Copyright
WINSLET PRESS
Down from the Clouds
Copyright © 2013 by Marilyn Grey
To learn more about Marilyn Grey, visit her Web site:
www.marilyn-grey.com
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or bay any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, etc.—except for quotations in reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Contact the publisher at: [email protected]
ISBN-10: 0985723505
ISBN-13: 978-0-9857235-0-7
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Cover & Interior Design by Tekeme Studios
Dedication
To:
The One I Missed
Across the Sea
For:
Showing me that love stories
like this really do exist.
My Mama always said you’ve got to put the
past behind you before you can move on.
Forrest Gump
“Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.”
And the boy did.
And the tree was happy.”
Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree
To conceal anything from those to whom I am
attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips
where I have opened my heart.
Charles Dickens
Chapter One
She made breakfast for me. Soft, delicate face just as I imagined all those years. Five-feet away from me she twirled on one foot to grab the toffee sauce before spreading it over the steaming chocolate-chip pancakes. Her hair fell in her eyes. She held up her batter-covered hands, laughed at me, and blew the hair away. No special occasion, just us. Like it should’ve been all my life. She had no idea that within seven hours a ring would be on her finger.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about all that I gave up for her. Pop was the only man who ever loved me. He told me to leave. To find her. To do whatever it would take.
She set the pancakes down in front of me, next to a single purple rose on my dining room table, then sat down, exhaled, and stared at me. Into me. You’d think we’d known each other for years. Love does that to people.
“I hope it’s okay,” she said.
I couldn’t stop looking at her since the first moment I saw her.
She blushed. “One of these days you’ll have to get over the fact that we’ve found each other.”
“Never.” I picked up my fork, sliced into the fluffy mountain of yum, and looked at her again. “This will always be a dream to me.”
“Well, it’s been four months and”—she counted her fingers—“eight days. It’s still fresh. You don’t think you’ll be sick of me one day?”
I laughed. “You trying to ruin our romantic moment with reality?”
“Kind of odd for me now that I think about it.”
“I’ll never be sick of you. Honestly. I’ll never let it happen.”
We ate in silence, our eyes speaking to each other across the table as we shared a plate of food. As we always did. Our friends and family called it puppy love. We called it us.
“So,” she said. “What’s that unopened letter you’ve been preoccupied with the last few weeks?”
I fidgeted in my seat, made eye contact with the rose. “It’s no big deal.”
“It’s some big deal if you keep staring at it all the time like it’s going to bite you.”
I didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want to tell anyone. Only half of me wanted to open the thing. The other half wanted to throw it out. I didn’t want to know what the past had to say to me. Truth is, I left it unopened for months. Flipped it over in my hands, fell asleep with it under my pillow, tossed it out the window only to run after the wind that carried it down the street. Over and over. Like a lunatic.
Matt always said I was mysterious. Everything hidden deep inside like a starving well that hadn’t been rained on in years.
Not true.
Rain flooded my well, sometimes overflowing. Only I learned to hide it behind my smile. Who wants to burden others with more issues? Everyone has their own. That’s enough. I wanted to bring light and life to people around me. Last thing I wanted was to be a dark and harrowing storm cloud. So I stayed quiet. Hidden. Mysterious, as Matt would say.
And I feared that envelope, sliced open and read, would ruin it for me.
My phone rang. I turned it off without looking. Hard for me to break bad habits. So I try not to start them. Meal times, intimate times, deserved to not be interrupted by screens and beeps.
We finished our breakfast in a comfortable silence.
She stood, cleared the table, and set the dishes in the sink. I followed behind. Wrapped my arms around her, pulled her back into my chest, and ran my fingers to her hands.
“Let me do the dishes,” I said. “You can relax in the living room. Matt should be up any minute to serenade us with his piano.”
She turned, her cuteness looking up at me. “Ah, the soundtrack of our lives by Matthew Ryan.”
“Exactly.”
“I heard that,” Matt said from his room. His door opened, then shut. He appeared in the hallway next to the kitchen. “You think Lydia lets me sleep with the wedding being a month away? I get texts and calls even when the crickets are sleeping.”
Ella caught me staring at her bare left hand. I smiled. She gave me the eyes. We talked about it so many times before. Since the first week we spent together. We knew we’d spend the rest of our lives together. She didn’t understand why I needed to wait to propose. I didn’t either. Just knew I wanted it to be special. Right. Not rushed or forced. And of course I had to live up to Matt’s proposal. Even he didn’t know I was about to propose to Ella. I glanced at the clock. Six hours to go.
Ella drove to Lancaster for an audition to play with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. I applauded her, encouraged her, then told her I couldn’t go. The disappointment in her eyes was enough to break the surprise, but I told myself she would understand when she returned.
