Electra's dictionary (Bran and Beth stories; Chapter 27)

The times he goes to call his family, I go downstairs to the courtyard and write in my journal. Or go for long walks. Which is what I need. It lets me reestablish the distance I still need.

“What are you writing about in your journal all the time?” Bran asks me when I come back after one of these times. He watches me close it.

“Thoughts,” I say.

“Legendary? ....to be later transferred into your blog....?”

***

I have been using Bran's laptop to read messages from my life back in Detroit. Messages from Dean, which have been impersonal and short; dealing mostly with money concerns. It has been a blessing and a curse to not have my phone. I miss my daughter. It has been strange not being able to communicate with her frequently. I feel conflicted and strange; to miss her but to not want to leave Paris. When I mention Jamie, Bran insists I use his phone to call her. Only I wish she could be here with us. I wish she could know Bran and be a part of ….this secret life we share. This life we have when we are together. And I find that I wish.... we could stay in Paris and never leave.

“Tell me something about your mother,” I ask in the morning as we are waking up.

He says,

“hmmm,” and rubs his eyes in a drowsy state, “she liked to write, like you. You remind me of her. ”

“Do I?”

“Yes. There is something about you in your manner that she had, just a sense about you. I noticed it the first time we met at the exhibition. Remember that day?” he asks. And I think of the first time I saw him; how he was the tallest person in the room, the immediate attraction and how he made me laugh. He says, “you were wearing that striped scarf....” I feel him kiss the top of my head.

“Tell me something else about her.”

“Well.... she made the best apple pie,” he says thoughtfully. And then he says, “she used to have this funny habit of calling me--” and he says something in his language. Then he says, “which means, 'my little man'. But she called me that all my life, even after I was grown.”

“How cute!” I laugh trying to think of him little. Then feel an unfounded pang of regret that I never got to see that. I would have liked to have known him then. And wonder what it would have been like to have grown up knowing him and how different everything would have been. After awhile I say, “you don't like to talk about your past.”

“No, it's not that. It's just so long ago. Don't you also feel that now as you get older? It is close yet far away,” his voice is still husky from sleep. I am going to miss waking up with him.... I turn my head into his side and press my face into his bare skin and wish I could stop time from moving from this moment.

“What was your father like?” I ask muffled by his body.

He is thoughtful before he says,

“like me, I would say. And he was also tall. I don't know if I look more like my father or my mother. He was a scholar, he liked to read about history. He was more forthright than I am though. He could put you in your place and slice you to ribbons with his words without ever raising his voice. But he was also funny. He liked practical jokes.”

“What about your siblings? Tell me about them.”

I feel the vibration of his laugh,

“why so many questions this morning?”

“Because there is so much about you that I don't know.... and so much about your life that I will never know.... I know....”

He makes a sound that is frustrated and indulgent at the same time. And after consideration, he sighs,

“as kids, my brother and I would ride our bikes through the neighborhood and egg people's houses. We would get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday while everyone was asleep.”

“The crack of dawn? That's pretty ambitious. ”

“We were a deadly team. I followed his lead into trouble every time. Only, I think my sister was worse, especially if she had her friends around. They were always so wild. But I really missed her when she left home. We were a close family.”

There is something in his voice. It has a warm timbre that moves. I can feel that longing sadness. It is contagious. But I love listening to him speak; it is like listening to bedtime stories; it is lyrical and lulls the mind into believing you are safe. And right now.... it seems so impossible that I am going to be four thousand miles away from here in just a few days and will not get to hear him ….or feel him... this close. I close my eyes as I listen to him and try to ignore the ache that has begun to surface. I had no illusions when I came here to Paris. I tried not to think about what would happen. It was a blind faith leap into a new set of emotional variables that I am not sure I was fully prepared for.

I move up to look into his eyes and without planning to, it falls from my lips.

I say,

“I am going to miss you,” my throat tightens painfully and I go hoarse. My eyes sting and begin to pool. I feel a tear escape and spill. It rolls down my face without permission. I hold myself together and watch his face to try to read him as I try to master control over my emotions. He stares intently into me, wiping the tear with his thumb. And then kisses me. Long and deep. Desperate and consuming. When he stops and looks back at me, I see that his eyes are red and that his lashes have clumped together. I notice a wet trail. And fall into the whirlpool of the shifting planks of mud and moss.

