Читать книгу Dark Tides - Celia Ashley - Страница 9

Meg cooked him dinner. He hadn’t expected that, although he didn’t know what he would have eaten had she not troubled to feed him. The food tasted fresh and delicately seasoned, and he wondered what he had been eating lately that forced him to make an unfavorable comparison to any unknown, recent meals. Following cleanup, she had gone about her business much as usual, he expected, in a room off the living room filled with paints and canvas, sketches, brushes, and pencils, sitting down before an easel where a painting rested, not yet completed. The light had faded rapidly from the autumn sky, necessitating the use of a lamp affixed to the top of the easel. He had the feeling he had kept her from performing this work at a more opportune time, but she did not say so.

He watched for a moment, frowning at the dark depiction of the sea, the tide executed in gradations of purple, midnight blue, and blood red, the sky above a mass of storm clouds in varying shades of gray. The picture disturbed him.

Leaving her to her work on the unsettling painting, he went into the living room, seeking distraction. There, he found a variety of children’s books with her name as illustrator on the cover of each, although the authors varied. In light and evocative watercolors, she had created beautiful scenes of wildlife and snowfalls, of children and young animals, of gardens and mountains and ancient, gnarled trees from which swings hung drifting in the breeze. Studying the pictures, he understood Meg had been happy once. Clearly, by the painting in her studio, she wasn’t now.

Caleb flipped through the pages of a book he had removed from a stand that was centered on the bookshelf—a recently published work, as the year of copyright on the front page coincided with the calendar he had seen hanging in the kitchen. Carefully, he put the volume back where he had found it. Turning to move on, he stopped at a clatter of falling objects from the nearby room.

“Are you all right?” Caleb called out.

Meg appeared on the threshold, standing on one foot as she leaned into the room, wiping her hands with a paint-smeared rag. He could smell something pungent coming from the cloth and wrinkled his nose.

“Turpentine,” she said. “Paint thinner. Hard on the hands, but gets the paint off.”

He nodded.

“I’ll be finished in here in a minute.”

“Don’t stop because of me. I’ve just been looking at your books.” He pointed to the nearest. Her gaze darted in the direction he pointed, her expression altering. He couldn’t read the change, and in the next instant, it was gone, reverting to the smile she’d been wearing when she came in. He frowned.

“Be right out.”

As soon as she disappeared, he continued his circuit around the room, picking up objects for a brief examination and putting them back down. He paused in front of an old hutch, his attention caught by the worn, barn-red doors. Grabbing the painted knob on the right side, he pulled the door open to reveal a column of drawers, each with a scarred, brass keyhole. Meg’s light footsteps tapped across the hardwood floor behind him.

“This feels familiar,” he said, without turning. “Is it a common type of furniture?”

She stepped past him, closing the door with a definitive click of the latch. “There’s nothing in there.”

“I wasn’t…I wasn’t asking.” Yet he felt like perhaps he had been. “It was just…well, it seemed I’d seen something like it before.”

“That’s entirely possible. Probably not one exactly like this, but it is, as you said, a common type of furniture.”

He continued to gaze at the shut door, visualizing the drawers behind it. He imagined they held all sorts of personal items, hints at a life, records and receipts and so many things he couldn’t put a name to, things he almost remembered, sitting hidden from light at the edge of thought.

“Caleb? Are you all right?”

He grunted.

“Have you been reminded of something?”

“I think so. I think maybe I had a hutch. That’s what it’s called, right? I think I had one in the life I can’t remember.” She looked at him with sympathy before she touched his arm in reassurance and turned away.

I don’t want your pity.

Shocked by the vehemence of his reaction, he clenched his hands into fists on the denim covering his thighs. A moment later, he scented the fragrance of her hair as she returned. She closed her fingers over his, pulling his left hand up between both of hers. “It’ll be all right, Caleb. I don’t know when. Just believe it will.”

He met her gaze in defiance of the confusion that dashed with glancing blows around his brain, unable to believe anything would ever be all right.

