Page 23 of The Phoenix Bride
“I know.”
“It’s only…sometimes I feel as if I am being cruel to him, for being as I am. I know he would want me to be happy, but I can’t be. I loved him so much. I don’t know why this happened to me. Why was I the one burdened with survival? Why was he the one who went away?”
His hand raises slightly, then falls. “I…” he says, and his breath stutters. “I wish I could give you an answer. I can’t. But you are not being cruel to anyone by being unwell. The onlyperson you owe your happiness to is yourself, Cecilia. Remember that.”
I bow my head, blinking back tears. Clearing my throat, I say, “No matter,” and drag a finger across the spinet. “Shall I play another song?”
“If you wish.”
I play a toccata. The piece is monstrously difficult—I have struggled over it for years—but it is still a fair rendition.
“I can’t perfect that song,” I admit to him once I have finished it. “Something is missing. I don’t know what.”
“It sounded perfect to my ear,” Mendes says.
“Then your ear is terrible.”
He chuckles. “How does it work?”
“How does what work?”
“The spinet,” he says. “How does it produce sound?”
“You don’t know?” I ask, astonished. “Aren’t you a man of learning?”
He flushes. “I’ve never had occasion to read upon the workings of instruments. If it were a tree, or a shrub, I might be more knowledgeable.”
“It isn’t a shrub, certainly. Come here.”
I shift to make room for him beside me. He approaches and stares down at the keys.
“When you press down, it moves one of several levers inside,” I tell him. “And the lever plucks a string.”
“As a lutenist does?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
He hovers a finger over a key, giving me an inquisitive look. I nod, and he presses down. The spinet sounds a note as Mendes smiles, pleased; my own hands are still on the keys, and the vibration of it seems to travel up my fingers and through my arms,to the center of my chest. I play the same note, an octave lower. His smile widens.
He plays another, and I echo again.
“Iought to be mimickingyou,” he says. “As you are the musician.”
“You are also a musician now,” I reply. Still, I say, “Try this,” and play him the simplest section of the toccata: a straightforward melody, albeit deceptively ornate to the ear. He looks so horrified in response I almost laugh at him.
“I can’t do that.”
“You can.” Without thinking, I stretch sideways to lay my hand upon his, right over left, the tips of my fingers pressed against his knuckles. He freezes. I realize too late that I have been impulsive—overfamiliar—but I see no recourse except to forge ahead and tolerate the embarrassment.
As gently as I can, I use my fingers to press his against the keys, playing the same melody again by proxy. “There,” I say, pleased, looking sideways at him.
Our positions have brought us quite close together. I find myself cataloguing details I haven’t noticed before: he has another tiny pox scar where his right ear meets his hairline, barely visible beneath a dark curl. His ears are small and round; he smells of garden herbs—rosemary and thyme—their perfume overlaying that intangible sort of heat men sometimes have, a scent that makes me lean slightly closer and my breath catch. He is still looking down at our hands upon the spinet, smiling slightly. Then his eyes meet my own, and suddenly all is very silent.
We are both frozen. The room is a book we have been pressed within, preserved like flowers. The only thing of substance is his touch, an unbearable warmth where his skin presses against my own.
I open my mouth to speak, but I make no sound. Instead, I play the notes again with his fingers, uncertain what else to do. The sound is soft, more a sigh than a song. Beneath my palm, his hand flexes with the movements; I feel the shift of each tendon and bone.
We are still looking at each other. I can’t find the will to pull away.
