by M. Leighton
Of course, it’s stuck, a thick layer of fresh paint sealing it shut. I run to the front door and yank it open, pushing back the screen door in hopes that the smoke will make its way outside. I grab a straight-backed rocker from the porch and wedge it in the opening so the smoke can drift out while I go back inside to shut off the oven.
I’ve got a magazine I’m using as a fan when stomping draws my attention back toward the door. I stop everything–moving, thinking, breathing–when I see him. It’s Cole Danzer, bigger than life and twice as beautiful, walking into my kitchen. He looks around for a second and then reaches over the sink to wrench up the sticky window. He does it with remarkable ease and, for a few seconds, I’m focused only on the sleek muscles of his biceps.
In addition to being lustily mesmerized, I’m stunned. Of course. He just appeared out of nowhere. And now he’s here. In my house. In my personal space.
And I realize how very much I want him here. In my house. In my space.
I guess that’s why I just stand statue-still in my stained T-shirt, holding a magazine, mouth hanging open, staring at him. I’m not as surprised by his surly demeanor when he turns his nearly-furious gaze on me, though. I’m beginning to think he’s always this way.
“I thought your house was on fire,” he growls in his bedroom voice. “What happened?”
He’s like a thundercloud, popping and crackling with irritable electricity. He even makes the hair on my arms stand up, like he’s reversing the polarity around me. I think it’s his proximity. His face is within a few inches of mine where I’m still tucked into the corner of the cabinets. I was fanning smoke toward the door. Now I’m just standing here, oddly mystified.
He seems to be even taller, even broader standing in front of me here in my tiny kitchen. And despite the gagging smoke, I can smell the clean scent of his soap–fresh and piney. I make the mistake of inhaling deeply, which only makes me cough.
His ever-present frown deepens initially as I sputter, but when I catch my breath, it softens as he raises his brow. Without uttering a word, it says, Well?
I can’t even remember the question when he looks at me this way.
“P-pardon?” I stammer, continuing to stare despite how rude I must seem.
Good Lord, he’s gorgeous! I mean, I thought he was incredibly handsome the first time I saw him. And he still is, whether he’s angry or frowning or pretending to ignore me. But like this…when he’s not scowling at me… he’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. His blue eyes are bluer, his lips more chiseled, his jaw even stronger. The pull of my body, of my soul toward him is magnetic. Gravitational. Irresistible.
“What happened?” he repeats, helping to shake me from my stupor.
“I-I don’t know. I was preheating the oven to make muffins.” I glance at the pan where it rests on the counter. “And then…”
Since most of the smoke has cleared out through the now-open window, Cole cracks the oven door. Another, smaller gray cloud belches up out of it. He just waves it away and bends to look inside.
“There’s something stuck to the broiler. Didn’t you clean it before you turned it on?”
His question makes me feel defensive. It’s my turn to frown. “As a matter of fact, I did. I guess I just didn’t think to check the heating elements. Why would I? Who gets food on the broiler?”
“Well, it’s too hot to clean now. You’ll have to wait until it cools off,” he announces, closing the door and straightening.
“Thanks for that piece of wisdom,” I retort, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
Cole’s brow furrows into its frown again. “I just didn’t want you to burn yourself.” His concern seems genuine.
Oh.
Now I feel like an over-sensitive ass. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just been a long couple of weeks.”
With his mesmerizing blue eyes narrowed on mine, Cole watches me. Without saying a word, he just watches. I can tell he’s thinking. His lips move as though he’s biting on the inside of his cheek.
“What brings you here? To Miller’s Pond?” He finally asks, almost grudgingly, as if he really didn’t want to ask but couldn’t help himself.
“Fresh start,” I respond, forgetting all my carefully rehearsed half-truths and full-lies.
“What was wrong with the old one?”
I think vaguely to myself that I should kindly berate him for his nosiness, so as to dissuade him from asking so many questions in the future. But before I can, I see a curious little face ease slowly into my line of sight behind Cole.
Emmy.
This must have her all out of sorts.
I drop my magazine and squeeze out from between Cole and the counter so that I can make my way to my daughter. Her thumb is already in her mouth.
She turns her head and presses her cheek to mine when I pick her up, both of us facing Cole. Her big green eyes are trained unwaveringly on him. “This is Mr. Danzer,” I tell her, not bothering with the normal mommy things like Can you say hi. She won’t. And the doctors tell me not to try and make her. It only adds a sense of pressure, and she doesn’t need more anxiety. “This is my daughter, Emmy.”
Cole’s color fades a little. He doesn’t look quite as…unhealthy as he did the day we ran into him on the beach, but he still has a haunted look about him, one that I now understand. I wonder about the child he lost–how old she was, what she looked like, if they were close. My guess is that they were.
“Hi, Emmy,” he greets, his voice softly scratchy as he addresses her. It brings chills to my arms and a lump to my throat. I imagine this is his daddy voice, the one that says you are loved and I would never hurt you. I hear it as plain as day and my chest aches for his loss.
