Exiled Read online

  "Papa saved me, Mama."

  "I know. Your papa is very brave."

  I open my eyes to see her looking up at him. Her eyes shine, and I can see tears on her face even though the rain is running all over her. Papa falls heavily to the sand beside us, puts his long strong arms around both of us, and we all just sit there in the rain together, breathing and glad to be alive, and on the shore.

  Thunder booms like a cannon, and lightning lights up the dark gray skies.

  "We have to go," Papa says. "The storm is getting worse."

  We take Abuela's blanket, our now-sodden towels, the cooler full of juice and wine and crackers and cheese, and run for our car. We get in, wet still.

  When we are almost home, Mama lays her head on Papa's shoulder. Swivels a little to look at me.

  "You scared me, mija." It is as close to a scold as I've ever gotten from her.

  "I'm sorry, Mama. I didn't realize it wasn't sunny anymore, or how far away I was. And then I couldn't get back."

  "You shouldn't ever swim out that far by yourself anyway, even in good weather. Only if Papa or I are with you."

  "Well, I wanted to swim. It was hot and the sun was still out, then." I frown. "And you and Papa were busy kissing under the blanket."

  Mama hides an embarrassed smile against Papa's bare shoulder. "Next time, come and get one of us and we'll swim with you. Okay?"

  "Even if you're kissing like you don't want to ever stop?"

  Mama laughs. "Yes, mija, even then."

  I wonder what it would be like to never want to stop kissing someone?

  *

  They loved each other." I am startled to hear myself speak.

  "What?" Logan is behind me, arms around my front, cupping the front of my hip bones, chin on my shoulder.

  "My parents. They loved each other very much."

  "You remember something?"

  "The beach." I point to the sand. "I was . . . oh, young. A little girl. We were at the beach. I went out to swim, and a storm blew in suddenly. I got pulled out and couldn't stay above the waves. I was about to drown when my father rescued me."

  I stop, think. Capture the memory, savor it.

  "I remember the fear. Being underwater and knowing I wasn't going to make it, and then Papa grabbed me. Even with him, we almost didn't make it back to shore. But . . . more than the almost-drowning, what I really remember is Mama and Papa. It's so strange how vivid the memory is. It's like I'm there, again. I remember what I was thinking, what I was feeling. Much different than even the memories I have postamnesia. But what really stands out is them. My parents, being in love. They were like kids, I think. Always touching each other. Kissing."

  "Want to go out there?"

  "In the water?" I twist to look at him.

  "Yeah."

  "Why are we here, Logan?"

  A sigh. "Maybe being here will jog things for you. That's what I was thinking. You grew up here. And when you said you needed to get away, I thought, Why not Spain? See if she remembers anything."

  "It seems you were right. I don't know if I'll remember anything else, but even if that's all I remember, it will be worth it. Knowing my parents loved each other, and me . . . ?" I let go of the balcony railing and press my fingers between Logan's. "I didn't bring a bathing suit."

  He just laughs. "You didn't bring anything. I packed for us, remember?"

  He tosses the suitcase on the bed, opens it, rifles through the stacked rolls of clothes until he finds a pair of bright orange swim trunks, and then again until he comes up with two different bathing suits for me. One is a white one-piece, and the other is a rather skimpy pink-and-blue two-piece, little more than a few pieces of string and patches of fabric.

  I hold up the two-piece. "Really, Logan?"

  He shrugs. "I told her a one-piece and a two-piece. Didn't pick 'em, remember?" His eyes light up. "You could try it on for me, though, right? You don't have to wear it out if you don't want to."

  "I'm pregnant, remember?" I suddenly don't want to put on either.

  "Babe. You're not showing at all." He takes the bikini from me, tosses it into the suitcase. "But don't worry about it. You're gorgeous, no matter what you wear or don't wear. We're here to relax and get away from all the bullshit, so don't stress about the bathing suit."

  He kisses me, a quick peck, and then grabs his trunks and moves toward the bathroom, peeling off his T-shirt on the way.

