We eat in silence except for the occasional "this is really good" and "more wine?" After weeks
on the campaign trail and weeks of only being with him with sometimes fifty, sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of other people in the room, the silence is amazing. It's just us. The rest of the world has ceased to exist.
"So, what else have you been thinking about today?" I ask, anxious to know what he'll say.
Fitz leans back in his chair and rests his head on the high back. He's looking at me intently when he responds. "Poetry."
"Poetry?"
He nods. "Do you know Pablo Neruda?"
"Yes. Chilean poet. I'm sensing a theme here."
He smiles wistfully. "I was 19-20, taking this lit class in college. And the teacher reads us one of his poems.
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
There's more, I know. I don't remember the rest. I just remember thinking, when I meet the woman I feel that way about I'm going to marry her. My parents were married for years. I'd like to think there was love at one time, probably for the first few years. I wanted something different. I wanted to be married 20 years later and still be in love. And I dated and dated. But I didn't find the one. And then something called life got in the way. And something called wanting to please my father got in the way. And Mellie came along and well, that's history." He takes a sip of wine and swallows slowly. "So I was thinking about that poem today. That's how I feel about you."
I'm touched, beyond words. "You did a lot of thinking today."
"Well, I had some time. You know, the reverend prayed for 30 minutes and I think after the first 15 he prayed us all into Heaven so I figured I had some time to spare."
I burst out laughing at this, remembering the good reverend and how I too thought his prayer would never end. Fitz is laughing with me and I realize how much I love his laugh. How much I love him. "So…what else did you think about today?"
"Wanting to see you naked by candle light."
"Please tell me you waited until after we left the church to think about that."
"I told you, I figured I had time to spare."
I shake my head and laugh again. I know he's serious, though, about wanting to see me naked by candle light. And suddenly I'm serious about wanting to see him naked by candle light, about wanting not only to show him, but also tell him how I feel.
The words come to me in rush, and I say them slowly, savoring every one.
"I hunger for your sleek laugh,
Your hands the color of a savage harvest,
Hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
The sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
Hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue."
"You know the poem," Fitz says.
"I know the poem, well. I studied a little poetry too when I was in college. I couldn't remember all the words either until just now. I remember the first time I read it, how I wanted to be desired like that. How I wanted to desire someone like that."
"And now you are." Fitz comes toward me and pulls me up from my chair. He brushes his hand across my forehead, my cheek.
I caress his face in turn, run my fingers through his hair. "And now I do. I know you told me earlier that you don't need me to say it, that you knew. But I love you, Fitz. I don't know where we go from here, but I know that I love you."
"Liv…" He crushes his lips to mine and I part them willingly, hungry for everything that he is, everything that he will be.
There's no rush. There's no 6 a.m. prayer breakfast to get ready for, no speeches to edit, no phones to answer. There's just us, and this moment. And I vow, finally, to lose myself in it.