True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  “Celia. What is it already?”

  “It’s just that … Well I’m wondering if you would consider buying this house.”

  “Wait. You want me to buy it?”

  Celia nods. “When it came on the market, I thought of you right away.”

  “Why?” They walk through to the kitchen, finding sleek modern cabinets and countertops, an island with pendant lights and stainless steel appliances. Amy sits at a stool at the breakfast bar and hands Celia her cone so she can lift Grace and her ice cream cup. “Upsy-daisy,” she says, settling her daughter on her lap.

  Celia sits on a stool beside Amy and gives her the cone back. “It’s just that you’re all alone in that big old farmhouse now and I get worried.”

  “But I’m not alone. I’ve got Grace and you’re right down the street. My parents are a phone call away. Even Mark’s things are still there,” she adds while licking around the fudge-swirled scoop. “My life’s in that house, Celia.”

  “But it’s a big place to take care of alone. This house is small, the yard work is next to nothing, so upkeep is easy. And hey, it’s really close to your shop and to the school. You and Grace can walk together in a few years.”

  Amy shakes her head no while biting into the cone.

  “I thought it was something I could do to help. You know. That maybe you’d feel safer in a nice, small place?”

  “With a concrete countertop and subway tile backsplash? Seriously?” Amy takes Grace’s plastic spoon and helps her fill it with strawberry ice cream from her cup.

  “I know,” Celia says. “Your kitchen, that beautiful country kitchen. The knotty pine cabinets, that awesome blue farm table, your hearts and roosters everywhere. And the food, the coffee, the life that happens in that gorgeous room. Okay, what was I thinking? Even my heart would break if you parted with it.”

  Amy stuffs the last of her cone into her mouth and pulls a paper napkin from her purse. “Wait,” she says around the ice cream. “You tricked me, didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Taking me and Grace out for ice cream was all a ruse. Just to get us here, wasn’t it?”

  Celia shrugs. “It worked.”

  “Oh you owe me one. Seriously. Like, right now. Because I could definitely go for another scoop. How about you, Gracie. Hm?” Grace scrapes her spoon around the empty cup that Amy holds. “Want more ice cream?” So this is new, the way she always presses Grace to respond now. It scares her that her words are fewer and fewer each day.

  “I thought it might distract Grace, too. Get some smiles going on,” Celia adds quietly.

  “Thanks.” Amy wipes a dribble of ice cream from Grace’s chin, then lightly tickles her cheek.

  “Okay then, so no to this house. But would you at least get a security system? Or even a dog?” Celia asks.

  “We’ll see. I’ll think about it, anyway.”

  Celia gives her a smile and a quick hug. “If you ever change your mind though, you let me know.”

  From Amy’s lap, Grace reaches her open arms up for a hug, too. “You’re such a sweetie!” Celia bends and hugs her close. “After a hug like that, one more ice cream coming up, ladies. Let me just take some quick notes on lighting and furniture groupings here, first.”

  Amy glances back into the empty dining room. “It amazes me how you transform these houses, Cee. How do you even know where to begin?”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned staging homes, it’s this. Buyers love picturing themselves in staged homes. But the secret, for me, is not to show them the lives they already have. A house sells every time I show them the lives they want to have.”

  As she walks away jotting down design notes, all Amy can think is this: If Celia could somehow stage this house with the life she used to have, one without fear, one where Grace’s happy voice filled the rooms again, one where she didn’t do a double take at every shadow or turn at every noise or see a bank parking lot every night before falling asleep, she’d buy this house in a heartbeat.

  Eleven

  NIGHTMARES COME TO LIFE WITH strangers. George knows that going out in public still frightens Amy. At the Strawberry Festival, people mill about, coming up from behind, turning corners in front of them like looming reflections in a crowded house of mirrors. He stays close, linking his arm through hers, talking and pointing out the sights.

