by Mary Gray
By the time I’m finished running my errands, it’s 5 PM. I still have an hour and thirty minutes before I have to meet Tansy. Nothing is more important than regaining my memories, so I leave the groceries on the back porch before darting down the steps and heading to the first of the property’s outbuildings. If WT never wanted to go anywhere, he and I would have spent some time together on the property.
And time means memories.
I zigzag through post oaks and voracious honey locusts, stepping lightly so any lingering tourists don’t hear me. Ducking into an old, moss-covered shack, I spot a mess of potted plants just waiting to be found and babied. Looks like we’re in a greenhouse, where a smashed terra cotta pot warns that it’s either been ravaged by the wind—or somebody was having a bad day.
I kneel to pick up the pieces, and the terra cotta’s cold as ice. The weight of the plaster and earthy smell instantly have me slipping down a rabbit hole.
“We have to go!” I hold the exact same pot and raise my voice. “WT, I’m drowning.”
He wrenches the pot out of my hand and throws it so hard, it crashes to the ground, shattering. He looks like he wants to scream, but, instead, all he says is, “No.” A muscle flickers along his jaw as he refuses to look into my eyes.
I try to pull down his chin. Force him to talk to me, but all he does is shake his head and back two steps away.
“You won’t even tell me why!”
Bending down, he grabs another pot, and smashes it before spinning around and marching off into the night.
Dropping the pieces of the pot, I try to think what WT’s outburst could mean. We were here, and I pushed him. Really pushed him, because something about this town didn’t feel right. I wanted to go on a trip—a simple trip—and he wouldn’t even entertain the idea.
I have to know what happened, so I back out of the greenhouse. Flee to the barn—supposing we have a barn—that has to be further back into the property. I trip over an overturned barrel. Tear around a pair of broken windows, and as I run, everything on our land skews, disproportionate and sickly. The elm trees are hollowed out cadavers, the trunks unusually dead and diseased. Tansy made me bury that squirrel and magpie, and now, after seeing WT’s and my argument, I can’t help wondering if maybe he had a violent streak. Did I hurt him when I thought he was about to hurt me?
The barn is more of a metal shed with scaffolding—an unfinished project with metal trusses and a woodpile on the side. The door sticks when I pull it open, and the entire room’s airy and vacant, except for the sport utility vehicle at the back. A BMW. White. “Go on an adventure,” WT says with the sun shining behind him while he hands me the keys.
“You should come, too.”
He quietly shakes his head while his phone buzzes for the thirtieth time.
Pulling aside a mess of cobwebs, I make my way to the car, nervous that I’ll remember something I don’t want to see. What if I see myself accidentally knocking him out with one of those pots? Killing him, because he wouldn’t listen to me?
Tansy said she took my memories because she needed to protect me, but what if I really do deserve to be locked up? What if I’m setting myself up for the avalanche, because I really can’t handle the truth?
Giving a nice berth to the trunk—don’t need to prematurely see any dead bodies—I drift over to the driver’s side. Lift the handle. The heady aroma of leather hits me like a soft-handed punch as I sit, the chair’s grooves hugging me with familiarity.
Feels like home. Comfortable. Pretty.
A dreamcatcher spins from the mirror as I place my hands on the steering wheel.
And I spiral.
Into the quicksand of yet another memory.
25
“Drive!” WT whoops when he hops in the car.
I grip the steering wheel, not sure if I’ve entered an alternate universe where we get to be Bonnie and Clyde.
“Don’t just sit there, looking beautiful, woman,” he roars, “DRIVE!”
His friends are on the sidewalk—on the square—and they’re vultures swooping in, ready to feast. I can’t make out their faces, but I do know that I’ve been begging to ditch this town for eons. He doesn’t have to ask me twice.
With the courthouse in our rearview mirror, I peel out, rubber making glorious skid marks on the street. WT’s friends shout something about carpetbaggers, and I laugh, because who even uses that term nowadays?
