Return from Yukon

"I'm not Helen. I know what she did to you, and I would never do that to anyone. Well, perhaps my ex, but he's the only one." He was still being fed and housed at an establishment specially created for people like him.

"I'm a lot smaller than Helen, and nowhere near as strong as she is physically. But in here," she took my hand and placed it over her heart, "I'm far stronger than she ever was or will be. She said she loved you, and put you through Hell. I've been through Hell, too, and you were there for me when I came out the other side. I will show you the strength of my love every day of my life."

Carthage, Egypt, and Crete, the first two weeks of the trip, were everything we thought they would be, and more. We immersed ourselves in those ancient cultures that still have so much to teach to our day, if we would only listen. In the evenings, we immersed ourselves in each other, to our mutual delight. We had our smartphones with us, but they were turned off except to Skype with Hope every few days. Kate wanted me to talk with Helen, too, but I refused.

"I'm not going to Skype with my ex during our honeymoon," I said, and that was final.

We took a side trip to Delos, in honor of that first not-a-date we had. No one lived on the island now; one felt that the ancient ghosts far outnumbered the modern visitors, and could overwhelm us if they chose. Holding hands, we wandered away from our docent among the ruins.

Kate stumbled and fell, pitching forward. I caught her and held her, much as I had that day on the sidewalk. I knelt next to her. Her eyes weren't on me this time: they eagerly scanned the ground for whatever she had tripped over. She picked up a small piece of metal: it looked like it had once been some kind of fastener. We gazed at it, then our eyes met.

"Roman." We said it together. We stood, clasping hands, and looked around us. We did not see another living soul. The sun was setting in regal splendor, casting long, weirdly-shaped shadows that seemed to writhe threateningly about us. In that soundless stillness, in that ancient place, we could almost hear the echoes of long-dead horsemen galloping, and the long-silent trumpets that had summoned them to battle. Kate's hand trembled in mine.

"We'd better get back." We threaded our way thorough the ruins to the jetty. Everyone else was already on the little launch, ready to head back to Mykonos.

"There you are," our docent laughed. "We almost thought you'd decided to spend the night on Delos." There was a small emergency shelter there for people who were stranded. "I don't know if I would, though. I've heard some strange stories about what happens at night on this island." I put my arm around Kate's shoulder and she nuzzled into me. I felt her trembling slow, and finally stop. We found places on the port side bench: the side away from Delos.

Kate was insatiable that night, and I'll admit to having felt a certain urgency myself. We took our fill of each other until about three in the morning, and barely made it to the boat on time. When we were finally fully awake and alert, we were halfway to the mainland. Kate blushed as our fellow-passengers grinned and pointed at us, making off-color remarks about what they imagined we'd been up to the night before. Most of the remarks were true.

It was our last night in Greece. Kate wanted a moonlight walk, and our host had told her about the ruins of a small town on a hill, less than five kilometers from the inn. We set off at sunset. Kate carried a small bundle which the innkeeper had given her, but wouldn't tell me what it was.

"I may use it, I may not. We'll just have to see." I had to be content with that.

It had been a very ordinary small town. Its architecture, its location, everything about it was completely unremarkable. There was nothing to attract an archaeologist. No one was even sure what its name had been. It had no significance whatever, now or then, except to those few who had lived, worked, loved, and died here. The remains of a temple crowned the hill: small, but as always with the Greeks, perfectly proportioned. The bright three-quarter moon turned everything to silver, shrouding the starkness of the ruins in a shimmering mantle, giving them a beauty and dignity they probably never had in life.

We climbed silently to the ruined temple. No statuary remained, not even an indication of what deity had been worshiped there. We stood quietly next to the tallest remaining column, now not even as tall as Kate, absorbing the scene. No photograph could ever convey what we saw. We were standing in the midst of a memory; only memory could render it.

"Yes, I will do it." My wife's soft voice sounded loud in the utter silence.

"Who...?" She had spoken as if she were answering someone, agreeing to a request or a demand. She put one hand on my shoulder, and held my eyes with hers.

