Authors: Joanne DeMaio
His hand runs along the length of her arm and Amy’s breathing deepens while her heart beats faster. She thinks again of Dr. Berg’s suggestions to manage flashbacks and inhales another slow breath. The last thing she wants is to worry George on this perfect day. But when he turns her around and his hands cradle her face, she is almost panic-stricken—visualizing the sea, the boardwalk, anything, anything at all, to stall what is coming straight at her. His eyes meet hers as he moves a wisp of hair from her cheek, and she hopes he doesn’t notice how, wordlessly, she is trying to stop the flashback building with each touch of his hand on her skin. When he tips her face up and leans close, when she feels his mouth on hers, his breath near, hears him whisper her name, the flashback wins. It starts at her toes, tingling, no matter how hard her bare feet press into the ground.
It’s important to know that the brain remembers in many ways. Just a certain touch can stimulate a trigger
. And so she lets it happen; there is no use fighting it as this persistent flashback completely overwhelms her. It has taken all day, a constant back-and-forth struggle that has become too strong to resist. Finally, finally she fills with the flashback that comes with his every touch, fills with the bittersweet memory she lost a year ago, a flashback of being in love.
* * *
George lies in the dark room and senses the night just outside Amy’s bedroom window. His arm holds her close and he kisses the top of her head while she sleeps. A soft breeze reaches in through the open window and he looks toward the sky through a shadow of swag lace curtains framing the windowpanes, the dark outside pale with moonlight. He takes her hand and cups it in his, to his chest, while she sleeps. Their bodies are still now, hers pressed to his beneath the sheet on this summer night.
He closes his eyes, thinking of the past hour and loving her even more, yet fearing what that might mean. Fearing the crime drawing even closer. The curtain moves again with a slight breeze. A rustling of tree leaves murmurs in the dark.
But there is something else he hears, not recognizing it for a long moment. Amy stirs and his hand strokes her hair.
He knows then, with that touch, with her so fully in his life now, what it is he hears. The crickets’ song, the night owl call, all sounds of the countryside have stopped. The life outside the window, in Amy’s yard and out past the farm fields, pauses with a long silence, the way it will when a predator is in the midst.
Eighteen
AMY AWAKENS TO A SOFT sound, one reassuring and puzzling. Its high pitch seems like the happy squeal of young children, a sweet vibrato. She closes her eyes and allows herself the luxury of picturing Grace at the beach the day before. Her beautiful laugh still rings clear in memory. But while lying in bed with only a cool sheet covering her, she recognizes the other sound she’s hearing. It’s her teakettle. The steamy whistle reaches from the kitchen and spreads through the upstairs like a wispy cloud.
It must be George. He must be in the kitchen cooking something for breakfast or setting the table. Earlier, in her sleep, she felt his kiss on her lips when he bent over and said
Good morning
before he left the room. He’d been up with the sun, needing to stop home and get to his shop early. She sits up, wanting to see him now, before he leaves. Wanting to still feel his arms around her, to hear his whispered words that came in the dark the night before.
But the sun shines too bright for daybreak. With a quick glance at the clock, she tosses back the sheet and gets her robe from the closet. It is almost nine. George would have left hours ago.
The insistent teakettle whistle brings an alarming image to mind of the stove flame licking at her daughter’s summer pajamas, sparks flickering up to her fine blonde hair as Grace swats at the burning fabric. But her daughter knows not to play with the stove. She slips into her bathrobe and pulls the sash tight around her waist while hurrying to Grace’s bedroom, finding her still asleep, her sheets bunched at her feet, Bear lying on the floor.
And Amy’s heart drops with the realization of her own fragmented frame of mind. Did she sleepwalk with a flashback, returning to bed after lighting the flame on a kettle of water? She can’t continue to jeopardize her daughter like this, so she returns to her bedroom, picks up the telephone on her nightstand and dials The Main Course. Maybe George knows.
* * *
George sits at his office desk placing orders with meat vendors. School let out and the barbecues will be firing up at backyard graduation parties. He rose at dawn, stopped home only to shower and change into his black and white work clothes, and left right away for his shop, buying a bagel on the way. Now the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and the sounds of Sinatra fill his office as he hangs up with one of the vendors. The phone rings as soon as he sets it down and he nearly topples his coffee in his quick reach for it.
