Slumber
There was a time for them, like a nonexistent season somewhere between spring and summer. It looked a lot like autumn, but tasted like the end of March. It rained there on days like this one, when the world momentarily slowed and stopped—when everything became as still as night. It was located in the slice of evening and day, when the sun set softly over a hill and golden light kissed their small corner of the universe. It was times like these that made them feel special. They weren't like the others—no, never—they connected more than physically, they were spiritual comrades, a mental camaraderie that Lawrence Lefferts would never understand.
Sure, he lied, she lied, but no one suspected them and the guilt would run its course in due time. But not now. Not when it was their time to finally be happy and free. There was nothing wrong in procrastinating the culpability that would surely come. He would face it like a man, stand up to it, beat it down, until it started all over again.
But not her.
"Newland," she whispered painfully, her hand pressed against the breast of his shirt. Her dark eyes glimmered in their normal intensity and, for once, her lengthy black hair flowed down her back. Ringlets framed her wan, tired face—the ebony hue of her locks making her complexion look paler than usual. She looked sick, and frail, and plain, and ugly, and for the life of him he could not figure out what made him love her so much in that moment.
"No," he gently pressed before she even got the chance to ask her question. She took a breath and shook her head.
"Please Newland, you have to listen to me!"
"Why Ellen?" he inquired. A soft breeze blew through the French trees and rippled their clothes a little as it caressed passed them. He placed his hand against the nape of her small neck and he felt her pulse quicken. "You always tell me the same thing. I don't want to hear it."
"You must! Oh, I feel terrible," Ellen recoiled from his touch, leaving his hands feeling empty. She sat on the old log bench nestled on the porch and looked down at the rough, ugly planks. "Everyday I am torn. I live for the moment when I will see you again, waiting for your letter, and then I die a little when I do see you. I am barely who I want to be."
"You are," he replied, striding towards her, "everything I've always dreamed of being." He sat down next to her and longed for her hand, but she did not give it to him. A ray of the overcast sun flashed across the trees like a light searching for a missing soul. Everything was quiet and still, as it always was in the quaint French cottage, and Ellen's translucent skin lit up, turning rosy. For once, to him, she looked healthy.
"Newland, do not send me anymore letters. Do not call upon me and I will not call upon you. Go home—go home to May, your wife, and your son."
"Ack!" he replied, standing angrily. "May. May," he repeated. "The only reason I return is for my son. There is nothing else in New York for me," He looped his thumb through the belt opening of his pants. "It is the same thing—that life. I reject it. I reject the whole world and everything in it."
"There's stability there. With me--," she cut off suddenly. Newland did not turn to look at her. He stood watching as the trees moved and the animals sang to one another in their own tongue.
"With you…?"
"I am a dream," she said frankly, almost sadly. "I always have been a dream. For the Count, for you, for every other man that may come after. I am not the woman you marry, and if you do, I am the woman that you divorce. I am nothing but a unicorn's lock, flailing in the wind. You try to catch me, but you never can," He heard her sigh mournfully. "I am a dream. May, she is your reality."
There was a time for them, like a nonexistent season somewhere between spring and summer. It looked a lot like autumn, but tasted like the end of March. It rained there on days like this one, when the world momentarily slowed and stopped—when everything became as still as night. It was located in the slice of evening and day, when the sun set softly over a hill and golden light kissed their small corner of the universe.
Newland turned to look at her once more, thinking that he'd like to stay asleep forever.