I still couldn’t believe Ash had sneaked out like that, and then had the audacity to accuse me of suffocating him, when the only thing I’d done was care for him since he’d come home, put him first, as I always had. He deserved the iciest of shoulders for his actions, plus a reminder of how much he needed me. I’d make him grovel a little, but I already knew I’d forgive him. He wasn’t himself, and I understood why, but I wouldn’t have him hurt me like that again.
I unlocked the garage and went inside, taking in the familiar scent of polish and sawdust, all of it steadying my nerves. Most of the wood I’d found the last time I’d gone to the beach was twisted and gnarled, things I’d turn into fruit bowls and key rings, maybe a small sculpture or two, and a few of the pieces were ideal for candleholders. I’d transform another log by cutting it into discs and burning pictures of pine cones and trees into them. Once polished, they’d become sets of coasters, which always did well at Drift. Tourists were willing to pay as much as fifty bucks for a set, half of which Barbara gave me, and they took no time at all to make. My sculptures could fetch as much as four hundred, depending on size and intricacy. One of them, an eagle, had gone for double, and if I started selling online, I’d get all the cash.
Ash had always marveled at my ability to see things in the raw pieces others couldn’t, how I transformed what would have otherwise been ignored detritus into works of art. He’d called it a gift, boasted about my skills to anyone who’d stand still long enough to listen. For a few months after he’d left, I hadn’t worked on my art at all, and then it had become sporadic at best. I’d start a piece and throw it away only to try again. Things had improved over time, but since Ash’s return, I saw the potential in every piece of wood, and felt the rush of excitement I’d thought might be lost forever. Ash had brought my magic touch back home with him. It was just another reason why I had to make sure he stayed in Newdale, and why Lily had to leave.
I lined up my tools and protective gear, deciding I’d push Ash to start the garage renovation. I’d insist he work slowly, but knowing him, he wouldn’t. Either way, it would keep him close while I was working on my pieces. We’d spend more time together, not to mention the project would be a distraction from Lily’s arrival and, hopefully, her equally swift departure.
I was about to switch on my band saw when I heard a car pull up in the driveway. Lily couldn’t possibly be coming over this early. Maybe it was Keenan, drunk and on the prowl for more trouble. I wouldn’t have put it past either of them, but whichever one it was, I’d had enough. They needed to get out of our lives.
I stomped to the garage door, ready to tell whomever to turn around and leave, but when I got there and pulled it open, my feet rooted themselves to the ground.
It was Lily. She stood in my driveway with another huge, sugar-sweet smile on her tanned face, and Ash was with her. With her. Not upstairs in the house where he was supposed to be. He was in the driveway, staring at Lily, neither of them noticing me behind them, openmouthed and in the doorway. How the fuck had this happened, and when? I’d hidden the car keys in my closet after he’d gone to bed. Besides, my Nissan was still where Ash had dumped it when he’d come home from his late-night escapade.
Transfixed, unable to move, I watched as he whispered something to her. She touched his chest and put her head back, laughing. The intimacy between them. The proximity. The way he stared at her. I knew that look, had seen it a thousand times. First with Celine, and again when he’d been with Kate. Entranced, mesmerized, whatever you wanted to call it, but I knew what it meant. She’d got to him. And he’d let her.
How could things be moving so quickly when until yesterday he hadn’t remembered Lily existed? I knew the brain and heart could do strange things at times, and not always in conjunction, but she’d ensnared him overnight. The burning fury bubbling at the surface made me choke. He must have sneaked out again after our argument. They’d spent the night together, no question, but had he been with her? Ash had never seemed interested in one-night stands, had once told me he needed to feel a connection with someone to sleep with them. Did he feel something for Lily? Was he going to leave me again? Go back to Brookmount with her?