I sorted through all of the images I painted, then told Matt he needed to leave.
“Last I checked I still lived here, too,” he said.
“Last I checked you were nearly packed up and you spend most of your time in your future wife’s apartment.”
“True. But what are you planning?”
“Nothing.”
“The great and wondrous nothing.”
“Of course. Without the great and wondrous nothing I wouldn’t be something, now would I?”
“If you say so.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I have to go pick out reception decorations with Lydia anyway.”
“I thought she didn’t want a big wedding?”
“She didn’t.”
“Women make so much sense.”
“That’s why we love them. We make sense, they make love.”
I laughed. “Nice, but I’m pretty sure they are good for more than that.”
“I don’t mean sex. I mean love. They teach us how to love and we teach them how to think.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m thinking Ella will teach me everything. I feel like I have nothing worth giving to this woman. She is seriously the most beautiful person I’ve eve
r known.”
“I thought that was me?” He hit my back and walked toward the front door. “I’ll see ya later. Good luck with your mysterious proposal.”
I looked over my shoulder. “I thought I was more clever than that?”
“Apparently not.” He smiled and closed the door.
I always wondered if he knew more about me than I thought. Did he know about the letter I refused to read? About the regrets I feared would one day build a wall between Ella and me. My mom’s death. My dad’s disappearance. Did he know that I blamed myself for all of these things, including the one thing I swore I’d never do? The one thing that kept me from opening that letter and facing what I hated about myself.
I hung the first painting on the apartment door, then stared at it. Bright, summer fun. Blowing bubbles in the backyard by a kiddie pool. I combined our childhood photographs and made it look like we were together as kids. The note on the bottom read: When most boys dreamed of being a superhero, I dreamed of you.
I finished placing the rest of the paintings on the floor leading to my room, made chocolate-covered strawberries and brownies, her favorite, and topped it off with a bottle of her favorite wine. Raspberry Eau de Vie. Which quickly became my favorite too. After arranging it all on the living room floor, because, oddly enough, that was her favorite place to have wine and chocolate, I sat on the couch and waited for her call. The phone rang. I answered, trying not to let my voice shake as much as it wanted to. We talked. About normal things. An entire hour and a half passed until she parked and told me she’d be over in a minute.
I stood, paced the living room, waited. Heart beating right out of my ears, I twirled the ring in my pocket. My mother’s ring. The only thing I ever touched that my mother’s hand also touched. Ella’s exact size. Simple, but elegant. I hoped she’d like it.
Footsteps neared the doorway. Then stopped.
I jogged to my bedroom, cracked the door, and watched her walk in. Smile illuminating her face, she peeked around and saw the next painting on the floor in front of her.
She stopped. Two kids sitting on the swings at school. When most boys were making fun of girls who hit puberty, I was sitting on the swings wondering if I already knew you and if not, when would I?
She walked forward. Teenage Ella and Gavin sitting in my old bedroom at Pop’s house. When most guys were counting how many girls they slept with, I was longing for you.
And the next. Two graduating seniors standing in front of a fork in the road. When I had to choose between talent and glory or a quiet life with you, I let my dreams of music die and I chose you.
The next. A boy standing across a coffee shop, hat tilted on top of his messy hair, face dumb and in love with the beautiful girl sitting by the window. The girl. Brown hair pulled into a loose braid over her shoulder, bangs hiding her right eye. She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled. The day that changed my life.
And the final painting. Vacant coffee shop. Streetlights glowing on her wet cheeks and lighting her lips. The night we first kissed and the world around us disappeared. And so … life begins.
Hands shaking, I stepped out of my room. Looked at her face and melted. She smiled, tears glossing her eyes. I knelt in front of her, tried to speak, but nothing came out. She took my hand. Kissed it.
“No words, Gavin,” she said. “I know.”
I looked down. Cleared my throat. “I never had a normal life, Ella. Being found on the side of the road by a stranger isn’t the most beautiful beginning.” I tried to smile. “So I hid. Most of my life I hid from everyone. And I thought a lot. Sometimes about what I’d be when I grew up, if anything, sometimes about what I’d give to the world, but mostly I thought about you. Maybe I longed for a woman because I never had a mom. Most kids thought I was stupid. Not interested in comic books, I wrote love poems and spent my nights falling asleep to Charles Dickens on tape. I was weird. I don’t doubt it at all. These paintings are so real to me because all of this time, all of these years, you were right there with me.” I took a breath. “What I’m trying to say is, some people find each other later in life and wonder what it would be like if they could go back and know each other as kids. Grow up together. Fall in love in the sandbox and stay in love through college. But I don’t need to do that because all of those times, all of those years, you were right there with me. All because I spent my life dreaming of you. Of this day. Of this second right here.”
