Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

When she took his hand, he saw her holding him in her eyes, in her heart.

“Will Josh be waiting for us?”

“No. I wanted to give it to you when we were alone as man and wife.”

Her expression always became tender, bemused when he referred to her that way, so he did it often. Now he squeezed her as they walked companionably through the trellis, the one under which they’d taken their vows. He’d moved it to the opening of this new part of his garden. It was a transition point for the area, which he knew she would understand, being a student of Japanese tea ceremonies. He’d become somewhat of one himself this past year, as well as an avid apprentice of Japanese gardening.

Marguerite noted this area was more intimate than her favored Aphrodite area. The vegetation here was all Japanese gardening style. Delicate maples, a rock garden with the tiny bamboo rake, the sand arranged in ripples to look like water. On the side of the clearing was a wisteria arbor, whose meaning she immediately recognized. Tyler had created an outdoor machiai, a waiting room for guests to cleanse and prepare themselves before entering the teahouse. Passing through the arbor, the circular area that followed contained a mat of greenery and soft low ground cover which could become a dew garden with the water mister, concealed as a tiny statue of a rabbit. Guests would stand there to clean their feet before they would turn to the stone basin on a pedestal next to it, a tsukubai, to wash their fingers and mouths, further purifying themselves before their host or hostess led them into the teahouse. A stone bench was here for them to seat themselves to wait for that host or hostess.

And the teahouse was perfect. Simple, natural materials. No nails, all peg

construction. Small, intimate, for the preferred two to four guests.

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Mirror of My Soul

“I thought you might finally decide to perform a Japanese ceremony for me. Inside, right now, there’s a tea set with one cup. For us to share as the samurai did, to emphasize the bonds that exist between family. I thought we might go in there in a few minutes, share a cup together, make it official.”

Family. She and Tyler were a family.

“I didn’t know Josh was doing construction now.”

“He isn’t. Robert and I handled this part.” He leaned forward to kiss her, holding his lips against hers in a quiet way as the cicadas buzzed and the breeze whispered through the garden area. Then he pulled back, turned her away from the teahouse, facing her toward an angle of the garden not visible until one stood here.

“This is what Josh was doing.”

For a long moment she simply stood, staring at it. Not believing what she was

seeing. Fragile dark green ferns clustered at the base of the sculpture that had been placed by a small waterfall crafted of round smooth stones. There was another rock garden here as well. Tyler released her hand, his fingers caressing hers a moment before he let her go. She felt him watching her as she went closer. A small bench was in front of the statue, a simple square wooden piece that could serve as a kneeling bench for prayer, a place to sit while one made designs in the rock garden, or a place for solitary contemplation. She stepped up onto it to bring herself closer to the statue’s face, reach out to it with trembling fingers.

In the mortal world she’d never known him as an adult, but she knew this was how he would have looked. It was all there, the structure of his face, the intentness of his eyes, even the manner in which he stood. Alert, turning as if he was about to respond to her, a light smile on his lips.

She stepped down. When she turned to face her husband, the question was in her eyes, but she was unable to speak.

“I tried to tell you several times,” he said. “But we’d get interrupted, or the timing would be wrong. There seemed no way to say it until I could show you, like this.”

“H-How could you…”

“When I drove up that day…” Shadows gathered in his eyes. Because she knew the memory still haunted him, she reached out and he took her hand. Sitting down on the bench, he kissed her fingers. “When I jumped out of the car I looked up, looking for you. And I saw something.”

Tyler turned his attention to the statue, remembering. “You leaped with Natalie in your arms, your father with you and then… It was like sunlight, only it was raining.

Mac remembers it as the sun breaking through the clouds for just a moment, but I saw something else. Wings.” He met her gaze. “A face, a length of leg. When your chute came out, he was all over it, pulling it out, open. He held on to it a moment, probably decelerating you a bit. Then he was gone as if that was all he was allowed to do. If I saw what I thought I saw, I’m sure he would have seen you all the way to the ground if he could have.”

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Joey W. Hill

Marguerite stared at him. Her attention shifted back to the other prominent feature of the statue. She’d thought it had been Tyler’s compliment to her brother’s spirit, but she now recognized it as an attempt to reconstruct a memory. This older version of her brother had a pair of wings coming out of his back, all of it sculpted in bronze, every feather textured and separate. The smooth musculature of his arms and legs was defined well, though his body was clothed in a simple tunic. Marguerite was sure that was due to the fact he was her brother, since Josh’s work rarely displayed clothing for the purpose of modesty. However, he had not hesitated