Page 59 of Fighting for Her Heart
My hand on his shoulder, I bend close to his ear. “You can answer my questions. What were you like as a child?”
He shakes his head. “That was too long ago to remember.”
I softly massage his temples. “But you must remembersomething.” I kiss one temple, then the other. “Something happy. A time when you felt safe.”
He shakes his head.
“You are the smartest person I have ever met,” I say softly as I continue to caress his head and face. “And you have an amazing memory.” I massage his temples and he groans.
“Somewhere in there, you must have a happy memory.” Moving my lips across his forehead, I kiss him from one temple to the other and back, while continuing to massage them.
He moans again, finally relaxing, just slightly.
“I’ve remembered a few things about my family,” I tell him, breaking the silence and hoping to put a chink in his walls with a memory of my own.
“My sisters, they loved making me laugh.” Warmth and sadness fill me at once as a newly recovered memory floods in with the vividness of a movie.
“How did they make you laugh?” he asks. “I would very much like to know more about what makes you happy.”
I smile, glad that he’s not fighting me at the moment. “Seraphina, my oldest sister, she had platinum blonde hair that shone in the sunlight like silver.” As I gently massage his jawline and face, I close my eyes, remembering the love I once felt for my birth mom and my sisters. Still shocked that those memories were ever suppressed.
“Sera used to make this little creature using her fingers.” I smile, making the shape now as I rest my fingers on Zuben’s chest. “Her middle finger was the creature’s neck and head, and her other four digits were its legs.” The image of my sister’s hand, forming this simple animal shape with her hand fills my heart. “She’d make the little guy scamper over me, going slowly, slowly, and then quickly to tickle my armpits or neck to make me squeal.”
“That is a happy memory.”
I resist the urge to mimic, on Zuben’s chest, what my sister used to do to me. The tickling sensations might be too much for him right now.
Instead, I flatten my palm against his chest. “And when there were thunderstorms, my two sisters would come into my bed to cuddle me so I wouldn’t be frightened.”
“You must have loved them very much.”
“I did.” Sadness threatens to take hold, so I shake my head to banish it. “I can’t believe that I forgot them for so long.”
I wonder if Nora had anything to do with my memory lapse. She certainly didn’t try to help me keep their memories alive. She always claimed she was my real mother—or at least didn’t do anything to dissuade that assumption. One any kid would make. But I also get that she only wanted to protect me from sadness, just as she protected me in so many other ways.
“My mother used to do laundry in the Nile,” Zuben says softly.
Encouraged I run my hands lightly up his neck to his face, and then gently rub his temples again.
“Once the garments were clean,” he says softly, “my brother, sister and I would help her hold the long damp cloths, each of us at a corner.” He inhales deeply and I wonder if that’s the end of the story, but I don’t want to interrupt him too soon with more questions.
“The colors of the fabrics,” he continues. “They were muted by today’s standards, but seemed bright and vivid against the blue sky as they billowed up and drifted down, showering raindrops when they first came from the river, but then becoming lighter and lighter as the water evaporated in the heat.”
My fingers trail down to his neck and shoulders, and it might be my imagination, but I think the tendons there have loosened too, now taut ropes versus bands of steel.
“Sometimes mother would hold her corner down as the rest of us lifted up,” he continues, “hiding her face from us and then reappearing the next time.” He sighs deeply. “That would make my little sister laugh.”
A slight hint of a smile brushes over Zuben’s face and it’s the most rewarding thing I have ever seen. My heart fills with love, and with pride that I’ve helped him voice this memory. I want to know more about his family, what happened to them, but at some point his story will turn sad, and so I have to be satisfied with the memory he’s offered. Given what he’s told me about his transition to a vampire, he may not even know what became of his family after he was turned.
“What color were your mother’s fabrics?” I ask, hoping to keep his mind in the memory.
“Some were natural linen, but my mother had garments in red and orange. Bright silks that would pop against the sky and lift my heart.”
“That sounds beautiful.” I remain kneeling beside him, trying to keep from touching him except with my hands. “Hold that image in your thoughts. There’s nothing in your mind now except that memory. No emotion beyond joy and comfort, rest and pleasure.”
Carefully, I move my hands over him, stroking every inch of his upper body—with my palms, my fingertips, the backs of my fingers—and gently massaging anywhere that seems tight, pretty much everywhere.
Skipping over his mid-section, I move down to his feet and gently massage him there, then move up to his calves. He groans deeply when I stroke those tight muscles.
