Chapter 17
John and Meg spent one last, wonderful day together in the loft, glorying in the closeness that they both felt with his mother and sister as well as reveling in their own deepening bond.
Meg had become, since she had brought her laptop to the loft, a walking encyclopedia regarding the Pacific Northwest in general and Seattle and its environs in particular. She seemed to have spent hours gathering information about weather, real estate, employment, education and related topics. This day she regaled and dazzled them all with her new found knowledge.
Lee Ma, growing more comfortable in her new freedom, had been attempting more English as time went on, gently encouraged by her family and Meg to do so. To reciprocate, she began teaching Meg some rudiments of Cantonese, laughing delightedly when the occasional error in tonal quality resulted in meaning quite at odds--sometimes obscenely so-- with what she tried to teach. Meg vowed to remember some of her malapropos for future use, so colorful they would be as expletives.
Meg had yet to answer his proposal, but John was willing to wait, to allow the time she needed to come to the realization, to take that final step. He knew their evening of mutual confession had propelled forward the trust that was so necessary to building a lasting relationship.
John could almost have forgotten the danger that loomed over them, had not the dual fear
of their imminent parting and Meg's safety not been so foremost in his mind. He had wracked his brain for alternatives to the situation, but none presented themselves, as long as Meg refused to come with them.
He had considered abandoning plans to move his mother and sister to Seattle, to deal with the unfinished business before deciding on any move.
But John was keenly aware of the price that had been paid by both mother and sister being disconnected from family for so many years. His mother deserved to live near her surviving family, to have the comfort of sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews--all that the extended family represented. It was something she'd missed, thanks to him and the greater political environment, and he felt duty bound to restore some of that loss to her.
He accepted as a given, that Liu Shen would choose to stay with her mother. Hopefully she would not use that as an excuse not to live her own life. John hoped for his sister no less than what he now enjoyed himself, the love of someone special, the promise of a better future than the past.
If he did not act now, he could not be assured that he would survive to complete this duty to his family.
For himself, he would make a home wherever Meg chose to live. He would live in Los Angeles with her if that was her choice, if she could not bring herself to leave the only home city she'd ever known. Or if she expressed an interest in going anywhere else, he would make it happen. For himself, so long stateless and without firm ties to any one place, the only thing that mattered was that he was with Meg.
He must concentrate on surviving to fulfill that hearts desire.
The day had been long and perfect, Meg had basked in these last hours of closeness and companionability.
She tried desperately not to think of what tomorrow would bring. Another parting. Temporary this time, it was to be hoped. But if life had taught her anything, it was that there were no assurances. No matter how much they wished it to be otherwise,
they might not ever be together again.
She endeavored to make those last hours perfect, memorable--in case she would need to make them do for the rest of her life however short or long it might be.
Lee Ma and Liu Shen had determined to take their last night's meal in one of the building's secure private dining rooms, conveniently leaving John and Meg time to themselves. Ordering up a sumptuous meal of John's favorite foods--information thoughtfully provided by mother and sister sometime earlier--Meg had dressed carefully for dinner. She taken extra pains to present
herself in the prettiest of the cheongsams, taking special care with hair and makeup.
Rather than sit across the table from each other, They sat closely by each other, Meg feeding John, and he in the spirit of the evening, in turn feeding her. They ate slowly, making the meal into in intensely sensual experience.
After the meal, Meg announced her intention for a long soothing shower and began a striptease that ended up with them both in the shower, something of a reversal of their first evening together in John's living space and ending in a similar manner.
They fell into the bed in a tangle of towels and bed sheets, John giving a slight grunt of pain as his wounded shoulder made contact with the mattress. Meg, solicitous, touched the healing wound with the lightest of touches, soothing and massaging the shoulder, trailing kisses along his collarbone, onto his throat, John reciprocated with his own sensuous touch and series of kisses, their lips finally meeting, their bodies joining.
