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That was almost a year ago. Now we’d been through a winter and spring. The days had grown longer and summer came with its brutal heat. Some things changed and some things stayed the same.
The boys still loved living on the island. They were all taller and healthier than they’d ever been. They ate good food and spent all day running in the fresh, salty air.
I had never had a better relationship with my food. There was something about laboring over every meal that helped me make peace with it. I saw the food I ate as I cooked it and it felt safe. It felt like nourishment. My body leaned out, my skin tanned to gold, my hair was thick and strong.
Peace came much slower to me than health.
All my life, I’d lived in the city. It was everything I’d ever known. And in one night, all that was ripped from my hands. I was left reeling.
Shaken and afraid to trust my safety again.
Stability the way I’d understood it before became a thing of the past. I’d made peace with being locked in a state of waiting. He gave me protection, but he couldn’t give me permanence. I begged him for answers and he asked me to trust him.
There was a time to wait, to lay low and watch from afar. He was good at that, but I was impatient. Finally, after weeks of waiting, I chose to surrender and put all my faith in him.
Never in his life had he lost.
I had no reason to think he would now.
By the time I got to the peak of the hill where the villa sat, it was almost dark. In the distance, I could barely make out the light from Lucien’s boat. He would be back soon, but he wouldn’t come up to bed until he’d secured the boat in the caves on the north side of the island.
I slipped into the villa and padded down the stone hallway. It was a modern building made to look like classical architecture. Lucien liked the emptiness of it, the spacious rooms with pale, stone walls, the arched, open windows that looked out over the ocean. I was learning to love it.
He adapted easily. Like a desert animal against sand.
I had to be coaxed and reassured the whole way.
My bare feet padded through the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. His plate of cold chicken, buttered bread, and vegetables sat on the bottom shelf. I pulled it out and laid it on the table and poured a glass of wine.
Snagging a bit of chicken off his plate to nibble, I ducked into the back hallway and climbed the stairs.
Sometimes I felt like someone setting food out for an animal.
Every night when he was late, I’d put his food on the table and go up to our bedroom. Then I’d lie in bed or curl up on the windowseat and watch the stars while he moved about downstairs. It was a calming ritual to listen to him.
I checked on the boys’ suite. They slept in three adjoining rooms on the other end of the hall. Moonlight fell in a puddle through their open window and the soft breeze from the ocean kissed their faces.
I moved silently through their rooms. Pausing beside each bed to listen to the rhythm of their snores. Warmth overflowed in my chest. Perhaps that was the most beautiful sound in the world.
I stayed there and listened until I thought I heard stirring. Not wanting to wake them, I slipped down the hall like a pale shadow and ducked into the primary bedroom where I slept with Lucien.
The floor was cold stone. I’d covered it with a thin, white rug Lucien had brought me from the mainland. The bed sat to my left on a low platform Lucien had carved and pieced together from native trees on the island. It smelled faintly sweet and sometimes bits of sap broke from the seal. The mattress was firm and made up with linen sheets and a heavy, knitted blanket.
Very different from the bed we’d shared before.
He’d made me a vanity from driftwood. In the knots, he’d placed iridescent shells and sealed them in and sanded them smooth. On the underside he’d carved our names and our wedding date in fine script.
He’d bought me hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture to fill our old house. But nothing meant as much to me as the vanity he’d made with his hands.
I sank down into the chair and began slipping my rings off and setting them in their little wooden plate. I moved through my ritual of washing my face and rubbing cream into my skin. Then I undressed for bed. Every night I wore a white silk slip that settled around my hips and just brushed the middle of my thigh.
He’d enjoyed all my fancy lingerie before, but there was something about this plain slip that drove him wild. It spent more time on the floor of our bedroom than on my body.
Down below, I heard the front door open and my heart flipped and started hammering. I glanced up and met my own gaze. My eyes glistened and my cheeks flushed pink. I bit my lower lip and worked it, releasing it and watching as it blushed in response.
My hand skimmed up and I unfastened my hair. It tumbled down my back to the center of my waist.
I heard him in the kitchen. There was a long silence while I brushed out my hair. My fingers shook as I ran a bit of oil through the tips and massaged it into the waves.
