Imprint
Of course. There had to be more motive than sole maternal concern.
Kestrin watched Yuki yawn and lay her head on Kahlil's shoulder. Amanda reached out to touch Kestrin's face. He flinched and turned away, but followed her outside to the courtyard between hospital wings. Kestrin followed her at a lilted pace on the crutches. Inside the courtyard, a Spanish fountain splashed down bucket-tiers and purple myrtle flowers climbed up its sides.
Amanda slid out of her shoes and dipped a silver-painted toe into the water. “First of all, what happened to your hair?”
“You came here to ask me about my hair?”
“It was your pride and joy. What happened?”
“I felt like getting rid of it. And besides, I left my brush at home so I had to do something,” he shrugged.
Amanda smoldered. She forced herself to look away from his cropped scalp, as if it were an abomination. Then she said, “If you keep seeing this woman, your life is going to change in a huge way.”
“It already has. I've never felt so sure about anyone in my life.”
To hell with the dream. Unlike it, Lorona was neither confusing nor disturbing. She was just insatiably inquisitive and he could live with that. He imagined a huge display of multicolored fireworks rioting across the sky in honor of his decision.
Amanda misread his expression as goading her. “There are other girls still out there; girls who will realize what a precious little treasure you are. You don't have to stay just because you married her. Darling, I've never seen you more upset than that dinner at Palisade.” She reached over and tried to massage his neck.
Kestrin pulled away and deflected her hand. “It's not about the other girls. It's about—”
“I have something for you.” Amanda pulled a long beige envelope out of her purse. It had a lipstick kiss smeared across the seal. Kestrin flipped it over and read his name on the front.
“It's from Heidi,” Amanda added.
Kestrin dropped it straight into the fountain. The ink from the letter inside melted up through the envelope and into the water, wafting a blue cloud.
“What's wrong with you?” Amanda snatched it out and threw it onto the sunny lawn. “That is a handwritten apology and a sincere promise from a woman you told me was the one for you. Honey, she's a free spirit. That's the best kind for you.”
“I was an idiot when I was with her and I'd be an idiot to keep listening to anything she says.”
“What about your dream about the girl who cried? Wasn't that supposed to be Heidi?”
“Now you're playing both sides of the fence! First you say forget the dreams, now you say take them seriously? This is all about what you want. I know that you had a hard time with not getting attention from your own dad. Gramps was a loser, but you can't work out your solutions on my life.” Kestrin took a deep breath. “All of your meddling has never had anything to do with me.”
Amanda swung her feet out of the fountain and shook them angrily. The spray drops felt like little bullets aimed at Kestrin. “I married your father even though I knew from a dream that I wouldn't be able to keep my promise to him, and lo and behold, I'd broken it within three years. This will happen to you, too, if you don't follow your own guides. You are my son, and you will be just like me.”
She turned his face toward her with two fingers on his cheek. Her lips curled downward and her eyelids drooped. “I should have listened to my own oracle. I know you have truth in your dreams. Darling, I miss those guiding dreams like a heroin addict misses the hits, and now you're just throwing them away!” She let go of his face, plucked a flower, and tore its head off.
Kestrin watched her sigh theatrically. “Are you finished? You're not getting a standing ovation for that performance.”
Amanda muttered, “Do you think you can escape fate?”
“Why don't you answer this: Is fate defined by what you tell me to do? Or by what God, or whoever out there is controlling things, has decided will happen? If the second one is fate, nothing I do will stop it. If fate is just what you think I should do, then I'm done with fate, thank you the hell very much.”
“Kestrin, baby,” her eyes were wet. She reached for his hand, but he pulled away. “I flew down here on a very expensive ticket to stop you from making the worst decision of your life. You can't marry her. You were made to be free, like me.”
Your prison is walking through this world all alone. The Eagles song filled Kestrin's head. “It's too late. I'm already married to her. I chose Lorona before any of this went down. I'll see if she becomes the dream. And if she doesn't, I'll still settle for a life with her.”