She shook her head and squeezed my hands.
I squeezed back, took out the ring, and pleaded. “Ella, I want to spend the rest of my life experiencing everything with your hand in mine. I’ve waited forever for this. Will you marry me?”
She nodded, her eyes hiding under tear-soaked lashes, smile glowing. “Of course, Gavin. Of course.”
I stood and slid the ring onto her finger. “I wasn’t sure if this would be jinxed or not, having come from my mother’s hand before they buried her, but it’s the only thing I have of hers and it just seem—“
She pushed her finger over my lips and opened hers. “It’s perfect.”
“Like you.”
“No, like you.”
“Like us.”
Chapter Two
Friday night, alone in my apartment, Ella and I packed up my past. Matt moved the last of his stuff a few days after I proposed. Weird being without him and being with a woman so much. So fast. Every stroke of the past blended right into the most winsome time of my life. Even the dark blobs of color I didn’t want to acknowledge were veiled by soft strands of the present. The soft strands of the beautiful woman staring at the envelope she knew I didn’t want to open.
“It’s nothing, really.” I took it from her hands. Put it in my pocket. “It’s just a letter from my grandfather.”
“The one who died recently?”
I nodded, slipping the crinkled enveloped further into my pocket. Further from her hands, from my own.
“And why don’t you want to read it?” she said.
“It’s the last letter he wrote me. I have two others he wrote, but he said to open this one last. The other two were hard enough.”
She sat on my bed, perched forward, and tilted her head just so. Almond eyes waiting for me to explain the things I didn’t want to share. The things she deserved to know. And would know. Just not yet.
“It’s a story for another day,” I said.
She bit her lip. “Gavin.”
It wasn’t a question. I looked down. Away from her eyes. Away from the conflict brewing between us.
“Gavin,” she said again.
“Yes?”
She held up her hand. Pointed to the ring I put on it. “I am marrying you. I kinda hoped to marry all of you, not just the pieces you want others to see.”
I inhaled and smiled. “Ella, my love.”
“Don’t say that. Just tell me. Please. I want to know you.”
“I want you to know me. Trust me. I’m not hiding.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I exhaled so hard I could’ve blown the little piggies and their brick houses away. “I’m sulking.”
She shook her head. “Well, one thing you need to know about me is that I have a hard time letting things go. Especially when people I love are dealing with something inside and don’t talk about it. Sarah did this to me all the time. With her it was easy to listen, to be a shoulder, and to have no idea why on earth she was balling her eyes out. With you, I can’t pretend I don’t want to know. Seeing you hide behind your smile is nice and admirable. I know you don’t want to bring others into your problems. But have you ever thought that maybe it would be more admirable to be real in a world that’s trained into being fake?”
“I told Matt. He didn’t believe me.”
“You told Matt what?”
I touched her cheek with the back of my hand. Ran my fingers to her ear. “That you would teach me how to live.”
She let the envelope go. For now. I knew she’d bring it up later, but I needed
time.
We pulled up outside of Matt and Lydia’s new house. Only Matt lived there so far. Lydia planned to move in after the wedding. Nice little garden, about a half acre of land, solid trees, yellow house with black shutters. It was a nice first house. Small, but nice.
Ella squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, pulled her fingers to my lips, and looked into her eyes. Life never felt so good, so perfect, as it did with her beside me.
“Ready?” She pulled the handle of the car door.
I nodded.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She tried to smile. Not so successful.
I got out of the car and walked over to open her door.
She took my hand. "I want you to know that I desperately want to know what's inside of you. More than I can say. But I'm not going to pry you to open up to me when it's obvious you can't even open up to yourself right now. What am I going to do, though?"
"Yes?"
"I'm going to wait and I'm not going to forget about that envelope."
"I didn't expect you to."
"One day you'll stop hiding. You'll realize how exhausting it is."
We walked toward the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Ryan house. Lydia opened the door.
Matt came up and put his hands on her shoulders. "Look who it is. The newly engaged."
Ella smiled. I kissed the top of her head and pulled her into me.
"Let me see the ring," Lydia said.
"What is it with girls and wanting to show off the ring? Isn't the man even better to show off than a piece of metal and stone?" Matt said, walking into the house. "Gavin, come in and I'll show off my hardwood floors and newel posts."
I laughed and walked past the ladies. "So, Heidi still has no idea she's coming to her baby shower right now?"
"No idea," Matt said from the kitchen.
I followed the trail of his voice. "Hey man, this house is nice. I can't believe how much wood is in this place."
Down from the Clouds (The Unspoken Series) Page 1