nowavewithoutwind

(The sequel to A Thousand New Paths, and the conclusion of The Golden Orb trilogy)

Charlie Davidson nee Stevens checked herself into a hotel. There would be a delay in getting an assignment, paperwork to be generated because of her name change and new passport. She dumped her bag on the bed and walked to the window. David filled her mind. It came over her suddenly and she had to sit down in the privacy of the hotel room to cry her heart out. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done to walk out of the house they shared that morning.

Pressing her hands on the sides of her head, she tried to erase the image she’d come upon in the pool room. It wasn’t meant for her to see but she had. Billy with David…and then the embrace. What were they trying to tell her, that it was okay? Was it? Had she reacted too swiftly? She’d handled it badly, already she knew that. Coming on the heels of Ali it had been too much. She didn’t want to be drawn into their world. She didn’t want to know.

She made herself a cup of tea from the room tea kettle and put on her pajamas. Calmer now, she began to think about David. There was no denying he was bisexual. She told him it didn’t matter to her but she had lied to herself and to him. She bit her lip. She loved him all the same; he was the same man. The same man who held her and loved her as she’d never been loved before. She took a breath, always having prided herself in being open minded. Some of the people she worked with were gay…Jullian, for instance, and it never bothered her. She liked him. She liked Billy, too.

“I’m a hypocrite…the worst kind,” she said aloud and then, “No, I’m not. My opinion and feelings for these men have not changed. Why do I have such a problem with David?” She caught herself in a sob, picked up her phone…almost dialed his number but didn’t. “Oh, if Cramer could see me now he’d declare me unfit for duty. I can’t do this to myself.”

“In London. I had to wait until they got my new name cleared. Are you okay?”

“No, without you. Why didn’t you call? I tried and your phone went to messaging.”

“I couldn’t, David. I’m hanging by a thread as it is. My resolve is not that strong. This is something I need to do and I think it’s going to be good for both of us to be apart for a little while. And it’s only for a little while. I should have this wrapped up within a couple of weeks.”

“You are my happiness, David, and it isn’t gone and neither am I, only away for awhile. I love you.”

“Me, too. You have no idea how much. My phone is back on now and they’re calling my flight.”

He folded his phone and walked out into the garden with his cup of tea. He fed his fish and sat down on the ground beside the pond. It was quiet, early morning, the weather was changing, autumn on the wind. He hadn’t told her about Billy, that he’d told him to pack his things and leave. He’d given him a good recommendation for future employment somewhere else, but not here. He was alone.

For thirty-two years he hadn’t given into what he determined were his baser desires. He could live without it for another thirty-two years. Except for Ali, having given himself to Ali he couldn’t go back, but he didn’t see him very often and that was probably a good thing, he told himself. His whole focus was on Charlie. Except for Ali he’d never been in love before and he found it painful and exquisite at the same time. Right now it was painful. He tossed the grass he’d been absently pulling up aside and got up. There was an egg to boil and toast to make.

“I’m glad you called. I just checked the time and thought you might be there.”

“Yes, all checked into my hotel and thinking about some dinner. I think that’s what I want. I forgot about the time. Were you asleep?”

She could picture him there and her whole being wanted to be there with him. “Something good?”

“Don’t be…don’t. I don’t want to change you, David. How is Billy?”

“I don’t know. He’s gone, Charlie. I dismissed him the day you left.”

“I didn’t think to tell you and I couldn’t before you called me because your phone was off. You said it didn’t matter but I knew that it did. I cannot change what I am but I can change what I do. I love you and I do not want to lose you.”

“There’s no way you will ever lose me, darling…no way unless you want to lose me and I might not go quietly into the night…”

“I talked to the agency they will send someone for a few hours a day to cook and clean. I do not need someone here twenty-four hours a day. I am to meet with them tomorrow. There is a little shop in the village that sells pies and sandwiches so do not worry that I do not eat.”

Charlie smiled at the pies and sandwiches, such an English thing to eat. “That’s good. I won’t worry then…right, you know that’s going to happen.”

