by Amy Saia
“Why do you let them hurt you, Paul?” I asked again.
He squinted out of one eye. When he saw William, he gave a slight nod before staring back at me again. His words were careful, thoughtful. “I was flying, Yellow Bird.”
I started to cry. William put an arm around me and pulled me into his chest.
Chapter 19
Paul didn’t say much during our walk down a muddy road toward the far reaches of Springvale, near the foot of the bluffs. William and I hadn’t said much to each other, either. We worked hard to keep Paul moving, which was a task in itself. William placed his jacket over my shoulders again, refusing any protests. I’d said good-bye once already to it, and him, but life was reversing all my efforts.
Once inside the little ranch-style house, I worked to clean Paul’s cuts using iodine and a little soap. He didn’t have any band-aids, only cloth and an herbal ointment he scooped and slathered with a big index finger. “Arnica,” he said. “Good stuff.”
William stood by the kitchen doorway, leaning back to watch. The bruise near his eye had gotten worse, and I offered a cold rag. He said a quiet, “No thanks,” and then stared at me with mysterious eyes. After awhile, he disappeared into another part the house, and I wondered if he’d left altogether. I fixed Paul up the best I could.
“The Wind has caught up with you, Yellow Bird,” Paul said, catching me in a great hug.
We said our good-byes.
I found William in the front room flipping through an old leather book. His finger passed over black and white etchings, but he snapped the book shut when I came into the room.
We walked outside and across the front porch.
“Thank you for helping me back in town,” I said over my shoulder.
“No problem.”
I started to take his jacket off, to give it back to him, but he draped it over my shoulders. “But it’s getting warm now that the rain has stopped. I don’t need it anymore.” What I really meant was, it was time to say good-bye to him, as well. Good-bye to everyone. He’d go down the road one way, and I’d go up the road, the other. Maybe forever.
“No,” he said. “Keep that jacket on.”
He did reach inside one of the front pockets to retrieve his packet of cigarettes. The lighter came from his back pocket, and I watched as he tried to light a soggy stick without any success. Finally he gave up.
It was early afternoon, and the sun threatened to burn through the clouds. We started on the road, mostly using the ditch because the road itself was too muddy. My heels were so caked, they felt like boots. We approached a split in the road, and I hesitated before going on.
William cleared his throat. “Listen—” he said, but I cut him off.
“Don’t forget what I told you before. Stay away from Marcus; stay at home.” I pulled the jacket off, for good this time, and reached to drape it across his shoulders. “Good-bye, William.” My throat choked up.
When I turned to walk away, I heard a curse and then a flap as leather hit mud. Two hands grabbed me, pulled me close, and then his lips pressed into mine.
There were little shocks between our lips, but he held firm, slowing his kisses so my knees felt as if they’d buckle beneath me. I slid an arm up around his neck and kissed back, against every little shout in my head saying it was wrong and would ruin everything.
“Yeah, you see?’ he said, pulling away for a moment. “You can’t say good-bye. You can’t just leave me with all these questions that have no answers.” He kissed me again, then moved to whisper in my ear, “Wife.”
We lowered ourselves to the ground, both of us in some kind of unspoken choreography. The road was a mixture of gravel and mud, but my body felt nothing. Only William and his lips, and the love I had tried to deny, yet needed so very badly.
He kept kissing me, and I forgot all my reasons for leaving, for making him stop. He kissed my face, my neck and all the way along my shoulder. His lips were so warm. He put his arms around me, and my hands found a permanent place behind his neck. “Come back to my room,” he whispered. His breath came hard and fast.
I nodded. Okay. Room. Rooms were good.
Rising on his haunches, William pulled us both to our feet, but not without taking my lips in his again for a slow, heart-melting kiss.
Our bodies were caked with mud. He laughed about it, offering to brush mine off for me, but I told him it didn’t matter anymore, I was used to it. Anything the world had to offer. I watched him pick up his jacket and attempt to clean it off using stubborn swipes. The leather was as muddy as we were.
The crossroads pulled on my conscience. Despite our kisses, I could still leave. I could go back alone . . .
Without a word, William took my hand, pulling me toward the road I knew led to his house on the hill, and I said nothing. Made no proclamations. No protests. Nothing. I guess I was weak. Or maybe a fool. Most likely, both.
The house loomed ominous under a sun diluted of lingering storm clouds. “It won’t be good for Martha to see you,” he warned, leading me to a set of trees near the back. “The only way this is gonna work is if I go in, make good with her, and you sneak up to my room by way of that old staircase.”
I glanced at it, remembering all too well how fallible the rickety thing was. The night he’d kicked me out, I’d descended it with half-closed eyes, too scared while caught in its wobbling structure to see if the rotten wood would hold firm or drop me to the ground ten feet below.
His eyes twinkled. “You’ll be fine—just don’t make too much noise. I’ll meet you up there in a few minutes.” He dashed past a set of junipers into the clearing.