There was an intensity to their lovemaking this evening that had never existed between them before. Each striving to give the other the solace tonight that they would need in the days of separation to come.
Meg felt herself shatter into a million shards of glass, the exquisite pleasure of the moment seeming to transport her to another place, where fear did not exist and there was nothing but the two of them and the love they shared. The essence of John's being was like a bright light, bathing her in love and adoration, protective, possessive in the best meaning of the word, offering her the ultimate in freedom.
With her body she communicated her devotion, returning pleasure for pleasure, until they both hovered near insensibility.
They were two souls who had once been lost, riven apart by fate and circumstances. In this moment at this time, they again became as one soul, completely and irrevocably coalesced together.
Dawn inevitably came, bringing with it the pang, immediately felt upon wakening that having just found each other, they again must part.
Meg tried to force the new day away, burrowing deeply into John's arms, trying to commit to memory every aspect of him.
The flight to Seattle was scheduled for noon, and inevitably there was no choice but to rise and prepare.
She had watched John rise from the bed, and move to dress himself, using this small separation as a test for the larger one to come. Already she found it difficult to breathe, her arms and legs seemed leaden.
Meg felt wooden, clumsy, as awkward as a newborn foal. She struggled to rise and dress herself, fumbling with buttons, looking upon zippers hardly thought of before as miraculous new inventions with which she had no familiarity.
She looked up at one point, to see John watching her, the tenderness and concern she saw in his eyes warming her and chilling her all at the same time.
She would marry him. She knew that. Wanted to shout out the answer to him that he was patiently waiting for.
But the words died in her throat. She would wait, until they were both safe, any and all threats banished forever. It was the only way she would be able to do what she must in the days to come.
John approached her finally, holding the parcel the concierge had delivered the night before last. So great had her distraction been, that she'd forgotten of its existence, coming as it had in the middle of their evening of mutual confession to each other.
"I want you to have this. I want to know that I can talk to you any time I have the wish," John was saying, "and that you can do likewise."
Meg accepted the cell phone, her numbed brain
refusing at first to recognize the device. She looked at John, lost and confused.
He sat down next to her, touching her face.
"They are programmed that one touch--here," John demonstrated, and the phone in her hand jumped to loud life. John deactivated the call, even as Meg jumped involuntarily at the noise, "will bring us together. If we will have nothing else for the next few days, we will have the comfort of knowing that we are but one touch away from each other."
Meg nodded, tears forming unbidden and unwanted in her eyes. She didn't want to cry. Not now.
She wasn't often speechless, but she was this morning. Fearing that if she opened her mouth she would throw all caution to the winds and either confess her plot or beg him to run off with her to some new life, somewhere very far away, where they could begin anew. As tempting as the idea might be, she knew it would only delay the inevitable. They'd found him in China, they'd found him here. Eventually they would find John Lee anywhere. As much as she wanted that new life, she wanted it to be unencumbered by the past, free from the fear that now consumed her for her beloved John's safety.
So she stayed mute, for a while longer.
She was silent all the way to the airport. She drove her car purposefully, but at the same time looked at John as much as she dared, wanting to impress every breath he took into her memory. Her pain was so intense, she wondered if she were dying.
If only things could be different...if only....
John studied Meg quietly, even as she watched him. His sister and mother, sensing the charged atmosphere between the two, had been silent as well, studying determinedly the city they were leaving behind.
He was worried at Meg's silence. He could feel her tension along the bond they shared, suspected that there was more to her disquiet than the fact of their parting today, as substantial as that was.
His own fear was palpable. He had seldom felt the bone chilling kind of fear that he felt now--having distanced himself from his emotions all these many years. It wasn't anxiety for himself, or even for his family--it was the exquisite torture of worry for the woman he loved.
She was spirited, she was strong. She was determined, and he loved her all the more for being who and what she was. But he knew also that she could be careless of herself. She was brave, heroic, and that could lead her to danger.
