THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART EIGHTY-ONE:

Marshall woke in the wee hours, having no idea what time it was until several minutes later the clock chimed three. He was aware of Wadsworth snuggled against his back while Eden was spooned into his front. His family. The years in this house flowed and the currents had brought him to this present moment. How different it was from before, but how very alive it had suddenly become again after those long months when it had all seemed to settle into some stagnant pool.

Late in the evening Eden had fallen asleep in his arms there in front of the fireplace. He'd let Wadsworth back inside earlier and when no further sounds came from the living room, the dog had made his way out of the kitchen and settled with a sigh against Marshall's back. Marshall had pulled a soft afghan over them, even Wadsworth, and lay a long while listening to the breathing of the two living beings he loved most in the world. He was literally cocooned there between them, a feeling of utter contentment enveloping him.

His left arm was over Eden's shoulder as she lay on her right side and his hand rested just above her breast. Very, very lightly he let his fingers cup around it with just enough pressure to feel its soft give. It was so completely female there under his strong fingers that he began to respond to it and quickly moved his hand away. Time enough for that later. She was sleeping deeply now and he wanted her to rest. Besides, Wadsworth had lifted his head at Marshall's small movement and given him a long, lazy lick on his left shoulder blade.

Now as he lay there, he heard the sharp spatterings of sleet against the living room windows. January. So far from the time of daffodils. He smiled again, thinking of how that particular flower had taken on a whole new meaning for him. The sleet continued for a long time. He'd call
Sylvie first thing and tell her not to try coming over. Mayhaven was a cobbled road and even slipperier when iced than pavement was. Eden and he could spend the day exploring the house together. For some reason they hadn't managed to get very far with that yesterday evening. Maybe they might even write a bit more of Morgan and Susanna. Finally he drifted off again,

his left hand resting fairly safely on her hip.

Eden woke just after dawn, managing to turn in Marshall's arms without waking him. This left her face to face with him, mere inches between their noses. His breath was soft and warm against her skin and she opened her mouth so it could flow inside her. She lay like that for long minutes, inhaling as he exhaled, feeling absolutely at one with this man. She wanted to touch his face, to trace her fingertip down the line of his nose, across the curve of his lips, but she settled for bringing her open mouth closer so that the merest fraction separated it from his parted lips and his breath flowed more directly into her.

Wadsworth shifted position and, just slightly roused from sleep, Marshall licked his lips. His tongue encountered something soft almost against his and though he was far from awake, he instinctively tipped his chin and pressed his mouth to hers. Wadsworth's head came up enough that his eyes met Eden's. She focused intently on them and with her right hand made a gesture toward the kitchen. He sighed, she could swear it was a sigh, and moved out of the room as she silently promised him she'd let him out in a bit, but, dammit, she was still on her honeymoon.

She loved that his lips were on hers in his sleep. Carefully she let her tongue enter his mouth, running it along the ridge of his upper teeth before she searched out his tongue. An instant stirring against her thigh let her know he was waking up and she began to kiss him more thoroughly. He woke suddenly, a deep, primal sound rising up his throat, and she took the sound into herself as well. Her hands were on his back, pressing him urgently against her as though she could push the cells of his being into her own cells. For one fleeting moment she visualized that, something the opposite of a cell dividing, making two new cells. No, this was a separate cell
coming home again, pressing through the walls, its nucleus merging back again with another. It was an act not of creation, but of re-creation and she wanted it with a surging desperation. That such a thing was not possible, not here on earth anyway, urged her on that there might be as much of him inside her as could be. It had started with his breath and then his guttural waking sound, followed by his tongue and then the warmth against her leg was within her, too, and still she pressed as hard as she could against his back, wanting endless more of him. 

When their lovemaking was done, he thought of saying something about never having been awakened in quite so splendid a way before, but he was sensitive to her mood and, instead, lay still inside her, his arms wrapped about her as she buried her face in his neck. He was quiet
a long time, then whispered into her hair, "I'm not going anywhere, my darling." 

The tips of her fingers only dug somewhat more deeply into his shoulders, and so he remained

as he was, stroking her hair with one hand. Long minutes passed and then she began to move

her hips and he was hard again and loved her again without ever having withdrawn himself. 

He let himself be lost in the utter intimacy of it, and for a being as tactile as he was, it meant everything, and he understood what it was she was needing because he needed it, too.

Finally they lay together, though separate, and he splayed his left hand fully across her back

and his right behind her head. "My wife," he whispered, his lips against her temple. As a

sudden gust blew a hard rush of sleet against the tall windows, he pressed her closer and added, "My wife, in our home."  Then he let out a long, satisfied breath, the warmth of which flowed down her cheek, over her collarbone, and curved around her breast. She nestled into him. He was the home she'd come to live in, him, and not a stone building.  The building only mattered because it was some sort of tangible extension of him.

After a while his tummy growled loudly and he said hopefully, "You getting hungry, darling?"

All they'd had since lunch yesterday at the diner had been the little tray of snacks Sylvie had

left in the refrigerator for them. The kitchen. Eden hadn't really seen the kitchen well yet. She wondered just what all she might find in there. Marshall got to his feet, extending a hand back down to her. She shrugged into her new robe then looked at him standing there as unadorned

as he'd come into the world.  "Come," she said, taking his hand. "We'd better go find your robe or I'll never be able to keep my mind on food."

"Even after...that?" He nodded toward the hearth rug.

"Yeah."  She heaved a very exaggerated sigh. "Even after that. Best gird your loins, Dr. Sinclair."

He moved a hand to his upper thigh. "Don't seem to find much to gird them with, Mrs. Sinclair."

Eden giggled. "Guess you'll just have to suffer the consequences, then."

"Now?"

