Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) (5 page)

Later that night, Melody stayed in the other bed until Giddy was fast asleep.
 
Then, she came over to our queen-sized bed for a visit.
 
She snuggled in close and I wrapped my arms around her; after that she kissed me on the neck.

“Happy anniversary,” she whispered.

“Happy anniversary to you, too.”
 
I kissed her lightly on the lips.
 
I’m sure I smelled of seafood… she still smelled like lemons and mango.

Melody sighed as she settled in.
 
“Do you think Dr. Ho will find it?”

“I’m sure he will.
 
Giddeon was pretty specific with his coordinates.”

Silence took over for a few moments.
 
Then,

“It’s just so scary… I hope we’re not too late...”

That thought had been on my mind, too.
 
I had wasted nearly a month by not understanding
Giddeon’s
signals.
 
I should have known much sooner… I felt so stupid, in retrospect.
 
“I hope not, too,” I replied.
 
“There’s still a lot of time.
 
I just don’t know how long it will take for Kevin to convince the powers that be that there’s a problem, and then for them to put together a response.”
 
I was quiet for a few moments.
 
Then, I said, “The further out we can nudge it, the better… it’ll only take a little bit to redirect it.
 
The closer it gets...”
 
I trailed off, because she understood the basic physics and its ramifications.

I felt her head nod in the affirmative, and a wet tear make its way onto my shoulder.

“Hey… Giddeon wouldn’t have us doing this if there wasn’t a way to change things,” I said.

“I know,” Melody responded.
 
“I’m just… I’m just so happy with you and little Giddy, and… I don’t want it to end.”

I kissed her on top of the head.

“I know.”

I closed my eyes, and saw the painting of Melody on that spaceship orbiting
Eden
.
 
I hung onto the image for as long as I could, and, finally, drifted off to sleep.

*****

I love sharing dreams with her.
 
It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, there’s nothing like it on Heaven or Earth.
 

We were standing in front of one of her paintings in the house, and the canvas had on it an image of stars and planets.
 
I could see Jupiter in the distance and what must have been Mars near the center.
 
Off to one side, in the lower left corner, was what was obviously an asteroid.
 
It was dark gray and pockmarked, and looked so real that I would have expected to feel a pumice-like surface had I reached out and touched it.

Melody smiled up at me and then bent down to get a one-gallon can of Sherwin-Williams paint.
 
It was open on the floor next to her, along with two medium-sized brushes.
 
She handed me the can, turned and took a step towards the painting.
 
Then she took another step, which should have bumped her into the artwork and sent it arcing towards the floor.
 
That didn’t happen… the room began to grow dark around us, instead, so I followed her
into
the canvas, careful not to spill the paint on our carpet.
 
The bucket handle was heavy in my grip.

As we left the room behind, I noticed the can of paint suddenly weighed no more than a feather.

*****

We were on the asteroid, and Melody was grinning from ear to ear.
 
She sort of reminded me of big Gid when she did that.
 
She dipped her brush into the alabaster of the bucket, and pulled it out in slow motion.
 
Globules of spherical white paint floated off towards the small irregular horizon of the rock.
 
Melody knelt slowly down, and began to cover the surface below her with white.
 
I did the same.

After quite some time we ran out of paint, so I went back to the living room and got a two foot long canister with a hose.
 
The canister was under pressure.
 
I strapped it to my back and returned to the asteroid.
 
I started spraying the surface, which proceeded much more quickly, but I kept floating off the asteroid, so Melody would have to grab me by an ankle and pull me back.
 
I was making a big heart with an arrow through it.
 

My wife had on magnetic soled shoes, and I could almost hear them clicking as she made her way over the surface; she was giggling at my struggles to stay in the proper orientation as I did my graffiti:

                
Greg

               
Loves

             
Melody

We pushed away, which set the asteroid slowly spinning.
 
She and I drifted off, and the asteroid glistened in the dark… like millions of diamonds covered its surface.

*****

We awoke at the same time.
 
Melody had at some point during the night moved over to the bed with Giddy.
 
He was already awake, moving his little hand up and down as if imitating brush-strokes and smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

My wife looked at our son and just shook her head.
 
Then, she blew me a kiss.
 

My wife.
 

That never really seems right to me when I say it.
 
Neither does ‘my son’.
 
You see, they are not mine… I am theirs.
 
Completely, and totally, theirs.
 
There just isn’t anything I can do about it.
 

I never would have thought I could feel this way back in my pre-coma days.
 
As a matter of a fact, that was part of the problem.
 
I never really thought… about much of anything.
 
How could I have been so empty and not heard the echo inside of my soul?
 
Thank God for Giddeon.
 
He deserves a Blue Ribbon, or Teacher of the Year… or, something.
 
I don’t know how he put up with me.
 
Not that I’m gonna win any Nobel Prizes, now, but at least I know what a Nobel Prize is.
 
He lit the flame of curiosity, and that was quite a feat considering how soaked the kindling was.

Sometimes, it was soaked in beer.

Gid was right… beer really does quench that thirst for knowledge.
 

Not that I was that much of a drinker… most of the soaking was just from my own natural river of laziness.
 
I was content to drift along with the current on a raft of low expectations.
 
I never even went for a swim to see what was under me.

Now, I read quite a bit.
 
Philosophy, physics, chemistry… whatever I can get my hands on.
 
I never went back to college… maybe I will, someday.
 
But, for the time being, I think it would just slow me down.
 
I have the luxury of not having to work so much, thanks to some investments we made with our money a while back, so I can devote three or four hours a day to reading.
 
Mainly, I like to read textbooks.

