The Stories We Tell (18 page)

 

fourteen

Gwen slept at Willa's cottage. Cooper came home from hitting golf balls at midnight. Apparently, Landry needed to talk and they'd gone out for dinner and drinks. In Gwen's language, this deserved a “whatever.”

As for me, it's only 5:00
A.M.
, but here I am back in the studio. The sun hasn't joined the day. The Ten Good Ideas line now has inspiration boards stretching along the project table. Sketches and notes are scattered; Pantone color charts and font types are placed in strategic squares for each of my commandments.

A thin, long poster board lists the ten ideas as if they are carved on stone. Francie sketched a mock tablet around the list, where the numbers are listed in arabic.

I am sipping coffee and staring at the list when Max shows up.

“What are you doing here so early?” he asks.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I didn't finish that wedding run last night and the bridezilla will be here by sunlight to pick up the invitations. Apocalyptic consequences are possible if they aren't waiting and wrapped in white tissue with satin silver ribbon. So that's my answer. What's yours?” He leans over to check the coffeepot.

“I don't have an excuse,” I say. “Just … here.”

“Good enough.” He fills a large mug with coffee and then joins me at the table. “So what do you think?”

“I think it might be the best thing we've ever done.”

“It was your idea,” he says.

“No, it really wasn't. It was your idea to turn it into a card line. And I've been so little help since the accident.”

“You've had a few things to keep you preoccupied, Eve. And this wouldn't exist without you anyway. Any of this…” He sweeps his hand around the room.

“And we need numbers nine and ten,” I say.

“In good time. But right now, I'm going to spend quality time with the printer.” He stretches. “Care if I turn on the music?”

“No, go ahead. I'm gonna catch up on e-mails and paperwork,” I say.

Max stops and turns around. “Speaking of paperwork, the credit card was declined on the ink order. Any reason?”

“No. The bill is paid automatically through e-banking. I'll call.”

My mind is cluttered with the detritus of my family's undoing. I want to pay attention to the financial aspects of our business, but I'm distracted. No surprise there. I've come to a pause since the accident, and yet I knew the money was waiting in the bank account.

I pick up the phone to call the bank before realizing it's only 5:30
A.M.
I return to the card line, mumbling the childhood wisdom of each idea out loud. I lose myself in this until the bang of the studio door startles me as Willa and Gwen walk in.

“Morning,” Willa says.

“What is this?” Max asks. “Get to Work Before Dawn Day?”

“We heard y'all coming in and we were up anyway,” Gwen says.

“Have you been to sleep yet?” I ask.

Willa and Gwen look at each other and smile. “Nope,” Willa says. “We've been up talking all night. We didn't realize it was soooo late … and then we heard ya'll coming to work at five in the morning.”

Gwen walks to the table, facing me. “What's all this?”

“Brainstorming the last good ideas,” I explain.

Gwen stares at the boards, shifting papers and color charts.

“You okay?” I ask her, but I look at Willa.

“I'm fine, Mom. Totally.”

“Go home and get some sleep.” I kiss her cheek.

Gwen nods. “Think I will.” And she turns to leave, but not before saying hello to Max and teasing him about his ink-stained apron.

When Gwen is gone, I pull Willa aside. “Is she okay? Did she tell you … what I found?”

“Yep. She's pretty upset. She feels … terrible.”

“I'm so worried about her. I need to get her some help.” I rub at my eyes, feeling the too much of everything pushing in on me.

“She's confused,” Willa says. “And it's not like I'm much help, since ‘confused' is my new definition.” She attempts to laugh, but it comes out a near cough.

“Confused?”

“Yes. She wants to know what happened that night. She talks in circles about it, as if she's trying to solve the puzzle we can't solve. And she's really sad. I mean, not just teenager sad. But sad. That's why she's doing those stupid things—the drinking, the smoking, the dumb boyfriend. And now wanting to get a tattoo.”

I groan. “No. Not on her beautiful skin. She's killing me. I don't know what to do.”

“Take her to see someone or something … a therapist maybe?”

“You really think?”

“Yes.”

“Everything seems to be … coming undone.”

“It's all my fault,” she says quietly. “I would do anything to fix it all. To go back to the one minute that night that might have changed everything. Maybe I decided not to sing. Or I went to the coffee shop instead. Or I didn't see Cooper. Something. Anything.”

“It's not your fault. What is coming undone has nothing to do with what you did or did not do that night.”

“Yes, it does.” Willa stares at the project table as if she's here and far away at the same time, as if we aren't discussing Gwen at all. “Number nine,” she says.

“You remember it?” I ask.

She lifts her gaze from the table as if her pupils themselves weigh too much to heft upward. “Remember what?”

“Number nine.”

“Number nine of what?” she asks.

“Willa,” I say. “Go get some sleep. I can't believe you both stayed up all night.” I want to jolt her mind, shake her memories clear. “What did you talk about all that time?”

“Everything and nothing really. Breakups. Blackouts. And my weird dreams. Which is why I don't want to sleep. Which is why I want to stay up all night and talk to Gwen and never close my eyes.” Her voice is clear now, changing tone in those quick instants.

“What dreams?” I ask.

“The ones about the car.…” Her voice trails off, fading like color at the edges of an ink run. “And the man chasing me.”

“You had that dream in the hospital.”

“I still have it.”

“Have you asked the neuro practitioner about it?”

She shakes her head.

“Why not?”

“They're just dreams. My scrambled brain sending out bullshit messages. I've heard about it. Like when an eye can't see right because of macular degeneration or something, and people hallucinate because the eye
wants
to see something, anything, so it makes something out of fragments to create a new image.”

“Yes,” I say with my newfound understanding and need to separate fantasy from truth.

“That didn't make sense, did it?” She places her hands on either side of her scalp and groans a sad, low sound. “I never seem to make sense, even to myself.”

