Title:
Love Loss 8
Name:
Joy
Email:
SleepingBeauty2@ziplip.com
Rating:
PG-13
Max watched Logan sleep for an hour
before she acknowledged willing him to wake up wouldn't help any. She whispered
to him as he slept, "Thank you for telling me I mean more then Eyes Only… I
still can't believe you wanted me last night. You could have anyone… I'll let
you sleep but I wanted you to know, I could never hate you… Never."
She turned away not seeing the tear
that ran from his eye over his cheek. There was something final about the
statement. They both felt the void and the pain that lay between them more
entrenched then ever.
They dressed in silence readying to
go back to the Moore Estate. Little was said as they ate or drove, both feeling
there was a job to be done. Everything would be different when they got back to
Seattle. The pain was too fresh and the wound too open.
They scurried about the estate
asking questions of the different servants around the plantation with no real
success. Finally Logan came upon the groundskeeper sitting in the shade cooling
himself. "Excuse me sir, I'd like to ask you some questions," Logan asked.
"I'll bet," he said with a smile.
"You want to know who Nimue was and if she was real, right?" the man said
calmly.
"Well, yes sir. If there is anything
you can tell me, I'd be grateful."
"Your wife is a pretty thing. How
long you been together?" the older gentlemen said.
"Two years," Logan said with tight
drawn lips.
"She's not your wife, is she?" the old
gardener stated to Logan as Max wondered the grounds before them. "You
wish she was though?"
"Sir, I'm sorry… You're
mistaken," Logan said quietly.
"No, I'm not… You have the look
of a man afraid of losing love, not one of being happily married."
Logan gazed at him a moment trying
to decipher where this was heading. "I've listened to your questions to
all those around here. They're not questions one wants answers unless you have
a vested interest. You aren't worried if Lysander was insane- that would make a
fantastic story… You want to prove that Nimue existed. She has to exist, for
you not for him…"
Logan started to walk away from the
gardener, "You misunderstand my interest."
"Say what you will…I can see
through you. Until you admit the truth, this will remain a mystery because you
wouldn't recognize the truth even as it stares you in the face," he said
pointing to Max.
Storming off, Logan passed Max
without a word. She glanced back at the old man then followed Logan.
"Logan! Logan!!! What's
wrong?"
"Everything…Everything… This
place… Just leave me alone," he answered.
"Don't push me away!" she
responded placing a hand on his shoulder. He turned quickly back to her
wrapping his arms around her, seeking solace. He pulled away to look at her for
a moment. His eyes looked close and intimate for a moment and then fear filled
them. Logan turned away again and crossed the lawn. "Logan!" Max
yelled.
Max went back to the gardener to
find out what had been said. "What the hell did you say to my husband to
unnerve him so?!" she demanded.
"Nothing he didn't already
know."
"What does that mean?"
"That means he needs for the
story of Nimue to be real… He needs her to be real. If she's not real, he's
lost," the old man commented.
"You're nuts!" Max spat.
"If she is real then you
can actually be his. If she isn't real, he has no shot with you."
"I'm his wife," she said
to cover over the anxiety level rising within herself.
"No you aren't…though he wishes
you were… You're his Nimue, his unattainable love and beauty that his is afraid
of losing," the gardener said simply.
Max stood staring at the man,
disbelief surrounding her. "I have to find my husband."
"He'll be at the statue of
Nimue in the garden."
"How do you know?"
"It's where they always
go," he said quietly staring at her.
"They?" Max inquired.
"The ones that identify with
Lysander… We get about one a year. You're the first Nimue I've met though…
You'll make it if he can just admit what's in front of him…though for men like
him that's hard. That's why this all started in the first place isn't it? If a
strong stubborn man had just come to terms with his heart before it was too
late, we wouldn't have desperate men seeking my garden for solace."
Max breathed an uneasy breath and
walked away from the old man. She walked a long ways to the garden until she
saw Logan's figure on his knees before the statue…right where the gardener
predicted he would come. She watched he body carefully realizing he was crying
from a sorrow she couldn't identify. She crept quietly behind him to attain
what was wrong.
"I'm so confused," he
murmured to the statue. "She's going to leave me…I know it. We can't be
together…that has been the way it was set up from the beginning. I don't know
what I thought…if another man could love a living, breathing myth that maybe I
could too. What a fool? You're not real anymore than the possibility of Max and
me. You're just a myth… and I am just an idiot in love with a myth."
If he hadn't spoken the words out
loud Max wouldn't have believed it. She moved away silently, leaving Logan in
peace alone. He loved her…he wasn't pretending. The gardener was right. She
went to the tool shed to find the old man, but he wasn't there. She wandered
the grounds until she spotted him at the edge of the estate the crossed into
forest.
