Spring came late that year.
The castle on the ridge was no longer a fortress. The iron gate stood open. The men with rifles were gone from the drive. In their place, Mrs. Alvarez's roses climbed the south wall, and a family of swallows had made a nest under the eaves of the old gatehouse, and every morning around half past seven, a small boy in a blue blazer could be heard running down the long stone corridor, shouting, Daddy! Daddy! They've HATCHED!
Travis had sold the piers.
Not all of them. He had kept Pier Two, because a man needs something to do with his hands. The rest had gone, quietly, to a charitable trust set up in the name of Marguerite Vale. Its first act was to fund a pediatric cardiac wing at St. Anselm's, and its second, written into the charter in Maya's careful hand, was a scholarship for children from Sunflower House.
There were no more rifles. There were still, if you looked, a few quiet men at the edge of the lawn. Maya had stopped minding. She had learned that they were not guards. They were a habit, as a man who has lived with fear for thirty years does not unlearn the shape of his own shoulders.
He was learning.
…
He was possessive. She never pretended he was not.
He liked to know where she was. He liked to see her face when she walked through a door. When she went to school in the morning he drove her himself, and watched her cross the yard, and did not leave until the door had closed behind her. When she was an hour late, he called. When she was two, he came.
"I'm fine," she'd say, laughing, on the front steps, in the rain.
"I know."
"I was talking to Chloe."
"I know. I was just—" He'd rub the back of his neck. "I wanted to see you."
"You saw me at lunch."
"That was five hours ago."
And she would laugh, and kiss him on the cheek, and send him home.
It was not easy. It was not the soft, safe, ordinary love of a story. It had a heavy hand and a long shadow. He could not bear to be parted from her for a week, and when she once, out of sheer exhaustion, said she needed a night alone, he stood at the door of her flat for an hour, not knocking, until she opened it and pulled him in.
But he asked.
That was the difference. That was the whole of it. Every door he held was open. Every lock had a key on the inside. When he wanted something, he said so, with his hands in his pockets and his chin lowered, like a man at the edge of a very cold sea, and he waited for her answer.
And every time, she gave it.
She was not afraid of him. She had held two halves of a pendant in her palm, and watched them join. She knew what kind of boy lived under that black coat, and what kind of dark. And she had chosen it, with her eyes open, the way you choose a house you know has storms.
Mine, Travis said once, in the dark, against her hair. It was not a boast. It was a prayer.
Yes, she said. Yours. And you're mine.
Yes.
Then that's all.
…
They were married in June.
It was a small wedding, in the garden at the back of the castle, under a pergola so thickly covered in roses that the air was syrup. There were fifty chairs, and forty-two people. Chloe cried for the entire ceremony and was shushed by her own husband. Uncle Henry came in a rented suit, hale and grinning, and was introduced to Marcus, and the two of them stood at the back with their arms folded, nodding at each other like old generals.
Dr. Okafor was there. So was Principal Evans, in a very large hat, who said that she had always had faith in Ms. Maya, and was thanked with a face of perfect solemnity. Twenty children from the Purple Sprout class sat in the second row in their best clothes, and the girl with the pigtails, now neat, wept into a handkerchief the size of a pillowcase.
Mark carried the rings on a velvet cushion, with absolute gravity. He had been practicing for a month.
"You may kiss the bride," said the minister.
Travis did.
It was a long kiss. Someone coughed. A child at the back yelled "EW," and another yelled "YAY," and Chloe, between sobs, was heard to say, about time.
Afterward, when the guests had gone to the lawn, and the long tables glittered in the evening light, he drew her aside behind the pergola, and slid something onto her finger.
She looked down.
It was a ring of pale gold. In place of a diamond, set in a tiny circle, was a crescent of mother-of-pearl, cut from the old puzzle piece, and beneath it, sealed under a clear stone, a scrap of faded paper no bigger than a stamp. A pencil drawing. A sun. Seven rays.
"I had it made in the spring," Travis said. "I didn't know if you'd..." He shook his head. "It's not a diamond."
"It's perfect."
"It's an old piece of bread-paper."
"It's the best thing anyone has ever given me."
His eyes were wet. "I kept it fifteen years. I couldn't let it go. But I think... I think it was always meant for you."
She took his face in both hands.
"Travis."
"Yes?"
"I'm going to say something. And I want you to listen." She held his gaze. "I was left at a gate when I was four. I've been left a dozen times since. Every person I trusted turned out to be leaving. And I decided a long time ago that I would never again be the one who stayed."
He said nothing.
"I'm staying," said Maya. "Not because I'm trapped. Not because I'm afraid. Because I looked at every door I could walk through, and I picked the one with you behind it." Her voice shook. "Do you understand? It's mine. This is the first thing in my whole life that I picked."
He bent his head and pressed his forehead against hers, and for a long moment they did not move.
"Thank you," he said, finally.
"Don't thank me."
"I'm going to thank you every day."
"For how long?"
"For the rest of my life," said Travis, "which I intend to be very, very long."
…
That night, after the guests had gone and the lamps were burning low, they sat on the terrace with their feet on the stone and a plate of bread between them. It was just a loaf. Mrs. Alvarez had baked it, and sent it out with a wink. A little salt, a little butter.
Maya broke it in half.
She held out one piece, and he took it.
"It's still warm," she said.
He looked at her.
Then, slowly, as if he were a boy of fifteen with his face to the rain, he smiled.
Mark came out in his pajamas and sat between them, uninvited, and they gave him a third piece, and he ate it with the solemnity of a priest. Behind them, in the open doors, the long rooms of the castle glowed with lamplight. In an upper window, a pale curtain moved. Elena had come home in April, to a sunny room Dr. Okafor had fitted out, and the nurse who sat beside her read aloud to her every evening from a book of poems.
The stars came out over the garden.
"Ms. Maya?" said Mark, around his bread.
"Yes, love?"
"Can we count them?"
She looked at Travis. He nodded.
"Okay," she said. "You start."
"One," said Mark.
"Two," said Travis.
"Three," said Maya, and leaned her head on her husband's shoulder, and counted the stars until the child's voice faded into sleep.
…
AUTHOR'S NOTE: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE REACHED THE ENDING OF THIS BRANCH: A SWEET DARK ROMANCE.
The truth came out all at once, and she chose him anyway. A man who loves with a heavy hand, and a woman who loved him back with her eyes open.
If you'd like to see what happens if she takes a different path, you may return to the forks at Chapter 8, 10, 29, 32, and 51.
