A Promise Kept (FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS)

3 A Perfect Love

"What are you thinking about?" someone asked suddenly. Drawn out of my reverie, I glanced over to Giselle Lemieux who lounged on the outdoor chaise beside me. Her hazel eyes twinkled in the afternoon sun as she twirled a strand of her elegant auburn hair around a finger and shot me a mischievous smile.

"My sister," I told her.

"Do you miss her?"

"I do."

"What's it like? To have a sister? I mean, I'm an only child so I wouldn't know. But Celeste tells me it's a bond like no other."

I glanced at her again. She had sat up in interest, her hair falling back from her shoulders in chestnut waves.

"Celeste is right," I told her, giving credit to one of the girl's more insipid friends. "The bond of blood is stronger than any I've ever known. It's a connection I can't explain. When we were younger, we were together so often that when one of us injured ourselves in a minor way such as a small cut the other would instinctively know. I still feel that sometimes. Have you ever had a day that you feel very sad but you don't know why?"

"No," she answered, shaking her head, eyebrows knitted in thought.

"I have. I've always thought it must be because she is sad. Somewhere else, far away. Like my heart goes out to her when I don't even know what for."

She fell quiet then, considering what I had told her. I considered it myself. It was true. Somedays I imagined my sorrow was a consolidation of the pain for the trials we both faced and that my heart was heavier when hers was too. But I had no way of verifying my suspicions and, more often than not, convinced myself that it was only I who was having a particularly difficult day and that there couldn't possibly be such an emotional connection with a woman living hundreds of miles away.

"Do you think that other bonds might be so strong?" Giselle asked then and I looked over to her to find that she was no longer gazing at me. Her eyes had turned to the horizon and she appeared to be watching the road, far out in the distance.

"What sort of bonds do you mean?"

"Well, like love."

"There are many kinds of love. I love my sister."

"You know what I mean," she said impatiently. "Like romantic love."

Oh. I said nothing. I was far from an expert on the subject.

"Do you think it's possible to have the sort of romance that exists in L'Astrée for example?"

"I don't know what that is."

She sighed. "What I mean is, does a perfect love exist?"

"A perfect love?"

"The sort of love where you are willing to sacrifice everything for each other. The kind of love which makes you feel as though you're living for the first time, as if every breath you take is entirely dependent upon the existence of another soul. The sort of love which consumes you until you spend every waking hour thinking of your lover. Do you think that sort of love exists?"

"I hope not. I imagine it would make it quite difficult to get anything done."

She burst into laughter and I smiled along. Tossing her head back so that her auburn waves fell behind her, smiling up at the sky in animation, she resembled a statue of an old Greek goddess, young and beautiful with a world ready to bow to her. I wondered what it must be like to have such hope. I had never ruminated on the idea of a perfect love because I had spent the majority of my life attempting to simply survive. How wonderful it must be to be born with ambition, gifted with desires.