  “Look,” he says. “Maybe Grace would like that?” Two young women paint strawberries high on the children’s cheeks. Amy lifts Grace onto the bench and keeps her hands on her daughter’s shoulders the entire time. Grace tips her head down as the paintbrush strokes her face and the painter speaks softly, telling her how pretty she is, asking her age.

  Afterward they walk slowly around Addison’s Green. Craft booths line one end, selling twig wreaths, sterling jewelry, handmade rag dolls and driftwood paintings. At the Women’s Club booth, Amy buys Grace a sweatshirt screen-printed with smiling strawberries. She ties it around her daughter’s waist.

  “Do they come in adult sizes?” George asks the attendant.

  “Oh sure,” she answers. “They’re all the rage today.”

  He looks at Amy, sizing her up. “Give me an adult small,” he says, pulling his wallet from his pocket. He drapes the sweatshirt over her back, tying the sleeves loosely around her shoulders.

  Food booths selling sausage sandwiches and foot-long hotdogs and cotton candy crowd the center of The Green. They walk past to a midway where a half dozen game tents boast stuffed animals and fuzzy stuffed strawberries as prizes.

  “Do you want to play something?” Amy asks.

  “Well. It’s been a long time, I might be a little rusty.” He steers them over to the games and tries his hand at tossing Ping-Pong balls into clustered fish bowls, consistently missing his target. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is the way Amy hoists Grace up to see, the way they laugh together. They move on and pick the wrong numbers in the big spinning wheel of chance.

  “Three baseballs, three tries! Win a prize!” a caller yells out.

  George turns to see six clay bottles stacked pyramid-like on a table. “Now we’re talking,” he says. “The midway meets its match.”

  “Knock them all down in three shots, you win a keychain,” the caller explains. “You’ve got a pretty good arm, so do it in two shots for the fuzzy strawberry. One shot, you hit the jackpot.”

  George takes three baseballs in his open hand. He sets two down, turns sideways and eyes the towering bottles. It all comes back to him: the weight of the ball in his palm, the eye-hand coordination, the focus of the game. But something else is there, too. He turns and scans the midway crowd, sensing that someone is following him, watching his every move.

  “What are you doing?” Amy asks. “Eyeing the runner back to first?”

  He looks long at Amy, certain the odd game of hide and seek continues behind them. “He wanted to steal second,” George tells her. “Now. Here’s the pitch.” He joggles the ball and follows through with a strong shot, clearing the tower from the table in one loud clatter. The caller presses a button setting off whistles and whoops so that people passing by stop and look.

  “Here you go,” George says when he bends down to Grace. She opens her arms to a teddy bear the color of honey. When she looks back up at George, he winks at her. “Say hi to Bear.”

  “Bear?” She pulls the stuffed animal close and presses her cheek against its soft fur.

  “Thank you,” Amy whispers before taking Grace’s hand and leading them to the hansom cabs circling The Green. When Grace reaches out to touch one of the horses, George lifts her up onto his shoulders to give her a good view of the animals. He holds her ankles as she leans close to touch the fur, laughing when a horse’s skin quivers beneath her tentative touch.

  “Which one do you like best?” he asks Grace, and she points to a jet-black horse pulling a white carriage with red leather seats. So he pays for a double ride around the festivities, lifts Grace off his shoulders and s
its her on the seat, Bear in her lap. He and Amy sit across from her beneath the carriage canopy, out of the sun and away from the crowds.

  “How are you doing with all this?” he asks Amy.

  “We’re having a great time. It actually feels good to be out for a change.”

  George sits back beside her. Sawhorses barricade car traffic from the streets surrounding The Green, leaving only the horses and buggies making their rounds. Big carriage wheels turn on the gritty pavement and the horse hooves clop in a slow, easy rhythm. Many of the surrounding colonial homes are registered with the Historical Society. Widows’ walks top some roofs closer to the cove. George pictures captains’ wives keeping a lookout for their husbands’ ships returning from sea trade back in the eighteenth century. Tall oaks looking to be as old as the homes, their towering limbs stretching far over the street, throw large pools of shade below.