"I'll let you eat first."  She chuckled again. "But you'd better get that robe on fast."

In the bedroom, she watched as he deftly unhooked his robe from a hanger on the back of the door. It was dark green in a thick, soft flannel and as he belted it around his waist, she had to admit she liked it better when he was au natural. But it was light out now and he couldn't just parade around in front of the windows. The thought sent her to the bay window that overlooked the back yard. The sky was a leaden grey, heavy with cold precipitation that wavered back and forth from sleet to frozen rain.

"Glad it didn't do this yesterday," she commented, "the weather, I mean."

"Sylvie," he said. "I've got to call Sylvie."  He used the bedroom phone and then together they went to the kitchen.

"Wow!" she said, flipping on a few wall switches that illuminated every nook and cranny of the place. Her eyes, though, sought one particular thing. "There it is," she announced happily.

"There what is?"

"The peanut butter cookie table."  How long ago now it seemed that he'd told her about pressing out the peanut butter balls with the bottom of a glass. "Do you...?"

"If the stuff's in the pantry, sure," he replied, knowing instantly what she meant. "But maybe not for, um, breakfast."

"Lunch, then," she persisted. "Peanut butter cookies for lunch!"

He laughed. "Diet's all shot to hell. I can see that already!"

"You can see that?" she repeated softly.

"Yes, I can see that," he nodded. "Just like I can see you."

"You gaze at cookies?" She suddenly needed to be flip again.

"Hey! A good cookie is a marvelous thing to touch, um, behold."

The kitchen was a warm, homey place despite being maybe 10 or more times the size of the one in her apartment. The countless cabinets were polished cherrywood and all the countertops were a light beige granite, even the top of the sizable central island with its extra sink. "Your Mom liked Tuscany?" she ventured, looking around at the decorations.

"One of her favorite places," he replied. "I guess that's pretty evident in here, eh? You can change it however you like, though."

"I like it fine," she smiled.  "You can take me there sometime when the sunflowers are in bloom and we'll just add more stuff to it."

"Ah," he said. "That's what we'll have to do...follow the flowers around the world, like some people follow the big surfing waves. Daffodils in the Lake Country, lavender in Provence, sunflowers in Tuscany."

"And poppies," she added. "I understand Italy has a lot of those."

"And poppies," he agreed. "Definitely poppies. What about waffles?"

"You know where the waffles bloom?"

"Yep!" he grinned. "Right over...here."  He trailed his hand along the edge of a long counter, then reached out. "That is if it's still where it used to be." His fingers found a round waffle iron. "None of those new-fangled square waffles for the Sinclair boys," he said before he realized he'd done it.

Eden knew instantly that a memory of Jeff had just walked into the room. "Round's good!" she hastened to say. "Fit on the plate better that way anyway, I always say."  She looked around. "You know where the bowls might be?"

He knew the kitchen quite well and before they started on the waffle batter, he took her on a tour of all the cabinets and drawers. There was a huge pantry, too, a breakfast area with its own oval table set neatly in front of another bay window overlooking the back of the house, an entrance to a laundry room and beyond that a door to the garage. A door to the right of the breakfast area led directly to the back yard. Marshall let Wadsworth out. "Bet he doesn't stay long. Not with all this ice." And in less than two minutes the big dog had announced he was ready to come back in.

One side of the kitchen island had a row of four tall swivel chairs along it and they sat companionably side by side as she poured ingredients into a large glass bowl and he stirred the batter. When four waffles had been made, three for him and one for her, they had a leisurely breakfast with orange juice, tea, sliced peaches, and the waffles. Her first real meal in her new home. She looked the length of the kitchen, with its beamed ceiling hung with copper pots and many kinds of oddly-shaped baskets. What a lovely room, like something straight out of a magazine. You gonna fit in here, kid? she asked herself silently. But one look at Marshall hungrily stuffing a large bite of syrup-dripping waffle into his mouth was all it took to give her the answer to that.

Despite there being a dishwasher, she hand-washed the few dishes and he dried and put them away. She liked watching his confident movements in this large kitchen. And as for Marshall,

he felt so complete, all the way down to his toes, to be in this house again, to be...happily...in

this house again. The large, glazed tiles under his bare feet were familiar territory. He remembered stories his mother would tell about how he'd zoom around this very floor in his wheeled walker that the doctor had said would be too dangerous for a blind baby. Jeff had thought otherwise, though, and the walker the older brother had used was brought out of the attic for the use of the younger. He'd loved the thing, propelling himself with his chubby
little legs as fast as he could go. There were still dents in the lower regions of the island counter where he'd crashed over and over into it. Jeff was always nearby, would dash up and... usually...manage to catch him before he flipped head-first onto the tiled floor.  Marshall had never been all that cautious about exploring his unseen world and when he was given this wonderful wheeled contraption while still very young, it had been like wings for him.

Marshall paused at one of the corners of the island, following down its edge with his right hand until he came to a fairly deep dent in the cherrywood. Eden saw the motion and asked him about it, how it got there.

"Me," he grinned. "I got it there. Thirteen months old at the time." And so he told her about the walker.

Eden touched the dent herself. Marshall. The whole history of Marshall was literally engraved on this house. There was no way she could not love it. "Started young, did you," she cracked, though, "with the whole gully syndrome?"

"Very young," he admitted, "though I promise I won't bang into kitchen counters any more."

"You better not, mister!" she said, her voice starting out flippant but then breaking. She slid

her arms around him. "You just damn well better not."

He heard the change in her voice. "Could I distract you with the offer of a shower?"

"I don't know that that's distracting enough." 

"Um, a joint shower?"

"You can make it...really...distracting?"

"So distracting you won't even notice the water or the soap."

"What if I want to notice the soap?"

"All right. I'll be sure you notice the soap."

ON TO PART 82

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