Dandelion Dreams (4 page)

“You call this a life? Traveling from place to place, but not actually doing anything. Losing yourself in the arms of women you can’t recall?”

“You guys are so melancholy. You’re worse than a Nirvana album. Here.” Tristan tosses me a fishing pole. “Morning’s coming, and then Kai will have to leave. Might as well get in some good fishing. What do you say?”

I grip the rod, cast it into the lake, and get an immediate bite.

“How the hell do you do that?” Tristan asks.

“I’m a regular Huck Finn.”

“Kai was always a better fisherman than you, Tristan. Always has been, always will be. Doesn’t matter where we are.”

“At least I still have my luck with women.”

“Yep, you found El Dorado when you got Lucy,” I say.

Tristan grins. “I did, didn’t I?”

“We should all be so lucky,” I mutter.

“Luck? You call this luck?” Tristan fumes, and looks like he wants to throw a punch. He chucks his pole instead, and it splashes into the water, shattering the dream lake’s serenity. “We’re the ones that died.”

I grimace. “Like I could ever forget.”

Reece shakes his head. “You have one life, and you’re wasting it.”

“I wonder what you’d do in my shoes,” I say, my own voice rising. “Would you be any different?” My gaze slides to Tristan. “You would’ve had Lucy. You would’ve had a woman to love you back to life. I don’t have that. I’ve got a bottle of bourbon, a mandolin, and the need to keep moving.”

Tristan looks at me. “That’s what you think. Your life can change in a heartbeat.”

“I know that,” I state.

“You ready for it?” Reece asks.

“Won’t matter if I am or not. What do you guys know that I don’t?”

“Not a damn thing,” Tristan answers.

Chapter 6

Sage

I pressed my forehead against the cold window of the airplane. Sighing in exhaustion, I pulled the seat belt tight against my stomach and attempted to tune out the flight attendant’s chirpy voice filtering through the intercom.

I took out the
Sky Mall
magazine, flipped through it, and marveled at the things people could be coerced into buying. Who wanted a
Lord of the Rings
chess set, a washroom for their cat, or a hideous frog fountain?

People are deranged.

I put the
Sky Mall
catalog back and took out the airline’s safety brochure. The first page I turned to had an illustration of an airplane floating in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight, complete with smiling passengers hopping into life rafts as though they had reached their destination.

Right.

I shut the brochure and closed my eyes, anxiety curling in my belly at the thought that I was about to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an aluminum death trap.

“Nervous?”

I looked over to see a middle-aged, matronly woman who reminded me very much of my mother. It suddenly hurt to breathe. I didn’t respond.

“Is this your first time going to France?”

“Yes,” I replied, answering both questions simultaneously. I turned my head back to the window and gazed out at the runway. In the darkening light, men in orange jumpsuits sprayed down the plane, trying to scrape off ice and snow in preparation for takeoff.

I tugged at the collar on my thick, black sweater as a cold chill trailed down my neck.

“Vacation?” the woman asked, attempting to pull me into a dialogue.

“Sure.” I closed my eyes again, hoping my obvious desire to be left alone would stop the woman’s attempt at chitchat.

It didn’t.

“Are you going to Paris? Paris is so romantic, even in this kind of weather. French winters are more rainy than snowy, but it’s still a wonderful city.”

I made a vague sound in the back of my throat. The flight attendant finished her safety demonstration, and the pilot announced it would be a few more minutes until takeoff.

The woman droned on, “You look like you’re in college. Is this your Christmas break?”

I should have been flattered that I still appeared young after all I had been through. I swore I looked like a haggard old woman at the end of my life, a crone that had seen everything. “I’m not in college.”

“Are you from New York? I don’t know how people live there. The huge buildings, the subway—the homeless.”

What would it take to shut her up? Her enthusiastic prattle grated on my last nerve. I thought about recounting my most horrific subway story that featured a homeless man exposing himself, wondering if it would stun her into silence. All I had hoped for after weeks of emotional upheaval was a long, quiet flight without having to engage with anyone.