I’ve gone too fast to identify any faces or names, though we’re finally off to Palo Duro. He called me to pick him up from work just before I headed out alone for the week.
We fly past a driveway lined with pampas grass and a clutch of red canna lilies. Elephant ears nod as we round the corner, and, after a few minutes, WT whoops after checking his side mirror.
Resting his hand on my knee, he says, voice thick, “I’m sorry.”
I check my rearview mirror just to make sure nobody’s following us. “About what?”
“You were right.”
I can’t help fighting back a smile as we speed past Harmon Park and the post office with its American flag and navy mailboxes. We wind our way through the outskirts of town—past Grammy’s and the cemetery. It isn’t until we’re driving past a patch of prickly pears nestled against a magnolia’s wide, stunning canopy that WT presses his fingertips to closed eyes.
“My colleagues ..." He rubs the scruff on his chin. “They don’t know how to lay off at the right times.”
“Why don’t you remind them you’re the boss? It’s not every day you strike oil, then get a write-up in American Cowboy Magazine.”
He gets this far-off look in his eyes. “I would, if they cared ..." He shakes his head. “Enough about this backward town. I forbid us from talking about them for the entire week.”
“Forbid, huh?” I hit the turn signal to pass a tractor that’s going about twenty. “Wait ... did you say a week?”
“Nothing short of a proper getaway.” WT reclines his chair, threading his fingers together behind his head. “I’m the luckiest man in the world. The best historian on the planet has planned a romantic getaway for me.”
I reach out to take his hand. Squeeze the warm callouses of his fingers and trace his simple, titanium ring. When he turns on the radio, Alison Krauss becomes an old friend, greeting us with her soothing storyteller voice.
26
Blue and green paint stripes the horsehair couch when I return home to Tansy. A bust on the mantel has new seashells glued to the hairline—and, oh boy—coral’s sticking to the side of its head, like Tansy’s created an elaborate crown for a mermaid.
Beyond that, it’s stuffy as a grave. I cross the room to open a window.
Tansy, smarts, “Don’t you dare open that window, missy. There are tourists outside!”
I hadn’t noticed anyone out there, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. I’ve been preoccupied.
Staring straight through the bright-red coral on WT’s ancestor’s head, I say, “I’ve made some progress.” Avoiding the window, I wander across the parlor to the kitchen, and then on to the den. “I finally understand why you don’t want me to have my memories. He went along.” I pause before the rope pillars. “WT ended up going to Palo Duro with me.”
Tansy folds our arms as we face the moose with a burgundy dress draped across the dozen or so antler points. “Only because you were being as relentless and melodramatic as Anne Boleyn on execution day.”
“Oh, so you’re saying I should have been executed. Or trapped here the rest of my life.”
“I’m sayin’ you should have given up the game!”
I sweep out an arm. “So you wanted me to never speak out for what I wanted or cared about.” Striding to the moose, I whip off the dress, stirring up enough dust to put the Dust Bowl to shame. “What you fail to recognize, Tansy, is how I now know the truth. WT liked adventuring! Which means, he couldn’t have been upset about my need to travel.” I tug a pair of shorts from a lamp. “You lied.”
> All at once, Tansy’s blood’s about to go on a full-on broil. “YOU. TOOK. HIM. AWAY.” She tears off my sneakers, proving she’s done talking.
Wait. Is this evidence that she existed even before WT and I got married?
“He was happy n’ fine. Both you and I know, he could have been satisfied forever to never leave this place. But you had to go—and push n’ push—to bloody well convince him to leave!” She flails our arms, doing a great imitation of one of those inflatable tube man signs. “Gemma, stayin’ here was all I ever wanted, and you took that away!”
“But he was okay with going on the trip. It’s not normal to stay boarded up in a house all the time.”
Tansy sniffles. “Do you think I care about what other people think?”
