Chapter Thirty-two
After about twenty minutes of attempting to create an accurate legend for his map, Sayid could not concentrate, and he sought out Nadia, who was sitting with Claire on the beach and playing with Aaron. Claire immediately stopped speaking when he approached, and he could only assume she had been talking to Nadia about Marcus.
"I need your help with some numbers," he told his wife.
"Numbers?" she asked. "You know that mathematics was never my strong suit."
"No," he agreed. "Literature was. I just want you to read them off to me."
"You cannot read them yourself?" Nadia asked, returning a dropped toy to Aaron.
"I think," said Claire, leaning over confidentially, "that your husband wants to spend some time alone with you."
"Is that so, Sayid?" Nadia asked, looking up at him with a teasing smile.
He nodded, and she rose slowly from the ground.
"You are an obstinate one," he murmured as they began to leave together.
"And this was a shocking revelation," she asked, "which came to you only after we were married?"
His mouth twitched, but he did not allow the smile to form. He led her back to his workbench. It was shaded and secluded, and they could have a private conversation there.
"You really want me to read off numbers?" she asked with surprise, folding her arms across her chest and looking down at the scattered materials. "Are you sure you do not require assistance in our tent?"
He sat in the sand and motioned for her to do the same. "That is not why I asked you to join me. Though, perhaps, later this afternoon…" When they were both seated beside one another, he pulled the ring from his pocket. "Marcus gave this back to me. Do you know why Claire refused him?"
Nadia nodded. "She thought he was only asking for…for the sex."
"What?" Sayid's voice rose as though it were mingled with both disbelief and laughter. "What do you mean?"
"His principles will not allow him to have premarital sex, and Claire thinks he asked just because he wants to…"
Sayid dropped the ring on the workbench and shook his head.
"Do you think it ridiculous?" Nadia asked.
"Ridiculous that Claire would think such a thing, or ridiculous that Marcus would ask for such a reason?"
"Either."
Sayid shrugged. "Both. But no doubt there's a little bit of truth in it. I mean…a man…"
She kissed his ear and whispered into it, "…has needs?"
"Yes," he murmured, attempting to refocus his thoughts on the conversation. "But I am quite sure that was not the only reason, or even the primary one. Marcus takes marriage very seriously. He is not going to enter into it lightly. Does Claire not believe that about him?"
When Nadia spoke, her sympathy for Claire was apparent in her tone. "She just wants to make sure she is not making too hasty a commitment. You know, Sayid, she has been injured before."
"I cannot help but feel badly for Marcus. He did not take it well."
"It is not as if she said she would never marry him. She just said she wanted to date awhile longer, and that he might consider asking again in two months. Why should he take it so hard?"
"Because our time is so short, Nadia—especially here. How can we know…" He trailed off and began to toy with the ring he had dropped on the table. "Claire ought to seize what happiness she can and not worry so much about how it will turn out."
"That does not seem a little rash to you?" Nadia asked.
"Not at all. I have regretted that I did not have more time with Shannon. And I have regretted that I refused to flee with you when you escaped. But I have never regretted a moment I have spent with a woman I loved."
Nadia kissed him, and when she broke the kiss, she said, "Everyone is different, Sayid. Claire has her own, unique past regrets, and she does not want to repeat them. She cares very much for Marcus, but she once thought a man had committed to her, and then he reneged. She wants to make sure it is going to work before she invests too much of her heart. She does not want it broken."
He shrugged. "She is kidding herself. She cannot protect her heart. No one can. It will break either way, whether they part now, in a month, or in ten years. She might as well marry him."
"Why does this matter so much to you, Sayid? You take little interest in gossip, and you are most certainly not the island matchmaker."
He smiled and drew Nadia against himself, kissing the top of her head. "I respect Marcus. Surprisingly, we get along quite well." Sayid had wed one victim of his interrogations and befriended another. It was certainly not the sort of divine retribution he had anticipated for himself half a year ago. "I hate to see him distraught."
"Tell Claire your opinion," suggested Nadia.
"Me? Tell Claire? You tell her."
"It is not my opinion, Sayid."
"You do not agree with me?"
"No," she answered.
"Curious."
Nadia laughed and rose to leave him alone, hoping that, if she did, he would go to Claire. "Yes," she said, before turning, "very curious indeed, especially since you know I have so little mind of my own."
His eyes danced with amusement as she began to retreat down the beach, and he called after her, "That is what I love most about you—always a compliant and malleable wife."
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As Nadia expected, after being left alone for a few minutes, Sayid did determine to speak to Claire. By now, she had moved to her tent, where she had placed Aaron down for an afternoon nap. Sayid heard her stirring inside and milled about the entrance, wondering how best to announce himself. One could not precisely knock.
Before he had decided what to do, she began to exit the opening, and she nearly ran into him. "Sayid," she said, a hand to her chest, "you startled me."
"Sorry. May I speak to you?"
"Of course. I was just going to take some of my laundry off the line." She began to remove the clothes stretched on a string from her tent outward. She glanced at him as she began to fold them.
"Marcus gave me this back," he said, extending her the ring.
"Back? I didn't know you two ever had an understanding." She tried to sound light hearted, but her voice wavered.
"I forged it for him."
"Oh."
He watched her fiddle with the clothes for awhile and then asked bluntly, "May I give you my opinion?"
Claire glanced at him and then back to the line. "Could I stop you from giving it?"
"Yes. Just tell me you do not wish to hear it, and I will leave."
She did not tell him that. She just kept concentrating on the clothes. He took her silence for consent. "Two months is a very long time in this place," he said. "You are asking a lot of Marcus."
She did not reply, and so he continued, "You should give him a chance, Claire. Marriage is always going to be a gamble, no matter how long you wait. But at least you'll be marrying a man who takes it seriously, and that means your odds of success are already very high."
Claire folded the last of her shirts. She lifted the pile from where she had lain it on the sand and turned to re-enter her tent. "I better stay with Aaron while he's napping," she said, and Sayid watched her retreat inside.