The Miracle in July

When will it go
the raging silence
I hang on
I'll find my way
I'll be gone

[Close to Violence] by [Lowood]

A dense, early morning harbor fog the color of chimney smoke consumed [Copenhagen] and prevented me from taking last looks at my favorite places on my way out of the city. Visibility is poor, with only a few feet in any direction discernible, so I used the glowing street signs, the sounds of the sea, and the city's excellent transportation system to guided me to the airport. I arrived way too early but no worse for the wear. My little house is locked tight – with the shoe box of clues to the rise and fall of epic love hidden away on a closet shelf – and the starlings outside are already gone for the winter, taking their opinions about my scientific research into the ultimate human experience away with them.

On the train to the airport, I dreamed of impressing the house guests that would soon be arriving at my [Portland] home, and their expression upon seeing the [ris á l'amande] that I would have chilling in my fridge, its dark cherry topping warming on the stove – once I've made it back to Portland.  Until I'm back in my home with my view of a foggy [St. Johns bridge], until I've shook my umbrella in the lobby of my downtown office and had my "Welcome Back" shot of gin with the staff, until I have again put my arms around those who love me, I will not be able to sleep.

I've checked in at the Copenhagen airport with hardly any baggage and extra time to imagine all the possible ways I could spend my hours in Portland. Instead I sit here, my mind back on Daniel. And at the moment, he feels closer to me than he's been in years.

There is a large movie poster in the waiting area, on the wall directly in front of me, over chairs bolted to the floor. It is a poster in Danish featuring a devilishly handsome man, bearded and dressed in black. He's pointing a gun at the sky with an expression of a man gone very bad. A blond woman clutches at him, her face terrified. It's Daniel's new movie, out on Christmas Day.

I am at a loss for words. I am transfixed and confused by the poster's presence. He looks wonderful, still, after all this time. Again I am reminded that life is a one-shot deal, a series of events with each moment absolutely unique. There is no such thing as coincidence. And now I sit here, already planning to use my time waiting to board my plane for home to write down my final hours in Denmark with Daniel. How appropriate – or is it disconcerting? I am floundering for the right words! – that he should join me while I try to remember the [last words] we whispered to each other in the dark.

Our post-lovemaking nap on the our last full day together had eaten up the daylight. Daniel called our nap "a grandpa" – which produced a giggle from me, making his mouth curve up slightly at the edges. We were still on the couch when we woke up – still unbuttoned, still wrapped in an embrace – and we had just enough time to make our pasta dinner and watch a movie with our fancy beer before it was time for a pre-arranged digital chat with my girls in Portland. The idea for this chat had been Daniel's.

On this final night, I made my promise to Daniel to write my life story. I filled the small kitchen with my babbled plans for us while I cut the vegetables and Daniel worked the noodles and stirred the sauce. When I returned to Portland, I said, our relationship would exist in incomplete dimensions again. But if we each continued to work on fulfilling our individual dreams, we could have it all, and we could have it together. I would take on authorship, and revel in writing scandalous things that people liked to read. Daniel would become a sought-after multi-talented actor. Success in our careers meant lifestyles which allowed for frequent traveling. We would be lonely for months, yes; missing the touches, smells, tastes we now enjoyed would be unbearable. But love isn't rational, and the love which had blossomed between two lovers existing 9,000 spatial miles apart was made for extraordinary circumstances.

"We can make our physical time together longer, even permanent," I said. "We can do anything we set our minds to, Daniel."

"I know, baby," Daniel said quietly.

We ate our delicious dinner and drank our fizzing beer as we watched a gorgeous blond on television using acrobatics and round-house kicks to save her people. Then it was 11pm Danish time (8am Portland) – time for the international digital party to begin. For the first few minutes we jostled over some inevitable camera difficulties (Lily) and some inexperienced group-chat awkwardness (Becca). We couldn't see Becca, whose computer didn't have a web-camera, but she could see and hear us. She was ecstatic to see the lovers on her screen, talking to her from Denmark with candles flickering in the background. She filled her instant message responses to us with exclamation points and animated emoticons.

"I've decided to stay here," I joked with a glance to Daniel, hoping for a smile. None came, so I stole a kiss on his furred cheek.

Becca typed: "For a moment there I believed you. I had a dream where you decided to stay in Denmark. I woke up so sad!!!"

She followed this instant message with a series of animations to convey her displeasure: a wailing baby, a fog horn, a booing crowd.

It was Lily who concerned me. When our chat began the first thing I noticed was her ghostly face. Her eyes were half-closed from tiredness. It was Saturday morning in Portland, and there Lily was already gulping red wine from a glass goblet dangling between her feminine fingers. Her long red hair was coiled at the base of her neck, pierced into place by a yellow #2 pencil. We could see her but her microphone didn't work, so she had to type her responses back to us. She looked tiny and frail in the little video square on the computer screen, but also like anyone who said as much would be eviscerated with a cutting stare.

