Shadows Gray

Chapter Fourteen



The let down and disappointment hits me like a ton of bricks. My breath that I’ve been holding is let out in a rush. My eyes take in the scene before me: a dingy mattress on the floor with a ratty blue blanket, a dresser with broken drawers hanging lopsided or fallen out completely, a box that looks to be filled with half packed and then forgotten knick knacks, a plastic crucifix on the wall. A closet door, mostly open. A window, broken and letting in night air. I rub my eyes tiredly with all ten of my fingers.

“Are you alright?” Luke asks in concern.

“I just don’t know where she could have gone,” I reply in frustration. “Didn’t you hear her in here?”

Luke looks surprised and shakes his head. “No, I didn’t hear anything. Sorry, Gray. Want to get out of here?”

I nod, wordlessly. The sense of Rose being here has diminished now, although I cannot shake the feeling of a presence in this room, listening to me the way I was listening to it. An ear pressed to the inside of the bedroom door to match mine on the outside. A single piece of pressed wood between us, so close I could almost hear the heartbeat, almost feel the breath, and yet as far away from my sister as I have always been.

********************

Back in Luke’s truck we are silent for several moments. I feel foolish for thinking it would be so easy to find Rose, yet I also feel strangely as though we came close, though I have nothing substantial to base this feeling on. I wonder why this man is chauffeuring me around on my fool’s errand. I steal a glimpse of him from under my eyelashes as he drives; his hands are both on the steering wheel, fingers drumming a bit as though he has a song in his head. He has taken off his tie and it sits between us on the seat of the truck, sitting obediently like a tiny, quiet passenger. Luke speaks.

“Well, it’s possible she was there and was scared of us.”

I don’t think he actually believes that but it is nice of him to placate me, I think.

“We could go back in the daylight,” he continues. “Might not be so intimidating that way.”

“I suppose breaking and entering with a flashlight wasn’t the way to go,” I agree, morosely. I turn my attention to the window and watch the moonlight flit in and out through the trees, a slim slice of white in the blackness. The way it dances and flickers make me remember other nights, long ago, in a different place, where candle light was the norm. The way the flame would skitter and prance about if there was a breeze or if you breathed a little too close. The moon between the pines looks like that to me. Steadily the shape of the trees gives way to more and more housetops and roofs and buildings and before I know it, Luke has pulled up to the curb outside my house. I pick up Emme’s shoes in my hand and am still thinking of our strange night and of Rose when I pull the handle of the passenger door. It seems sticky and so I shove hard. I hear a thud and a muffled exclamation as the door hits something solid before swinging the rest of the way open. I jump out and peer around the door to see Luke sprawled on the sidewalk, scowling at me.

“Gee, Gray, I kind of thought you’d appreciate the chivalry of a man opening the door for you,” he rubs his chin and narrows his eyes as I look down at him. “If you’re one of those feminist types you could have just said no, thanks, and saved me the broken body parts.”

“Sorry,” I laugh, offering my hand to help him up. “I didn’t see you there.”

“You could wait to forget about my existence at least until I’ve walked you to your door,” he grumbles, grabbing my hand and almost pulling me down to him as I haul him up.

“Don’t fret, big man.”

“I’m not fretting!” his scowls get bigger, if that’s possible. “I’ve never fretted in my life. You really have a way with words, Gray. No one else has managed to insult me quite so much and with such finesse.”

“That’s me,” I curtsy, or try to wearing this blasted tight dress. “Full of finesse and insults and harebrained schemes. I’m also available for birthday parties and holidays.”

“I’ll remember that.” We have reached my steps and I wonder suddenly if he is planning on coming in. Will he sit uncomfortably on my couch while I serve powdered lemonade? Will we make small talk? What am I supposed to do now? It’s nearly midnight. Prue will be exhausted, waiting up for me.

Speak of the devil: Prue yanks open the front door before I can reach out for the knob. She glares at us in her ruffled nightgown, one hand on the door, the other on her hip. Her foot taps impatiently as she stares Luke down.