“George?”
“Well good morning,” he says to Amy while blotting the puddle of coffee with a napkin. He pictures her sleepy, beginning her day in the kitchen, the sun streaming in the paned windows, Angel at her feet waiting to be fed, Grace sitting with a bowl of cereal at the blue table.
“Good morning,” she says quickly, sounding distracted. “I’m glad I caught you.”
“What’s the matter?” He crumples the soiled napkin into a ball.
“It’s probably nothing, but I wanted to check with you first. Listen, did you happen to make a coffee here this morning?”
“At your place? No.”
“You didn’t put the water on and maybe forget about it?”
“Amy. What’s going on?”
“Well, it’s the funniest thing. It’s nothing, really, except that I was in bed and a noise woke me up. At first I thought it was you, downstairs.”
“What kind of noise?”
“The teakettle. It’s whistling. You didn’t heat water for an instant coffee?”
“Have you gone downstairs?”
“Not yet. It’s still whistling, but I wanted to call you first. George?” Her voice lowers to a hush. “I don’t remember going downstairs. Do you think—”
“Where’s Grace?” he asks, not letting her blame the odd morning on herself, just like she blamed her misplaced car on herself. Someone is at it again.
“She’s still in bed.”
“Get her, Amy. Get her now and wait upstairs until I get there.”
“Oh don’t be silly. I’ll go shut it off and be done with it.”
“No, don’t. And get Grace right now. Do you understand? Now.”
“George, you’re scaring me. Do you think someone’s downstairs?”
“Just sit tight. I’ll be there in no time.” He hangs up knowing damn well now that someone
was
in her yard last night. Dean isn’t due in until one o’clock, so he has to close everything up. He double-checks the meat grinders and bone saw and quickly puts a tray of Cornish hens back into the freezer before dropping a couple knives into the wash water. As he shuts off the coffee pot, Sinatra continues to play on the stereo and it’s like his father is there with him. The music’s always been a bridge like that; his father speaks to him through the lyrics. If he were still alive, George would snatch up the phone now and call him. His father would talk him through this, would tell him what to do, what to say to Amy.
And while Sinatra keeps singing of sacrificing everything for love, George knows. He’d tell his father that, too. That he finally gets it, gets how you know when someone is the right person. And he can just hear what his father would say, with a satisfied look on his face.
Well, George. Now do you understand why I never explained it to you?
“Yeah, Dad,” George answers as he rushes into the cutting room while lifting off his apron. “I get it. Because there are no words.”
That’s right. And that’s why my ring is so important to me.
George hangs the apron on a wall hook. “The ring?”
Sure. The ring says it all. Sinatra wore one, too. All the time. But it’s not like mine. His had the family crest. Mine? With that ruby? Don’t you know what that is? It’s your mother’s heart. That’s how you know when it’s right.
“Someone has your heart,” George says as he locks up the door and runs out to his pickup truck.
* * *
She looks a little disheveled waiting at the painted porch railing, barefoot in a floral tank and denim cutoffs, her hair in a ponytail.
“Hi sweetheart,” George says, climbing the steps and looking beyond into the house. “Where’s Grace?”
“In the kitchen.” Amy holds the door open for him.
George walks in and scans the living room, his eyes stopping on each window, already searching for the breached location. “I told you to wait upstairs,” he says.
“I thought the pot might burn if the water evaporated. And I didn’t want to hear it anymore. George, I can’t keep doing this, blacking out and forgetting. I’m afraid one of these times Grace will get hurt.” She turns away and moves toward the kitchen. “I’ve already put in a call to my doctor about it.”
George grabs her arm. “Amy. Listen to me.” He pulls her in close, holding tight. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You have to believe me. What if someone had broken into your house? There could have been a confrontation.”
She covers his hand with her own. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Why would someone want to break in and turn on the teakettle? Seriously? I mean, nothing’s stolen, nothing’s out of place. It was me, George, don’t you see?”
