Chapter 13: Another Gentleman's Hand
"Gino ow' is she? Hurt bad?"
"No, she is a-fine, really."
Two voices, was I really hearing two voices? One was anxious and colorful, but rich. The second, was reassuring, Italian and friendly. But were they real, that was the question. Were they in my head where most writers kept their voices, even after death? Or were they somewhere I wasn't yet, like awake?
"Surprise though, she is with-a child."
"She's pregnant? Is th' baby ok?"
"Si, incinta my friend. And fine, they are both fine."
They stopped again, whoever they were. I could feel something, air, a breeze, heaven maybe? Did I actually make it? In my mind, wherever it was, I was laughing. And the voices, wherever they were, began again.
"Hmm…She did say she was married."
"You already know this girl, eh Michel? Luck then, no?"
A sigh, I swear I heard a sigh. A real one, not a theological one.
"I know er' mate. But this isn't lucky. You're sure she's okay?"
"Yes, yes. She is-a half awake now…"
What? Who, me?
And of course, before I could ask myself the question again or ponder it in my state of isolation and purgatory, I felt my eyes opening to the light above me.
"You see. Look at her now, waking up."
All at once then, when I could see a bright yellow ring shining down in my eyes and a sea of blue surrounding it, I felt two soft hands, one on my cheek and the other on my arm. Slowly, as the light moved away and something else came in to block it for me, I began to make out the shape of a face, one that probably belonged to one of the voices. It didn't appear as a man for another few seconds of fluttering blinks, but when it did, and when I saw the faintest glow of two ember eyes staring down at me, I truly believed I'd made it to the gates.
"Roxanne?"
The angel knew my name. I never believed in this stuff, the bright light at the end of the long tunnel, the heavenly bodies floating high over you when you made it, it all seemed so superficial to be of any real religious meaning. But now, seeing the glory of something I couldn't explain, I swear I found deep faith.
"Roxanne, can ye 'ear me?"
Ah, I thought with a relaxing grin, my guardian angel is Irish. Nice touch, 'oh great one'.
"I don' think she can 'ear me."
I nodded against his hands ferociously, begging him to understand that I could. And then he smirked wildly, like I thought I remembered someone else before him doing. His face though, was half in the shadow of the blocked sun and I couldn't make him out.
"Can ye speak t' me then, love?"
Again, I nodded and fought against everything in me to get my spiritual voice.
"Y-yes," I finally stuttered as he brushed my wet cheeks. Why the hell was I wet in heaven?
"Good, that's good. Yer alright, yer fine now."
Very gently, I felt my body being lifted, as if on a cloud but even better. It was this strange man's arms, his strong, perfect, safe arms. I held onto him, afraid I might fall right back down to earth or even farther, to the heat where I thought I belonged. But I didn't, I stayed right there, sitting curled into his arms, breathing the salty burn of him in and sighing for relief as I heard the other man speak again nearby.
"Need to get her some dry clothes."
The angel stroked through my dripping hair and replied, "I 'ave some down below ye can grab."
"An' do you know where t' find her husband, Roux?"
Relief gone.
Roux. Roux. Roux. Roux. Roux. Irish. The painter. The shop. The eyes. ROUX…
I forced myself away from his comforting arms suddenly and blinked to catch his face in the brighter light, breathing heavily and anxiously as he continued to try and soothe me.
"You…you're…I know you," I gasped as he eyed me curiously.
"An' I know you."
"The painting."
He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "Is on its way t' a place called Mills River."
My eyes bulged and I gripped his arms, which were soaked like mine, but ever stronger.
"I'm not…this isn't--"
"Wot'?"
"I'm not dead?!"
He was amused by that one, as he well should have been. I was making a complete fool of myself.
"Ye are very much alive. And yer baby th' same."
The gruff, older voice intervened from behind me as the second man came forward with dry clothes.
"All thanks to Roux here, signora. Pulled you from la acqua, like a fish."
I shot a glance from the elder, chuckling Italian fisherman's face, to Roux's dark eyes as he responded.
"But it was Gino ere' who got t' play doctor on ye."
I stiffened, not sure what that meant. I was scared until I got the answer.
"E's been retired for far too long. E' finally got a patient again."
"An' she fell from the sky. Come per magia, magic."
Roux laughed and I breathed past the pain I suddenly felt swelling in my leg, the one that was draped across both of his. Then I felt it in my head. I reached for each, one at a time, and found blood in both locations.
"Don't worry, we'll get ye bandaged up. First ye need dry clothes, though."
My eyes widened again, nervous in his arms.
"I don't think I can--with my leg…"
"Need 'elp?"
I nodded with my face low and embarrassed. And there, in that moment when I agreed to let the gypsy painter who had saved my life help to get me out of my wet clothes, was when I saw Mort's face and heard his voice and saw him worried and scared and as jealous as I'd been.
