Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [115]
“You don’t understand,” I said finally, pulling away and looking up at him. “This is my one chance. I can put everything right.”
Even in the pale light I could see the stricken look on his face. “Your chance?” he repeated. “Chance for what?” He flung up his hands. “What can you set right?”
My face was raw with tears, my throat sore from crying. “I think I have to leave, Mauro,” I said, before I even realized I would say it. My voice cracked as the words poured out. “I have to go to Rain Village. I have to see it, put all of this to rest.”
He looked stunned. “What? You just mean a visit, both of us?” He stared at me and then looked, suddenly, as if I’d smacked him across the face. “With the gitano,” he said.
“Not because of him.” Even as I said it I was not sure what was true, and what wasn’t. “It’s something I feel in my bones, pulling me. I will come back. I will. I just need to see.”
“What about the circus?” he asked, pacing the floor, red with anger. “All of this? You’re just leaving to go to some imaginary place? This man comes and that’s it, adios? How do you know he’s not just telling stories?”
“I’m coming back,” I said. “I just know I have to go there. It’s like one of Lollie’s visions. I just know.”
“You just know that you have to go with him.”
I didn’t know if he was right. Suddenly I wasn’t sure of anything. If the crazy fever still had me under its hold or if Mary had come straight from the past to yank me from my future.
He turned around and looked right into me. “Why do you want to bring out all this pain, Tessita? We’re so happy. Why can’t you let it alone?”
My heart ached for him. “I just can’t,” I whispered. “It’s always there. So many unanswered questions.”
“What if the answers just make you more unhappy?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What if it doesn’t change anything?” he asked, taking my hands in mine.
“Then I will come back,” I said. “And we’ll be happy again.”
He got very quiet then, still. “And what if you don’t?”
I looked up at him and felt like my heart was breaking. I started sobbing, big wracking sobs, and I doubled over, the pain was so intense. Mauro leaned in and gathered me up, wrapped me in his warm body.
I thought of our first date in Mexico City, of our wedding. He carried me over to the bed then and stayed pressed against me, shushing and lulling me to sleep. “I do not understand this, Tessita,” he said. “Why you cannot leave the past behind you. Why you can’t understand that this is your life now, that the past just brought you here.”
When I woke up a few hours later, Mauro was gone. The room seemed eerily silent, the sun much too bright flowing in. It all came back to me. The night before. Costas, Mary. Rain Village. I turned on my side, and my head throbbed with pain. Slowly the sounds of the circus drifted in—the laughter and voices, the roars of the tigers, the tinkling music and popping of the sideshow games.
The door pushed open then, and I sat up, immediately self-conscious. Mauro walked in carrying a cup of coffee and bowl of fruit. I was so relieved I jumped out of bed and ran to him.
“Oh, Tessita,” he said, setting the tray on the edge of the bed and pulling me into him. “No more tears.” He sat down and I leaned into his side. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
I clung to him, holding him as tightly as I could. “Please understand,” I said, talking into his ear, his hair. “Please forgive me. I will come back to you.”
His body was stiff, but he relaxed it then, held me tight in his arms and pressed his face to my neck. “Then go,” he whispered. I could feel wetness on my neck. “The gitano is leaving tomorrow. You have much to do.”
He pulled back, and I stared into his black eyes, the curving lashes. “Just come back to me,” he said. “Don’t lose your heart.”
“Thank you,” I said. My whole body was trembling.
“I will not stay and watch you go with him,” he said, stroking my face and hair. “Do not ask it of me. I’m going to stay in town for a day while you pack up. If you change your