I set the dress that’s been tucked under our arm onto the coffee table. Now that I see it, Tansy’s life could actually be so simple without me. Really, she would be a true agoraphobe, requisitioning people to bring her supplies. The girl doesn’t even care about people’s opinions. Doesn’t waste time, worrying about the latest outfit or makeup or home design.
But living in a bubble means never stretching; never once growing.
“Tansy, we have to live in society.”
“We don’t have to do anythin’!” She digs our nails into the couch’s fluted, wooden side. “Do you think I like bein’ like this?” She collapses on the armrest. “I wish I wanted to go to parties. But they are exhausting. People stare, and I hate them! I hate them all, G!”
Hugging our arms close, I shush her like I’m holding an infant. “I know, I know. People can be harsh sometimes.”
“All the time!”
“Or all the time.” I spy the fire poker. Wish there was something I could do with it to convince her that it’s time again to talk to Grammy. She would know what to do—what these new memories about WT mean. She’d be rational. Logical. Her point of view is exactly what Tansy and I need.
As the beginnings of a plan form in my head, I say, “Hey, Tansy, do you think we could maybe build a fire?” I force a shiver. “I’m freezing.”
She slumps further into the armrest, obviously spent for the day. Sure, I could let her rest for a while, but all I can do is spare her a few seconds. . . before I change the paradigm.
One.
Two.
Five.
That’s all the time I can spare. Doing my best to appear crestfallen, slowly, ever so slowly, I shuffle to my socked feet. Turning my body so that Tansy surely thinks I’m headed for the kindling, I trudge along, like I’m just as tuckered out as Tansy. Yawning to ham things up a bit, I wait three more seconds—before darting to the right.
The back door. It’s about five or six steps ahead of me. Five or six steps to glorious freedom, and maybe even Grammy’s peanut butter cookies.
But Tansy’s never been slow on the uptake. Just as I pry open the door, she slams it shut with her fist, nearly nailing our fingers to the doorframe.
“Not this time!” she shrieks.
“But”—I wish I could think of something else she might listen to—“we need to talk things out with Grammy!”
I try to pry her fingers off the doorframe, but Tansy shoots me this disabling mental image of Edgar looming large and monstrous above me.
He’s the wall of granite.
A pillar—an eternally solid stone of gray—just like his gray, gaunt face.
On instinct, I’m cowering.
Against my will, she has us back up, up, up—all the way to the armrest of the couch.
“I can’t ever let you leave this house again, G.”
“You can’t keep me here!” I try to swipe for the door, but it’s like moving through barbed wire, chained. “How would we eat?”
Tansy pretends to brush dust from off our shoulder. “Oh, I have my ways.”
But there’s no way she’s going to lock me up permanently. From a side table, I reach for a scalloped and beaded lampshade, but the beads tangle in my fingers, and Tansy’s grappling to be queen.
She seizes the neck of the lamp.
Lifts it.
Smashes it onto the arch of our foot so hard, I scream.
If I were still wearing shoes, the wound wouldn’t cut so deep. But she kicked them off, and I wasn’t even paying attention. Blood slips down the side of our foot, warm and watery.
“Stop—ruinin’—our—life!” Tansy kicks the broken glass of the lamp again and again. Blood pools beneath our toes, and I can’t help wondering if she’s going to saw it off—in the name of making art come to life.
27
When I come to, my arm’s so numb it feels like it’s been disconnected from my body. My head’s bent at an odd angle, and it looks like Tansy’s tied me to the bed with duct tape.
Luckily, it’s not a permanent solution, since my other hand is free. And I’m not even sure why Tansy relinquished control—except that my head’s hotter than a furnace.
Pretty sure we’re running a fever. Great.
Half-eaten bowls of split pea soup line the comforter along with a scrap-metal, handmade toy guillotine. I’m wearing another Victorian dress—olive-colored, itchy—and, as ever, beads of sweat line my neck and chest. My entire body is shivering.
With a bit of elbow grease, I’m able to pull the duct tape from my wrist without dislocating anything. It doesn’t make sense that Tansy would trap me here with only one tied hand, but since when has Tansy ever been sensible about anything?
