Page 63 of Just for Me
It took an hour to walk to the basilica, and then there were the three hundred steps up a winding spiral staircase to the dome. Luke went first, but turned back and checked on Hayden so many times that Hayden got a bit narky about it.
“If you ask me how I’m going one more time,” he said, trying and failing not to make the words come out in gasps, “I’m going to tell you to go up there alone.”
Luke smiled. “Right, then. I won’t ask. But if it’s too much …”
“Yeh,” Hayden said, thinking,What is this? Thirty floors? There isn’t enough aerobic conditioning in the world.“What will you do? Carry me?”
“I could,” Luke said, and he was grinning now.
Hayden forced his feet on. “I know you could. Stop telling me so. I’m feeling desperately unfit.”
“Nah,” Luke said. “I can’t write a contract, so there’s that.”
“Ha,” Hayden said, and wondered a little wildly,Has anybody ever had a heart attack trying this? They must’ve done. Especially if they’re trying to keep up with an international rugby forward.
When they got to the top, though, it was worth it. Only a few people up here, braving the admission fees and the climb. The breeze blowing through the open arches, ruffling Hayden’s hair. The swallows swooping over the roofs with their narrow, pointed wings and long, pointed tails, exactly the way Nyree had painted them.
Hayden said idly, “There’s a rain cloud out there. We could get wet, walking home.” That was a surprise, as clear as the day had been, only a few faint wisps of cloud showing even now in the evening sky.
“That’s not a cloud,” Luke said. “That’s a murmuration.”
“Is it locusts?” Hayden asked, trying to make out what he was seeing. “Or what?”
“It’s swallows,” Luke said. “Symbol of love and marriage, here in France. The Chinese say they’re born of the tears of the gods. I should’ve told Nyree that. She’d have liked it.”
A dark wave against the deep-blue sky, changing shape as if it were made of liquid, flowing like sand through an hourglass. An oval, then a funnel, growing larger and larger, and Hayden couldn’t breathe.
“How many are there?” he asked quietly.
“There can be a hundred thousand or more,” Luke said. “We got lucky.”
“How do they know what to do?” Hayden asked. “How do they choreograph that?” It was a ballet, if a ballet were made up of tens of thousands of pieces flowing like a single entity. Like a hundred thousand birds in one body.
“Dunno,” Luke said. “Reckon they fly with their neighbor. Sometimes, teamwork’s better.”
Hayden hummed, and they watched in silence as the birds formed and re-formed, as they flew upward in a column, then rushed down again and spread into a thin oval. Finally, Luke said, “You’re going home tomorrow.”
Hayden’s hands tightened on the stone balustrade. “Yeh.” He tried to think of something funny to say, and couldn’t. It was another black wave, of desolation this time.
“I’m turning thirty-four,” Luke said.
“I know,” Hayden said. “Wish I could be here for your birthday.”
“There’s a time,” Luke said, his eyes still on the swallows, “when you have to hang up the boots and find something else to do. I’ve hung on a year too long, maybe. Thinking this was all I have, that it’s all I am.” He turned, finally, and looked at Hayden, and there was so much in his eyes. Sorrow, and weariness, and something else.
Caution. And, maybe … hope.
Hayden couldn’t slow his heart. He couldn’t catch his breath. “It’s not all you are,” he said. “You’re a beautiful soul.” He tried to laugh, but couldn’t. “Sounds odd, but you are. I don’t think you know half of what you are. Half of what you can be.”
“Maybe I don’t,” Luke said. “But I’d like to find out.”
“So …”Harden up,Hayden tried to tell himself, and couldn’t. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Luke said, “about what’s next. I want to take some time, then decide. Isaiah wasn’t right about the two million dollars a year, but he wasn’t too far off. I’m thinking, maybe … build some luxury houses. Something like that. Something I can do with my hands, as my hands are the part of me that works the best. Them and my back, anyway. I know what looks good, too. What makes people happy, I think.”
“Oh?” Hayden wanted to hear the rest, and he didn’t.
“And the other thing I know is …” Luke had that flush mounting on his cheeks, his ears, and Hayden realized he was nervous. A wave of tenderness flooded him, and he thought,He’s like me. He’s so much like me.
