To Steal a Weeping Widow

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Think It Was Me

"Rest on the Flight into Egypt" by Titian (c. 1512), stolen 1995, recovered 2002, value - $12.5 million

Chapter Thirty-Nine

That pivotal night had started something as unstoppable as an avalanche, as world-shaking as a fault line, and as fiery hot as the sun that blessed us. Something new was dawning over the ruinous end of an era—believe me, I welcomed it with open arms.

But change was a fickle creature.

There were times she was shy, and others she was emboldened to be brazen and unapologetic. Change was a bull; tiptoeing through china shops or thundering through temples, switching course with the ease of a river. Change was a friend. An enemy. A flirt. She infected my life again with her chronic disease, consuming me like a parasite under my skin. This time, I wished to tell her, this time she was welcome. My lips might splatter with blood, but it wasn't a rattling cough of poisoned pasts—it was a bleeding heart, filling me with ruby red. My hands were stiffening to stone, but it wasn't caused by death, or ice, or paralysis. It was the stilling of anxious flutters; an infection of peace passed by touch and proximity. It was my fingers gaining strength, warmed by his hand clenched around mine. My trembles faded from his gentle touches and iron holds. This time, I embraced change. She was a foe I welcomed back, a nemesis I embraced, despite the lingering blues from her previously beaten fists on my skies. I knew she'd returned for another round. Her teeth tugged gloves tight, eyes wild, arms raised, but I had no fight this time. This time, I laid down for her, and she dipped brushes in red and went over the blues, her fist loose around a palette, instead.

Yet, as much as she forcefully flexed her control, she wasn't everywhere. She didn't touch everything.

In fact, most changes weren't very apparent in the light.

Life still treaded mostly untouched during the slim hours of winter sun. Our days were still spent separate; Simon toiled at the museum, and I hid anywhere else, avoiding it, like it was the cure that'd kill me. No, the days themselves didn't bear many indications of drastic change. It was only if we were lucky that we could steal slivers of daylight, and grant them to the other—but those days were few and far between. Our responsibilities often boarded the windows too tight for luck to reach in.

It wasn't the days where change resided—it was the nights.

It was the nights where change had scratched her name the most, where she'd let herself bloom to a full, frilly glory. It was the nights where she trekked with nimble feet over frozen grounds, hands leaving traces of gold on bare bark, introducing something new to the winter evenings and blowing it from spark to flame. It was the nights where she danced with thunder in her feet and hail in her hair; where she whirled with sleet on her shoulders and gales in her ears, feral and free like life intended.

Our nights...

Our nights were ours.

Nights were spent dressed in blushing reds from each other's touches, scarlet blooming from head to toe; a crimson cloak thick enough to hide daggers and wounds. Evenings were passed warmly content, enveloped in comfortable embraces, cozy while the cold blues peered in with jealous longing. Nights were stolen. Hidden. Hoarded by these greedy hands of mine, and cradled in those unflinching hands of his. Some nights were rampaged by flames we'd stoked, becoming so feverish we could stand only the shy touch of fingers while we huddled before flickering screens. Others were consumed by painting purples on landscapes I'd forgotten could be anything other than brown. Nights were silk sheets and whispered names; hours marked by conversations of ocean-worthy depths, and silences that didn't need to be filled.

Nights were what the days bled for, what they died for, and what I waited for, yearning and impatient through blistering mornings and musty afternoons. Nights were mine to share with the man who never ran. Even the nights I was alone, a lone pillar in my bed, the space he'd carved for himself in my mattress was deep enough for me to bury my sins into. To await his return, feeling where he'd lay beside me, and hear his echoes.