* * * *

Lying in the dark, Caleb stretched in the confines of the narrow bed. He tucked his arms behind the upper part of his head, avoiding the goose egg. His gaze followed the shadowed path of a late moth across the ceiling. He had slept for a little while and then had come fully awake, with no idea of the time. In his disorientation, he could have been sleeping for hours or a handful of minutes. Somehow, though, he had the feeling he’d woken in the middle of the night.

Across the hall and down one door was her bedroom, by day a light-filled chamber with most of the lace-covered windows facing the ocean. When he had come up to shower, he had remained in the doorway for an inordinate amount of time, studying the accoutrements, the personal items scattered about—books and discarded clothing—the arrangement of furniture, the painted cast iron bed, the pair of dressers, a small desk in the corner, a worn, overstuffed chair in need of reupholstering. After, he had turned away, feeling guilty for his curiosity.

He wondered now if she slept untroubled or if she lay in her bed awake and uneasy with his presence in her house. He certainly would not blame her, knowing he occupied the room nearby, a stranger not only to her, but also to himself.

Letting his breath out, he closed his eyes and visualized Meg Donovan against his lids. Small in stature, she possessed an artless grace, moving restlessly from location to location as if she had no more weight or substance than one of the leaves in the breeze outside the window. It didn’t matter if she was drawing the blinds or rinsing paint from a brush or rising up onto her toes before the bathroom mirror to comb her hair.

Ah, yes, well, he hadn’t meant to walk in on her then. He had turned the corner to go into the bathroom and found her there, right in front of him. Although wearing thin and ratty sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, she may as well have been naked. Dressed for bed, she would have walked out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where she would have climbed beneath the mounded covers. During her marriage to her husband, they had most likely engaged in intimacy in that bed. He didn’t want to think about it, yet he kept doing exactly that, visualizing Meg and a faceless man who occasionally appeared in his mind’s eye bearing his own.

Disgusted with himself, he took to watching the moth again, gray-winged in the silver night. Despite the autumnal chill, he had lifted the sash an inch so he could hear the constant rhythm of the surf against the sand. Nearer, hot water ticked through the pipes of the old radiator. Fluttering erratically, the moth moved toward the open door and out the narrow space between the door and jamb. A shadow passed in the hall.

Sitting bolt upright, Caleb suppressed a groan as his pain-racked body protested the sudden movement. In the shower, he had located additional bruises on his torso and limbs, and all were bringing him noticeable discomfort. Swinging his feet over the side of the single bed, he snatched the borrowed blue jeans from the footboard. After tugging them on, he stepped shirtless into the corridor.

The half moon shining through the window at the far end illuminated an empty hallway. In silence, Caleb strode along the worn runner toward the sound of someone descending the stairs with quiet steps. Glancing at Meg’s door, he saw it remained shut. Not her, then. His body tensed.

Taking the back stairs swiftly in his bare feet, he crept into the kitchen. Someone, or something, moved across the floor. The hair lifted along his arms.

The light went on. He squinted against the sudden, fluorescent glare.

“Caleb, I’m sorry, did I wake you? I tried not to make any noise.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” he answered, more gruffly than he intended. “I thought someone had broken in.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. Her hair, sleep-tousled, or perhaps from the restless lack of slumber, lay tangled about her shoulders. “And you were coming to do battle with the intruder. That’s quite gallant of you. I’m glad it was only me.”

Conscious of how foolish he must look, shirtless and unarmed, he sat down in the nearest chair. “You couldn’t sleep either, I see,” he said.

She gave him a strange look but nodded. “Would you like a glass of warm milk? It does work, you know. I’m making myself one.”

“Warm milk?”

“To help you sleep.”

“To help me sleep,” he repeated, catching the flying edge of memory, of a slender hand pouring the steaming white contents of a pot into a mug. “Sure,” he said. “Thank you.”

He watched as she set about her preparations, pouring milk into an enameled pot, placing two mugs on the counter, removing a wooden spoon from the drawer. She turned the jet on beneath the pot, glancing back at him over the rumpled shoulder of her T-shirt.

“Chilly? There’s a jacket behind the door.”

He hadn’t been inclined to say so, but once again she had read him without a need for words. He frowned and rose, moving to the hook she indicated to take down a faded sweatshirt jacket. Matt’s? Why had she kept so many of his things?