“But why?”
“You and Heidi are part of the same sick club. That's why you want me to be with her. It's disgusting.”
“Watch your language. I am your mother!” The word shook with centuries of childbirth and maternal yearning, as if Amanda were summoning the angst of all her ancestral mothers' pain. For a moment Kestrin felt himself caving.
He tensed his jaw, regrouped his thoughts, and made his own attack, “And I am your adult son who's been taking care of himself for years. I'd be a fool to let my mother choose my life for me, or to spend my time holding out for a phantom dream. I choose option C: None of the above.”
Amanda trembled. “If you stay with her, you will have chains, commitments, expectations, and a life with roots that won't let you fly. She'll nag you to fix the refrigerator door and take out the trash, she'll tell you when to come home—”
“And I'll gladly come home to her.”
Kestrin swallowed the wordless fear. What if Lorona didn't want this? What if she was as done with him as anyone in their right mind should be?
I'll just have to ask. It's the only way.
Amanda opened her mouth to protest, but Kestrin motioned to shush her.
“You know what your problem is? I think you're afraid she'll usurp you as the most powerful woman in my life. Well, I'm sorry that saying this hurts you, but she has.” Kestrin hesitated for a moment, then picked a flower and handed it to her.
Amanda squeezed the stem so hard that her thumb and index finger turned white.
Kestrin continued. “You always wanted me to love freely and wildly, and Lorona lets me do this, even though she's only one woman. I know you don't get it; but there it is.”
He rose with as much nobility and pride as his crutches would allow, and left his mother at the fountain where she sat tearing the petals from his flower, shaking her head, and staring at the soggy envelope on the grass.
Kestrin didn't look back. His new freedom stung like a fresh wound, as if an arrow, misguidedly allowed to remain and fester, had finally been pulled free, leaving behind a first-time opportunity for complete healing. The agony was wonderful.
As he pushed open the doors to the hospital, Amanda called, “Kestrin, just listen to me for one minute!”
Kestrin relished the gust of air as the door swung shut behind him with a definitive click. She would never again win a manipulative argument with him. He knew without looking back that Amanda was still trying to keep her head above the crest of the shockwaves.
Kestrin checked his wallet, made a quick visit to the waiting room where he withdrew a loan from the bank of Kahlil, and hobbled away from the hospital. He made a careful purchase at a nearby jewelry store and hurried back as fast as his shambling would allow. The nervous energy dissipated as he neared the doors to Lorona's ward. The hospital had just moved her to a new room with fewer machines to measure and beep at her, which was a good sign. She was getting better.
Carlina was closing the door behind her as Kestrin approached. She smiled at him. “Lorona's sleeping, but I'm sure she won't mind if you wake her.”
“How is she?”
“She had a tube down her throat to give her oxygen and keep it from swelling closed. They just took it out, so she can talk, but she's not saying much, since it's still very tender. You can see in her eyes that she's got all sorts of things she wants to say. I think she'd talk if she saw the right person.” Carlina winked.
“Do you think those things she'd say are anything like ‘get out of here and leave me alone’?”
Carlina put a hand on his shoulder. “Do you remember when they put her in the ambulance?”
“They had to pull my hands off her.”
“Not quite. They had to pry both your hands apart.”
As he opened the door to the room, Carlina squeezed his shoulder.
Lorona lay very still with the sheets bunched under her bandaged hands and the midmorning sunlight streaming across her bed. She looked like a virgin sacrifice on the altar of an ancient temple.
“Lorona?”
Her name had never sounded so beautiful. He was looking at his future, whether the dream said so or not.
A crust around Lorona's eyes tried to convince her to keep them closed. She didn't want to see any more white coats or screen displays. Then she heard the voice. His voice.
“Kestrin?” Her throat scratched like Velcro. She opened her eyes and coughed. He'd cut his hair off. It made him look older, more serious. She hardly had time to breathe before the air passing out of her mouth triggered another fit. He brought a plastic cup of water to her lips and she slurped, wincing when it spilled down her face. She wanted orange juice, but the nurse had said it would sting too much.
