they were lying low at the cabin that first summer. Of course, she's not the same. She's older now. More tired. But she's every bit as beautiful to him now as she ever was. Just the sight of her can still excite him. And she's a fuller person now, a person with a history written on her skin.
She looks up from her book and smiles at him, and there's something rich, sincere, and sympathetic in that smile, or maybe it's just the white light that's swarming her. Whatever it is, it takes him back to that summer, that month they spent in that cabin by the lake. Back then, she had very little history written on her skin. Sure, she was an open book, but, to him, she was an open book full of blank pages.
He remembers how quickly they left for the cabin that day, the same day John had met Bob at the diner. He called Maddie to tell her the plan. She said that even if it wasn't necessary to skip town in order to avoid gossip—though she felt no particular reason to hide their engagement from anyone, including the Hawthornes—a month away at a cabin wouldn't be a terrible idea under any circumstances. John's dad gave him no blowback about clearing his work schedule. After all, his dad was still concerned at how spurning the Hawthorne's could affect his own business.
And they were on the road by that afternoon.
But, as they were drove from town that day, something had different between them.
It's one thing to fall in love with someone in the dark, to imagine that you'll shine a little light on that person day-by-day to see if that love remains. It's quite another thing to spend a month, day and night, with someone you hardly know. They both knew there was real love between them. They both felt it. But it was also still a mysterious thing.
And as they drove up to the cabin there was a fear that those mysteries would reveal things they might not love about each other. Then what would they do?
They were, after all, still in the infant stages of falling in love, and there is something so potent and special about those first months. During this stage, one has the sense of wanting to prolong the days, hold them close and stretch them out, keep that feeling of wonderful discovery alive for as long as possible.
But they were about to dive right into each other. They were about to face an entire month alone together, and, in addition to that, it was a month alone in a one-room lakeside cabin. It would be as potentially romantic as it would be revealing. They were going to see everything about each other—the good things and the faults. There was a sense, a growing fear about how their hasty beginning might handle such fast truths.
But they embraced it.
He had let Maddie know that there was only one room in the cabin, and that he had told her dad that he would sleep on the couch. But, and he remembers this with the same clarity he remembers seeing her that first night in the moonlight, she grabbed his hand, looked him in the eyes, and said, 'No. We'll be married now. Today and into the future we'll be husband and wife.' And an understanding was exchanged between them in that moment. He remembers being so lost in her, so lost in the moment, that he had stopped the car in the middle of some rural road and kissed her. It was a long, passionate kiss that symbolized their new union. And, from that moment on, all their fears and concerns about the trip evaporated. They were just simply together. It was a seamless transition. There was no longer any fear about what they might learn about each other. Everything they were going to learn was something they would learn to love and accept.
And they did spend that month as a married couple. They shopped at the general store as newlyweds. They conversed with the few people they encountered that month as husband and wife. They did everything together. They even shared a bed.
And sharing the bed that first night was a tense experience. Neither of them had ever been with anyone, and there was the customary nervousness that comes with anyone's first time. And they decided that they should take their time getting to know each other sexually, and let things develop naturally. Of course, he was ready and willing that first night, and he could tell from the rhythms of their bodies that she was too. Their kisses were deeply passionate, and their comfort with each other's bodies was apparent immediately. And he rationalized his eventual inaction by telling himself that she was scared, but he wasn't without his own fears.
By the next night, though, all the worry was gone.
They both knew as they prepared for bed that second night that it would be the first night they'd make love. It wasn't something they spoke about that day, but it was in the air. And, for the most part, it wasn't something they had to prepared themselves for. As he climbed into bed next to her on that hot July night, he immediately noticed that Maddie had placed a towel under her body to catch any blood from her virginity, and he knew immediately how important it was to be as slow and tender as possible—for both their sakes.
He can still remember her beautiful body, exposed and softly breathing under a blanket of blue moonlight. There were two windows in the room. They were both open, but there was no hint of a breeze that night. The only sound was from the crickets that were singing all around them.
Her body was glowing ever so slightly from the steam of the evening, and as he moved his hand across her flat belly to her hip, she shivered ever so slightly.
"Are you alright?" he asked her.
"I am."
"You're sure you're ready?"
"I'm sure," she said. She placed a hand on his chest, her other hand fell lightly onto his cheek.
He sank onto her and tenderly kissed her face and mouth. "You're so beautiful," he whispered.
"And you," she whispered back.
He can still remember all that heat from her body as he moved his hands from her hips to her breasts, from her knees to her thighs. He can still hear her breath, still feel the ghost of it on his face and neck. He could hear his own pulse softly singing in his brain as he hovered over her body.
She took him delicately into her hand and started to guide him into her.
"Are you scared?" he asked.
She didn't look scared.
He was.
"Not at all. I'm happy," she said, and with that she moved him into place. "Just take it slow, okay."
"Okay," he said, and he slowly, tenderly began to ease himself inside her until their natural rhythms came into sync, and they moved in the moonlight with the chorus of the crickets humming in their ears.
He'd like to say that he was a great lover that night, that he lasted a long time, that he brought her to a fit of ecstasy. But none of those things would be true.
But, still, it was no less magical for any of the experience's deficiencies. Maybe they benefited from their complete lack of experience, or maybe the emotional surplus made up for the experience deficit. Either way, he'd never experienced anything particularly mystical or magical in his life, something that took him beyond reality and planted him somewhere so deep outside himself, to a place he'd never been before. But feeling her move beneath him, watching her hips sway in such a way to accommodate him, it was such a heartbreakingly gorgeous event that he could hardly have been expected to contain himself. It was as if his body just broke open for her. And, as his startled eyes caught her startled eyes, he saw into her love with such stark clarity that he felt something so true wash over him. He lost all fear of lacking love in that moment. He knew that he could lose everything else in the world, and that she would still be there, somewhere, loving him. He only hoped his gaze passed along the same message to her before he fell on her body, breathless.
They said nothing. He rolled over, cozied up close to her. She put her head on his chest. He placed a hand on her naked hip, breathed the sweet air of her hair, and they drifted into a sleep of utter completeness.
And the rest of the trip was as emotionally intense and poignant as that night. They took long hikes during the day, and often made love in the middle of the woods, or on a boat floating down the lake, or by the lake in the ever-dimming twilight. They lived those weeks like they were running downhill, and as if their lives back home were distant t
hings. This was why this was such a wonderful time for them. Not only were they discovering each other in such new, profound ways, but they were doing it untethered from responsibility and expectations. They had a clean month with nothing but their love to live in.
"John," she says, shaking him from a different time.
He doesn't answer. He's startled, and looks as though he were slowly sleepwalking back from the past. As he looks around their living room, he looks truly stunned by his new surroundings. He looks at his hands. They're old man's hands. And, suddenly, he's very tired.
"John," she says again, but louder now.
He looks up. Maddie is leaning out from the kitchen, looking at him, a concerned look on her face.
"You alright?" she asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he says, clearing his head, regaining his focus. "Sorry. I was off somewhere."
"Any ideas for lunch?"
"The usual for me, if you don't mind," he says.
When he goes to turn off the computer, he stops, rethinks it, opens his music software, scrolls through his songs, chooses a Glenn Miller album, and sends the music wirelessly through his network to the house speakers.
He gets up from the desk chair as "Moonlight Serenade" plays. He moves to the kitchen.
"Anything I can do?" he asks.
"No, I'm fine," she says. "This is nice."
"What?"
"The music. It's