“Excuse me,” I uttered, unbuckling my seat belt. “I need to use the restroom.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “But you can’t go now, we’re about to—”

“When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

A perky blonde flight attendant, perhaps the one who had spoken over the intercom, appeared in the aisle almost instantly. She must have had a sensor for recalcitrant passengers. “Excuse me, ma’am, you have to sit down.”

“I need to use the bathroom for one second,” I whispered, my voice beginning to tremble. Emotion flooded my veins as I tried to remain collected. It was everything I could to do to keep from screaming.

“Ma’am, we will be in the air in a moment. The captain will turn off the seat belt sign when it’s safe, and then you’ll be able to use the restroom.” The attendant’s voice was firm, her stance pugnacious.

I could only imagine how I appeared—gray eyes stained red from non-stop crying, my face white with pain and anger. Matted, dull chestnut hair I couldn’t be bothered to brush because it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered; especially not appearances.

It was all bullshit.

The flight attendant’s tone turned combative. “Please sit down.”

For one long moment, I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. With reluctance, I took my seat and buckled myself in. The flight attendant nodded and then continued moving down the aisle, closing compartments in rapid succession.

The woman next to me remained blessedly silent.

As the plane began to pull away from the gate, I shut my eyes. I didn’t watch as I flew away from the city I had once called home.

•••

“Would you like something to drink?” It was the flight attendant whose pleasant mask was back in place. How did she do it? I wore my emotions like a sweater, and I didn’t have any acting talent to conceal my grief.

“Coke, please,” the woman next to me answered.

“And for you, ma’am?”

“What scotch do you have?” I inquired. It was an evening flight, but if it had been eight o’clock in the morning, I might have asked for it anyway.

“Canadian Club, Dewar’s, and Glenlivet.”

“Glenlivet, please,” I replied, handing the attendant my credit card and ID.

“Want anything in it?” She glanced at the ID and swiped the credit card before returning them.

“No, thanks.” I opened the mini bottle of scotch, pouring it into cup I’d been given. She rolled her cart along, serving other passengers.

“You don’t look old enough to drink.” There was a dose of protective concern in my companion’s voice.

It made me hesitate ever so briefly. “Well, I am. Would you like to see my ID, too?” Inhaling a shaky breath, I took a liberal sip, feeling warmth blast through me. “Consider it a sedative,” I said, trying for levity and failing.

“You’re afraid to fly, right?”

I didn’t answer as I gazed out the window into a bank of clouds. I wanted to forget the horror of the last couple of weeks, the endless days and nights of my mother’s pain, and then what came after.

The tears fell unchecked down my face, and I sniffed.

A tissue appeared, and then my compatriot put a hand on mine and squeezed in sympathy. It only made it worse, and I wondered if I would ever be able to take a deep breath without feeling like I was dying.

•••

Eight hours later, the plane landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Tired passengers unhooked their seat belts and stood, wanting to stretch their legs and disembark.

I didn’t move, waiting until it cleared. When half the plane was empty, the woman next to me rose and pulled a bag from the overhead compartment. With one final look at me, she inclined her head and left.

We had come to an understanding somewhere over the ocean.

I trudged through the airport, looking for baggage claim signs through bleary eyes. I wondered how tourists ever found their way through the labyrinth of French confusion. Even I, who spoke and read French, had trouble.

Only a few pieces of luggage remained when I arrived at the carousel. Celia, with her sleek brown bob and willowy form, waited for me. Had it really been a week since I’d seen my mother’s oldest friend at the funeral? Grief moved differently through time—it wasn’t linear; it was everywhere, relentless and constant.

“Hello, Sage.”

“Hello.”

“Want me to wheel those for you?” Celia didn’t wait for an answer. Reaching out, she began to drag my suitcases behind her, walking in silence to the car park. Though it was only ten in the morning, it was dark, and drizzling winter storm clouds hovered overhead. I hunched in my coat in a meager attempt to keep the rain off my neck.

“How long is the drive?” I asked, when we were on our way in Celia’s tiny car.

“About three hours,” Celia replied. “I’m sure you’re sick of sitting.”

I was sick of many things, but I kept quiet.