“I worry about you so far away and I do not know what you are doing, if you are in danger….”

“No danger. I’m only to observe and report, playschool stuff. You could do this.”

“Ooh, no! I know better! It’s an easy assignment, that’s all. I start in the morning and all going well I should be home in two weeks or less.” She rolled over on the bed, wishing he were with her.

“I might have a job. I ran up on a landscaping company working down the street and I made some suggestions to the owner who was there and he is interested in what I can do. I made him some quick sketches and he was impressed. I am to talk with him further at his office.”

He was teasing her now and she smiled. “You’ll be good at it. I told you about having a good eye for things.”

“I must have something to do with my time since you will not be here every day.”

“So do I. I’d better get off this cell phone. It will take my first month’s check to pay the bill.”

“I know.” She felt tears at the back of her eyes and didn’t want to cry on the phone with him. Why tears when she loved him so much?

“Go and have your meal, Charlie. I won’t call you but you can call me anytime. Do not worry about the time difference.”

His aloneness in England was different from his aloneness in Hong Kong. There at least he could go to his businesses, to a familiar restaurant or bar. Here he felt isolated from all things familiar. It had been different when Charlie was there; it had been alive. He had an appointment at half past one and left the quiet house to find the landscaper’s office. He brought along his sketch pad and pencils.

An hour later he was following the van out into the countryside. He wasn’t to work on the house down the street after all. There was something bigger and better in the works and he was to be introduced to a master gardener and designer out at one of the national trust properties where the neglected gardens were being revived and reworked.

A tall, spare woman dressed in a well-worn denim skirt hanging past her wellies, a straw hat and her hair pushed randomly underneath, greeted him.

“You’re the artist,” and without further introductions she said, “Follow me.”

“Not a real artist, only for my own amusement. I believe you are the true artist from what I have been told.” He fell into step beside her, following a bricked path nearly grown over in places with grass.

“Disregard everything you’ve been told. I like to garden.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her skirt as they walked. “Where did you study?”

“Cambridge…I am only an amateur gardener myself, not any kind of an expert.”

David stopped and looked out over the plantings, trees, some ancient, and he began to see a pattern. It wasn’t a forest at all as he had first thought. “Man’s hand…a wave of trees.”

She clamped her thin lips together and looked up at him sideways. She was nearly as tall as he. “You’ll do.”

David looked into her clear gray eyes, her lined face tanned from so many years in the outdoors. “I’ll do?”

“The last two buggers Ralph brought up here could only see a forest. You caught it, the wave. I saw it, too. It takes a practiced eye or an eye for scale and positioning to tell the difference in a plantation God made and one man made. I personally think God does a better job. Some of those trees are going to have to come down. They’re diseased and some riddled with insects gnawing away at the centers. That will interrupt the wave. We can either plant new trees which will take years to reach the same size and look out of place in the meantime or create something else entirely.”

“A third at least. We’ll walk down. They’ve been marked. I’m particularly interested in any ideas you may have. Myself, I prefer the perennial beds and the rose garden.”

He counted the trees as they walked down, making notes on the side of his pad. He was amazed when they reached the end. “So many…101 trees. I wonder who first saw the vision, for surely they were but saplings when planted.”

“He knew his trees. His name was Matthew Monckton. They didn’t all go in at the same time but over a period of years to obtain that wave you see. It was all planned out but he never lived to see them grown. He was an old man when he designed it.”

She walked off toward the makeshift office set up in an old greenhouse and left him with his sketchbook. He found a rock to sit on and began sketching the plantation as it was now and, going by his notes, noted the trees that would have to come down. He made a second sketch with the trees missing and looked at it for a long time. He heard her feet on the gravel and turned.

“Oh, son, I didn’t mean you had to do it today. Everybody’s packing it up.”

“This is good. Now we see what we have to work with.” She handed him back the book and patted his shoulder. “Tomorrow 9:00, we’ll have tea and then we’ll see what’s what.”

