“I have begged to get a tattoo of the Jabberwocky on my back for a decade, and you’ve told me ‘no’ every time. Why can you get a tattoo and I can’t?”
“First of all—mine is very small. Second, you can’t see your own back. I can. I don’t want to be forced to make awkward eye contact with a creature from a demented children’s book while I’m attempting to sodomize you.”
Nora thought about that.
“All right, fair,” she said. “Now show me your ink. What did you get? Virgin Mary surfing on your bicep? Flag of Denmark on your ass?”
He turned his arms, and she saw he had no ink on his biceps.
“Legs?” she asked. “Girly little ankle tattoo of my name surrounded by hearts and stars? Wait, tramp stamp?”
“A name, yes, but not yours,” he said. He held out his left arm, wrist up. Nora took his hand in hers and moved his wrist into the light. In small but feminine script, one word was inked onto his wrist right under this thumb.
“‘Fionn,’” Nora read aloud and smiled. She should have known. “You got your son’s name tattooed on your wrist.”
“I did.”
“Why your wrist?” she asked.
“Touch it,” he said. She raised her eyebrow but did what he said.
She placed one finger over the tattoo and immediately felt the throbbing of Søren’s pulse under his skin.
His son. His heartbeat. His son and his heartbeat, combined and entwined.
Nora blinked. Two hot tears rolled down her face. She raised his wrist to her lips and kissed the name that was the name of his heart.
“It’s your handwriting,” Søren said.
“I thought that looked familiar. It’s beautiful.”
“You and Kingsley know I love you. You see me all the time. You have me in your lives. Fionn lives across the ocean. He doesn’t know I exist. If the time comes and we meet again and I need to explain myself to him…” Søren took a breath. “I want him to know I always loved him, that’s all.”
“He’ll know,” she said, barely able to speak. Her words came out in a breath.
“I wanted it for me, too,” he said. He laid his wrist against his chest, over his heart, his beautiful heart.
“I love you,” Nora said.
“Still?” he asked.
She nodded. “Still.” She took his hands in hers and held them to her heart, kissed them and let them go. She rested her palms on his chest to steady herself as she stared down at his face.
“Why did you leave?” she asked, not joking anymore. “It was so sudden. I woke up and you were just…gone.”
He glanced away, his eyes staring out the window by the bed.
“Søren?”
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I could use a drink.”
“A drink?” Nora said. “Where on earth would we get an alcoholic beverage at one in the morning in the French Quarter of New Orleans? Hmm…”
“I have a wild idea,” Søren said.
They both tapped the sides of their noses, pointed at each other and said in unison, “Bourbon Street.”
Ten minutes later they were dressed and walking the street of the French Quarter. They found a bar—couldn’t miss one if they tried—and Nora ordered Jack and Coke for herself, a Tröegs’ Double Bock for Søren. She made sure the bartender knew she was not a tourist. No watering down her cocktail.
When they had their drinks, they left and strolled down Bourbon toward Toulouse. Nora caught herself unable to stop glancing around to see if anyone was watching them.
“This is weird, walking with you at night in public.”
He put his arm around her waist and even patted her twice on her hip, possessively. She liked it and it terrified her. Liked it, because this might have been the first time she and Søren had ever walked around like a normal couple in their own town. Before they’d had to run away to foreign countries to play man and wife. Terrified her, because she liked it so much and knew she shouldn’t.
“You know you’re still a priest, right? Even if they are making you take a leave of absence, you still have to behave.”
“Why start now?” He pulled her a little closer and kissed her. A guy dressed as the pirate Jean Lafitte hooted his approval. Søren lifted his drink back in a salute.
Nora kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. This was a Søren she didn’t know. And it wasn’t just the beard. Although the beard was definitely intriguing.
“What do you think?” He raised his chin, and she patted his cheek.
“Very sexy. Very distinguished. Midlife crisis looks good on you.”
“Crisis,” he said. “From the Greek ‘krisis’ and ‘krinein,’ meaning ‘decision’ or ‘to decide.’”
“So a midlife crisis is a midlife decision-making time?”
“Precisely,” he said.
“You have a big decision to make.”
“Several, actually.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll show you.”
He took her hand and led her off Bourbon and up Saint Peter Street.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
They walked about two blocks until Søren stopped suddenly in front of a house, an exquisite pale blue camelback with white plantation shutters on the four front windows.
From the front door hung a realtor’s lockbox.
Nora nodded slowly as she put two and two together. She put her hand to her forehead.
“Kingsley…” she said with a growl.
“My sentiments exactly.”
“He said he bought you a ‘little’ present, a trinket. That is not a trinket. That is a house.”
“Shall we go in?” he asked.
“Lead the way,” she said.
Søren punched in a code on the lockbox, which released the door key.
“He doesn’t know you know about this, does he?” Nora asked. “He told me to tell you he had a present for you.”
“He doesn’t know I know,” Søren said.
“How did you find out?”
“Two days before I left, I was with him. He was sleeping when his phone buzzed. I was worried it might be Juliette, so I glanced at it. A message from a realtor giving him the lockbox code. It included the MLS number and a very nice message from the agent saying, ‘I think your retired priest friend will love it. And if he doesn’t, I’ll take it.’”
“Retired priest friend?”
“Yes, apparently I’m retired now. At fifty-one. Either Kingsley was lying to her or engaging in some very wishful thinking.”
Wishful thinking. Nora had no doubt.
Søren put the key in the lock and opened the door. He went inside first and turned on the lights for her. Nora followed.
“Wow,” she said as she stepped into the entry hall. On each side of the hall was an arched doorway. To her left was an empty sitting room, empty but for an elegant love seat and an antique wooden music stand.
“Music room?” she asked.
“I believe it’s where my piano is supposed to go,” he said.