Loreena's Gift

by Colleen M. Story

  “Hey, remember this?” He stood by the fence that divided their yard from the neighbors’, his face lit up with surprise. “Chester’s grave! It’s still here!”

  Chester. Somewhere in the back of Loreena’s mind, the name sounded familiar. She ran to join him.

  “Remember? Our little mouse?”

  She stared at him, and then cradled her hands by her belly.

  “Yes!” Saul pointed and laughed. “You used to hold him just like that.”

  She could feel Chester’s little whiskers tickling her skin.

  “I got him when we moved in. Mom said I had to prove I could take care of him before we could have a dog. But you were the one who always played with him.”

  Loreena moved her forefinger instinctively, the way she used to pet the little creature’s head, drawing her finger down between his ears. Her gaze fell on the tiny wooden cross made of popsicle sticks, just taller than the grass. They had painted it white.

  Saul looked down again and sobered. Loreena thought she might ask him if he knew what was going on. Was he aware he had been shot? But then he jumped up and walked away, back toward the driveway.

  “Come on!”

  She followed him until she noticed the navy-blue Pontiac parked in the driveway. The paint gleamed under the sun’s rays, chrome flashing white stars. She slowed and walked toward it, hand extended. This car. This was the one they had ridden in that day. Shiny, the paint untouched, it looked like it had just come out of the showroom. Peering inside, she saw the cream-colored seat, the wood-accented steering wheel. The dashboard sprawled across the breadth of the interior, flanked by chrome-framed air vents and a black radio console. Over there was the passenger seat.

  Empty.

  “Loreena, you coming?”

  Was that a candy wrapper on the floor? Sunset orange. Butterscotch. Her mother liked sucking on butterscotch candies. Loreena remembered how she held them in her jaw, the round shape protruding against her cheek. Most of all she remembered how she always shared them, how she seemed to have an endless supply in her purse whenever they had to take a long drive or wait for a train to pass, or stay in the car while she attended a meeting.

  Saul walked up behind her. “You were right there.” He pointed to the backseat.

  She couldn’t look. That’s where it had all started, where she had watched her mother die, her last vision in the real world.

  “You asked for shotgun,” Saul said.

  “What?”

  “You called it, on the way out of the house. We were running down those stairs.”

  She turned around. Four stairs led to the front door, which was stained the same color as the fence posts and trimmed in yellow gold.

  “I put on the speed and beat you to it,” he said.

  She couldn’t remember.

  “It should have been me.” He glanced at her, and then looked down and put his hands in his pockets. “I should have been in the back. You called shotgun.” He rubbed his nose on his upper arm, stood there another moment, and then walked away, toward the backyard.

  Loreena remained by the car, trapped in another time. Drawing her finger back and forth across the long chrome door handle, she watched how her print appeared and then evaporated. She pushed the rounded latch underneath, but not hard enough to release it—just enough to depress it and feel it spring back against her thumb.

  There. Her mother had sat right there, her long fingers on that steering wheel. She had turned to look at the papers, and then the impact, and her head dropped forward on her neck.

  Loreena withdrew her hand and followed her brother through the gate.

  Entering the backyard, she saw the play area, the swing set and the slide. Saul climbed up the stairs and looked out from the little shelter with the green roof. Beyond stood the open field where they used to play duck-duck-goose with the neighbor kids, and to the right of that, the narrow road where she and Saul had tried to sell lemonade. Loreena crossed to stand at the foot of the slide.

  “Saul, why are we here?”

  He looked down at her and grinned. “This is our home, silly.”

  “We’re not kids anymore.”

  His gaze moved to the horizon, his hands on the wooden railing. “Ever since it happened, I wanted to come back here, with Mom.”

  Loreena thought about the hospital room, and Dominic, and wondered if something had happened. Surely he would have pulled them apart by now? “We need to go back,” she said.

  “You have to go back.” Saul looked down at her with bright eyes. “I know where we are, Sis. I know why you can see. I remember Garfield City, and the gunshot. I knew you would come.” He shook his head and smiled. “But I never imagined this. What you can do.” He spread his hands out. “It’s magic!”

  “But you don’t know the rest. You have a chance—”

  “This is home,” he said, interrupting her. “I’ve wanted to be here for a very long time.”

  Stepping closer, she took hold of the metal pipe that formed the side of the swing set. “This was home, but Mom isn’t here anymore.”

  “You don’t know that.” He pointed to the back door. “Any minute, she could walk out, call us to dinner, or ask if we’ve done our homework.”

  On instinct, both of them looked. The door remained closed.

  Loreena felt dizzy. She sat down on the swing, letting the chains rock her back and forth. “Frank is dead.”

  “He is?” Leaning over the railing, Saul looked down on her. “But I didn’t—”

  “I did.”

  He frowned. “You went with him?”

  She nodded. “He had us trapped in a mountain cabin.”

  “Us?”

  “Dominic and I.”

  “Dominic?”

  She looked up at him, realizing he didn’t even know Dominic. “He drove me to Kelley, when we were looking for you, when Crystal took us to Frank’s place.”

  “Crystal!” His eyebrows shot up. “She’s the reason? She’s the one?”

