“You tell me,” he said.
“If I knew, I would not have asked the question.” It would seem that every time I momentarily forgot how infuriating Sherlock was, he found a new way to remind me.
Sherlock’s lips twitched before he spoke. “You obviously have some kind of martial arts experience.”
“Took aikido classes with my mom when I was a kid, which I’m sure doesn’t count as—”
“I take boxing. And fencing. We’re quite the army, you and I.”
I started to correct him, but I was pretty sure Sherlock didn’t hear over the high-pitched wailing sound of his mobile ringing. He pulled it out and rolled his eyes at whatever he’d seen on the screen before answering, “I’m busy.”
I looked out across the lake, but the tightness in the way Sherlock said, “I see,” got my attention. He turned his face away from me before I could find his expression.
“Of course. I’ll be home within the hour.”
He didn’t speak to me the entire way back to the dock, not even an answer when I offered to help him row, and when he finally faced me, he wasn’t sad or angry or cold. He just looked like he was about to ask me some deep, dark question. Only he never asked. He did offer a hand to help me out of the boat. He even mumbled something about seeing me back to my house. And when I offered to stand in line to return the oars to the rental window so he could go, he merely nodded and wandered away from the café. Which is why I was so surprised to see him just around the bend waiting for me when I was done.
“You didn’t need to stay. I know you have somewhere to be.”
I might as well have spoken to the bench across the way. Sherlock didn’t even move.
“You should go. I can find my way home.”
Still nothing.
I toyed with the idea of waving a hand in front of his face, but decided to just let him be, and wandered back out of the park on my own. I did look back once, however, and watched him look around briefly for me, before he shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugged, and started down my same path.
I wondered if I’d ever get a glimpse inside that mind of his. Then I quickly shuddered at the very desire.
Chapter 7
I woke up Saturday morning facing the wrong direction. I’d had the dream again, the one where the past six months have been the nightmare and my mom’s really alive—that I could see her again, if I could just get downstairs for breakfast. Only, in the dream, everything goes wrong. The shower won’t work, my closet’s empty of clothes, and I can’t find the door to the stairs. Dream Me starts to panic, desperate to see my mother and never able to reach her. Before I can, I wake up and the dream fades away completely.
But the feeling of her being in the house stays, so that for one waking moment, I think she’s still alive.
After three mornings of that, I had placed the program from her memorial service on my nightstand, so it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up. Dreams are so cruel. I never wanted to believe in them when awake. Not even for a moment.
But that morning, the morning of Lily’s dad’s memorial, I woke up looking the wrong way, and by the time I saw the program, I was wrecked. I waded through the day in a fog of the dream. Not even the electric tension of the boys cooped up in the house could distract me from that feeling of being on the edge of a cliff, on the verge of losing my grip. Like a feather’s weight might be enough to send me hurtling down.
At lunch, I caught myself expecting Mum to walk through the door, and barely escaped out to our front steps in time to keep the boys from seeing my breakdown. I stared at the sky, my chest heaving and my eyes flooding beyond my control. I focused on my breathing, on the scared look Michael gave me the first time he caught me crying over Mum, on how embarrassed I’d be if Sherlock walked up while I was so emotional. When neither worked, I thought of all her things, those few I’d managed to pilfer from Dad’s collection, hidden under my bed—the pictures, the letters, the coin.
The coin was just an oversize gold-painted novelty with a four-leaf clover on one side and a tree on the other—the kind with Celtic knots sprouting from the branches and falling down to entwine with the roots below. She used to flip the coin across the tops of her fingers and back, a nervous habit she only ever indulged on those rare occasions when Dad wasn’t around. Not that he was always home. He had this way of feeling present even when he was gone. And we could never count on him to stay that way. He’d show up at odd times and hours, like we could never really know his schedule. He lingered.