by Mary Gray
I reel back. A memory ... a memory’s teetering on the edge of my chest, almost like someone’s just given me an enormous hug from the inside.
Trails of flour powder a gingham apron while the woman hums a gentle song that reminds me of wildflowers in spring. Her face is younger, pinker, and her footsteps—clip, clip, clip—come at a much faster pace.
“Grammy?” The name flies out of my mouth. I know this woman; she used to feed me graham crackers when I was young, teaching me to say her name. “Gram.” She shakes the cracker. “Me.” She points both hands at her chest. “Gram.” She points again to the cracker. “Me.”
“Oh my gosh, it’s you!” I gasp. “I know you, Grammy ...”
She cries out in shock, gripping my shoulders. Her fingers curl around my arms, and she tugs me into her thin frame. Lifting her arms, the woman I formerly thought was a stranger cocoons me in a hug of cinnamon, cashmere, and bones so thin, I’m afraid she’s going to break.
I sag into her shoulder, too starved for human touch to pull away. “I remember you.” I say this into the crook of her neck, where her pulse throbs wildly. I’m probably strangling her where we stand, so I release her. “Do you remember me?”
Grammy gently folds her thin hands over mine. “I could never forget you, Gemma Louise.”
“Who’s Edgar?” A knot forms in my gut, and I take a step back to look her in the eye.
Snow white hair. A masculine, stony, square-shaped face. He holds a twitch in his hand, ready to subdue the horses. But he’s sliced through their coats already. He whips them—whips them—whips them. I ask him to stop, but he turns, like he’s going to use that twitch on me.
“Edgar.” My stomach bottoms out, and I’m finding it hard to breathe.
Grammy releases my hand and pats my cheek. “You remember.” Shoulders hunched, she hobbles a few steps toward his grave. Running her pointer finger along the top of the gravestone in an invisible pattern, she traces the shape of an infinity ring. “Sometimes the forever we choose is a mistake.”
An elegant black dress and high heels make Grammy the most sophisticated woman on the stage. Her necklace bears the shape of an infinity ring. Green, glittery eyes shine like moonstones in the lights as she performs the world’s most eloquent monologue on the stage.
“You were an actress,” I say, though I can’t remember the exact name of the play. I do sense the long hours she spent rehearsing. The worry that crossed her face when she came home to see how Edgar was treating me.
Smiling weakly, Grammy says, “Lead me to my car?”
I take her hand, trying to make out if my parents are still alive. But the only thing I can sense is a thick wall of secrets—impenetrable and stubborn. Tansy.
About thirty paces later, we come to a blue Impala with silver trim, a vehicle that would have been all the rage back in the ‘70s. The row of unkempt bushes beside it must be why I didn’t see it when I first arrived.
I try to think where Grammy lives or how far she has to drive, but, again, all I can find is that black wall of marble. “Where is your house, Grammy?”
She waves her hand in dismissal. “What I want to know is, how are you getting along? You don’t look like you’ve been eating.”
I open my mouth to say some vague hint about Tansy, when my mouth’s shooting off, “You look like the next big wind could blow you to Albany.”
“You’re so skinny, you’d look like a zipper if you turned sideways.” There’s a moon-sized twinkle in Grammy’s eye, and my heart skips a beat. This is what we do. We tease.
I whisper, “How did I know to do that without even fully remembering you?”
Grammy turns all ninety pounds of her slight body to face me. “Because deep in there”—she places her hand over her heart—“you know me.” Clearing the emotion from her throat, she says, “Have you been able to locate your money?”
Why’s she asking that? Oh, she’s just my grandmother, looking out for me. While I don’t want to get into Tansy’s methods for rationing, I do reassure her, “I have what I need.”
But when Grammy watches me, it’s like she’s dissecting every part of my soul. “I know, Gemma.” A gust of wind tousles her hair as she glances left, then right. “I know about Tansy ..."
A bowling ball’s sitting on my chest. I wasn’t prepared to discuss Tansy. Truthfully, I’d hoped to keep my more avant-garde other half to myself. While Olly, the Hey, Sugar owners, and Jesse Beauchamp think I’m a killer, never once did they bring up Tansy.