  Loreena dropped her gaze. “Yeah, well, I was stupid enough to go along with it.”

  “Crystal!” He punched the wooden beam on top of the railing. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot with girls.”

  She shook her head. “Julie was better.”

  He chuckled at that, but it didn’t last long. Loreena stared at the ground and remembered digging holes there at the foot of the swings, where the dirt was soft, how she used to add water and shape the mud into castles and dragons and covered bridges.

  “This Dominic,” Saul said. “He still around?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Well, well.” He swung his legs over to sit on the railing and tucked his toes between the bars. “Li’l sis has a boyfriend.”

  Loreena opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again.

  “You need to go back,” he said. “Now especially.”

  “Come with me.”

  He shook his head. “Tell me how I am right now. In the hospital, right?”

  “You’re in a coma.”

  “Wow.” He scratched his head. “Even better than I thought.”

  “There’s a chance,” she said, looking up at him. “A chance that if you come back with me, you’ll come out of it.”

  He frowned, squinting in the sun.

  “They made me and Dominic hold hands. They pulled us apart while we were still in the tunnel. I thought he was dead, but I found out later he was alive.”

  “Tunnel?”

  “What we go through, to get here.”

  “I don’t remember a tunnel.”

  “Well, yours was kind of short.”

  “Hmm.” He leaned back and looked up at the sky. It was a bright day, warm, like summer, but not hot. “So you can stop it?”

  “I don’t know. Dominic said that before he met me, he had terminal cancer. Now the doctors say it’s gone. He thinks that by going halfway, I healed him, and that maybe I could do the same for you.”

  Saul chewed his
lip, as if he were considering the idea, but then hung his head and let himself fall forward to land on the ground in a tumble. Rising up again, he rested his hands on his hips. “We’re already out of the tunnel.” Raking his fingers through his hair, he smiled at her, and then took off running toward the house. “Come on, we have to look!”

  Loreena ran as fast as she could trying to catch up, but he beat her to the back door. Huffing, they stood staring at it. Saul moved his hand to the doorknob. “Do you think she’s in there?”

  Both peered in the window.

  The door was unlocked. Beyond stood the laundry room, the cream tile spotless, milk-white washer and dryer looking as if they had never been used.

  “Hello?” Saul said.

  The house echoed his call like an empty tomb.

  Inside, they turned left into the kitchen. Loreena felt her heart beating wildly, and suddenly, with everything in her, she wanted to see her mother. To see her again, hear her voice, feel her touch. Could she really be here? Following her brother, she tiptoed into the kitchen, unsure why they were sneaking as if they were a couple burglars come to whisk away the television. Pausing at the refrigerator, she scanned a family snapshot taken by a lake. The little girl looked maybe six years old. In the photo, Saul stood next to her, his arm around her shoulder, their mother behind them, holding them both in front of her and smiling, her long hair soft against her cheeks. Was this when they had gone camping, when Loreena first heard the owls?

  Saul stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. Pushing past him, she ran through, turned right, and gazed into the living room. The rich green couch was still there, the one where their mother had always put her feet up, flanked by twin walnut tables, each with a glass reading lamp etched with roses. Loreena could imagine her there, a paperback book in her hands, feet covered in fuzzy slippers, plastic-rimmed glasses low on her nose.

  The cushions were empty.

  “There’s no one here,” she said.

  Saul’s gaze moved from one end of the room to the other. “Mom?” He passed through into the hallway beyond. “Mom?”

  Loreena retreated to the dining room and sat down at the table. It was set with three crocheted placemats and a centerpiece of white roses. She stared at the woodgrain, allowing her eyes to blur. There was no one here. He would find out soon enough. Dominic had not brought them back. Maybe he had tried to pry their hands apart and it hadn’t worked. Maybe the nurse had come in and ordered him out, or maybe Saul had already gone and the doctors were rushing down the hallway to try to save him.

  She rested her head on her folded arms. This was her home, Saul said, but it didn’t feel like home. She couldn’t remember the spotless floors or the bright yellow paint on the kitchen walls or this smooth, lacquered cherry wood table. The thick rug in the living room felt familiar, but it couldn’t make up for the foreignness of the cushion underneath her, or the acres of clear countertops and enameled pots and pans on the stove, or the unfamiliar landscape paintings in the living room. In her heart, she longed for the space of the tall ceilings over her head, the light coming through the stained-glass windows, the brush of her shoes against the quiet red carpet, the smooth pear wood of the congregation pews. The blissful feel of the cool white piano keys under her fingers.

  Uncle! A burning desire rose up inside her. She wanted to go home.

  Saul’s boot steps returned. “No one’s here.”

  She didn’t answer. Didn’t lift her head.

  “Lor?”

  When she still didn’t respond, he sat down next to her. “You need to go back.”

  “I wanted you to come with me.”

  He looked down at the table and pushed his finger through the crocheted mat. “I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  “Why not?” She looked into his eyes.

  “I think I’m supposed to be here. It isn’t the right time for you. You’ve got Dominic, and Uncle—”

  “You’ve got Uncle, too.”

  “I know. But…it’s not easy, the two of us.”

  She pulled the placemat closer and tucked her fingers around the edges.

