I Carry Your Heart
Carole W
Part 2
Chapter 6 ~ Time Between
Friday was jammed with work, though much of the day she found herself staring at blank pages that should have been filled with notes. She floated into dreams of Vincent rising from the cavern pools, strands of water-darkened hair clinging to his shoulders, gentle waves lapping at his bare hips ...
“What’s going on with you, Radcliffe?" It was Joe's voice, her fanciful meditation shattered. “You know the secret of the universe? Maybe you’d like to share.”
Unwilling to look up, she bent over an open drawer, sure that color deepened on her cheek. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Cathy. Give. How’d you do it?”
“I really, really, don’t know what you are talking about.” She dropped her still-sharp pencil into the cup on her desk and slid a large reference book over her virgin legal pad.
“You don’t, do you? You must have some kind of guardian angel. Give me the Bendix file.”
“I’ve been working on that appeal ... let’s see.” After a show of shuffling folders, she pulled one from the pile and held it out to him.
“They dropped it. Case closed.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yep. The Listerman file. Hand it over.”
Catherine rummaged in her stack. “Here. I’ve got two interviews scheduled for next week and I’ve got a call in for an expert witness, but I haven’t heard back yet.”
“Listerman changed his plea to guilty. Sentencing in six weeks.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You’re repeating yourself, Radcliffe.” Joe’s smile broadened.
“Wow.”
“Is that the best you got? Wow? Now, the Patterson file.”
“Patterson? I’m meeting with the forensic accountant next Wednesday.”
“Nope, the accountant went into labor. Meeting postponed at least six weeks.”
“I can’t believe that! Three cases, just ... poof?”
“Who said anything about three? I need Bartholomew, McGarvey and DeLilo.”
“Don’t tell me ...”
“Bartholomew changed attorneys. They got a continuance. McGarvey got that change of venue he wanted and DeLilo's lawyer is screaming conflict of interest. That one's probably going somewhere else too."
"Conflict of interest with whom?"
Joe shrugged as she stacked together the last folders on her desk.
“That’s ... that’s everything I’ve been working on!”
“Darned incredible, huh, Radcliffe. I can’t believe it myself. But, hey! Sometimes things work out. You’re due some vacation time, putting in all those extra hours. Why don’t you take off, get out of town? Take a week, Cathy. I mean it.”
“A week?” She was dumbfounded but very, very pleased.
_________________
Even though the skies were darkening with a coming storm, her step was lighter that afternoon, for a change unburdened by a heavy bag of files and reports. Remembering Jamie’s assessment of her pantry stock, she stopped at the store on her corner. Out the door, a laden, brown paper bag clutched in her arms, Catherine nearly collided with Benny, his bike skidding to a stop before her with barely inches to spare.
“Message for Miss Chandler.” He fished in one pocket and then another before he pulled out a folded note, all the while popping his gum to a strange rhythm. He gestured for her purchases, then passed the missive across. “Want me to wait?” he asked, raking the fingers of his free hand through already wind-crazed hair.
“You’d better." The onion-skin paper whipped in the gust and her hair blew into her eyes, but the words were clear.
W said 4 days, maybe 5, depending. J.
Grinning, she pulled a pen from her purse and, using Benny's flat cargo rack for a desk, scribbled beneath the written lines.
A week off work. Coming down tomorrow night. C.
“You almost got me this time!” she exclaimed, folding the note along its creases.
“Nah. I saw you. I’m the best, remember? Want some help carrying?”
“I can make it home. I'm almost there, but would you get this to Jamie?"
"Sure thing. You're a peach." He exchanged the message for her groceries and pedaled off, lost to sight, dissolved into the sounds and colors of the city.
So ... counting from Wednesday evening, Vincent would return Sunday night, maybe Monday. Not much time until, though it seemed an eternity, but if all went the way she hoped, a blessed week after.
__________________
Her apartment was too quiet, too empty. A woman alone with her thoughts, her worries, her dreams, she flopped onto the couch, closed her eyes and imagined Vincent on it.
It is time he came in.
