Millie stood waiting, obviously not sure who her company was. She’d pulled her ponytail free, and her hair tumbled around her shoulders in rumpled disarray, but she didn’t smooth it down or tug at her clothes. She was regal and composed in her stillness, confident enough in herself that she didn’t fuss over what she couldn’t fix. Damien Rice was singing about not being able to “take his eyes off of you” and I could only nod in agreement as I approached her.
“David?” she ventured softly. The fact that she knew it was me made me light-headed all over again.
“Am I the only guy who makes that much noise coming down the steps?” I’d purposely made plenty of noise the second time around.
“Nah. You should hear Henry. You’re just the . . . only guy,” she admitted sweetly. Then her cheeks grew rosy and my chest got hot.
I felt a huge flood of relief. I was the only guy. Thank God.
I stopped a foot from her and reached out, taking one of her hands in mine. “Do you like this song?” I asked. Obviously she did and obviously I was stupid.
“I love this song.”
“Me too,” I whispered. I reached for her other hand.
“Accidental Babies.”
“What?” I tugged her hands gently, and she took a step. I was so close now that the top of her head provided a shelf for my chin, and Damien’s song was being drowned out by the sound of my heart.
“It’s another one of his songs. . . and I think I love it even more,” she whispered back.
“But that song is so sad,” I breathed, and laid my cheek against her hair.
“That’s what makes it beautiful. It’s devastating. I love it when a song devastates me.” Her voice was thready as if she was struggling to breathe.
“Ah, the sweet kind of suffering.” I dropped her hands and wrapped my arms around her.
“The best kind.” Her voice hitched as our bodies aligned.
“I’ve been suffering for a while now, Millie.”
“You have?” she asked, clearly amazed.
“Since the moment I saw you. It devastated me. And I love when a girl devastates me.” I was using her definition of the word, but the truth was, my sister was the only girl who had ever devastated me, and it hadn’t been sweet agony.
“I’ve never devastated anyone before,” Millie said faintly, shock and pleasure coloring her words. She still stood with her arms at her sides, almost like she couldn’t believe what was happening. But her lips hovered close to my jaw, as if she was enjoying the tension between almost and not quite.
“I’m guessing you’ve left a wake of destruction,” I whispered. “You just don’t know.”
“Can’t see my own mess. Perks of being a blind girl.” I could hear the smile in her voice. But I couldn’t laugh now. I was on fire, and the flames were growing uncomfortable.
Finally, as if she couldn’t resist any longer, she raised her hands to my waist. Trembling fingers and flat palms slid across my abdomen, up my chest, past my shoulders, progressing slowly as if she memorized as she moved. Then she touched my face and her thumbs found the cleft in my chin, the way they’d done the first time she’d traced my smile. Hesitantly, she urged my face down toward hers. A heartbeat before our mouths touched she spoke, and the soft words fluttered against my lips.
“Are you going to devastate me, David?” she asked.
“God, I hope not,” I prayed aloud.
Anticipation dissolved the lingering space between us, and I pressed needy lips to her seeking mouth. And then we melded together, hands clinging, bodies surging, music moaning, dancing in the wreckage. Sweet, sweet, devastation.
“Too late . . .” I thought I heard her whisper.
Moses
I SAT OUT on Millie’s front porch with Kathleen and rocked in a wrought iron swing that had probably been there since the house was built more than a century before. I had abandoned listening to the cassettes altogether. Tag wasn’t holding anything back. Every detail, every thought, every feeling hanging out. Naked. And I didn’t like naked men. So I was letting Georgia listen with Millie, and Kathleen and I were bonding on the porch, Kathleen bundled up in a fuzzy hat and a fuzzier blanket, asleep on my chest, a buffer against the cool spring air, soaking up some daddy time so that she would grow to look like me and know she was mine, just like Henry said.
Henry had retreated to his room. It was late, and we were all tired. But Millie couldn’t stop listening, and I couldn’t blame her. The drum beat was quickening, and as much as I wanted to just skip ahead, just stick the last tape in the player, I had no right. And knowing Tag, it wouldn’t be that easy.
And then Georgia opened a window, the window nearest my head, as if the emotions in the room had become stifling, and suddenly sitting there on the front porch, I could hear every word once more, and I listened as my friend struggled to put into words that which I could only ever describe with paint.
I’d told Georgia once that if I could paint her I would use every color. Blues and golds and whites and reds. Peach and cream and bronze and black. Black for me, because I wanted to leave my mark on her. My stamp on her. And I had, though not ever in the way I intended. My mind drifted to my son—who had looked a great deal like me, though I wouldn’t tell Henry. I hadn’t spent a single day of his life with him. And still, he looked like me.
“Hey, little man,” I whispered, wondering if he could hear me. “I miss you.” I tasted the same bittersweet tang on my tongue that always came with saying his name, but I said it all the same. “Keep an eye out for Tag, Eli. He acts tough, but I’m guessing he’s running scared.”