I Never Stopped

by Elizabeth Mitchell

  "Another?"

  "Wine or tour?" Francesca asked as her stomach demanded food, and her head demanded a jug of water.

  "Both. Food first! I heard your tummy-monster."

  "You've got to stop calling it that.”

  Flipping her long hair back, Mama smirked. "Do I? I don't think I do, because I'm your Mama. Mamas get certain privileges."

  "Not when I'm an adult. Mamas get less privileges."

  Mama ignored her as they wobbled out of the barrel themed tasting room. An unforgiving sun greeted them.

  Francesca squinted. "I forgot it wasn't night time."

  "Tonight, we have dinner with Alma."

  "I forgot that too!" Francesca gasped, nerves shaking her sober-ish. "We haven't even started shopping. It took us all afternoon to end up deciding to make whatever dish you chose in the beginning. Will we make it all in time?"

  Mama furrowed her brow. Francesca realized why a second later, as she navigated to open the car door. Uh oh. Neither of them could drive.

  "We'll just sit for a bit," Francesca suggested. "Just talk, or something. How about you catch me up on what you've been up to lately?"

  Snorting, Mama slid into the car. "You know these things. What about Sloane? You haven't talked about her much."

  "No." Francesca gulped. "We have dinner plans tonight. If I start crying, I may never stop."

  "That's something you need to work on, Essie. Tell me a story about her, whatever you'd like to say. Something I didn't know, or maybe something I did. Your choice," Mama said.

  Though they'd opened the windows, it was still a sauna. The car roared to life, and Mama cranked the air conditioning. She didn't roll her window up.

  "Just for a minute," she commented. "So, tell me."

  Like therapy, Francesca had the mind to clam up, storm out. But it was her mother. Sifting through the millions of stories she had on the tip of her tongue to pick just one would be hard. As if she were Mama's old car engine, she sputtered a few times as she figured it out. "Okay, well one time Sloane and I were at the park–no, I mean, we just had a picnic. We went to see A Christmas Carol, which she had never seen, and–no, that's not good enough." Hot air puffed from her nose.

  "All stories are good enough, Essie," Mama said. She put her sun-spotted hand on Francesca's arm.

  Francesca could breathe better. "So, a few years ago, Sloane started complaining about wanting a pillow top mattress. I didn't care one way or another–you know I can sleep standing up–but I wanted her to be happy. So, we went mattress shopping. Turns out that's a daunting process. Hours, we spent hours, testing out beds that felt the same to me. After Sloane rolled, bounced, and laid on a bed, she had something to say about each one. Goldilocks, I swear. But about everything, not just beds. It's one of the reasons I love her.”

  A sound of understanding came from Mama as she smiled.

  “Anyhow, she was acting like a stand-up comedian; other customers noticed and started to follow us around the store to watch her critique the mattresses. We even had two couples follow us to different stores." Francesca chuckled at her stupid story. "She'd say things like: 'If I want to wake up feeling 80-years-old in the morning, sure, this is the bed for me.' Or 'This one's great for anyone who's done with sex. I sink so far in, it'd be hard to do much but lay there like a dead fish–but, hey, that's a thing for some people.'”

  Mama snorted at that.

  “Once, she even said, 'I'm pretty sure this bed would make me pee myself. These puckers make indentions in the worst places. I'm having hip pain and my bladder's screaming. Francesca, if you don't buy me this bed immediately, I may di–'" She cut the building laughter short. She lifted her head to face Mama. "I can't." Hot tears that had nothing to do with the weather poured down her face. "Sloane used to like my words. I think this is the most I've put together since…"

  Mama's face fell with Francesca's. "That was brave, Essie. Very brave." She paused before saying, "You know, I understand this feeling. I wasn't going to say anything, but maybe it will help."

  "What are you talking about, Mama?"

  Mama stopped speaking Italian and switched to English as she said, "A long time ago–" Her lip quivered. "A long time ago, I lost a love. I thought he'd just never come home, but one day, I found out he was actually gone. Grief comes and goes, but it's okay to live, my dolce."