She knew his desire .... desire fused with such restraint, such diffidence ... the hunger in his eyes when he looked at her, the wrenching loss she felt when he looked away. He was so beautifully male, powerful, contained, promising ...
Hers. There could be no other.
___
“Cathy!” Jenny trilled. “You’re home and answering your phone! Are you all right?”
“Funny girl, Jen. I’m not that bad, am I?”
“You are worse than bad. You’re terrible! But now that I have you, do you want to go antiquing tomorrow? Like we talked about?”
“Oh, I’d love to but ...”
“No buts, Cathy! I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“We just had lunch this week!”
“That doesn’t count,” Jenny said.
“How about this,” Catherine proposed. “How about we go shopping, but let's stay in the City. It's Market Day tomorrow in Chelsea and we haven’t done that in forever either.”
“Chelsea? Sure, we can hobnob with the hipsters! I’m on. I’ll come by and get you about ten.”
“I can meet you there.”
“Oh, no. I don’t trust you. Let's eat first thing though.”
“Jenny, your appetite is amazing. How do you stay so thin?”
“Looking for Mr. Right. Aren’t we all?”
“Will you know him if you meet him?”
“Ha ha, Cath. Will you? Besides, I may have.”
"May have what?"
"Uh-uh. No way. Tomorrow. It's my only leverage." Jenny laughed.
“Ha ha to you too. I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll be ready. I promise. Bye now.”
Jenny. One day, she hoped to be able to truly confide in her. Really, why should I not? She'd all but told Nancy. All that was left was the collision of what they believed ... with what was true.
Could they ... could they accept? Catherine had met many helpers in the City, dozens of them. They knew Vincent, appreciated all that was made possible by the reality of him ... loved him. Theirs were welcoming and reachable hearts, their spirits loyal and protective. The description fit both Nancy and Jenny.
Someday, she promised.
Now, how to fill the evening. When all else fails ... the practical. A run before the rain. A shower. Dinner. Read. Then sleep, perhaps to dream.
***
Chapter 7 ~ Love-Throb in the Heart
And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.Catherine fell asleep reading the words of Coleridge, her thoughts only of Vincent, wherever he was. Surely by now, he was making his return to the Tunnels.
_____
This morning, a morning with no alarm to remind her of duty, she lingered in her bed, watching the sun brighten and reflect window to window, the night's rain done. How would it be to wake to candlelit chambers instead, the colors faded to earth and sand and granite, to descend daily from the city, to hear its voice grow faint and muffled? To no longer wake alone? The choice was clear to her now.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ...
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light ...
The light of morning filled her room. Her heart was Light.
_____
In the late afternoon when they were halfway to the Village, Catherine discovered a small shop of treasures on a shadowed side street. The bay window display held folds of embroidered linens, a drift of leather-bound books, box after box of ornate, old-fashioned keys. Through the tall panes she could see shelves lining the, laden with amber and pink, cobalt and green glassware and precarious towers of vintage china. Architectural relics and curious furniture crowded the floor and a counter boasted vintage jewelry.
“I have to go in here, Jen.”
Jenny peered through the glass. “I can see that you do. You’ve developed the strangest tastes.”After another peek, she turned to Catherine whose hands were shading her eyes, whose nose was pressed to the window. “Do you mind? I think I’ll dart into that shoe store on the corner. Come get me when you're done, or I’ll come back for you.”
“Deal,” said Catherine, already pushing her way in to the store.
Inside, the lamps were soft – like candlelight – and a subtle, singing melody infused the air. What she’d thought were keys were instead intricate silver crosses, their bell-like ringing-together mesmerizing as she sorted through them. She didn’t notice the shopkeeper's approach, was taken unawares when she spoke ...
“For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish ...”
Catherine whirled, surprised.
“Yeats,” the woman said, then laughed with delight. “Ms. Chandler? Catherine?”
“Eimear?” She stuttered. “I ... I can’t believe it’s you! Is this your shop?”
“No, my sister’s. I help her out some weekends. But what are you doing here?” Her words were softly accented, a melding of the City and some far-away place, lilting with an underscore of music.