  All the while he never stops being aware of Amy beside him, their bodies shifting slightly with the carriage ride. After the first trip around The Green, the swaying motion lulls Grace. Amy reaches across to lift her and Bear onto the seat beside her, and Grace sleeps curled in the corner. If only he could reassure Amy, if he could tell her that her daughter was fed that day, and had a blanket. Elliott told Nate she watched a cartoon movie and napped. She played and talked with Angel. Any guns were put away once their purpose was met in obtaining the truck.

  But he can only pick up the pieces from here. The carriage veers onto Main Street and heads toward the cove, passing a large old barn and historic homes gracing the entranceway to the serene inlet off the Connecticut River. Clusters of wildflowers grow from gaps in a colonial-era stone wall fencing off surrounding woods; old maple trees shade weathered picnic tables; sailboats drift on the calm, silver water, their sails sun-bleached white. The carriage wheels crunch over the stones in the packed dirt parking area.

  “Is he supposed to drive down here?” Amy asks.

  “Only under special circumstances.”

  “And I’m guessing you convinced him this was special?”

  “Yes, I did. There’s something soothing about the water. An old beach friend once told me it cures what ails you.”

  Amy looks out at the little harbor. “I haven’t been here in a while,” she says as the carriage slows. “Grace and I like to have a picnic lunch under the trees and feed the ducks.”

  Their driver pulls up on the reins, sets the brake and steps off the carriage. “Okay, folks. You’ve got a few minutes.”

  The horse shifts its weight while the driver stays close by, skimming a few stones on the water. A brown timber barn, the old Christmas Barn gift shop, stands on a gentle hill beyond the cove’s far shore. Someone hung a large flag covered with painted strawberries over its doorway for the festival. The water stretches before them reflecting the blue sky on its surface, its ripples catching sparkles from the high afternoon sun.

  “Why can’t it just be this?” Amy asks.

  The scent of flowers and dew and spring fill the air. Grace sleeps deeply in the sweet warmth, beneath the shade of the carriage’s white walls. And so George wonders what more Amy is seeing, or feeling. “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “This spring day … It’s beautiful. But so was that day at the bank,” she continues softly. “So peacefulness is deceptive. The sun and sky looked just like this. Everything seemed perfect, but it wasn’t.”

  “Well today it is. It really is, Amy,” George assures her. “I know it’s hard for you to trust it, but it’s all how you choose to see it.” His arm reaches around her shoulder and she closes her eyes with his touch. “Don’t block it out,” he says. “Look at me.”

  Amy does, then looks away, out at the lapping water. They sit silently and it only makes him more aware of her, of her breathing, of her anxiety, of the strawberry sweatshirt draped over her back, of why he’s a part of her life, of the moment their hands met in a bank parking lot. The lengthening silence intensifies every truth in his mind and so he tries to change it. His fingers graze her cheek, turning her face back to him. “You can find the good. You have so much already, but can’t see it clearly right now.”

  She still doesn’t talk, but this time, she doesn’t look away. This time, they closely watch each other until his fingers light on her cheek and he leans closer, pressing his lips to hers. Just for a moment, just lightly. Just until he realizes that if he’s being watched, this kiss brings the crime to an entirely new territory. One that Reid, Elliott and his brother will never accept. And so he closes his eyes, raises his other hand to Amy’s face and cups it as his kiss deepens for only a moment longer, long enough to feel her hair against his hands, long enough to feel her breath catch as she kisses him back, long enough for his inhale to be regretful when he pulls away, his hands still holding her face as she whispers his name. She takes one of those hands and sits back watching him until the horse nickers and stamps its foot, the driver turning back to them then.

