THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART SEVENTY-ONE:

It was 3 AM and Mike sat in his old rocker, pushing it gently with the toe of one shoe, staring absently into the fire he'd made. He and Maria had sat in the cab of his truck for at least two hours before he escorted her to the door of her apartment building. Not that they'd done more than a gentle bit of kissing. It was her openness, her genuineness that got to him. She was simply entirely real, entirely without pretense and they had talked and laughed and talked some more. He had felt like some swinger of trees who had let go of a branch without knowing if another lay at all within reach, only to find his fingers closing over slender bark, finding purchase so quickly that he was still inwardly startled by the fact of it. She had been there the whole time, well, the entire autumn, and he had never really even focused on her as a person. In the hospital she moved with this air of quiet competence, her own attention centered on the well-being of her patients. To him she had simply been part of the overall atmosphere of the hospital itself.

"Damn fool that you are, Mike Johnson," he said, smiling to himself as a sudden bright flame flared up.

His thoughts turned to Eden, to how he'd come running up the path through the downpour to find her sitting there, leaning forward to shelter Marshall. They were a unit, the two of them, even then, even before they realized they were. He'd seen it, seen it plain as day, yet still he'd...dreamed. He shook his head. "Damn fool!" he repeated softly. She could have come
back to the inn from the hospital that very first night. There was no reason for her not to. No reason but that the unrealized bonds with Marshall had already secured their position. She stayed because he was there. She could not leave him, not even then, not even knowing that she could not. She simply...stayed.

And that time by the icy river, when she started off alone in the direction she believed he'd gone. He'd never seen such utter determination, such force of will. He grinned at the memory of how she'd pushed Barry flat when he tried to stop her. Nothing would stop her...ever...from getting to Marshall. Yet he had taken her to the cafe and bought her dinner and...dreamed. He closed his eyes and just rocked a moment, contemplating his own compounding of his foolishness. Perhaps it was merely a mark of how the solitude of his life had begun to wear on him. It had just seemed so unlikely that he would ever know anything more than that, and then there she was, sitting on that path, rain beating on her back as she offered herself as shelter. The sight of it had moved something profoundly inside him. It was all so completely different from anything his ex-wife would have done. And then when he found her sleeping on that uncomfortable little hospital

seat and had carried her down the hall in his arms. That had done it. That warm softness of her lying against him.

He went over it all, every bit, shining the light of understanding on all the whys of his responses to her. He should have disliked Marshall intensely, but he couldn't. He liked the man...a lot.

And that had made it all the worse. Eden had only friendship to offer him. Nothing more had obviously ever occurred to her. And why should it?  He recalled the November days when he'd come regularly to the inn and the three of them had played with Wadsworth, had sat in Martha's kitchen and munched her cookies.  He thought about it all and he let it sift through

his fingers. It was all right. At last it was all right. It had become all right during the wedding ceremony. And it was only after it was all right that he had discovered Maria. He liked that.

It meant something to him that that had been the order of things. Sure, there were no guarantees with Maria, not yet. But he was encouraged enough that he smiled, picturing how her dark hair had looked under the porch light. He let his lids close, beginning to drift off right there in the rocker, and for the first time since the end of October, the eyes that filled his mind were brown and not green.

Harold was snoring, as usual. But that wasn't what was keeping Martha awake. She was used

to that. It was the clicking of Wadsworth's nails on the hardwood floor of the bedroom at Stuart's house. All night the dog paced back and forth past the closed door, stopping now and then to snuffle at the small crack at its bottom or give a scratch or two in hope that someone
would let him out. From time to time he took his nose and poked the old brass doorknob enough to make it rattle.

Martha snapped her fingers and Wadsworth padded over, putting his muzzle in her hand, staring at her with pleading eyes. "I'm sorry, boy," Martha whispered, "but even you have to

let them have this one night all to themselves. I know it's hard, but they'll be over here by afternoon for New Year's dinner. Just be patient, ok. They'll be here. I promise."