  Between the language jolt and the secret, it took Francesca a moment to recover. And she used her childhood pet name, my dolce. Francesca's heart matched the metal show migraine she'd woken up with just two days before–all thumps, bass, and high-strung squeals.

  "What?" Was that all she had? "Um, I mean, who are you talking about? Not bio-dad, obviously. You've never told me about this lost love."

  "No," she said, still speaking in English. "I don't talk about him much, because I kept thinking, 'What could I say that would make it better?' Nothing. So I just tried to avoid talking about him altogether. It didn't help, Essie."

  "Is that why you haven't dated?"

  The car had finally cooled to the point of chilly. Mama rolled the windows down–she must have rolled them up while Francesca chatted about Sloane.

  "It's a little more complicated than that. But–" Mama wiped her welling eyes. "That's a story for another time."

  "You're kidding, right? You tell me all of that, even speak in English about this guy, but now I have to wait?"

  "Patience is a virtue," she crooned, then switched back to Italian. "And you should be virtuous."

  "He was American, wasn't he? That's why it feels natural to talk about him in English!"

  "My little detective. Later, I'll tell you more later. I feel okay enough to drive, I think. And it's about time we grab lunch and switch to a different topic."

  8

  Sloane

  Sloane explored the square she'd been tugged to through her rainy-day filter, but it felt hollow. With no one to share it with, seeing monuments bored her. If she could go somewhere else, more remote, she may have been okay with her aloneness.

  She watched a pair of lovers so focused on each other it was as if they were alone in the crowds of tourists. The man played with the woman's hair while he whispered, "I love you." As the light began to fade, they danced by an eerily lit fountain.

  Sloane's heart ached. To be in Italy and stuck once again was a cruel joke.

  Nearer than she thought she'd ever be to Francesca again, Sloane thought of nothing but dark curls and constellation freckles. Her stomach flipped as The Gray tugged. Blackness surrounded her for but a moment.

  Boiling water sat on the stove of a blue and white patterned kitchen with a terra-cotta tiled floor. Sloane recognized it from the group dinner party photographs Mama Nuccio sent occasionally. Though she knew she couldn't, Sloane took a big deep breath, hoping to smell whatever bubbled next to the pasta water. The strength of memories filled the space where the scents should have been.

  Seeing Mama Nuccio's doughy pasta reminded Sloane of the first time she and Francesca tried to make fresh pasta together. Francesca left the room for one minute, and in that incremental period, Sloane overworked the dough.

  Unbleached flour coated her hands, and the place looked like her grandmother's kitchen did after rolling out biscuits. Sloane's extra layer of flour overwhelmed the beautiful, fresh eggy smell. Luckily, the aroma of Francesca's sweet basil and robust tomato sauce filled their home soon after.

  "No!" Mama Nuccio shouted at Francesca. Sloane had gotten so swept up, she'd almost forgot she wasn't making pasta with Francesca–Mama was. Sloane wasn't even there; she was in the in-between space.

  Francesca stopped untangling and counting out silverware. "Exactly. You could have said no."

  "No–the silverware. You should know better. Use the set from the china cabinet." Mama Nuccio precariously balanced on a footstool with her arm deep in the top shelf of the cupboard above the refrigerator. "How could I have said no? We asked about dinner in the first place." She pulled back and steadied
herself.

  "But she invited us over, so we could have suggested to meet out for dinner. Not our fault that some teenager drove into her garage door."

  "Never!" Mama Nuccio always had a flair for the dramatic. "That would be horribly rude!"

  "How exactly? Never mind. This is what you get, though." And what Francesca got, apparently. Shadows under her eyes made them dull. She could use a nap. Sloane knew that face well, and it usually ended in one angry Italian angel barely making it to the bed.

  "Fine, fine. Did you find the silverware?" Mama Nuccio mumbled something about showering and setting the table so quickly Sloane barely understood it all. "Oh!" She threw up her hands. "Decorations!"

  "You're kidding!" Francesca slipped into English.

  Mama Nuccio replied in Italian, wearing a stern, annoyed expression. "In the closet, down the hall. There are lights, candles, bowls for candies–"

  "Is this a wedding?" Francesca's slender fingers rested on her cocked hip. Sloane imagined them on her own and sighed.

