Mira couldn't dare open her eyes while he wiped the gel off her chest, her teeth deep in her bottom lips lest she'd pur, her nails digging at her palms.
Every instinct in her bones screamed for her to flee. But the man also made a valid point. She had nowhere to go. All her money was detained by the Customs, along with everything else. Not to mention the wreck state she was in. Who in their right mind would hire a wheezing pipsqueak who couldn't even finish her sentence without coughing out half a lung? Her wobbly legs could barely keep her on her feet even if she abided by instinct.
Too wretched and too exhausted, she closed her eyes and drowned in the irresistible scent of cedar emanating from him, her head spinning.
By the time they finished all her tests, the sun had dipped into the west. The autumn breeze waltzed with fallen leaves against the backdrop of a crimson dusk. Next to the rover, Mira held out a hand and caught a spinning ginkgo leaf, golden like a tiny fan. Of all four seasons, autumn was her favorite. It unfolded like a poem forever in search of solace that was as impossible as inescapable against fatality. She uncoiled her hand and let the ginkgo leaf ride the wind to its destiny.
The man didn't say a word but watched her like she watched the leaf tumbling away. "Why did you let go?" he asked, opening the door to the shotgun seat for her. "Seems to me you liked the little leaf."
"I like it now, sure, but when it wilts inevitably, I'll throw it in the trash," she intoned. "I'd rather not interfere in its fate and let it cease in dignity."
A smile frolicked on his lips as he grabbed her shoulders and spun her to him. "But what if you reserved it?" He leaned down, tugging at his coat collar where it wrapped around her shoulders. The dusk limned his straight nose, casting half his face in shadow as his dark eyes sought hers. "Granted it'll wilt, and nothing you can do about such finality. But you can make it into a bookmark and change how it arrives at the inevitable end."
Meeting those deep-set eyes, Mira couldn't resist the warmth emanating from him that pulled her in, calling at her to gaze into the abyss. And it took her aback when she did as she found the abyss had already gazed back into her as if she had always been a reflection of it. Of all the things she could have said, she deadpanned, "Are you some kind of full-time poet part-timing as a drug lord, and doctoring is your hobby?"
A short pause. He laughed, baring his perfectly aligned white teeth. "I'll take it as a compliment," he replied, gliding a hand to her waist. "Come on, let's go. The temperature is dropping."
In a thrumming quiet, the rover glided into the majestic glow of the dusk that torched the west gold and cerise. He put on the music.
Waltz No. 2, by Dmitri Shostakovich.
Mira gaped, her breath hitched.
It was one of the many pieces her dad recovered from a civilization that had fizzled out long before theirs took shape, and Waltz No. 2 was their favorite. Every note was their secret bond, through which Mira could feel her dad beaming at her as he lifted her for a spin like a leaf on the wind. She turned to the window, her lips pursing.
"You don't like it?" Warshon glanced at her sideways. "I can change it to something else if –"
"No!" She whipped her head back to him almost in a panic, "It's a crime to interrupt music this divine."
He cocked a curious brow, "You know this one?"
"No," she lied.
"No?"
"Why would I lie?" she sounded calm and poised, or so she'd like to believe.
Propping his elbow on the windowsill, he only chuckled and stayed quiet.
Espying him from the corner of her eyes – the elegant if not arrogant arch of his brow, the too perfect a nose, and the smile that dimpled his chiseled cheek, flippant and dismissive – Mira could swear she heard the drone of her wonky heart, as if it was answering to the call of life that echoed beyond her, her provenance, or her fate. She gnawed on the seam of her lips.
The rover rounded off the main road, then into a private driveway tucked away behind a pair of scrollwork iron gates that opened upon capturing the plate number. Groomed hedgerows and clusters of lavender flanked the smooth curve of asphalt that wound through the rolling landscape, shadowed by oaks over centuries old. Mira glanced up at the trees, in awe of their unmistakable gravitas she couldn't believe she had twice missed.
The engine's thrumming ceased with a sigh as Warshon pulled up gently on the end of a cobblestone circle near his house – gently as he did with everything else around her.
Urged by an impulse she couldn't explain, Mira scrambled out from her seat before he could circle to her side and open the door for her. "Please don't carry me," she said, her eyes on the cobblestones. "I can walk. And I want to. Can we take a walk?"
From the dimples in his cheeks, his smile blossomed into a grin. He closed the door and grabbed her hand. "Sure."
Across a portico supported by stately columns, he led her into the verdure lawn slanting up to his estate. The grass felt soft under her feet. She smiled, allowing herself a moment to forget about the past to which she could no longer return or the future whose door kept shut in her face, a moment to dance on tiptoe and sway with the floral scent that mingled with the crisp autumn air. And the moment lasted the length of a breath.
Seized by another fit of cough, she could only stand leaning on him much to her chagrin. "We'll resume the walk some other time," he said, scooping her up in his arms. Reassuring her with a smile, he added, "There is no shame in me carrying you."
"What about your shoulder?"
"Are you concerned about me?"
"I…"
"Too slow, I'll take it as a yes." His smile broadened. "And don't worry, it's just a scratch."