“What exactly do you know?” I cup her thin elbow with my hand to keep her steady.
“I know that you balance someone here”—Grammy connects her thumbs and fingers in the shape of a triangle, a house, I think—“and you balance someone here.” She raises her hands to either side of her eyes and waves them outward, like she’s a flight attendant, pantomiming my relentless desire to see and do new things.
I don’t know how she does it, but tears are automatically springing to my eyes. Grammy really does know my secret, but does she know that Tansy and I are two completely different entities? That she has a complete mind of her own—and she’s in charge most of the time. If Grammy does know, what now? Has she been waiting for me to come out here, just so she can drag me off to Millwood for the rest of my life?
Glancing to the stone cemetery sign, I cut to the long and short of it. “Jesse Beauchamp accused me of murdering WT.”
Fireworks practically shoot from Grammy’s eyes. She hobble-stomps toward her Impala like it’s a monster truck, and she’s about to bash into anybody who dares stand in her way. “I’m tired of this town’s bullies.”
“So ..." A tiny spark of hope shoots from my heart. “He’s not a good guy?” Tansy said as much, but to have another source confirm her suspicions would be great.
Grammy wrenches open her rusty door. “You leave that waste of space to me.”
12
“Have you ever noticed there are no photographs in this house?” I slip off my shoes before barreling past the pinecones and twigs in the hallway. “Not in the entire place! I think you’re holding out on me, Tansy.”
I stumble past the table and mirror, thinking again about what Grammy said about this town being run by bullies. How many of them are there? What’s their connection to WT?
I’m making so much ruckus, an embroidered picture of a Texas bluebonnet rattles from its wire hanger, but who was the one who embroidered it? There are a few busts of old-timey people in the parlor, but nothing from this century.
Lifting my foot to march up the stairs, I pray there’s a clue on the second story when Tansy sags within me like deadweight.
I try to push past her—raise my foot another three inches—but she knocks my foot down, pinning both my feet.
“Come on, Tansy. I saw her—Grammy. She was visiting Edgar’s grave.”
Tansy’s grip on one of my ankles falters.
“I also know that I have to find him.” I rotate my left foot in a circle. “WT.”
No way am I going to tell her how Grammy seemed to know about Tansy’s and my condition—or how she talked about WT’s and my wedding. Instead, I try lifting our foot even higher, when Tansy smacks down our leg so hard, I’m stumbling. The polished mahogany banister jabs into my side. Tansy must think I can’t handle whatever’s up there. But going upstairs isn’t even against our rules.
I grab the rail, once again trying to climb.
“You need to be quiet.” Tansy’s anxious tone steals over my voice. I didn’t notice it before, but she’s trembling.
I look up at the balcony, and nausea and vertigo swing in a pendulum from her consciousness toward mine. What is this? I suppose this means Tansy’s afraid of heights. But I thought she regularly went upstairs to find clothes to change ...
Jerusha, the bigger of Tansy’s mottled tortoiseshell cats, darts down the steps, tail puffed, and nearly plows straight into me. She’s clothed in a beige, knit sweater, ears poking out, oddly looking like a
sphynx.
“Gemma ..." Tansy frantically says. “Don’t go up there. Please!”
But I haven’t been searching for clues only to ignore a hefty one when it’s right in front of me. There’s something up there. Has to be.
Feeling only semi-terrible for doing it, I give a swift mental kick to Tansy’s head, and she falls away. I should apologize, but I have to find whatever she’s hiding from me.
Squeezing the rail, I ascend the first half-flight. Climb the second half of stairs after turning ninety degrees.
It’s getting darker. I should have brought a candle. Or flashlight. I wonder why Tansy was freaking out. All I really want is photographs or something similar to jog my memory.
Beneath my sneaker, an old floorboard squeaks. I’m halfway up the second flight, when everything becomes stale and cobwebby.
Rattle, rattle. Shew; creak.
Someone’s up here—unless Tansy’s been stocking up random crows and such to do a bird show for the tourists when they stop by.
Cracks in the plaster reveal horizontal wooden slats of the wall’s frame. Texan stars dot the wallpaper, but the doorframes up here don’t have the fancier, hand-carved moldings. A chunky wrought-iron horseshoe juts from one wall. One of the brackets has come loose so that the candle sconce hangs sideways.
