He hadn’t gone to work. He’d been here.With her.Inside her most of the time. His only goal to drive out their chemistry. Make the feel of her body on his, his body’s response to her, something repetitive. Something he did by rote. Gave pleasure and took his in return. But still, it was not rote. It was not repetitive.Sex.With her…
It was never enough.
It never had been.
He wouldn’t think of it.
It only lingered now, this fierce chemistry between them, because it had been so long since they’d been together.
It would go away.
It had to.
His hands curled into fists.
It flashed in his mind. Kyparissos. Tall evergreen trees named for the grieving. For those who mourned beneath them.
He knew where she was.
Thekoimeterion.
The sleeping place.
He followed the white stone walls, walked beneath the arched, too low ceilings where no windows let in the sun. It was a stone tunnel, built by the monks to lead them from community prayer to find their own sacred solitude. To take them out of the darkness into the light outside.
Reaching the end of the tunnel, Konstantinos opened the arched door, stepped outside. And up he went. Up the dusty stone steps warmed by a high sun. Down the path he’d enlarged to accommodate the procession.
Konstantinos had led them all carrying the white box with tiny gold handles on his shoulders to the too small piece of land that would forever be his son’s home. A place where he would forever sleep. But he’d never been awake. Never alive. Never…real.Not in the way he was to Poppy. As if the time he’d spent inside her womb she had got to know him.Love him.
They came into view. The cypress trees at the top of the hill blocking out the sun and standing guard of those buried below their textured trunks. He hadn’t wanted to bury him with his parents. Poppy hadn’t wanted to bury him with hers. There had only been one choice.Here.On the island. In a graveyard exclusively for the monks. To bury him with other souls truly at rest.
His gut spasmed.
Had Isaak had a soul?
He reached the flat summit of the small hill.
His footsteps slowed. So quietly did she stand there, with her back to him, the only movement her white dress. The cotton pushing close against her skin. The wind blowing in from behind her. Her blonde hair was loose. It fell about her shoulders, moved in time with the rustle of the wind in the trees surrounding her.
A husk of softly spoken French teased at his eardrums. Swept to his ears by the grace of the breeze rustling the trees.
He frowned.
Was she singing? Singing to…Isaak?
Something sharp jabbed into his heart.
Their son could not hear her.
He crossed the distance between them, because his body would do nothing else. His feet dragged him closer. And he did not think. He did not question his need to do it. To be with her here in a place he hadn’t visited. Did not want to visit. And yet, he was here.With her.
He stood beside her but found his eyes did not try to find hers.
They looked only at the grave now marked with stone, withhisname.
Isaak Ariti.
It slammed into his chest. He felt the bones in his chest give way.Crack.Inwards. And they trapped the air he needed to expel inside his lungs. Until it burnt. Until it…hurt.
