The Virgin
“I don’t know,” she said with a graceful tilt of her head, a graceful lift of her shoulders. “I think God gets scared.”
“You do? Seems unlike Him. All-knowing. All-powerful. What is there for Him to fear?”
“Us,” she said. “His people. He loves us and we’re...” She turned her gaze onto the water. “Small. Weak.”
“Fragile,” Kingsley said.
“We’re fragile, yes. And He’s new to us, as new as we are to Him. He doesn’t know His own strength. He doesn’t understand yet how weak we are.” She paused and looked at her feet in the sand. “I’ve seen mother birds crush their own eggs by accident. The mothers aren’t evil. They aren’t trying to hurt their babies. But still, the eggshells, they’re too fragile.”
Kingsley felt something in his chest, something like an eggshell. He felt it in the place where his heart should be.
“Imagine,” Juliette whispered. “Imagine how terrifying it is to know you could crush your own creation simply by loving it.”
“I can imagine.”
“I suppose that’s the price we pay,” she said, looking toward the horizon.
“Pay for what?”
“For loving and being loved by something so powerful.”
Kingsley nodded. God was so vast, and they so small—was it any wonder so many of His children got crushed? And yet, living in a world without God’s power would be like living in a world without oceans.
“How did you find me here?” Kingsley asked.
“I’m good at finding people. I found where your hut was and when you weren’t there, I followed your footsteps. Do you walk here often?”
“Every evening.”
“Can I ask you something?” Juliette took a small step closer to him.
“Ask.”
“Why are you here? In Haiti, I mean?”
“Something bad happened,” Kingsley said, trying to speak as vaguely as possible. What happened between him and Elle was between him and Elle and no one else. Not even Søren. Especially not Søren. “I didn’t handle it as well as I should have, and someone important to me was harmed in the process. If I’d stayed, I would have made it worse for her. And it was bad already.”
“Elle est partie,” Juliette said. Kingsley looked at her in shock.
“How do you know her name?”
“Her name? You talk in your sleep. I heard you say ‘She is gone.’”
In French “She is gone” was “Elle est partie.” He’d been speaking of Elle in his sleep. She is gone. Elle is gone. Same thing.
“Her name is Elle,” Kingsley said. “Eleanor.”
“I see. Were you in love with her, with Elle?”
“No. It was different with us. Love but not in love. Friends but not friends. I can’t explain us.”
“Love but not in love. Family?”
Kingsley smiled. “We were lovers.”
“I know married couples not in love with each other. But they are family.”
“Family,” Kingsley said, thinking of her and him and Søren and what they were to each other. Would they ever be that close again? “Perhaps she was family. There are two people in the world who know all of my secrets. And she was one of them.” Kingsley’s throat tightened painfully. “I failed her when she needed me the most. But she’s gone and I can’t even tell her how sorry I am.”
“Can I tell you how sorry I am?” Juliette asked.
“For what?”
“I shouldn’t have slept with you if one night was all I could give you. I shouldn’t have brought you into the mess that is my life.”
“We barely know each other. You don’t owe me any apology or explanation.”
“I do. Spending the night with you...it was selfish of me.”
“You aren’t selfish very often, are you?”
She raised her hands in a question. A question, or maybe a surrender.
“I don’t have the luxury of being selfish.”
“Why not?” Kingsley asked.
“Because I’m owned.”
“I know many men and women who are owned. They are quite capable of being selfish. Some of them have made an art of it.”
“I’m not owned the way they are.”
“How are you owned then? What other way is there?” he asked.
“The people you know, they are owned by choice? Because they want to be owned?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“I’m not.”
Kingsley turned and faced her finally. “What do you mean? Slavery was abolished in Haiti two hundred years ago.”
“Don’t be naive,” Juliette said with a smile. Kingsley was certain that was the first time anyone had ever accused him of being naive. “As long as there are men with money and power and women without it, there will be slavery in this world.”
“But you’re here with me right now. On this beach. You can walk away from him. I could take you back to Manhattan with me tonight.”
She shook her head. “No, you can’t.”
“No one can own another person. There are laws against it.”
“This isn’t about laws.”
“How can he own you like this?”
“He owns me because I owe him. A debt. A huge debt I can never repay.”