"You must go down into the village while I prepare. I must do this alone. It will only be a short time, a very few minutes, but you must not look at me, or look for me. You must trust me. I will call you when it is time. I love you." Kate reached up to me and we shared a long, hungry kiss.

"Go," she said gently. "Everything is safe. I know this, and in your heart, so do you."

My shoulders slumped as I turned my back on my wife, and walked slowly down the hill. I found a seat on the remnant of an ancient wall, and tried to forget my fears. Did I hear footsteps from the top of the hill? Whose? Ancient or modern? Or were they my imagination? I jumped as I heard a small stone roll down the hill toward me. My pulse raced. "Patience," I seemed to hear. Patience, from stones and walls and streets that had been in this place for millennia. I tried to absorb their lesson.

"Come." Her voice, a single word. The most welcome sound I had ever heard in my life. I looked up the hill to the temple. She stood alone, arms stretched out to me, lovelier than any statue that could ever have stood in that place. She wore nothing but a chiton, the classic Grecian undergarment. The more noble the lady, the sheerer her chiton, and Kate's was fit for a queen. The moon shone through it, burnished her, turned her to silver, put stars into her dark hair. Her eyes and her smile needed, and brooked, no enhancement.

Eagerly, I strode up the hill and knelt before her. She put both her hands on my shoulders, urging me to rise. Her smile warmed and filled me as I took her in my arms.

We loved. It was as if every bit of true love that had ever been given and received in that forgotten little town was suddenly alive in us. We gave each other twenty-five hundred years of love that night, in a ruined temple consecrated to an unknown deity, under a moon and sky that bathed us in beauty and timelessness. We felt as though we joined and were joined by every true lover in the little town's history. No famous lovers, just ordinary people in an ordinary town, giving their all to each other in love. Like Kate and me.

The innkeeper took one look at Kate's face the next morning and smiled broadly at her. "You did it, then." It was a statement, not a question.

"No," Kate replied, smiling at his surprise and taking my hand. "We did it."

The innkeeper's knowing smile now included me. "Ah," he said. "Together. Not many do that way; most want the different, the strange. They do not understand: together it is far, far better. May you be so always."

We both came home deeply changed from our honeymoon. Kate found both a new confidence in herself and a new ability to trust, better than what had been stolen by her abusive first husband. I found, unbelievably, that my memories of a cabin in the Yukon and a hulking woodsman had been replaced by a ruined temple on a moonlit hill, and a silver goddess who loved me as I loved her.

Kate told me later that had been her idea all along. She'd seen her "Roman cavalryman" fantasy as a way to help me finally get past what Helen had done to me, replacing my memories of Helen's betrayal with memories of her facing down her own fantasies and choosing me. She says her nerve almost failed her at the last moment as we stood on that hilltop in Greece, when she saw the slump in my shoulders as I walked away from her, alone. She found in our love the courage to go through with it, and I'm glad she did!

Kate and I still live with Helen, though after the honeymoon, she insisted that we take the master bedroom. Helen seems happy and content most of the time. I know she has bad moments sometimes, as she watches another woman live her dream, in her house, with her former husband. I think she sees that as her penance. That may be true; I still have no desire to see her punished further. She still wears her rings, and I know she would still say that she loves me, but she's glad to stay within the boundaries we've all agreed on. There are certainly no threesomes or swapping in our future! She and Kate are still good friends, she's a great mother to Hope, and she'll be a wonderful auntie in another couple of weeks, when my second daughter deigns to make her entrance. Kate and I have had to curtail our classics events somewhat, but we both insist that will only be temporary. Hope is six, and has her new little sister's wardrobe, furniture, and toys all ready and arranged and waiting for her.

Our honeymoon isn't just memory, it's always with us. I haven't seen the chiton since that last night in Greece, but I know it came home with us, and I know someday I'll see it again. When I do, its wearer will have the same effect on me that she did on that memorable night. Meantime, every now and then, when I look at my wife -- it doesn't matter what she's wearing, it can be lingerie, dress-up, or dirty work clothes -- I see a chiton-draped goddess in a ruined temple on a hill, shimmering in the moonlight, her arms stretched out toward me, and I hear her say, "Come."