The Fourth Life: Chapter 63 (adult)

Sister Rebecca Katherine fingered the letter that had just arrived, and hesitated to open it.  It was in a brown, simple envelope, and on the outside was the all-too familiar writing of her brother, Timothy.  Dreading it, she brought the letter into the solarium, and hoping, since it was mid -afternoon and session time for most of the clients, that she would have time alone.


She crossed herself, and kissed the cross on her rosary.  "Rebecca, ya must open it.  Ya must face whatever it is your brother has to say to ya."


She still held it, sealed, and scanned it.  The writing was his familiar scrawl, jagged in places with a flourish at the end of some of his letters.  The time stamp showed air mail; he was in Europe, this she knew.  Closer investigation gave her the knowledge she already had:  He was in Ireland.  Home.  She turned it over.


Wanting to open it, but still apprehensive, she stopped, looking at the point of envelope paper glued shut.  She closed her eyes a moment, and saw herself, Johnny and Timothy, playing on the foothills as children.  They would tease her and chase her.  She would always stop in the middle of a game, to pray for the winning edge.  They would always lose.  As an adult, she now knew that it was not God granting her the advantage, but her brothers, who loved her enough to let her win.  Tears welled up in her eyes, even as they were closed, and upon opening them, a few stray ones made their way down her face.  Delicately, she brushed them away with the knuckle of her index finger, and then, like ripping a bandaid off, she quickly opened the letter.


***


Todd received her kiss with his eyes opened at first, and then succumbed, closing them, and rolling over onto her, his hands in her hair, and then down to her breasts.  He wanted her so much, as always, and after all they had been through, he'd never hold back from her again.  He said, "I love you, Blair," as he moved his mouth over her neck and down, where he had opened her blouse and kissed along the lace edge of her bra.


She waited a moment, until he was back looking into her eyes, and said, "I love you, too, Todd.  I'm not going anywhere.  Ever."   


He moved back to her chest, where he took his fingers and traced a gentle line along the lace, and then down around her nipple.  She arched toward him, and he closed his hands around her back, kissing her passionately, and feeling beneath her blouse to undo her bra.  She helped him by removing her shirt and both pieces of clothing ended up in a heap next to them on the blanket he'd brought.  Moving back over her, he gently kissed both of her breasts, stopping to flick his tongue over them and relish the response he received from her body.


Her hands were already undoing his belt, and she felt the hardness of him through his clothes.  It thrilled her, to feel him that way, as it always had, especially knowing his love had been reserved for her most of his adult life.  Impatient, she tore the belt free, and tossed it with the other items.  He pulled himself away from her, stopping to look at her, lying back on the blanket, the sun against her skin, the whiteness of her contrasting to the pink-tan of her nipples, the slim line of her belly, now back to it's usual flatness, exposed as she slipped out of her leggings.  He scrambled out of his pants, and drew circles over her stomach with his tongue.  


She loved the feel of his hair in her fingers.  Being with him, there, and feeling the silk of his mane between them brought back every moment and memory of their first times together.  Full circle?  She prayed every day that they were apart for the last time during his time in Ireland the past year.  Thinking that way, she suddenly felt a surge of her past missing of him, and a tear trickled from one eye.  


She never understood how he knew so much about her every feeling and thought, but as soon as it sprung free of her eye, he brought his eyes back to hers, and with this thumb, brushed it off, gently.  "No more of that," he said to her, then kissed back down her body, finding her, and exploring her, in the ways he knew made her rapt with bliss.  She opened herself to him, and bent her knees on either side of him, still feeling his hair with her hands, and moaned softly.


***


Sister Rebecca Katherine studied the letter.  It read:


Creena,


By now, my dear sister, you have found me gone.  I've returned to home, our dearest Ireland, a place that may still welcome me, whatever may come.  Of course, you would call me a coward, or accuse me of not being able to forge ties, and my little sister, you most probably would be right.


I am a coward because I couldn't face you when I had to go.  This is true for my own, selfish reasons.  I've never found much importance in sharing, with anyone, since my beloved wife and son were taken from me.  This, you know about me, and yes, I remember you have warned me time and time again to fight the lust for revenge.  But, dear heart, I have failed in that task, as you've seen me do time and time again.  I've failed, I am human, and I am not, regardless of what you think, strong.


So, I left America.  I left you, and my new-found family, that I was becoming a part of, at last: Todd, Blair and their children.  Little Sam, I will miss very much.  If you have not seen the resemblance between him and my dead son, I would be shocked.  But Sister, I could not hear you tell me to stay.  I could not listen to you telling me how I am wrong.  And this makes me a coward, of the highest degree, and I accept.


