Page 19 of The Moonlight Healers
19
LOUISE
Peter was sitting on the garden bench when Louise walked into the backyard. The dense, ancient limbs of the huge magnolia tree were a canopy above him, the branches dotted with sweet perfumed white flowers the size of cantaloupes.
“You were supposed to go to the guest house,” Louise said as she approached him. Each footstep took effort as she crossed the yard. Her entire body felt heavy, weighted down by the events of the evening. Her mind held an overwhelming swirl of emotions. It made the night take on a surreal, hazy quality, as though she were meeting Peter in a dream.
“Funny thing,” Peter said when she sat beside him, his expression slightly dazed. “I don’t really remember sitting down. Your grandmother told me to leave. And I left. But I guess this is as far as I got.”
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. Louise heard the distant crunch of gravel, the murmur of female voices, her mother and grandmother setting off down the road on their walk. She was acutely aware of the proximity of Peter’s body, the rise and fall of his chest with his breathing, of how impossible it all was, that they were there together on that summer night, that out of the infinite, spinning parts of the universe, their paths had collided.
“You were right, you know,” Louise finally said as a small bird took off from a branch of the magnolia, briefly silhouetted against the velvet blue sky. “I was lying. About your knee. About the accident. About how I brought you back.”
“I know,” Peter said quietly. “I don’t understand it, but I know.”
“And I think you were right about New York too,” she said, her voice amplified in the stillness of the night. She felt like she was back at the swimming hole, about to step off a ledge. She plunged forward. She didn’t want to waste any more time, not after that night, not when she suddenly saw life for exactly how brief and fragile it was. She didn’t want to spend four years studying a subject because it was easy, because the answers were always simple, far removed from the messiness of real life.
“I don’t want to go,” she said quickly, before she could stop herself. “Not to the summer program. Not to NYU in the fall. I want to stay here, for now, figure out what I really want. But I know it’s not New York. Getting buried in student debt to live in a city I don’t even really love.”
“What changed your mind?”
Louise motioned toward the orchard, the horizon painted by the mountains. “All of this.” She hesitated. “Helping Sarah. Saving you.”
She shivered despite the heat of the evening, felt a little ripple move across her body, a pull away from the solitude and secrecy of generations, toward one person she knew would handle the truth with care.
“Do you want me to show you how?”
Peter nodded, his mouth half-open. Louise stood up from the bench.
“Follow me.”
She led him toward one of the magnolia tree’s lowest branches, a long, knotted limb that ran parallel to the ground. It was massive, sturdy enough to hold both their weight. As a little girl she used to balance on it, pretend she was a gymnast while her grandmother and great-grandmother played the part of judges from their lawn chairs.
The flowers spread among the huge, glossy green leaves were faded at that part of the tree, their white petals wrinkled and drooping toward the ground.
Louise traced the tree limb, her fingers shaking as she reached the first flower.
She rested her palm on a delicate blossom, inhaled the scent, notes of lemon and vanilla and earth. The warmth in her skin surged as the petals curled up, forming a perfect ivory saucer that stood out against the verdant leaves.
Cautiously, she raised her gaze to Peter’s face, but his eyes showed only trust, belief in what he was seeing.
“Wow,” he said softly.
Louise felt her cheeks relax into a small smile. The pit inside of her stomach, the dread of the next few days, loosened ever so slightly.
With Peter watching on, she moved on to the branches that surrounded them, until all around their heads, the sky was full of bright, white blooms.