Walk in Beauty (26 page)

For a moment, he didn’t move, his dark eyes deep and still. Jessie reached out to take his hand. Surprised, he looked at the clasp of their hands together, and back to her face. He nodded.

They made their way toward a side door. Jessie liked the feel of him next to her, the brush of his jean jacket over her sleeve, the way their steps fell into harmony, the way he shifted his hand in hers so that their fingers were laced together. He smelled of sunshine and clean air, like the desert, and his boots were dirty. “Did you go riding?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

That was all he said, and now Jessie felt a little wave of nervousness. The sun hung low on the horizon as they went outside, and she paused by the door.

He shook his head. “Let’s walk.”

“Okay.”

He led, holding her hand, out toward a bluff not far from the meeting house. In town, lights were coming on, and the children who’d been rambling over the desert all day now hung close to the building.

On the crest of the bluff, they stopped and he lifted his chin toward the prairie. “You talked about the light in Cheyenne Canyon,” he said. “I wanted you to see the sunset from here.”

Jessie faced the wide sweep of desert below them. Deep shadows hung in an arroyo, making it a sharp contrast to the light above. Fingers of pale gold sunlight edged the sharp spikes of yucca and highlighted the bristles on cacti, making them look furry and friendly.

And as they watched, the world changed color. The muted colors of the land grew rich, filled with deep purple shadows and blazing red points of light, reflected in the sky. A wisp of cloud, nearly invisible a moment before, suddenly flared a bright gold edged with orange.

Jessie looked at Luke and saw in his face the shift of light, the play of shadows. It seemed suddenly impossible to tell him everything she had been thinking all afternoon. She said, “It’s beautiful.”

“I knew you’d like it.”

“I don’t know why I was so afraid of this place. I’m sorry I didn’t want to come with you before.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it really isn’t. I’ve treated you badly, Luke. Often, both in the past and in the last few days. You deserve more than that.”

“Jessie—”

She shook her head, holding up a hand. Now that the words were coming, she wanted to let them all out. “I tried to put the burden of proving everything on you. And it wasn’t you with the unresolved issues. It was me. I had to see what my mother left me or didn’t leave me.”

Her throat felt tight and she turned away for a moment, taking power from the display around them. “I’ve been so lost without you, Luke. I managed to get through, and I convinced myself that it was a good life, but the minute I saw you, I knew it was a lie.”

“What, exactly, are you telling me?” he asked, and his jaw looked hard.

She took a deep breath. “That I love you. That I’m tired of running away from you.” Her voice softened. “That I’d love to have more babies and see your face at the supper table for the rest of my life.”

He looked at her hand, caught so tightly in his own. “Jessie, you have to know there are no guarantees with an alcoholic.”

She shrugged lightly, and smiled. “What’s life without a few risks?”

“It’s no joke.”

“I’m not joking.” She touched his cheek. “Sometimes all we have is faith that things are going to be okay. I have faith in you, Luke, more than you have. Do you know the longest time my mother was sober?”

He shook his head.

“Three months. Two different times, she made it three months.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Jessie, but one day at a time is all anyone can do it.”

“The funny thing is, Luke, I discovered I have faith in myself, too. If I have to leave you again, I will.” She smiled. “I don’t believe I will have to, but if it came to that, I would. And I’d survive.”

A shimmer of humor touched his eyes. “You mean you wouldn’t die of a broken heart without me? I’m crushed.”

“What I’m trying to say,” she said impatiently, ‘‘is—’,

He laughed, and the planes of his face lightened, as if the sun had struck him anew. His eyes crinkled and his brown throat moved with the sound of his laughing, and then he bent to kiss her, hard. “I told you this morning I loved you, Jessie. I want babies, too. I want you with me, always.” He sobered a little and touched her cheek. “Without you, it was like winter. Finding you is like spring again.”

Jessie caught his face in her hands and kissed him full on the mouth, staring deep into his eyes. There she saw the future, the way it had been in her mind so long ago—a future filled with children and noise and love. So much love. “Luke.” She sighed and leaned into his embrace, drawing strength from him, feeling it circle back to him. It was, quite simply, the best feeling in the world. “I love you so much.”

