Wherever Elliot has been trying to take me for the past five days must be important, considering the look of absolute concentration that's on his face at the moment, as he drives us wherever we're going.
We've been unable to get away from the house, partially because Ray's and Julie's families were so excited to hang out with the newlyweds that we've been constantly having to entertain guests, and because Elliot started going back to work.
Since the day after Jenna returned, this was the first time I was seeing Elliot in person.
We've been texting back and forth the whole time.
Elliot's replies are sporadic when he's working, but it's so apparent that he's trying.
Over the past five days that he's been away, he hasn't missed even a single time of texting me in the night before I go to bed, or in the morning when I wake up.
He also hasn't missed a single opportunity to shock me with the categorically horrifying hours that he gets to sleep, by his texts, letting me know that he'll be out for the next few hours.
His last text last night had come in at three-thirty this morning telling me that he'll see me at eleven for our outing.
Like a Dutch train, he was in the kitchen at eleven sharp, talking, laughing, pretending to be scared of any apples that I may have stashed around.
The moment he walked into the kitchen, as I stood at the island counter, eating buttered toast, my heart filled with some sort of happy feeling and I didn't remember the last time someone's presence had excited me.
Jenna and Juliet were back in their own house and Mrs. Kingsley was out doing her own thing, so Elliot and I were free to roam the city.
The music in the car is on, playing soft instrumental covers of popular songs.
We're both quiet.
A few minutes into the drive, Elliot reaches over and takes my hand.
He raises it to his mouth, not taking his eyes off the road, and kissed my knuckles.
Then, he proceeds to hold it.
Once in a while, he'll gently squeeze my hand and I'll squeeze back.
We travel in companionable silence and I can't help, but feel a sense of calm and peace.
When Elliot turns into a parking lot behind a large, wrought iron gate, I'm almost exactly sure what we're here to do.
Once he's parked the car, Elliot tells me to give him a minute and gets off, walking to the trunk of the car to get something out.
He then walks over and opens my door for me.
In his hand, he holds a spray bottle and a washcloth.
As I step out, he gives me a small smile.
Putting my hand over his that's on the frame of the car door, I give his fingers a shake.
Elliot's smile widens and he nods to me.
He takes my hand as we walk down the tree lined road.
Everything is quiet and calm. The only other people I can see are far away, walking down a similar tree-lined path towards the person they need to see.
Even the sounds of the city seem to drown out in the sounds of the rustling leaves.
Silently, Elliot shows me the way, turning where we need to and finally, he steps on to the grass and I follow him to a bright green patch of grass and a block of dark-grey granite.
He stands next to me, twiddling with my fingers in his hand as I take it in.
Wilfred Kingsley
Loved in death as in life.
Sorely missed.
Always remembered.
So many chasms crossed.
I don't know how long the two of us stand there, looking at it, but Elliot tugs me closer by the hand, pulling me from my trance.
He kneels on the ground and silently, begins to wipe the headstone with the washcloth he dampened with the spray bottle.
Dropping to my knees, I begin to pick out all the weeds I can find growing in the grass.
Elliot's eyes catch mine and he smiles at me, but I feel like he doesn't really want to smile too much at the moment.
Once the stone is gleaming in the sunlight, Elliot sits on the grass and put the cloth and the spray bottle down and sighs.
I shuffle over to him and put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze, trying to comfort him.
He turns to look at the hand on his shoulder and slowly looks up at me, almost like he's surprised. His breath releases slowly.
After a few moments of silence, Elliot reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a small leaf, which seems to be a four-leaf clover. He lays it down in front of the headstone, right in the middle.
My mind wanders as to what I could leave for his father.
"What's your Dad's favourite colour?" I whisper to Elliot.
Giving me a slightly confused look, Elliot replies, "Green."
I nod and reach into my bag. From within, I pull out the pack of peanut M&Ms that I had bought and open it.
Picking the first green one I find, I lay it down, right next to the four-leaf clover Elliot set down, and then, offer an M&M to Elliot.
The gesture makes him smile at first, but then, Elliot laughs.
His eyes scrunch up, creating the lines by his eyes that I've come to like, deepening his dimples and he laughs. He searches for a green one himself.
I dig through and find another green one for myself.
We tap ours against each other before putting it in our mouths.
It takes a while before Elliot decides to speak. "He used to say that his favourite colour is green because my Mom's eyes are green, but I think it had more to do with the fact that he loved nature." Stretching his legs out in front of him, Elliot leans back on his arms.
