I would love some of his delicious tea though. I smile to myself. I actually mean tea. Although…
“We’ll see about that. I’ll start with a pot of Earl Grey, yes?” he says.
He read my mind.
“And you’ll need anti-inflammatories. A towel for your hair. And dry clothes. I’ll be right back.” He’s calmer now than he was out in the forest. I suppose he just isn’t keen on the sight of blood. He did everything right to treat the wound and get me back here, but he didn’t seem to really be with me, to be present. It was like his mind was elsewhere the whole time.
Tripp walks into the room slowly, and I can hear the tray of teacups clinking against each other. For a moment he just stops in his tracks beside the couch, then sets it down on the coffee table. I notice him watching me but keep pretending that I’m reading my phone. I can feel his eyes on me still and feel compelled to look up and meet his gaze.
“Hey, you,” he says. “I’ve got drugs.”
“I’m glad, because I can’t reach my usual dealer. There’s no service.”
“What?” He bends down and looks at my phone. “Bloody hell. We’re living in the dark ages. I could turn on the television…”
“Nah,” I interrupt. Funny, I don’t really care about the outside world right now. “We have solid windows and doors, right? All that matters.” I lean over and start to grab the teapot, but he takes it from me.
“Sit back. Rest. It’s not a tornado, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Tripp says as he pours two cups of tea. “I had to learn about weather patterns for my work. It’s a severe thunderstorm, high winds, heavy rains, but, my dear, we wouldn’t be here right now if that was a tornado chasing the truck.”
My dear. That’s so old school for someone our age, but I love how it sounds. He’s delicious, and I think he finally likes me.
I settle back against the pillow Tripp brought me, take a sip of warm tea, and swallow the painkillers. My knee isn’t throbbing as much anymore, but I have a happy heart. Maybe that’s why.
Tripp passes me my favorite pair of loose yoga pants and a grey sweatshirt. “Thought you may not want to climb the stairs just yet. Change into those. I’ll be in the kitchen making you that dinner I reneged on earlier. A day in the field like this, you deserve it.”
Oh, my. A man who admits his mistakes and cooks. I can’t believe I didn’t want to share this space with him at first. I’ve found my Utopia.
And… I have an idea for a screenplay! If I could only concentrate on writing it, instead of daydreaming about how muscular Tripp’s ass looks in those worn blue jeans.
“Bloody ’el,” Jughead squawks.
Sixteen
Tripp
“Behold, I bring you light and ice. It’s not my fault about the rain, or the infinite darkness. Should you decide to board Noah’s Ark, please be sure to leave this fine establishment an online review first.”
Hannah looks up at me and chuckles. I’m holding up an old glass kerosene lamp that I found inside the dining room cabinet. I set it down on the coffee table, then pass her the ice I’ve wrapped in a dish towel.
“Thanks.” She smiles and places the towel on her knee. “I had a feeling the power would go out tonight, but I didn’t expect you to be able to finish cooking in there. That was pure entertainment, hearing the pots clinging and clanging and you cursing away… exotic bird names only, of course,” she teases.
“Luckily, it was already cooked when the blackout happened—I just had to serve it up. I’ve got it all set out in the dining room for us. Do you think you can hobble on over there?”
I sit on the couch at the empty spot by her feet. They’re covered by the plaid blanket I gave her, her knee resting on the pillow. Hannah is using her cell flashlight. It looks like she’s been writing something on her phone. Why didn’t I think of that, instead of bumping around in the pitch-black kitchen, cursing like a sailor the entire time?
“Tripp, I’m only raising and icing it because you told me so. It’s fine. It’s just bruised. I’m sure it will be better by tomorrow.” She starts to sit up, keeping the ice pack firm against her knee. “Tofu toucans! That hurts!”
I chuckle, but then notice how pink her face has grown and put my hand on her knee to stabilize it, not realizing her hand is already there. Our hands remain touching in the silence. She’s not taking hers away.
