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“I don’t understand why you’re not giving this a go. You are single. You owe your ex nothing. Least of all your loyalty.
“Aiden and you already behave like a couple… without actually being one,” Miriam continues on her earlier line of thinking.
I want to protest, but she holds up her hand.
“Don’t deny it. You both constantly look out for each other.
“I saw how you stashed his favorite cookies away yesterday at lunch and slipped them to him when he was splitting firewood. You thought nobody was looking, but I saw. It was so sweet, I wanted to gag,” she laughs.
Rude, but true.
I fight the smile, wanting to break free.
“Anyway, just give him a chance. I have a feeling you won’t regret it.” Then her voice turns stern once more. “And never try to be a matchmaker for me again. I don’t like it.”
I can’t resist teasing her. Plastering my most innocent expression on my face, I ask, “Oh? Why is that?”
Miriam’s cheeky twinkle returns. “Because I haven’t decided yet if I want to settle down with a man or a woman. Both have their pluses and minuses.”
Oh.
I have no comeback for that.
Claudette, Aiden and I are cleaning up after lunch, but it’s only Ade and I in the kitchen. Claudette volunteered to fetch more vegetables from the root cellars when she noticed supplies in the kitchen were running low.
Ade is washing the dishes, while I lucked out, having to scrub the cooktops.
Working together in the kitchen like this does make me feel like we’re a couple. Miriam’s words bounce around in my head.
Aiden and you already behave like a couple… without actually being one.
“You know I saw you back in Sicily for the first time?” Aiden says from beside me, and I turn my head to look up at him.
His warm brown eyes call to me like they always do, their beckoning becoming harder and harder to ignore.
“I was drawn to you already then,” he continues, wiping his hands on a towel after putting the last plate in the drying rack. “You shone so brightly, like a sun, like the brilliant star you are… my lucida.
“I wanted to come over and introduce myself, but Lex dragged me away, convincing me that we had to get to the airport.
“I’m not someone who regrets things in life. Why waste energy on something you can’t change? But this is something I’ve regretted very much.”
He lets out a long sigh, and I put down the scrubber and turn my body fully toward him. He’s baring his soul to me; it deserves my full attention.
“If I had come over and we had talked, maybe I would have stayed and spent my time in Sicily rather than return to Greece.
“Then we would be together now. And the baby you’re carrying would be mine.”
He looks so sad and I reach for him, pulling him into a tight embrace. My arms wrap around his waist and his find their place around my back. The weight of his regret seeps into the depths of my soul. I welcome it. I too feel the same regret.
In the closeness of our embrace, his sorrow finds a sanctuary within me, a place where it can be shared and hopefully halved. Isn’t that what they say? A problem shared is a problem halved?
There’s a heaviness in his every breath, an ache I want to erase for him but can’t.
I hold him tighter, hoping that my presence, my touch, can soothe him even in a small way.
“I saw you too,” I tell him, but he already knows that. What he doesn’t know, though, is this. It’s something I haven’t admitted to anybody.
“You left a memorable impression on me too, Ade,” I say softly, enjoying being enveloped in the cocoon of his arms.
