His Little Heir

I Promise

      "Wait, you were serious about that!?" Leon's eyes flashed with surprise, "Daya, I-"

      She nodded, "If you proposed within the next year, that would put us tying the knot in two. Pretty reasonable if you ask me, or if you would rather me propose, I could come up with something."

     "But-"

      "We'd have to do it publicly. Something big and flashy to get the media talking. Shouldn't be too hard. A dinner maybe? Crowded restaurant, classic ring in the champaign?" Daya looked up to find that his initial surprise had changed into something much deeper, "No?"

      Leon fell back into the pillows and blankets and let out a definitive sigh. He massaged his temples then let his hands drag down to his chin, and from there, he only looked at her through a small slit in his dazed eyes.

      "Well, what did you have in mind?" She leaned over and pushed his hair out of his face, "We've gotta do something."

      "Come here." He unfolded his arms and motioned to her.

      "That's not much of a plan."

      "Daya, please," The ghost of a whine fell from his drooping lips,"Please just let me hold you when I say this. I promise I'll keep to myself."

     She raised an eyebrow looking at him from above, and he wondered what else she could be thinking from beneath the expression. Perhaps, she didn't trust him.

      He couldn't blame her. Who would? Again and again, tears gathered in Daya's eyes until they ran dry and made her lip quiver in his debt. Leon could trace the puffy lines of sorrow and stress beneath her eyes even upon their first meeting where her fate had been locked into place; to her, they were shackled together, and he was the jailer. At least until he let her go.

      And she came back.

      There were times like this one when thought, no, knew Daya regretted her decision. By now though, the last window for her midnight departure had long been closed by the rising of a new age, or the high heat of tension between her old home and this one- her old lover and himself.

      All he could do was beg, and she? She could only barter.

      "Please, Daya, I promise."

      Daya's features softened as her gaze returned to him: her lips, once pursed, eased into a slight smile, and her eyes, previously distant and darting with worry slowly fell under a calm wave.

      She smoothed out a space on the blanket next to him,"Two minutes, maybe five if you're polite. Got it?"

     "Got it."

      Her body slid into his arms almost too perfectly as if their sides were two puzzle pieces far separated by the passage of neglectful time and memory's distant wither. His mind wandered to a summer festival Bertha had taken him to when he was around ten; he couldn't decipher if he was nine, or even eleven, but he could remember the puzzle booth perfectly.

      The thousand piece puzzle of a woman and her son still called to him from the corner of the shop: on its face, her black hair flowed calmly in the wind along with the white, puffy seeds of the dandelion she had offered to her son. Even from the counter, Leon could see the boy's green eyes shimmering beneath the layers of gloss and paint, and in an instance, he was there with her. With the mother.

     Bertha, with what seemed like months of convincing, reluctantly pulled out the silver peices for the puzzle and plopped them in the shopkeeper's hands. Leon didn't remember much after. He could vaguely recall opening the box and how he felt as its plastic lining fell dutifully onto the floor, but what always stayed at the back of his mind was that the puzzle was one peice short and that the shop keeper was long gone.