than just sweat. I helped him to the ground before I pulled back and examined my hand. I stared at it and then at the large bloody patch on his chest as my heart drummed louder and louder in my head.
“Nellie.” He reached up for me.
“I saw a nurse…”
“I’m going to play that song for you next time. I swear it, Nellie,” he said with a smile I didn’t want to see. Just like the man in the rubble, his hands began to fall, but I gripped on and kneeled beside him. I desperately squeezed his hand so tightly my nails dug into his skin and his eyes snapped back open.
“If you think I’ll allow you to leave me that easily, Thomas Gallagher, you do not know me very well,” I said kissing his hands.
“Nellie Camellia Wilkinson,” he said my name slowly. “When have I ever left you? For
even the angels in Heaven above and the demons down under the sea know my soul cannot desert thee.”
“Poet to the end,” I whispered through my tears.
“Are we at the end?” he asked.
And, as if the angels in Heaven above and the demons down under the sea, wished to punish us once more, the roof above us shook with such force that many around rose to their feet while others began to scream, and as water came rushing in from all sides, our shelter became our tomb.
MALACHI
I knew she’d find me. It was why I’d left her name at the front desk.
I just didn’t think it would be soon.
I didn’t even have to look before I opened the door. It could only be her. She was the only one who knew I was here. What shocked me was how she looked when I opened the door. Her eyes were red and full of tears. Her hair looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed. She hugged her arms around her brown peacoat as if it was the only thing holding her together.
“Esther—”
“I believe you. Can I come in?” she asked even though she didn’t need to. Moving aside, she walked in looking more broken than I’d ever wanted to see. Closing the door behind her she stood in the center of the parlor and stared at the piano in the corner. I wasn’t sure what to say to her or if she wanted me to say anything at all. All I knew was that she was in pain and that was the last thing I wanted. The moment I stepped behind her, she turned back to me and pointed to the piano.
“You swore…” She bit back the sob. Biting her bottom lip, she drew in her breath before continuing. “You swore you’d play a song for me…what song was it? Beethoven’s Für Elise?”
The moment the words left her mouth I knew where her mind had been. What she’d just remembered…and I felt that pain too. Stepping closer I kissed her forehead and she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Yes,” I said softly. “Do you want to hear it now?”
She nodded against me but didn’t let go and I didn’t rush her. I wouldn’t rush anything. Feeling her like this. Holding her like this. I wanted to do it for as long as possible. It made…it made all the pain worth it when I held her.
“Okay.” She sniffled as she let go and stepped back. She wiped her eyes and looked back to me. “Will you play it for me? Please?”
“I swore I would, didn’t I?” I said to her as I took her hand and led her across the vinery carpets towards the black piano. I sat on the bench and held my hand out for her to come sit with me. She stared at it for what felt like hours, but it was merely seconds, before she took it. Slowly she sat beside me and lifted the cover of the keys. I hadn’t touched a piano in years…I hadn’t actually played the piano for much longer than that.
My hands hovered over the keys as she relaxed against me. Closing my eyes, I couldn’t help but think of how strange this world was. How so many things could advance and how so many things often stayed the same. When my fingers touched the keys, it was as if I’d practiced all my life. I remembered every note and every key to Beethoven’s Für Elise. But what I remembered most of all was the feeling of her. Over a hundred years had passed since I’d played this for her—since we were behind a piano together—and yet it felt exactly the same. We were doing it again, picking up where we’d left off. In the middle of a love story that neither of us could control. The way she felt leaning into me, resting her head on my shoulder, right now, in this present moment, made my heart race and caused the room to spin around me.
She was Esther in this life. Part of me had wondered if we weren’t…if we didn’t have the memories of our past lives, if we didn’t know that we were two souls bound together forever, no matter the time, place, or situation…would we still love one another? Would we still fall for one another and I’d gotten my answer. I belonged only to her. I was indisputably and conclusively bound to her. She was my Esther.
Opening my eyes as I played the last note, my finger held the key down and the sound echoed through the room. When I lifted my hands off the keys she lifted her head and looked up to me. The look in her eyes…there were no words that could describe it, it was like watching the cosmos unfold.
“Isn’t this the part where you kiss me again?” she whispered.
“Yes. But I’m not sure if I should.” I found the strength to say in the small distance between our lips.
“Why?” she asked.
She really didn’t know?
I placed my hands on the piano cover to stop me from touching her. “Because I don’t have the strength to stop kissing you, Esther. Now that you’re here, now that I can see and feel you, I don’t have the strength to—”