He was kneeling down, brushing
something on the ground. "You know its true now…" he said quietly.
"Yes," was all Max could
utter.
"Come…" Max approached the
spot on the ground to see a white grave marker that was weather beaten. There
appeared to be no writing at all on it until the gardener took a hand full of
dirt and ran it over the stone. Suddenly the name that they had been
researching appeared on the stone. Nimue Alexander was real and had a
gravestone to prove it. "She was his next door neighbor… The name Nimue
isn't common, I would have thought you would have checked old census
records."
"We did… The family in the next
plot were the Alexander's but there was no daughter named Nimue."
"You still don't get it do you?
You're in the South… The woman you're looking for was born just before the
Civil War. Did you ever check the records of the slaves or former slaves from
the area? The reason you didn't find her was you were looking for a white
legitimate daughter…when she was a black illegitimate daughter… The rich
landowner next door fell in love with a woman he would never be allowed to be
with…so he left her everything, in death honoring her in a way the world would
quickly dismiss and create a myth to cover over."
"Why didn't you just tell
us?" Max asked.
"Because it will do your
husband no good to find out that they weren't allowed to be together this side
of heaven. It will only sink him into further depression… All evidence of her
person was destroyed by the Moore's so there could be no claim to the property
or money…except for this and her birth certificate."
"So why is this still
here?" Max asked.
"Because the Moore's never knew
it existed," he said with a smile.
"Logan needs to know she was
real…" she said simply.
"What will that do? Make him
tell you he loves you? Why not say it first? Why not blow his mind and take the
risks ahead of you?" the old man said.
Max gazed at him for a moment,
reading the volumes in his face. "How many couples have you helped?"
"I told you, you're the first
Nimue I've met."
"Thank you… What's you're
name?" Max inquired.
"Lysander, ma'am… Lysander
Alexander. Some families stayed in this area… Mine wanted to be sure the story
didn't get destroyed," he said with a soft smile. "Go find your
Lysander."
Max smiled at him and went back to
the garden. Logan was still on his knees in front of the statue. She sidled up
beside him and reached out a hand to him. He ran his hands over his eyes before
finally accepting her hand. "I have something to show you," she
whispered.
They walked handed in hand to the
gravestone. "I realized as this trip continued that we weren't here
because of a story or curiosity. We were here to figure out what's between us.
You're my Lysander and I'm your Nimue. They were as real as we are, with huge
obstacles between them… But they still loved each other, just like I love you.
Do you love me Logan?"
Max's confidence shocked Logan. She
was speaking words they had avoided for so long and now she asked the question
he was most scared of. She had just proclaimed her love for him but he still
trembled while trying to say the words. "I…I do… I love you… but
Max…"
She interrupted him mid thought,
"Then the rest doesn't matter. We'll find away to make it work… Better to
have loved and lost, right?"
"No… I can't… I don't know how…
I can't go through it again. I can't love you so much that it hurts, only to
lose you," he cried dropping to his knees clutching her waist. "I
can't lose you."
"So what? Denying that you love
me is going to make it better when that day comes? Don't you think it might
hurt worse to have no memories to savor and keep you going?" she asked
playing with his hair. She pulled his chin up towards her face, "If I get
captured would it be better if I entered like Brin with no one or like Tinga
with a great love? I'd rather have something to fight to get back to."
Tears descended Logan's face. "Every minute we have together…really
together is one more minute that they can't take away from me… every minute further
establishes my freedom from them and what they want me to be… Will you fight
for me? Will you fight to be with me?" Max asked the man clutching her so
tight it was hard to take a deep breath.
"Max…" he whispered at her
belly. "I love you so. I'll love you always… Help me, please."
Max knelt beside him and showed him
what the gravestone said. "You weren't kidding…She did exist. Why couldn't
we find her?"
"Because she was the
illegitimate daughter of the landowner next door…her mother was a slave Logan.
We weren't looking in the right place. The Moore family destroyed all record of
her so no one could lay claim to the land… They created the myth to prevent
lose of property and face," she said quietly.
"How did you find this?"
Logan asked.
A smile crept over Max's face,
"Lysander showed me."
"Oh really… Communicating with
the dead now?"
"No the gardener…Lysander
Alexander… They survived and so did the truth Logan… so will we."
Logan looked deeply into Max's eyes
and kissed her. Unlike their earlier kisses, this was truly from Logan's heart.
"Thank you…"
"I guess I don't really need to
wear these any more," she said slipping the rings from her finger.
"No, I guess not…" he said
talking them back into his hand. He stared down at them in his palm. He thought
of his mother and the regret he had that she would never meet Max. He looked
back up into her face and then decided to jump…
TBC
A/N:
Don't you just hate me!