Emerald was a deeply good person.
“I’ll make a tea time, then. We can have it in my parlor.”
“That sounds excellent.”
“I’ve some work to do,” Onyx said, touching her arm.
“Okay,” she responded.
She tried not to overreact to that. To the immediate distance he was putting between them.
“Come to the kitchen,” Elizabeth said.
“I’d love to,” she responded.
“So,” Elizabeth said when they had some distance. “Things are going well?”
“Yes. They are. Though, I feel him pulling away. Everything was fine on the island. He…” She swallowed hard. “I do love him, Elizabeth. I fear that I do love him, and it’s going to hurt me. Like it always does.”
“Life is nothing without love. And it’s even less without hope.”
“Is that why you never tried again with Adam?”
Elizabeth swatted her arm. “No. It’s because I didn’t want to take a risk, didn’t want to damage my pride. Sometimes you have to be willing to soften yourself. When he can’t. I wasn’t willing to do that. And I regret it.”
“But if I soften myself, I could get hurt.”
“Yes. But you’ll hurt either way, won’t you?”
“I think you’re going to have to take a risk.”
“Then I think you should,” Birdie said.
“Me? I’m old now.”
“Elizabeth, I haven’t talked much about my mother. But I’ve been talking to Onyx about her, and it’s made it all feel closer than it normally does. She died when she was young. She didn’t have the chance to be old and in love. She didn’t have the chance to be old at all. Aging is a gift. You being here is a gift. As long as you’re here, you should make it the most glorious, joyful experience that it can be.”
Elizabeth put her hand over Birdie’s. “Oh, you sweet girl. I know you’re right.”
“Then I’ll be brave. And you can be too.”
After that conversation, she went to her room. She wondered if he would come in. But part of her knew that he wouldn’t.
The problem with Onyx was that he had spent his life being unchallenged as far as his authority went. He’d had terrible things happen to him. But he was in a secure place. They were things that were beyond his control. So many of the situations that Birdie had been in hadn’t been in her control. Even if she had to fight, there was something she could do to make them better, or worse. In some ways, she wondered if that made him stuck. If it made it difficult for him to know what to do. If he was just sitting there, waiting for the next blow.
The idea of that, the image of that, made her so desperately sad.
And that was when she decided she wasn’t going to wait for him. That was when she decided it was okay that she was the one that was making the moves. That she was the one deciding on this particular brand of bravery. Onyx was brave. But there were things she understood about herself, about her feelings and about her emotions that she had a feeling he didn’t quite get yet.
So she was willing to put herself out there for him. For that.
That was when she decided to use the adjoining doors. They hadn’t used those here. And in the Bahamas they hadn’t used doors at all.
But that had been a different place. They had been outside of this. Outside of time in a way they weren’t now. This was their life. She was going to make it the best she could.
She was going to speak the language he understood. This was how she had reached him the first time. But this time he knew who she was. This time he knew who they were.
And she believed in what they could be.