  She ignored Francesca's snark. "Flowers! Go pick some flowers and put them in those pitchers," she urged, pointing to a pair of hand-painted cream and flower patterned porcelain tea pitchers.

  Sloane thought to try and move something again, brush Francesca's hair, move a spoon, but she was rapt with the normalcy of the preparation process. Life moved forward without her. Was it possible she'd already missed her window? Francesca's sad eyes the moment Mama Nuccio turned around to stir the sauces gave Sloane a glimmer of hope.

  Through the glass of the French doors, Sloane craned her neck to watch Francesca's shape move under a pink sky. A breeze shifted Francesca's hair into her face. Sloane's fingers itched to push it behind her ears, just how she liked. Francesca tossed her head back, as she'd already gotten dirt on her hands. The long, loose curl slipped right back into the center of her face, splitting her near mirror freckles.

  On the side of the house sat Mama Nuccio's modest garden. Though Francesca tended to kill anything alive and green, Mama had taught her how to cut the stems of flowers so they'd live through the butchery.

  Francesca was only outside a moment–a place The Gray wouldn't allow Sloane to follow–before she strolled back in with a small array of blue and purple flowers with a few sprigs of a white weed-ish plant.

  She sighed as she took in the scent of the exotic-looking flower bunch.

  "Got 'em," she mumbled to herself in English. "I'm going to finish up and get ready," she said aloud, back in Italian, to Mama.

  Sloane left Francesca to dress the table so she could explore the sprawling home–her new home? Mama Nuccio had done well for herself. Four pale, minimally decorated bedrooms looked similar, with luxurious fabric, one had an en-suite. Even the guest bathroom had a rain shower and a glass bowl sink. Mama had little in the way of overhead lighting, just large windows and skylights, grand lamps scattered in corners, and sweet vanity lamps on hand-carved tables. It reeked of wealth Sloane had no idea she possessed.

  Water hit tile in the far bathroom of the house. Sloane followed the beating sound, her heart matching its rhythm. Francesca's clothes were piled by a towel on the floor. Between The Gray and steam, the shower walls were nearly opaque. Sloane put her hand on the glass, imagining Francesca doing the same.

  Her breath quickened as she searched for a space where the fog wasn't thick. A tiny smear rewarded her with the naked shape of Francesca. Curves and matted curls would have stopped Sloane's heart right then if she'd been alive. But metal squealed, and the water dripped away. Just a quick shower, it seemed. Francesca stepped out and squeezed her hair. Sloane used to try and beat her to that; she enjoyed playing with Francesca's wet hair.

  Non-corporeal hands slid along the space beside Francesca's body. Sloane shivered with memories but shook them off. She'd gone down that road and only frustrated herself.

  "Sloane?" Francesca's eyes were wide. Her hands slid down her hips, but she laughed. "Right. Been down that road before," Francesca said to herself as she grabbed the nearest towel and covered the beauty of her skin from Sloane.

  Sloane lurked in the corner, watching her lover dress. It had become so normal for both of them that they flirted while they did it. Now, Francesca threw on clothes unceremoniously. Sloane left the room sadder than she'd been before, and finished roaming the house.

  After the tour, she charged the closed doors again. No matter how hard she tried, her feet couldn't move over the threshold, as if they'd been bolted to the ground. The garden, Francesca's beautifully decorated dinner table, the oncoming candy sunset were all just out of reach. They were so high up on a nearly mountainous hill, they could see every house, shop, and ruin as if it were a miniature of itself, but Sloane had to see it with an obstructed view.

  Ding, dong.

  Sloane slid toward the front door to observe the dinner guests. Francesca jogged to the door and tugged at her yellow shift dress. Two wet strands of darkened hair dangled partially out of her bun in the back.

  They'd tickle her neck once or twice during the evening. Without Sloane there, Francesca would probably assume a bug found her delicious.

  A deep inhale puffed Francesca's chest before she put her hand on the knob; it visibly shook. No wonder she was wearing the teardrop diamond earrings Sloane had given to her for their third anniversary. According to Francesca, happy memories equaled positive vibes.

  A chorus of hellos sounded through the entryway before she'd fully opened the door.