He pressed his cheek against her hair. “Will you mind coming here to live, Jessie? It would be good for Giselle.” He lifted his head. “It would be good for me.”

“As long as we’re together, I don’t care where we live.”

“Good.” He touched her nose lightly. “I think we should go tell Giselle.”

Jessie laughed. “Oh, yes.”

They found her and Daniel sitting on the swing set just beyond the door to the kitchen. Jessie glanced inside the door as they passed and saw Mary, who waved at her, smiling broadly when she saw Luke and Jessie hand in hand.

Luke let Jessie’s hand go and went to stand before the little girl on the swing. Very seriously, he sank to a squat and took her hands. Giselle looked suddenly wary.

“Since I have no parents and no one to give me a blessing,” Luke said quietly, “I want to ask you if you will give me permission to marry your mother.”

Giselle’s mouth dropped open. She looked from Luke to her mother, standing a few feet back, then to Daniel and back to Luke. “You mean we’ll all live together in one house?”

“Yeah,” Luke said.

Giselle stood up and whooped, a wild animal cry of joy, then leapt into Luke’s arms. “Yes!” she cried.

Jessie blinked back tears. Daniel waited, standing quietly to one side. She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. He looked weary, a little lonely, outcast from the picture he’d helped create, but also misplaced now from the place he’d once held. When Luke turned, Giselle on his hip, to take her inside, Jessie said, “Go ahead. We’ll be there in a minute.”

Luke touched her arm and nodded, then ducked inside with his child, leaving Jessie and Daniel in the stillness of the dying day. Jessie just looked at him for a long moment, seeing a kaleidoscopic whirl of images overlaying the present view of him—Daniel taking her to the hospital, Daniel bullying her into one project or another, Daniel earnestly learning computers at UNM at thirty-two years old…

She took a deep breath at the loneliness in his eyes now. “Daniel, my friend,” she said in Navajo, holding out her hands—and couldn’t go on.

Slowly a smile dawned on his face, one of pride and gentleness. He stepped forward and hugged her. “Ah, Jessie. I’m going to miss you.”

All these years and she had never guessed, not even for a moment, that he’d ever had anything but friendly intentions. She hugged him back, fiercely. “It won’t be the same anymore, will it?”

She pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “Daniel—I—” She broke off, then continued, “Thank you. I can never repay you.”

“No, my friend,” he said quietly and let her go, holding just her arms. “It’s I who can never repay you.” He twitched his lips. “Go on, now. He’s waiting. I’ve worked hard for this. Don’t cheat me of the payoff.”

She tiptoed up to kiss his cheek, a quiet and simple mark on the end of the friendship that had meant so much to her over the years. She knew she wouldn’t lose him, that he would always be a part of their lives, but from this moment forward, there were always going to be differences.

Then she turned quickly and headed back into the kitchen, where the women were beginning to serve the evening meal.

O
n Christmas Eve, Jessie waited on the bridge over Helen Hunt Falls. Around her, fat snowflakes drifted down from a pearlescent bank of clouds. The pines and spruce held a vast silence, a silence echoed by the gathering people below. It was a small number. Giselle, Marcia and Daniel.

And Luke. He stood at the edge of Helen Hunt Falls, his face turned toward her. He wore a suit made of soft gray flannel, and a crisp white shirt with a silver bolo tie. His black hair shone with the fiery gloss of recent washing, and snowflakes stuck in starry clusters in the heavy strands.

Next to him, Giselle for once stood utterly still, dressed in a soft white dress covered with lace, tied in back with a big blue sash. Blue ribbons were laced into her braid. In her hands she held a spray of white carnations.

Jessie looked at Marcia, who smiled and lifted her violin. As she began to play, Jessie shifted her shawl on her shoulders and clasped her own white carnations more tightly, then turned and began the slow descent to the foot of the stairs. The long fringes of the shawl Marcia had given her as a wedding present brushed her thighs and swung in a seductive rhythm around her hips.

