Phoenix: The Rising (22 page)

Eli shifted his eyes away from hers and concentrated on picking at a loose thread on the faded outer blanket. He seemed almost ... nervous. “I sort of kissed your head...” He looked up at Julie and crinkled his brow, “all over.”

Julie’s eyes rolled back and she fell to her bed, covering her face with both her hands as her cheeks shot pink with embarrassment. “Oh, my God! You didn’t!” She let her hands drop. “Say you didn’t, Eli.”

Eli held his hands up in defense. “Just hold on. I had a perfectly legitimate, scientific reason for doing it. First, when I was watching you sleep, I really,
reall
y wanted to kiss you, but I knew you’d get upset, so I kissed your eyes instead, and the dark circles around them began to fade, so I wondered if my kiss,” he cleared his throat, “well, actually my saliva, could also heal the hair follicles.” He shrugged and pointed at her head. “It could, and it did.”

Julie sat in stunned silence. She could barely breathe. “You saw what I looked like, and you wanted to kiss me?”

Eli nodded and blinked slowly, his sapphire eyes dancing with tongues of color. “I still do.” With that, he leaned forward, propped his hands on either side of her body, and came to a halt just inches from her face. Julie pressed back further into her pillow as tears of confusion filled her eyes. “But I won’t, if you don’t want me to.” Eli was silent as he studied her face. “Do you want me to kiss you, Julie?”

Julie blinked. Her tears fell as she agonized over the thoughts running through her head. She was going to live, and he was going to be taken from her in God knew how long. Why did this have to happen? Why did she have to fall in love with him? Julie’s breath hitched in her throat as she realized what she had just admitted to herself. She was in love with Eli Sullivan! A nervous smile broke through her tears as her answer became crystal clear.

“Yes.”

Eli’s breath quickened, and suddenly his lips were on hers, searing them with pulses of electric fire. Julie’s lips parted in response, urging him into her, the initial shock of his kiss transforming into wave after wave of exquisite white-hot pleasure. Their tongues entwined—probing, teasing, exploring each other as Julie was swept to a pinnacle of desire she’d never experienced before. Her hand slid down across his hard, taut torso. She found the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled, loosening it from the confines of his jeans. She wanted him in every way and wanted him to claim her as his own. His hand closed around hers and pulled it to his chest as his kisses suddenly ceased. His lips moved to her ear.

“No, Julie. Not here. Not now,” he whispered.

Julie looked into Eli’s eyes. The colors were still there, swirling. He felt what she was feeling, she was sure of it.

“But, I love you, Eli,” she pleaded softly. “Don’t you feel anything for me?”

Eli nodded and ran his fingers through her soft, virgin hair. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, Julie Mason. Besa Soobedda, remember?”

Besa Soobedda
, the love between a man and his wife. Julie nodded as her tears returned. She remembered. It was the one thing they couldn’t have.

Eli’s eyes glistened. “We met too late. If it had been another time, not so close to the end, then we could have spent our life together. But now, it will be only weeks, or days, or even hours, and the Eli Sullivan you know will be gone forever. You’ll have your whole life to live after I’m gone.” A single tear escaped down his cheek. “I want you more than anything, Julie, but that part of you should only belong to the man you spend your life with.”

She ran her hands up his sides and pulled him closer, afraid to let him go. “Then be with me until the end, Eli, because my life will be over after you’re gone.”

Eli shook his head. “Your life won’t be over, Julie. But, I will be with you until it’s time for me to go. I can do that for you.”

Eli smiled and ran his thumbs across her shoulders, his touch evoking a renewed shiver of desire. “There’s another thing I can do for you right now.” Eli slipped the shoulder of her pajama top down, revealing the laceration created by the placement of her central line. His eyes came alive again as he brought his lips to the wound. Julie closed her eyes. A tingle, and then a flare of heat pulsed through her chest. Eli pulled back, his eyes fixed on her shoulder. Julie watched, mesmerized, as the wound closed, the rough, red edges melding together, the color fading until new, pink, flawless skin took its place. Below it glistened the thin, old scar from her first central line, set forever in the soft skin just under her collarbone.