  I watch, shamelessly, as he pees, then shucks his jeans and underwear. He does all this in the bathroom, but with the door open, so I'm able to watch in the reflection of the mirror. He turns as he's pulling up the trunks, just in time for me to watch as certain portions of his anatomy vanish. I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at him, I realize.

  I strip, tossing my clothes on the bed. Eyes on Logan, his on me. His hands find me, when I'm naked.

  "Start that, Logan, and we'll never get to the beach."

  "It'll still be there in an hour or two," he murmurs, palming my ass and kissing me on the jaw.

  "True . . ."

  And then, somehow, my fingers find the strings of his trunks and are tugging the knot apart, and then he's naked with me. Pushing me backward to the bed, lifting my knees over his shoulders, mouth to my core.

  I writhe off the bed, wrapping my legs around him, pulling him closer. I'm greedy for what his tongue can do to me, and soon I'm riding his tongue and fingers through one orgasm, two . . . I'm nearing a third when I finally manage to pull him away, pull him up, pull him over me, lift my hips to his. We find each other, him sliding inside me smoothly, slowly, as if our bodies were puzzle-made for each other.

  As he moves, I kiss his jaw, his cheekbone, his temple. My fingers slide up his face, up the right side, encounter the leather of his eyepatch. I brush it away, toss it aside. Feather kisses up his right cheekbone, to his temple. Over his empty eye socket. Telling him without words that he is beautiful, even thus. Especially thus.

  He moves harder when I kiss him like that, so I bring my heels up to my buttocks and lie still, let him move above me, let him have me as he wishes to have me, and I focus my attention on touching and kissing his face, his neck, his shoulders, his jaw, sliding my fingertips over his skin, stubble skritching under my nails.

  When I feel his rhythm falter, when I feel him tighten and throb within me, when I feel him surging hard and rough and wild, I press my lips to his ear and whisper his name, again and again and again, and then I whisper I love you in the other ear. I palm his buttocks and urge him to move harder, pull him against me, hook my legs around his back and move against him.

  I do not come with him.

  I don't want to.

  I want to only feel him, take him.

  He has given me so much, loved me so unconditionally, accepted me, forgiven me, taught me to be me.

  He comes hard, grunting against my breasts. I carve my fingers through his hair and hold his mouth against my nipple and pull him to my lips and kiss him as he comes, bite his lip and suck his breath into my lungs and cling to his neck and writhe beneath him to milk his orgasm until he's limp above me, giving me his weight.

  "Jesus, Isabel." He is gasping, still, his face on my chest, between my breasts. I love his weight on me, thus. "You rock my world harder every single time we do that."

  "You haven't just rocked my world, Logan. You have utterly changed me. You have rescued me."

  "Love don't quit, baby."

  "No, I'm realizing that it does not." I move beneath him, and he slides off me, pulls me against his chest, as if to cuddle. I have other ideas. "The beach, Logan. I want to swim."

  I do, very much. The sea is calling to me. I want to feel the sand in my toes, the wind in my hair, the water around my ankles.

  "Let's go, then."

  *

  I opt for the two-piece. I feel naked, but when I try it on and look in the mirror, even I must admit I look rather stunning. And Logan can't keep his eyes--or his hands--off me. Thus, the two-piece
.

  Now we're standing on the side of the road, waiting to cross. There is a fence between the road and the back of the condominiums, with gates here and there to allow residents and guests to come and go from the beach. A couple of cars pass, and then we cross, dancing through the dune grass and down to the shore. The sand is hot until we reach the water's edge, and that's where I stop.

  Water lapping at my toes, up to my ankles. Wet sand pulling at my feet, sliding and shifting with the receding waves. The sun is low, sending a path of reddish-gold light on the ocean.

  Logan is quiet, holding my hand. Watching me.

  I wade slowly deeper, and Logan comes with me.

  The memory from earlier is vivid in my mind. It is all I can see, all I can feel. I almost expect to be able to turn and see Mama and Papa on the sand, on Abuela's blanket, kissing. I turn, in fact. But the beach is empty, except for a few singles and couples drifting along the shore in the distance.

  I wade in deeper. To my thighs, to my hips. The water is cool at my waist.

