Alex shoots me a look over his shoulder and grins. He continues folding back the tarp, pausing every few minutes to stop, scoot his chair forward, and begin again. “One day a storm took out half the roof. I wasn’t here, fortunately.” He, too, is glowing, his arms and shoulders touched with silver. Just as I did on the night of the raids, I think of the portraits in church of the angels with their sprouting wings. “I decided I might as well get rid of the whole thing.” He finishes with the tarp and jumps lightly off the chair, turning to face me, smiling. “It’s my own convertible house.”
“It’s incredible,” I say, and really mean it. The sky looks so close. I feel like I could reach up and slap my fingers on the moon.
“Now I’ll get the candles.” Alex scoots past me toward the kitchen area and starts rummaging. I can see the big stuff now, though details are still lost in darkness. There’s a small woodstove in one corner. At the opposite end is a twin bed. My stomach does a tiny flip when I see it, and a thousand memories flood me at once—Carol sitting on my bed and telling me, in her measured voice, about the expectations of husband and wife; Jenny sticking her hand on her hip and telling me I won’t know what to do when the time comes; whispered stories of Willow Marks; Hana wondering out loud in the locker room what sex feels like, while I hissed at her to be quiet, checking over my shoulder to make sure no one was listening.
Alex finds a bunch of candles and starts lighting them one by one, and corners of the room flare into focus as he sets the candles carefully around the trailer. What strikes me most are the books: Lumpy shapes that in the half dark appeared to be a part of the furniture now resolve into towering stacks of books—more books than I’ve seen anywhere except for at the library. There are three bookshelves mashed against one wall. Even the refrigerator, whose door has come unhinged, is filled with books.
I take a candle and scan the titles. I don’t recognize any of them.
“What are these?” Some of the books look so old and cracked I’m afraid if I touch them they’ll crumble to bits. I mouth the names I read off the spines, at least the ones I can make out: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth.
Alex glances at me. “That’s poetry,” he says.
“What’s poetry?” I’ve never heard the word before, but I like the sound of it. It sounds elegant and easy, somehow, like a beautiful woman turning in a long dress.
Alex lights the last candle. Now the trailer is filled with warm, flickering light. He joins me by the bookshelf and squats, looking for something. He removes a book and stands, passes it to me for inspection.
Famous Love Poetry. My stomach flips as I see that word—Love—printed so brazenly on a book cover. Alex is watching me closely, so to cover up my discomfort I open the book and scan the list of featured authors, listed on the first few pages.
“Shakespeare?” This name I do recognize from health class. “The guy who wrote Romeo and Juliet? The cautionary tale?”
Alex snorts. “It’s not a cautionary tale,” he says. “It’s a great love story.”
I think about that first day at the labs: the first time I ever saw Alex. It seems like a lifetime ago. I remember my mind churning out the word beautiful. I remember thinking something about sacrifice.
“They banned poetry years ago, right after they discovered a cure.” He takes the book back from me and opens it. “Would you like to hear a poem?”
I nod. He coughs, then clears his throat, then squares his shoulders and rolls his neck like he’s about to be let into a soccer game.
“Go on,” I say, laughing. “You’re stalling.”
He clears his throat again and begins to read: “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’”
I close my eyes and listen. The feeling I had before of being surrounded by warmth swells and crests inside of me like a wave. Poetry isn’t like any writing I’ve ever heard before. I don’t understand all of it, just bits of images, sentences that appear half-finished, all fluttering together like brightly colored ribbons in the wind. It reminds me, I realize, of the music that struck me dumb nearly two months ago at the farmhouse. It has the same effect, and makes me feel exhilarated and sad at the same time.
Alex finishes reading. When I open my eyes, he’s staring at me.
“What?” I ask. The intensity of his gaze nearly knocks the breath out of me—as though he’s staring straight into me.
He doesn’t answer me directly. He flips forward a few pages in the book, but he doesn’t glance down at it. He keeps his eyes on me the whole time. “You want to hear a different one?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer before beginning to recite, “‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.’”
There’s that word again: love. My heart stops when he says it, then stutters into a frantic rhythm.
“‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. . . .’”
I know he’s only speaking someone else’s words, but they seem to come from him anyway. His eyes are dancing with light; in each of them I see a bright point of candlelight reflected.
He takes a step forward and kisses my forehead softly. “‘I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need. . . .’”
It feels as though the floor is swinging—like I’m falling.
“Alex—” I start to say, but the word gets tangled in my throat.
He kisses each cheekbone—a delicious, skimming kiss, barely grazing my skin. “‘I love thee freely. . . .’”
“Alex,” I say, a little louder. My heart is beating so fast I’m afraid it will burst from my ribs.
He pulls back and gives me a small, crooked smile. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” he says, then traces a finger over the bridge of my nose. “You don’t like it?”
The way he says it, so low and serious, still staring into my eyes, makes me feel as though he’s actually asking something else.
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I do, but . . .” The truth is, I’m not sure what I mean. I can’t think or speak clearly. A single word is swirling around inside me—a storm, a hurricane—and I have to squeeze my lips together to keep it from swelling up to my tongue and fighting its way out into the open. Love, love, love, love. A word I’ve never pronounced, not to anyone, a word I’ve never even really let myself think.
“You don’t have to explain.” Alex takes another step backward. Again I have the sense, confusedly, that we’re actually talking about something else. I’ve disappointed him somehow. Whatever has just passed between us—and something did, even if I’m not sure what or how or why—has made him sad. I can see it in his eyes, even though he’s still smiling, and it makes me want to apologize, or throw my arms around him and ask him to kiss me. But I’m still afraid to open my mouth—afraid that the word will come shooting out, and terrified about what comes afterward.
“Come here.” Alex sets the book down and offers me his hand. “I want to show you something.”
He leads me over to the bed, and again a wave of shyness overtakes me. I’m not sure what he expects, and when he sits down I hang back, feeling self-conscious.
“It’s okay, Lena,” he says. As always, hearing him say my name relaxes me. He scoots backward on the bed and lies down on his back and I do the same, so we’re lying side by side. The bed is narrow. There’s just enough room for the two of us.
“See?” Alex says, tilting his chin upward.
Above our heads, the stars flare and glitter and flash: thousands and thousands of them, so many thousands they look like snowflakes whirling away into the inky dark. I can’t help it; I gasp. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars in my life. The sky looks so close—strung so taut above our heads, beyond the roofless trailer—it feels as though we’re falling into it, as though we could jump off the bed and the sky would catch us, hold us, bounce us like a trampoline.
“What do you think?” Alex asks.
“I love it.” The word pops out, and instantly the weight on my chest dissipates. “I love it,” I say again, testing it. An easy word to say, once you say it. Short. To the point. Rolls off the tongue. It’s amazing I’ve never said it before.
I can tell Alex is pleased. The smile in his voice grows bigger. “The no-plumbing thing is kind of a bummer,” he says. “But you have to admit the view is killer.”