the long, wide bruises on his ribs. She could imagine what had made them, and how the force of the blows had changed – harder with each strike. She shuddered at the thought of a weapon wielded against him.
And on his chest, the dark purple bruises, nearly round, overlapping in a pattern over his heart. There were burn marks in the center of each overlapping circle – these were gunshots barely stopped by his vest. With her inventory over, she should be cringing and crying at the sight of all this damage. So many questions. So many feelings should be there. And yet, no.
Her mission. She just focused on that.
And when she did – when she gave no breath to her feelings – somehow that made it better. She could see it in his eyes. He needed her to be strong, a little distant, too. It put him at ease to see her that way. She could take it.
She'd started at the top, with her arnica cream and gel from the leaves of an aloe plant in her living room. One after another, slowly, she had soothed each wound. She took her time, leaning him back against her, smoothing on the cream and then the gel, while he braced himself against her in her bed. Then his back; she'd leaned him forward to smooth arnica on the bruises there. Then she slid out from behind him to reach his wrist, and the right leg resting on the pillow. She watched his eyes to see how much pressure he could bear there, and she was gentle with him, softly circling with her long thin fingers over the most painful part, then slowly moving on. At the end, his eyes were closed, and she bent down to brush her lips against each wound, one after another until she'd touched each one.
And then, when all were tended, and he was leaning back against her in her bed again, her next mission: she was to let him rest, really rest, all night there in her arms.
Still unwrapped. The two of them unwrapped. Skin to skin.
Nothing between them. Nothing to hide one from the other.
They were building trust tonight.
She needed him to know that he could trust her, and this simple act of tending him had been the start.
She leaned in nearer, her face and cheek at his neck, the smell of his warm skin rising up to her.
For hours she'd held him just like this, quietly, against her chest, cradling him in the crook of her elbow. She'd rested with him. Sleeping; then waking to find him there all over again.
Touching her lips to the skin of his neck; dragging them softly across the skin to his ear.
Breathy, she would whisper "stay."
"You're safe here, in my arms."
"Sleep."
And it had worked.
Little by little, the tension, the startle with any sound in her apartment, the vigilance – all of it had given way in her arms.
The furrow between his eyes had gone.
His face – relaxed now in the crook of her arm.
His body leaned fully into hers.
She liked the weight of him on her, stretched out long against her body, skin to skin.
So long since someone had been this close. She leaned in and brushed her lips against his neck, smelling his skin, feeling its warmth on her lips. So tender with him. Protective. She would let no harm come to him in her arms.
In a little while, she could hear soft footsteps from the other room, and then a head appeared, and a dark nose sniffed at the two of them. Bear swiveled his eyes, watching for some signal from either, and when none came, he creeped quietly up on their bed, and laid down next to them.
He would rest here, watching over them, and let no harm come to them. His mission.
Colorado, 1990
Rain was falling in the deep woods. Pine, juniper, quaking aspen catching these few raindrops tapping down through the trees. He could hear their sound, tapping, tapping as the drops hit and hit again, falling from the sky down through the trees.
It was late, and the sun had gone behind the thickening clouds, until the storm had brought lightning, and thunder and a brief downpour of rain.
Reese had hiked in from the road, early in the day when it was still hot and sunny. He'd slipped into the water when he got there to cool off. This was his favorite spot, where the water pooled beneath a rocky outcrop above, and then fell away below the pool in a stream. A little further along, a large boulder stuck up straight from the stream bed, and forced it to split around it, and meet again around the other side.
The pool was wide and deep, and the water always moved through at just the right speed, keeping the water fresh and clear. A wide flat rock, tons in weight, lay half-submerged near the deepest part of the pool. After swimming, he liked to climb out on the flat rock, and dry off in the sun.
Lazy days of summer. He would sleep on the rock in the sun, the giant rock warm underneath him. And when he would wake, he would scootch over to the edge, and let his feet dangle down into the deepest part of the pool.
He liked to watch for minnows, their gray-green bodies waving in the steady current of the stream. If he sat really still, they would make their way to his toes, tickling them with the soft touch of their mouthparts.
It was everything he could do, not to shake his feet from laughing out loud. He kept it in as long as he could, and then he would lift his feet away, back onto the rock, and watch the minnows race away, while he belly-laughed. They'd come back a little later, looking for him, but he was gone.
One day, when he'd been swimming all day, in and out on his rock, playing with the minnows in the pool, he'd been crouching down on the top of the rock at the water's edge. He heard the sound of stones and soil sliding down on the opposite shore, and he looked up.
It was getting dark under the canopy of trees, and in the soft light, he saw a white-tailed deer making her way down to the water to drink. Her nose twitched, and she looked carefully for any danger, ears flicking, white tail flashing in the fading light. Then, he saw two smaller shapes behind her. Twin spotted fawns following behind her as she made her way in the soft soil on the far side of the stream. She stopped and looked around her – twitching, and flicking, and flashing.
Reese sat very still, just like with the minnows, to see what she would do. When she reached the water, she waited for her fawns, and let them start to drink while she kept watch for danger. Then she leaned down and he could see the little ripples from her tongue sipping at the surface. She raised her head again to look about, and that's when she saw him.
Her ears flicked, and her tail flashed white fur. She looked straight at him with her large dark eyes, nose twitching in his direction. It was as though she knew he was just a boy. No danger to her or her young.
She regarded him with those large dark eyes. Unafraid. He couldn't look away.
In a little while, she drew back a few steps, and raised her head higher, staring at him. Reese felt like she was about to say something, or maybe already had, and was waiting for his response. He tried to think of what to do.
And then she turned her head and looked at him again. He wanted to speak, but he didn't know what to say. She leaned forward toward him, bowing down in a low bow.
He felt like he should do the same.
Slowly, so he didn't startle her, he leaned forward on his rock, bowing low with his head, and watching her eyes. There was something there. She was telling him something, but he didn't know how to understand what she was saying.
When nothing happened, she lifted her head and stared at him one last time. Nothing.
She backed away, and turned up the hill, with her fawns following behind her. Near the top of the hill, he could see her checking all around her for danger.
He hoped she would turn around one more time to look at him, but she slid noiselessly into the trees at the top of the hill. If he listened very closely, he thought he could just hear the sound of their feet on the soft earth below the trees.
And then it was quiet.
Just the birds, and the breeze in the trees, and the gurgle of the water in the rocks above the pool.
Darkness would be there soon, and he was a long way from home – here, in his favorite place on earth.