Memory 4: Remember Me to One Who is There

The walk up took longer than he usually felt it did, even though it was the same one Rhys took every week on a Sunday morning, unless he’d cause an avalanche by doing it. The country was beautiful, as ever. He wondered if the extra heaviness in his heart was caused by Maggie being there, somewhere below, yet somewhere apart. She was here. She should be with him to come here. They should be together.

Many times they’d walked this trail. It had been their favourite, and memories he’d tried so hard to push away and bury for months flooded his senses. Picnics, languorous afternoons of napping and making love in the sun. Playing like children in the bush, screeching with laughter and joking threats as they chased after one another, only to fall to the soft grass in each other’s arms, a ‘mockery’ of wrestling when Rhys got close enough to kiss her. Weed, songs, campfires. Foraging in the woods together. Even when it had gotten much more difficult for Maggie to make it up there, she still was determined to come. She’d just lean on him more, and Rhys didn’t mind; besides, up was much harder than down, and down was a hop, skip, and jump away from home, if they needed to be there in a hurry. It was up that took the real time.

Every week was a fresh wound, a new tear in his heart when he made this nomad’s journey. The visceral joy he’d experienced all along this path for so many years was starkly colourful in his memory, yet hopelessly drained from him, memory only—forever, he thought. That kind of sweet, pure love could not be found twice.

Look, there was the fresh mountain creek they’d waded in for so many summers, far too frosty at this time of year to attempt barefoot, but still gurgling along its rocky bed. Rhys almost thought he could hear the echo of their loving laughter in its wake.

The next place to tug at his heartstrings was a pathway branching off into the forest, a path he and Maggie had only ever taken together. They’d found their first honeytree the very same day they’d taken that path for the first time, and while Rhys was proud of their haul, Maggie was more. She was fantastically enraptured by the sticky golden honeycomb, the clever and unexpected workings of the bees they found inside the old tree when Rhys cut it open. She studied the dead bees that remained when the siblings had rehomed the rest of the hive, careful, yet unsure what she looked for. It was the innocent intrigue of a childlike heart, and her brother loved her fiercely for it.

Then.

There it was—the hardest place.

They’d made love here, as many places on the mountain had seen, but here was special because afterwards, when they talked, both had decided it had all happened here. It had been a long, wonderful August day of foraging and playing and mucking about. Maggie was flushed prettily like a rosehip, and three times as sweet; her lips seemed to gleam invitingly, and perhaps they did, since she’d eaten what Rhys had teased was twice her weight in raspberries. But something seemed different about her laughter than day. Them. Something warm and golden, to cup in your hands and treasure before it drifted away. Her hand was clutched tightly in his, stained with berries and sweaty with heat, but so was his, and it mattered not a bit.

There was that ... thing. He couldn’t say what. But something made Rhys stop Maggie as she walked. Her face stayed sunny as a summer’s cloud although there was a question there now, too, but she let her brother gently take the baskets and woven bags from her hands after he’d set his own in the shade. Followed Rhys, pulled gently by his hand, over to the warm, flattish rocky incline that rose, too steep to walk, around them.

But not too steep to sorta-kinda lie down. Maggie had seemed light as spun sugar in his hands when he lifted her by the hips, gently setting his sister against the stone. His own face seemed to flush when he looked at her like that, so heavily were her eyes lidded, gazing at him. It wasn’t embarrassment, though. It didn’t feel strange or bad. It felt better than anything.

He bent his head. Hesitated, just a second, before he pressed soft lips to hers, as if worried his touch would scorch her. Despite the heat, Maggie’s arms automatically wrapped around his neck, pulling her brother closer in the lusty and loving embrace. Their lips felt so magnetic and amazing, but not rushed or urgent. It was like ... enjoying a wonderful meal very slowly, but better.

‘Mm,’ Maggie moaned against her brother’s lips. He held her tighter in his arms, one hand cupping the back of her head. ‘Oh, Rhys... ‘