“And you also have the funeral in three days time,” he said gently.
“I know. If Daddy hadn’t killed himself, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Ouch, how did that come out
?
“Look,” Tommy said, “give me a couple of weeks. If I don’t have any luck then come out and join me if you like.”
If you like. Not the most encouraging invitation.
They stood in the hallway in silence. Tommy’s lips parted as if he was about to say something important but then he stopped himself. He suddenly blurted, “You know we’re not going to LA anymore, don’t you? I mean, not now this second, but in general. The LA job is off.”
“But after we’ve found Grace—”
“After we’ve found Grace, we’re not going to live in LA.”
Sylvia scrunched her brow. “But what about the job?”
“I’ve told them to look for someone else. Even if I find Grace tomorrow, I don’t want the job.”
“Oh.”
Tommy looked as if he were trying to sell her an idea. “The whole reason I let go of IT was to pursue my dreams as a photographer. I mean, that’s why we went to Wyoming, wasn’t it? Because of the beauty, the awe-inspiring landscape, the strange characters you find there. I didn’t give up my successful career to become a second-rate fashion photographer in LA.”
“Oh,” she said again. But Sylvia knew that he had a point. She secretly thought the same thing but didn’t want to wound his pride. LA wasn’t Milan, Paris, or New York; it was hardly the fashion capital of the world. Fashion had never been Tommy’s thing, anyway.
“I don’t give a fuck about fashion,” Tommy continued. “I never have, I never will. I don’t care what’s going on in the vapid, vacuous head of some pretty girl, or what outfit she’s wearing. I care about people’s souls, what makes them tick. I care about beauty from within.”
Sylvia pictured the Bel Ange, pouting and posing—an obsession he’d nursed for over a year. It was strange, she thought, how people perceive themselves. Tommy
did
care about external beauty, he did choose a book by its cover. Unless losing Grace had changed his whole outlook on life.
“What made you change your mind?” she said, trying not to sound cold.
“Let’s just say I had an epiphany in LA. I had a close shave.”
What close shave?
she wondered. But said, “So when we find Grace, what’s next then, if we don’t go to LA?”
“We’ll live here. In Saginaw.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, why not? We could do that for a couple of years. It’s not a good idea to sell when emotions are still raw. You’ve hardly got over your mother’s death, and now your dad. And now Grace’s kidnapping. A triple whammy. Oh, and finding out you have a half-brother, too, and that your father was living a lie for forty odd years. A quadruple whammy.”
Sylvia flinched. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“Oh yes we do. You can bet your bottom dollar it was his big secret. If your mother had known about his love child, she would have divorced him. Trust me. Anyway, the last thing you need right now is the stress of moving somewhere new. And we both know that Crowheart is out of the question. Been there, done that.”
“Michigan is in the worst crisis since the depression,” Sylvia said. “And this is everything you hate! Suburbs, Midwest America—‘
obese people slurping neon-pink milkshakes, hanging out in shopping malls
’ –those were your very words.”
“I know darling. I know. I felt that way before but it’s different now—I was being judgmental. I’ve been bowled over by people’s kindness here.”
There was Before Grace, Sylvia thought. The Before the Adoption part of their life. And now there was another Before. The Before the
Abduction.
“And what happens,” she ventured, “if we
don’t
find Grace?”
There, she said it, that hideous question that had been festering in the air like a virus. Her heartbeat raced, and blood pounded her ears. White heat pooled in her stomach. She thought she might actually faint.
Tommy shook his head. He wasn’t having it. “That’s not an option. Not acceptable. We
will
find her.”
“But, honey, I hate to say it, but it
is
a reality.” Sylvia bit her lip to stop her mouth from trembling.
“It’s also a reality that France, sweet little picturesque France which makes wine and cheese, has a submarine that has six missiles—each one of them has a thousand times more power than Hiroshima, enough nuclear power alone to blow up the world twenty times. All that power contained in one single submarine! But we can’t live that way, can we? Worrying about the what-ifs.”