“Martha Langston. Good evening, Mr. Davidson.” She saluted him and walked off toward a muddy-looking old Rover.

Blaine looked back toward the wave of trees down the slope, it was the different shade of the leaves, height of the different trees, that gave the impression of a wave. Imagine having such a vision and planting, knowing you would never live to see the results. He had known it would work. He stopped by a book store and bought some more books on trees and landscaping on the way home.

“You can do it, David. You can do anything you put your mind to. What an opportunity for you, and you say she’s written books…wow!”

“She is much regarded here as an expert. I bought several more books today. I’m not that familiar with trees here but I will be. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”

“No, of course you can’t. When you went back to work did you tell them about me?”

“No, I didn’t give any details about where I’d been or what I’d been doing. Cramer asked but he didn’t get anything. If you want them to know...?”

“No, no, it is better that David Blaine is dead. I don’t want to bring him back.”

“Brian Brown has been promoted for his part in the orb job, got himself a nice big office now, looking for a bigger house. He had a few questions for me but I don’t work for him so he got zero from me. He couldn’t believe you’d killed yourself. Pretty shook up about it, too.”

“These people require a spouse’s name, Charlie, a next of kin. What did you tell them?”

“I told him his name was John Davidson. First thing that came to mind, but they have the house phone number. I was trying to protect you. I know if they find out you’re alive charges will be brought against you for your part in the fraud. You know, they might not stick but it’s an embarrassment we don’t need…you don’t’ need that, David.”

“Only a little one. I don’t care. It’s none of their business what I do away from the job. How are you managing? Have you got someone in yet?”

“No hurry. I guess I was just thinking of you there alone without someone to cook and clean…laundry.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that you did. You’ve just always had someone to take care of things for you.”

“Don‘t get too independent. I’ll need something to do when I get home.”

She wondered if he had any idea what his voice on the phone did to her. She needed to go home but couldn’t for another week. “Save it up and I’ll play catch up when I get home.”

Martha Langston left him alone, sitting on his rock day after day, sketching, sometimes staring out over the landscape before him. He was getting a feel for it, she knew. He was a quiet one, rather formal in his speech. She knew nothing of his background but thought he might not be English. She stopped one afternoon on her way back to her office.

“Rocks. Would it be possible to obtain large rocks, really large ones?” he asked earnestly.

“To change the wave into a river. See how the wind blows the willows. Now it represents the crest of a wave but with the trees out…do you see it?”

“Yes, with rocks placed here.” He showed her his sketches. “And I thought you could recommend some shrubs. The wind may change through the trees when the bad ones are taken out. The wave will fall, but a river.…”

“I see where you’re going with it. Original, well thought out. I’ll see about the rocks.” She handed him back his sketches. “Do up a formal presentation. It will have to go before the board and be approved by noggins that know nothing about vision. I’ll present it when it’s ready.”

He had a little time on his hands and decided to look into something that had been bothering him ever since Charlie breezed into the office, back from the dead with little explanation as to where she’d been or who she’d been with. Not that it was his job to follow up after her but Brian Brown couldn’t leave it alone.

She was officially listed as married, some bloke by the name of John Davidson. He traced the phone number she had entered on the new paperwork and got an address. Parking across the street from the gates, he sat in his car. Some bloke with money, he thought. Yeah, she’d married into some money. John Davidson was not an uncommon name and he’d run several to ground with no luck. This one wasn’t listed anywhere. He’d looked and he was curious.

He was on his third stick of gum when he saw a small car approach the gates. He sat up and picked up the binoculars. Damn, he was through the gates too fast to get a look at the driver.

David arrived home and as was his usual habit now, he stripped and swam in the pool for awhile then showered in the pool room. Wrapped in a terrycloth bathrobe, he went into the kitchen, made tea and began to think about what he might want for dinner. Something simple because he wanted to start on the artwork for the presentation. He was standing in the pantry when he realized the door bell was ringing.