He'd talked to Ruong Jie this morning, while Meg had dressed. He would be meeting them at the airport. He had to trust that his old comrade from their army days together still retained the capabilities that they'd both possessed then. That he could protect Meg, from external harm and also from herself.
Meg struggled to put on a brave face, a nonchalant air as they approached the departure gate. The monk, Lau Ruong-Jie had joined them at baggage check-in wearing street clothes and a determined air. Had Meg been in fuller possession of her senses, she might have wondered at his presence. Instead she allowed herself to be distracted from the curiosity of it by exchanging heartfelt goodbyes with Lee Ma and Liu Shen, her mouth forming the words of a promise that their parting would be a short one.
Then the moment came. John was standing before her, much as he had six months ago, looking at her with heartbreaking tenderness.
"I will miss you," he said softly, repeating now what he had said then.
"Lee Ma has your medicine, and your dressings. Don't give her any arguments about either one," Meg said finally, her voice husky from tension.
John nodded and smiled. "I won't," he promised sincerely.
"I know its only a two hour flight or so. But don't do what you did the last time you were on an airplane and forget to drink liquids. I don't want to hear about you landing with another case of dehydration."
"Understood," John agreed, a twitch of amusement playing at his cupid's bow lips.
"And whatever you do, don't you dare come back to me again with any bullet holes in you. You hear me? I don't want to ever go through that again!" Meg's voice reached a higher octave than she would have cared it to, had she had any shred of self consciousness left to her.
John grinned at her then--his delightful laugh--never heard often enough. He took her face between his hands and drew her close.
It was less of a kiss, though it was also that, than an avowal of all his love, tenderness and adoration. Meg's head reeled as she came up for air.
She looked at him for a moment, her soul in her very eyes, then she threw herself into his arms and without a shred of self awareness, she kissed him so deeply that he was warmed by the action all the way to Seattle.
Then he turned, and shepherding sister and mother before him, vanished into the crowd at the departure gate.
end of Chapter 17
John and Meg spent one last, wonderful day together in the loft, glorying in the closeness that they both felt with his mother and sister as well as reveling in their own deepening bond.
Meg had become, since she had brought her laptop to the loft, a walking encyclopedia regarding the Pacific Northwest in general and Seattle and its environs in particular. She seemed to have spent hours gathering information about weather, real estate, employment, education and related topics. This day she regaled and dazzled them all with her new found knowledge.
Lee Ma, growing more comfortable in her new freedom, had been attempting more English as time went on, gently encouraged by her family and Meg to do so. To reciprocate, she began teaching Meg some rudiments of Cantonese, laughing delightedly when the occasional error in tonal quality resulted in meaning quite at odds--sometimes obscenely so-- with what she tried to teach. Meg vowed to remember some of her malapropos for future use, so colorful they would be as expletives.
Meg had yet to answer his proposal, but John was willing to wait, to allow the time she needed to come to the realization, to take that final step. He knew their evening of mutual confession had propelled forward the trust that was so necessary to building a lasting relationship.
John could almost have forgotten the danger that loomed over them, had not the dual fear
of their imminent parting and Meg's safety not been so foremost in his mind. He had wracked his brain for alternatives to the situation, but none presented themselves, as long as Meg refused to come with them.
He had considered abandoning plans to move his mother and sister to Seattle, to deal with the unfinished business before deciding on any move.
But John was keenly aware of the price that had been paid by both mother and sister being disconnected from family for so many years. His mother deserved to live near her surviving family, to have the comfort of sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews--all that the extended family represented. It was something she'd missed, thanks to him and the greater political environment, and he felt duty bound to restore some of that loss to her.
He accepted as a given, that Liu Shen would choose to stay with her mother. Hopefully she would not use that as an excuse not to live her own life. John hoped for his sister no less than what he now enjoyed himself, the love of someone special, the promise of a better future than the past.
If he did not act now, he could not be assured that he would survive to complete this duty to his family.