  “And here we are, you know?” He opened his hands. “Look what you did! I won’t have to wait for days or weeks in a hospital bed, lost in some nothing place where I wouldn’t be able to move or talk or even be. Here, I feel like I can fly.”

  He grinned, and she stared at him. “What if you don’t see her again?” she asked. “If I were to go…what if you’re left here, alone?”

  He leaned back in his chair, still smiling. “I wish I could explain it to you. This is where I belong. I know it.”

  When she said nothing in response, he reached across to take her hand. With no worries now about her powers, he gripped her palm against his and held it up so both their elbows were propped on the table. “There are more people down there who need this.”

  He brought his other hand around to encase hers, and she pulled the hands toward her and laid her cheek against his knuckles. “I could stay with you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  His gaze shifted to the living room, and then to the window beyond looking out on the front yard. His smile slowly faded, and he got up and walked, mussing her hair as he passed.

  Loreena twisted in her chair to watch him. When he turned the deadbolt and started out the front door, she jumped up from the table and followed. The thick rug cushioned her footsteps one last time before she stepped out of the house.

  Saul sat by Salvador. The rosebud had opened.

  Walking carefully, lest she scare it closed again, Loreena descended the three stairs. The flower stood in the bright sunlight at its fullest, a perfect circle. Loreena crouched down and touched the underside of the petals. Like puffy clouds they yielded, but not without first imparting to her skin the delicious sensation of a breath from beyond. Unable to resist, she dropped her head, closed her eyes, and inhaled. The sweetest rose fragrance filled her senses, flooding her brain like alcohol so that when she sat back again she felt dizzy.

  “It opened,” she said. “Fast.”

  Saul followed suit, one hand cupping the flower, his eyes closed. His inhale was long and relaxed, and then he held his breath. Watching him, Loreena held hers too, and the world around them stilled, fading from view until all she could see was her brother’s sandy eyelashes lying peacefully against his cheeks. When he exhaled and came away, there was a new glow to his skin, as if he had just spent a week at the beach.

  “Do you think it’s a sign?” he asked.

  Turning back to the flower, she touched the leaves. “This was the bush I saw, the day Russell died. The day our paths crossed again.” She let her hip fall to the ground, resting in the grass. “I haven’t seen it again, until now.”

  He turned toward her and they locked gazes. For the first time since they had arrived, he looked sad. “I’m going to miss you,” he said.

  She jerked away and wiped her eyes. “What will you do?”

  The grass made ripping sounds as he pulled at it, mowing with his fingers. “I know where the car keys are.” He looked up at her and grinned.

  Loreena turned to examine the navy-blue Pontiac, and then let her gaze roam down the road to the other houses, all of them two stories high with lush lawns and colorful flowerbeds, all with shiny cars in the driveways, all of them clean and new and untouched.

  “You’ll be okay?” she asked, finding it hard to believe she was actually thinking about this, about saying goodbye.

  “Better than okay.” The sun shone on his face, as if choosing it among all the things in the neighborhood to illuminate.

  Loreena.

  They both looked up at the sky.

  “Did you hear that?” Saul asked.

  She nodded, a dark shadow falling on her brow. “It’s Dominic,” she said.

  Saul looked at her. “Time for you to go.”

  They hugged. Loreena’s tears cha
pped her face, and even Saul sniffled and swallowed, his fingers deep in her hair. When Dominic called a second time, they parted, and then Saul stood and gave her a hand up. Loreena looked around, unsure where to go.

  “Tell Uncle,” he said, “I’m sorry. None of it was his fault.”

  Loreena nodded. The street was still empty, no cars driving by. She felt like she was standing in a holding area, as if several eyes were watching her from somewhere beyond, waiting for her to leave. Perhaps her uncle was right. Perhaps she was seeing only a glimpse of what this world really was. When she turned back to her brother, he was holding the rose.

  Her eyes widened. “You picked a flower off Salvador?”

  “Don’t tell.”

  Loreena hesitated, and then took the offering and brought it to her nose. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply.

  When she opened them again, she saw only shadows.

  “Saul?”

  “Loreena, are you back?”

  Dominic. The hospital room. Lifting her head, Loreena patted the space in front of her, and found her brother’s arm. It was limp and already heavy.

  “It didn’t work,” Dominic said. “You two were clinging to each other so tightly. I couldn’t tear you apart.”

  Shaking her head, crying, Loreena felt her brother’s body, his chest, head, stomach, and shoulders, until her fingers fell on something warm, something living and soft, by his hand. Picking it up, she brought it to her face.

  And inhaled the scent of a rose.

  22

  When Loreena touched the keys two Sundays later, she wasn’t sure she would remember how to play.

  For a while she dared not try for fear of what would come out. Her fingers felt heavy and foreign, clumsy. She lifted her hands to the keyboard and then dropped them back in her lap three times before the church members started floating in behind her. They spoke her name in hushed voices, whispering questions, but they didn’t disturb her. It was an unspoken rule of the church. No one broke the invisible ribbon between the pews and the sanctuary area. Loreena was sure they would ask their questions later, when the service was over. For now, they had to content themselves with speculation.