I cross my legs and sit next to him, listening.
"Absolutely loved it. Whenever he went on business trips without us, he'd bring back a random leaf and tell us where it came from and everything he had learnt about the plant. I think it's my turn now." Elliot nods to the leaf. "I just happened to come across a four-leaf clover yesterday."
Turning his head to me, he smiles. "He would have loved that you gave him an M&M."
"Next time, I'll try to find a leaf, too," I say, but Elliot shakes his head.
"No, no. I think M&Ms are the way to go. He just might be sick of my leaves."
I angle my head. "Did you ever get sick of his leaves?"
Elliot thinks for a moment. "I guess not. In fact, I wish I had more of them."
"You do," I tell him, nodding to the four-leaf clover, "This is still between the two of you."
In response, Elliot takes my hand.
"Do you still have the leaves he brought?" I ask.
Elliot nods. "They're all pressed between oil papers in my copy of 'The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen'."
He falls quiet again.
I watch him, as his expression changes while he stares at the headstone. Slowly, little by little, his smile falters, fades and disappears and that crease between his eyebrows appears.
As I look down at the grass, I find that the hand that's not holding mine is balled into a tight fist.
The pain he's feeling isn't really apparent on his face, despite his severe expression, but I'm sure Elliot feels it. I'm sure that, somewhere inside him, there is a twinge of pain at every thought of his father.
Leaning closer to him, softly, I say, "You can tell me." Elliot's eyes meet mine. "You can tell me that you miss him or that it hurts or any and all of your thoughts."
Elliot seems to search my face for truth in this statement. Whatever answer he settles on, it makes him sigh.
"It was so sudden," he begins, his voice low, almost as if he wishes he didn't have to be saying this, "He began to complain of blurry vision and headaches sometimes. I asked him to go to a doctor. He said maybe he was just overworked. He put it off. He kept putting it off. Every single day I'd ask him about it. When it persisted, I made him go. We all took him. They diagnosed it as a Grade IV brain tumour."
Elliot's fingers tighten around mine.
"I went to every doctor I could find. Every single respected neurosurgeon. Doctor Friedrich Johnson, he's an Andrusian neurosurgeon, actually, is one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. I had met him at some conference in university. I got in contact with him. I practically begged him to come and look at my Dad. He did. He confirmed everything we'd been hearing. My Dad had, what they call, a Glioblastoma. The cancerous cells spread fast and surgery would be needed."
He closes his eyes and sighs.
I push myself closer to him, holding his hand in both mine.
"I saw my Dad pretty much deteriorate and I couldn't do anything about it. He went through surgery. Dr. Friedrich Johnson, himself did the surgery and when Dad came out of it, he was so much weaker than he had ever been. At that point, your survival rate is about fifteen months. Fifteen months – I had only that much time with my Dad?"
Elliot lowers his head and blows out a shaky breath.
I move myself so that I'm facing him, rather than sitting beside him, still holding his hand.
"Dad wasn't one to give up easily, so he was around for twenty months after his surgery. When he pushed past the fifteen-month mark, my hope rose and dwindled. On the one hand, if he's here still, will he keep being here? And on the other, the longer he's here, probably means the sooner he'll go. He was taken from me, from us, way too soon. It wasn't fair, Aura. It's been years, but it's still not fair."
Sitting up, Elliot takes one of my hands in both his, tracing lines over my knuckles. "Can I share something?" he asks, hesitantly.
I nod.
Gazing down at the lines he draws on the back of my hand, he says, "One day, he was lying in his hospital bed and I was sitting in the chair next to him. I used to spend every moment that I wasn't working, with him. I think I had fallen asleep, holding his hand just like this. I woke up to him running his free hand over my head again and again. When I straightened and looked at him, he told me, 'You're going to have to leap all your chasms without me, Eli'."
Elliot's face crumbles.
Reaching forward, I pull my hand out of his grasp and put my arms around him, pulling him in for a hug.
He seemed a bit taken aback at first, but Elliot wrapped his arms around me, buried his head into my shoulder and pulled me closer to him, holding me close.
Somewhere from the depth of our hug, come the muffled words, "He was gone two days later."
I don't know if it's the distance of Elliot's voice or the fact that he's holding on to me so tightly that cracks my heart, but either way, I rub a hand up and down his back, trying to push away whatever feeling is breaking him.