The screen door slammed, and voices came from within. I waited awhile, then ran to the staircase. It creaked and bowed; damp wood groaned under my feet, but I made it to the top. Then I worked to open William’s bedroom window—not an easy thing to do. After tugging, all with screeching wood so loud anyone within half-a-mile could hear, it opened wide enough for me to crawl under.
I slipped inside and scanned the room. He hadn’t made it upstairs yet. Voices echoed from a room below—a woman using harsh words. Then I heard William answer in a soothing tone meant to shut her up.
Just when I thought he’d forgotten me, I heard footsteps. The doorknob rattled, turned, and he stepped inside. Our eyes met in the shadowed space. He shut the door and motioned for me to sit on the bed.
I stared down at my muddy clothes.
“Oh,” he said. “Go ahead and . . . I’ll find you something dry to wear.”
The buttons on my blouse were choked by the wet fabric and wouldn’t come loose from their holes. My fingers were shaking.
“Let me,” he said, and came over to stand in front of me with a teasing expression on his face. Then he extracted each button from its prison, and slipped the cold fabric from my skin. Next came my skirt, which I reached down to undo myself, removing the little belt first. It slid erratically, rubber. The only remaining items were my undergarments.
But who needed the complication?
I slowly, while he was bending over to gather my wet things, peeled them off and dropped them down to my feet. I heard a slow breath being sucked in.
His eyes closed for a moment. “Sweet Jesus.”
His arms clutched around my waist, held me tight. His face came to nestle into my midriff, and I could feel his hot breath coming in and out against my skin. “Sweet Jesus,” he repeated. I felt my body being lifted up. His arms were still around my waist, and face still against my skin. And then we were heading for the bed, and I was being laid down onto the soft sheets.
Warm lips found mine. One hand slid to my waist, only to halt at the gentle swell of my abdomen. “Are you . . . ?” he asked.
Something akin to shame flamed inside my body, because I had no idea if he’d understand. “Yes.�
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“I’m the daddy?”
I squirmed, but he wouldn’t let me off the hook. In fact, he was grinning so much it became infectious and soon I couldn’t help but smile too. “Yes, you’re the daddy.”
He hovered, lips close. “Well, how do you like that?” His hand smoothed over the bare skin and came to rest on my hip. “I think I love you something fierce, Emma.”
My arms slid around his neck. “I think I love you something fierce too, William.”
Our lips met again.
We were two bodies, two lovers caught in sublime, aching, working to end the ache, lips and hands and breath.
¤ ¤ ¤
Noises came from below, the sound of pots and pans, cabinets opening, a loud radio with Johnny Cash wailing away in his trademark baritone drawl. William shifted, and I tilted my face to look at him. His forearm was my pillow, a very thick, muscled pillow which shifted and rolled under my skin.
He let out a low whistle. “I’m not sure, but I’m pretty darn sure, that that was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked down into my eyes and searched them for an agonizing moment. “Paul calls you Yellow Bird.” He lifted a strand of my hair so that late afternoon sunlight filtered through. “Yellow Bird,” he repeated.
I closed my eyes and moved into his chest. This might be the last time to smell his scent, to lie in his arms. My fingers trailed up and down in a slow pattern, stopping near the top of his ribcage. His hand fell on top of mine.
“What happens to me? How do I get to this life with you in it?”
The sound of footsteps going past in the hall stopped him for a moment. We both listened as someone opened a door and then headed into a room. William waited another few seconds before speaking again.
“What does it all mean?” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight. “Help me.”
I sat up in the bed, bringing most of the sheets with me. “I loved you. You loved me. But I am from a different time, and you are from this time. I tried to make you into something you aren’t, but it was wrong. No amount of love can fix a problem like that.”
“Oh, really?” he asked. I gave a slow nod, and he frowned. “Must not have been real love, the way you talk about it.”
“I should’ve never tried to make you live in my world. You wanted to be here. You kept coming back, and I was very upset about it. I fought so hard to make you live in my world, in my time. But it didn’t work. I don’t know how to change that.”
A thick rift formed between his brows. His eyes avoided mine.
“Love doesn’t always make things right,” I said.
“Bullshit,” he returned, tightening his fingers into a hard clench. “That sounds like total bullshit. I must have been one hell of a terrible husband to make you come up with ridiculous things like that.”
My legs slid from the bed to the floor. “I guess I’d better go.”
“Not so fast.” William pulled me back into the bed. “You keep saying you’re going to leave. Where are you headed to?”
“A different time.”
“And I won’t be there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, that’s a goddamn terrible answer, if you ask me. Let me just show you that picture that says we are together in your time, despite how much you keep saying we shouldn’t be.” He sprang from the bed and bent over to pull something out from underneath the mattress. Next he swung the leather briefcase over, clicked the latch open with his thumb, and started digging inside. Black hair tumbled across his forehead while his hands worked, extracting, finding.
He shoved the picture into my face. There we were in front of the Grand Canyon, October 1979. We both wore jeans and T-shirts, and he had his arm around my shoulder, hand dangling down in a relaxed manner. I had my arm around his waist, and the way I gazed up at him was pure love. He was mine, all mine, and the world was beautiful.