I knew that Lily – a part-time college student, and full-time employee and single mother – had probably already spent a few hours that morning studying for a test. This would be after having spent a few hours crying, and maybe a few hours before that tied up in [kinbaku ropes]. Lily was having a very hard time with the recent betrayal of her partner, a man who she'd followed across America to start a family with, and who'd abandoned her for a woman who'd called herself a friend. Now she had a new friend, one who specialized in Japanese bondage, to help her cope.

When she went out to play, her friend Rod would watch her kids. Rod was Lily's friend, a vagabond from Colorado, whom she had invited to Oregon for a chance to start over on the condition that he stay in my spare bedroom. He was in charge of my house and the supervision of my teenage son Ryan while I was away. Rod's laziness and sloppiness continued to vex Lily. Clues to this effect had slipped through the messages sent to me from both Lily and Ryan. Rod had began to complain about fulfilling his obligations to babysit and clean house in return for a free place to stay. And Ryan had not made things any easier – he was still making Lily late for work every morning by not being ready for school when she arrive to take him there.

When Becca signed off to go to work, the conversation turned to Lily's latest distraction. Daniel frowned when she held the red ropes up for us to see. This new activity of hers was a big change from the smoking at night and drinking in the morning, the vices which had immediately followed her heartbreak. Lily quipped that she was trying new things to get through her days, playing with pleasure to relieve the pressure of her life. Her lips and teeth were stained red with wine; she looked tragically beautiful. I began to feel grouchy.

The lateness of the night had settled into my broken finger. I wanted to take a shower and then fall into bed and make love, hold, kiss, and whisper sweet nothings to my Danish lover one last time. But Daniel wanted to keep talking to Lily. I see now that he wanted to keep our schedule full, right up until the last moment – it was his attempt to avoid tearful acknowledgment of my impending departure. It was a smart plan to sink into his stoicism and fill our dance-card up until the very end. But even if I had recognized what he was doing, I still would have growled about it; because of this strong-handed need of his to control the temperature dial between us.

Finally, after a few minutes of talk between Daniel and Lily (during which I sat there silently fuming), I excused myself and got into the shower. I cried as soon as the water began to flow, stood there drowning in tears and wondering what I'd been thinking when I'd made the decision to come to Denmark for this man. None of this is real, I thought. He's forcing intimacy because he can't bring himself to say he doesn't really want this – he doesn't want me.

My blood boiled in emotions. My mind churned over every possible fact and entertained any ridiculous hypotheses. And, always the martyr, I could not forgive myself for failing to either validate or erase my fears. All I had to do was simply ask my lover: [Who am I?] Are we a real family, or is this a fantasy which ends when I fly away from this island, from the Kingdom of Denmark, from you? If I asked him, his transparency would tell me everything. But I was afraid of the answer. I was a coward. I had only the questions to ask and not enough strength to endure the answers.

But questions I demanded of myself I could mull and chew on for hour after torturous hour. What made me feel a kinship with him? Daniel's badness: did I love him in spite of it, or because of it? Had I not fallen in love with Jake because he'd been too good for me? With words, with images and sounds, how had this man, how had Daniel conquered my discriminating heart?

My own evilness Daniel knew almost none of. He had made confessions about his own, and I'd learned more during my stay with him. But he hadn't learned of mine; he only knew that I had not been good in my past, because I said I had been. I said I had been bad, and that my badness made us alike. I gave Daniel no specifics, only assured him that I, too, had demons to endure.

I never told him that I understood his brush with the law as a youngster because I had been caught shoplifting at the [downtown Nordstroms ] after having gotten away with it hundreds of times before. I never confessed that I'd once been someone's mistress for a spell, or that once I had made a good friend end a relationship for me – on Valentine's Day – because I couldn't bear the thought of seeing the boy's heart break. I never admitted to Daniel that once, when I was very young and senseless, I pretended to be pregnant for a few weeks to punish a man (who I'd already grown tired of) for having left me. And Daniel certainly had no clue that as I was here in Denmark frolicking away with him in this [playground ] of his, on the other side of the world my sister Ruthie was inching through her days, infected and enslaved by her own bad habits. He didn't know that Ruthie was sick, or that I had refused to talk to her, had refused to watch her die.

In the tiny bathroom filled with steam I stood cold and shivering under the hot water in the curtain-less shower. Daniel had no shower curtain! My ire peaked again, but then laughter bubbled out instead, muffled by the falling water. For days – since learning that Daniel had not been completely honest about the end of his relationship with his previous girlfriend – I had been using Daniel's towel as my bathroom rug. After my showers I'd mop up the mess (which not having a shower curtain certainly makes) with his towel. More than once I stomped on it in a childish tantrum, and while hopping I relished the immaturity of my actions. By that final evening Daniel's towel smelled terrible.