I wanted to shout at her to leave, scream at Ash, remind him I’d been the one whose number he’d remembered when he woke up on the beach, I’d been the one he’d called. Even through my rage I knew it wouldn’t work. That kind of behavior would rally them against me. I had to be smart. Whatever was going on between them had only just begun, and Lily had instigated it. Ash was vulnerable. She’d taken advantage of him, and if the encounters between her and me thus far had been battles only I had known were being fought, as of now I’d wage an outright war. Wars meant collateral damage. But that was on Lily. It was her fault. She was the one who’d come here. She was the one who wouldn’t leave things alone. Anything and everything I did would be her responsibility.
Ash and Lily disappeared into the house, walking close together, still chatting, not even throwing a backward glance. I counted slowly under my breath, forcing myself to get to at least thirty and to keep going until I couldn’t stand it any longer. At fifty-two I strode to the house, repeating I had to keep my cool. Fake it ’til you make it. This was a long-term play.
I opened the front door and walked into the kitchen with a well-honed smile slinking across my face. Ash had his back turned and was in the process of digging two mugs out of the cupboard while Lily flicked on the kettle as if she’d been here, in my house, a million times. She must have heard me come in, and when she turned around, had a startled look on her face.
“Maya,” she said, her grimace easing as she took in my relaxed expression. “We, uh—”
“I spent the night at the Harbor Inn,” Ash said, matter-of-fact.
“I didn’t hear you leave again. I thought you were still asleep.” I congratulated myself on how calm I sounded, not aloof or indifferent, but curious. “Ash, can I talk to you?” I gestured to the hallway and as he followed me, I decided to change tack. Making him grovel with Lily around wasn’t going to work. “About our argument last night,” I said, bowing my head. “I was worried when I got up and you weren’t home. I was scared.”
“I understand,” Ash said. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that, it was wrong.”
“So, we’re okay?” I said, looking up at him.
“We’re fine, I promise.” He glanced toward Lily, smiling. And just like that, as he headed back into the kitchen with me following behind, I became the proverbial third wheel, exactly as I had when he’d started hanging out with Celine and then Kate. More anger bubbled beneath my cheery facade, threatening to crack it clean down the middle.
“I’ll get back to work in a minute and I have a shift at the Cliff’s Head later,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. “What are you doing, Ash?”
“Not sure,” he said. “Out for a drive or a walk somewhere. Maybe check out the beach.”
“The beach?” I said. “Considering what happened?”
“Yeah. I can’t explain it, but Lily and I got talking and I realized I miss the water. Anyway, we haven’t decided.”
We. I needed to intervene before they made themselves a dainty little picnic and skipped toward sandy shores and blue skies as if we were in the middle of a vomit-inducing romantic comedy. “Oh, well, actually I was hoping you’d start working on the garage.”
“We’re building a proper storage room for Maya,” Ash explained, as if Lily needed to know. She didn’t, not when I’d make sure she wouldn’t be sticking around town long enough to see its completion. “And we’re adding a shower.”
“Can I help?” she said, her voice eager and bubbly, like an annoying puppy bounding around, looking for attention. “I used to when you worked on the kitchens.”
He opened his mouth to say something but when he looked at her, he frowned. He crossed his arms, a sly smile spreading over his face. “Only if
you don’t run a paint roller over my back again.”
Lily stared at him, her lips forming a perfect O in surprise. “You remember that?”
“It’s real? It happened?”
“Yes! I couldn’t help it. You’d taken your shirt off. It was the perfect—”
“Blank canvas,” they said at the same time. A beat passed before they burst out laughing, both of them babbling how exciting it was he’d remembered something new, something so recent, because the paint-meets-naked-back incident had been only a few months ago. I stared at him. His anger at me from the night before had long melted away, his happiness fully restored. By her.
“I’d love your help.” Ash was beaming now. “We can get the supplies and—”
“You shouldn’t trouble yourself with that stuff, Lily,” I said, needing to remind them of my existence.