For himself, he would make a home wherever Meg chose to live. He would live in Los Angeles with her if that was her choice, if she could not bring herself to leave the only home city she'd ever known. Or if she expressed an interest in going anywhere else, he would make it happen. For himself, so long stateless and without firm ties to any one place, the only thing that mattered was that he was with Meg.
He must concentrate on surviving to fulfill that hearts desire.
The day had been long and perfect, Meg had basked in these last hours of closeness and companionability.
She tried desperately not to think of what tomorrow would bring. Another parting. Temporary this time, it was to be hoped. But if life had taught her anything, it was that there were no assurances. No matter how much they wished it to be otherwise,
they might not ever be together again.
She endeavored to make those last hours perfect, memorable--in case she would need to make them do for the rest of her life however short or long it might be.
Lee Ma and Liu Shen had determined to take their last night's meal in one of the building's secure private dining rooms, conveniently leaving John and Meg time to themselves. Ordering up a sumptuous meal of John's favorite foods--information thoughtfully provided by mother and sister sometime earlier--Meg had dressed carefully for dinner. She taken extra pains to present
herself in the prettiest of the cheongsams, taking special care with hair and makeup.
Rather than sit across the table from each other, They sat closely by each other, Meg feeding John, and he in the spirit of the evening, in turn feeding her. They ate slowly, making the meal into in intensely sensual experience.
After the meal, Meg announced her intention for a long soothing shower and began a striptease that ended up with them both in the shower, something of a reversal of their first evening together in John's living space and ending in a similar manner.
They fell into the bed in a tangle of towels and bed sheets, John giving a slight grunt of pain as his wounded shoulder made contact with the mattress. Meg, solicitous, touched the healing wound with the lightest of touches, soothing and massaging the shoulder, trailing kisses along his collarbone, onto his throat, John reciprocated with his own sensuous touch and series of kisses, their lips finally meeting, their bodies joining.
There was an intensity to their lovemaking this evening that had never existed between them before. Each striving to give the other the solace tonight that they would need in the days of separation to come.
Meg felt herself shatter into a million shards of glass, the exquisite pleasure of the moment seeming to transport her to another place, where fear did not exist and there was nothing but the two of them and the love they shared. The essence of John's being was like a bright light, bathing her in love and adoration, protective, possessive in the best meaning of the word, offering her the ultimate in freedom.
With her body she communicated her devotion, returning pleasure for pleasure, until they both hovered near insensibility.
They were two souls who had once been lost, riven apart by fate and circumstances. In this moment at this time, they again became as one soul, completely and irrevocably coalesced together.
Dawn inevitably came, bringing with it the pang, immediately felt upon wakening that having just found each other, they again must part.
Meg tried to force the new day away, burrowing deeply into John's arms, trying to commit to memory every aspect of him.
The flight to Seattle was scheduled for noon, and inevitably there was no choice but to rise and prepare.
She had watched John rise from the bed, and move to dress himself, using this small separation as a test for the larger one to come. Already she found it difficult to breathe, her arms and legs seemed leaden.
Meg felt wooden, clumsy, as awkward as a newborn foal. She struggled to rise and dress herself, fumbling with buttons, looking upon zippers hardly thought of before as miraculous new inventions with which she had no familiarity.
She looked up at one point, to see John watching her, the tenderness and concern she saw in his eyes warming her and chilling her all at the same time.
She would marry him. She knew that. Wanted to shout out the answer to him that he was patiently waiting for.
But the words died in her throat. She would wait, until they were both safe, any and all threats banished forever. It was the only way she would be able to do what she must in the days to come.
John approached her finally, holding the parcel the concierge had delivered the night before last. So great had her distraction been, that she'd forgotten of its existence, coming as it had in the middle of their evening of mutual confession to each other.
"I want you to have this. I want to know that I can talk to you any time I have the wish," John was saying, "and that you can do likewise."