I hung onto the shower-head and tried to calm down. You're doing this NOW? I chided myself. It's your last night with Daniel and you're pouting like an insecure child! Grow up!

I put on my little pink nightgown – the one I'd worn on my first night in [Århus]. On the morning after that first night, I'd stumbled into the main room to find Daniel checking his email and sipping his coffee, and he turned to look at my mussed hair and sleepy face with a smile, a real smile, for me. And I'd fallen into his arms so he could brush me with his kisses. But now, on my last night with Daniel, I was crawling wet-haired into a frigid bed, alone, too tired to sleep, still poisoned by anger.

Within minutes Daniel joined me in the bedroom. He climbed into bed – a bed which would soon no longer be mine – and he lay under the down comforter naked, on his side, facing away from me. He was waiting for my breasts to touch his back and my arms to hold him. I remained on my back, not touching him. I turned my head to stare at the softness of his black hair, the eclipsed shadow of his lean arm, the freckles scattered across his shoulders.

I tried not to move while I soaked in the smell of his flesh and the glow of his skin in the moonlight. Any movement from muscle or breath was counter-productive to my wish to deny him any evidence of my laying there next to him. I wished to conjure the premature experience of not having me there to comfort him at night. How different our last day together had begun compared to where it laid now, as Daniel continued to hold back his affection for me on our last night. His list of infractions against me was long, both real and imaginary. But I couldn't withstand touching him, not in our final hours. I had to touch him. I pulled him to me, roughly, and he melted against me as if he'd needed the feel of my beating heart in order to dream. I tried to sleep as well, but couldn't for more than a few minutes at a time. And my sleeplessness transmitted itself to Daniel.

"What's wrong?" he whispered.

I'm leaving in the morning! My lover behaves as if my love hurts him! I'm a coward!

"Nothing," I said. "Nothing is wrong. My back hurts." I pulled away and faced away from Daniel on my side.

Daniel crudely rubbed my back with thudding fingers for a few seconds. He was not good at it. Then he plunged his hands under and around my body, scratching my skin with his watch and the snaps on his leather cuff as he pulled me to him.

"Ow!" I whimpered.

"Did I hurt you?

"Your jewelry. You scratched me."

"Do you want me to take them off?" Daniel asked.

Take off your jewelry?! No! I want you to say you love me...and that you don't want me to leave you.

"Just hold me, baby."

We fell asleep for a few more minutes, but before long one of us was moving the blankets or uttering a sleepless sigh, waking the other up, followed by more wakeful sleeping, tossing and turning. This continued until the room began to lighten, darkening my anxiety. Nerves that had been idling high revved for release. I moved close to my lover's side and reached for his penis.

He was soft in my cool hand. I stroked the smooth skin of his cock, like a muscular snake with new skin. Daniel's snake shivered and flexed. My legs spread themselves wide, so I could pet myself as I pet him.

While I masturbated he grew hard in my hand, but soon he was soft again. I felt rejected, and began to use both hands on myself instead, turning my head away from him to hide the tears falling. I hoped he would pretend to be asleep to hide his non-arousal, but suddenly Daniel's fingers were pumping inside me and my nipple was between his teeth. I was utterly miserable, too miserable to orgasm, so I vocalized my usual moans to mask my failure. Daniel's hands and mouth fell away.

We slept for a few more minutes, and then the bed vibrated. Daniel's cell phone alarm chimed to announce that our time left together was less than two hours. I had to catch the bus to the airport.

What do I remember about that morning? I woke up with hair fluffy and curly. My lack of sleep and my secret crying had made my eyes unmistakeably puffy. I remember Daniel checking the bus schedule online, and I remember us sitting in his office chair, me sitting on his lap, together once more for a dangerously long time. Then I was taking one last look around the apartment as Daniel made two PB&J sandwiches for me, wrapping them in foil for my trip. I remember how I almost forgot to take the Christmas card which Ana had made for me, and I remembered that when I found it how Daniel's mother had presented it to me proudly, and passed along Ana's message with the card: "Tell Shelley I will miss her when she leaves."

I remember taking the bone and amber-colored stone from Daniel's bedroom and putting it in his hand, asking him to put it in his pocket. I gave him back his key. We hugged a lot. In the apartment, at the bus stop, on the bus. Touching, little kisses, kindness, all serenaded by a raging, deafening silence.

"I was afraid we'd be late," he said as we rode the city bus to the charter that would take me to the airport. "The bus is running late, which is why we caught it. I didn't want to say anything until we were safely on our way."

