True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  Grace shifts her feet and silently takes a step closer.

  “Well now,” Amy tells her. Even though her heart tells her no words will come, she can’t let go of the hope. “You have to promise your love and friendship to the kitten. So here we go. Okay?” After a quiet moment, the kitten still lying limp across Grace’s arms, her paws hanging down, Amy continues. “Do you, Grace, take this kitten Angel, to be your faithful friend for life?”

  Grace looks at the kitten, then up at Amy. Her mouth forms no syllables, her breath carries no sounds.

  Amy lets out a frustrated breath. “I’ll take that as an I do. And now,” she continues as she lifts the veil back over Grace’s face so that the cloud of tulle towers over her head, “By the power vested in me, I pronounce you the very best of friends, for richer and for poorer, forever and ever. Now go turn off the TV and get ready to go to the beach.” She raises the veil off her daughter and sets it on the table. “And find me your flip-flops, missy. George will be here pretty soon.”

  Grace sets the cat on the floor and runs around the table, heading finally for the living room where her dollhouse is set up, the television is on, and her flip-flops and a lime green sand pail sit on the couch. Amy turns to the table, finishes the last drops of her coffee and glances again at her sketch pad. A layer of the veil covers her new drawing and she sees her image through the fine, lacy fabric.

  Veiled. The same way it appeared in her dream, the shoe skittering across the pavement followed by a mad rush to claim it, a blur of motion and weapon and hands. The delicate pattern of the veil fabric obscures the sketched image much the same way the dream did, yet hints at detail behind the tulle. The intent of a bridal veil, when all is said and done, is to lift it. This puff of tulle once concealed a bride’s young face; the guests had to wait to see clearly the spark in her eyes, her emotion, until the veil was lifted.

  Amy slowly lifts the tulle back off her sketch, knowing that some veil in her memory has yet to do the same.

  * * *

  “Which one is your house key?” George lightly jangles Amy’s key ring as she buckles Grace into her car seat.

  “My house key? Why?”

  “I need a drink of water before we leave. I’ll just be a minute.” It isn’t completely true, but true enough. What he really needs is to check every downstairs door and window, quickly, to be sure the house is secure while they’re gone. But he can’t tell her that yet. He wants, at the very least, for Amy and Grace to have this day at the beach simply for what it is.

  And so that’s what he makes it into. Driving Amy’s SUV, he stops at a shore town close to Stony Point, pulling off the main road onto a busy beach road lined with tiny cottages stacked too close together, a video game arcade crowded with teens, and seasonal stores selling penny candy and overpriced beach umbrellas. He parks at one of the shops and leaves them waiting in the vehicle until he returns with two inflated tubes, one a duck swim-ring for Grace.

  “Oh. I almost forgot,” he says before backing out of their parking space. He reaches into one of his cargo short pockets for a small bag. “We’ve got to make a beach bum out of your daughter today.”

  Amy pulls a plastic pair of purple heart-shaped sunglasses from the bag and laughs. She twists around and sets them on Grace’s nose. “Don’t you look cute!” she says, stroking her cheek in a feather touch. “Now what do we say to George?”

  “Amy.” George shakes his head. “Don’t.”

  “Why not? She might say thank you,” she insists. “You never know if she’ll talk, even a little.”

  “No. No strings today. No fishing for words, no pressure. Just let her be at the sea, however she wants to be. Okay?”

  Amy relinquishes a smile and reaches back to give Grace’s foot a quick squeeze. “Deal. I kind of like that idea, actually. We’ll let the sea work its magic.”

  They drive a few miles more, turning off the main road beneath a railroad trestle, driving past cedar-shingled cottages and bungalows painted sunshine yellow and ocean blue, porch windows opened to the sea breezes, flower boxes brimming with geraniums and cascading petunias. Stony Point is one of those rare places frozen in time, and for that George is grateful. His only wish today is to take them all back in time, for a while, to a day before the heist.

  “My folks had a cottage here so Dad could be at the water. He loved the beach more than anything. Nate and I rent it out every now and then, and keep it maintained, you know, keep the yard trimmed, the cottage clean, but we haven’t used it in years. We’ll park there and walk to the beach.”