She took Luke’s outstretched hand, feeling a jolt at the almost overwhelming beauty of him standing there, love shining from his liquid eyes. With a sudden sense of mischief, Jessie leaned forward and so low no one else could hear, she murmured, “Alessandro, I presume?”

He laughed outright, squeezing her fingers tightly before he tucked them under his arm and turned them to face the minister.

Jessie tried to concentrate, she really did. The ceremony and setting were beautiful. It should have been sacred, solemn, holy. And it was, but she was also so blindingly happy, she couldn’t stop grinning. And Luke seemed to be having the same problem. He nudged her at one point and pretended to eat the flower on his lapel, a glitter in his eyes. Jessie playfully lifted her bouquet for his perusal, and he opened his mouth—

“Do you, Jessie, take this man…” the minister said in a slightly reproving voice.

She looked up and struggled with straightening her mouth into a semblance of sobriety. “Yes,” she said, and a bubble of laughter burst from her chest when she looked at him.

“Do you, Luke, take this woman…”

He turned and the same wild giddiness was in his eyes, on his mouth, but Jessie saw tears of emotion in his eyes, too. And unaccountably, she realized there were tears streaming down her face, no doubt smearing and streaking her careful makeup.

“Yes,” he declared.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister said. “You may—”

But he was too late because Luke had already drawn Jessie into his arms and he was kissing her, their tears mingling on their lips, with the cool taste of snowflakes. Giselle and Marcia cheered, and even Daniel made whooping noises.

Luke lifted his head. “At last.”

Jessie smiled up at him, holding still her secret close to her heart. “Oh, yes. At last.”

* * *

They waited, at Mary Yazzie’s insistence, to hold a reception until they returned to the land. There, in the same hall in Shiprock where the meetings had been held, they had a celebration, with drums and dancing.

As Jessie sat there listening to the heartbeat of the drum, watching Luke and Giselle dance, she smiled over the subjects she had to paint now—all the weavers and the grandmothers, the young dancing girls. But also the great stretches of desert with their jagged, shadowed arroyos and the yucca washed with fingers of sunsets. Oh, yes. There were many things she wanted to paint.

The dance ended and Luke came over, one of the grandmothers in tow. He was grinning with that mischievous expression in his eyes, and Jessie cocked her head. “What do you have up your sleeve?” she asked.

Playfully, he lifted his wrists and looked down. “Nothing.” He laughed. “Grandmother has something for you.”

The old woman smiled and gave Jessie a weaving. Surprised and touched, she shot Luke a quizzical glance. He lifted his eyebrows, but anticipation shone in his face.

Jessie unfolded the soft weaving and saw stylized blue jays woven into the pattern. Stunned, she glanced up to the old woman, who spoke in Navajo. “You’re a blue jay,” she said, and laughed.

Luke explained, “I asked her to weave it before we went back to the Springs. She thought I was crazy, but told me she was happy with it when she finished.” He grinned. “She started to like them after she watched them for a while.”

Jessie touched the brilliant blue of the birds in the weaving and thought with joy that blue jays were the right symbol for all of them—for Luke and Jessie and even the weavers, who all began outside and had come inside a circle of warmth and love, where they had all grown sassy and strong.

Jessie lifted her head. “Thank you,” she said in her still terrible Diné. The old woman patted her shoulder.

“Come on and dance,” Luke urged, grabbing her hand.

“Wait a minute,” she said, tugging his fingers. “I have a present for you, too.”

“Yeah? What?” He looked around for some package or something.

She chuckled and turned his hand to press his palm against her belly.

“A baby?” he whispered.

Jessie nodded.

He laughed and kissed her, then pulled back and made a whooping sound. “Come on and dance with me, both of you.”

And Jessie followed, to dance with him to a new song, a lasting song of love.

~~###~~

With love to Aggie, Robert, David, Tex, Jimmy 1 and Jimmy 2, Ed, Bill, Cheyenne, Danny and all the others.
And for Luke, with many thanks. Bon voyage, my friend.