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“Then this is the compromise, since you won’t let me have time on my own out here. I am going to take a bath in your en suite. I can’t take one in mine because I’ll wake Will. What time does your ‘make sure nobody comes or goes’ shift end?”
“Six,” he says.
“I’ll be done long before then.”
We walk back to the front door in silence. Take off our boots in silence. Head to his room in silence.
“Wait here, please,” he whispers. After a minute, maybe two, he ushers me in. His bed has been made, there are no clothes in sight, and the bathroom looks as if it’s not been used.
“You didn’t have to clean up,” I say.
“The towel on the hook is fresh. Leave the bathroom door open when you’re done, so I know you’re not still here.” He nods, then turns and leaves.
I start the water, undress, and kill the light. The bathroom is pitch dark—no window, no ambient light. I inch my way to the tub, step in, and crank the dial so it’s delivering steaming hot water. I picture my skin turning bright red and feel the perspiration bead on my face as the tub fills. Using my foot, I turn off the tap lever and settle in.
My body relaxes and with it, my mind. I can finally think clearly, see my options, visualize the paths I can take from this crossroads.
In the way I replay the conversation with Will, he didn’t break up with me. He strongly suggested I wouldn’t be happy if I stayed with him. I choose to believe that he’s giving me the choice to stay or leave since my happiness, not his, is what’s in question.
Haven’t I been happy?
I was happy hiking in the forest with him. Hanging out with my friends at the firehall. But that was holiday happiness. That could never be my every day life, not with us living and working in a big-city high-rise.
The number of times I’ve dreamed about being able to work from home, having a greenhouse where I’d spend my hours growing special plants and resurrecting sick ones for well-intentioned, albeit inept, clients—it’s a dream I’d started to actually taste with Mrs. Bernard’s flora. Aside from the end-of-day visits to Will’s office to check on his plants, visiting Mr. Bernard has been the highlight of my workweeks.
A future locked in a high-rise, even a luxury high-rise with thousands of plants in hundreds of rooms on thirty-two floors, does not ignite joy in my heart. I imagine myself as a silent songbird in a gilded cage.
Maybe I could be happy if I were to spend my days outside in my dirt-on-the-ground world and my evenings in Will’s chrome-and-concrete world.
I submerge my head under the water to block out the ambient noise of the sleeping house, so I can listen to my body as I consider that option.
I’d never sleep with the fresh air of an open window.
I’d never hear the pitter-patter of rain on the ground.
I’d never smell the petrichor rising from cool drops falling onto parched pavement.
I’d never sip my morning coffee while watching robins pull worms from grass or Steller’s jays flit from tree to tree.
I’d never be able to pad out to a sunny wood deck in my bathrobe and sit with my face in the rising summer sun.
So many things I’d never be able to do again if I officially moved into the Power Industries private residences with Will.
As much as I love the man, the dread that fills my heart at all the things I’d have to give up weighs like a March snowfall, burying sweet, optimistic, early-spring crocuses.
I love those flowers. I relate to their enthusiasm about life, pushing up from the cold ground as soon as it’s soft enough to break through. But I never want to experience the crushing disappointment of being smothered, left broken and bruised by whims of uncontrollable outside forces.
An image of the security team pops into my head. A life being guarded and on-guard would destroy me. How couldanyonelive like that?
My tears mix with the water that covers my cheeks as I realize that my father was half right—I am not the kind of person who can live in a wealthy man’s world, but not, as he said, because I’m not worthy of wealth. It’s because the things money buys don’t make me as happy as down-to-earth, grounded experiences.
I pull myself up and wipe my eyes.
“Hi,” a deep voice says from the dark.
31. Will
UNSOLVED CRIMES: OUTSTANDING