She smiled. “How will I explain this?”

He shrugged. “You don’t have to. You’re a modern medical miracle, Julie. Some things just can’t be explained.”

Lucy sneered at her cell phone then slammed it on her nightstand. Eight o’clock. It had now been twelve hours since Eli disappeared from school after dropping her off. She knew something was up when he was a no-show for American Lit. He’d escaped. Probably to go see the infamous Julie Mason, Fire-Child, current object of his affection. At least he hadn’t made any physical contact with her for the last three days. Lucy was pretty sure about that. She hadn’t let him out of her sight from the time she hopped on his motorcycle each day after school, until she went to bed at night, and he pretty much gave her his undivided attention. Of course, it was far cry from the type of attention she was seeking. She wanted him to look at her with the longing she felt for him. Instead, he treated her like a sister. She wanted to feel his arms around her, his lips on hers, his hands caressing her body. Instead, he played card games with her and Liana while Simon watched football.

A knock at the door interrupted Lucy’s thoughts. She rolled off her bed, walked over to the door, and yanked it open. There stood Liana holding a dark wooden box that seemed too big for her frail body to handle. Before Lucy could say anything, the old woman toddled past her and deposited the box on the bed. Then she sat beside it, hands clasping and unclasping nervously in her lap.

“This is for you.”

Lucy creased her brow in confusion.
What was this old woman up to?
She walked over to the bed, sat on the opposite side of the box, and ran her fingers over the intricate carvings etched into the sleek, purplish-brown wood.
White Mountain
Walnut. Her mother had a miniature jewelry box fashioned from the same native wood. Lucy didn’t quite know how to react. Liana had just given her a gift. She pulled her hand away.

“Ummm ... I guess I should thank you, but it doesn’t make up for what you did to my mother.”

Liana nodded. “Open it.”

Lucy kept a wary eye on Liana as she lifted the hinged lid. A smile quivered across Liana’s face. Lucy looked down. Pictures. Dozens of pictures.

“It’s your mother, Lucy. My Adrienne.”

Lucy scanned the top layer of the tangle of pictures. A pink-cheeked baby crawling towards the outstretched arms of a man with his back to the camera. A little girl on a swing, her dark pig-tails flying in the wind. A blushing teenager in a pink prom dress, pinning a boutonnière on a gangly, tuxedoed boy. Since the morning her mother killed herself, all Lucy had wanted to do was forget, and now she had a box full of someone’s memories thrust upon her.

Lucy pulled out picture after picture of a person she lived with for seventeen years, yet didn’t really know. A face that seemed foreign, yet so familiar to her. She knew the face of her mother only as that of a lonely, worn-out, middle-aged woman. Forehead creased with wrinkles from worry and too much vodka. Hair highlighted with premature strips of silver, so similar to Liana’s. This young face reminded Lucy more of ... herself.  It was the first time she had seen a picture of her mother as a child, and it was like looking at her doppelganger. A lump formed in Lucy’s throat. She swallowed, but the lump remained.

“The baby pictures I took myself,” Liana offered as Lucy studied the pictures in silence. “Those and the ones up until she was about eighteen months old. After that, the only pictures I have are the ones my sister sent me.” Liana smiled and boldly ran her fingers through Lucy’s hair, brushing her bangs away from her face. “You look so much like her. The hair’s a little lighter, and you’re much taller, but other than that, you could be her twin.”

Lucy pushed the box aside. Her muscles trembled just under her skin as a puzzling mix of emotions ran through her. She was pissed, but at the same time, this old woman’s touch seemed so comforting. The confusion was extremely disconcerting. “I guess I get those attributes from my father.”

Liana lowered the lid to the box and pushed it towards Lucy again. “Have you ever met your father?”

Lucy blinked. How could she answer that? She decided to tell the truth. The truth would hurt much more than any lie she could conjure. “Only in my nightmares.”
Stab.