I took the picture from his hand and stared at it for a very long time. I remembered the older couple who had taken the shot for us and how funny they were, fumbling around with the Polaroid camera we’d bought only a few hours earlier. I’d had no idea William still carried the photo around, or that he kept it in the briefcase along with all his other valuables. The snapshot looked very worn, like it’d been handled and stared at a thousand times.
“That was then,” I said.
“Then?” he asked. “Did then mean anything to you at all?”
“Where’s the gun?” I asked, remembering all things here and now. It was too important to ignore.
“What gun?”
“The gun you—”
We both turned to a sound coming from outside the window. William listened, then scrambled off the bed to peer out the window. “Well, how do you like that?” He turned back at me. “She’s sneaking out.”
“Who?”
“My sister. She’s going to that damned church.” He parted the curtains and watched again. Then he turned around and scanned the floor. “Where’d I put my jeans?”
I saw them in a heap by the radiator, but they were muddy and wet, the same as when he’d laid them down.
Lifting them up, he gave a sour inspection. “Hell.” He pulled open a drawer from the dresser in the corner, grabbed another pair of jeans, and struggled to yank them up his long legs. “She’s going to that church, I bet. I heard her talking about it the other night, and Martha kept encouraging her to join. I was going to talk to her about it, but haven’t had much of a chance.” He found a clean T-shirt, pulled it over his head, and threw me a questioning glance. “Well? Aren’t you gonna get dressed?” He threw my bag onto the bed next to his suitcase. “We have to go after her. Cathy’s naive. I’m always getting her out of trouble. She’s too pretty for her own damn good. Too trusting.”
I worked fast at finding a clean outfit—the summer shorts and top. I didn’t bother with a bra. It was yucky and damp anyway, hanging across the little chair jutting out from his writing desk. I grabbed it and stuffed it in the bag, then pulled the top over my bare breasts. William paused, stuck on seeing me naked and in motion. A whistle crossed his lips, but I ignored it.
When I grabbed the bag to take with me, William raised a brow. “Hey now, I’m thinkin’ maybe you should just leave it here.” He saw my hesitation and took the handle out of my hands. “’Cause you’re coming back. No need to lug that thing around right now.”
There was no point in arguing. I was sick to death of carrying it all over the place, anyway. Everything I needed was in my purse: ring, what was left of any money, the gun. I followed him out the window and down the old staircase. We could still see Cathy over the ridge, about to go down the road. She had on a pair of black pedal pushers, black tennis shoes, and an over-the-shoulder top, also black. It really did appear she was running off somewhere.
We stayed low, dodging behind the roadside brush every now and then. “She’ll do anything to get away from Martha and this damn town. I keep telling her, I’ve almost got it set. But she’s impatient. Look at her.”
I did. Cathy was beautiful. Her dark hair was even more beautiful than William’s and her lips as rosy, but with a cute little pout which made them more feminine. I thought of her being killed by the Seekers’ cult, and how wrong it was for anyone to take away a person so bright, so young. William had never spoken much about Cathy. I could see in the way he watched her how much he cared about and loved his sister, and how far he’d go to keep her safe.
He turned to me, pulled me close. “You okay? You sure are quiet.”
“I’m okay.” But it was a lie, because a slight pain had started up in my head. Like a pinprick of aching. I hadn’t had a full-blown migraine for weeks, but now the pain had returned.
He searched my eyes as if he knew I wasn’t telling the truth. “You ain’t okay.”
/> A car passed us and rolled to a stop near Cathy’s feet. She leaned into its open window. Then she was getting in.
William groaned, and it felt like thunder. His whole body was a steel wire ready to snap when he watched Cathy get in and ride off down the road in the car. A silver Buick.
“Dammit all to hell! Did I not teach that girl anything?”
The car disappeared over the ridge, and we stood there, helpless. William kept muttering things, cursing the wind. “How do you like that? Just how do you like that? My very own sister sneaking off and getting into a stranger’s car. Beats me all to hell, it really does.”
The pain in my head had gotten worse. Stabs thrust all the way down my neck to my shoulders. A coldness had taken over.
Two hands reached out to steady me. “Honey, you ain’t even close to being okay. And God almighty, your face is white.”
A black mist materialized. It wavered in and out, like a bad television station, to the left of William. I heard someone speaking to me, could see a mouth forming words, but none of it cut through. Then I saw Jesse’s eyes sharpen in the mass of black, those eyes I’d missed and yearned for, cried for.
But not now.
What did he want from me? Why was he appearing like this when he was gone forever? Hadn’t I grieved enough already?
A buzzing started up within my ears, and my vision filled with spots, but I refused to let it take over.
William shook me. His voice grew louder until my ears rang with his frantic shouts. Jesse faded, his eyes sucked into the mist of black.
“Emma! Emma! Look at me!”
William lifted me up into his arms. There were tears in his eyes. “I saw it, too, you know.”