Tiffany Reisz - The Original Sinners - The Red Years

She took the key and dropped to her knees. From the farthest corner of her closet she pulled out a wooden box the size of a small Bible. With shaking hands she opened it and took from a bed of blood-red velvet the white leather collar that had once bound her to Søren, the collar she had not worn in five years.

Rising from the floor she left the key in the lock and left the box on the floor. She left no note for Wesley and she left on all the lights. She threw on her coat, found her car keys, and taking nothing with her but her collar, she left. She pulled out of the driveway at breakneck speed and not once did it occur to her to look back.

34

Zach had heard of sleeping with one’s eyes open but not of dreaming that way. But after a two-hour wait, two hours with his eyes on the hotel entrance, he knew his mind must be asleep. And when Grace walked in, saw him and smiled as if the two years of the cold and quiet hell they’d been living in had vanished into thin air, he knew he could only be dreaming.

He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, afraid if he didn’t he’d drag her to him.

“Hiya,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

“Hiya.” It was her, her voice, his Grace.

“I was waiting for you.”

“I see that. I tried to call you. Several times. When I didn’t hear from you, I called Mr. Bonner. I told him it was an emergency. He gave me—”

“He sent you to Nora’s, didn’t he?”

“Don’t be angry at him, please.”

“I’m not. So you met Nora?”

Grace nodded and hazarded a smile.

“Had tea with her. We talked.”

Zach was afraid to ask, more afraid not to. “What did she say?”

“She said I should call you George.”

“She would say that. Gracie, I—”

“About Nora,” Grace said, cutting him off. “I think she might be the only woman in the world I could ever forgive you for.”

“Say the word,” Zach said, “and she’ll be the only woman you’ll ever have to.”

Grace smiled, but the smile broke in two as she collapsed into his arms. He held her to him and pressed his lips to her hair. She said nothing and that was fine. The weight of her slight body against his, her head on his chest…it made him feel safer than any words she could have spoken.

“Forgive me, too,” she said. “Please.”

“No, Gracie.” He swallowed hard. “Nothing to forgive. Tell me something, please.”

“Anything.”

Zach pulled back and held her by the shoulders. He searched her face, still unable to believe she was here.

“Did I lose you, or did I never have you to start with?” he asked.

Grace shook her head. “You never lost me, Zachary. And you always, always had me.”

Zach’s heart rose so high he thought it would burst from his chest.

“I lied to you,” Grace said, and looked up at him.

Zach’s hands went cold. “About what?”

“The day when I called about the blackout…the lights weren’t really out.”

“They weren’t?” Zach almost laughed.

“No,” she said and pressed her head against his chest again. “The lights were never out.”

* * *

The sanctuary at Sacred Heart sat empty but for the heady air still radiating warmth from the hundred or more souls who had left barely an hour ago. Nora faced the altar and inhaled the familiar smoky scent. She thought of the book of Revelation and how in it the prayers of the church rise before God in the form of incense. She said her own silent prayer and released it like smoke into the sky.

“I’m afraid you’ve missed Saturday morning Mass,” a voice as familiar as her own said.

Nora turned around and found Søren with a pewter pitcher refilling the fount of holy water at the entrance to the sanctuary.

“But we celebrate Vigil mass at five o’clock this evening if you’d like to come back.”

“Søren, you are ubiquitous.” Nora came to him. He set the empty pitcher aside.

“I prefer the term omnipresent,” he said.

“You would.”

Nora didn’t bother attempting to fake a smile for him. She knew him, knew he would see right through it. She waited and let Søren study her. His knowing eyes on her face felt as intimate as a touch.

“You look tired, little one,” he said.

“I am tired.”

“Tell me.”

“I have such a great gift for ruining things. It even impresses me sometimes.”

“Self-pity does not become you,” he chastised her in the same tone he used to silence unruly children in the hallways. “And while you have a gift for creating chaos, I have never known you to be willfully destructive. Now, what is this about?”

Nora gave him the faintest of smiles.

“I finished the book.”

“I had no doubt you would.”

“Zach even signed the contract. Then we celebrated.”

“Of that I have no doubt, either,” Søren said with a wry smile. “So why is there so much sadness in your eyes?”

“I met Zach’s wife today.”

“Ah, the once and future Mrs. Easton. What did you think of her?”

“I think he’ll go back to her.”

Søren nodded. “That was inevitable.”

Nora swallowed. “And last night meant nothing.”

“I’m sure your night together meant a great deal to him. More than you may ever know. The same wind that blows us off course can turn and carry us home.”

“She is his home. I could see that in her eyes. She’s perfect, Søren.”

“Perfect for him perhaps. To me, Eleanor, it is you who is flawless.”

Nora’s heart beat heavy in her chest. Søren’s love never ceased to humble her.

“I’m as flawed as it gets.”

“You are human. And that is the better part of your beauty. But you always knew your editor longed for his wife more than anything. This can’t be a surprise to you. What else?”

Nora was afraid he’d ask her that. But Søren had been her father confessor for eighteen years. Now she needed his absolution more than ever.

“Last Sunday…Wesley and I almost made love.”

“You have been busy, haven’t you? Why only ‘almost’?”

“He stopped first, and then I stopped it all. Søren…” she said in a hoarse half whisper, “I broke the rule—I think I harmed him.”

“Little one.” Søren cupped the side of her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“I have to make him go, don’t I?”

“For his own good, yes. That, I’m afraid, was inevitable, as well.”

Nora nodded, feeling none of the anger she usually experienced when Søren proved himself insufferably right as he always did.

Søren laid two fingers on her temple. He traced the line of her face from her forehead to her lips.

“You always knew Zachary loved his wife. Yes?”

“Yes.” She remembered the ghost of Grace that haunted his eyes from the day they met. “I knew…at the back of my mind, the back of my heart.”

“Where you love Wesley, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And me?” he asked, his voice soft and earnest in that way it so rarely was with her these days. “Where do you love me?”

Nora did not hesitate before answering. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Everywhere else.”

Søren looked at her as if he’d already known that would be her answer, as if for all eternity it would be her answer. Perhaps it would, she thought.

“Come to my office,” Søren said. “We can talk about it.”

Nora smiled. “Your office. I remember when you’d make me cocoa and help me with my math homework on that bench right outside your office.”

“I always knew when you were working on your math homework. The litany of profanities echoing through the halls was always an excellent indicator. Shall we? I’ll see what’s in the cupboard.”