The Girl Who Carried the Sun

Eighteen

Eighteen
☢️☢️☢️

In the short span of a minute, Lily reached a place she could call home, somewhere she truly belonged. The house looked prettier than she remembered. It appeared as if it stood in a meadow of flowers like one from a dream. The moment she opened her door, she caught the soft tinkle of the wind chime that hung on the porch. It reached her with a breeze that stroked her cheeks in loving waves.

"Aw, it's pretty," she smiled as she looked ahead at the little cabin.

Daniel came and helped her out of the car. "Come and check out your flowers. They're blooming like anything."

"I'd thought you wouldn't have time to care for them."

"I water them every night, mostly when I'm on call with you, when I'm missing you..." he grinned at her.

"Please." She returned with a laugh. "Thanks though. I don't think I could do this well."

"Of course, you can. All I do is water them."

Daniel hauled her bags inside while she took a stroll around the house. He'd welded metal rakes for the flowers and placed them around the porch for everyone to see. When she went inside, Daniel came down the stairs.

"You would need a study table. I'll see where I can get one. Maybe Che Dune has an extra table. Until then you would have to manage either on the kitchen table or here," he said, motioning to the coffee table in the center of the living room.

"Yeah. I'll manage. Don't worry."

"What would you like to have for dinner?"

"Something plain and simple will do for me."

"Okay. Get some rest."

"What would you do now?"

Standing at the foot of the stairs and looking out through the door, he took a breath and said, "Well, it's a great day to be home for once. Maybe I'll take a bath and see what else I can do. But I'll be home. We could go for a walk in the evening if you're not too tired."

"We could. I need to bathe too but after you. I think I should sit down for a while," she said, walking over to the couch and plopping down on it.

"Fine. You rest, ma'am. I'm taking a bath."

"Okay. All the best," she grinned at him sleepily as she lowered her head against the armrest.

When Daniel came out of the bathroom, Lily was fast asleep on the couch. He dressed and brought out his laptop to work beside her. When Lily awoke in the afternoon she found him asleep too in front of his laptop, fingers spread over the keyboard, his face turned up to face the ceiling and dragging long, deep breaths with every rise and fall of his broad chest. Lily wondered how he was holding on. The way life had unfolded for each one of them could only add up to the burden he carried, she thought.

Lily was staring right at his face when he moved and suddenly opened his eyes, startling her a little. He stretched out his long, sturdy arms, groaned as he tried moving his joints, and then asked her, "What are you staring at?"

"You snore," she said.

He laughed immediately. "Of course, I don't. I caught you staring at me. Why? Am I too handsome for this world?"

Lily giggled. "Yeah, sure. Tom Cruise is nothing compared to you."

"I know," he fell back on the backrest with a smug smile on his lips. "You should paint your nails. Some of your nail polishes are still up in your room."

Lily took a bath and they spent the afternoon talking to each other out at the front porch, listening to the wind chime and watering the flowers together until it was time to make dinner.