“Are you hungry? We could stop for something.” She maneuvered through the streets of Paris, channeling the energy of a New York City cabbie. I found it amusing as she cursed in French when a bout of road rage overtook her.

“Sorry, that’s the worst of it, I promise. The roads are a little wider once you get out of the city.”

“No, I’m not hungry.” I watched the countryside speed by. Everything was dull, and it was hard to imagine what it would look like dressed in the green of spring. I’d lived in gray, long before Mom got sick, trying to convince myself I needed everything on mute. Stupid, stupid, stupid. “Thank you, for letting me come here.”

“You’re welcome,” Celia said. “Sometimes you need to get away.”

I glanced at her. It was impossible to miss her tired, red-rimmed eyes. She was grieving too; for an old friend, or a future without my mother—I didn’t know which. I turned my head, not wishing to see Celia’s pain.

Mine was enough.

We drove in silence; it could’ve been a three hour or a twenty-minute drive for all I knew. In that moment I existed in a state of in-between, a misty nothingness.

Celia parked the car in a narrow spot across the street from the bed and breakfast. The lobby walls were whitewashed stone. It was quaint and charming in all the ways that weren’t annoying. Guiding me past the spacious dining room, comfortable library, and surprisingly modern kitchen, Celia chattered about nothing. The property was surrounded by a ten-foot stone wall, and we trudged through the courtyard to a small cottage.

I walked inside and found myself in the living room. There was an unlit fireplace in the corner, and a rustic burnt-orange couch up against a wall. Just past it was a kitchen, small but serviceable.

“The staircase at the back leads upstairs to the bathroom and bedroom. Take your time, get situated. Come over for some food, if you want.”

The door clicked shut, and I stood in the center of the room, attempting to adjust to the place I was now supposed to call home.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I went to the window and pulled back the curtain to reveal the dark sky. Threatening clouds curled and lightning flashed.

I watched the storm unleash Hell. It was strangely comforting.

There was a knock, and it took me a moment to realize I should answer it. I opened the door to a young man with a charming grin and ruffled sandy blond hair. He looked to be about my age, but his face was unlined, smooth and pristine. No grief had touched him. I felt so much older.

“I’m Luc,” he said with a Gallic smile, which was a cross between a smirk and a pout. “Celia and Armand’s son.
Maman
sent me to light a fire.” He peered at me in curiosity.

I let him inside. Luc squatted by the fireplace, rearranging logs of wood into a pile. Striking a match, he lit the kindling, and soon flames were blazing. It felt homey—almost.

“Thanks,” I said.

Luc stood and smiled. “You coming over later?”

“Don’t think so.” I was tired—I wanted to take a hot bath and then maybe try to sleep.

“You’re not hungry?”

I shook my head. My stomach had withered—eating was a nuisance, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a solid meal, or wanted one.

“We’ll have wine,” he said, attempting to entice me. “From the vineyard. You won’t be disappointed.”

“Maybe,” I said, though I had no intention of going. I saw him to the door and closed it after him. Grabbing my suitcases, I went up to the bedroom, and I could feel the warmth of the fire from downstairs.

I set my bags down on the double bed and opened them, staring at my clothes as if I didn’t know how they’d gotten there. I shoved them into drawers of the dresser, not caring that everything was jumbled.

Dipping out into the hallway, I walked a few feet to the bathroom. In the linen closet, I found a set of faded blue towels that had seen many washings. Some things managed to last through time, no matter how tattered and faded they became. It made me wonder about people. How many tragedies did it take to tarnish them like old pennies?

I placed the towel that smelled like jasmine and mint on the counter and examined the tub. It was a porcelain claw foot and for some reason it made me weep.

I turned on the faucet and the sound drowned out my sobs. I don’t know how long I sat on the edge of the tub, crying for nothing and everything, but eventually the tears subsided. Stripping off all my clothes, I sank into the scalding water, hoping it would do something for the chill that lived in my bones.

Chapter 7

Sage

The next morning, incessant knocking dragged me from a drugged sleep. Rising from the bed, I swiped a hand across my parched lips. I shivered as I pulled on sweats. Winter in the Loire Valley was not temperate.