  The cottage sits pretty on a side road, nestled in large shrubs of beach grass, its backyard facing the lagoon. George always liked this marsh area where the inlets winding through the grasses gently rise and fall with the tides. It’s been a good place to contemplate summers, to ruminate life. The cottage’s cedar shingles have weathered to a silver-gray over the years, some edged with black now, and the white trim could use a fresh coat of paint.

  “Well isn’t this beautiful,” Amy says when he pulls into the stone driveway.

  “We can sit out back on the deck later. Grace will like it there, it’s very peaceful. And maybe the swans will swim by.”

  “George.” Amy steps out of the SUV and looks out at the view of the lagoon and the deep green grasses curving through it, a great blue heron standing still on the banks. The sky beyond has that vastness that comes from only being over the sea. She turns back to him and says the words he’d hoped to hear. “It’s like our own fairy tale, this little shingled gingerbread cottage, swans and the sea. What a perfect place.”

  But every fairy tale has an element of wickedness, a dark shadow hovering behind the storyline. George opens the back of her SUV and lifts out their canvas beach bags and sand chairs. All he wants to do is put as much distance as he can between any evil and this place, this day.

  * * *

  Every hour of the afternoon passes like she’s turning the page of a photo album, each hour filled with its own beautiful images. It would be the type of album that becomes its own treasure: large and worn from many days spent poring over it, from your finger lightly passing over a cherished image on the beach, or your eyes tearing with the fleeting sweet memories.

  Amy can picture it, the page filled with images of George on his knees, the June sun burning his shoulders, three sand pails scattered close by as he drizzles sea water on the turrets and towers of the castle he builds with Grace at the water’s edge. Amy knows, oh she just knows that his low voice is talking and making up some fantasy story about princesses and gentle dragons to go along with the castle. And she sees the image of Grace picking up small white seashells and ever so carefully placing them on the castle walls as George finishes digging out the moat.

  And there are the sunshine glistening images of Amy floating in her tube, her fingers skimming the salt water, the sway of the sea beneath her while Grace stands knee-high in the Sound with her duck swim-ring around her waist. George stands near Grace and so, so gently occasionally lifts her beneath her arms and swings her legs through the water, eliciting a happy squeal, her head tipped up, her smile frozen in sunlight.

  And there is the precious hour he gives them, just her and Grace alone at the edge of the sea, when he heads back to his family’s cottage. Forever she’ll have the images from those solitary minutes with her daughter as they walk along the high tide line holding hands, stopping now and then to pick up seashells, sea glass and pretty stones, dropping them into the sand pail. They find a conch shell near the pier at the far end of the beach and Amy holds it to her daughter’s ear so that she can hear the sound of the sea in it. The waves lap at their toes and the sun lingers high in the sky just for them, it seems, glistening diamonds on the water surface. She bends close to point them out to Grace and tells her they look like tiny, sparkling stars … perfect for summer wishes.

  “You’re too good to be true,” Amy says when George returns holding a bag with two ice cream bars and one vanil
la-chocolate sundae cup from the ice cream truck parked nearby. He steps out of his docksiders right into the sand, pulls off his New York Yankees tee and hangs it over the back of his sand chair.

  “Was that your team?” Amy asks as she peels the cover off Grace’s ice cream cup.

  “Almost.” George slides his chair beside hers.

  And she doesn’t say more, because what can she say, really?

  “Oh, I brought something for Grace. It was in the old toy trunk in the cottage.” George takes a plastic horse from the bag. It’s brick red in color and a little dusty and worn around the hooves. “Because every castle needs a grand horse to patrol it.”

  The small horse stands on the blanket beside Grace, where she sits spooning her ice cream, a few vanilla drops dribbling down her hand. The waves break close at their feet, the sun warms their skin and Amy closes her eyes behind her sunglasses. If she could stop the clock, this is the moment, right now, where the minutes would pause. She eventually takes George’s hand in hers.

  “Look,” George quietly says, tipping his head close to her ear.