Hobbling over to the mirror, I wipe away the dust to see how terrible I look today.
I brace myself for impact, and never have I had such large bags under my eyes. I could have clumps of coal in there, and it would look the same. Dracula’s cousin may need to move over, though, since I’m thinking I have a real chance at playing the original Vlad—if I can get that mustache to grow I saw hints of last week.
When I try resting my full weight on my foot, pain sears up and down my leg. I still can’t believe Tansy kicked that lamp; I’ve never seen her so angry. At least it looks like she’s wrapped our injured foot with bandages. Dirt soils the edges, and brown, dried blood stains our leg.
What I would give for a pair of crutches—or say I was confident that Tansy would get some for me. I could hop on over to the neighbor’s to see if they have some, but I’d probably only make it about halfway down the stairs before Tansy pushes me out—for even longer this time.
Suddenly exhausted, I sink back into the bed, never more tempted to go back to sleep. Tired. So tired—not to the mention the fact that my entire body feels like it’s crawling with fleas.
Okay, what are the clues I’ve been able to figure out? Tansy’s upset that WT and I took off for Palo Duro, but did WT know about Tansy? If so, why would he even marry us? As a rich oil baron, he could have married anybody.
Really, I wish I could talk to Grammy.
Since I can’t go anywhere, it looks like my memory search is limited to the estate. And while I can’t go to Palo Duro to trigger what happened there ... maybe there’s something I can do to bring Palo Duro to me.
Looking around the room, I canvass the empty desk, mahogany dresser, and another bust of one of WT’s ancestors with coral glued to the side of the face. I know why Tansy likes seashells and coral—any crown really. She once said, “It helps me be queen of my own domain.”
From the top of the dresser, an old vase catches my eye. Orange and yellow dried flowers with jaunty, pointed tips yawn from the stems’ grouping.
In contrast ...
The stems are a beautiful shade of summer green. Amidst walls of red rock, petrified wood, and sagebrush, WT suggests we go spelunking. When we find that our equipment is faulty, we grab Natalie and Jesse’s bikes and set out for a trail ride.
At first, WT’s all handlebars; very little pedaling. His earlier modes of transportation have always been a motorcycle, or a horse, sometimes, but here—here he puts his mind to a poor man’s vehicle, and he rides with that boyish smile he reserves onl
y for me.
“Is it even real?” I ask as we rest at the top of our path with our bikes parked amidst the sagebrush and red dirt that could be sawdust, it’s so fine. Around us, the basin’s a clay bowl, interspersed with the twisted feathers of mesquite trees.
“Real as you are.” WT wraps me in his arms, pulling me close, smelling not so vaguely of sweat but so much love and unsurprising strength.
Before I know it, the sun is setting. He hands me a wildflower—a single Indian paintbrush—a torch of devotion and studded flames.
As the sun sets, he gets that understated, panicked look again in his eyes. “Are you glad you married me?”
How unusually vulnerable he’s being. I kiss him hard and fast. “Of course. How could I ever feel differently?”
A shadow of pain flickers across his sun-kissed face as he lifts my fingers and kisses them, one by one. “I’m going to fight to be the man you deserve, Gemma Louise.”
28
I remember his hands—how he would help me zip up dresses, slip on necklaces, cradle my hand like I was the only girl in the entire universe when we were dancing. I remember how he so crisply moved when he was putting on a tie, like he was negotiating a business transaction.
How he held the steering wheel with one hand and my hand in the other on Sunday drives.
I remember how he kissed me on our second date—he invited friends over for dinner and cards and dancing. The weather was perfect—September, before the leaves had started falling from the trees. I don’t know how he did it, but he got Lewis Capaldi to come and play my favorite song. I can hear it in my head! “Someone you Loved.” Capaldi’s voice was so full and melodic and heartbreaking. It was like WT was saying, “I know I don’t say much. And I can be hard to read, but you’re it for me.”