Eden woke around seven. She wasn't sure why, because they could sleep as late as they liked,

but she drifted inexorably up through layers of some dream and blinked open her eyes. She

had left the bathroom light on all night, its door open, because she'd wanted to be able to see him. Now as she lay there, she was very glad of it because the winter dawn had not yet begun.
He was on his back, arms at his sides, very deeply asleep. She propped herself up on her right elbow so she could watch him. The quilt was pulled up over most of his chest, but his arms were atop it, were still bare. She watched him for a long time, wanting to kiss his lightly-parted lips but refraining lest she wake him. As she gazed at him it seemed suddenly that his eyes were half-way open and the bathroom light on his face was that of the moon. That icy spear stabbed through her gut again. He was only sleeping, wasn't he? Wasn't he? She had to be sure. Leaning over him, she put her cheek near his mouth. The soft movement of his warm breath on her skin left her weak with relief and she lay back on her pillow, her teeth sunk into the back of her right
hand to keep herself from whimpering aloud. Oh, God! She hadn't got rid of it, that fear of unbearable loss. Miles' death had nearly done her in and here she'd gone and given her whole heart to a man who'd nearly died twice, had died once. She turned her head again, dropping her hand down, looking at his profile limned in the bathroom light. When he was deeply asleep he
always rolled over onto his back. But it made him positively look...laid out. Suddenly she couldn't bear it and slipped out of bed, going to the window and raising the blind. She stood there, naked and shivering as the moonlight poured through the glass, her hands fisted into the curtains for support. Did he know, could he possibly know how all that had happened to him
had affected her? And each day she loved him more than the day before so that the thought of the loss of him was an ever-increasing thing. Sometimes she thought she'd mastered it, maybe even forgotten about it, but something always seemed to bring it back, something as simple as the way he was sleeping. She turned to look at him again. He'd lain just like that in the ICU when he was unconscious from pneumonia and exhaustion. Why couldn't he sleep on his side?

She jerked herself back toward the window, pulling too hard on the curtains. The rod gave way, collapsing with its load of curtains, coming apart in the middle as it fell. One of the center ends scraped across her shoulder and with her hands tangled in the material, she lost her balance

and fell hard on her hip, most of the curtains billowing down around her. She let out a small

cry as she fell and then just sat there, large tears rolling down her cheeks, feeling as though in her fears, she had let him down.

Marshall's dreams were scent-filled, tactile things, accompanied by sounds, often by music.

He was deep in one, the fragrance of her skin in his nostrils, the small sounds of delight she

was making causing him to smile, his fingertips tingling as he slid them down her thigh. Then something, he had no idea what, jarred him awake and he sat up, his left hand instinctively

going out to where Eden should be lying. The covers on her side of the bed had been thrown back.

"Eden?" he called, concern starting to grow. "Eden, darling?"

There was no answer so he sat straighter, listening. From near the window he could hear her breathing rather raggedly. "Eden?" he called again, scooting rapidly across the bed then hurrying toward the window.  He literally bumped into her and sank quickly to his knees beside her. "What's happened?" he asked, his hands encountering the strange folds of cloth draped across her lap and one shoulder. "What's this?"

Still she did not answer and his fingers found her face, found the wetness of her tears. He sucked in a quick breath. "Darling, did I hurt you?" Why was she crying?  Had he been clumsy in his need for her?

He slid his arms around her, starting to scoop both her and the material up, but she made a sharp little sound of pain. "You're hurt? Darling, are you hurt?"

"My sh...shoulder," she said. "Curtain rod."

Curtain rod? This mass of cloth was the...curtains? "Where?" he asked, trying to feel her face.

"No, my shoulder. Nothing big I think."  She was sniffing now, trying to stop the tears.

His fingers went to her shoulder, finding a rough-edged scratch about three inches long. Lips pressed together, he did scoop her up then, heading with her toward the bed. His foot caught in the curtains and he almost fell, but managed to right himself and set her atop the mattress.

"Wait there," he said firmly and made his way around the bed to the bathroom, coming back in a brief moment with a tube of something.  "Tell me I haven't got the toothpaste."

