The Weight of Gravity (23 page)

The home was enormous.  There were no vehicles in the circular drive and no lights, other than along the path leading to the massive front doors.  There was a brass sign with embossed letters –
Miriam and George
– beneath the fronds of a palm in the entryway.  A slip of paper was taped to the door handle. 
Come in, door’s unlocked.  Lock it behind you.
  Max did as instructed.

The only illum
ination came from Malibu lights strategically hidden in atriums on either side of the foyer.  He felt like a criminal, breaking into a stranger’s home, until he found a long stem rose lying on the Saltillo tile.  A second rose was tossed on the Berber carpet of the adjoining room.  Following the roses, he came to an archway leading into a den.  The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling, mahogany bookcases.  Burgundy leather loveseat, sofa, and overstuffed chairs faced a fireplace where embers were all that remained to light the room.

M
ax walked to the hearth, turned and saw her asleep on the sofa behind him.  She held a single rose.  The dying light danced seductively across her face and form.  Max knelt by her head. 
Beautiful!
  He took the rose from her fingers and brushed a strand of hair from her face.  Her eyes opened and she smiled.

“I didn’t know if you’d come.”

“How could I not?  I’ve never denied you.  Why the roses?”

“You told me once that I should wake every morning to the smell of roses.  I never forgot that.”

He tasted her sweet breath when he brushed her lips with his own and then her mouth opened to his.  Their movements were like silk tumbling in the wind, casting aside clothes and twining together with the ease and grace of honeysuckle vine.  Erika pulled him into her, encouraging his body to follow hers, inviting him to remember a familiar song, a melody of motion resurrected from a great depth of memory. 

His fingertips traced along her temple and down her neck.  He lifted her breast, kis
sed the nipple, and then gently covered it with his mouth.  Max saw Erika’s eyes close and her lips part.  She traced his shoulder blades with her nails, down to his lower back where she guided his hips as they circled into hers. 

They were
tumbling recklessly, now, out of control through endless layers of clouds in a succession of explosive light and then total darkness. Flames from the dying fire wrapped their bodies together into a single form.  Erika cried out in joy and Max came with her.  He buried his face in her shoulder and she laced her fingers in his hair.  The sweat pooled between their bodies, so that when they moved, it made a smacking noise like wet kisses.

“I love you,” he whispered.

              “I know.” 

Erika led him to the master bedroom, threw the covers aside and pulled him down onto her.  She urged his hands to explore further.  He arched her back and brushed her breasts with his lips before moving down her body and between her thighs.  He raised her knees, opening her even more to his pleasure -- and her delight.  He turned over, then, and pulled her on top of him.  On her knees, Erika moved easily, guiding his mouth to her, and soon she came again – smiling and biting her lips as the wave washed over her. 

“Unreal, Max.
 
I’ve not made love like this ... since you.”

             
They fell asleep, his body folded into her back, one arm around her waist, the other across her shoulders.  Max dreamed he saw her playing the piano in the school auditorium, both of them fifteen and adults at the same time.  He was a famous writer and his agent was thrusting contracts at him to sign.  Max was begging him to wait until Erika had finished her recital.  He woke to the sound of her piano.  The room was pitch-black.  He couldn’t see if he was alone or if she still slept beside him.  Then he heard it again – far away, still dreamlike.

             
Max rose and followed the ghostly music across the house, through a glass door onto the patio, and around the blue-moon waters of the pool and Jacuzzi.  The piano music was coming from a studio on the far side of the deck.  He could see her as he approached and stepped through French doors.  Illuminated only by moonlight, Erika was seated at the piano with her back to him -- nude -- her hands floating over the keys.  He stepped up from behind and lightly touched her shoulders, then slid his hands across the top of her chest.

She rested her head back against his stomach.  “Hard to play when you do that.”

“Your playing turns me on.”

“Again,” she laughed.  “You haven’t changed, Max.”

“What are you playing – the composition?”

“Rachmaninoff,
Concerto #2 in C Minor
.  Don't you remember?”

He sat next to her, his back to the keys.  “I have so many questions.”

“Ask.”  She continued to play.

“Why did we ever stop doing that?  We were so good at it ... together.”

“Because you left.”

“Why didn’t you go with me?”

              “I couldn’t leave my father.  Not after he’d raised me when my mother left us, remember?  I was his only child, and when he got sick and couldn’t work any more ... well, it was important for me to be here for him.”

             
“Why didn’t I stay?”

             
“Because your dreams were stronger than our love for each other.”
              “I can’t believe that.”

             
“Then it was the silent hand of God,” she said.  “Without giving us reason, He pulled us apart, threw us to separate parts of the world, challenging us to find ways to live without the other.  Maybe we loved too much, too hard, and God didn’t approve.”

             
“I don’t believe that either.”

             
“Max, it doesn’t matter why.  It happened.  And now it’s done.  We can’t change that ... even if we wanted to.” 

The beautiful music from the piano punctuated the emotion of their words to each other.  He noticed that most of the time Erika’s eyes were closed, feeling the music and his hands on her back.

              “Do you wish we could ... turn back time?” he asked.

             
“We can’t.  No use playing this game.  It will only make us sadder than we are.”

             
“What now?”

             
“Why does there have to be more than now?” she asked, turning to look at him.  “We lived once like there was only the moment ... there was no yesterday or tomorrow.  Why can’t we live like that again?”

“Because I want there to be a tomorrow ... with you.”