They gauge his moods, the moss unearthed. They are kaleidoscopes, engined by whatever element induces mood rings to change color. They camouflage and change and reflect light. Mud and meadow. And as I look into them and fall, I think of what Jean Paul said. That Bran is in love with me and that I doubt it.... and think of how we have never said it. Only I know why we don't. Why we can't. And why we shouldn’t.

Bran says,

“it won't be forever, you know that. We're working together now, so we'll have to see each other. I'll get us more clients.... I have to be in the US next month for business. I can stop in Detroit or you can meet me.”

But that isn't what I meant.... It is this flat.... which has become home with him. Even as I know and knew that our time here was only ever ephemeral.

Before I know what I mean to say, I blurt out,

“but I'm sure you can't wait to go home. You must miss your family.”

“Beth, don't,” and the hurt in his voice punishes me.

It is the fact that our time is coming to an end. I need to remind myself of the reality of our situation.

I say,

“can I ask you something?”

He says,

“what do you want to ask me?”

“Why did you wait so long to start a family?”

By now he has told me many things about his children. They are twins; Crystal and Dylan. They are five. I know things about them that he has told me. Things like, Dylan likes football and archery, even though he isn't old enough to have a bow and arrow, he likes to play a video game that simulates this. Crystal has an inclination to piano because she spends hours playing with the keys and her favorite color is magenta. And I also know, though he doesn't say, that Crystal is a daddy's girl and sense she holds a very soft spot in his heart.

“You mean because I am old enough to be their grandfather?”he laughs.

“Well, only if you started very early! --but, no, really, Bran, why did you?”

He is staring up at the ceiling and thinking about what to say. He strokes my hair before he begins,

“because it didn't happen until then. I guess I was looking for something.... and it just never appeared,” he says this simply. He shrugs, “and then it happened unexpectedly. We had only been seeing each other a short while when Clair got pregnant and I figured it was about time.”

There is so much that begs the question. Or questions. But some things are best to remain ignorant of. I keep my thoughts to myself and decide to respect his past without prodding in that place.

But then he says,

“there was someone. Before Clair.”

Because this is what I didn't want to know. Where I didn't want to delve. I feel myself holding my breath.

“It was an unhealthy relationship and lasted longer than it should have.... it took me a long time to get over her.”

“And did you ever get over her?” I ask.

He breaths in very deep and slowly lets it out. He says,

“yes. But only recently. I saw her, by chance somewhere....”

“Somewhere?”

“At a local food store one day,” I feel his body go tense, “we said hello. It was weird.”

“Weird?”

“Because I saw what she had become --or maybe what she always was ….and maybe it is because I could be objective that I could finally see.... her. Finally after all these years. She told me she was divorced and....” he shrugs and makes a sound of disgust, “I'm glad I finally saw her for who she is and thank God I never married her.”

“What was it that you saw?” I ask.

“Her ego. And her greedy nature.”

I can tell how he says this that whatever image he has conjured from his memories is flooded with repulsion and bitterness.

“When was it that you saw her?”I ask.

“About five or six months before I met you.”

I think about this and after awhile I say,

“'close yet far away',” repeating what he said about looking back. And it hangs there between us for awhile, “yes, Bran.... I do know what you mean, as I get older. I do see that. Even as it feels, sometimes, like you can touch a memory, as if it is that close and tactile ….but then suddenly, like an old yellowed photograph-- it feels like ancient history ….and then you wonder how you got to be this old....” And then I say, “do you think that is what it will be like one day between us? How it was when you saw her?”

I don't know why I say this. Some wicked part of me. It is the self-sabotaging impulse that always takes over for me.

“Beth....” he pulls me to him roughly and then I can't breath because his arms are so tight around me. I can feel my bones being crushed. Only I don't want to be released.

But I knew this week would end, I knew this.

And then my emotions change on me and suddenly I feel like I need to escape from him because it feels like I am suffocating. These emotions. It is too much. I start to push him away but, again, he says, “Beth,” and comforts me in his arms like I am a child. He strokes my hair and skin as he rocks me and it makes me cry. He speaks to me in his language saying things I don't understand. The strange words that sound so beautiful. He says,

“don't cry, Beth. Let's drive somewhere. I don't want us to waste this day and regret it later. Let's go to Rouen and spend the night there.”