“Bullshit! You’re dead, Blaine, officially dead and here you are living in England with Charlie. Right on my damn doorstep, so to speak.”

“No, I don’t reckon you did. Didn’t expect to see me again, did you?”

“You’ll have plenty to say when I get back to the office and let it be known you’re alive. Be better if you talked to me.”

“How did you pull it off, remote controls…eh? The boat went up with a tremendous blast. The body wasn’t recovered, obviously because you weren’t on the fucking boat to begin with. How much did you pay that Chinese houseman you had to lie about you and Charlie?”

“I paid no one to lie and I don’t have to talk to you. Go back to your little office and leave me in peace.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, this time, Blaine, you ‘re not going to get away with it. All the little mind games you and Ali played, thought you were so smart and above the rest of us. Your day is coming. It won’t be me that comes back here for you, but rest assured somebody will come for you.”

Blaine shut the door in his face and locked it. He poured himself a drink and rolled a cigarette. Walking back out to the pool room he called Charlie.

He waited, thirty minutes…an hour went by. He’d lost his appetite for dinner. He pulled out his water colors and tried to work on the painting for Martha Langston. He tore up three sheets of paper trying to get it right. His vision was blurred.

He was beginning to worry about Charlie now. It wasn’t like her not to call him back, especially for something like this.

Charlie, posing as a clerk in the British Embassy, had been called to a meeting which her target was attending. She couldn’t refuse to go but she sat there with anger building inside of her, anger directed at Brian Brown. How dare he show up at her house? What right did he have…David…oh, David! And Cramer, she needed to get to Cramer before Brian did and this man would call a meeting now. Finally her target began to speak and she turned on the little recorder in her specially designed phone. While looking down she began a text message to Cramer. ‘pls do not mve on Davidson untl tlk w me’ She had no way of knowing whether it was too late.

David was back in the pool swimming. It calmed him. From one end to the other he swam, long powerful strokes. It cleared his mind and got rid of the panic that was about to take him. He dried himself and wrapped once again in the robe, he sat down and finished the drawings and paintings for Martha Langston.

Having finished with his artwork, he left the paints out, went upstairs and dressed. He packed his clothes, as much as he could fit in a bag, and left the house. He went by the property where he’d been working and left the work he’d done wrapped in a plastic bag in the mailbox. He took a room in a local inn for the night and the next morning went to the bank and drew out a considerable sum of money. He’d turned his phone off the day before, paranoid now, afraid his calls might be traced.

Charlie was frantic after she got out of the meeting. She tried to call David and her message went directly to voice mail. She tried several times. Frustrated she called Cramer.

“Brian hasn’t been in the office all day. No, I haven’t seen him. Why? What’s going on, Charlie?”

“Fuck the job, Cramer! I’m coming home. It’s personal.” Charlie broke the connection.

Charlie arrived midday at Heathrow and rented a car, driving as fast as she dared to the borough where they lived. She came into the house calling his name but she knew immediately he wasn’t there. Still she went room to room, finding his dried watercolor paints on a table in the library. He’d left his sketch book and she picked it up, holding it to her breast as she went through the house. He’d left things out in the kitchen, and wearily she went upstairs to their bedroom. Some disarray there, clothes still on the bed, a bag missing from the closet, all highly unusual for him. She sat on the bed, still holding the sketchbook.

“Where are you?” she said into the empty room. She tried his phone again, leaving another message. “I am home. Where are you?”

Something had happened to cause him to flee. Brian Brown. She set her jaw. It was too late to go into London to the office and she didn’t have his phone number but she did have Cramer’s. It was time for a meeting with him. She was going to come clean. Wherever David had gone she hoped it was out of Brian’s reach.

A meeting had been called between Brian, Cramer and Charlie. She was rushing to leave the house the next morning when a muddy old Rover pulled up in the drive. She stood impatiently by her rental car, waiting.

The tall, graying woman approached Charlie. “I’m Martha Langston. I’ve been working with Mr. Davidson on a project out at Hawthorn House. I haven’t seen him in a few days and I have some news for him.”

