Chapter 27

I stood in the doorway and placed my hand on the wood frame, trying to let the feel of the paint under my fingers eclipse everything else, but failing. Evan had followed me to the door. He'd been quiet during most of the encounter with Raphael, not saying much beyond what was required for the sake of manners, but now he took my hand and turned me to face him. “Oh no,” he said softly, his eyebrows drawing together in concern. “No no,” he whispered, then, “Shh, shh, shh. Don't cry.”

He gathered me up in his arms for a time then carried me up the stairs. He wiped away my tears and held me until I was calm, then made love to me until I'd almost forgotten that I'd been sad. We lay there in the dark with the window open, Evan running his fingers along the bare skin over my spine.

“He's something else . . . Your angel,” Evan told me.

I smiled in the dark, “You sound like Rowan when you say that. Rowan always used to tell me that Raphael was 'my angel'.”

*

I was in the front garden with Sulamith the next morning taking the dead heads off the rose bushes and pulling weeds from the border. Puttering around really, and breathing in the garden. Letting the plants, trees and sun recharge me, so to speak. I was relishing the long stretch of days, months, and years I had ahead of me to really figure myself out. It was warm but not hot, with a light cloud cover. I love days like that because the light from the sun is diffuse and it makes the plants and flowers look like they're glowing. It lends a surreal quality to everything. I would smile and laugh every time Sulamith crept into the plants again to pop out and try to make me jump, her face glowing, happy and bright in the frame of her dark hair. Evan came out onto the porch and sat on the steps with his mug of tea and another one for me. It's an almost tactile memory. The clingy feel of the moist morning air on my skin, the hot mug in my hands, thyme ground cover under my bare feet releasing its sent. I sat next to Evan on the steps and leaned against his shoulder as Sulamith called out, “Mummy look! A banana slug! He's a bery handsome slug. We could call him Herman!”

I could hear Evan chuckling under his breath, doing his best not to let Sulamith hear him as she removed 'Herman' from the flower bed and off to the slug garden (the wild patch next to the shed), all the while talking to the slug.

“Who's she talking to?” Sheila asked coming out onto the porch, then heading down the steps and starting her own half conscious perusal of the garden, pulling a weed here and plucking a dead blossom there.

“Herman the banana slug,” Evan said smiling.

“That girl,” Sheila smiled, shaking her head.

“That's what you get when you raise a little girl in a house with a garden fairy and a hippie,” Evan said chuckling.

“You don't think that it has anything to do with all the Beatrix Potter and Wind In the Willows you read her?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow.

“There's probably a chance,” Evan admitted, still smiling.