Running Barefoot

Suddenly, Samuel was next to me on the bench, his long body sliding next to mine, my hands falling discordantly from the keys as his arms wrapped around me and his lips captured mine anxiously. My arms rushed to embrace him, as my right hand rose to his face. My head was pressed into his shoulder, and he pulled me across his lap, his mouth moving feverishly over mine.

I heard myself say his name as he moved his lips from mine to rain kisses across my jaw and down the silky column of my throat. I shuddered deep down in my stomach, and my hand tightened on his face, pushing him from me to stare into his eyes. He looked down at me, and his breath was harsh, coming in pants like it never did when he ran. His eyes glittered and burned, and his lips were parted as he struggled to control his breathing.

“How am I going to keep my promise if you keep kissing me?” I whispered urgently.

“What promise?”

He hadn’t released his hold on me, and I was still grasped tightly in his arms.

“Not to fall in love with you,” I murmured emphatically. The heat from my belly defied gravity and rushed to my already flushed face.

He didn’t respond and I pulled myself from his arms; he let me go. I rose and stepped away from him.

He stood behind me, and I moved towards the door.

“Josie.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t let me answer your question.”

“Which question was that?”

“You asked me if you were the girl I loved best.”

Now I didn’t respond.

“You’re not the girl I love best, Josie.” My shoulders tightened against rejection. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved,” he finished quietly. My breath caught, not quite believing what I was hearing. “I know I’m moving too fast. I just can’t seem to help myself. I watch you and listen to you and all I want to do is hold you and kiss you, and I…I’m sorry if I am pushing you....” His voice faded off. I didn’t know how to respond. My heart had resumed its gallop, and I laid a hand against my heart to ease its rhythm. His hands were gentle on my shoulders, and he turned me to face him. I looked up into his face and was lost in what I knew was coming.

“I want you to come with me to San Diego. I want you to marry me. Now, next week, next month, whenever you’re ready. You can go to school – or just play the piano all day. I don’t care as long as you’re happy and you’re with me.” Samuel’s hands framed my face and his eyes pled with mine.

“First you tell me not to fall in love with you and five minutes later you ask me to marry you!” I blurted out. I was reeling, euphoria threatening to bubble up and carry me away while the weight of my responsibilities clawed in my throat.

“Oh Josie! I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I? Please try to understand,” Samuel groaned out. “I do want you to love me, Josie, because I love you so much it makes me ache. But if you’re going to run away, loving me will just make you unhappy.”

“I’m not the one leaving, Samuel! Why can’t you stay here? Why do you have to leave?” I cried, sounding to my own ears like a very young child.

“For the same reasons I can’t live on the reservation. My future isn’t here. I have commitments that I have to keep to the Marines, to myself, even to my people. This isn’t where I’m needed.”

“I need you!” Again the child in me made her appeal.

“Then come with me.”

“I can’t go. I can’t leave. I’m needed here.”

“I need you,” Samuel implored softly, repeating my words. “I need you because I love you.”

I felt strangely detached, as if I was watching this scene play out in a Jane Austen novel. I felt grief, but it was a sympathetic grief, the kind of grief I often feel for someone else’s pain - almost the way I’d felt at my mom’s funeral - like it wasn’t real yet. I stepped back from Samuel.

“I can’t go with you, Samuel. I’m sorry.” My voice sounded funny, and it felt heavy on my lips, similar to those awful dreams where you try to speak but can’t because your mouth is suddenly unable to form the words.

Samuel’s face tightened briefly like he was angry with me, and then it softened as he gazed down at me. His black eyes lingered on me for a moment more.

“I was afraid of that. I realized something tonight when we were listening to Beethoven. You’re like the tonic note. You’re the note that all the other notes revolve around and gravitate to. You’re home. Without you, the song just might not be a song, your family might not be a family. That’s what your afraid of, isn’t it? Who will step in and be the home base, the tonic note, if you go?” Samuel’s eyes were bleak as he continued, his voice husky and low. “That’s what you’ve been for me ever since I met you. The note I could hear, even when it wasn’t being played. The one I’ve gravitated towards all these years.” He leaned into me and kissed the top of my head gently. His hand cupped my cheek briefly, and his thumb traced my trembling lower lip.

“I love you, Josie,” he said. Then he turned and walked out of my house.

The following morning his truck was gone, just as it had been the day after Daisy’s colt was born all those years ago.

20. The Leading Note

Samuel had been gone for two weeks, and I kept myself as busy as I could. I did all my regular duties - I cut hair, I taught piano lessons, and I ran several miles a day. In addition, I harvested what was left in my garden. Then I canned until the early morning hours, bottles of beets and tomatoes and green beans and pickles. I made lasagnas and casseroles and stuck them in the freezer in single serving sizes. When there was nothing left to bottle or freeze I alphabetized and reorganized my food storage. Then I decided the house was in need of a deep clean. I scrubbed blinds and washed curtains and steamed carpets. Then I started in on the yard. In other words…I was a mess.