As I sit here in my flat, looking out the window into the streets of Rialto, I remember as if yesterday, you, Johnny and I, running to that very same corner I am watching, but for a different reason.  The ice truck would come, and we would wait, hoping that the ice man would cut a piece of ice for each of us, to cool us in the summer sun.  Johnny and I would let you go first, and you would walk up, opening your little hand, for your own personal icicle.  By the time the two of us got ours, you would be crying because your fingers were burning and aching from the frigidity.  I know you remember what comes next, Creena.  I would hold your ice for you, while your hand adjusted, and then give it back to you when you could stand the cold again enough to hold it yourself. 


If you must think of me, I suppose it's best you think the worst of me.  Think me evil, cruel and hateful.  Don't pity me as a man torn apart by loss and destitution; think me the one who rejects God, the one who never believed in miracles or in faith.  Think this way of me, so that you may move on and prosper without sadness causing you pain.  Be angry with me; we both know that pity causes despair and anger, the better, causes inner strength. 


But, dear one, in my heart, I wish you to think of me as the one who has loved you, and protected you from the burn of cold, chased away the monsters in your wardrobe, and let you win at childhood games, simply because I loved you.  


Eternally yours,


Timothy John Broderick


The nun held the letter in her hand as she walked to the solarium doors, alone, and looked out.  The sun was at a perfect position in the sky, and peeking out from clouds, radiated through in streaks of light.


***

On her back, with Todd lavishing attention on her lower half, she looked up to see the sun, now sending banners of light through a patch of clouds, and she closed her eyes, wanting to feel and memorize every exquisite thing he was doing to her with his lips and tongue.  Suddenly, her need to be one with him overcame her need for release, and she, as was usual between them, gave him the inaudible signal to cease and bring himself to her.  Every nerve in her was at its height of readiness, as he kissed his way back up her body, and his head rested near her wounds.  For a moment, he gently touched the scar she now had from the bullet.  It was a small hole, and he flashed on the idea that such a small thing could take away something so immense.


Not wanting to dwell on those thoughts, he shifted himself, touching her with the tip of him, and looking into her eyes, he became lost as she embraced him with her arms and legs, and he felt her surround all of him.  He ran his hand along her outer thigh as he felt her lift her legs to allow him to be deeper inside her, and he closed his eyes, momentarily wanting the blackness to do nothing but feel her.  For a minute or two, everything vanished except the feel of her around him, and the sounds of her breathing and sighing.  He opened his eyes when she said, in a whisper, "Todd," and met her eyes with his.  The green of them was more vivid than he recalled, and her beautiful, still supple skin was touching his in ways he never wanted to miss again.  He reached down, and put a hand between himself and her body, and caressed her.  Her eyes fluttered back and she cried out, then sighed deeply.  Her hand went to his cheek, of course, on the right, and caressed him, and she said, hushed, "Always."


Todd could never explain to himself, or anyone else for that matter, how words could bring him immediately to his climax while making love to her, but somehow, hers could.  Just the right thing said at the right time, would send him spilling into her.  He looked into her eyes and face during this moment, and heard himself moaning and calling to her.  He collapsed onto her, then rolled so that she was lying on him, he shifted her a bit to the side.  Moving her was like moving a delicate parcel; she felt so light in his arms and against him.  They were quiet.


She said, "Something's different."


He said, "What?"


She answered, "All through our lives, I'd know every time we made love to each other, there was a possibility of a child.  I'll never have your baby inside me, again."  She went silent, and then said, after a long pause, "Not anymore."


He said, "I don't know Blair, you and I are always different than everyone else.  We're us, and we always break the rules, one way or another.  I don't think we know what's coming until it does.  We never have."


She wiped a tear away briskly and said, "I guess that's true."


He said, "Doctors are wrong every day.  If there is supposed to be another Manning around, there will be, one way or another."


She said, "I just love you so damn much, Mr. Manning."


He craned his neck back a bit to look at her.  Her hair was stuck to her face along the edges where her perspiration had matted it; her mascara was slightly smudged below each eye.  He said, "I love you, too, Missus."


"We're grandparents now.  Hard to believe," she said absently, tracing around his belly button, and running her fingers over his tight stomach.  "I mean, I feel like we were just in Dorian's penthouse, and you were making love to me for the first time, and here we are, lifetimes later."


"Three lifetimes gone, we're in our fourth and final one.  This is the keeper."  


"How can all that be over?"  


"It's not over for us, Blair.  It's never over for us."

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