It’s both of us, then. We both feel it. Bugger. I have to tell her about the cursing thing, before it goes on for too long. I’m going to have to use the steaks I cooked as blackmail here. Otherwise, she may never speak to me again.
“Stop being a heroine,” I break the silence, picking her up in my arms. “Just let me help you.” I bend down to grab the kerosene lamp to light my way, then set off slowly to the dining room.
“Now, this is what I call service. That online review, Sir, is nearing five stars.”
“It may well not be when I tell you what I’m about to tell you,” I say softly as we near the dining room table. “Please remember I’m just a lowly scientist who likes a good laugh, especially when it’s at the expense of a beautiful, Canadian gal with a good sense of humor… I hope…”
“What good laugh?” She blinks up at me in the darkness, her face aglow only by the lamp. She looks stunning. “Tell me!”
We’ve reached the table. I place the kerosene lamp at the center, along with a second one I found in the cabinet earlier. They cast a low light across the length of the rectangular table. Our meals are set out across from each other at the far end, decorated with good silver, red linen napkins, and the gold rimmed wine glasses I found in the cabinet.
“Oh, my goodness, you did all of this?”
“You like it? Okay, that’s good.” I help her sit down, making sure her ice pack stays on her knee, then gently push the chair in.
“Like it? Tripp, this is incredible!”
I walk around the table and sit opposite her. She’s looking down, admiring her side garden salad and everything on her plate: steak, carrots, and mashed potatoes garnished with parsley. There are several strong aromas mingling across the table: melted butter, mushrooms sautéed with olive oil and garlic, kerosene oil burning in the lamps. I hate to admit it, but I’m rather glad that the lights went out.
This is the first time in four years that I’ve sat down to enjoy a meal with a woman.
Don’t overthink this or you’ll hyperventilate and pass out!
The lamp light was necessary, but it sets a lovely mood.
“So,” I say, trying to clear my mind of any more damaging, or arousing, thoughts. “Would you like a glass of red?”
She nods, and I pour her some red wine from the carafe, and then a glass for myself.
“Here’s the thing.” I wait until she has taken a full sip of wine and swallowed it. “I never read a book by a psychologist about using bird names for swearing.”
She looks at me and sets down her glass. “You made it up?”
“Yeah. I made the whole thing up. I was just messing with you.” I give her a sheepish smile, raising one eyebrow. Should I duck? Get up from the table and hide?
“Tripp!” She glares at me for a second, then starts laughing uncontrollably. “You made me say limey lorikeets! You made me wrack my brain for ridiculous word combinations!” she says through bits of laughter.
“I did do that, yes, indeed.” I grin. “I couldn’t help myself—you were such an easy target!”
She picks up her red napkin and tosses it at my head. “You’re a wankpuffin!”
I take the napkin off my head and set it aside. I’m laughing so hard, I have tears starting to stream out of the corners of my eyes.
“The best part was watching your face when you came up with using ‘tofu’ and ‘toucans’ together. Except, you were hurting, and I don’t like that, so that’s when I decided maybe I should tell you
.”
Her laughter is easing now. She’s taking another sip of wine and still smiling at me with her eyes. Looks like I don’t have to run for cover. Perhaps I’m better at interacting with women than I thought. I was sure I was going to balls this up.
“You got me good! And then you cooked all of this for me. So, I won’t hold a grudge, but you’d better watch your back. I can execute a great practical joke as good as any British chap.”
“You can?”
“No, not really, but I’ll work on it.” She starts cutting her steak. “That’s what this trip was all about. Trying new things. Not saying no to experiences as often as I had been.”
“So far, you’ve lived with a stranger in a foreign country, stopped dropping the F-bomb, worked as a field assistant for an ornithologist, trekked in a severe thunderstorm…”
“And now I’m having a fancy dinner in the dark. Go figure. I’ve never done that, either.”