“No, sweetheart, I don’t.” He releases her arm and moves into the kitchen. Angel sits straight on the floor in front of the refrigerator, her radar ears turning to every sound while Grace spoons a mouthful of cereal at the table, still in her pajamas and swinging her legs beneath her. The green sand pail and red horse are beside her bowl. “Hi there, Gracie,” he says, patting her head before turning to the stove.
Amy comes up behind him. “I turned off the flame a few minutes ago.”
George sets the blue kettle on the cool front burner and lifts the silver cover. A couple inches of hot water remain, so whoever had gotten into the house did so not too long ago. He jiggles the back door handle against the deadbolt and the door doesn’t budge; all the glass is intact in its small panes. Over the kitchen sink, the blue and white checked curtains are pushed aside, the windows looking out to the backyard. “Were these open all night?”
“No. I just opened them now. It’s so warm today.”
He moves into the dining room and immediately notices not so much the window, which is closed, but the screen that is jimmied off the frame and hanging slightly askew. So it’s starting to happen. The cracks from one day, from the crime, begin to show.
Amy stands at the kitchen sink, her back to George. She tips her head up with a long swallow of water before he notices there’s a prescription bottle in her hand. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Dr. Berg prescribed these. They’re a mild tranquilizer.” She leans against the sink and wraps her arms around herself. “I have to stay calm with Grace. I can’t risk her safety. Look what happened at the mall when I lost control.”
“How many did you take?” George asks. Because anything goes now, anything, and he has no way of knowing if the pills had been tampered with this morning.
“Just one.”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“No. I’m not. I don’t remember doing any of this. How can I forget moving my car at the mall or turning on the teakettle? I could’ve burned down the house, for God’s sake.” Angel walks between her feet and so she pulls the cat food from the cabinet and adds more to the bowl, handing it to Grace to set on the floor. “Will I forget in ten minutes that I fed the cat? That I made the beds?” She sinks into a kitchen chair. Grace hooks the pail of shells on her arm and climbs into her lap.
George sits beside her. “We have to talk, sweetheart.”
“You know something. I’ve done something else, haven’t I?”
“No. You haven’t done any of this. That’s why we have to talk.” He takes Grace’s hand and winks at her, not wanting to upset her with his urgency. “Is Celia home?”
“I doubt it. She’s on deadline with a few houses to stage this week.”
George checks his watch. “Listen. I’ve got to stop at Dean’s place and see if he can open up the shop. Then I’m coming back here. In the meantime, get Grace dressed, have something to eat. Pull everything together for me. Can you do that?”
“I don’t think I’m liking this, George.”
He looks long at her, loving her to pieces, his heart breaking into as many. “Me either. Just trust me, please Amy. We’ll talk as soon as I get back.”
“But I’m going in to work this morning, so many gowns came in. Grace and Angel were coming too. Really, George, I just can’t—”
“You’ll go later. Lock up behind me and leave it locked.”
Amy sets Grace on the chair and follows him to the front door. When he steps outside, he turns back and kisses her quickly.
“George? Are Grace and I safe?”
He nods. A stalker moved closer to his victim right in step with George, right into her house after he spent the night. The game rules have been laid out. The closer George gets to Amy, the closer the stalker gets, too. “Lock the door, though.”
Amy closes the heavy wooden door. When he hears the deadbolt turn, he hurries off the front porch and around to the dining room window to right the screen before she has a chance to notice it. Try as he might, George finds no other cracks, nothing else out of place.
* * *
Amy dresses Grace in blue shorts and a flowered top, then puts two ponytails in her hair. Never before did she have to stop mid-ponytail and clasp one hand inside the other to stop the trembling. Will she turn around and find the television on or a faucet running, not remembering going through the motions? What’s next? Will she forget she dressed Grace and reach into her closet for another outfit?
“No, no,” she says as she slips a butterfly barrette in front of Grace’s ponytails. One day can’t keep taking pieces of voice, of memory, erasing everything in a different kind of kidnapping. Amy sits Grace and her green sand pail on the bed and slips her matching butterfly sandals on her small feet.