  She opens her eyes to see Grace lifting small spoons of sand and showing them to the horse propped beside her before tipping them out on the castle towers. George’s hand is still in hers and her thumb idly strokes his skin. “His hand was scarred like yours,” she says after a moment, her words almost lost in the sound of waves and a sea breeze. She turns her face toward his, leaning back on the sun-bleached chair, her thumb feeling the ridge of a scar from his work. “But your hands carried Grace to safety.”

  He entwines his hand around hers and kisses her fingers.

  Later, they linger on the deck at George’s cottage; the soft lagoon grasses whisper ancient secrets of the sea, with schools of minnows occasionally ruffling the marsh water’s calm surface. Inside his cottage, comfortable upholstered pieces and painted wood tables furnish the living room, everything kept neat and tidy. In her life that had spun out of control, she likes the feeling of chaos being kept outside the door here. Even in the sunny kitchen, the chrome chairs are tucked evenly up to the Formica table and artificial peaches spill from a big ceramic bowl on the very center of the polished tabletop.

  Wearing their swimsuits and cover-ups, they stop for a take-out clam dinner and eat at a wooden table beneath a big patio umbrella. When they pick up the highway and head home, George tunes the radio to her favorite station, playing sentimental love songs that she hums along with while Grace toys with her seashells and horse in the back seat. Amy feels the beaches and the cottages getting smaller and smaller behind her. Just for a few miles, she still hears a sense of the lapping, lapping waves and the wind and the seagulls’ cry, as though that beautiful conch shell presses against her ear. He gave her this.

  * * *

  Something else happens, too. Driving home, sensations mount in the fluid sound of their voices, in the charge of their touch. The sensations trigger a vague memory and it feels as though a flashback threatens. Once they arrive at her farmhouse, those sensations build and she thinks of the ways to block triggers. But still, when she gives Grace a quick bath and puts her to bed, her skin prickles with anticipation. Never before has a flashback taken this long to arrive. Dr. Berg warned that an accumulation of triggers that alone are harmless can elicit a strong flashback in their very accrual.

  The evening air feels cool, so she slips an oxford blouse on over her bathing suit. With the sun setting, dew rises on the grass. It’s difficult to be discreet trying to control the triggers as George pours a glass of wine outside on her stone patio. One long, slow breath follows another.

  “Look at that.” Twilight fades into darkness and nature paints the moon low in the sky, spilling silver light on the distant cornfield. A smudge of scattered stars shows through the dark violet sky. But it is his deep voice that elicits a response when its quiet vibration tickles down her spine. “It looks like a painting,” he says, “the way the moonlight shines on the fields.”

  Amy tries desperately to push away the impending flashback. Her eyes close for a moment, using visualization to travel back to the beach, the golden sand, the sound of the waves. But it’s not enough. She steps out of her sandals and grounds herself, pressing her bare feet hard into the warm stone patio beneath them. The sensations scarcely subside.

  “The whole day felt like a painting,” she says quietly in the dusky light. Shadowed silhouettes of maple trees frame the view of the cornfields beyond her yard.

  “How so?” George asks.

  She listens to the night’s sounds, a lone robin call, the lingering cicadas, trying to focus on anything to help her through this as she takes a long breath, considering the day and considering the sensations she feels. “Being at Stony Point? It all felt like beautiful beach colors and ocean sounds swept across some sort of life canvas. The sea breeze and salt air, the seagulls, that gorgeous summer sky over the water.” George moves close behind her, his arms wrapping beneath the loose blouse, around her waist, as he bends close to listen. She takes his hands in hers and leans back into him. “It was a watercolor kind of day, all about the sea and waves, and your amazing lagoon.” He leaves a soft kiss on her cheek and she turns back to the night, seeing the sunny images from the edge of the sea instead. “It all spread into a beautiful day. And I’ll always remember it, George.”

