480. Cathexis

After what seemed like hours, Em spoke: "You know, I have a list too." It was the kind of statement that was equally an opening, the kind of statement made between intimates, an unspoken communication understood by both. She had been captivated with his list of endearments, her heart working to believe, and in that labor, she built a world out of his words. That it came so easily was both comforting and scary. And she wondered if she simply wanted this too much, if, in fact, she was as blind as his father, convinced of what she wanted, perhaps needed, to be true.

"A list of your father?"

"No silly, a list of us. Do you want to hear it?"

Trev nestled his head between the pillows of her chest and closed his eyes as if to listen to a bedtime story in the warmth and safety of his own room, a place that existed more in his imagination than in memory. "Yes, I would like that very much," he said.

She tightened her arms about his shoulders. He smiled at the gesture, of the ride she was about to take him on and he pulled his knees into his chest. Her voice was gentle and she spoke as if speaking to herself and, whether she knew it or not, began to rock back and forth. He thought of being held in a rocking chair, her words as the wind, her arms a blanket. "I see a house, near the sea," she began. "Not big, more like a cottage with lots of windows and decorated with pastel hues of blues and pinks and yellows. The cottage is old, has a history, an ambiance, as a living thing would, and each time it creaks and groans with the wind or with our playful steps we feel welcomed, we feel protected, we feel cozy but most of all, we feel at home, like this is where we belong. The kitchen faces the sea and through the paned window we watch dorfels swimming by, a mother with her calves, leaping in the morning sun, their fins glinting as swords from the sea in the light. I open the window and let the cottage breath and the breeze is neither warm nor cool but rather fresh and clean, delivered from the ocean like a basket of fruit from a neighbor." She paused, her chest rising and falling like the waves in her mind and from a distance she imagined a trawler and a horn and then she laughed. "Hey, that's not funny."

"What?"

"You were snoring."

"I was not."

"Was too."

"I don't snore."

"Okay, what was the last thing I said?"

"You were telling me about your list."

"Right. And?"

"And what?"

"What was on my list?"

"Let's see."

"You were snoring!"

"Okay, maybe, just a little bit."

"I knew it."

"Well, you know why?"

"Tell me."

"Your voice was like a lullaby and the beat of your heart like a siren call, the warmth of your arms like the morning sun and the rising and falling of your chest like the gentle waves of the ocean. I felt safe. And I just . . ."

"Just what?"

"You know."

"Know what?"

"It just happened. Just like you said."

"What? What happened? What did I say?"

"Letting go. It just happened. I fell into you, into your voice, into your world, into your heart."

Em sighed. Trev smiled. "Go on. You were telling me about the cottage, by the sea, not too big not too small, the one with the paned windows and the leaping dorfels. Tell me more about that fresh and clean breeze."

Em smiled and as he started to smile back she tickled him and the two rolled on the floor like children who knew neither clock nor watch.