  "Come, come. What are you drinking? I have a few kinds of vinos we picked up at a few tours we took today." Laughter followed Mama Nuccio's comment as she ushered her guests in around the stock still Francesca. "Red or white would be a good place to start."

  The consensus: red. Francesca took another deep breath and put on her best hostess smile–all teeth and round cheeks. Once, after she and Sloane had hosted a small gathering at a nearby park, Francesca had told her she never wanted to smile again. She'd insisted they watch depressing romantic dramas with a sad twist of death or miscommunication for the rest of the evening.

  "Good evening, Francesca. Don't you look breathtaking?" a classically handsome, tall man asked. Dark brown Fabio hair framed his face and hung just below his ears. Sloane didn't like how his eyes twinkled at Francesca. Taken and not straight, thanks.

  "Thanks." Francesca slugged him on the shoulder. Sloane snickered loudly; she covered her mouth out of instinct even as The Gray devoured it. "You don't look too bad yourself. I heard through the grapevine there was wine. Ha! Look at me, making bad jokes, and I stopped drinking a few hours ago. Better get some wine in everyone so I'm funny again."

  "I'll grab us something," the man said. "Then I can introduce you."

  "Nonsense!" said a perfectly aged, tan woman. The resemblance to the man was uncanny.

  "Alma, I presume?" Francesca asked, smiling.

  The woman wore a bright blue maxi dress that would have dragged the floor if it weren't for her wedged heels. So chic. Her hair rested in loose, soft curls on her shoulders.

  She took Francesca's hand. "My dear, it is so nice to meet you. I feel I know you already. I'm so sorry about Susan."

  Francesca took a full step backwards, snatched her hand back, threw it to her chest, and paled to Sloane's color. At the same moment, Sloane's eyes bulged as she gasped into The Gray. Who was that woman? How did she know her real name?

  "I overstepped!" Alma admonished herself. "I barely meet you, and I presume… I just feel like I–"

  "You called her Susan."

  "That's–that was her name, was it not?"

  Francesca sputtered out the word yes. "Very few people kn–She went by Sloane. Even I wasn't allowed to call her Susan." She chuckled to hide her obvious hurt.

  A wave of stones crushed Sloane's chest. She never wanted Francesca to feel she wasn't allowed to do something. Still, that's what she'd asked, wasn't it?

  Alma shook her head, and said, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

 
"No… I mean, thank you," Francesca stumbled as she stared at her bare feet.

  Her toenails were painted a coral. Sloane felt a moment of pride that Francesca had remembered to do that for herself. She must have done it during Sloane's frustrating time stuck in San Francisco.

  "Could we start over?" Alma asked.

  "I'd like that. A lot."

  She coughed. "Hi, I'm Alma–a friend of your mother's."

  Long past time for Sloane to leave, she retreated to Francesca's room. Francesca could make it through an evening–shakily, but she could. Sloane just knew she had to make contact before Francesca was okay enough to open the door without a taking a pause.

  The bedroom door slammed shut.

  It was the moment Francesca left her all over again. Sloane seemed to be unable to go through walls or doors once they had been closed. Hoping this time would be different, she tried to run through it, but could only bounce into an invisible wall, unable to reach the doorknob she couldn't interact with.

  No–not again. It couldn't be so simple. It couldn't be so easy to trap her for hours, days, weeks at a time.

  Sloane felt a scream build inside of her. Usually, she'd smother it with a pillow, snuff it out until she could calm herself again. But the unknowing helplessness of The Gray wouldn't allow it; she had to release it aloud. The sounds that ripped through her should have shattered the glass panes of the only window in the room. Instead, the scream became a slight whir around her. Part of Sloane even convinced herself her throat hurt from the strain.

  When a curtain shifted, she stopped, unsure if it was her hard efforts or the Tuscan summer wind blowing through the cracked window. As much as she wanted it to be her, it wasn't; after she'd stopped screaming, the sheer fabric had still moved. She needed concrete proof that she had an impact on the living world, as it had on her. Sloane should have stayed with Francesca and her party, watched her enjoy her evening as if Sloane had never been. She felt forgotten and weak.