“I thought you said the writing and singing were helping.…” I am out of things to say.

“They are. But helping is not the same as fixing. I still can't put things in the right order in the right place.”

“You will.”

She shakes her head. “I have to accept that I might not. That's what they tell me. Accept it—I might not remember entire chunks of my life and I might have trouble finding words and names forever or for a day. Which I guess will be really great when I go crazy, because you won't know I'm crazy, because I'm already a freaking mess.”

“You are not a mess.”

“But I am, Eve. I am. Memories flirt—I mean flit—in and out of my head. I see something, an image or a word, and then it melts away. Like we learned from that pamphlet, I remember things in a different … formula. No,
format.
The place where I would know a word or a person or anything at all gets shifted to another area and I don't know how to find. I try to follow the thread of something—like that woman's voice—and I get lost, finding threads that aren't tied to her voice at all.”

“I wish, God, I wish I knew how to help. But I know this from what we've read and heard—it's not linear. Healing isn't going to go in a straight line and remembering isn't … and…”

“What is linear in all the world?” she asks with a sly smile.

“Not much,” I say.

“Well, I know I'm lucky. In a weird way, I'm really lucky. I've read about other people with these injuries. They can't remember names or they have terrible pain or they can't relate to others at all. I'm just … struggling with memories and words.”

“Lucky? As if you can compare?” I ask.

“Yes, I can compare. I am comparing. It could be worse.”

“Yes.”

“But no matter what I read or hear, I know this—everyone says creative expression is key. So I'll keep on. And I want to tell you something weird. So just humor me for a minute.”

“Go ahead.”

“The man … the one in my dreams.”

I nod.

“I think it's that homeless man they found in the alley.”

My breath rises and I exhale to take in another that tastes like metallic fear. “Go on.” I speak quietly, hoping Max can't hear us over the music.

“Well.” Her eyes fill with quick tears, clearing the haze of the blue world inside. “I know you're going to think it's insane, so pretend you don't think so.”

“What is it?”

“I think we hit him. Or I hit him. Or he hit us. Or he was there that night. He's not haunting my dreams … or maybe he is, but I dreamed about him before I heard about him, not after.”

“But you may be projecting now. In the hospital, you dreamed about a man chasing you and then Cam told us the story about the homeless man after you left the hospital. So maybe you're confusing them.”

“Yes, I may be doing that. Of course … but I'm going to ask for a favor. One that is more than what you should do for me, because you've already done too much and this is your husband … but…” She bit her lower lip.

“You want me to ask Cooper about it?”

“No!” she says, shaking her head, so her hair whips her cheeks.

“We
have
to believe him, Willa. It's all we know, and meanwhile we need to try to heal you, find out what happened to you.”

“I was gong to ask you to take me to the morgue or police station or wherever they'd have photos.” She closes her eyes. “I know it's the most disgusting request, but I have to know if he's the same guy … and then I can let this go.”

“Same one?”

She opens her eyes to me. “The same man I see in my dreams.”

“Oh.” I sit at the table again. “But let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Have you heard from a reporter?”

“Yep. Some guy from the
Savannah News.
He said he's writing on article on the Savannah homeless community.”

“He told me he was writing an article on Preston Street and its dangers,” I say.

She shrugs. “Maybe that's part of it—the homeless and that street.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I told him it was no use talking to me because I don't remember anything and I'm officially mumbled in the brain.” She stops. “Not mumbled. Scrambled. Anyway, he's stopping by tomorrow.”

“You told him he could come here?”

“He's just writing about homeless people. It's not like I asked Charles Manson to stop by for some helter-skelter.”

I laughed loudly. “God, Willa. What am I gonna do with you?”

“No idea,” she says, and smiles.

Then her eyes snap as if some leftover lightening from that stormy night remains inside her mind. She picks up a pencil and scribbles the word FORGIVE in all capital letters. A quick burst of laughter before she says, “Number Nine. Yep, that just happened.”

*   *   *

The day passes quickly with our assignments and appointments, with phone calls and e-mails. Gwen stops by in the late afternoon to tell me she's found a ride to work and that she'll be home by ten, when they close the shop. I kiss her and whisper into her hair, “I love you.”

“I know.”

The rude accountant, Mary Jo, stops by to see her second concept designs and talks only to Francie. A photographer picks up his stack of new business cards and Max offers the bridezilla her wedding invites with gracious aplomb, as if he hasn't been up since five in the morning.

It's the restaurant owner—Larry Ford—who changes the afternoon when he arrives to pick up his new menu cards. Larry has been our client for years, a loyal customer who has us do his weekly menus along with his logos, posters, and cards. Many restaurants print their menus on cheap paper and in black ink, but not Larry. He likes to change the font, change the color, and print on linen paper. He is a kind man—tall and skinny, which I find humorous, since he owns an Italian restaurant.

“I'm having a party,” he announces.

“A party?” I glance up from the table, where I've been sorting through a file.

“Yup. I'm having a party to celebrate my five-year anniversary. And you've all got to come. I found you at the very start of my business and I wouldn't be where I am without you.”

“That's a lovely sentiment, Larry, but I think you owe your success to your overflowing plates and cheese-laden pastas.”

Max butts in. “What Eve meant to say was ‘Brilliant idea.'”

Francie stands. “Yep. planning parties is my favorite procrastination tool. I'm on it.”

“Okay,” I say, laughing. “Good idea.” It's then that I remember to call the bank. I pick up my cell, and within seconds I hear a deep male voice on the phone. “Mrs. Morrison, how are you? This is Neal Bush.”

“Fine, Mr. Bush. Thanks for asking. I'm calling about The Fine Line, Ink account. It seems there was a mix-up in the e-billing and the credit card payment was rejected.”