  * * *

  They eat sweet sausage sandwiches and pink cotton candy, listen to a local swing band and ride the carousel. Later they run into Celia and her husband Ben, so Amy introduces them over strawberry shortcake and coffee together, with Ben and George talking up the latest baseball stats. George doesn’t take her and Grace home until Amy uses all the stimulation she can from the festival, keeping her daughter awake and alert until the end of the day. She fears that Grace’s new tendency to sleep stems from her inability to process the crime. Dr. Brina’s comment has stuck. Grace hasn’t cried at all, hasn’t screamed or even had a temper tantrum. Is it all bottled up inside her little body, tiring her?

  Relieved to finally be back in her farmhouse, Amy puts Grace to bed before sitting on the living room sofa and pouring two iced teas. George’s voice comes to her from the kitchen, where he checks in with Dean on her telephone. She sips her drink and walks to the front windows, looking out at the evening. A violet horizon hangs over the western sky, beyond the old farm at the end of the street.

  “I need to tie up three roasts tomorrow?” George asks. “Okay, I’ll stop in tonight and pull them from the freezer.”

  The resonance of his voice reaches her. She listens closely and finds comfort in its sound. Maybe it is because of the perfect day he arranged. Or maybe it is the sunset and the coming summer with its possibilities.

  “How about the flank steaks? Did the sale move those?”

  Amy touches the cold glass to her cheek, listening, feeling the very idea of him. She hears his intonations with crystal clarity, imagining that this must be what is meant by a blind person’s acute hearing compensating for their loss of vision. His solitary voice, and the assurance of it, has grown familiar now.

  “No wonder. It’s a good barbecue weekend.”

  There are quiet pauses when he listens to Dean. She thinks of his kiss at the cove, and listening to his voice feels intimate now.

  “Cripe, not again,” George says from the kitchen. “Damn it, that machine’s got to go.”

  And just like that, every heightened sense stands on red alert. Setting her glass down on the table, she hugs her arms around her waist and reminds herself what she has come to realize through all this.

  Nothing is what it seems. Nothing. It is George standing in the kitchen, George Carbone, not one of the kidnappers. She stays at the window and listens to hear his voice again, to hear George. Not the man she had confronted in the parking lot.

  “Amy? Is something wrong?” George slowly turns her away from the window.

  She hesitates, shaking her head. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “What do you mean? You seem upset.”

  She reaches the back of her hand to his face, to know it’s him, and he folds his hand over it. “I guess I’m still having a hard time with this.”

  “With this.” After a pause, he asks, “With us?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” He gently releases her hand and walks to the sofa, watching her.

  “I heard y
ou talking,” she admits.

  “To Dean?”

  “Yes.” She turns to the window again, her arms still folded around her. “It’s silly, really. It’s something you said.”

  “Me?”

  She glances at him as he lifts his iced tea. He looks tired. Warm June air brings out a wave in his dark hair while the dim lighting shadows his face. “George,” she says as she moves to the sofa. She sits beside him, remembering that she’s sitting safe in her own home, on her acre of land with a new tire swing hung outside waiting for beautiful moments with her daughter. It isn’t fair to think of George, the kind man for whom she finds herself caring, in the same thought as the man who struggled for Grace’s shoe. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Amy stares at him. “Cripe.”

  A long moment comes between them, as though he is waiting for more. “I don’t get it,” he finally responds.

  “Cripe. You said it on the phone. And one of the kidnappers said that same word to me.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I was talking with Dean about an old meat grinder. It’s on the fritz.”

  Angel scampers across the living room floor, a scrap of fur alive with energy. “Apparently the kidnapper said it in front of Grace, too,” Amy tells him. “I hear her say it sometimes.”

  “Grace says it?”

  She nods and takes his hands in hers, running her thumb over his calloused skin. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

  “Are you sure that’s the word?”

  “I remember everything he said, George. I’ve heard it a thousand times in my head since then. But it’s how he said it, like he was trying to help me. Cripe, just give them the hour. As though that’s all it would take and then everything would be over.” She closes her eyes and feels her knees scraped raw, feels that day. “I don’t know if giving them the hour was a bargain with the devil or with God, but sometimes, like right now, there are moments when it feels like the bargain will never end.”