It makes me wonder whether Elliot ever had an outlet to release the pain of the loss of his father all over again.
Instead of asking, I just hold him, trying to give him the comfort he needs.
I feel the heavy exhale push the hair near my neck before he pulls away.
When he does, the tip of his nose is reddened and his eyes are watery.
My heart hurts all over again and I take his face in my hands, wiping away his tears, trying to keep my composure.
Elliot holds me by the forearms, but says nothing. His eyes don't even focus on me.
"Tell me," I say, bringing his attention back to me, "Tell me the best things about your Dad."
Wiping a hand across his face, Elliot releases me. "There are so many."
"We've got time."
The smile that disappeared from his face begins to show slightly.
"Okay, alright. Well, he was kind and generous," Elliot lists, thinking as he does, "Intelligent, funny. He said the best things. He was a bit sentimental. He always knew the best thing to say. Dependable, reliable. He could be incredibly silly at times. If he loved you, he loved you widely and deeply. He never bothered to love anyone half-way. He was just the best person I know."
Wiping the remnants of the silent tears off his face, I smile at Elliot. "If that's the case, El, all the best things about your Dad are still very much alive. In you."
Elliot's lips parted and instead of saying whatever I thought he was going to say, he pulled me towards him and kissed me softly.
* * *
"We've had an interesting start to all this, haven't we?"
I look at Elliot over my chocolate milkshake. "What makes you say that?" I ask, angling my head.
He gives me a small shrug. "Well, I thought we'd make it at least two weeks before I cried on your shoulder."
I laugh and nudge his leg with my foot under the table.
In true Elliot fashion, he remembered my love for old-fashioned diners, complete with checkerboard tiles, leather booths and a jukebox in the corner and brought me to one. It was a bit of a drive, but Isa was right. Al's cheesy fries made up for it being so far away from the main city.
His right hand is outstretched on the table between us, so, I slowly reach for it.
Without hesitation, Elliot opens his hand and takes hold of my fingers.
Just his simple touch floods me with chills of excitement.
"Don't worry," I tell him, "I'll get you back for that, tenfold."
Elliot raises my hand to his mouth and kisses it. "I look forward to it."
"Even to deal with it over the phone?"
"Even then."
We'd already discussed that once we get back to our normal lives, oceans away from each other, we would get a feel of each other's routines before setting up the base of our communication plans.
Looking at him, so close now, I know it's going to be incredibly difficult to be away from him, but there's also a part of me that's excited about the feelings that come along with liking someone so much that you miss them when they're not around.
"I'm going to miss you when you're gone," he tells me, in a low tone, voicing my thoughts.
Slipping my hand out of his, I push his fingers out, so that his palm is open, facing me. I watch his steady hand not move. "It's like you're inside my brain," I say back, matching his tone, giving him a small smile.
I raise my own hand, complete with unsteady fingers, and keep it against him. Not only is his palm bigger than mine, but his fingers are so much longer.
Elliot stands and crosses the booth to come sit next to me.
Somewhere deep in my heart, the soppy part of me starts to cry, because I used to have to convince the other one to sit next to me, but here is Elliot, doing it without a single prompt.
As he sits down, he threads out fingers together.
Softly, he kisses my cheek.
"I will text you every single day. I can't promise you that I can call because of work, but I will always text you and reply to you whenever I can," he assured.
I tell him, "I believe you. I will do the same."
"I know you will."
"I'll probably miss you anyway."
Elliot chuckles. "I can assure you that I will miss you anyway. Every single time I see a pack of M&Ms in the vending machine."
"Don't share peanut M&Ms with anyone else," I tease, "That's our thing."
Elliot laughs. "I assure you that if Linc or anyone else ever tries to share their peanut M&Ms with me, I will run away."
With my shoulder, I push him, shaking my head at his silliness.
He puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him.
He kisses the top of my head.
He squeezes my hand.
He tells me an asinine story about Marco.
I tell him an asinine story about Miles.
He tells me a childhood memory about Isa.
I tell him a university anecdote about Ray.
He tells me that he loves diners, too, now.
He tells me that his father would have loved that I gave him an M&M again.
He thanks me for what I said today.
He tells me random facts he thinks would interest me about the brain.
He intertwines our fingers.
He kisses my temple.
He fills my heart.
What happens when Aura returns home?
Stay tuned!
Much love.