“You look like a mummy in all those blankets,” Kestrin laughed quietly. “Aren't you hot?”
Lorona tensed. He knows I'm pregnant? No, he'd said “mummy” not “mommy.” Lorona tried to slow her heart rate by breathing carefully.
Kestrin was grinning at her. The amorous grin would have been appropriate if she was shimmying in a string bikini, but now?
The mood infected Lorona. “Do I really look,” she coughed, “good?”
“You couldn't look better.”
He was a wonderful liar.
Kestrin's eyes moved slowly as tears of rising joy spilled out of his eyes. She was bandaged from singed hairline to thorn-ripped feet in treatment for minor burns and cuts. When she spoke, she rasped. Lorona insisted that she sounded like a 50-year-old man with black lung disease.
“I might have permanent vocal damage. I could sound like this,” she coughed, “for the rest of my life.”
“And that will be ridiculously sexy.” Kestrin stroked her stomach, making a circle around her belly button on the surface of her hospital gown. “I want to get you out of here as fast as possible.”
The monitor chirped a quickened beat in response.
“Your heart is twittering,” Kestrin said. “Are you excited?
Lorona smiled weakly.
Could high stress have killed the baby? Lorona worried. Her heart fluttered again, and Kestrin smiled.
Lorona vaguely remembered things they'd said in the cave before he climbed up through the ceiling. She'd been half out of her mind. Twice she'd almost told him she was pregnant. Too many thoughts were crowding together at once.
Her previous determination to tell him nothing about their baby was leaking gallons by the second. He's the father. He should know.
She'd let him do the talking. She'd thank him for his heroic act and send him on his way, no strings attached, into the future. It would be a future that he and his dream and his mother would all be the happier for. It's what he wants, she tried to convince herself. Kestrin, would you please stop looking at me like I'm the Hope Diamond?
His initial moonstruck gaze at the Halloween party was different from what he sent her now. There was the same intrigue and admiration, only this time the more Lorona looked, the more she would have bet her life that she saw true delight in his eyes.
Here she was, the woman who'd caused him the trauma and expense of a trip to California (to escape his pain), a potential divorce (to make a paperwork nightmare), a broken trust that would affect all future relationships (to make sure he didn't forget her anytime soon), and an embarrassing story to tell future partners.
The tension was killing her. “What are we going to do?”
Kestrin leaned his crutches against the wall and knelt by the bed. He kissed her right hand, which was somehow miraculously free of bandages. “You'll get better. You'll heal. You'll be fine.”
“No, that's not—”
“And I won't leave your side until we can take you home.”
“I'm trying to—” she coughed again.
When she'd quieted, Kestrin said, “I love you more than life itself.” He pulled a tiny wooden box from his pocket.
“What is that?” She covered her mouth, forbidding herself to talk anymore.
“I want to do this the right way. We'll invite our families this time. We'll have a real honeymoon in Belize and scuba dive in a coral reef and drink rum and pineapple juice with our feet in the sand. You can wear a real wedding ring that sparkles and has our wedding date engraved on it. I was an idiot and a fool to rush in like I did. I know there's a proverb somewhere about that—”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread?” she whispered.
“That one. You're the angel who feared to tread, but you came anyway.”
“But—”
She watched as he snapped open the box. The sun from the window exploded across the ring and the stone glowed like it was molten. Set inside a green velvet groove, a gold ring swirled in a sinuous line sparkling with bead diamonds and coiled around a luminous pink, orange, and purple opal stone with an iridescent layer of pearly green.
“It's called a fire opal,” Kestrin whispered. “I thought it was fitting, since I almost lost you in one. It'll remind me of my second chance.”
He brushed Lorona's ring finger, which was bandaged where the rock had cut it.
“I'll have to get creative about how you'll wear this with all those mummy wrappings in the way. I noticed the smashed wedding band and the rock in your finger in the ambulance. That's when I had this idea.”