“I have to admit, I thought you were a spoiled, selfish Canadian princess when we first met, and here you are, eating by a kerosene lamp, and you haven’t complained that the Wi-Fi is down once.” I mince no words. I need to see her reaction.
“Oh my God,” she whines emphatically, “the Wi-Fi’s down?”
I’m quite sure she’s kidding but am relieved when she gives me a cheeky grin.
“Maybe I have that side of me, yes, but there’s more to me than meets the eye, like anyone. People are like onions. You have to deal with the fumes at first and peel back the layers.”
“Fumes? Are you saying I stink?” I chuckle.
“You reeked of arrogance when we met, that’s for sure,” she says. “But I peeled back the layers and found kindness and humor and brilliance.”
“So, clearly, I have reasons to be arrogant.”
“Stop.” She smirks. “You’ll spoil the mood.”
We finish our meal in comfortable silence. It’s lovely that we can sit here, sharing a meal by the light of kerosene lamps. I’m sitting with someone who was a stranger, someone I wanted out of here only twenty-four hours ago, and now, she feels like my friend. And I hope that she’ll stay as long as she wants.
Seventeen
Tripp
Once we’re finished eating, we leave the dishes on the table to deal with later, and I carry her back to the couch. The power still hasn’t returned, so we have the two kerosene lamps on the coffee table, along with the carafe of wine and our empty glasses. She’s sitting with her leg propped up on the pillow, and I’m sitting opposite her, legs up as well. Coffee is asleep by my recliner, and Jughead is unusually quiet, so he must be napping.
“Are you cold?” I grab the blanket that fell to the floor and pull it over the both of us.
“Not now,” she says sleepily. “This is cozy. Delicious food, great company. Five-star vacation. Maybe not the hot one I anticipated…”
I dare not tell her how hot it feels to me, how my body and heart are feeling that good ache I haven’t felt in ages. Not yet. She’s told me so much about herself, and I’ve held back. I know she didn’t understand my reaction to her getting hurt in the storm. I need to explain to her, now. I should try. I won’t know if I don’t try.
“It isn’t just you, you know. I haven’t been good at trying anything new for a very long time, either,” I say, reaching over and pouring her some wine. “There was a time that I didn’t even want to live.”
Hannah is unusually silent, so I continue.
“My wife was killed in the London subway bombing four years ago.”
I can’t see her face in this low lighting, but I can hear her gasp lightly. “Oh my God. I-I don’t have words. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes. Couldn’t for years, but I can now.”
“Were you with her?”
“No, I wasn’t. I wish I was. Maybe, somehow, I could have saved her.”
“That’s what… that’s why you were panicked in the forest with me today. You were…”
“Yeah, maybe. Maybe.” I sigh. “I was reliving it all a little. I still do that from time to time.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
I can hear her taking a swig of wine and decide that I desperately need to do the same. I take a full swallow and a deep breath before speaking again.
“The day of the bombing, I was at the museum leading a group of students around, when mass pandemonium broke out. People were screaming and running for the exits. Someone said there’d been an explosion in the subway. I checked my phone. Maggie hadn’t messaged, and I assumed she’d already made it to work.
“But as the hours went by, that nagging feeling that she had been in the underground at the time of the explosion grew stronger and stronger. When it was deemed safe for us to return to home, I walked back to our apartment with a few colleagues. They had all heard from their spouses by then. Evan, who lives in the building across the street, offered to stay with me, just until there was word either way. He was the one who picked up the call from Maggie’s office—I was in the kitchen trying to make us something to eat. She had never arrived for work that day.”
“Tripp…”
“It’s strange. We wake up, eat a fast breakfast, rush out the door to work, maybe we peck our spouses on the lips, maybe we don’t have time… I don’t even remember our last goodbye. I wish I could remember what we said to each other. I wish I could remember the sound of her voice, her scent. So much of that fades away.”
I suddenly realize I’m going on about intimate details, things Hannah wouldn’t understand, or wouldn’t want to hear. I start to get up from the couch, but she reaches out and takes both my hands in hers, pulling me back down, closer to her.