Liana wrung her hands together. Her brown eyes, carbon copies of her daughter’s, suddenly glistened with regret. “I’m sorry you had to grow up that way.”

Lucy sniffled and raised her chin in prideful defiance. “Not much different than the way my mother was raised. But I had it good. At least I knew who my mother was.”
And twist
.

Pink flooded the old woman’s face.
She was ashamed. Good. She should be. Serves her right for abandoning her only child
. A tear escaped and trailed slowly down Liana’s weathered cheek. Lucy felt a strange squeeze, and then a flutter, in her chest.  Why did she feel like she should reach out and console the person who abandoned her mother? Could it be that she actually felt some compassion for this traitor?

Using the bedpost to steady herself, Liana pulled her tired, old body up off of Lucy’s bed. Lucy stayed in her spot, her hands clutched together with stubborn determination. Liana would get no sympathy from her.

The old woman turned to her, hand to her chest, as if she had a broken heart.

“Look through the pictures, Lucy. Look through all of them. Do that, and you’ll understand why we did what we had to do. Why we had to give up our precious daughter, and why you’re here now. Look and see. Then, you’ll understand.” Lucy watched as the broken woman opened the door. “I think I’ll go to bed early.” She took a few shuffling steps down the hallway. “I’m not feeling too well.”

Lucy reached over with her foot and shoved the door shut. “Good. I didn’t want to look at your old, wrinkly face anyways,” she mumbled to herself. The box sitting on her bed dared her to open it again. She slid it to the end of her bed. “And I don’t want to look at any more pictures.”  

****

By the time she heard Eli’s motorcycle pull in the driveway, Lucy had managed to work her way through about half the pictures in the box. She couldn’t help herself. As much as she hated to admit it, she missed her mother. Missed her desperately. But not as the broken shell of a person she lived with for the last seventeen years. She missed her as the young, vibrant person in the pictures lying in a heap on her bed.

Each picture she perused gave Lucy new insight to a part of her mother that Lucy never knew. She was a happy baby, loved and pampered by her mother and father. Her picture was also taken on the lap of another mystery man, obviously not Lucy’s grandfather. The skin tone was different. Lighter. Unfortunately, she never saw the man’s face in any of the pictures that included him. They always seemed to be taken from the man’s neck down, the photographer undoubtedly focusing attention on the child. It was also quite clear that her mother adored her aunt, clinging to the woman’s hand as she stepped on the bus for her first day of school, standing on a chair beside the same woman as they washed and dried dishes together. Maybe her mother didn’t have it so bad. She had a woman who loved her as her own. Two women, if truth be told. So much better than Lucy’s experience. Her mother might have been present physically, but emotionally, the woman had never been there for her. How could she have gone from being such a carefree, happy child, to a crazy, suicide-bound basket case? 

Lucy tossed the mountain of pictures on her bed back into the box and slammed the lid down. She knew the reason. It was her. Her mere, physical presence in her mother’s life reminded her of Lucy’s conception with the winged creature—The Fallen One—and she couldn’t handle that. The memory simply tormented her mother to the point of driving her mad.

Lucy leaned back on her bed and closed her eyes, tears streaming to her pillow. It’s not that she hadn’t
tried
to love Lucy. She did. Lucy remembered the small, futile gestures. A trip to the park with Lucy sitting motionless on a swing while her mother stared into space from a park bench. A small, stuffed penguin tossed into the grocery cart right beside the hamburger, a reward for Lucy being such “a good girl” while shopping. As Lucy grew, her mother became more and more withdrawn into her own tormented, nightmare-filled world. Lucy had no choice but to learn to fend for herself. By the time her mother placed the pillow over Lucy’s face the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Lucy needed her for only one thing. A place to stay.

Lucy’s eyes flew open as she heard another tap at the door.
Eli!
No matter how much she wanted to see him, there was no way she would let him see her in this state.

“Go away.”

The door creaked open, and Eli peeked around the edge. His eyes went directly to the box sitting on her bed.