“You were already thinking about the ring in the ambulance?”
Kestrin was showing her a delicate gold chain as he slid the ring onto it. “I'm going to put this around your neck for now.”
“I…” Lorona didn't have strength to finish.
“I'm not telling you how much it cost. I'd pay anything to make sure you lived through that furnace.” His voice cracked and he swallowed several times. He whispered, “Why did you follow me here?”
A thousand images crammed into her mind like a vivid movie on fast forward. Their first kiss with orange and vodka; sitting on his hammock in the light of the moon and stars; his smile in his sleep when she touched his hair; his stricken face and eyes when he gripped his journal and questioned her about it; the smooth peace in his forehead and confidence in his voice the day he married her….and then the final image was his face again, but this time it was grim and savage, his jaw clamped like a vault as he carried her up the smoke-filled passage, his eyes searching for the light. Lorona closed her eyes, overwhelmed.
“You are my life, Lorona.” He was still waiting for her to reply.
She suddenly remembered the signs. “You know I didn't really believe in fate and destiny at all before I met you. Then Yuki brought me to this weird psychic who made me think differently. You want to know why I followed you here? Hand me my purse.”
She'd show him the signs. It was the least she could do. If he is brought to see these four signs, he will have his answers to his dream.
Kestrin placed her purse in her lap, clearly perplexed. Lorona flipped with her unbandaged right hand to the photo of the graffiti on the brick. “Here, let's start with a full confession, since you clearly still want to be with me. I need to be honest with you.”
Kestrin nodded soberly.
“See this picture?” Lorona coughed and took another gulp of water. The incision on her throat was burning. “I'm the sin that vandalized your shalom, okay? I married you because I felt worshiped.”
Instead of looking crestfallen, Kestrin's eyes took on a weird glow. He hadn't taken his eyes off of the phone picture. “Yes?” he said, as if waiting for her to say more.
“Then I made a very foolish attempt to get on your mom's good side and almost scared myself to death.” The story of Amanda's perfume surged out. “I knew, after that, that no matter how hurt you were, you would never have encouraged your mom to threaten me like that. I talked to my dad and I knew I had to see you again before giving up.”
“This is amazing. You said that perfume was Eau de Beauté?”
“Yeah, the water of—”
“All things lovely.”
Lorona raised an eyebrow. “That's a poetic way to put it.”
“Please go on.” Kestrin's eyes burned even more intensely, and she wished she could have hooked his own heart up to the monitor. His shirt was almost visibly throbbing.
The next sign, according to Madame Ovary, was the life within. “Kestrin,” she began.
“Yes?” He teetered on the peak of some emotional mountain.
“I can cry again. And I found out I could do it when I was trapped in the forest fire. I cried because I thought I would die, because I thought I would die with,” she paused, “with our baby. I'm pregnant.”
Kestrin was so overwhelmed, he just sat there staring at her as if his eyes could somehow eat what they saw.
Lorona visualized herself in the cave again and felt the same terror for Vivi. The sting in her eyes returned.
Kestrin gently took her unbandaged hand in his. “I've never been so happy to see you cry,” he whispered. “My dream, the one in my journal…”
“Wait, please let me finish. I'm almost done.” She still had one sign left to tell.
Madame Ovary's voice crooned …the fourth emblazoned on your own flesh.
Lorona said, “You know the small of the back where most girls get those butterfly tattoos?” She coughed and forced herself to speak more slowly. “The doctors who were bandaging me up noticed this weird burn on my back. It must have been from a really hot bush that hit me as I was running. It will probably scar. It looks like a feather.” She grinned. “It made me think of you. I have a tattoo for you.” Lorona swallowed. “I love you.” She hadn't expected to say the last part, but it just slipped out. Telling him the signs had affected her more deeply than she'd expected.
Kestrin rose to his feet, his uninjured leg locked, his arms and neck rigid. His face was transformed into the most eerily victorious expression she'd ever seen. Every crease in his face darkened. If he'd had secret superhuman powers, now would have been the time to unleash them.