“Young man, you had better hightail it home now. It is extremely late and some of us need to work for a living. Not all of us go ‘round, snappin’ pictures and callin’ it a profession. Some of us have to actually get up at the crack of dawn to start the bread risin.’” This is a complete and utter fabrication, seeing as how Prue doesn’t serve breakfast and therefore has no need to start her bread dough rising anywhere near the crack of dawn, but I’m certainly not going to point this out. She looks like a disgruntled mama bear in pigtails.

“And thank goodness you do!” Luke smiles from ear to ear. “I’d be skin and bones if it weren’t for you, Prue. Now when you going to give up this hard working lifestyle and come and marry me and cook for one?”

Prue smacks him smartly, but the corners of her mouth are quivering in an attempt not to smile. I stare closer at her; is she blushing? Prue, blushing? What a day.

As I open my mouth to wish Luke a pleasant evening, the headlights of a car pulling up practically to my front steps (fabulous, I think, there go my pansies) almost blind me. The engine of the intruding vehicle idles while I hear the sound of one, than a second, door being opened and slammed shut. I can see the illuminated shapes of what appear to be two men, seemingly arm in arm, coming towards us, but I cannot make out who they are.

“What in the world?” I murmur.

“It’s the police,” Luke answers, and then under his breath, “It looks like your father got himself a ride home.”

********************

I almost find myself wishing that my date (if that’s what Luke is) could be exceedingly less chivalrous and just leave me to my state of mortification. Mortified is the only emotion you can feel when your own father, drunk of course, is escorted home by a cranky policeman. You don’t really need company to watch you process your mortification and go through the final stages of embarrassment, excuses, faked casual laughter, and forced inane chatter. And that is what I am putting Luke through at the moment, quite possibly all at once.

“Well, the police here certainly do take their streets seriously, don’t they?” I chatter on, forcing my voice to sound light, as we lower my father’s inebriated self to the couch. He is conscience, but barely so, he stinks to high heaven, and he is humming a song under his breath. The cop had threatened us nicely and made sure we heard – several times – that he won’t show such kindness and unparalleled generosity on his part if there was ever to be a next time he discovered Noah Gray drunk in public. I assured him – several times – there wouldn’t be a next time.

“Here you are, sir,” Luke props up my father’s head on the only throw pillow we have; a round chenille one that I bought at the same yard sale I found my favorite monogrammed washcloth.

As a thank you, Dad hiccups.

I’d like to give him a good smack and realize that since I don’t have a mother to turn into the way daughters the world over always realize they do, I am instead turning into Prue. Such a lovely thought to cap off my utterly lovely evening.

I look at Luke and wish desperately that he would leave. It is too much to have him here, feeling sorry for me as he must, and probably wondering frantically how he will ever get rid of me now. Strange, odd Sonnet Gray, with her pesky time traveling habit, her dead mother, her ghost of a sister, and now her thoroughly pickled father. What must he think of me? I’m more exhausted and drained than I thought because as I steal a glance at Luke he is looking at me in a way that does not look like pity. It is a soft glance, a warming of his eyes really, a flash of a smile, and it almost feels as though my very bones are turning to liquid. I shake off the notion and in order to bring myself back to the present and also to make me feel better, I tweak my father’s nose a bit harder than necessary in what is disguised as a gesture of affection but is really a painful twist that makes him yelp. I do feel better though. Much.

“Just leave him,” I tell Luke and head for the door. He really has no choice but to follow me. “He’ll be fine.” He always is, is the part I don’t say but I might as well since we both hear it anyway.

“Thank you for the art show, it was lovely,” I smile, or attempt to. It feels wooden and stiff. “And thank you for trying to find Rose. And for,” I gesture toward the couch, which is emitting a peaceful snoring sound. “That.”

“It was most interesting,” Luke chuckles. “Maybe we can do it all again sometime.”