Sylvia knew she needed to change the subject. She’d spoken the wrong words. Negativity at a time like this was the last thing Tommy needed. “Do you want something to eat before I drive you to the airport?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay.” She’d pushed him away again. Pushed him away with her pessimism. She thought of Gracie’s name for her when she was this way: the Ground Dog way, her lips turned down, the sadness in her eyes giving her the “Ground Dog” nickname. All she yearned for was to be Grace’s Mommykins again—the other nickname Grace gave her. If she were Mommykins, once more, she’d never let Ground Dog return.
Tommy took a step toward her and said in a softer tone, “I don’t want anything to eat, but I do, darling, want to say goodbye. I want to lie with you for a while, Sylvia. I want to hold you.” He took her by the hand and drew her close. His arms were muscly and warm, his hold tight. Even at five foot nine, Sylvia felt petite against his strong, solid frame. “Let’s go upstairs,” he suggested. “We don’t have to leave for an hour yet.”
Sylvia sat uneasily at the edge of the silk-backed bed and kicked off her shoes. She needed to do this. She needed, just for a snatch of time, to escape her dark, Graceless world. She needed to help Tommy too—give him strength. She inhaled the scent of him and rested her head against his shoulder. He smelled of sweet grass and sun-warmed skin. He unzipped her dress. His generous hands slipped around her waist and moved up the length of her body, then stroked her back. She shivered. His fingertips caressed her skin and she closed her eyelids—a twirl of colors swam beneath them: red, twinkling green. She could hear some birds tweeting outside the bedroom window, perched on the weeping willow tree and, as one flew past, the shadow darted across her colored vision, just a second, just a flash. Tommy continued to stroke her—his touch tender. Warm.
She remembered how much she loved this man. How she ached for him. How much she desired him physically.
He pushed the dress away from her shoulders and it fell in folds about her waist. He pressed his hand under her white cotton panties and cupped her crotch, lifting it a millimeter from the bed. She cried out. Taken aback, almost, by the tingling flurry between her legs. She had forgotten that could happen. She could feel herself moisten, and she wriggled out of her dress, letting it fall to the floor. His hands moved upwards toward her breasts, his touch soft, hardly there, letting a finger flicker on her nipple, quiet and restful. She turned herself around to face him, her legs straddled either side of his, the saddle of her thighs and bottom pressing against his groin. He was rock hard. Bigger than she remembered. Her stomach pooled with desire and she heard herself moan quietly. They kissed. He tasted of sun and apples. He tasted of Tommyness. She let her tongue explore his top lip, then his mouth, and felt the rough stubble of an unshaven face. He groaned and pulled her closer. She remembered how little they kissed these days, really kissed—deep, probing—and she remembered, too, how he craved that.
She could feel the steady throb between her legs, and edging herself up on her knees, still straddling him, she offered his mouth her nipple. He licked it. Softly. The end of his tongue flickered like a glinting light. She let out another little cry. Her need for him, like a volt, made her push him to the bed. His head thumped on the puffed linen pillows and hungrily she unbuttoned his shirt, grappled the belt, reaching for the buttons of his jeans, feeling the rock that was his desire, the pulse in her groin rhythmical and hot. She drank in his chiseled abs, the definition of his pectorals. She pulled off his pants, halfway. She kissed him on his muscular thighs, her head resting against his hips, her tongue and lips searching for his cock as she looked up at him, a monument of flesh and bone and blood and love. They needed each other. For the first time in years, they could really give to one another. They needed each other’s strength, each other’s weakness.
Being united was imperative right now.
“Come here, my angel, my light. I need you close to me.” He grabbed her, pulling her up toward him from the waist, placing her on top of him. Her toes tingled, and she heard him hold his breath for a second as she let him slide into her, her hands guiding him in. It felt huge, unfamiliar, as if it were her first time. She caught her breath at the smarting pain. It lasted a second and then it was over, her wetness welcoming the man she loved, the fit perfect. She had forgotten how well they slotted together.
She had forgotten that.
She gyrated her hips in a tiny figure of eight, then opened her mouth so her breath could come faster. She shut her eyes again and moved down, closer, tighter, her lips pressing on his, her pale hair flopping about his concentrated face. Her body needed this.
“I love you, Sylvie. I love you.” He kissed her harder and groaned. “So beautiful. So, so beautiful.”