“Can I see it? The burn?” he whispered.
She nodded and Kestrin lifted her gown and gently pulled back the bandage to see the feather-shaped burn.
His breath roared like a sea storm. He snatched up her pillow and pressed it fiercely to his chest. After a long pause, Kestrin managed, “We really have a baby?”
Lorona nodded. “Her name is Vivian.”
Kestrin's eyes sparkled. “I saw her.”
“Saw who?”
“Our baby. I was looking at the moon and I saw something in it, like a foot pushing on a big pregnant belly. It was you.” He drew his finger down the curve of her face. “I saw you and the baby in the moon.” He laughed. “We have to admit it. We're a couple of crazies, aren't we?”
He stroked her stomach again, chanting the song from his dream to himself.
“What are you singing?” she asked.
No one else had heard it before. Now was the time to change that. He sang:
Words in sea ink upon a red stone.
The scent of all things lovely.
Silent life, wordless yet screaming.
My heart, the mark of you on my skin.
I am She Who Cries.
“Hi,” Kestrin met his wife's wet eyes. “My name's Kestrin. I'm a complete screw-up and I'm hopelessly in love with you. I haven't been upfront about my past with you. I have a terrible reputation for using and hurting women, I've had embarrassing moments of letting my passion overrun my morals, and only a few hours ago I was on the verge of welcoming a horrible woman back into my life to replace you. I've been pretty obsessed with fate and destiny and I was ready to throw that away to love you instead. And now I'm here, and I've almost died with you, and I know this place is exactly where I'm supposed to be. You're the one I'm supposed to be with. I know I can't erase what I've already done to you and to the rest of the world, but I can ask you to forgive me for what you're able to forgive.” He drew a shaky breath to steady himself as Lorona nodded gently. He continued, “I'm willing to do anything and everything to make this work. I guess I knew that it would work out, even from the beginning, but I've had awful faith.” He tried to speak more, but couldn't find his voice. Finally, he just held her hand.
Sobs worked their way up Lorona's throat. Kestrin laid his head on her chest and she watched her tears sprinkle his blond stubble. The sensation in her eyes felt better than a hot bath, chocolate cake, and back massage combined.
We'll figure things out with Amanda, we'll learn how to be parents, and we won't crave orange anymore because it was just a memory of a kiss.
Lorona had a feeling that the mystery of Kestrin's dream and the journal entry had been solved, even though she still didn't understand how.
I'll hear an explanation eventually. I can wait.
Kestrin lifted his head and the fire opal glowed brightly from its place on her chest, celebrating with them. The opal's cracks and fissures were brightest beneath the pierced surface of the stone. The flaws were the most captivating part of the stone's beauty.
When her tears had finally subsided, Lorona rubbed the stone with her thumb and smiled. “My name is Lorona. I doubt all the time, I have trust issues that I'll probably take with me to the grave, but I love you more than I can understand and I want to be your wife.” She shook his hand.
His eyes danced. He leaned closer to kiss her and whispered, “I know you're wounded. I promise I'll be careful.”
A whisper came from behind what they'd both thought was a closed door. A scuffle of feet precluded the door swinging wide to reveal Kahlil, Yuki, and Carlina crouched with guilty grins stretched across their faces.
Yuki took one look at Lorona in Kestrin's arms and crowed with joy. Kahlil was too busy beaming at the two of them to see it coming, but by the time Yuki had got his face in her hands and kissed him, he'd found the presence of mind to kiss her back.
Carlina wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sighed. “It was beautiful. Thanks for letting us eavesdrop.”
Lorona rolled her eyes as Kestrin laughed. She said, “For that we'll consider inviting you all to the wedding only if you're on your best behavior.”
“Another wedding!” Yuki looked ready to spill over. “Are you really going to have another one?”
“Lorona needs a real wedding.” Kestrin put a careful arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. “One where she can invite her family. We'll be married in the best place imaginable. I've already decided it.”
“Where?” Yuki wanted to know.
“An orange grove.”