I don’t take him seriously and to show I don’t, I push him lightly out the door and say goodnight. What genius would want to do this all again sometime? He is either terribly masochistic, ridiculously lonely, or a glutton for punishment. I simply cannot come up with a fourth alternative for wanting to be near me.

When Luke is gone and Dad is tucked in – with not a lot of gentleness on my part – Prue presses a mug of hot chocolate in my hands, as though I am nine years old and it will cure all that ails me, and sends me off to bed.

I dream.

I am eight years old and sitting beneath a stone wall. There is a dog baying somewhere nearby and the whole world seems flat and gray through my blue eyes. I am lonely. The children here don’t like me. I am slow to learn their language and I seem odd to them; I don’t find the same things amusing and I laugh in all the wrong places at the wrong times. I still look for my little sister everywhere we go because I still remember her.

I wake up with a start. I did remember her at that age; my own memories, not the stories repeated that make me wonder if I remember, but actual solid images. The frustrating thing now is the more time goes by, the less clear those images are until, like a dream, the edges blur and become fuzzy, like a cloud that drifts across your view. In my mind I attempt to stare and concentrate and make it come into focus but the clouds come faster and faster, blurring my vision and taking with it, any clarity that once was there. I want to fall asleep again and dream some more, remember some more, but it’s useless. I lie in bed, tired but awake until the break of dawn.

********************

In the morning at work, I feel that restlessness that comes with having been too long in one place, and I find myself giving Micki notice again. He ignores me as usual and asks me to re-do the entire chalkboard menu behind the counter. He likes it when I redesign it because my handwriting is pretty. His would be too if he learned to write in a monastery with monks who wrote bibles by hand and spent days on just one letter. My hands cramp in memory.

I am balanced precariously on our tallest bar stool when Emme stops by for her favorite beverage: scalding hot tea in a double cup.

“You look like hell, luv,” she greets me, cheerily.

“I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” I grumble, erasing my C in the word cinnamon and starting over. I had gotten too ornate with it and it looked like Ginnamon. “And you’re awfully perky for the morning.”

“It’s Joe’s birthday,” Emme replies, blowing on the cup of tea that Micki hands her. “I’m going shopping for a gift. Want to come?”

“I’m working.”

“Take her,” Micki sticks his nose in the conversation. “She keeps glaring at the customers anyway.”

“I am not!” I protest. “I’m concentrating, not glaring!”

Micki and Emme exchange glances that seem to commiserate with each other and completely irritate me.

“Really, I can handle it. Go, have fun,” Micki pushes. “I’ll even finish the menu.”

“You write like a four year old,” I argue.

“I’m the four year old who signs your paycheck, so get lost.”

Get lost. Just another modern expression that always confuses me into silence. I suppose that in order to convince everyone that I am not glaring and grumpy, now would not be the time to complain about how much I despise shopping.

“Fine,” I climb down and hand over my chalk to Micki, along with my apron. “Try not to spell cappuccino wrong, boss.”

Outside, the day is almost chilly. It’s that time between the late summer and the early fall and in the coffee shop we have gone from using the air conditioner to turning on the furnace in the morning. I was too fuzzy headed this morning to grab a jacket so I pull my sleeves down around my hands and hug my arms to my chest as we walk.

“Couldn’t you have brought your mum’s car?” I ask, pretending to have chattering teeth.

“You really are in a mood, aren’t you?” Emme retorts. “You know I don’t drive that killing machine. It could chop me up four ways from Sunday. I hate automobiles,” she shivers.

“Well, I love them! And I can drive,” I say proudly. “I pinched Israel’s car the other day. It’s easy! And I love, love, love driving.”

“You are feeling brave, aren’t you?” Emme looks suitably impressed. “I bet Israel wasn’t too pleased though.”

I shrug, remembering when he came home and bawled me out. And I looked so nice and everything! I could wear a bird on my head and he wouldn’t notice. Unless I was wearing the bird as I drove off in his car; now there’s a thought.

“He wasn’t. He’s been awfully crabby these days anyway. I can’t do anything right.” I hug myself tighter.

