Even my closest friends knew nothing about Ayza. They knew there was a man in my life, a quiet and private person who made me blush with anticipation. But they never knew who it might be, and Ayza would never be suspected. He was a family man in most circles, a fine, upstanding citizen, and church-going husband who would never, ever be caught in the company of another woman.
We were living a double life.
Ayza stirred, and I stopped rocking. My hands had moved of their own accord while my thoughts went elsewhere, and I looked down to see that I was almost out of thread. When I reached for the spool it fell to the floor, and the small clatter woke him.
Ayza opened his eyes and shifted onto his side, looking at me as I dropped the quilt gently and rocked out of the chair, onto my knees, to retrieve the thread.
“Now, that’s a pretty sight to wake up to,” he said. He was looking at my chest. I glanced down to see my breasts, unbound and free, pressing hard against the low-cut shirt I wore.
“Want to see more?”
“Hmmm…yes. But not just yet. I want to be fully awake to enjoy it.”
We both smiled and I sat back in the chair. A few slow motions and the quilt was settled on my lap again. I looked closely at the needle and worked on threading it.
“I don’t know how you do that,” he said, watching me intently.
“What, thread a needle?”
“Yeah. I’m not dexterous enough to do that. That’s the word, right?”
I nodded. “It takes patience to thread a needle. More patience than skill.”
“My eyes are getting bad. I need to go get glasses or something.” I looked up at him, surprised. “Well, they are. It’s hard to read things sometimes. I don’t like to think about it because that means I’m getting older. I don’t like the idea of getting older.”
“Thirty-seven isn’t old, Ayza.”
He sighed. “It feels old sometimes.”
I began to rock again, weaving the needle in and out of layers of cotton and polyester. I knew there was more, so I waited it out, letting the thoughts form in his head. The sound of the rocking chair squeaking gently across the old floorboards was accompanied by the crackling of the fire. There were no other sounds in the room, save the occasional ticking of sleet against the wide windows.
“You make me feel young,” he said. “You make me feel like I can do anything I want to do. You believe in me. It’s unquestioning. How do you do that?”“Do what?”
“Believe so strongly.”
I thought about that for the space of twenty heartbeats. “It’s a gut reaction. A knowledge deep down inside me that says belief is okay, and acceptance is even better.”
“You accept me.”
“Yes. Completely.”
“Even though you know I can hurt you so badly?”
It was the first time either of us had acknowledged the possibility out loud. I slowly stopped rocking and leaned forward, letting the quilt fall again to the floor. I lowered my head to my hands. The thimble was cool and hard against my temple. Slow and even breaths suddenly seemed very important.
In that moment, I was stunned by the emotion that coursed through me. Love gave way to a small glimmer of hatred.
“Finchy?”
“You will hurt me, Ayza. There isn’t a question about that.” Something inside me cracked like fine glass on marble when I said it aloud. The desperation I tried so often to fight welled up.
The certainty was the hardest part. That damned feeling of dread in the middle of the night when he slept beside her instead of me. I knew the pain would break over me like a wave at any time it deemed fit, and damned if I was ready for it or not. It was the certainty that I had taken my life out of my own hands and put it in his. Sometimes I wondered when he would grow weary of holding it, when his hand would slip or his mind would wander just enough. And then it would fall like a fine crystal vase to that cold and ungenerous floor. He would try to catch it, realizing his mistake almost before it happened, but he would be unable to rectify the wrong.
What would he be left with? Maybe only shards that threatened to draw blood should he venture too close or ply his heroic rescue a little too eagerly. Perhaps with time, he could gather the largest parts and puzzle them together with imagination and apology, and make my heart something that appeared to be whole again. Yet there would always be tiniest bits of glass left unfound. It would never be the same, for those diamonds of imperfection would always elude him.
One false move, and I was a broken woman at the hands of a man who would always be sorry, yet incapable of restitution.
It is the possible curse of all who love, yet the certainty of the woman who loves a married man. And that was the moment of clarity, there in the cabin just outside of Memphis.
I was falling in love with Ayza.
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