THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART FIFTY-ONE:

She had been sleeping beside him for well over an hour, and when she woke, she lay quietly, listening to him breathe and to the snow-muffled sounds from the world around the inn. It was Christmas Day. She lifted her left hand, looking at her ring, not at all used yet to having it there. It was Christmas Day and he'd asked her to marry him. She grinned at the memory of how he'd asked.

Propping herself up a bit on her right elbow, she turned to see him better. He was still deeply asleep, lying on his back, his left arm at his side, his right hand resting on his upper chest, the crushed daffodil still under it. He'd gripped it, there at the end, his fingers closing convulsively over the delicate yellow petals. Her gaze moved on to his side, the mark from where the chest tube had been inserted still pink and fresh. The sight of it brought clearly to her the fact of how recently he'd been in the hospital. It was good he was resting.

She intended to let him continue resting, truly she did, but it was the damn sheet that turned her from her good intentions. His pajama bottoms lay in a silken puddle on the floor beside the bed and he lay there with just the light green sheet over him. Well, partially over him. It covered his legs but its top edge lay lightly across his hips just barely over....

Her lips twitched slightly as she tried to resist the urge to kiss his lower belly. It was Christmas, she reasoned, and he had given himself to her, hadn't he? Resistance proved futile and she leaned over him, making a row of small kisses from one hip bone across to the other, curving down under his navel as she went. Then, tipping her head to the right, she saw he was smiling, his eyes still closed. "I'd say I'm sorry I woke you...but I'm not."

His arms always seemed to know right where she was and he pulled her down atop him, his mouth finding hers. Later, the sheet now on the floor as well, he slept again, arms and legs twined through hers. She lay against the warm solidness of him, his breath in her hair, watching the drifting, lacy shadows of fat snowflakes on the opposite wall. What a perfect, perfect Christmas Day. Who needed sheets or blankets? She was wrapped not only in him, but in the contentment of being wrapped in him. The feeling of it was downy and soft and she had an awareness of being cocooned with him, heightened by the snow mounding around the house.

This time she let him sleep. It was enough just lying there with him enfolded in the greatest sense of oneness she'd ever known. She thought of C. S. Lewis' book, Surprised By Joy. Lewis had settled into a life of intellectual routine when Joy had come to England and, completely unexpectedly, he had fallen in love. She'd always liked the double meaning of the title and now she knew, she knew personally, what it was to be surprised by joy. Marshall had simply, utterly become her joy. There, completely covered in mud, her joy had been waiting for her. Who would ever have thought?

After a while her tummy began to protest that it was hungry and she slipped carefully out of his arms, putting on her gown and robe again. Before she left the room, she lay a coverlet over Marshall, and taking Wadsworth with her, went downstairs. She let the dog outside then went into the kitchen, prowling through the left-overs from last night to make a lunch for them. Letting Wadsworth back in, she went upstairs and found him in the shower. "Lunch when you're done!" she called through the steam.

He opened the glass door a bit and she could see his face, water running in a stream down his chin. He grinned wickedly and opened the door wider. Microwaves had been invented, hadn't they, she thought, so that lunches that needed to sit a while could be reheated? Her gown settled, unheeded, to the bathroom floor.

"Are we trying for a record?" she chuckled as he curved a bar of soap over her breast.

"Is there a record?" he murmured.

"I guess we'll find out."

"Mmm hmm."

Bundled in thick terry robes, their hair still wet, they sat at the kitchen table. The house was toasty and warm and she had made orange spice hot tea to go with lunch. Being there, just them, was utterly comfortable, completely companionable. "I've known you all my life," she said, "I just didn't know I knew."

"I think it's like that with the halves of a whole," he nodded. "Sometimes I've had this sense of space beside me, rather odd, as though someone were there and yet not there. But, then, for the last several years, I chalked it up to my imagination. It was...."

"I know."

He nodded again. "Yes."

"When I was a little girl," she continued, "I thought sometimes I knew what it was to be really happy on Christmas Day. A child has its world, you know, what it's familiar with, what it expects, what it knows. And it's easy for a kid to find happiness in that, to think that's all there is and it's pretty good."  She curved her hand over his on the table. "But this...this IS happiness. I've never known anything quite like it."

He put his other hand over hers. "Will they come?"

"Who?"

"Your parents. If we get married here on New Year's Eve, will they come?"  He was becoming more and more aware that something was rather amiss between Eden and them.

"You want to get married on New Year's Eve?"

"Would that work, you think?"

"Connie and Edith will still be here."

"I was hoping they would. But what about your parents?"

"Leave Aruba? When it's winter in Pennsylvania? I seriously doubt it."

"Not even for your wedding?"

She knew her mother wouldn't find it all that important. After all, it was merely a second wedding, not worth the trouble. That was not something she wanted to say aloud. "I'll call,"

she whispered. "Tomorrow. They're probably busy today."

"I love you."

It was completely the right thing to say at just that moment.

They were in the parlor after lunch, still in their robes, when the phone rang. It was Connie, calling from Stuart's. "How's Marshall today?" she asked.

"He's quite, um, good," Eden replied, smiling across the room at Marshall, who was scratching behind Wadsworth's ears.

"How good?"

"Why?"

"Well, we were wondering if you two would like to come over here for a bit this evening. You could join us for Christmas dinner if he's up to it."

"You up for going to Stuart's for dinner?" she asked him.

"Do I have to put clothes on?"

She laughed. "Yes, I'm afraid you do have to get dressed."

"Hey, I heard that!" Connie chuckled. "You mean you two aren't dressed yet?"

"We've been, um, occupied."

"Well, can you unoccupy yourselves long enough for dinner?"

"That's asking a lot, I hope you know," Eden replied, stifling a giggle.

"You are a wanton woman," Connie laughed again.

"You have no idea."

"Look," Connie continued, "Ryan has this plan where he and I would come to get you two in the sleigh he took me for a ride in. Have you ever ridden in an actual one horse open sleigh and on Christmas at that?"

"Don't believe I have. But...."

"No but's. Just bundle Marshall up really good, ok. He'll be fine. We've got blankets and everything. It'll be fun."

Marshall was nodding at her. "I feel much better today. The sleigh ride sounds really nice."

"Ok," Eden said into the phone. "But the horses better have bells."

"They do. Ryan does the complete package.  We'll be there in a couple of hours. That should give you time to, um, get dressed."

For the next hour they cuddled on the couch, sometimes talking, sometimes just holding. "Does it have a fireplace?" she asked.

"Does what?"

"The house in Mount Lebanon."

"One of those double ones. Opens to the living room on one side and the den on the other. Jeffrey said you could see through from room to room."  He nuzzled his lips into her hair. When he went back there, back to the house he'd grown up in, he would be bringing her as his wife. He hadn't spent much time there, not since his parents' deaths. It was much bigger than he needed just for himself and he'd started just staying in a room on campus. But today he sat there thinking of the house, of her in the house, and how he wanted her to come to know the place, to be comfortable there.

"My wife," he whispered into her hair.

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