She stopped playing then, creating a harsh dissonance to the unfinished melody.  It punctuated the change in conversation, as well as the unfinished nature of their love for each other.

“Are you sure, Max?  Or are you just living out fiction from one of your novels?  Life imitating art, that kind of thing?”

“I didn’t think so.”  He stood and walked to the doors.  “What’s stopping us from being together now?  What holds you to Cottonwood?”

“Jay ... and Jay ... the answer to both questions.” She turned
on the piano bench to look at him.  “For his sake, I’m not free to be with you ... and not free to leave Cottonwood.”

“What about Garner and your marriage?  Why did you marry him anyway?”

“Garner and I were in love ... once ... but, sadly, not anymore.  In the beginning Garner was loving and kind.  We were good together.  He was building a career and reputation...”

“And you were...?”

“Building a home.  Being the wife of a rising star in politics and power.”

“What happened?”

“Many things, but most importantly I realized one day that Garner never bothered to celebrate my talents.  Certainly not in the way I invited him to celebrate his.  He was a smart, aggressive, successful lawyer.”

“And you were...?”

“… the piano teacher with a passion for classical music who would never find the path to the world’s great concert halls.”  She raised a hand to silence his next question.  “I didn’t mind that, Max.  I didn’t need a world stage.  What I minded was that Garner never understood my love for playing the piano.  It was never important to him.  I wanted him to care for me so deeply that he understood that part of me ... that very big part of me.  He never looked at me, Max, or loved me ... in the way you, the writer, could ... in the way you did.  He never understood what it all meant to me ... the love for music and the piano.”  Her hand moved over the piano keys, playing silent notes.  “Sometimes, I’ve wondered if I married him because he was so opposite of you.  You were a rebel ... he was the establishment ... still is.  Garner was my way of finally letting go, maybe ... and it was convenient ... I knew he’d provide well.”  Her silent, one-handed concert came to an end and she turned to face him again.  “No, Max, its Jay that keeps us apart more than anything else.”

“Bring him with us.”

“He’d never accept you.  He’s not fond of his father, but he’d never let someone else into his mother’s life.”

“You’re that close, you and Jay?”

“Not at the moment.  The bond between us is tenuous, incredibly thin and constantly in danger of breaking.  I can’t give up on him now.  If I go with you, that’s how he’d see it ... for the rest of his life.  My mother left when I was younger than Jay and I never forgave her.  I have to give him every chance, because I’m his mother.  He’s struggling right now.  If I give up on him I’d never forgive myself.  And if I do it for you I’d never forgive you.  Do you see?”

“What, then?  We just walk away?”

“For now, yes.”

“Forever, you mean.  I can’t do this again, Erika.”  He turned to leave.

She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.  “I know.”

“And you’re willing to risk what could be the best thing for both of us ... to stay with Garner ... to be there for Jay?”

“You took that risk ... twenty-four years ago … and for a lot less reason.”

Max was speechless, unable to find fault in her logic.  Her words were true.  He’d left Cottonwood and Erika behind, resolved to start a new life elsewhere.  She didn’t leave him.

As they dressed, Erika told him that Garner was on a business trip to Chicago and Jay was with his paternal grandparents in Golden, Colorado.  She talked about Jay’s addictions, and that she and Garner were struggling with how to handle it.  Miriam, she explained, was her closest friend, her confident, and that the house belonged to her and her husband, George.

Max walked her to the garage. “Two more questions,” he said as she got into the SUV
.  “Why didn’t you leave Garner if you’re so unhappy?”

“A lot of people are afraid of change.  Not everyone is a risk-take
r like you, Max.  After a while it just didn’t matter.  I found ways to replace what was missing in my marriage.  Problem was, I paid dearly for it ... I lost a lot of self-respect.”  She turned away.  “What’s your other question?”

“Why’d you do this ... lead me here ... allow this to happen?”

“I read your journal again.”

“My god, I’d forgotten about the journal.”

“I found my heart, who I was ... once, there in the pages ... in your poetry, in your beautiful words.  I needed to know for sure ... to know if I could still love like that, but mostly to know whether all of that so long ago was real ... or just a dream.”

“Was it real, Erika?”

“It doesn’t matter, Max.  What I feel now, what I felt then ... its two different worlds, two lifetimes.”

“We can capture that again!  We just did.  Give us a chance!  It has never been that good for me ... ever!”

“Or for me, but we’re not the same, you and I.  Not anymore.  You live in a different world far removed from Cottonwood.  My roots are too deep here and yours grow in foreign soil.  We can’t change that.”

“Erika …”

“Max, think.  If we met each other for the first time today, with no history between us, would we come together just as we did when we were teenagers?  I don’t think so, and nothing you could say would convince me otherwise.  We were madly in love, but that was then.”

“How can you be so certain that we can’t find that love again ... or that we ever lost it?  I’m afraid.”

“Of what, Max?”

“Of losing you again ... of losing myself.”

She put her hand on his face.  “This moment ... this time ... as wonderful as it was ... does not create an unbreakable bond between us.  You chose to cut that cord a long time ago.  Even though I know I still love you ... on some level ... I’m not prepared to drop everything for a second chance at ... what?  I’m afraid, too.”

Max dropped his head.  Maybe he
was
asking too much of her.  Maybe it
was
too late.

“We’re not teenagers anymore, Max.  We grew up.  The consequences of our actions no
w are more acute.  In many ways I’m less free to go with you now than I was back then.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.”  He stepped away from her car.  “You won’t forget me, will you?”