Lee sits down right in the narrow hallway. I join him, my back against the opposite wall, our feet side by side. Sunlight drifts in from the back door, lighting the floorboards near my foot.
“Do you see now why I’ve been trying to ease you into it?” I ask.
“How is that possible?”
“How is any of this?”
He blows out a breath. “What have you seen?”
“A lot,” I admit. “Ancient Greece. Migrations across untamed lands. Vikings who sailed the high seas. I’ve seen the Black Death. Colonial America. The beginning of this century.”
He inhales a shuddering breath. “And the future. Do you see farther than this life?”
A beat passes. “Yes.”
“Oh my God.” Lee braces his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor between his feet. I give him time, my heart racing. Finally, he says, “I think I need a minute.”
“I’ll go,” I say, making to stand.
Lee grabs my ankle before I can, his eyes meeting mine. “Stay. Please. I just… I need a minute.”
I nod, settling back down, Lee’s hand around my ankle holding tight. He leans against the wall behind him, his eyes shutting as his head rests back on the wainscoting.
I wonder if he can feel my pulse beneath his thumb. If he knows the beat of it as I know his. If, somewhere deep down,he recognizes my heart. If he feels the pull of it as I’ve felt him all these many years.
It’s torture not to close the gap between us, tenuous as it is. Not to demand he open his eyes andseeme. Not to tell him everything, every detail big and small, so he can understand. So he can believe it.
But I can’t tell him all of it. Not yet. There are some things a person needs to feel in their own time. In their own way.
So I sit. And I wait. As I’ve been doing now for weeks.
Lee opens his eyes after what feels like a lifetime. “Someday, you’re going to tell me everything.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“But today isn’t that day, is it?”
I shake my head slowly.
With an exhale, Lee pushes to his feet and holds out his hand. I clasp his palm, and he tugs me upright. His eyes hold mine for a long moment, seeking, searching. Perhaps he can’t see the past or the future as I can. But he can see now. He can see how I feel, surely.
Sometimes I wonder if I can see the same.
Lee heads past me out the door. I follow, making sure Shelly doesn’t escape after us.
He picks up his fallen rake, glancing my way as I right the wheelbarrow. “You really don’t have to help with this, Caspian.”
It’s not the first time he’s said it, but I didn’t listen then, either.
“If I’m living here, doing yardwork and chores isn’t really helping,” I point out. “It’s my responsibility, too.”
He pauses in raking up the last of the leaves. “Are you living here now?”
“You set up the office for me to use.”
He leans his arm on his rake.
“We sleep a foot apart,” I add.
