Page 117 of Ezekiel
“Like the happiest woman this world has ever known,” she answered quickly, without hesitation. I may not have been able to see her face, but I swore I could sense the smile that spread across it.
“You were perfection tonight,” I praised her.
“It was everything I could have hoped for and more.” Her honest answer and genuine praise filled me with pride.
“Anything you didn’t like?” I asked.
“That it ended,” she answered, and I couldn’t hold back a small snort of laughter.
“Needy little thing,” I teased her gently. She was coming out of her subspace beautifully, little by little, until her words were more confident and steady.
“That I am,” she giggled.
“Tomorrow will be a long day. I will try to find out more information about —”
“Please tell me you are not bringing up the plan at a time like this,” she playfully chastised me. She was right, that was bad form. But it popped into my head and out of my mouth before I could think twice.
“Well, how about this instead, then? If you could picture your life, two years, five years, ten years from now, away from this place, what would it look like?” I asked her. I was genuinely curious about her answer.
“Now, that is a good question. Let me think for a moment.”
I held her as she gathered her thoughts, content to lie here in this bath for as long as she wished.
“If I imagine my life five years down the road, away from Zion, I think I would want to have a job,” she answered after a long pause.
“A job? Interesting. What kind of job?”
“I think I’d like to work with kids. Kids in bad situations. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but if kids are in bad homes, I would want to help get them out,” she answered honestly.
“In the real world, that’s called a social worker. They help in that sort of way. There are also jobs at orphanages, non-for-profit organizations, and more. I think you’d be amazing at that, love.” Her answer floored me, but once she had spoken her truth, there was nothing I could see her doing more.
“I want to help make sure that what happened to me doesn’t happen to other kids. I want to help and be of use to the world in a positive way,” she continued. “Also, I think I want a house. Bigger than this one, though. Not in a huge city, but near one. I think it would be fun to be able to go to restaurants and try new things, but I’d want to come home to peace and quiet like we have here.”
I could picture her vision of our life in my head, playing out like a movie in my mind.
“Why a bigger house?” I asked. “Don’t you like this one?”
“I do, but it’s not big enough for children,” she answered. Children? Other than seeing Talia go all mother hen on my brothers a few nights before, I had never given much thought to having children. But once again, as soon as the words left her lips, the movie in my mind shifted, showing me a pregnant Talia, happy and glowing with a rounded belly. I could picture two or three children running around the yard while we sat on the back porch, drinking tea and laughing at their antics.
I had never thought much about being a father. It wasn’t like I had a good role model on which to base such fantasies. But I could imagine it with Talia.
“But the most important thing is, I picture a life with you, Zeke.” Emotion caught in her throat as she spoke those last words. It mirrored my own. My eyes filled up with unshed tears of joy that my greatest hope, the one I had pushed down deep and refused to let surface, was really and truly happening.
Whatever happened. Whatever came of this whole mess, when it came time to leave this place, Talia would be leaving with me.
Until then, I would let the movie in my mind play on.