He shoved his arms into the sleeves and jerked the zipper up before he sat back down. At the stove, she stirred the heating milk with one hand and put the other hand in the pocket of her holey sweats. The overhead light glinted in the sun-streaked highlights of her hair. Her shoulders hunched forward as if she, too, were chilled. Another jacket hung on a second hook, a smaller version of the one he now wore. He retrieved the garment and held it out to her. Without a word, she put it on.

This time he didn’t sit down but turned his hips against the countertop and crossed his arms over his chest. “May I ask you something?”

She glanced up and away, but she didn’t say no.

“Do you miss your husband?”

Ignoring him, she continued with the task at hand.

“Is that why you have his clothes still?” Caleb persisted, trying to understand. “To remind you of him?”

“I don’t need that sort of reminder,” she said, studying the steam rising from the pot. Judging the milk hot enough, she poured it into the mugs and flicked the burner off.

“Then why?”

Carrying both mugs to the table, she paused, pivoting on her heel. “I don’t know. It’s not exactly like I miss him. But I haven’t wanted to get rid of anything of his. Call me a fool, if you need, but I’d like to know what makes you so certain that’s not a normal course of events.”

His mouth twisted at her tone. “I’m not entirely certain, which is why I’m asking. However, I’ve some inkling that people usually pack up the belongings of the…of people who aren’t around anymore,” he finished, crossing the linoleum to take his mug and sit down.

She pulled out the chair across from him, then lowered herself slowly to the seat. “Well,” she murmured, “so they do.” She said no more as she lifted the steaming mug to her mouth and drank. He drank, too, contemplating the curve of her lashes on her lowered lids.

After a moment, she placed her mug on the table. “How are you feeling?”

The color of her eyes reminded him of the horizon on a still, clear evening as the sun went down, the sky a blanket of velvet, the only light that brilliant line of green…

For the love of God, where the hell had that come from? Alarmed, he looked down at the table at the scratch of a word he still couldn’t decipher. “Fine… Better, I mean. Not fine. I still can’t remember anything.”

She hooked the handle of her mug with her forefinger, moving the receptacle back and forth. “Caleb is a fine New Englander’s name, but I don’t think you’re from around here.”

“Why’s that?” he asked, feeling a spark of something he recognized as dread.

“You don’t have the accent. I don’t either, so I recognize when it’s missing. I’m from Pennsylvania originally.”

“Pennsylvania,” he echoed. The name meant nothing to him.

He watched her draw breath, take another sip, and set the mug back down. She tucked a handful of tangled hair behind her ear. “I looked in the phone book. And online. I couldn’t find anything that would lead to revelations about who you are.”

He nodded, not sure what she was talking about. The only thing clear to him was that she still had no idea who he might be or where he belonged. Lifting his mug, he drained the contents, scalding his tongue. “Ouch.”

She smiled, a small turn of her lips. “You all right?”

“I’m all right,” he said.

He wanted to touch her hand, her face, lean across the table and kiss her mouth, take his time, savor the sweetness of her lips and the residue of warm milk on her tongue. Instead, he stood up in a hurry and carried his empty mug to the sink.

“Matt used to do that,” she said from the table.

Oh, God, he thought, remembering how clearly she read him. “Do what?” he asked, not turning around.

“Not wait for the milk to cool. He was always burning himself.”

He let his breath out as he ran water into the heavy mug. When he spun back toward the table, she held her own close to her chin, staring off into middle space. Not wanting to intrude on her memories, he thanked her and left the kitchen to return to the guest room and his narrow, empty bed.

* * * *

Meg listened to the creak of the floorboards in the spare room above, followed by the slow groan of the bed frame. She lowered her mug to the table and stared down into the cooled remnants, the film of scalded milk shifting on top.

Yes, Matt used to do that before he climbed the stairs to shower or to bed, where he would wait for her to finish in the kitchen and join him. He would lean across the table and kiss her long and deeply in invitation while the flavor of warm milk was still shared in their mouths. Back when he still wanted her, when he’d leap up hard in anticipation of heated flesh, slick, private places, and the intoxication of abandon.