Cole doesn’t approach us and Emmy, of course, says nothing. After a few seconds of staring him down, though, she lifts her free hand and points toward the refrigerator. Cole’s intense blue eyes swing in that direction and settle on the picture hanging there. He approaches it slowly, reaching out to drag a single finger over the Crayola daisy. “Sand and daisies,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
He stares at the image for several long seconds, during which I’m at a loss as to what to say. I can feel his sadness filling my kitchen with a fog as thick as the smoke.
When he finally recovers, he turns toward us and, God help me, he smiles. And what a smile it is! It changes his face completely. He was gorgeous before. Breathtaking even. But when his lips curve and his teeth gleam and his eyes light up, he’s the most potent male force I think I’ve ever encountered.
I stare helplessly as he speaks to my daughter. “It’s beautiful, Emmy. I’m glad you liked the castle.”
With her eyes stuck on Cole (and I can’t really blame her for that), Emmy wiggles until I set her down. She backs up slowly, never looking away and never taking her thumb out of her mouth. When she reaches the edge of the kitchen, she raises her fingers in a gesture for him to follow her.
Cole looks to me for approval. I nod, having no idea where this is going, but anxious to find out. Emmy doesn’t engage anyone. She hasn’t since we left home. For that reason alone, my heart is so full of hope right now that I can practically feel it trembling, like it’s teetering on the cusp of something wonderful.
Cole follows Emmy, and I follow Cole back to Emmy’s room. She stops just inside the door and points to the daisy Cole gave her. She wanted to frame it so we could hang it on her wall.
She didn’t let go of it until we got home that day. When she finally did, she insisted that we preserve it. I let her help me press the flower between newspapers and cardboard, and then we set a heavy book on it for a week. When it was ready, I used one of my old frames to display it for her. She wanted it hung right across from her bed, where she could see it every day, she said.
Cole squats down in the hall outside Emmy’s room, never getting too close to her. “Did you do that yourself?” She shakes her head and points to me. “Your mom helped?” She nods. “M
oms are good helpers, aren’t they?” She nods again. “Well, you did a good job. Maybe one day you can help me make one like that. For a present.”
Emmy says nothing, just stares at our big interloper like a tiny fawn caught in headlights. We all hold perfectly still in this oddly poignant moment. Eventually, Cole slowly stands and says to no one in particular. “Guess I’d better get going.”
He turns to squeeze past me in the narrow hallway, his soap teasing my nose and his warmth teasing the rest of me. I flatten my body against the wall, afraid to touch him. Whether for my sake or his, I don’t know. I just feel like that would be opening the door to something I can’t control.
Emmy comes out into the hallway and we both watch him go. Just before he disappears, I call, “Thank you.”
He turns, gives me the same straight-faced nod I’ve gotten before, and then he’s gone.
As my daughter and I stare through the empty door out into the empty yard, I wonder to myself if it was a good idea to let him get close to Emmy, to let him see her room. I mean, if he’s crazy, who knows what he’s capable of?
Normally I don’t scoff at my paranoia, but this time I do. Something tells me that Cole would rather die than see Emmy shed a single tear. Or any little girl for that matter. I’d say if she were ever to be in good hands, crazy hands or not, those hands would belong to Cole Danzer.
I just wonder if the same thing applies to me.
SIX
Cole
I KNOW THE little girl isn’t Charity. She looks like her. Almost exactly like her. She even smells like her, that sweet powdery scent that I’ll go to my grave remembering. But I know it’s not her. It can’t be. I know that.
I’d give anything if she was, though. To have another chance. To be a better father. To spend more time, pay more attention, do all the things I should’ve done. Could’ve done. Didn’t do. I missed my chance, though, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. Never. I can’t.
That’s why I can’t let her go. Not this time.
Despite what people say about me being crazy, despite what the doctors say about what I see and hear, I know that my daughter is gone. I know that I can’t hear her or see her or talk to her. Yet I do. I do because I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll lose her forever. And I can’t risk that. I can’t let her go.
I never wanted to feel again. Anything. Anything at all, other than the gut-wrenching sadness that reminds me of what happened. Of who I am and what I did. I never wanted to feel hope or love or desire again. I don’t deserve to feel. At least not anything good. I only deserve pain and heartache and sadness. And guilt. Suffocating guilt.
But damn her, she’s making it so hard! Watching me like she does, tearing me up with her soulful gray eyes. Laughing with her daughter, with the girl who looks so much like everything I lost.
I knew when I first saw them that day on the beach that they’d be trouble for me. And I was right. Already, I can’t stop thinking about them–the little girl who looks like mine and the woman whose face I dream about.
SEVEN
Eden
IT’S SUNDAY AND we’ve been in Miller’s Pond for exactly one month on the nose. Today, Emmy and I are visiting the beach. I figured we had better enjoy it while we can. It seems the weather is getting colder by the day. Plus, I needed to get out of the house. I found myself watching obsessively for Cole to show up for work across the street, but he never did. It’s the first morning he’s missed since we’ve been here and for some reason, it has me all out of sorts.
I spent the first two hours continually glancing out the windows for his arrival. Then, when he didn’t show, I spent the next two hours wondering why. Is something wrong? Did he finish his work? Where will he go now? Will I get to see him again?
Of course, I got no answers, which only left me more frustrated. So, Emmy and I decided to go for a jaunt outside.
