24
Gavin
The bed is justas warm and comfortable as I thought it’d be. The mattress is soft and worn-in and rolls toward the middle, so that even if we didn’t want to, Jamie and I would still end up touching.
Not that I mind. I don’t mind at all.
She’s asleep, her breathing soft and even and puffing out over my chest. Her head rests in the crook of my shoulder, her arm is thrown across me, and her legs are tangled over mine. She fell asleep almost right away, and even though she started out on the other side of the bed, she soon rolled to the middle and wrapped herself around me.
I brush my hand through her hair and smooth the strands. I wouldn’t be able to sleep even if my life depended on it. I want to savor this moment, live in it, luxuriate in it, never forget it. We’re in our bed, Jamie’s in my arms, and we just made love.
Fine, we didn’t actually touch, but it felt like we made love, so that’s what I’m going to call it.
The feeling I have right now, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt it before. I must’ve since I’m married to Jamie, but it feels new. Like a revelation. As if I’d been running my whole life, and I was exhausted, my body and soul tired, and now, I’ve finally reached home and I’m allowed to rest. My body is warm and content, and my heart, it’s as if my heart has found the place where it would be happy to reside for the rest of forever.
I brush my hand over Jamie’s hair, it’s smooth, soft, it looks as hot as fire, as if a touch could burn. It’s no wonder she was drawn to a profession with furnaces and fire. She has so much passion and love to give.
I wonder, over the eleven years we’ve been together, how much of that passion we’ve shared. If it’s remained hot and malleable. Or if over time, our love cooled, and became hard, brittle and as fragile as the glass windows Jamie once shattered. Is love as beautiful but as breakable as glass? Or is that only a human being?
When Jamie told me how she lost her dad, I wasn’t ignorant to the fact that her breaking windows was the same as life breaking her dad. I wanted to hold her. I don’t remember what it’s like to lose a parent, but I do feel that I’ve lost someone. There’s still a thread inside me that tells me there’s someone there, that I loved, that I don’t remember. That hollow feeling, I think, is a sliver of what she felt.
I imagine, since she only has her grandmother and the kids, that her mom is gone too.
It’s lucky we have each other.
I pull her closer, the softness of her bare legs slide over mine, and she buries her face into my chest, her lips running over my skin. I concentrate on the ceiling fan overhead, counting the slow rotations, and try to squelch the desire to wake Jamie and make love. Press my lips to her wet core. Slip inside her.
I’m ready. Obviously I’m ready.
But she trusts me.
I’ll save it for cold showers and save up for all the days and nights in the future.
I smile and shift Jamie closer. Her hair falls over her cheek and lets off a flowery, orange scent. It’s a new shampoo. She got it only a week ago, I think, for me, since I told her that I’ve decided my favorite fruit is orange.
I’ve also decided, or I suppose, my heart decided for me, that I love Jamie. Before, I believed I had. Now, I know I do. I’m going to stay with her, with the kids, for the rest of forever. No matter what I remember, if I remember, I’m going to stay.
Two weeks ago, I saw Jamie in the hospital and thought my life must be hell. Now I know, it’s actually heaven.
I love her.
I love her enough to stay in a small mountain town that I’m not from.
I love her enough to work servicing port-a-johns day in and day out.
But…honestly, it has nothing to do with loving enough. Loving enough makes it sound like there’s a limit to love. By the feeling in my chest when I see Jamie smile, or hear the kids laugh, there isn’t a limit. Loving her is easy.
I’ve figured out what I’m going to do. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Maybe I became too accustomed to the status quo. But that doesn’t work for me anymore.
When I asked Jamie what her dreams were, she told me selling her glass, showing it in galleries wasn’t a dream, it was an impossibility. I don’t agree. And as her husband, I may not be able to give her a ton of money, or a big house, or that trip around the world the kids wanted, but I can help her with her dreams.
In the studio earlier, Jamie wanted to work the rest of the night away, but when she smothered a yawn, I gathered her in my arms, brought her back to the house, and climbed into bed next to her.
She gave me a wary expression, her forehead creasing.
I tucked the old worn quilt around her.
“I reckon you’re not sleeping on the couch anymore,” she’d said.