She let her breath out in a quiet sigh. Odd to find this stranger wanted to kiss her, too. Possibly, he possessed some psychic sensitivity of his own. Since he could bring forth no personal memories, he was perhaps more receptive to hers, reflecting them as if he and she were two mirrors held face to face, silvered surfaces casting back into infinity the image of the other until the origin could no longer be discerned.

After a moment, she got up to rinse her mug, then dried her fingers on the leg of her sweatpants. Turning out the light, she gazed through the window at the softly illuminated sea. She impatiently dismissed her theory as she recognized its distinct flaw.

Reflection would be impossible because nothing reflective existed in the darkness where she lived.

Exiting the kitchen, Meg headed to the living room, her destination before she’d heard Caleb descending the stairs. Some half-recalled sense of protectiveness had apparently urged him out of his bed to investigate. She was used to wandering around in the dark in her own home and hadn’t given it a thought, but she really hadn’t meant to startle him. Alarm couldn’t be good for him in his condition.

The ambient light through the windows from outside bled the color from the carpet in the center of the hardwood floor. Deep shadows hid the identity of furnishings, but Meg knew every stick and its location by heart. She crossed with an unerring step to the hutch, a shade of gray–brown in the night. Opening the door, she gazed into the dark interior, the drawers hidden but for the dull gleam of the keyholes. What had led Caleb here? What errant thought of hers had entered his mind and made him curious?

She had watched him cross the floor as if drawn to the aged piece of furniture, saw him reach right out, open the door, and stare inside the way she did now. Rising up on her toes, Meg switched the three-way lamp on top of the hutch to its lowest setting. She pulled a key from the deep pocket of her sweatpants and inserted it into the top keyhole. As quietly as she could manage, she removed the drawer and took several steps backward to the sofa. Clutching the wooden receptacle in both hands, she sat.

Dog-eared birthday cards and Christmas cards, tattered notes and mementoes filled the drawer. The sum and substance of the good years with Matt. The years before he had changed and she with him. Before love had degraded and trust had altered. Before he had slipped into that bitter place where she refused to follow.

She tried to recall the first moment she had recognized the difference in their lives, but the change hadn’t happened like that. She couldn’t point her finger at a particular event and say, here is where the end began. It could have begun on the day they wed, really. At the exchange of vows when he became her husband and she his wife. Until death do us part.

Sometimes, though, it seemed death hadn’t followed through with that promise. The scars of those final days, invisible to others, were always present in her mind. Though Matt had gone, the hurt remained like the sting of a phantom limb after removal. Even so, the pain had lessened of late. She had hoped, in time, to find it gone.

Meg frowned down at the box of fading memories. She should have chucked them all in the fire pit in the garden a long time ago. Hell, she should have taken an ax to the kitchen table, too. She told herself her practical nature prevented the latter. Not so. One day she’d hoped for an answer to the words he’d carved into the wooden surface.

So much for hope. So much for answers.

She gazed a moment longer at the drawer across her knees and then rose. Marching to the kitchen with it balanced against her hip, she paused only long enough to shove her feet into a pair of rubber boots and grab the box of matches before heading out into the night. Once there, she made her way to the garden. Meg dropped to her knees beside the fire pit and removed the lid. Grabbing a handful of items from the drawer, she hesitated briefly before spreading them over the metal bottom of the receptacle. Inhaling, she struck a match against the side of the box and set fire to the floral border of a card.

Meg watched the edges blacken and curl, flame moving across the decorated surface of the birthday card, consuming paper in a relentless crawl. She fed in another and then more of the drawer’s contents, one item at a time, until nothing remained. Eyes surprisingly dry, Meg stood, the empty drawer dangling from her left hand against her thigh. Sparks drifted skyward, vivid against the darkness beyond until they faded to ash and disappeared.

She returned the mesh top to the pit and turned away. Somehow, she had expected to feel better about what she had done. Numbness tingled across her skin, touched her mind, and nothing more. Before going back inside, Meg glanced up at the ocean-facing windows of her bedroom, of the bedroom she and Matt once shared. Starlight shimmered across the glass surfaces, reflecting the velvet night sky.

In the nearest, a shadow moved and the curtain dropped back into place.