Back in the atrium under the stoic bonsai tree stood a woman clad in a fitting suit dress. Appearing to be in her forties, she had her gold blond hair in a dignified chignon and an aquiline nose flanked by sharp eyes upturned and steel blue.
"Thank you for coming, Nonna," Warshon said, his voice sincere. "Can you help me grab the medical kit and the foldable IV pole from the backseat? The car isn't locked."
The woman cocked a brow while huffing a reluctant sigh but did what she bid. When she returned, she sized up Mira. "That's the girl?" she said, leaving the items on the floor, her voice harsh, bare of mirth. "What a pitiful little thing."
Mira dodged those steel blue eyes, uncertain where to look.
"Be nice, Nonna," said Warshon while he tucked her under a blanket on the plush couch. "Don't mind the old hag," he smiled. "She's like a mother to me, overprotective, yes, but meant no harm."
"Try to pay me less, and you'll see how protective I can be." The woman threw her arms about her chest, one foot tapping the floor. "And get over yourself. Do I look like I have a son as old as you?"
Warshon chuckled. "You don't look your age, Nonna. That doesn't mean you aren't old." Sitting on his heels as he leaned to Mira, he pretended to whisper, "She's fifty-four, can you believe it?"
Mira giggled. Over his broad shoulder, she peeked at the raw basalt accent wall at the back of the living room. Its roughness stood at odds with the refinement displayed everywhere else. She wondered if the juxtaposition offered insight into the owner who held her gaze now.
"You think my age is funny?" Nonna glowered, her voice uptight, her head cocking.
Mira venture a glance at the woman, her head shaking. "Everyone I've met under this roof seems to possess an acerbic wit. Is leaving caustic remarks some kind of door pass?"
The man laughed. "If that's the case, you'll find it home here," he remarked, stroking her chin with a thumb. Then, swiveling for the kit Nonna left on the floor, he rose and hung the IV bags on the IV pole he had unfolded. Tourniquet strapped. Needle in. And he remembered to turn on the fluid warmer for her.
Cupping his hand behind her neck, he crouched next to her, his wonted smile alluring. "I need to be gone for a few hours. Anything you need, ask Nonna. She's a certified army nurse, one of the best. Be sure to let her know if you don't feel well."
The air quieted, almost suffocating. The bunker under the sea. The bullet that nearly went through him. The dire circumstance that brought them to meet. Every detail condensed into a splinter of a second that exploded before her eyes, and Mira blurted, "Be careful." Only then did she realize she was clutching at his sleeve. She flinched.
His gaze faltered, his breath hot on her lips, "Be good." He uncoiled to his feet. "All her medication for the night is stowed in the kit." He pivoted to Nonna. "Make her something to eat if you'd be so kind, and if she needs a bath –"
Nonna squeezed her hand into a fist. "Get out of my hair or I'll punch you in the face."
Warshon chuckled. Throwing his head over his shoulder, he gave her another wink that left her out of her depth while fate set forth by its own design, enshrouding her with a night sky speckled with stars. Her eyes trailed him even after he had disappeared into the atrium.
Nonna cleared her throat, "You hungry, little runt?"
Mira turned to the woman. A playful grin lit up her eyes. "Are you really fifty-four?"
She shot her a glare. "Are you really pushing it?"
"No, it's just you look so incredibly young."
"No need to butter me up," she groused, her voice dripping in disdain. "How I'll treat you depends on how well he pays me."
"Who says I was trying to butter you up?" Wheezing out a chuckle, Mira winced. "If I were, I'd tell you how beautiful you are, but I can't find it in me to offer such a compliment."
Nonna rolled her head, her steel blue eyes squinting. "Feisty little runt we have here, eh? Once he's out of sight, you bite. Did you fake it all before him, so he'd take pity on you?"
"Beautiful or not, time wrings every face into a prune, and quite literally," Mira went forth, skipping the questions if not remarks while she looked the other in the eye. "In the end, we're all but equal in the cruelty of aging, in our ugliness, our decrepitude. And by looking forty at fifty-four, you're ahead of everyone your age who had been more beautiful. Whatever you think you had missed out on, whatever that has turned you bitter, you've made it even in the second half. I'd salute you, but I don't think I can hold my liquor at this point." She raised the hand with the cannula buried in the back of her wrist.
Nonna parted her lips and closed them again. Hissing with a snort, she looked away at the rugged basalt slate accent wall. "I see," she said at length, shifting those steel blue eyes back to her. "I'm starting to like you, too."
"I've never claimed I like you." Mira shrugged. "Not yet, I barely know you."
The other laughed, a heartful cackle. "Who says I was talking about –" she cut herself short with a long sigh. "So, little runt, what do you want for dinner?"
"I'm not hungry."
"You never are when you're sick." Nonna cocked a brow. "But you still need to eat. That's how I get to look forty at fifty-four. I'll let you in on that."
Mira coughed and laughed. A voice of malice shrilled from the pit of her stomach that she would never live to see the day, and part of her always knew it was true. "Fine," she said, stifling the shrilling voice while grinning ear-to-ear. "Anything easy to make will do."