"My husband," I whispered out of reaction mode.
Roux grinned respectfully with a hand raised and said, "I promise I won' gawk."
I accepted because I had no choice and he wrapped my arms around his neck as he lifted me from the bench, which I had since realized was on a boat. Then he carried me toward the small wooden cabin in the middle. It was close quarters inside, dark, but cozy in a nice and homely way, and decorated by what appeared to be decades of travel. He very easily sat me down on the old bed, which was comfortable in that it sank to the mold of my weight, as if it were meant to hug someone to sleep.
Roux stepped in front of me then, kneeling and unhooking my wet jeans without concern for anything but getting them off and something dry on in exchange. He slipped them off, only taking his time when he came to the gash in my knee.
"Thought so. Ye must 'ave hit the rocks harder than I thought."
I winced at the pain of the soaked denim pulling at the torn skin and muscle.
"Sorry."
"No, don't be." I smiled with tears and helped him as best I could. "You saved my life."
He looked up at me with those ever falling eyes, hooking me, sinking me.
"I had to."
"No you didn't."
"Yes," he chuckled, "I did."
"Why?"
The pants landed in a wet ball on the floor and he tried not to look directly up at my black lingerie, while he worked on sliding a pair of worn, men's cotton shorts up each of my legs instead.
Finally he replied, "Because me best painting is on its way t' America for ye. Tough gift t' get back."
I laughed away the pain and pulled the shorts up with the drawstring tight to make up for the extra space, letting the blood still trickle down my leg from the knee. He soon put a stop to this too though, as he tugged a wet sash from around his neck, folded it and began to wipe away the seeping red until there was none left.
"That painting is slowly increasing in price. It's saving lives now, and you choose to give it away for free."
"Still th' only worthwhile price in me eyes."
"If you say so."
"I do. In fact, I insist."
He lifted a beaten old white shirt from the floor of the cabin and then half stood to pull away my wet tank top and replace it quickly, at the expense of only a peek or two from what I could see. His shirt was so warm and comfortable when it hit my shivering skin. It smelled like him too, as if he had only just slept in it the night before. Tiny paint blots were scattered, of blue and greens and reds all alike, and this made me smile all the more as he set about to bandage my leg.
He held my leg on his lap as he sat on the floor below me, wiped and cleaned and medicated the affected area. I twisted the water out of my long curls and into a towel he'd tossed to me and then tried to brush through them for distraction as I felt the pain of the alcohol on my wound. I bit my lip and he threw me a short, with that completely unfair way he had of grinning I might add.
I thought of Mort again though, strangely enough. I wondered if he had heard the gunshots I could only now remember, in the phone. I wondered if he was hunting for me like crazy. I wondered how long I'd been out, and how long I'd been gone. I recalled falling into the water with my bag and I knew I'd dropped my cell phone too.
"Do you know what time it is?"
Roux pulled out a pocket watch from his dripping shirt and shook the water out as I laughed.
"2:30."
He smiled up at me jokingly.
"That doesn't even work does it?"
"Nope. Not anymore."
"That's my fault. I'm sorry."
"Don' be. I got it from a thief in Greece. It was bound t' go sideways sooner r' later."
I looked at him sort of funny, at his phrasing rather than the note of him possibly befriending thieves.
"Go sideways?"
"Yeah, ye know…" he began to wrap gauze about my knee, "…when somethin' breaks, or goes odd. When ye don't know how t' explain wot's happened, but it still 'as. We say it's gon' sideways."
I liked that for some reason. Maybe because it's how I had felt the last few days or so. I couldn't explain what was happening to me, or my marriage, or my husband. It felt odd, it felt unfair and unjust and all weird, and I didn't know why. We'd gone temporarily sideways.
"Whose we?" I finally questioned him.
And in that insanely perfect and killer accent he whispered, "Me mother mostly."
"I like her logic."
He responded with only a smile and I think I knew why, so I let it go and watched him finish on my leg before he came to take a seat beside me on the mattress. It formed to the both of us and brought his chest close to mine, his breath to cover me and his eyes nearly glued to my forehead as he wiped away the blood from the cut that was there.
"Looks like yer a magnet for these."
I looked up at him oddly, confused again.
"Wounds," he answered my facial expression, "Ye got a right pretty scar up ere' already."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that."
"Lacking grace are ye, doll?"
I shook my head with a giggle and assured him of his wrongness.
"No. I was in a car accident before I left the States."
He was suddenly pensive, almost sad looking, like a brooding puppy.
"But I'm fine."
He nodded and placed a small butterfly bandage on my forehead.
"Good t' hear."
"Thank you, again, for everything. I owe you the universe and then some, I think."