“Pity. His vision has been given unanimous approval. We need to start work immediately.”

“It may have to wait a bit if you’re needing him. I…I don’t know where he is.”

Brian’s face got redder. “He has committed fraud upon the government!”

“By accepting this orb thing, for making out like it was some kind of a super powerful orb that was going to change everything for us, for leading us around and wasting taxpayer monies.”

“He did all this? Think back, Brown. It was you who brought him into it. I had one interview with him and discovered he wasn’t trying to help us but to stop the whole thing. He wanted to put a stop to it. If anyone committed fraud it was his highly-placed friend and we can’t touch him.”

“If I may. It began as a joke and it wasn’t his friend who attached all the powers to it. He attached some but in a fanciful way. It was the rumor of powers that grew into the monster that it became. Sure, he should have put a stop to it but he didn’t and he involved Blaine by telling him the truth. A game, yes, it was a game and you know that, Brian. He couldn’t reveal what he knew until you told him. He really was going to commit suicide and end it all. He felt that strongly about it but he was prevented from carrying that out by his friend.” Charlie sat back in her chair, fingering a pen.

“The only thing you have really, Brown, is his faked suicide…isn’t it?”

“Is that something you want to become common knowledge?” Cramer placed his hands flat on the desk. “We’d be the laughing stock of the whole country, except when it reaches the palace, I don’t think Her Majesty would be amused.”

“I doubt very seriously if he would admit to knowing a thing about it today and I, for one, am not about to challenge him.”

“The whole thing is absurd, unbelievable, that an intelligence operation would fall into it…don’t you think?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t think he ever will completely walk away from it. It haunts him. He lost everything, Brian. He’s trying to start over but his past won’t leave him alone. You can walk away from it. Leave him alone.”

Brian looked at Charlie. “But I won’t walk away. I’ll find it, the one thing he still has not revealed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Brown! This is beginning to sound like a personal vendetta. It is with you, isn’t it…personal?”

Charlie looked up at Brian. “I do…I know…want me to spell it out here…now?”

“Let’s don’t drag this down into personal matters. I say the thing is closed. Leave it alone, Brown.” Cramer gave him a direct look.

“Well, if we’re through, I’m asking for time off. I need to find him.” Charlie stood, picking up her phone and notebook.

“You’ve just had time off. Go ahead, leave of absence without pay, by the by.” Cramer gave her a wink.

“Thanks. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder, Brian. If I so much as get a whiff of you behind me….” Charlie seriously considered what she might do about him and how she’d go about it.

He had been detained as he knew he would be when he crossed into the mainland. He hadn’t satisfactory papers and his reasons for being there were highly unusual aside from the request to see his mother. He’d answered their questions as best he could without giving them anything, but it was the mention of his uncle that stopped the interview. They left him alone for nearly three hours before the same man came back in and told him his uncle had no nephew. He was about to say something else when the door opened and another man came in. Blaine recognized him but said nothing. Words were exchanged between him and the interviewer and they were left alone.

“Your name is dead but your mother is very much alive. Ti Chang cannot see you. I am sure you understand.”

“Nothing, but inside I believe I know. Is he free? Can you tell me that?”

Once outside his cousin spoke freely. “Our uncle has been detained until the matter is explained. Your death did much to satisfy. In a way you were a hero, saving face for your family and country. But of course now you have come back and with British papers and a false name. What can you tell me, David?”

David sat down with him on a bench and explained the whole story, how it began and how it ended. “What I have told you is the truth. I have no reason to lie.”

“Would it be possible for you to press upon your royal friend that a phone call to the right person might go a long way in satisfying our people?”

“Yes, it was. However this is not a matter of coins. We were made a fool in the eyes of the world.”

“The whole world did not know and you were not the only country involved. This has to be settled once and for all. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in confinement but if that is what it takes, then I offer my own life for his.”

“You have already done this, died once. How many lives do you have?” he said with a slight smile.

