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I guess though, that she’s a goddess and they have everything youthful and pure of beauty so I shouldn’t really be surprised she hasn’t changed much in ten years.
“You like it?” I look her over and she skips into my arms.
“I love it, can we look around? There’s a lake.”
“We can do whatever you want.” I raise her dainty hands and bring her knuckles up to my lips for a kiss.
“This is so nice. I absolutely love it.”
She throws her arms around me and I imagine us like this years from now. It’s not hard to see the future when you’re with a woman like this because she’s everything.
She always was.
She releases me with that smile on her face and I take her hand.
We haven’t brought many things but there’s a bag I need to put in the house.
The minute we go in, Rosa, my maid, starts fussing over Charlotte. She babbles on about how beautiful she is and asks me where I’ve been hiding her? Then she starts fussing over me, cursing me in Italian because she hasn’t seen me in donkey’s years and she thought God would come before I made my next visit.
By the time she finishes with me she has Charlotte laughing and all the other maids have come out to greet us.
It’s nice seeing them and this is the first time I’ve been here where the place has that homely feel my grandmother used to talk about.
I remember summers spent here with my grandfather who’d tell me his old war stories.
Ma tells me all the time that I look a lot like him.
Rosa makes a feast which we dive into after Charlotte and I explore the grounds.
By the time the sun starts setting, I fully believe that this is our life and we could be just like this forever.
Charlotte and I sit by the lake talking and she tells me about her plans for her class.
What I want to hear though is her reading a poem to me.
“You’re giving me that look again.” She smiles sweetly. She loosened her hair from the ponytail earlier so now it’s flowing in the wind.
“I just like looking at you.”
“I like looking at you too, but you look like you’re worrying.” Concern floods her eyes.
I don’t bother to tell her that I’m always worrying.
“I’m just trying to remember you reading poems to me, we should have brought a book.”
She laughs. “They’re here.” She taps her temple. “All my favorites are stored here.”
“Yeah?”
She nods and shuffles in my lap to face me. “All your favorites too. You loveIn Memoriam, same as me, because of the sentiment. Shall I read it to you?”
“I would love that.”
“Be near me when my light is low, when the blood creeps, and the nerves prick and tingle; and the heart is sick…”she smiles sweetly at me,rests her head on my chest and continues. She recites the whole thing and her voice is like music to me, balm on my tired soul, balm on the guilt I’ve carried for not being able to protect her when she needed me and now.
She lifts her head when she finishes and looks at me.
The sun has set and there’s a peacefulness that has settled between us, different to anything I’ve ever felt with anyone.
