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I rejoin the call, but it takes about twenty minutes for me to stop smiling like a besotted schoolboy. Suddenly, even the impending trip to Moscow doesn’t seem so perilous as I begin to believe that this might all work out.
I’m not so naïve as to think I shouldn’t prepare for the worst but at least now I feel I have just cause to hope for the best. Now I just need to figure out how to frame the Moscow trip to Madison.
I decided not to raise the topic of the Moscow trip over dinner. This was Madison’s night, and I didn’t want anything to diminish her joy or take the spotlight off her significant accomplishments. We did spend time discussing where we’d go during her summer break before her residency began, but I was careful to avoid any discussion of Moscow.
She was radiant, absolutely glowing over the prospects for the future. I was delighted when she slipped in that it wouldn’t be too out of the question to set a wedding date. This had to mean that she had truly come to grips with the compromises she’d need to make to be my wife. Just as I’m making huge changes to fit into her world. For her, I will become the respectable, i.e., legitimate businessman, burying my more nefarious businesses so deep her high society acquaintances will never suspect a thing.
So, I patiently wait, biding my time for a more appropriate moment to raise the topic. When we arrived back home, I played some soft music and dimmed the lights. We slow danced for, maybe, the length of two songs before we were hungrily tearing off each other’s clothes and making passionate love on the sectional sofa, and then the ottoman. We went upstairs to take a shower, which escalated into further indulgence of our desire. Only then did we retire for the evening.
The morning’s light streams into the windows, bathing Madison in its glorious rays. I sit there watching her, still in awe that this incredibly beautiful creature is mine and that she loves me with an equally all-consuming passion. It’s her complexity that truly hooks me somewhere so deep inside me I can’t separate it from myself.
She’s chosen a straight and narrow path for herself, becoming a prestigious, highly admired surgeon. Yet for her love interest, she’s allowed herself to fall deeply for, and to be compromised by, a known Russian mobster. I’ve taken her by the hand and led her into my world, and though she made minor protests, her feet never stopped moving, never stopped following me wherever I led her.
She’s such a lovely enigma, brilliant and mysterious. My Madison.
It’s 7:38 a.m. when she finally stretches lazily and yawns herself awake. She turns over on to her side as her eyes blink open to find me propped up on my elbow, staring back at her. She closes her eyes and smiles warmly.
“Hey, you,” she says groggily, her hand reaches out for me. I clasp it, press it gently to my chest, let her feel the beat of my heart. The heart she holds in her hands.
Her hospital shift doesn’t begin until 11am so there’s no need to rush. I let her wake on her own time. She works so hard, puts more on herself than necessary, but that’s why she is where she is today.
We remain that way for a couple of minutes longer before she climbs out of the bed and makes her way to the bathroom. I hear the toilet flush, hear the faucet run. There’s the sound of teeth being brushed and light gargle. All things I did myself before laying back down next to her.
She emerges from the bathroom clad in one of my Cornell University t-shirts that she’s made her own. I’m sitting up now, back against the headboard and eyes fixed upon her. Climbing back into the bed, she slides in next to me, cuddling.
“You working from home today?” she asks me.
I wrap my arm around her. “I’ll probably take a call or two from here, then head into the office around ten.”
She snakes an arm around my torso and rest her head on my chest. “Good, I just want to stay like this for a while.”
I stroke her hair as she caresses my chest. “I heard from Nick, he’s in Moscow.”
Her hand freezes in place. “Is he alright? Is everything ok?”
“Yes, yes, he’s fine. He’s there visiting our mother.”
“Oh.” She relaxes, continues stroking my chest. “Well, that’s good. I’m sure she must miss him.”
“Yeah but…”
“But what?”
“It’s been nearly two years since I’ve paid her a visit and she’s not in the best of health.”
“Oh…” she says but continues caressing me. “You’ll see her this summer. Did Nick tell her that?”
I sigh to let her feel my frustration. “Yeah, but she just thinks I’m putting her off, you know? She says if I really wanted to see her, I’d come sooner.”
“Hmm,” is her only response apparently not caring to interfere in my family’s affairs.
“She’s not entirely wrong,” I say, shifting a bit on the mattress. “I could make arrangements to be there in a couple of weeks.”
She groans. “How long would you be gone?”
My heart sinks like a stone. “I…I was hoping you’d come with me.”
She sits up and looks at me. “Babe, I have to work, I can’t do that.”