She looked at the tube. "Neosporin," she read aloud.

Very gently he spread some over her scratch then, setting the tube aside, asked again, "What happened?"

She felt the tears well again and turned her head and shoulders away from him, her hands still clutching the curtains. He followed down her arms with his own hands, slowly, carefully, uncurled her fingers and pushed the curtains off the bed. Then he lay back, taking her with

him, enfolding her in his arms, murmuring endearments into her hair. She needed time and he was good at giving people time. One thing resulting from blindness was a great deal of patience. If he had been somehow inept, she would tell him when she was ready.

She had no idea of what he was thinking might be the cause of her tears. She was just grateful that he was holding her, was not insisting that she talk. What she wanted was simply to lie there in his arms, her cheek against his chest, listening to the beating of his heart. The bullet in Miles' neck had torn through an artery and he had bled out rather rapidly. She thought about that a lot right after he died, how his heartbeats must've grown fainter and fainter there in the snow. Heartbeats had come to have a great significance to her. And...then...Marshall had had none. That was a week ago today. Only a week. So she pressed her ear more firmly into his flesh, hungry for the regular rhythm of its beating.  If only she could encapsulate this moment, just

live inside it and only it. It was unrealistic, impossible. She knew that. She just didn't know how to stop the wanting of it. He had talked with her before about it and what he'd said made sense and she'd thought it had helped. But watching him sleep, just watching him sleep, dammit, had sent it all flooding over her. Against her will, more tears escaped.

He felt the new wetness on his chest and his brow creased in concern. "Did...did I...do this?"

he whispered.

He had, not at all like he thought, but he had. She, ashamed of her weakness, just gripped onto him more tightly, unable to stop wetting his chest. He moved one hand up, curving it about the back of her head in some nameless gesture of communication. She liked it there.

Very slowly she calmed. The way he was holding her, the little things he kept saying softly, it

was all too beautiful. But even as she sailed her ship into the harbor of it, she thought of how

the beauty of this moment was utterly transient. It was like watching a sunset with colors so

vivid it nearly hurt the soul just to look at it. But you could never hold onto a sunset. It was, inevitably, over. And night always came. Miles had died in the night. So had Marshall. But,

oh God, just listen to those strong heartbeats under her ear. She began to count them, not realizing she was doing so aloud.

After a while, Marshall put his lips to her temple. "What?" he murmured.

"Oh!" she became aware she'd been audible. "Heartbeats," she said sheepishly.

"My heartbeats?"

"Mmm hmm," she nodded, keeping her ear where it was.  "Heart's beating."

"This is good?"

"Very good," she sighed. "Keep it up."

He smiled. "I shall surely try."

A new tear trickled down. "Is that it? Eden? Is that it?"

She turned her head, burying her face completely against his chest. "A week ago today...is that it?"

She managed the barest nod.

"Oh, my darling," he sighed. "It's all right. I'm all right. That's over and done. We've only just begun, you and I."

She mumbled something against his chest. "What was that?" He hadn't been able to catch a word.

Moving her head enough to speak clearly, she repeated, "You sleep like the dead."

"I sleep...?"

"You do!" she said more definitely, lifting her head entirely off his chest. "You look like you're lying in a coffin instead of on a bed."

He was rather taken aback. "What....?"

She realized she was sounding ridiculous and heaved a big sigh. "It's not your fault. It just... scares me."

"Is that what just happened?"

"Mmm hmm."

He kissed her eyes. "Is that better?"

"Some."

He moved his lips down her throat. "How about that?"

"Getting better," she allowed.

He paused. "Darling, I don't know what I can do about that other than sew a golf ball into the back of my pajamas."

"You aren't wearing pajamas."

"Oh...yeah," he chuckled. "Problem there, eh?"

"I rather like no pajamas."

"No pajamas, no golf balls," he reminded.

She reached down, cupping her hand between his legs. "There are...others," she smiled.

He gasped and bent toward her breasts.

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