She said nothing but carried on with her rhythm, fearful to break its spell, her elbows planted either side of his shoulders, up and down, the skin of their torsos clapping, she mewling with each plunge, controlling the penetration, teasing him, the throbbing tip, now the whole, now just the tip. He felt incredible.
His patience could no longer bear her coquettish torment.
She could feel him grab her buttocks with his large hands. He spun her round, her on her back now, gently, careful not to let their groins part. He started pumping. Hard. Deep. Her man had taken command. The captain of his ship. His vessel. He started fucking her rhythmically. Dominating her. She splayed her legs open even wider.
She moaned at every thrust. She tilted her thighs higher and still with her eyes on him, grabbed a cushion beside her head and pushed it under her hips. They were closer now. Her fingers grabbed his ass, smooth and hard like a rounded boulder. She pulled herself back. Just a touch. Steady. Slow. She was in control again. She needed to change the pace. Slowly she pushed herself toward him and held the motion. Pulled him in tighter. Still. Together. One.
Then she drew herself away.
He let out a deep, guttural growl. “Jesus you’re incredible.”
Again, she pulled him, her nails like little weapons, clutching his buttocks. She could feel it now. Her racing pulse, the heat like an orange flare, the deep quiver inside her, taut as a boxing glove. The sensation, she knew, could rush like a falling cascade, or evaporate to an invisible mist. The timing was crucial. Her eyes were tight. Closed like a knot. The tunnel of both light and dark was rushing behind her head. She pulled him closer. She stopped. Her breath was fast, her heart pounding like a fighting fist.
He moaned. She could feel him expand inside her. Huge. Filling and pushing the edges of her walls. She lifted herself toward him. And stopped. She held her breath.
One. Two. Three. Four.
“I’m coming,” he moaned into her mouth, lashing his tongue around hers. His hardness inside her throbbed like a raw red heart.
She arched her back a little higher and pulled him closer with her hands, clawed like eagle’s talons. And then it came.
The unexpected.
The expected.
The moments of bliss that for a woman can never be guaranteed. The seconds where brain and soul meet flesh, and the brain goes blank. The second that can be snatched away and melt like an ice cream on a sweltering day to a helpless mess of nothing, or that can load you with a rush of blood, love, seed and Heaven—the bolt of thunderous orgasm. It came in her, under her, pulsing through her like a flooding river. Deep. Hard. Powerful. She could hear a woman scream and she realized it was her own lustful voice.
She had escaped. And now she had arrived.
“I love you too, Tommy,” she gasped.
She lay there. Weak. Strong. Fulfilled. Beads of sweat gathered on her back, behind the creases of her knees that were still wrapped around him like a vice.
He kissed her again and pushed away some strands of hair from her hot face. “You are the light. You’re my everything, Sylvie. I love you. I do.”
Then she remembered what she had escaped from and her guilt surged back like a current pulling her under a dark ocean. “Please find Gracie for me,” she whispered.
“I promise,” he said.
Grace
G
race had not said a word all day. They were sitting on the beach in the roasty sun, both wearing hats. But not the big straw cowboy hat that Ruth had been going around with when they were on the plane and at the bank. That, she had sold. She had also sold her computer and all Grace’s clothes. And her princess backpack on wheels. Ruth hadn’t sold the secret recording pen because she still hadn’t discovered it, tucked inside Carrot, wrapped in her nighty. Grace knew, though, that the pen was in danger. Perhaps Carrot was in danger, too. And Ruth had not bought her the Computer Engineer Barbie Doll like she promised.
“Please don’t be sad, baby. Please talk to me. I told you—he must have been stolen.” Ruth’s voice was honey-sweet.
“But he was in your bag. You said he’d be
safe
there!” Grace’s amber-green eyes were filled with burning tears. But she knew crying had gotten her nowhere so far, so she stayed quiet. Mama Ruth had promised her fun and happiness but Grace didn’t see how she was meant to be happy with her ugly new Boy Haircut and without Pidgey O Dollars.
“I know I did, baby, but I told you—the Bogeymen must have taken Pudgy O Dollars away.”
“
Pidgey
O Dollars, not Pudgy.”