The Remains (15 page)

Without thinking about it, I slipped my hand
in his. He turned to me, set his wine glass gently onto the coffee
table, moved into me and started kissing me.

I kissed him back but then pulled away.

“We should eat.” I smiled.

From where we were sitting I could hear the
water boiling on the stove in the kitchen.

“Do you want me to spend the night?” Michael
softly spoke.

I turned to him, looked into his brown eyes.
I could see his desire to protect me. “If you’re going to stay, I
suggest you call your mother first.”

“She doesn’t wait up anymore. I’m forty-three
years old, don’t forget.”

I shook my head, rolled my eyes. Maybe this
was a bad idea. Or maybe not. But just the mere suggestion of
Michael staying with me proved a comfort.

“I’ll go put in the pasta,” he said. “You
relax.”

He got up, went into the kitchen. As much as
I wanted to take his advice and just relax, I knew I should be
giving Robyn a call. It was important that I tell her about my plan
to take the next couple of days off. After all, the school of art
studio classes had to go on, not to mention the mid-month meeting
with the board of directors, not a single one of whom was an
artist.

I got up from the couch.

Locating my phone in my jean jacket pocket, I
speed-dialed her cell. It was little surprising to get her message
service. Robyn always picked up my calls. I left a message anyway,
telling her about the days I would be taking off. Before I hung up,
I decided to tell her that I would be having some company tonight
in the form of my ex-husband.

“Please don’t call past nine,” I said.

Unlike Robyn, I didn’t get a thrill out of
answering the phone while snuggling up with a date.

AFTER
DINNER I ASKED Michael to check the doors and windows in the
apartment. By the time he came back in, I was already in bed,
waiting for him.
Was I making the right decision by letting him stay over?
Was I being an idiot? Was all this happening way too
fast?

Somehow my sudden, almost abrupt desire to be
close to him overrode common sense. With only a lit candle set out
on the dresser to see by, he slipped in under the comforter and
gave me a comforting smile.

It’d been a long time since I shared a bed
with my ex-husband. You might think I’d be all over him, and he all
over me. But inside that dimly lit room, with only the flickering
candlelight glowing against the plaster walls, we lay on our sides
facing one another, looking into each other’s eyes, not saying a
single word but shouting out volumes.

For more than a few instances it seemed
almost as if we’d never been separated or divorced; never spent
even one minute away from one another. I wondered how it could be
that two people who loved each other could not find a way to live
together. But then I also had to wonder what still attracted us
after all we’d been through; after the secret I had revealed to
him.

After a time, Michael reached out and touched
my face. The gentle gesture sent a chill through my body. He leaned
into me, kissing me on the mouth. I kissed him back. He moved in
closer, then slid one arm under me and the other around me. He
pulled me close to him and he held me. He held me so tightly, I
thought he’d never let go. And when he began to cry, so did I. I
felt our tears combining and I tasted the salt from them, and we
hardly made a sound other than the beating of our hearts.

For that brief eternity I was him and he was
me and there was no past or future. There was only the sweet right
now and all the wrongs that had occurred between us—all the hurt
and all the pain—had suddenly and very definitely disappeared. In a
word, Michael and I were new again. The love that had died was
resurrected.

I became convinced that if there indeed was a
God, He truly did work in mysterious ways. Maybe He’d taken away
the sister I adored more than myself, but somehow, He’d given me
back Michael. He’d given me back my soul mate

After a
time, we lie on our backs feeling content and happy, holding hands,
staring at the ceiling, not speaking or needing to speak, but just
watching the flame-shadows that danced upon every surface that
surrounded us from floor to ceiling. Set beside me on the table, my
old dog-eared copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
, it’s now delicate pages stuffed with sketches of
Whalen from thirty years ago. As I lay in bed, I felt like taking
one of the candles to it and lighting it on fire. I felt like
destroying it and my past. But I knew I wouldn’t.

When Michael got out of bed, he replaced the
comforter over me. He blew out the candle and slipped back in bed.
Reaching out, he took hold of a small tuft of my hair. He didn’t
hold the hair so much as he let it rest in his fingertips, allowing
the rest of the hand to sit on my pillow.

“Love you, Bec,” he whispered. “Don’t be
afraid.”

Maybe four minutes later I was listening to
the sound of his breathing as he slept soundly. For that one moment
I felt happier than I’d felt in years.

I fell asleep to that happiness.

I’M WALKING WITH MOLLY along a stream bank
surrounded by trees. The water flows as wide and heavy as a river.
In the dream I’m walking right beside her, but I am also seeing the
entirety of the dream as though looking at a movie screen.

Although no one is speaking I know we are
looking for a place to cross the wide stream in order to go deeper
into the forest. This is a forbidden place, but I am too far gone
now; too far into the woods to go back. My only choice is to follow
Molly; keep my eyes peeled on her red Paul McCartney and Wings
T-shirt.

Soon we come upon a place in the stream that
is shallower than the rest. There’s a series of boulders that rise
out of the moving water. The boulders form a natural land
bridge.

Molly turns to me, that smile on her face
wider than ever.

“
Here,” she exclaims, as though she’s been
looking for the spot all along. It’s then of course that I know for
certain Molly has been here before. She’s defied our father,
explored the woods without his okay; without my knowledge.

“
Stay close,” she orders as we traverse
the rock bridge to the other side of the stream. “There, I can
almost see it.”

Molly knows something is out there. It’s why
she made me go into the woods with her in the first place.

We walk maybe another one-hundred yards
before that thing takes shape.

“
You see it, Bec?” Molly shouts. “Can you
see it?”

I can see it by then. As amazing as it
seems, as buried as it is in the trees, I see it as clearly as I
see Molly before me.

A house set in the middle of the woods.

Then a noise.