I’ve found that I can go through a 600 page text in about two weeks.
 
That’s 26 texts a year.
 
No way could I do that much material in college.
 
How many classes can you take in a semester… maybe four?
 
So, I’m sure I’m going over double or triple the amount of material I would in a standard setting.
 
And, I’m getting faster.
 
Sometimes, I can rip through a book in a week.
 
Can you imagine if you did that for a lifetime?
 
How much you could learn?
 
I think of all the time I spent watching T.V. or puttering around at the golf course… not really taking anything seriously.

Yeah, I enjoyed my programs and my golf, and I still do.
 
But, I enjoy learning, more.
 
Odd, isn’t it?
 
I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.
 
And, sometimes, he can teach them to himself.
 
There’s just so much to know… Giddeon showed me that.
 
And, no matter how much you know, there’s always more.
 
It’s never ending, and that’s what’s so cool.
 

I don’t want to understand it all.
 
That would be boring, wouldn’t it?
 
Like living in a box where every corner is the same.

I still don’t know a whole lot, but, there is one thing I know that’s more important than all of the books and papers and lectures that have ever been produced or given.
 
More important than any research that will ever see the light of day.

More important than all of the laws of physics, combined…

*****

I looked over and saw Melody laying flat on her back… she lifted Giddy from under his arms into the air above her.
 
He let out a squeal of pure joy.

*****

… Heaven is in your heart.

*****

When I hit my first golf ball, and it flew in the air and rolled and rolled until it bumped into his, I’ve never been so happy in my life.
 
When he reached out and took my hand as we walked down the fairway, together, I was happier, still.
 
Can you imagine what that was like? Holding hands for the first time in 28 years!
 
It was all I could do not to break down sobbing as we went.
 
I’m sure he felt the same way.
 
So, we just held hands and walked, never even looking at each other as we took in the sensation of flesh against flesh.

Somehow, I could feel his heart pounding, and mine was, too.

Giddeon took a wedge, and proceeded to hole-out from the fairway.
 
He handed me a wedge from my bag, and I did the same.
 
I looked up at him and smiled.

“You catch on quick,” he said with grin.
 
He does look a little bit like a young Kevin Bacon when he does that.

“Beginner’s luck,” I replied, and took his hand in mine.
 
I’m glad he doesn’t wear a golf glove.
 
When our fingers were intertwined, I felt better than when they were apart.
 
The whole time I was setting up my shot, it was all I could think about.
 
How quickly could I get that darned thing in the hole on the green and get my hand back in his?

 
Those few seconds seemed like hours.

We walked up to the putting surface, and I looked down at the cup where his
Titleist
and my Pinnacle were nestled together.
 
They seemed so contented just where they were that I was almost reluctant to reach down and get them.
 
Finally, I did, and handed him his ball.

“Do you want a cart?” Giddeon asked, and one appeared beside the green.

“I’d rather walk,” I said.

He ran his fingers through his light brown hair and grinned, again.
 
“Me, too.”
 
The cart disappeared.

We walked hand in hand over to Number 2 Tee, and hit our shots.
 
Of course they ended up right next to each other, one on each side of the 200 yard marker… plenty of room between them so as not to interfere with where we would stand.

As we made our way up the par five, I slipped my hand out of his and put it around his waist.
 
He put his hand over my shoulder, and we walked like that for the better part of 300 yards.
 
I see you and Greg walk like that all of the time, and, now, I see why.
 
It just feels so… right.
 
Even with the golf bag over his other shoulder, we seemed in perfect balance, our steps mirroring each other’s.

“How long have you
known
you were separate?” Giddeon asked me.

“Since day one,” I replied.

“
Humpfh
!” he grunted.
 
“Really?”

“I came out first… then I watched Mel get born… not really a good initial impression of reality, but, interesting nonetheless.”

“I’m a slow learner… didn’t figure it out till I was 4.”

“Better late than never,” I teased.

He shook my shoulder playfully, and grinned.
 
In profile he did look more like Pitt.
 
“Girls mature faster than guys… maybe that explains it.”

“Maybe so.”

 
I leaned my head on his shoulder the way I had seen you do with your man.
 
Giddeon reached up and ran his fingers through my hair.
 
It felt like electricity emanated from them into my scalp.
 
Into my scalp and then down my spine and into feminine regions, beyond.
 
Finally, I even felt the soles of my feet tingling.
 
Thankfully, he then put his hand back around my shoulder… I don’t think I could have taken much more, anyway.
 
As it was, it was almost too much to experience.

We came to our positions in the fairway, and both of us hit our approach shots about 15 feet from the pin.

Holding again onto each other’s hands, we traversed the beautifully manicured grass fairway to the green.
 
Giddeon sank his putt, and I did the same.
 
However, mine lingered on the lip of the cup for almost 10 full seconds before gravity got the best of it and welcomed it in for an eagle.

I knew that feeling… that feeling of being on the edge for what seems like an eternity.
 
On the edge of something magnificent, and then falling, falling, falling…

*****

We completed nine holes that morning.
 
18 eagles total.
 
It was the best two hours of my life, up until that point.
 
We got to know each other, although I have to admit I was at an advantage, because I already knew so much.

 
I’ll tell you about that, later.

When we retrieved our balls from the cup, my bag disappeared from off of
Giddeon’s
shoulder, along with the dimpled spheres in our hands.
 
We stood there face to face for what seemed like forever, and then our heads moved closer together.
 
It all happened in slow motion, and I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.
 
I smelled cinnamon and chocolate and sweat, stronger than ever.
 
I closed my eyes and then I could taste all three of them, together.
 
So, so delicious.

My first kiss : )

*****