“Oh, no, it’s no trouble,” she said, smiling. “I’d be happy to help, make sure he doesn’t do too much, too soon. He told me about the concussion. I know he has to be careful.”
“Great, I’ll show you the plans.” Ash turned to her, the bubble of intimacy enveloping them again. I had to get out of there before I threw something. As I muttered about seeing them later and left the kitchen, the air behind me shifted. The relief they felt over my departure was palpable and so thick, I could have served them a slice of it for breakfast. They didn’t want me here. My heart pinched as I pretended to go upstairs before tiptoeing back, getting close enough to hear.
“See? There was nothing to worry about,” Ash said. “She’s overprotective, that’s all. I’m sure once you get to know her, you’ll really like her. Anyway, about the garage...”
As their conversation changed to the project and I crept away, I heard a soft ding coming from Lily’s bag in the hallway. I leaned toward the kitchen, but she and Ash were talking about framing and plasterboard, and she hadn’t heard her phone. I bent over and retrieved it, read the message twinkling on the screen from someone called Sam.
How are things? How’s Jack?
I slid my finger across the phone, tut-tutting at Lily’s lack of proper security as the screen lit up with apps. It quickly became clear she and Sam were nothing more than friends, which was a shame because if she’d been seeing someone else, it would’ve helped me. I scrolled up, reading through more of her messages, did a double take when I found one from her boss. He apologized for having to let her go, and in another, told her he’d have to delay paying her two weeks’ severance. A third text was from her landlord, saying she could have an extra week to pay this month’s rent. Lily had replied she’d get the money as quickly as possible, but when the landlord had inquired the day before if a payment was looking likely, Lily had left the message unanswered.
I flicked through her photos, the green-eyed monster inside me surging to epic proportions as I saw picture after picture of Lily and Ash. At the beach, a bar, a movie. At a restaurant, ax-throwing, celebrating his birthday. It seemed wherever they went, whatever they did, there was a picture of the two of them smooshed together, her looking up at him with those fucking puppy eyes. It made me sick to think of them spending all this time together when I was here at the house, fretting over Ash’s well-being. This was her fault. He might have left Newdale, but she’d kept him in Maryland. If it hadn’t been for her, he’d have come home.
Standing in the hallway clutching her cell, it took every ounce of willpower I had to not delete her photos or hurl the thing on the floor and watch it shatter into a hundred satisfying pieces. Fingers trembling, I tucked the device into her bag and went back to the garage, where I sat on my bench, picked up a knife and started cutting into a piece of wood, slicing deeper and deeper. As I worked, I thought about the fact Lily had lost her job. It was a strike against me; she no longer had time constraints forcing her back to Maryland. However, from her boss and landlord’s messages it sounded as if she was broke. A point in my favor, something I could, and would, use. A plan of how to get rid of Lily formed in my mind. Her Newdale vacation wouldn’t last. With what I had in mind she’d be gone within the week.
25
ASH
Before Maya left for her shift at the Cliff’s Head, she came into the living room and hugged me first before giving Lily a hesitant embrace. “It’s so nice to see you happy,” she said to me, and I was glad we’d moved past last night’s argument. Given the circumstances, I hadn’t known what to expect when I’d shown up at the house with Lily. I knew Maya felt awkward about her arrival in town, and although I sympathized, I’d decided she’d just have to deal with it.
As I grabbed a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt upstairs, the thought of Lily being here in the house with me made me smile, and I headed back to the kitchen, where she stood by the sink with her back to me, staring out the window.
When I approached, she turned around and the light streaming in behind her lit up her hair like a golden halo. Man, she was beautiful. My belly clenched, which was ridiculous considering we’d dated for ages, but as heat rose to my cheeks I crossed over to the cupboard and pretended to look for something so she couldn’t see my face. Spending the night with her had felt relaxed and comfortable, like being with a good friend I happened to also find very attractive. I’d wanted to kiss her on more than one occasion, but what would she have thought if a man who claimed to have no memory of her tried to get it on anyway? No clue how good or bad I’d been at relationships before, but either way, it would’ve been a crass move. Thankfully, Lily interrupted my thoughts of what kissing her might have led to by asking if I wanted to have a look at the garage so we could finalize the plans, and we headed outside.