My cell phone vibrating.

And a voice.

“Rebecca.”

THE NAME WAS NOT screamed, nor spoken. It
came to me as a kind of whisper. Or maybe it just came to me. Maybe
it just happened inside my head.

The cell phone went from vibrate to
chime.

I thought I heard movement coming from inside
the living room. I sensed movement anyway, the same way an
expecting mother might sense baby’s first kick. Heavy booted feet
shuffling against the hardwood.

My prone body was bolted to the bed. It
wasn’t a bed at all. It was a concrete platform and I was bolted
and chained to it.

Heart drummed triplets against my
ribcage.

Was my cell phone really ringing? Was this a
repeat of two nights ago? Had a voice been spoken? Had it been
whispered? Had it all been a dream?

“Rebecca.”

I listened. I must have heard a voice. The
voice had personality. It was gruff and low. There were specific
details to the voice. There was a smell that went with that
voice.

The smell of stale cigarettes. I knew that
smell, recognized it. Cigarette butts.

Eyes wide open, unblinking, I swear I saw a
shadow. The shadow of a man staring back at me from the open
bedroom door, as if someone were standing inside the open frame—a
silhouette against the darkness.

Was Whalen standing there, looking back at
me? Had he violated his parole by sneaking out of the half-way
house to come here?

I swear it’s him.

Footsteps along the bedroom floor. The filthy
ashtray smell. The cell phone vibrating and chiming.

If only I could lift my arms. If only I could
have reached out and grabbed hold of the phone. If only I could
have lifted my arms, reached out and picked it up.

I wanted to scream. But want and desire were
meaningless.

I felt the presence of Michael beside me. We
were not divorced. We were still married and he was sleeping
soundly right next to me, close to me, his body curled into my
side, his face facing me. Just like it’s always been.

His sleeping breaths were not the least bit
bothered by the sounds, the smells, the sights taking place inside
this bedroom in the middle of the deep night.

“Rebecca.”

Every nerve in my body was body tingling,
twitching.

I can’t possibly be dreaming. Can’t possibly
be dreaming. Can’t possibly be dreaming…

I made a wish. Wished the voice away; wished
the smell away; wished the figure of a small, thin man away.

The man who took Molly and me.

I began to drift.

As though by some miracle I started
falling.

Faster.

Then faster still…

WHEN I WOKE UP the sun was shining through
the windows. It seemed like a beautiful day, the terrible dreamt
sounds, smells and sights of the night behind me. But not far
enough. I reached out for the end table, picked up my cell and
peeked at the time.

Six-thirty.

My hands trembling, I opened the phone to see
if someone had called me during the night.

Nothing. Not even a new text.

Michael was still asleep. I decided to leave
him be. Or maybe I just wanted some time to myself. Time to
breathe, get my act together. I needed my routine. Craved it.

I got up, threw on a robe to fight off the
chill and got to work on making the coffee. I swallowed a vitamin
with a tall glass of orange juice, tried to eat my two ounces of
Frosted Mini Wheats, but only managed a couple of bites.

As the rich aroma of the coffee filled the
apartment, I began making a check on the living room. I walked the
square-shaped room from one end to the other, my eyes examining the
floor, the couch, the desk, the bookshelves.

Nothing seemed out of order; nothing seemed
as if it had been tampered with. No footprints on the floor, no
handprints on the walls. I looked over the windows and the door
that led out onto the stone terrace, looked for fingerprints or
smudges on the panes and sills.

Nothing. All deadbolts and safety chains
secured.

But what about the bathroom?

I crossed over the vestibule, traversed the
narrow hall that accessed the bedrooms and my rarely used painting
studio, and entered the bathroom. I checked the window over the
toilet.

The window was closed.

Reaching
up and under the shade, I felt for the lock. It was unlatched. A
jolt of electricity shot through my veins.
Was it possible that my apartment had
been broken into? Had Whalen opened this window from the outside,
climbed in through it, slipped into my apartment and my bedroom,
whispered into my ear?
Just because no visible evidence of a break-in existed
didn’t mean that it hadn’t happened. I remembered him as a small
man. Maybe even small enough to fit through that open
window.

I couldn’t help thinking that Whalen had made
his physical presence known inside my apartment last night. Or was
I just plain crazy like Harris suggested? The victim of the dreaded
PTS? The victim of vivid nightmares?

I locked the bathroom window. Then I went
into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, sipping it carefully. I
tightened my robe against the chill. The old radiant heat system
was blasting, but I was shivering cold.

What was happening to me?
I knew now that Harris wasn’t kidding when he
suggested I see a psychiatrist. Post Traumatic Stress. I also knew
that today I would fess up to the detective about the texts.
Michael was right. I should never have kept the truth from the cop
for even a single day.

I took another sip of the coffee. It tasted
bitter-sweet. Today was Thursday. Would Franny have a new painting
for me today? Would he be upset that I wasn’t around to see it?
That I was spoiling his routine?

Smell
and
Touch.

Those were the only senses left. They would
be the titles of the final two paintings.

I drank some more coffee, picked up my cell
phone, and punched the instant dial-up for Robyn. Again, the
answering service popped on.

Why in God’s name wasn’t she picking up?

Noise came from the bedroom. Michael was
up.

Should I tell him about my sensing Whalen in
our bedroom last night while we slept? Tell him about my hearing
his voice, smelling his stale cigarette smell? About the open
bathroom window? My sense of reason said, yes, tell him everything.
But caution told me to shut up about it. Shut up for now. Last
night had been as perfect a night as I’d had in years. The last
thing I wanted was to spoil it all this morning—spoil it for us.
Michael was back in tune with me, with my thoughts and fears. He
was here to protect me. I wanted to give him some peace, some space
from whatever was happening to me. Was a little peace too much to
ask?