I said nothing, just squeezed his hand. By then I could say nothing without breaking down.

"Of course we could still miss the bus to the [Billund Airport]," he joked. Did he want me to?

I concentrated on the possibility that I'd miss the bus to the airport to keep my mind off the tears that had already started flowing. The tears embarrassed me. I was not strong, and I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to be [a world apart] again. If he had turned to me right then, like he had twice before, and looked at me with eyes the color of heavy significance to say "Please don't leave me here..." – I would have stayed a few more days. I would have figured out how to make that happen. But he didn't ask me again, and my ride to the airport was waiting for me.

The morning sky was gray and unfriendly as we rushed to the rumbling bus, already full of people and ready to take me to the small plane which would fly me to Copenhagen, to a bigger plane, which would carry me home. Take me from one home to another home.

On the sidewalk we faced each other one last time. The bus full of Danes watched us, waiting for me to board so that they could catch their flights. Daniel's hands cradled my face and his lips touched mine in soft successions. I kept my eyes open. I looked up at my man between kisses, at the prize that fate had brought me. I saw dark sadness in his eyes when he pulled away from me.

"Lily made me promise I wouldn't say 'Good-bye'," Daniel said. "Instead I'm to say 'See you later'. But I don't know how we'll see each other again –"

I cut him off.

"It's our last moment together, and you're telling me you don't know if we'll meet again? Meeting here, now, was impossible. But it happened. We have plans, we have love, and we have fate."

"It will be hard, Shelley."

"It's always been hard, Daniel. But we know, because I am standing here right now, that nothing's impossible."

I collapsed inside his coat to be held, to have my hair brushed with Daniel's whiskers once more, and then I tore away and boarded the cavernous charter bus. Through the huge windshield I could see Daniel standing there, just where I'd left him. He was enveloped in a dazed, stunned sorrow, his eyes fixed to a spot on the road. He'd worn all black that day, and from the darkness where I sat on the bus I could see his heart breaking. I could see the storm beneath his cool, pale skin, and how his clenched fists had punched into his coat pockets. My chest wrenched horribly when I saw his pain – a hurt so acute that I could not bear to look at him for more than a few seconds. I closed my eyes until the bus began to pull away from the curb, and then my eyes flew open. I looked frantically out the big window, looked again at where my lover had stood in agony. But Daniel had vanished.

On the bus I worked very hard to gain some sort of composure. I failed miserably, but eventually my whimpering ceased and the tears stopped flowing. Then I was simply numb. I tried to sleep, but that was unfruitful. I looked at my cell phone; it had only been thirty minutes. Thirty nearly unendurable minutes. Panic welled up then, but I squashed it down with deep breaths and sheer will. I ate my sandwiches very slowly, savoring each bite, enjoying the thick, soft white bread and perfect ratio of peanut butter and strawberry jam. I spent time smoothing out the creases in the tin foil and then folding the sheets into small, shiny squares.

I waited as long as I could – about another fifteen minutes – before sending Daniel the first text message since our parting:

"Happy Anniversary, sweetheart"

Daniel and I had been together for five months as of that day. My world had changed completely in approximately 150 days.

Within seconds my cell phone beeped a reply from my Viking lover:

"I love you"

Even today, even at this moment, I reverberate from that deeply bittersweet moment. Often in my work, it is this scene – the part of the story where the lovers separate with their futures uncertain – that I take care to summon the most visceral descriptions. In this moment there is dire suffering, a raw emptiness, and a helplessness; all of these emotions must be conveyed when I describe this scene to fully appreciate the sensation of leaving your true love's side, indefinitely, when so many things were left unsaid.

Once upon a time, in the Copenhagen Airport two weeks previously, I found my lover standing in light leaking through cracks in the sky. Inside the illumination the handsome [Mr. Blue] claimed to love me like no other man could ever love me, yet doled out his Midas touches and genuine smiles begrudgingly. His affection for me swung like a pendulum, from consuming worship to a frosty arms-length. More than once I saw my glass lover bathe in my laughing eyes, struggling not to react to my contagious joy, only to later be caught stroking the paleness under my chin with an expression of wonder and sadness. It was this very man, who'd laid beside me fourteen consecutive nights, who'd finally had the chance to say and do all the things he'd promised to say and do, this man I loved more that any other, who could not bring himself to be the first to say I love you. Not even against my lips.

I've spent years pursuing that one moment – the moment I found myself heading home from Denmark transformed, lost in romanticism and grandiose promises, crying fresh tears over Daniel's "I love you" text message. If only I could have known during that moment what the near future would bring.

Never miss a segment by subscribing to this story by [web feed] or [email]. If you enjoy The Miracle in July, please consider making a [donation] to help the author follow her bliss.

The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.