“I coulda told you that, Watson,” Pop said to Ginny. “Look at his peepers. It’s always in the peepers. Now have a chocolate. Both of you. Go on. Who cares if it’s morning.”
Ginny fished one out of the box and popped it in her mouth.
“Chewy, huh?” Pop said.
“Mmm.”
“Holmes, pick one out for yourself. The ones with the Rice Krispies are good.”
I did as he instructed.
“Now, how about a stroll through the garden. I’ll go fix a fire in Watson’s room.”
“Good idea, Pop,” I said. Ginny looked undecided.
“Have it cracklin’ in fifteen minutes,” the old codger added, ambling away.
“But we need directions, Pop,” Ginny shouted after him.
Pop pointed toward the garden. “Elementary, Watson. You can’t miss it.”
Ginny peered at me thoughtfully, a smudge of chocolate in one corner of her mouth. I headed into the garden. She followed.
The path was bordered by large, pink-blossomed trees interspersed with just about every kind of flower a person could imagine. Pop’s garden was lush and sweet-smelling, a place where a hummingbird could make himself a good living, with a path just wide enough for two people to walk next to each other, arm in arm.
The morning light blanketed us, its warmth soaking through the back of my jacket, massaging my tense shoulders. Underneath, I felt the cool steel of guns, waiting. In the distance, a lawn mower started up.
Ginny stopped about twenty feet in and knelt down to smell a cup-shaped, pinkish flower. I took two steps past her and turned around.
“I want to know about the fire,” she said to the flower.
The taste in my mouth switched from sweet to acrid. I inhaled deeply, deliberately, hoping the perfume of the garden would overpower the olfactory memory of curling smoke. A moment passed. Ginny pivoted, still kneeling, and looked up at me, her vitreous brown eyes owning me.
“No you don’t,” I replied weakly, my energy focused on prying myself from memory’s grip.
Ginny held out her hand and I helped her up. She pulled me close.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whispered.
“Because I need you whole,” she answered.
Whole. My hand began to shake.
We stood silently among the flowers, each one an offering to the caterpillars and the calendar. My eyes wandered over Ginny’s beautiful face.
A flock of birds flapped by overhead. She looked up for a second, then back at me.
“I know you’re scared,” she said. “Not as much of what’s out there, but of what’s in here.” She firmly placed her palm against my heart.
“There’s nothing in there,” I uttered, my eyes misting up.
“That July night in 1980,” she said softly. “You let go of that windowsill and never touched ground. You’ve been orbiting in the gravity of your own past, too terrified to reenter your own atmosphere. But, listen to me, Reb. This journey has forced you down. The Circles of Truth—they are
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back slightly. “Kiss me, Reb.” Her moist lips parted expectantly.
She was my ground—my soft place to fall. This . . . girl from the crowd outside the Danieli, the girl driving the boat in the lagoon, the da Vincian translator, the snorer, the drooler, the voracious Venetian.
My chest was warm where her hand had touched me. I felt giddy and grateful. I kissed her—a slow and gentle kiss; the tips of our tongues touched and the sensation lit me brighter than a shooting star.
“One kiss,” I answered.
“I want to feel you inside me,” she said.“Now.”
The warmth in my chest spread south. Still holding my hand, she led me back down the path toward Same Time. I pulled my earlobe and grinned.
We emerged from the garden. A Japanese pickup truck with a metal mesh trailer full of landscaping equipment idled off the side of the main road, twenty yards away. Its doors were open, the back gate down, and two men were loading up a big John Deere riding mower. A new black Suburban with tinted windows was parked at an angle in front of the main house. Suburbanites checking in.
Seventy-five yards down the private road to Same Time and Next Year, I noticed white smoke streaming skyward from Ginny’s brick chimney. I was figuring out how I was going to shoo Pop out of the room politely when I saw a man passing inside my open doorway; it wasn’t Pop.
My mind drew into focus. I glanced at Ginny out of the corner of my eye. She was looking at the ocean, humming the theme from