  "I always used to stop here. This deep. I had to work up the courage to jump in." I blink; salt stings my eyes. "Papa would sometimes push me in, if I was taking too long."

  "Like this?" Logan says.

  And then wraps his arm around my waist and throws us into the water. I come up spluttering, but laughing.

  "Yes, Logan. Exactly like that."

  And now that I'm in the water, I'm home. More than anywhere I've ever been since waking up from the coma, I'm home. I dive back under, down to the sea floor, trailing my fingers along the rippled sand. Kick hard, draw at the water with cupped palms, swim long and hard until my lungs burn, and then I plant my heels in the sand and kick off. I break the surface, roll to my back, and drift on the waves. The sea is calm, gently rolling. I feel Logan beside me. Just watching. There, but silent. Giving me this moment.

  I float for a while, eyes closed, remnants of the sun's heat bathing my face.

  I drop my feet to the sea floor and turn to face Logan. "Thank you, Logan."

  He's left his eyepatch in the condo, but, in this moment at least, I can look at him without feeling the squirm of guilt.

  "For what, babe?" he asks.

  I push up against him. Kiss him. "This." I gesture around us. "For bringing me here. I feel . . . at home. At peace."

  "Good. That's what I wanted."

  "How can I ever thank you? It seems impossible." I run my hands over his wet hair. "You've given me so much. Done so much."

  "That's love, honey. It's life. It's . . ." He shrugs, at a loss for words. "All you have to do is love me back."

  "I do. Very much. I never thought to even wonder what that was, that it even existed, until I met you. I knew only one thing, and that seemed to be all there was in life. And you've shown me so much in such a short span of time." I kiss him, taste brine on his lips. "I remember . . . from earlier, my memory of being on the beach with Mama and Papa, I remember how they couldn't seem to stop touching each other, kissing each other. They kissed like they never wanted to stop. And I remember this thought, wondering what it would be like, kissing someone and wanting to never stop."

  Logan cups the back of my head and kisses me senseless. Tongues tangling, our lips and teeth colliding, his hand pulling me closer, stealing my breath. A moment of surprise, and then I kiss him back, and it lasts for an eternity. We stand in the water, in the path of light spread by the crimson sunset, kissing as my parents once kissed, as if there were nothing else in all the world but the kiss. As if the kiss were all.

  "Never stop, Isabel." Logan's whisper is soft and sweet. "Please, never stop."

  "I couldn't, not even if I wanted to." I plaster myself against his body, cling to him, breathe him, taste the sea on his skin, the sun on his lips, the love from his fingers, the adoration on his tongue. "I don't want to ever stop."

  TEN

  We spend a week in Barcelona. We swim, we make love, we sleep tangled around each other. We live free, soaking up the sun, bathing in love.

  It is the happiest I have ever been.

  The happiest I will ever be, I think.

  ELEVEN

  I have almost managed to forget about you.

  Almost.

  We have moved, Logan and I. He sold his row house, and we spent a month hunting for something that suited us. We looked at other row houses, other brownstones. We looked at condos, ground-floor apartments, penthouses. I expected us to choose something like Logan had, something quiet and private with a backyard. Instead, however, we chose the penthouse of a condo building in the heart of Greenwich Village. The entire upper floor, with a private rooftop terrace. It is nothing like the echoing monstrosity of your home, a fact that I love, smaller and cozier than that, yet larger than Logan's previous place. A beautiful kitchen flowing into an informal dining area, a breakfast nook tucked into a corner. The living room is sunken a few steps down from the kitchen and bedrooms, which strikes me as odd, but I find I like it, for reasons I can't quite enumerate. There are four bedrooms; one for Logan and me, one as his home office, one to be a nursery--that still makes my hands shake and my stomach flip, because it isn't real yet, and is still terrifying--and one for Cocoa. The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom, and there is one more shared between the other three bedrooms. The master bedroom is isolated, set above the rest of the unit so it overlooks the rooftop terrace. The front of the room is a wall of movable, adjustable-tint glass, which leads to a balcony that in turn descends via twin curving staircases to the terrace.