When I enter the first room, a rug with peacock feathers greets me with a miasma of monster eyes. A tufted bedspread lays between a heavy, ornate frame. The wooden back of the headboard looks absolutely perfect for sitting up and talking.
I ... don’t know if it’s our room—WT’s and mine. The linens and headboard do seem familiar. Maybe we sat there and talked. Maybe he brought me breakfast in bed. Toast with deviled eggs.
Mostly, I wish I could remember his face. Maybe he was a great love—somebody I never wanted out of my life. Maybe we liked to shop together. Travel, explore, hike.
To my right lies a hefty, black metal fireplace—narrower than the ones downstairs but still more substantial than it needs to be. A stack of worn books lay in a neat pile on the mantel. I flip through them. One’s about prehistoric humans. The other two are about the African Bush Elephant and the Bone Hall at the National Museum of Natural History. My interests. I think ...
The desk boasts an old lamp with a heavy, bronze base. Long fingers reach out to turn it off, but I can’t tell if those fingers belonged to him or me.
“Surprised to see me?” comes a thick, Southern voice.
I accidentally bump into the lamp in hopes of finding WT, but the tanned figure in the doorway is leaner than I expected. Bowlegged. Pink-nosed and fat-lipped ... something about him tells me not to trust his supposed honest face. Spurs attach to cowboy boots, and his snug Wranglers are covered in stains.
I know him. WT’s ranch hand. “Dwayne.”
In the briefest of flashes, Tansy throws herself forward in our mind. She wants to slap him, pommel him, hug him, stuff dirt in his face, but just as fast, she’s gone—nothing more than a specter that once tried escaping her grave.
Unsure of what to make of Tansy’s mixed up feelings, I can’t help spotting the brief flash of hope that’s dwindling in Dwayne’s eyes. So he was hoping for a reception—a passionate reception somewhat like Tansy wanted to give him. But something stopped her. Me?
“What are you doing here?” I don’t know what to do, so I fill the uncomfortable silence with my voice.
Dwayne’s spurs jangle as he takes a sizeable step toward me. Far as I can tell, he let himself inside, and I’m not sure if I should be concerned. I suppose he could have a key.
Raising his eyebrows, he says, “You always said you loved my unpredictability. Why don’tchya tell me?”
In another heated flash, Tansy hits me with a vision—of the hours he tended to the cattle, his branding iron wielding the Hardin double H. He looks up at her and smiles. She gives him a toothy grin, and it’s her—her, with her slouched demeanor and more exaggerated movements, saucier ways. “Oh, Dwayne,” she purrs into his ear in the barn, making him shiver amidst the hay bales and feed. All the while, he blindly believes she is me.
I brace myself by leaning into the hard edge of the desk. It’s clear, he’s had some sort of dalliance or affair with Tansy. The wood’s digging into my back, and Tansy’s grappling with some truth, something she never wanted to admit.
“All right, you wanna know what it is?” she yelps inside my mind. “He’s much stronger than I realized.” She shows me a flash of him restraining a bull with an unnatural strength. Hits me with another image of—a wooden post with horizontal slats, almost like a totem pole. Then, the marble wall. Nothing.
“Why is he here?” I try to pry the truth out of Tansy, but she’s a ghost, disappearing in a cyclone of grief.
Frowning, Dwayne runs his thumb and index finger along his jawline. “Are you goin’ to tell me what happened to WT?”
I inch my hand toward the lamp in case I need a club of some type. A spark of hurt flares over Dwayne’s eyes. “Gemma Louise, please talk to me.” He hasn’t exactly been long on words, but this I know. He didn’t call me Tansy.
Still, I’m not sure what he wants, so I nod to the settee at the foot of the bed. “Why don’t you sit down, Dwayne?”
His shoulders slump. His hands hang a little too heavily at his sides. “Ya never shoulda seen what you seen.”
A flare of hope rises within my ribs, and I clutch the bronze neck of the lamp while standing up straight. “Tell me what happened? Or, at least, can you please tell me what you mean?”
