Eagles Eye – One

A story where Tim and Amelia each write a bit with no control over where the other with take it.

The beginning is the most difficult part of any endeavor. We are born from the pain and anguish
of our mothers and the first thing we do is cry about it. Already life is hard. Already we’ve hurt
someone. There is a pause of shock when wet naked flesh hits the cold hospital air. Air that
swiftly fills our lungs and instead of being able to marvel at the magic that is life and breath, we
wail. Everyone who is breathing today has started in this manner. No one who is breathing
today can recall the experience and the mothers who witness it only ever talk about the miracle.
Rarely do they want to discuss the shit that came out with the baby.
That was what the last few months had been like. There was a lot of pain and a whole lot
frustrated crying. There had been no room to enjoy the magic of life.
That wasn’t now. Now there was music thumping, an engine humming along while a girl
sang in the passenger seat and gravel crunched under the tires. There was laughter and the
currents of love were thick in the air mixing with the salt from the sea. There was finally hope
that had seemed endlessly elusive just a week ago.
Yet there it was, standing majestically at the end of the drive, holding in the very top of a
turret a torch to guide the ships past shore. The slate roof shone in the summer sun. The
windows were wide and the veranda curved around the side of the house. She said it was a
queen Anne style and looking at it now they could see the royalty in her. The fortress that would
house them from the next set of storms, both internal and external.

Home.

The drive was windy and he drove too fast. She didn’t mind. The ocean peaked in and out of view like a thigh and a mini-skirt for the last fifty miles. Coastline, rocks and millions of trees looked like they were moving and the car was still like they had been still for months.  She looked up and the trees littered the sky in ridiculous green.  Too green, she thought. Nothing should be so vibrant after what they had endured. Life should be a dull smear across the lense of life. A crazy nasty painful life that they ran from, mile after mile. 

The wheels spun under the shabby gravel and they laughed, happy to be free and feeling nothing but the cool air on their faces. She didn’t look at the road ahead. She watched his face. She waited for the moment when he saw it. When his eyes would widen and his shoulders would straighten after hours of driving.  She put her hand on his, over the gear stick as he shifted down.  The car slide sideways, the seatbelt caught her hard, she put her hand out to the dash. There it was. Without looking from his face she knew it was there, through his eyes.  

Tim whistled. She still didn’t look. She would wait for the last moment.   He pushed his sunglasses up and squinted into the sun that picked up flecks of water, making it brighter than anywhere on earth. She watched as he swept his eyes up and down.  Turrets. Windows. Flacking paint, overgrown ivy. The decay didn’t matter.  She saw in his face that it didn’t matter.  His eyes moved left to right.  She could see through his eyes the busy gables, he was counting them, a preposterous half dozen that hugged the central tower, jutting out through the roof and wrapped by a widows walk.  She knew every board he was seeing, every railing, every step. 

He laughed and squeezed her hand.  “Home, baby.”
She smiled into his eyes.  They were tired. He still wasn’t sleeping.  There were lines that hadn’t been there before.  Before it started.
He’d lost a little weight that he didn’t need to lose. She squeezed.  “We’re home.”
Finally, she looked.  Over his right shoulder, Eagle’s Eye loomed and she relaxed for the first time in months. A knot in her back eased at first sight. With out effort, her eyes went to the walk and to the misty figure standing at its edge, looking into the endless Atlantic. “Home,” she mouthed.

He turned his head and watched her lips move. The motion echoing the most beautiful word. Home. Her home but now their home. They had been together for years and never had they been together at home, yet here they were. Tim’s eyes moved from Amelia’s lips to meet her eyes, so blue they matched the water he could just see over her shoulder. Shoulders that were finally beginning to relax. After all the danger and stress of being in the unknown he was finally able to bring her to the land she knew the best.

This was what she’d asked for. He would have taken her anywhere in the whole world but she wanted to come back. Back to the Atlantic. To Eagles Eye. To quiet and peace and a sense of familiarity. He understood. There had been little stability and here the ground was rock solid. 

Their fingers laced, eyes locked, breath syncing up. He leaves forward until their lips presses together, hers opening for his exhale. For a moment there was nothing but that exchange, then slowly the pressure lightened and he whispered.

“Are you ready? You have a lot to show me. “

“I am.”

He swung the door open and stepped into the sunlight, walking around to the passengers side to let his girl out. As her feet hit the gravel something caught the corner of his eye and he turned, a chill running down his spine, his skin pickling. Nothing but the sun off the water. The breeze off the same. He turned back to her shutting the sense of being watched from his mind. It was just residual stress.

Amelia’s hand reached out and stroked his beard, her eyes compassionate. She could always tell what he felt even if he tried to keep it below the surface. He winked at her and she gave a cheeky smile.

A splash broke the silence and they both looked out towards the horizon. “oh my god. Was that a… “

“Yes it was. They come to eat during the summer but they’ll go south soon as autumn arrives.”

Another broke the surface as they stood in awe.

They hurried around the house, reaching the back in time to see a whale breach the water and slam down hard. They laughed to the thunderclap of the water parting as it landed. 

“They’re welcoming us home,” she yelled over the sound.   She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the water’s edge where a rickety railing was all that stood between them and the Atlantic and they watched the whales play.  Little ones frolicked beside gigantic beasts, thrashing their tails hard against the quiet summer ocean. 

“Why do they do that,” Tim asked.  He leaned into the rail, one hand around her waist, not willing to let her go.  

“They’re playing.  They do it for no other reason than it feels good.”

Amelia turned to watch his face as he experienced the thrill of something so huge fly for a moment in time.  His eyes sparkled and his mouth relaxed. She kissed his cheek and they laughed together as spray from a humpback flew into the air. 

“Just like we will play.  For no other reason than it feels good.” Tim said.  He was already feeling better. The knot in his stomach was easing.  He was hungry he realized. He hadn’t wanted food for any other reason than to sustain himself in years.  He took in a huge lung full of clean Maine air and laughed again, taking her hand and pulling her towards the house.  

“Okay, baby. Show me this Queen Anne you’ve been telling me all about.”

They walked hand in hand to the back of Eagle Eye. “We should start at the front, but I think the back is the best.”

“Then the whales were telling us something. Come on, show me around. I’ll get the bags later.”  He reached into her jeans pocket and she laughed as he wriggled his fingers into the tight space and pulled out the hokey state of Maine keyring she always carried. The writing was faded and a little bit of the bottom of Maine had fallen off.  He handed them to her. “You do the honors.”

Her heart was beating a mile a minute. Let it be the same, she whispered to herself, let it be the same peaceful place I knew. 

The French doors needed a push from her shoulder. The salt had sealed them.  They opened with a whoosh of stale air and they grimaced. “Needs an airing.” She said  

“We have plenty of air.” He rested his face on her shoulder and peered over it into the dark house. 

Amelia took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold