Chapter 9: The Language of White Wine

Chapter 9: The Language of White Wine

Sunday began in a pale, clean light. I went down to the beach with my thermos full of black, bitter coffee, with nothing else. Today I didn't want to eat fruit, bread, or cereals; But it wasn't because I had suffered a setback in my healing, nor because the sadness had closed my stomach. Today, I simply didn't need it. My body felt light and my lips kept smiling involuntarily. The scream on the cliff the day before had taken away the last ghosts that tied me to the ground.

As I walked back along the shore, I made a decision: today I want to cook pasta, but made by me, from scratch. I would make something completely to my liking, with no restrictions: a fresh pasta with local seafood from the Norwegian coast and a glass of iced white wine. As the north wind was blowing with enormous force and the cold seeped under my clothes, I decided that I would not eat on the sand; I would do it on the terrace of my small cabin, protected from the direct waves but facing the immensity of the landscape.

When I arrived at the village supermarket, the first thing that caught my attention in a side corridor was a small decorative outdoor lamp. It had a warm light, wrapped in a rustic design. I thought it was a beautiful idea to buy it and hang it on the ceiling of my terrace to illuminate my nights of reading and solitary drinks. It would be my first personal touch to take over that temporary space. I put it in the cart and started going around the shelves looking for the flour, eggs, fresh seafood, and the bottle of wine.

It was in the liquor aisle that I saw him again. He was there, choosing a bottle. As if he had a radar for my presence, he sensed my gaze immediately, turned his head and fixed his blue eyes on my shopping cart.

"You changed red for white," he said suddenly.

His voice was just as he remembered it from the cliff: hoarse, manly, extremely pleasant and deep. The playful tone of his comment took me by surprise, but it didn't intimidate me.

"The seafood deserved the change," I replied with a confident smile, holding his gaze.

He let out a low laugh, a warm sound that seemed to take away from the Norwegian winter that hit the windows of the building.

"Then I'll accompany you from my cabin with a glass of white wine," he proposed, bowing his head slightly.

I thought for a second about his words, intrigued by the geography of the place.

"How will you know which is my cabin?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I'll know from the lights," he replied, fixing his eyes on the small outdoor lamp that rested on my cart.

A spark of curiosity lit up my chest.

"And me?" How will I know which one is yours?

"I assure you, you will know," he said with a hint of utter mystery on his lips.

He gave me one last glance full of complicity, took his bottle, paid at the checkout and left, leaving me alone with my heart beating at a rhythm that was no longer that of pain, but that of expectation.