It didn’t take long for us to move Maya’s workbench, band saw, sander and nail gun out of the way so I could get a proper look at the framing Maya had worked on a while ago. She told me she’d made a start after I’d left only to abandon the project midway, her motivation having disappeared. It gave me another reason to do this for her because I sensed my departure had affected her even more deeply than she cared to admit. I grabbed my tape measure and some chalk I’d found, ready to mark the outline for the new shower pan. As I looked at the cracked tiles an image hit me. Maya laughing at the old pattern as she removed them and threw them into a pile in the corner. I pressed my eyes shut. I’d worked in here with my father, not her. It had to be another false memory, another stupid confabulation, just like when I’d believed he’d loved soccer.
“What’s this?” Lily said, pulling me out of the thoughts.
When I looked over, I saw her pointing to the floor where she’d rolled up the tatty orange rug I’d tripped over the other day. I frowned at the sight of a trapdoor in the floor. It was about three feet wide and had a large, rusty metal ring.
“Let’s find out,” I said, pulling the door open to reveal a thin wooden ladder propped against the top frame, and which disappeared into the darkness.
Lily pressed the switch on the inside of the trapdoor and within an instant the faint glow of a light bulb emanated from below. “I’m going to check it out,” she said, her face full of excitement, and she clambered onto the rickety ladder with me following behind.
What turned out to be a kind of storage room underneath the garage was a little over a hundred square feet, and apart from a few dusty shelves, a broken lamp and some empty beer bottles in the corner, there was nothing inside.
“Well, this is a bit disappointing,” Lily said. “I was hoping for treasure or an expensive wine collection or something. Oh, well...” She made her way up the first couple of rungs of the ladder before looking at me over her shoulder. “Are you coming? Ash...?”
Her voice faded away as the scent of the earthy ground filled my nose and lungs, the musty air taking me back to the decrepit house I’d hidden in next to the petrol station, and the flashback I’d had of someone playing hide-and-seek.
“Maya,” I whispered. “It was Maya.”
“What do you mean?” Lily stood next to me now, her hand on my arm.
“She wanted to play hide-and-seek with me all the time and I’d indulge her, even though I moaned and complained and said I was too old. I used to hide—” I pointed to the corner “—over there, so when she opened the trapdoor she couldn’t see me.”
“Ash, this is amazing.”
“Providing it happened,” I said, explaining what the doctors had told me about confabulation and false memories, which Lily had never heard of, either, and finishing with, “That’s why I never know if what I’m experiencing is real.”
“Do you remember anything else? Maybe I can help?”
“Blueberry pancakes,” I said with a smile. “For whatever reason, you remind me of blueberry pancakes.”
“From Patti’s,” she whispered. “It’s a café in Brookmount. We’d get blueberry pancakes whenever we went, or you’d bring them to my place, and we’d eat them in bed.”
I scrunched my eyes shut again, trying to force an image, but nothing appeared. “This is almost worse than not remembering anything at all,” I said. “Having stuff come back but not knowing if it really happened, having to verify everything with other people, almost having to ask permission to allow whatever images to stay in my brain. Jesus, it’s so frustrating.”
“But you’ve just experienced a few memories in a row, Ash, that’s huge, and two of them—the paint and the pancakes—are definitely real. More will come if you give it time, they have to. I know it’s stupid to say you should chill out, but...”
As I looked at her, I felt the same sense of calm I’d experienced when we’d sat outside the bar, and again at the motel. “You’re right,” I said, hoping it was the truth, and headed for the ladder. “How about we go to town and pick up the stuff for the garage? Maybe we’ll find a new pancake place, too.”
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