I bundle her up with a hoodie over her sweatshirt before we strike out on the short walk to the beach. I wanted her to wear gloves, but she loves the feel of the sand and since I won’t let her go barefoot, we compromised by me carrying her gloves in my pocket. She might need them before the day is out.
“Can we build a sandcastle today?”
“Not today. It’s too cold. The water might turn you into an Emmy-sized ice cube and what would I do with that?”
She giggles. “You can’t put me in your drink. I’d drown.”
I smile. “Yes, you’d drown if I put you in a drink, so let’s save the sandcastle until it’s warmer, k, doodle bug?”
“Okay.” She doesn’t seem overly disappointed.
On the beach, Emmy chases the waves in and out, but not as long as usual since she can’t get her feet wet. She picks up some wet sand and throws it into the surf a few times, but that doesn’t last long either. Within twenty minutes, she’s running up to me so we can go for our walk.
“Can we walk now, Momma?”
“Sure,” I tell her. “Let me check your hands.”
Obediently, she lays her fingers in mine so that I can feel the temperature. They’re freezing.
“Time for gloves.” I take them from my pocket and hold them out for her to shove her tiny hands into. She flexes her fingers several times until the knit fits just right. I touch her nose and her ears next. “Let’s put your hood up, too. Your ears are cold.”
“Mooom!” she whines. I know she’s not happy when she calls me Mom.
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. It’s hood up or head for home.”
With moody eyes locked onto mine, she pulls up her hood and hands me the strings to tie under her chin.
“Thank you.”
We start off down the beach, Emmy shooting up ahead into the empty straight stretch. She runs as fast as her little legs will carry her on the hard-packed sand.
I think we both see the castle at about the same time. I’m thankful that Emmy slows so I can catch up to her and stop her before she gets too close.
“He’s building another castle, Momma,” she says, excitement widening her eyes when Cole’s head appears on the other side of the structure. “And there’s more flowers!”
She starts to walk on, but I stop her. “Maybe he likes to do this without people watching, Em. Let’s let him build this one and we can come back over tomorrow to see it when it’s all finished. How about that?”
“But he has flowers,” she argues woefully, pointing at the bunch of daisies buried in the sand. “And he gave me one last time.”
“I know, baby, but I think he likes to leave them there for someone special.”
I wonder if this has something to do with his dead daughter. It’s obvious that his castling is more than just a pastime. Even from this distance, I can see how red and angry his strong hands look. I can only imagine how cold they must be working the wet sand on this chilly, windy day. Yet he has been here for who knows how long, building another castle.
It’s every bit as elaborate as the first one we saw. Maybe even more so. Why does he do it? Who does he build them for?
Emmy must be wondering the same things because she starts asking questions as I tug her around to start back the way we came.
“Who does he leave the flowers for, Momma?”
“I don’t know, sweetie, but I bet they’re for someone very special to him.”
A thoughtful pause.
“Where’s his little girl?”
I slant a look her way, to her wise green eyes staring up at me. She’s growing up so fast. Tears blur my vision as I catalog every detail of this moment–Emmy’s rosy cheeks, strands of her dark hair peeking out around her hood, her gloved little fingers squeezing mine. She’s my reason for living. She has been since the day she was born. Everything I’ve ever done has been for her. I can’t imagine my life if she weren’t a part of it. I don’t even want to.
“What makes you think he has a little girl?”
She shrugs, not answering my question. She’s very perceptive, but still, I can’t help wondering what
brought her to this conclusion. “Does he?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she in heaven?”
“I think so.”
She falls quiet for several minutes as we walk, her fingers firmly clutching mine. When she finally speaks again, her words break my heart.
“Some babies aren’t meant to stay down here with their mommas. And their daddies. Some babies are angels. And angels are meant to be in heaven.”
She’s not asking me. She’s telling me, as though she’s the mature one trying to so delicately explain it to me. Like she’s helping me to understand.
“Maybe they are, sweetie.”
“Some of them are only ‘posed to be here for a little while and then go away.”
“Maybe they are.”
I wonder at her train of thought, at how she’s justifying the death of a child in her head. I don’t know at what age most kids are able to really understand death, but Emmy has enough issues to work out right now. I don’t want to add more stressors by over-explaining senseless tragedy.
Another long pause while Emmy examines the toes of her shoes as she walks. “Would you be sad like him if I went to heaven?”
My heart seizes in my chest. The mere thought…it steals my breath in the most painful way.
“I would never be the same again,” I tell her, trying to control the tremble of my voice.
“But I don’t want you to be sad. I want you to be happy, even if I’m not here to make you happy.”
“I could never be happy without you, Emmy. You’re my whole world. My sunshine.”
She digests this in silence and I immediately regret being so honest with her. I don’t want her to feel the burden of keeping her mother from falling apart. No child should carry that responsibility.
“Maybe I can stay until you have other happy things, then.”
I stop walking, squatting in front of my daughter, taking both her hands in mine. I blink back tears. I don’t want to scare her. “Emmy, you aren’t going anywhere. His little girl died in an accident. Sometimes that happens, but that doesn’t mean it will happen to you.”