“She passed away before I met you. She had cancer. The one thing I couldn’t protect her from.”
“You had to protect her?”
“From my father. I told you before.”
“Oh, Jacob. That’s awful.”
A soft look falls into his eyes, fleeting vulnerability. “Sometimes I wish I could forget the past, like you.”
“Your father was violent?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“But we’re shaped by our past. The past makes us who we are.”
“It influences us, but it doesn’t make us. We can do anything, be anyone.”
“You’ve overcome a lot to become who you are today.”
“It was all worth it. I got to meet you. May I put the necklace on?”
I nod, my heart in my throat, and as I look in the mirror, he puts on the necklace, his fingers brushing my skin, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies takes flight inside me. He attaches the clasp at the back of my neck, looks in the mirror to adjust the necklace.
“There,” he says.
I put on the earrings.
He stares at me in the mirror, stoops with his head next to mine. “This is how it was. But your hair was different.”
“I wore it down in the pictures.”
“For the ceremony, it was up.” He twists my hair into a loose knot at the back of my head. Wavy wisps tumble down onto my cheeks. His eyes light up. “Just like that. Beautiful.” He holds my hair with one hand, traces the curve of my jaw with the other. His finger runs down my neck to my collarbone. His touch is charged, rippling across my skin. Now I remember. He broke the rules when he came to see me before the ceremony. He stood in my dressing room, arms folded over his chest, admiring me.
“We could pretend it’s our wedding night,” he says. “You could put on the gown.”
“What, now? It’ll be too loose.”
“You’ll look beautiful in it, no matter what.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll wear my tuxedo.”
“You brought it with you?”
“I would never give up the clothes I wore when we recited our vows.” As he leaves the room, my headache returns, the cotton fuzziness in my brain. My reflection blurs in the mirror. The dress, Jacob, the wedding, the weight of the earrings. This has all happened before, in another life, in another place, but something was different. Maybe I wore different lipstick, or a diamond-studded clip in my hair. An indistinct face appears behind me. I turn around, but nobody is there.
As I change into the wedding dress, images flit through my mind. A plethora of roses, the three-tiered, ocean-blue cake. Linny hugging me. Moments of laughter. Jacob guiding me onto the floor.
The dress hangs a little loosely on my frame, but it still fits. The Swarovski crystals glint in the light. I find Jacob in the living room in a black wool tuxedo, expertly tailored. The jacket has a single button. He whistles and looks me up and down. “Wow. Just wow. You are the most beautiful woman this side of paradise.”
“And you are . . . stunning.”
He pulls me into his arms.
I look down at my bare feet. “Do we still have the shoes?”
“I don’t know what happened to them, but I don’t care.”
I’m curiously light-headed. My blood runs hot. He’s kissing me again, his lips firm, insistent. He smells familiar, feels familiar. He pulls me close, whispers something against my mouth. My body responds from a primal place.
“Damn,” he says, lifting me bodily, carrying me down the hall and across the threshold into my room, the bedroom we once shared. He sets me down gently, turns me around to unzip the gown. It falls to the floor, and I step free, unable to catch my breath. He unclasps my bra, takes it off, and throws it on the chair. I’m in only bikini panties now. I should wait. But my thoughts move in slow motion. The wine. I could never handle more than half a glass.
In a moment, Jacob is undressed. How did this happen so quickly? I know his body. I remember what he looks like, his shape.
“This could be our second wedding night,” he whispers to me.
My body needs to be touched. It has been so long. How long?
He pushes me back on the bed, bracing himself above me. He kisses my cheeks, my neck, and my collarbone with reverence. The mere touch of his lips sends me into a fever. “I’ve missed this so much,” he says.
We’ve been here before, in this bed, in summer moonlight. In cool cotton sheets, not winter flannel. He holds my hands and I close my eyes, letting the pleasure seep into me. He always knew how to touch me, how to bring me to him, how to make me lose all reason. I stop thinking, stop worrying, and I give in to pure sensation. Every moment of our union becomes familiar in a way that only the body remembers.