A smile crossed his lips, and they were close, so close I found myself tempted to do something completely wrong. But I didn't. I knew where my place was.
"Yer welcome," he whispered, his hot breath hitting my mouth.
And then, when I really hadn't expected it, I felt his lips, the same ones I'd been admiring, reach up and lightly press against the warm skin at my brow. He stayed there for what felt like forever and a day, but it wasn't romantic as much as it was caring, sentimental and healing.
And oh God was it ever healing.
He murmured then, "I should get ye back t' your husband."
"Yes."
I was timid, quiet, not wanting his lips to leave my skin, but not sure they should be there at all. He kissed me a second time, a little lower on the bridge of my nose.
"E' must be worried sick."
"Yes…"
There was a wet imprint left from his lips as he slowly moved away. My eyes were shut tenderly, trying to pretend it wasn't over, and maybe it wasn't, because a second later, while I sat idly in my own little world, I again felt his mouth. This time it hit my right cheek. Then it landed on my right eyelid, my left closed eyelid, and finally, my left cheek.
I sighed against the touches but eventually forced myself to see him.
"I'm sorry, that wasn't right o' me."
"No."
He smiled, thinking I was agreeing with him so easily.
"No, I mean, it's fine."
"Ah, very well then." With that, he carefully lifted me from the bed again, realizing that I couldn't quite walk properly with my stinging leg, and carried me back out onto the deck. "Time t' get ye back to where ye belong, little American lassie."
I smiled and clung to him tight, for whatever reason, wishing I didn't have to let go.
And then I again remembered the man I'd probably sent into a raging fit of fear, as well as the cell phone I'd lost and whispered, "Do you have a phone I can use, Roux?"
No return calls came in when the line died and no text messages were sent. I wasn't sure what had happened. I heard a loud bang from my end, then a scream from Roxanne and a click, but nothing more. Oh sure a hundred million things went through my mind at once, and double that to two million whenever I thought of the baby, although I tried to ignore them all.
I waited for almost ten minutes to see if she'd dial back. And when she didn't and when I had left greasy fingertip prints all over the countertop, tapping away nervously, biting my nails and shifting my eyes from the balcony to the front door of the villa, I decided to go out and find her.
I jumped in the Ferrari and drove as fast as I could through the tiny streets and around the complicated corners of the village. I stopped at least twenty times, whenever I saw a brown haired woman walking with her back turned or whenever I saw someone with fishing nets since the photo she sent to my phone was of the coast. But no one had answers and they all sent me in different directions, saying that the photo could be of any single point on the coast from here to Sicily.
Needless to say, I was going crazy.
And yeah, I probably would have made it to the nearest Italian asylum too, if I hadn't driven further, or prayed longer, or thought about her so many times in so few minutes at once. The clock radio in the old car sprang to read exactly 5:00, and that's when I heard my cell phone ring from the passenger's seat. The number wasn't familiar, it actually appeared local in comparison to others I'd seen on storefronts, but I answered it all the same, certain that it was something important, something necessary.
"Hello?"
It was scratchy, but I could hear a soft, "Honey?" And that's what made me pull off the road.
I ground the Ferrari into park, shoved open the car door and ran out into the small coastal lane of highway.
"Roxanne, is that you?"
"It's me. It's--"
Another cut. I circled around, thinking it was my reception, and tearing up just from the confusion and joy.
"Baby, can you hear me? Roxanne?!"
"I can--" "—yes, I--" "—Mort--"
"I'm here. You're breaking up."
My breathing staggered, my pulse raced like a horse about to run for its livelihood, and my eyes welled with the wetness that I hadn't let fall in the course of the hunt yet. I wanted to shout for her to give me a clue as to where she was. I figured it would at least get me a little closer to finding her again. But I didn't get a chance, not when a single second later, I heard a honking on the darkening road behind me and saw two rusted old headlights coming at me.
"It's me--we're pulling up to you."
And finally I got to smile. Well, for a few seconds anyway.
The line on the phone went dead when I saw the shadow of a fishing truck door open, then saw one bare foot hit the dusty ground, the other lagging behind as I ran toward her. She was struggling just to stand up on one leg, let alone the both of them, and let alone run to me as well.
"Roxanne…"
I hurried to the truck door, pulled it open further to wrap my arms around her waist and lift her from the ground. She wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging tight, as if she wanted to squeeze the life out of me. Not that I cared, since I was doing the same to her, crying into her shoulder and kissing her neck.
"Oh my God, I thought--" I breathed deep and she held onto me more roughly. "I don't know what I thought. Are you okay?"
I pulled her face back, brushing her hair from her eyes with a free hand as she smiled, weakly.
"I'm alive. That counts right?"