Wiping his brow with the back of his grease-stained hand, he says, “The boss shoulda protected you. Sheltered you. He should know you’re too delicate a flower to witness such things.”
A newfound blaze of irritation washes behind my eyes. I may not be the most well-informed person in the world, but “delicate flower” isn’t exactly what I’d want on my grave.
While Dwayne stares somberly into his lap, another brief flash comes unbidden into my mind.
He teaches me to ride horses. No, not me. Tansy. She’s wearing a giant pirate hat, a fancy, double-breasted coat, and fishnet stockings. He settles her narrow hips in the saddle before showing her the perimeter of all nineteen hundred acres of the Hardin property. They pass giant thistles and pink, white-washed poppies. A squirrel spooks the horse. Dwayne steadies Tansy’s wild grip on the horse’s reins.
The peacock rug slips a little on the hardwood when I take a step back. “I can’t even remember what he looks like.” This I say about WT.
Another wave of hurt erodes Dwayne’s pink face. “That’s what Zeb said you’d say ..."
“Who?”
He narrows his eyes in confusion. “Your shrink.”
13
According to Dwayne, my therapist lives at 1229 Babbling Brook Lane. I need directions. I don’t need directions. The address rings a bell. It’s on the other side of the town square, I believe.
Somehow it really has gotten to be Christmas time. Scraggly cedars dot the square like gnomes with overgrown beards, and about six hundred people are stuffed in the one block in front of the courthouse. Of course there’s a throng of people right when I need to go, as if Tansy’s called them to block me.
The pink and blue storefront of Hey, Sugar has a line that wraps around the corner of its neighboring brick building. Even though The Hair Lounge is closed, with Francesca manning a cart out front and passing out hot chocolate. She’s found the Christmas spirit by wearing reindeer antlers. Keeps searching the crowd, possibly for her family. I wave to my friend, but a man with a dragon tattoo and foot-long triangular beard blocks my way.
This isn’t the time for friendly visits, anyhow. Hopefully, Doctor Calhoun—that’s what Dwayne says is Zeb’s professional name—isn’t here on the square. I pray he’s home, reading a book, wearing fuzzy slippers, and brewing some tea.
A horse-drawn carriage suddenly blocks my path, and, before I know it, a policeman on a horse is marking me with his steely gaze.
He licks his lips, and his helmet strap weaves across the patchy scruff on his chin. Jesse Beauchamp, with his sepia hair shaved on the sides. His bullet-proof vest makes him the most protected man on the street.
After wading past a few vendors selling cinnamon popcorn, licorice, and fudge—smells amazing—I round the corner of a red brick store to head up Babbling Brook Lane.
“Excuse me, Ms. Hardin?”
I turn at the sound of the almost-friendly baritone voice.
A young man with a crewcut and a face like a squirrel flashes me a badge that says “FBI.” An arctic chill wraps its fist around my spine. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions related to a missing person’s case.”
Oh my heck, the feds know about WT?
I stumble past a woman with bright-red hair and a purse that says, “Rumor has it God is Texan.” Can’t talk to him. He won’t even let me have a lawyer before locking me away.
A few paces off, a baby in a stroller cries, creating the distraction I need. I dart around the stroller before the agent can trap me into saying anything.
Scurrying around a twenty-foot cedar with red balls and silver stencil, I accidentally happen upon Jesse and his horse, which rears up on its back legs.
Jesse curses. “You’re lucky you’re Edgar’s kin!”
I’m not sure what being related to Edgar has to do with anything, but I pull my jacket closed. Whatever Grammy said to him must have worked. Maybe Jesse and Edgar were friends or something.
After darting past an inflatable snowman, along with a slouchy Santa and his sleigh, at last, I come face-to-face with the trio of red, green, and blue Victorian houses. Here I am, at the foot of Babbling Brook Lane, where the homes’ white fences breed nostalgia of quaint Memorial Day picnics and Halloween treats. Porches and windowsills look all festive, decked out in garlands and holly, but it’s the blue craftsman after the trio that has the number I’m seeking.
House number 1229.
Do I remember coming here before? Do I remember Doctor Calhoun’s mailbox with the fancy Y bracket and fluted base?