Meg accepted the cell phone, her numbed brain
refusing at first to recognize the device. She looked at John, lost and confused.
He sat down next to her, touching her face.
"They are programmed that one touch--here," John demonstrated, and the phone in her hand jumped to loud life. John deactivated the call, even as Meg jumped involuntarily at the noise, "will bring us together. If we will have nothing else for the next few days, we will have the comfort of knowing that we are but one touch away from each other."
Meg nodded, tears forming unbidden and unwanted in her eyes. She didn't want to cry. Not now.
She wasn't often speechless, but she was this morning. Fearing that if she opened her mouth she would throw all caution to the winds and either confess her plot or beg him to run off with her to some new life, somewhere very far away, where they could begin anew. As tempting as the idea might be, she knew it would only delay the inevitable. They'd found him in China, they'd found him here. Eventually they would find John Lee anywhere. As much as she wanted that new life, she wanted it to be unencumbered by the past, free from the fear that now consumed her for her beloved John's safety.
So she stayed mute, for a while longer.
She was silent all the way to the airport. She drove her car purposefully, but at the same time looked at John as much as she dared, wanting to impress every breath he took into her memory. Her pain was so intense, she wondered if she were dying.
If only things could be different...if only....
John studied Meg quietly, even as she watched him. His sister and mother, sensing the charged atmosphere between the two, had been silent as well, studying determinedly the city they were leaving behind.
He was worried at Meg's silence. He could feel her tension along the bond they shared, suspected that there was more to her disquiet than the fact of their parting today, as substantial as that was.
His own fear was palpable. He had seldom felt the bone chilling kind of fear that he felt now--having distanced himself from his emotions all these many years. It wasn't anxiety for himself, or even for his family--it was the exquisite torture of worry for the woman he loved.
She was spirited, she was strong. She was determined, and he loved her all the more for being who and what she was. But he knew also that she could be careless of herself. She was brave, heroic, and that could lead her to danger.
He'd talked to Ruong Jie this morning, while Meg had dressed. He would be meeting them at the airport. He had to trust that his old comrade from their army days together still retained the capabilities that they'd both possessed then. That he could protect Meg, from external harm and also from herself.
Meg struggled to put on a brave face, a nonchalant air as they approached the departure gate. The monk, Lau Ruong-Jie had joined them at baggage check-in wearing street clothes and a determined air. Had Meg been in fuller possession of her senses, she might have wondered at his presence. Instead she allowed herself to be distracted from the curiosity of it by exchanging heartfelt goodbyes with Lee Ma and Liu Shen, her mouth forming the words of a promise that their parting would be a short one.
Then the moment came. John was standing before her, much as he had six months ago, looking at her with heartbreaking tenderness.
"I will miss you," he said softly, repeating now what he had said then.
"Lee Ma has your medicine, and your dressings. Don't give her any arguments about either one," Meg said finally, her voice husky from tension.
John nodded and smiled. "I won't," he promised sincerely.
"I know its only a two hour flight or so. But don't do what you did the last time you were on an airplane and forget to drink liquids. I don't want to hear about you landing with another case of dehydration."
"Understood," John agreed, a twitch of amusement playing at his cupid's bow lips.
"And whatever you do, don't you dare come back to me again with any bullet holes in you. You hear me? I don't want to ever go through that again!" Meg's voice reached a higher octave than she would have cared it to, had she had any shred of self consciousness left to her.
John grinned at her then--his delightful laugh--never heard often enough. He took her face between his hands and drew her close.
It was less of a kiss, though it was also that, than an avowal of all his love, tenderness and adoration. Meg's head reeled as she came up for air.
She looked at him for a moment, her soul in her very eyes, then she threw herself into his arms and without a shred of self awareness, she kissed him so deeply that he was warmed by the action all the way to Seattle.
Then he turned, and shepherding sister and mother before him, vanished into the crowd at the departure gate.
end of Chapter 17