“No, you come with me,” she said, and dragged him off toward the bedroom. Before they were out of the room, she hopped up into his arms and straddled him.
Oo-kay. My work here was done.
Over the next few days, I didn’t see much of them. Well, except when they would stumble out of their bedroom, rumpled and replete and hungry. One evening I baked enchiladas, then went to take a long bath. When I got back to the kitchen, there was one enchilada left, and it was the straggly, half-filled one on the end. I guess the young lovers needed to keep up their strength.
When they weren’t in their bedroom they sat close together on the couch or cuddled on the rug near the fireplace, having long, private talks. At night they would venture onto the deck and huddle in a blanket. I couldn’t hear the conversations, just the occasional giggle or sigh.
I was superfluous, except in my role as cook, dishwasher, and feeder of the cat. I couldn’t complain, though. I still had Clyde’s friendship. And it was lovely to watch Max and Emily reconnect.
It wasn’t all hearts and flowers, of course. It was slow going and there were glitches at first. I knew both of them were frustrated. Emily was occasionally tentative and Max had a tendency to brood.
Who could blame either of them? Emily explained to me that she hadn’t been with a man since Max’s “death” three years ago. She’d made every effort to move on, built a good, if quiet, life for herself. She’d been content to live alone. Now, suddenly, the man she’d loved so deeply had returned. But he’d lied to her, shown he didn’t trust her. Was it any wonder she sometimes questioned their present relationship?
And Max had lived the life of a solitary refugee for the past three years. He had survived in the shadows of society, afraid to be too friendly or gregarious in case he attracted too much attention. He’d always been a bit of a brooder, but now he was world-class.
It was so easy for me to see the big picture from the sidelines, but I tried to avoid offering advice or critiques and simply kept my mouth shut. There was a very good reason for that: namely, I was the last person on earth to give anyone relationship advice. Hello? Once engaged to a gay man? Not smart!
No, the two of them would have to stumble through this one on their own. But I was encouraged and held out hope that they would come through stronger and more in love than ever.
If we all survived the safe house, that was.
Even though I kept my mouth shut, I did keep my eyes open and focused on the “happy” couple. Not simply for safety reasons, but because they were just so fascinating and normal.
For some reason, observing the two of them interacting together reminded me of a BBC nature program I’d been hooked on years ago when I was living in London. It was called The Return of the Tit-Willows.
Out in the woods, a camera had been inserted inside a tree where the young tit-willow couple had set up residence. Viewers could observe everything the birds were doing. The original reality show, right? It was fascinating to watch, but the absolute best part of the show was the narrator. He would describe each bird’s movements as though he were doing commentary at a golf tournament, his voice hushed and extremely serious. It was gripping.
The male tit-willow approaches the nest. The female senses his arrival and readies herself. Wings flutter, feathers fly. Then…What’s this? It’s off with the boys he goes! Six weeks later, there’s the piper to pay.
LOL, as Melody Byers would say. I couldn’t get enough of those BBC nature programs.
After another long day and night, Emily and Max left their room and became sociable. We all got along well and Emily and I had some good talks, usually in the kitchen while playing flunkies to Max, our esteemed chef, who really had honed his kitchen skills.
Over dinners, Max talked about his life on the farm and Emily was enthralled. She loved hearing about the fig trees and the goats and the honeybees and the radicchio he’d grown. Loved hearing how Max had found Bucky through a dog-rescue service and how Clyde had walked into Max’s kitchen one day and adopted him.
She was amazed that Max woke up so early and worked so hard on his farm, and she was fascinated by the way he’d changed his world so drastically. She grilled him on the process he went through to become a different person. Max’s experiences became romantic and exciting when seen through her eyes.
Clyde warmed up to Emily slowly, and Emily made it clear she loved the cat. While I was thrilled to know that Clyde would be cherished by his new mistress, it was a bittersweet shot of reality for me. The time had come to decide whether to find my own little cat to love. But would another cat love me like Clyde did? It was a big chance to take and I would need to think it through very carefully.
During the day, though we’d never discussed it, Max and I had begun taking turns distracting Emily. He and I had our work to keep us busy, but we needed to find things for Emily to do. Otherwise, she would become so totally bored, she might run screaming out of the house.
That afternoon, Max taught her how to make paper. I watched, too, because while I’d learned the process long ago, I’d never taken a class from Max. He was fabulous and worth every groupie he’d ever attracted.
“It’s so disgusting,” Emily said, smashing the pestle into the large bowl that had been filled with soaking-wet newspapers and old magazines, which were beginning to turn into a mushy paste from constant beating.
“That’s the perfect consistency,” he said, sticking his finger into the gloppy gray pulp.
Emily grinned. “It might be fun to teach my students to do this.”
“They would love it,” I said. “It’s like playing with mud.”
“That’s where I learned to do it,” Max said.
“In school?”
“Second grade. My mother still has the first piece of paper I ever made, hanging on her bedroom wall.”
“Aw,” Emily said.
But I was watching Max’s expression as it fell at the mention of his mother. The poor woman still didn’t know her son was alive. I knew his mother, and I hoped his stomach was up for the punching it would receive at the hands of that woman.
That night, Gabriel and Derek arrived as usual, and we gathered around the table to hear what news they had, what they’d discovered that day, who they were tracking, the latest information from the feds on the survivalists, how the police were building the case against Solomon.
We knew Gabriel was taking one for the team by trying to date one of the Ogunite women to gain information about its members. We couldn’t wait to hear the details.
Instead Gabriel dropped a bomb.
“Solomon has disappeared,” he said.
The following morning, Gabriel and Derek both left, heavily armed, to investigate Solomon’s disappearance from his home in the Hollow. We’d come up with plenty of theories last night. Gabriel thought that Solomon might have gone into full survivalist mode and was living in some backwoods cabin in anticipation of capturing Max and dragging him there.
Max doubted Gabriel’s scenario. Solomon enjoyed creature comforts too much. He would never willingly go without plenty of good food and fine wine and a comfortable bed. I barely knew the man, but I agreed with Max.
Wherever Solomon had disappeared to, I was hopeful that Derek and Gabriel would be able to hunt him down.
Once the men left, in order to keep both Emily and me from crawling the walls, I pulled out all my bookbinding tools and set them up on the dining room table.
“I want to show you how to make an accordion book,” I said. “I think your kids will love this.”
“Let’s do it,” she said determinedly, and we sat down and got creative. It took a half hour to make the little book and Emily was delighted.
I’d used this same pattern for teaching simple bookbinding to attendees of conferences and book fairs. People loved making these miniature books. They didn’t have to know what they were doing, really, and they came away with a charming, colorful keepsake.