“I do,” Doris sighed. “I mean, I understand it. I don’t do it. But. You know how crazy my family is. Some of the crazy is due to a sort of similar thing—that ‘if you truly love me, you’ll change’ argument. I’ve always thought of as emotional blackmail. Maybe that’s why I never—but we’re not talking about me,” she said firmly. “Bird, I remember you once told us that your ex’s parents despised you for your middle-class origins.”
“They did. I’d thought I’d win them over when I gave them grandkids, but once the children were born—and they picked the names before I’d recovered in the delivery room—they did their best to edit me out of the family picture. It was clear when Bartholomew dumped me that they were overjoyed.”
“What is just what you’d expect from a pair of dickweasels who call their boy Bartholomew, and won’t even let him shorten the agony,” Godiva muttered. “Never mind. Go on, Bird.”
“I realized just now that I don’t think Bartholomew was ever attracted to me. I think it was solely my career that he was attracted to—and wanted to make his. Bartholomew was handsome, he was funny in that sarcastic way, but he could be charming, too. Everybody thought he would be the next Ernest Hemingway. But he picked me, a writer of children’s books about talking animals.”
“A writer who was winning awards right and left,” Godiva put in.
“Yes, but I didn’t see that. Those things never meant much after the first thrill of the phone call or the letter. I felt great being told, but I hated the public side of that stuff. He reveled in it. He stepped in as center of attention at those parties and receptions, which was such a relief to me. He flattered me into that big wedding, and managed to make it a media event . . .”
Bird shrugged. “I guess I should have seen what was coming, but I’d convinced myself I was in love with him. What I loved was the flattery. Which stopped as soon as we were married. Suddenly I should be writing political satire, not about kids like me who had trouble fitting in and who lived in the world of imagination. That was no longer clever enough—it wasn’t Hollywood material, it wasn’t noticed by the big awards . . .”
Bird sighed, looking back down the years. “My kids came along, but with each kid I gained a few pounds, which . . . oh, there’s no use in raking it all up. The short version is, I was a disappointment to him as a professional and I don’t think I was ever interesting to him as a woman. And somehow, it was always my fault.”
/>
Bird saw her friends’ angry sympathy on her behalf, and forestalled them. “No, you don’t have to say anything. It really doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t matter. What does matter is this: as soon as Mikhail spotted Bartholomew confronting me, he left the podium and backed me up, without drawing attention or making a scene. He was there, at my back. Mikhail protected me, in the way I wanted, as if that’s the way the world works. That was such an eye-opener for me. He also went with me this morning to help with Mr. Kleiner. Bartholomew would never have done that without first asking what was in it for him. But Mikhail cared about an old man he’d never met. Mr. Kleiner is so scared around new people these days, but he relaxed with Mikhail in a way I’ve never seen him do.”
Godiva whistled again, more softly. “You’ve known this man what, two days? He sounds almost too good to be true.”
Bird hesitated a heartbeat, wondering if this mysterious mate thing was responsible for blindsiding her? No. She could see clearly—in fact, she saw more clearly now than she had. There was plenty still to learn about Mikhail, and she was eager to do it. What that mysterious bond seemed to give them, in equal shares, was intensity.
But it was much too soon to talk about that, she thought with regret as she sipped her tea. “I know it’s early days, but I’m enjoying every minute. Today we’re going back to finish sketching the caves. So I’d better get going. Low tide is at max pretty soon, and I know Doris has to get to school.”
She started to move away, but Godiva caught her arm. With a serious look, she said in a raspy undervoice, “He’s here for his investigation, I realize. But is he going to stick around after? You’re not heading for a world of hurt, are you?”
Bird stared down at her old friend, her heart banging against her ribs. She, always so careful, had actually managed not to think beyond the moment. “I . . . It’s too early to talk about the future. Like you said, I’ve known him two days.”
She forced a smile, feeling the sharp knife of contradiction. While it was technically true that she had only known him two days, at the same time she felt as if she had been waiting for him all her life.
But that didn’t answer Godiva’s question.
Bird tried for an easy tone. “Right now, a day at a time. And I’m loving every day,” she added, for that was the whole truth. “And whatever happens, I don’t believe he’d just leave. I can’t say what’s going to happen . . . but I know he’ll listen to me when it comes time to decide. There’s no more telling me what to do. Or me going along with it, just to keep the peace.”
Godiva patted her hand. “Go get ‘em.”
Bird sped through the cool morning breeze, laughing to herself at the way her life had been upended. She felt like the girl she’d once been, who had created stories about the secret lives of animals. That girl was now in her fifties, wearing a body that had faithfully walked through every day of those years. But she felt stronger and more vital than she ever had at twenty-five, when she’d been consumed by the pin-pricks of anxiety.
When she reached her cottage, she found Mikhail waiting, dressed in his safari jacket again, jeans and boots. He had his cane at his side, and his gear bag over his shoulder.
It was then that she remembered that she hadn’t had breakfast. Maybe he hadn’t either. Well, they could eat some leftover brown betty before they left. It would be the opposite of sensible, but that was no longer her first priority.
Warmth thrilled through her, as he held up a bag of Linette’s pastries with an air of triumph. “I trust you have not eaten yet?”
“Mikhail—I was just thinking the very same thing! But you most wonderfully were ahead of me.” She laughed inside, thinking that this was the best of both worlds: two days of indulging in Linette’s delicious pastries, and Linette rightly got paid for them. Only . . . a doubt crept in. She hoped Mikhail wasn’t living as precariously as she was.
She’d find out later, she knew. They still had so much to learn about each other. Like why he needed a cane when he moved with such easy grace. Bird reveled in knowing she could ask him anything, and he would answer.
Mikhail checked for onlookers. Then he let his dragon shimmer into being, the cane and the gear bag coruscating with the same glow as his body as it transformed. All vanished as his dragon took form. It was so magical to watch. Bird knew she would never tire of it.
She clambered onto his back behind the beautiful glowing whiskers. They shot effortlessly into the air, then spiraled down toward the beach to land directly outside the cave.
They walked inside eating their pastries. When they had gone far enough in for the light to fade, he retrieved the headlamp and the Maglite. As she accepted the sturdy flashlight, Bird relished how safe she felt, walking by his side.
“Let me take your hand,” he said when they reached the huge crack. “This rubble is precarious, and there’s also a ward that is meant to drive people away. I can prevent you from its effects.”
She closed her fingers around his, and together they clambered up the pile of jagged fallen stones.