  His hand runs along the length of her arm and Amy’s breathing deepens while her heart beats faster. She thinks again of Dr. Berg’s suggestions to manage flashbacks and inhales another slow breath. The last thing she wants is to worry George on this perfect day. But when he turns her around and his hands cradle her face, she is almost panic-stricken—visualizing the sea, the boardwalk, anything, anything at all, to stall what is coming straight at her. His eyes meet hers as he moves a wisp of hair from her cheek, and she hopes he doesn’t notice how, wordlessly, she is trying to stop the flashback building with each touch of his hand on her skin. When he tips her face up and leans close, when she feels his mouth on hers, his breath near, hears him whisper her name, the flashback wins. It starts at her toes, tingling, no matter how hard her bare feet press into the ground.

  It’s important to know that the brain remembers in many ways. Just a certain touch can stimulate a trigger. And so she lets it happen; there is no use fighting it as this persistent flashback completely overwhelms her. It has taken all day, a constant back-and-forth struggle that has become too strong to resist. Finally, finally she fills with the flashback that comes with his every touch, fills with the bittersweet memory she lost a year ago, a flashback of being in love.

  * * *

  George lies in the dark room and senses the night just outside Amy’s bedroom window. His arm holds her close and he kisses the top of her head while she sleeps. A soft breeze reaches in through the open window and he looks toward the sky through a shadow of swag lace curtains framing the windowpanes, the dark outside pale with moonlight. He takes her hand and cups it in his, to his chest, while she sleeps. Their bodies are still now, hers pressed to his beneath the sheet on this summer night.

  He closes his eyes, thinking of the past hour and loving her even more, yet fearing what that might mean. Fearing the crime drawing even closer. The curtain moves again with a slight breeze. A rustling of tree leaves murmurs in the dark.

  But there is something else he hears, not recognizing it for a long moment. Amy stirs and his hand strokes her hair.

  He knows then, with that touch, with her so fully in his life now, what it is he hears. The crickets’ song, the night owl call, all sounds of the countryside have stopped. The life outside the window, in Amy’s yard and out past the farm fields, pauses with a long silence, the way it will when a predator is in the midst.

  Eighteen

  AMY AWAKENS TO A SOFT sound, one reassuring and puzzling. Its high pitch seems like the happy squeal of young children, a sweet vibrato. She closes her eyes and allows herself the luxury of picturing Grace at the beach the day before. Her beautiful laugh stil
l rings clear in memory. But while lying in bed with only a cool sheet covering her, she recognizes the other sound she’s hearing. It’s her teakettle. The steamy whistle reaches from the kitchen and spreads through the upstairs like a wispy cloud.

  It must be George. He must be in the kitchen cooking something for breakfast or setting the table. Earlier, in her sleep, she felt his kiss on her lips when he bent over and said Good morning before he left the room. He’d been up with the sun, needing to stop home and get to his shop early. She sits up, wanting to see him now, before he leaves. Wanting to still feel his arms around her, to hear his whispered words that came in the dark the night before.

  But the sun shines too bright for daybreak. With a quick glance at the clock, she tosses back the sheet and gets her robe from the closet. It is almost nine. George would have left hours ago.

  The insistent teakettle whistle brings an alarming image to mind of the stove flame licking at her daughter’s summer pajamas, sparks flickering up to her fine blonde hair as Grace swats at the burning fabric. But her daughter knows not to play with the stove. She slips into her bathrobe and pulls the sash tight around her waist while hurrying to Grace’s bedroom, finding her still asleep, her sheets bunched at her feet, Bear lying on the floor.

  And Amy’s heart drops with the realization of her own fragmented frame of mind. Did she sleepwalk with a flashback, returning to bed after lighting the flame on a kettle of water? She can’t continue to jeopardize her daughter like this, so she returns to her bedroom, picks up the telephone on her nightstand and dials The Main Course. Maybe George knows.

  * * *

  George sits at his office desk placing orders with meat vendors. School let out and the barbecues will be firing up at backyard graduation parties. He rose at dawn, stopped home only to shower and change into his black and white work clothes, and left right away for his shop, buying a bagel on the way. Now the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and the sounds of Sinatra fill his office as he hangs up with one of the vendors. The phone rings as soon as he sets it down and he nearly topples his coffee in his quick reach for it.