  Cocoa loves the terrace almost as much as I do. As soon as we let her out, she runs laps around the perimeter for a few minutes, barking like a fiend, and then puts her front paws up on the ledge of the waist-high wall and stares down at the street, tongue lolling, eyes excitedly scanning the sidewalk below, tail swinging a mile a minute, and that's where she'll stay, just like that, until you make her come in.

  Logan sells his old place with all the furniture included, both to fetch a higher price and because he wants us to choose everything for our new home together, from silverware to bedsheets. The only things we bring with us are our clothes and the contents of his office; everything else stays. And we spend days, weeks even, picking out curtains and couches, silverware and wineglasses, bedsheets and cooking utensils and everything in between.

  I never realized how much stuff it took to make a house a home.

  And I savor every moment of it, every decision, down to the smallest, most arbitrary thing. It is normalcy, and it is glorious.

  I have decided to put on hold the preparations for Comportment. Even if I do not feel it yet--aside from the change in the foods I like to eat, and the morning sickness--I am pregnant. I have seen a doctor, with Logan, and verified the clinic's verdict. Took measurements and did an ultrasound, a blood test, all sorts of medical procedures to ensure that I am healthy, and the baby is growing as it should be. It is early yet, but the doctor said all is progressing as it should be. I am taking prenatal vitamins, continuing to exercise and eat healthy.

  All this means that trying to get my own business off the ground is not feasible, as yet. Perhaps it never will be. Or perhaps, when I am ready to reexamine the notion of going into business for myself, I will have new ideas, a different business plan. For now, I am content to be Logan's girlfriend, to live in our own home that we chose for ourselves. To run, and watch movies with Logan, and make love with him in every room, on every surface both vertical and horizontal.

  Thus, learning to live life as a normal woman, I manage to nearly forget about you.

  To forget the questions.

  The doubts.

  The inconsistencies.

  Everything.

  It all gets shuffled to the back of my mind, set aside. Not important, now that I am discovering the sweetness of normality.

  But, in that inexorable, mysterious way you possess, you appear when least expected, and do something absolutely unpredictable.

  Yet, reall
y, when it happens, I am not surprised at all.

  It is you, after all:

  You kidnap me.

  TWELVE

  It is rather unnecessarily dramatic, the way you snatch me.

  Right off the rooftop terrace, in broad daylight. Just past ten in the morning, in fact.

  I am reclined on a lounge chair, my feet up, sunglasses on, clad in a robe and a bikini so revealing I'd never wear it out, only here, at home, for Logan, or alone on the roof. I am reading, sipping herbal tea, enjoying the sunlight of what promises to be one of the last warm days we will have for some time. Cocoa is beside my chair, her chin on my thigh, snoring.

  I hear a helicopter, and think nothing of it. This is New York, there are helicopters going overhead all the time. But when the volume of its whumping rotors grows, I become curious. Sit up, look around. Cocoa's ears prick and twitch, and she too seems disconcerted. Growls deep in her chest. I watch as the hackles on the back of her shoulders lift.

  Something is amiss.

  I wrap my thin robe around myself and cinch it closed, tie the belt. Set aside my mug. Clutch my cell phone, ready to call Logan if needed.

  The rotors are close now, but the aircraft itself is still somewhere out of sight. Cocoa spots it first, and barks at it. But not the bark she has for another dog, or strangers, or squirrels, or birds. This is her fierce, defensive bark, frightening and feral. The helicopter is swooping low over the rooftops, moving fast. Too fast. News and medical helicopters, even the few police ones I've seen, none of them have flown thus, barely clearing rooftops, scudding with precise and unerring speed toward this rooftop.

  And I know.

  I am in motion as soon as I realize who is in that machine, but it is too late.

  The helicopter flares to a stop barely a dozen feet overhead, the down-blast of the rotors nearly flattening me. A door slides open, and two ropes drop to the rooftop. Cocoa is a brown blur of fury, moving to stand in front of me, teeth bared in a snarling rictus. Black-clad figures slide down the ropes, and one levels a handgun of some sort, aims it. There is a quiet thump, and Cocoa whines, collapses. I cry out, grab for her, find a dart protruding from her neck. Hands grab me. I fight, thrash.