“Out for a day with my friend who likes shoes better than old books.” Catherine laughed. “We were just about to call it a day.”
“I’m glad to see you ... Catherine. I want to thank you for how kind you were with Flynn … and with me."
"I hope life is back to normal for him. For both of you."
"He’s still having a bit of a bad time, he is. His nights are fitful. And his days ...” Her voice drifted into sadness.
“Oh, no. I don’t like hearing that. Is it trouble with the administration? Is the press still hounding him?”
“The press now, they’ve dropped back some. His bosses ... they act as if he should just get on with it and his teammates seem a bit apprehensive around him, but mostly Flynn has his own troubles. He sees something newly dark in himself."
“I know it's ... difficult ... now, but he has you and I’m thinking you're his rock.”
Eimear regarded Catherine with a long look. "And I'm thinking you know something about fitful nights and dark places. Is it someone you love?"
Catherine lowered her gaze, closing her eyes for a moment, then lifted her hands in supplication. "I'm not sure I can truly reach him."
"You can only step closer to him, so that the chasm is not so fearful and he doesn’t stand alone."
"Yes." Taken aback by a sudden gladdening – a weave of surprise and relief and freedom – Catherine fell silent, but Jamie’s request … and her promise … jostled free. “Could I call you some time soon? I’d like to keep in touch. After all this has settled, I have a favor to ask of Flynn."
“A favor?”
"A recommendation ... for a teacher."
"What kind of lessons do you need?"
"It seems too raw to ask now, but I need ... a precision shooting teacher."
"For you?" Eimear tilted her head, her expression considering, searching. "Or for the one you worry for?"
“No, for a friend. A special friend with a special reason.”
"Who worries as well?"
"Yes."
Eimear held her gaze, then nodded. “Sure, Catherine. Flynn would do that for you. You can come 'round and ask him. He works with the best. He is the best, though right now, he’d like to forget he knows anything about it. He seems built of stone, but he’s really a soft hand under a duck.”
“What? A soft hand ...?”
“Meaning he’s a rare, gentle thing, regardless of his strapping exterior.”
Catherine bit her lip against a cry of recognition.
“Now,” Eimear said with a toss of her hair, “let’s find you some treasure to mark this day and besides, my sister will have my head if I don’t make my wages! Look around while I go in back. I think we have something newly in you might like.”
She wandered the shop, entranced by so many things that reminded her of Vincent: an oversized, tucked and tasseled footstool, a small globe on a stand, the countries cut from colors of jeweled glass, a tall pewter chalice. Eimear returned with a heavy thing in her hands and set it carefully on a table. She stepped back, beckoning Catherine close with a smile.
“This is from a very special artist. She does only a few pieces a year. In her regular life, she's a nurse, a hospice nurse in Maine, and a good friend to Rosie. My sister."
Catherine was hesitant to reach for it, instead tracing the figures with her fingertips. “What is this, a geode? And the sculpture, it's bronze? They seem to merge with eternity. Look at them, so close to having ... everything.”
“Yes,” Eimear replied. "This is her homage to Rodin, a variation on The Eternal Idol fixed within an amethyst geode. ‘The inter-mixture of disparate substances, yielding a single essentiality,’ or so ‘tis said in the write-ups.”
Catherine gulped, a most unladylike sound. “I'm speechless. It's ... astonishing!”
“I know,” Eimer sighed. “Compelling, isn't it? Hard to take your eyes off it or to turn your mind from the possibilities.”
A man knelt before his lover, his kiss at her breast, his hands, once clasped behind his back, now loosed and reaching for her. Even cast in bronze, her arch was to him, fluid, yielding all. At once, they rose from and melted into a bed of timeless, glittering facets.
“I’d better have a box for it.”
______________
Jenny was just leaving the shoe store when Catherine rounded the corner.
“What did you find in there, your heart’s desire?” Jenny had added another shopping bag to her collection.
“Something like that,” Catherine replied and they hailed a taxi home.