“You can keep talking, you know. It’s fine, and it may help.”
I gaze out the window and think about how drastically my life changed after the bombing. Besides the constant ache of missing Mags and the monotony of drifting about our lonely apartment like the walking dead, for the longest time, I was afraid to venture out as far as the corner store. I was afraid to live. Not a day went by when I wasn’t thinking about terrorists and bombings and who they might hurt next. Therapy eventually helped me manage my fear, but it couldn’t bring back my wife. Words can’t resurrect our lives, only actions can do that.
I finally came to the island when I’d had enough of staring at our photographs on the living room wall. I couldn’t bear to take them down, but I also couldn’t take seeing those memories every hour of every day. Everything in the apartment reminded me of her. Here, in this house, out in the woods, I’ve found a kind of haven. I don’t find her in everything I see or touch anymore, but there’s still a place for her in my heart as I go about my day.
Suddenly, I remember I’m speaking with Hannah. I’ve probably been staring into space far too long. “I saw a therapist for a while. Didn’t really help. They said time would heal, but it’s four years on, and I still miss her.”
“Don’t you think that’s normal? Don’t you think you’ll always miss her?” She pauses for a moment, then continues. “I lost my dad when I was just six. I still think about him every day. I still miss him. Every day. It never goes away, Tripp. You just find ways to deal with the pain over time. You find more and more ways, so it becomes a bit easier. But it never goes away.”
“You’re one of the first people to be honest with me about grief.” I give her hand a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“Just being real. You’re welcome.” She shifts her weight and lets out a sigh. “I have a confession,” she says. “I wanted this place all to myself, but now, I’m glad we’re here together.”
I want to do more than hold her hands. I want to crawl under this blanket, come up for air on the other end, and kiss her like she’s never been kissed before.
But, I have to resist. She needs time to digest what I’ve told her, and I need time to be certain it
’s not just the warm food, low light, and red wine that’s making me feel drunk on love.
“So,” I stand up, slowly, then turn away from her, bending to give Coffee a pat.
“Everything in the freezer’s going to melt soon. Sundaes by kerosene lamp? What do you say?”
“I never say no to ice cream.”
I turn to go make the sundaes, but suddenly, she’s standing, preparing, I assume, to make her way to the kitchen to help me. She holds my arm for stability and balance; I wrap it around my neck and support most of her weight as she hobbles along.
“Tripp?” I hear her ask me softly in the darkness.
“Yeah?”
“This has been an unexpectedly good night,” she whispers. “Maybe the app name is perfect, after all.”
There’s that good ache again.
Eighteen
Hannah
The lanky girl at the front door has a toothy smile, soaking wet hair, and a pail full of cleaning supplies.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when the doorbell rang early this morning. Maybe people from BC Hydro coming to fix the fallen power lines? Then, as I groggily made my way down the stairs, one at a time on my behind like a toddler in diapers often does to save my aching knee, I remembered where I am, who I’m with, and our evening last night. My cheeks flushed, recalling the romantic feelings that stirred inside me, but when I opened the door, a gust of wind and driving rain changed all that.
“Come in. Please, come in!” I let the teenager inside, taking her pail from her left hand. She’s left standing there with a mop, her tightly-curled, raven-black hair dripping wet.
“I am cleaner, Béatrice,” she says. Her big, brown eyes captivate my attention first, then her strong French accent.
“Oh my! You came in this storm? But the power is out…” I take her thin raincoat and hang it on the brass hook beside the door.
“No, no. You’re not cleaning today, Béatrice, asseyons-nous, pour du thé,” Tripp, has come up behind us with a large tray of tea and crumpets. How did he manage to heat the water? He’s already dressed in dark blue jeans and a maroon t-shirt, the obvious early-riser in this household compared to me, still in my pink I NEED MY BEAUTY SLEEP nightshirt. He ushers the girl to have breakfast with us in the living room.
Good Nights Page 7