"Yes." She wiped the tears off of my nose for me. "That's all that counts."
I saw someone coming towards us from around the right side, the driver's side of the truck, and I moved to place her back on her own two feet, realizing only a quick second later, that it wasn't going to happen and that she was wearing someone else's clothes, a man's, this man's maybe?
Roxanne seethed in pain when her left foot hit the ground, apparently causing her knee to bend in a direction that wasn't exactly well enough for it, and she grasped onto me again with a screech.
"Sweetheart, what happened? You're--"
I was interrupted by the voice of the moving figure in the blue shadows of late day.
"She landed near th' rocks when she hit th' water. I tried t' bandage her knee as best I could, but she could stand t' have an x-ray still, m'sure."
The face of a man, not much older than me I assumed, came into view with a smile. He scratched his temple as he examined the way Roxanne was standing off her injured leg, same as I was.
"Mort," she held onto my arms as I kept her close to me. "This is Roux. He saved me."
It hurt to hear that for some reason. I guess because that had always been my job, to save her life. I'd done it so often, under so many different circumstances, that it came as a blow to hear that some other man, a stranger with a glowing grin for my wife, had rescued her this time. But I hid my pain well and reached out to shake his hand.
"Well Roux, I don't think I can thank you enough."
He acted modestly, like all good heroes do. "It really was nothing. I couldn't not ave' done it, ye know?"
"Right."
Roxanne and I shared a short glance and I saw something in her eyes behind the pain and exhaustion. It looked like nervousness and I couldn't understand why it was there.
"I fell from the cliffs and I would have drowned, but he jumped in, and saved me and the baby. He even broke his own watch in the process…"
They shared a sly smirk and bit of laughter of their own, and all I could do was nod.
"Roux is a painter. I met him at the gallery yesterday."
She met him at the gallery and didn't say a word about it?
This caught me off guard a little as I watched their conversation continue on for another minute or so, trying my best to keep Roxanne from standing on her bad leg.
"Had t' rescue er' so I knew me painting would find a safe owner back in th' States."
Roxanne giggled and rested her head on my shoulder.
"You bought a painting, you didn't tell me that?"
"Oh no, I--"
"It was a gift, mate. I've been trying t' get rid o' the thing for a decade."
My mouth was half hanging open as I nodded to him, then glanced down to catch Roxanne's glowing green eyes under my chin, and again back to the man who seemed to have made easy friends with her.
"We really do owe you then. Is there anything we can--"
He cut me off, as if he had already practiced the art of it with my wife.
"Nothing, honestly. I'm human, an' any decent one would ave' done the same. I'm just glad t' get er' back to you safely, that's all."
Good answer, bud, I thought jealousy, as I held onto her waist tighter, claiming her for him to visibly see.
"I appreciate it more than you'll ever know. I've been losing my mind all afternoon."
"I had a feeling you would," Roxanne whispered and hugged me close. "I told Roux you'd be going crazy."
"She did," he laughed heartily.
A minute or so passed, where little was said but the obvious, a couple of shared inside jokes between the Irish hero and the girl who should have been raised from the depths of the Italian waves by only me. Then, there were goodbyes, a hobbling hug from Roxanne to the painter, but nothing beyond what gratitude and respect required, and then he was getting back in his truck again.
"Stay safe on th' rest o' your vacation, yeah?"
"I will."
"Trust me," I joked fairly, finally feeling comfortable enough with the situation to do it. "She will."
Smiles were thrown about, the rumble of the rusting old truck mixed with the scent of long since forgotten crabs in the back, and after a storm of dust was lifted into the gray sky, the man named Roux, with the twisted smirk and brooding eyes, took off.
I carried Roxanne to the car, helped her into the passenger's seat with a resting place for her leg, and nearly had the door shut when I felt her tug on my shirt and pull me down to her inside, practically forcing me to kneel to the ground in the rush.
Her hands held my face in the darkening light of day, her eyes roaming upon mine, over my lips and nose and chin and then back to my eyes again, searching for something by the looks of it. And when I thought she had found it, I saw her lips twist into a tender smile.
"Everything okay?"
"Yes."
"Sure?"
She nodded, ran the pad of her thumb over my bottom lip and then captured my entire mouth against hers, warmly, sensationally, the way I'd dreamed it all day long. I could have stayed there, half standing inside of the Ferrari, pressed into her heat and weak softness the rest of the night. I could have kissed her, tasted the salty sweetness on her tongue and every other bit of her saved skin into the next morning, right there.
But she eventually broke the kiss, let her tongue slide from mine and smiled.
"You're still my hero, Prince Rainman. Okay?"
I chuckled a little, not expecting her to say such a thing, never realizing she saw my jealousy at all and could only agree with a gentle nod and kiss on her forehead.
"Okay."