"So, Cathy. What did you find?" Jenny's tone was teasing. Wasn't it? "Are you ever going to show me?"
From the bag at her feet, she pulled a sturdy, square box, nestling it on the seat between them, and lifted the lid.
"My God, is that a Snowden? It can't be. It would cost a fortune! And you would never find one in a little shop. Hers go straight to galleries."
"No, that's not her name, The artist is a nurse, in Maine, umm ... Klein."
Jenny turned the sculpture in her hands. "This is so sensual. I can't believe you found this!" She watched Catherine's face a few moments and wrinkled her brow. "Is this for you? Or is this a present? And if it's a present, who's it for? Cathy! Are you going to answer me or not?"
"You’re incorrigible!" Catherine said, laughing, making a rustling show of repacking the sculpture, the wings of her wish fluttering against her promise. I want to, Jen. I want to tell you everything ...
________________
Chapter 8 ~ What a Moon Means
Home.So much to do in preparation of going below. She dumped an armload of mail on the table, the usual flyers and announcements of charitable events. There was a large envelope from her Father’s law partner – her settlement package she was sure. It could wait.
She lifted her gift from its cushioned wrappings. A heat rose from it, a heat that was at once reflected and absorbed by the glimmering stone beneath the intimate figures. It was the dreamscape of her heart. When she went into her bedroom to pack, she carried the sculpture with her and, from its vantage point on her nightstand, it seemed to both calm and electrify her feelings.
I can only carry one bag.What to take ...
The softest, the warmest without weighty bulk ... delicate ... pretty. She began an appraisal of one item after another. A few outfits were easy and she could borrow below, but she needed one special thing. She flung hangers back and back against each other. No, no, too tight, too ... complicated. Seen it, seen it, seen it. She attacked her dresser and finally her sheer and lovely nightclothes were scattered all about. The floor was a ripple of peach and blue and rose and nothing would do.
One last drawer at the bottom of her armoire called to her. She dragged it open, finding fault with each filmy thing – until her hand touched a tissue-wrapped parcel in the very back.
She remembered the day she purchased it ... early on, just after meeting Elliot. She’d passed a trousseau shop and compelled to enter, had gravitated to the lingerie.
“When's the big day?” the sales clerk asked her.
“Just looking.” She responded curtly, a curl of pain cutting off her words, for at that very moment, she felt more than heard an outcry of objection … of grief … an overshadowing of the amative thoughts she entertained for Elliott ... as if Vincent protested and she had heard.
She felt disoriented, disconcerted, but continued through the racks, trailing her fingers along the padded hangers until she stopped at this one. Until she tried this one on. Until she carried this one home in its silvery paper and placed it at the bottom of her armoire, at the back of the drawer, where it lay to this day.
Yes ...
A Jane Woolrich vision that cost too much but would not be denied. A long cream-colored silk with handmade French lace panels, the thinnest of straps, the back cut daringly low and edged of a diaphanous lace, crisscrossed with thin cording all the way past the hips ... the bodice tied with the same cording, panels of delicate lace held barely together at the bosom, ribbon by ribbon, down to a flare of skirt.
Drawn from the tissue, held high, it fluttered in the breeze from the balcony and she remembered something Maya Angelou once said. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.”
She cast a look at her clothes strewn all about and scooped them into her closet, closing the door on the disarray. Later. Time was passing and she grew restless to be gone.
Almost ready. Her single bag packed with what seemed essential; her gift lovingly re-wrapped, but lacking accompaniment. She needed a letter or a poem, the right words written out in case her own failed her. She stood, hands pressed to her face, studying one shelf of books and then another, calling on Calliope or Erato to help her and help her now. Then it came to her. Not classic perhaps and from a less romantic era, but with a strange power. She found her college poetry anthology and there it was. Copying it onto a heavy ecru card, she tucked the poem into the wrappings of her gift.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)forevermore, Catherine
[1] Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Presence of Love.
[1] William Butler Yeats. Running to Paradise.
[1] M. L. Snowden. American Sculptor
[1] e. e. cummings. i carry your heart 95 Poems. 1958.Next: Part 3