“Too many it seems.” He looked out over the courtyard where a garden had been achieved despite the tall skyscrapers surrounding them. “Will you help me?”

“To die? No. I will talk to our uncle and tell him what you have told me. I am going to put myself in danger for you. You might keep that in mind. You will be taken to the house of your mother and you will remain there until you hear from me. Is that understood?”

“Charlie,” Brian stopped her as they left Cramer’s office, “I know where he is. Well, not where exactly but…he flew to Hong Kong and we lost him after that.”

“Thanks, but I still hate you, Brian Brown, for driving him away.” Charlie walked down the hall to gather her things and leave. Hong Kong…why?

Charlie went back to the house, straightened up a little and thought about flying to Hong Kong. She’d never find him on her own, not in that beehive. She made a cup of tea…Ali. But she’d given his card away to Billy.

An hour later after trying through the employment agency she received a call from Billy. He told her he’d left the card in his room on the night table. Charlie found it and walked around with it in her hand, David hadn’t gone to him. Still she hated to call him, but then they had something in common, their love for David Blaine. She placed the call and told him what happened.

“I can go to Hong Kong myself but I wouldn’t know where to go. I mean he can’t go back to his house or where people would know him.”

“I was afraid something like this would happen. I will try through my embassy to locate him. If he has entered the country they will be able to find this out for me. I have your phone number now and will call if I have any information. Charlie, thank you for calling me.”

“That is why I gave you the card. There are avenues open to me that you cannot enter.”

“Yes, there are. Thank you, Ali.” She felt somewhat comforted knowing Ali would find him. He would. But what then? Would David come back to her?

Charlie packed a bag, ready to leave on a moment’s notice, but there was nowhere to go. She fed the fish, walked around the garden, watered David’s plants. Inside she took his sketchbook and curled up on the sofa. Something so personal about that book brought him closer, though he was a world away. His garden sketches brought to mind the woman who’d come looking for him, Martha Langston. She opened her laptop and looked up Hawthorne House, got the address and drove out there to have a look at what he was working on.

Martha Langston was putting things in her vehicle, getting ready to leave. “The property is closed. How did you get in?”

“Drove through the gates. I’ve been looking through David’s sketches and I wanted to see what he was working on.”

“David? He signed the painting he did D. Blaine. I thought his name was Davidson.”

“David is a nickname,” Charlie rolled off. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hold you up. I just.…”

“Not really.” She fell into step beside the woman walking through the gardens.

“Ah, that explains a lot! His manner is very formal, a very talented young man.”

“This is what he was working on, the trees. We’ve already begun to take out the diseased ones.”

Charlie recognized the landscape from his sketches. “What a beautiful place this is.”

“It’s a National Trust property now. We’re restoring the gardens. I don’t think he knew that much about trees but he had a vision just as the original garden designer had and he put it to paper and did the research to make it workable. You may not see it but they were planted to resemble a wave, a wave in the sea.”

“Monkton was his name. He never lived to see his vision come to fruition but he knew it would work when he planted the trees.”

“Yes, I was going to ask if I could frame it and keep it here on the property.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” Charlie followed her back to the office in the greenhouse and looked at David’s painting.”

“He had a vision,” Martha Langston said and looked at Charlie. “Are you in love with him?”

Vision…never lived to see his vision come to fruition… “I need to go, thank you for your time.” Charlie ran to her car. Surely he wouldn’t do himself harm but she knew he was capable of it. She went home and called Ali again.

“I just had this feeling that he might try again. I’m really worried about him.”

“My dear, he is in mainland China. I am trying to work through diplomatic channels as we speak to have him released.”

“Yes, and I think he must have known he would be when he crossed over. Do not worry, Charlie. We will have him back.”

Having him back wasn’t quite so easily accomplished. Once again Charlie wanted to go to Hong Kong and Ali had told her to wait, he would handle it and let her know. To be patient. Patience wasn’t a virtue she possessed.

David sat in the garden of his mother’s house sketching. Water trickling from a stem of bamboo into a quiet pool, the rustle of the wind in the bamboo behind him, were the only sounds he could hear.

