Resurgence Read Online Free

Anthony’s cynical disclosure remains. Colin blames her borderline glumness on jetlag and sleep deprivation and gets no argument there. She does argue, however, when he suggests they turn back and that she give in and go to bed regardless of the hour.
    “No, I’ll feel better tomorrow if I merge with the time zone now. Besides, I want to try out your spectacular kitchen and observe your evening rituals firsthand. Didn’t you say you have a new story for Simon?”
    “Yeh, I can probably come up with one, but I think you ought to know you’re not expected to cook. Gemma will be back with one of the girls to prepare tea for the lads, then something for us later.”
    “What do you mean I’m not expected to cook? What girls? What do you mean later ?” She startles even herself with unexpected shrillness that stops Simon in his tracks and brings on loud wailing.
    Laurel scoops him up, reproaching herself and soothing him in the same breath. But he won’t be comforted; he cries louder and struggles to go to Colin. Anthony observes the handoff with an expression best described as smug—simpering, even—and undesirable by any name.
    “Take the dogs back to the house—go along, then!” Colin shouts at Anthony over the sound of Simon’s distress. Nothing more is said until Anthony and the dogs are out of sight and Simon’s howling is reduced to halfhearted snuffling.
    “If you happened to have been watching, you’d know your little protest had nothing to do with his crying fit.” Colin kisses Simon and sets him down. “Anthony was badgering him all along, teasing him with the pinecones, heading off the dogs so they never returned one to Simon, making sure Simon never got a chance to throw one. I should have nipped it in the bud, but I didn’t want anything to spoil—”
    “You have to stop treating me like a guest. I know a thing or two about sibling rivalry and I can take turmoil and tension and domestic upheaval and—”
    “No, you can’t . Not on top of everything else you’ve been subjected to in the last twenty-four hours. Do you think I don’t know what this must be like for you? You must be so bloody overwhelmed you don’t know which way’s up. When I came out of my so-called hibernation, I was struck with similar—too much all at once. It’s gonna take time, sweetheart. Give it time. Please. Be a guest for long as it takes.”
    He takes her face in his hands and kisses her long and lingeringly, the way he did on the plane, and anything resembling protest goes out of her.
    When they reach the terrace, Simon darts inside the adjoining arcade and reappears riding a garishly-colored plastic tricycle, serpentining in and out of ancient archways, dodging time-weathered urns and verdigrised statuary, making it difficult to decide which is the anachronism. They sit for a while on a stone bench deep within the arcade, where Colin talks a little about his awakening here and about reacquainting himself with a child only partially remembered and a baby he didn’t recall at all.
    As the afternoon wanes and Simon loses interest in cycling, they move to the open terrace and position chairs to monitor Simon’s activity in a play yard she hadn’t noticed earlier, and keep track of Anthony, who’s kept a low profile after his early dismissal.
    “Whenever I let myself fantasize about you, it was always here that I envisioned you . . . just as you are now,” Colin says.
    “Really?” She lifts a skeptical eyebrow.
    “Yeh, yeh, yeh, naked in the bedroom too, but more times than not, I’d imagine you in this setting.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know, actually. Maybe because there’s a tranquility here I’ve never found anyplace else. Because I’d rather be here than anyplace else . . . because I’d rather be with you than anyone else.”
    With six weeks lead time, Elizabeth Barrett Browning couldn’t put into words what she feels right now. “I love you,” she says almost apologetically, “I love you