“He’s just focused, that’s all. He takes life seriously.”

“And I don’t?”

“Calm down, Miss Tragedy,” Emme laughs. “Quit being so prickly. What put this bee in your bonnet?”

I sigh in frustration. “I’m just tired and stressed out, I guess. I keep seeing or feeling Rose all around me but I can’t find her. My dad was brought home by a cop last night. Half my house walked out on me.” I am feeling glummer by the minute here. Aren’t best friends supposed to cheer you up?

“Aww, come ‘ere, my little fashion disaster!” Emme pulls me into an embrace, right there in public. She’s such a short little thing that my chin nestles in her strawberry colored curly bun atop her head as she squeezes me. “From what I can tell, being eighteen is rarely a picnic, no matter what day and age you’re living in. This too shall pass, isn’t that what they say?”

“Eighteen wasn’t a bed of roses for you either?” I don’t like to pry in Emme’s past.

She snorts. “You have no idea.”

Given Emme’s line of work and the stories she could probably tell if she were so inclined, I don’t want to know anymore. Nevertheless, she keeps talking.

“Joe was not even one year and we were living in some God- forsaken Norwegian village. He was born there. He was always such a sickly thing, croup and pneumonia and all sorts of illnesses those first couple years. Kept thinkin’ I shouldn’t get attached to him. Didn’t want to grieve too much if we lost him altogether. I swear, we should have just had a live in nurse with us. There was this old granny who’d come by and give him herbs and tinctures and things, and he finally started getting a little better that year. Still coughs a lot though, even now.” I had noticed that actually. “And he’s a little undersized for six. ‘Course, being us and being what we are, who the heck knows what his real age is anyway.” She sighs. “I’d keep him little if I could, so I probably shouldn’t complain. Anyway, that village was tiny and let me just say, business was slow and not very varied!” I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t exactly Miss Popularity with the village ladies. That old granny was about the only one who’d have anything to do with me.” She pauses, remembering.

“And your mum?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, Mum was there, helping out with Joe and taking care of the house. Planting a garden, though of course we ended up travelin’ on before it ever sprouted. Someone in that village ate a lot of turnips that next year.”

“Helping out with Joe?” I repeat. I’m starting to put two and two together and I don’t like the sum much.

Emme looks at me sideways. Her nose is pink from the cold. She wears a brightly knit turquoise scarf around her neck, and as we do a strange dance of watching each other sideways as we walk in a straight line, she unwinds it and pulls it over her head and ears. I suddenly have the feeling she is blocking out my last question. But no, she pulls her eyes away but she does answer me after.

“You’re so naïve, pet,” her words are a little harsh but they are said with a loving tone. “What kind of boy wants a whore for a mum?”

“Don’t call yourself that!” I stop walking abruptly and grab at Emme’s arm sharply. “You know that’s never mattered to me and it wouldn’t matter to Joe. I can’t believe you never told me.”

“Oh, Sonnet, of course it would matter.” Her eyes look flat and expressionless now as she looks at me. “It’s better this way. And I don’t have to stop loving him any less, or be around him any less. It really is better. Come on, there’s that lovely toy shop, let’s go in!”

In an instant, the fire in her eyes is back and she is like a little girl as she pulls my elbow and practically drags me across the street to Ramone’s Toys and Trinkets. She claps in glee at the train set that decorates their front window and pushes open the door merrily. A bell tinkles from over our heads and like magic; a man appears at our side as though he has been conjured by eager shoppers. And Emme certainly is eager; she spends an almost obscene amount of money as she picks out huge lollipops, a stuffed bear, a set of blocks, a walkie-talkie that she says will give Joe and Bea endless entertainment, books and board games, and finally the train set in the window. At one point, I open my mouth to remind her that if he gets attached to all of this and then they leave what then? But I cannot say it; I cannot remind Emme of the realities of her little Lost boy. It isn’t as though she doesn’t know the unfairness of it all… is it?