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She pouted and before she could say anything, I confessed what I’d wanted to tell her the moment I took her hand at the museum. “Esther Noëlle, I don’t love you just because I have always loved you. I love you because I fell in love with you—”
She kissed me before I could get another word out and I helplessly kissed her back. Nothing…There was nothing else to do except love the woman I loved.
19. SOUND OF THE HUMMINGBIRD
MALACHI
“Your choices are Mr. & Mrs. Smith—”
“REJECT!”
She said it so vigorously I had to look away from the television and over my shoulder at her as she came into the room with a tub of popcorn. She glared at the screen as if the actors had personally insulted her, and when she caught me gazing at her she relaxed. “Sorry, I know it’s stupid but I was a huge Brangelina fan. I know what they did to Jennifer was horrible but I was like, when soulmates get together what can you do? Now they’re getting divorced and the rose-colored shades are off.”
“Ohhh…okay then.” I nodded as I switched to the next movie.
“Crap! I forgot the wine.” She rushed back to the kitchen. “White or red?”
“Either is fine,” I replied then called out. “What about The Great Gatsby?”
“Also rejected! I hate The Great Gatsby!” She hollered from the kitchen. “Daisy is the absolute worst and in a whole book of horrible, vain, narcissistic people that’s saying something. But then again, looking at the author himself I can understand why everyone is viewed through such a lens.”
I shook my head. “What happened to just put on anything?”
“Anything is fine, just not those two,” she said as she came into the living room with a bottle of red wine in her hands.
Sighing I clicked random and read the first two titles that came on screen “What about In Your Eyes or The Hummingbirds?”
I waited for her to find some reason to reject them both but when she didn’t I turned back to her just as the bottle slipped from her hands and spilled all over the carpeting. I rushed forward as she fell back.
“ESTHER!” I fell to my knees and placed my hand on her head to keep it from slamming into the side table as she fell.
“Ma…lachi…”
“Shh,” I said as she trembled in my arms. Her jaw locked as her eyes struggled to stay open, which I knew was only going to make it worse. “Don’t fight it. It’s okay. You’re okay. Remember, you’re okay—”
Her eyes shut and just like that she was sucked into whatever memory it was that she was trying so hard to repress. Her face bunched up and her body slowly turned in my arms as if she wanted to roll herself into a ball.
“You’re okay,” I told her again because there was
nothing I could do. Nothing but lift her up and cradle her in my arms as I carried her back to the bedroom and laid her on the sheets. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead for a moment before I pulled the sheets over her.
Watching her, I fought the thoughts that unfolded within my mind, I fought a losing battle because each time she grimaced I wondered: Why had I come back? Why hadn’t I kept running? Why had I done this to her?
“Tlah…”
It was the only word she spoke before her body went limp and it was all I needed to hear to know where she was and what memory she was in. Taking her cold hands in mine, I kissed them.
“I’m here, Yaretzi.”
ESTHER
1518 Huey Tocoztli, (2nd May) – The Road to Tenochtitlan, capital of The Aztec Empire.
“Weetz-ee-loh-POSHT-lee. The God of the gods,” I said as we reached the top of the grassy hill which overlooked the great city and the blue waters that surrounded it on all sides. A shade of the green layer grew over the earth so that each man could farm for themselves. The only paths came from the north, south, and west. “They say he came in the dreams of the elders, of the high priest, and showed them the city that lived on water amid the prickly pears that grew amongst the rock—the city which would become Tenochtitlan. And his home would be in its center.”
I pointed to the only land within the city which did not have grass, trees, or mortal life. The land had been stripped of these things for he did not need to farm. He did not eat corn or tomatoes, nor drink the water and sweet honey of the earth. He instead ate flesh and drank blood.
“Yaretzi, have you ever been inside the Great City?” asked Citlali, a girl of only ten summers old—half of my age who had a curiosity that could fill the skies. Her black hair fell barely past her back while mine was so long it almost touched the ground.