Very quietly he stepped onto the gravel walk and David’s head came up and he froze.

“Hello, my darling.” Ali walked to where he sat on the bench. “Are you surprised to see me?”

“Yes, Ali.” He stood up, dropping his sketch pad onto the walk and received Ali’s embrace and kiss. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to save you from yourself…once again and, I hope, for the last time.” Ali was dressed in western clothes, no sign of who he was about him.

“I knew you would come here but it took some work to find you. I had a meeting this morning with one of the vice chairmen. I know him and it was through him that I am here. I have told all, confessed and cleared your name. It is over, Blaine. Your uncle has been released and I’ve come to take you home. Are you prepared to leave immediately?”

“I said I knew him. It will go no farther but even if it did…yes, for you…yes.”

David stood up, looked at Ali for a moment, and went into the house to get his things. Ali picked up the sketchpad from the ground, ran his fingertips over the drawing, and folded it into his jacket pocket. David settled into the back seat of the vehicle with the shaded windows.

“No, it was a personal visit, cleared through proper channels, of course. Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I have cleared your name for you. You have nothing to fear. I could have done this from my home…if you had come.”

“I’m sorry for causing you trouble, Ali. I wanted to do this on my own.”

“Would you come? I would put you in my employ. You would never want for anything, Blaine. Showered in jewels, silken robes…my most personal of assistants.” Ali looked into his eyes and kissed his hand again. “But it is not to be. I am taking you to your home where your woman waits for you.”

“Yes, if not for her I would have known nothing of your situation. She called me and to her credit she is a sensible woman and she loves you openly in a way I cannot.”

“She is sensible and strong and I love her, too, in a way I cannot love you. I didn’t come to you because of her. I can tell you that, can’t I?”

“You can tell me anything. We were once very close, you and I. Years have passed since those days but still I think of you often, I still desire you. You gave me quite a surprise in London.”

“Yes.” David looked out of the window. They were nearing the airport. Smiling, he turned. “That’s why I didn’t go to you. You are my weakness.”

“Nonsense! I am your strength. It is a long flight to London and I have private quarters in my plane.”

The plane set down on the tarmac at Heathrow. One passenger disembarked, carrying a bag and wearing sunglasses. He was met at the roped-off private area by Charlie Davidson. The plane refueled and took off again. David, with his arm around Charlie, watched through the glass in the terminal as it took flight. He turned her in his arms and kissed her. “I’ve come home…to you.”

“Your fish have missed you,” she said as they walked through the terminal arm in arm.

“I’ve missed them, too, but most of all I missed you.” He hugged her a little closer and they went through the turnstile to customs.

“You smell good. I met your Margaret Langston. She has a surprise for you.”

“She came looking for you and then I went out to the Hawthorne House.” She turned and smiled at him. “You’re going to live to see your vision, David.”

“Yes, with luck. I am going to talk to Mr. Abrams about selling us the house. I have a vision for it, too, and for you.”

“What would you think,” he pushed his bag along in the line, “about making our marriage legal and what would you think about a child?”

“If you do. I can’t do it by myself. I’m free, Charlie. For the first time in my life I feel free to do and to say what I feel, to express my desires. I have cut all the ties that bound me except the one that binds me to you.”

Charlie’s face split in a wide smile. “I’ll hide the scissors.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him

“Please, we are drawing attention.” He straightened and picked up his bag, handing it to the customs agent. “I have something for you.” He reached in his pocket and handed her something wrapped in a silk handkerchief.

“What’s this?” She unwrapped it and looked up at him quickly. “David.”

“It is the original, true golden orb that was unearthed by Ali’s construction company. It is yours, from him as a wedding present.”

It was the size of a golf ball, heavy and warm in her hand. “There really was an orb. It feels warm.”

“It’s magic,” he smiled and laughed. Picking up his bag, he took her hand, the one with the orb, and held it between their palms as they walked out of the terminal.