* * *
How Miles found out that my birthday was March 31st, I'll never know. Probably that damned Charlotte again. But know about it he did, and he said there was someplace he wanted to take me. We had spoken only a few times since the party, but something he said stayed with me.
The conversation was actually about physics, but it inadvertently made sense to me. Time, he said, is always trying to force an observer to change perspective. And if you resist that, I concluded on my own, you'll be unhappy. If you look backwards, you'll become stuck, preserved, like the pillar of salt that Lot's wife turned into.
In another conversation, Miles described his parents, camped out in their unhappy little house near Cork, how miserable they had been when one of his sisters decided to move to London. "My coming to America was nothing compared with that. I guess they were more sure I'd come home one day."
"So will you?"
"Yes. I'll go home some day. Where I come from, it's the kind of place you absorb into the soul and exhale with each breath and step you take. And I don't just mean the green fields and mists you see on the picture calendars, and the romance and the horses and all. It's the same way in the dirtiest alley in Dublin. When I've exhaled it all out of my system, I suppose I'll have to go back, breathe it in again.
"But first," he continued, "is your birthday. Freddie Wu has promised me use of his car that day, and I want to take you somewhere to change your perspective. You shouldn't look at everything as if it's going to strike you right through that scar," he said, as casually as if he were talking about the weather. "Can you get the afternoon off?"
I promised that I would.
It turned out that Miles wanted to take me to a park abutting Guntersville Lake, some thirty minutes south of Huntsville. It was sunny that day, but cold. The park overlooked the marina, where a man and a woman were busy painting their boat. The boat's trim was bright blue and bright red, and the sun, still low in the early spring sky, sparked
a billion diamonds on the little waves of the lake. I was so busy taking in this scene, wishing I had my camera, that I didn't realize that Miles had trailed off on his own. He was standing in the middle of a grassy patch, his legs shoulder width apart, and he was staring at the ground.
"Come on," he said, waving me over.
"What?" I said, expecting an early grass snake, a cocoon, or something.
When I got there, he stood behind me, placing both hands on my shoulders, and spoke softly, his mouth nearly touching my ear. "I'm going to get you a proper present when
I cash my March paycheck Monday morning. But there's something I want to give you now. Look at the ground between my feet. Don't bring any of your past with you this time, Isabel, just look, as if you've never seen it before. Don't take any of it for granted."
I knelt down, squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them wide onto the little patch of green. One by one, the four-leaf clovers made themselves known to me, as if Miles had willed them into existence, just for me. I picked one, and another, and another, until I lost count. As the four-leaf clovers multiplied, so did the tears, until they rained onto the
ground freely. When I stood up with my bounty, Miles was nowhere in sight, and the couple painting their boat had left, too. I thought that maybe it was all a dream.
"Miles!" I called. "Miles! Where are you?" Dammit, please don't let this be a dream, I
thought. I so want this to be real. "Miles! Are you here?"
Over the brow of the hill leading to the parking lot, I saw him approaching, swinging a sack of Sweet Sixteen donuts in one hand and two bottles of soda in the other. The radiance of his smile let me know that he knew exactly what I was feeling. I felt as if I were floating, yet I knew then that I was standing smack in the midst of reality.
"Miles!" I cried, "I can see it now. I really can see it!"
He came to me, his dark features emerging, then playing against the bright sunshine. I could feel a tear run down my face, and then tasted it in my mouth, but tears of happiness don't taste bitter.
"I will never forget this, Miles," I said.
He placed our humble repast on the ground, then carefully touched the top of my scar with the velvety tip of his finger. And then he kissed me once, very softly, then once again longer, full on the mouth.
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