by Lisa Fenwick
Walking back to the rental car I considered again going out for a beer, but it just didn’t seem interesting. A little nip of local moonshine would have been another story. Lucy had some connection that kept her supplied with a wickedly fierce white lightning, which she’d infuse with black currants and herbs to make it “medicinal.” I wondered if anybody at the burial would have a flask of it and if they’d let me have a little sip.
Instead, I opted for another drive. The border with Georgia was just a few miles away, where I could get into the Chattahoochee National Forest then up to the Nantahala in North Carolina. I switched on the GPS, picked a couple small towns as waypoints, and told it to plot a route through them. A few seconds later, there was a happily irregular, wiggly line on the screen. I made a quick stop on the way out of town to top off the Cayenne’s tank, grabbed a bottle of iced tea and a pack of cashews to munch on for the drive, and I rolled out.
I got back to my B&B right at the heart of the dinner hour, feeling mostly refreshed and recovered from my short visit to the funeral home. When I pulled out my phone to see what I might have missed while I was gone, there were no messages from Ashley. I breathed a huge sigh of relief after I took a second scroll through my calls, texts, and emails and didn’t see her name anywhere.
There was a call from Amy, though. I opened my voicemail and watched the words flow across the screen.
I hope the day is going as well as it can under the circumstances. If you need to read some friendly words in real time, I will be available all afternoon and evening. Left to my own I turn in by nine most nights, but I will leave my ringer on tonight. Take care, and I’m looking forward to bringing Smokey over to run with Boy when you get back.
After reading her message, I sprawled out on the bed. The bed I was in was soft, the room was pleasantly warm, and the early evening sun was filling it with that magical golden light. I let my mind wander for a little bit on the idea of having Amy curled up beside me, her head on my shoulder, our dogs nestled up together on the floor.
After indulging in that fantasy for a while, I picked my phone up again. I started to key in Amy’s number, but yet again I failed to hit the dial button. Instead, I called the kennel. They assured me that Boy was doing well and was socializing with the other dogs just fine. As soon as I disconnected, I found myself going for Amy’s number again. But this time, I didn’t stop myself.
“Noah?”
I couldn’t help but be impressed that the app had learned Amy’s voice well enough after just a few phone conversations to catch the rising inflection and put the question mark in.
“It is. How are you doing tonight?”
“Enjoying a quiet one. That dude that rents my cottage is out of town, so I can relax knowing that he isn’t going to need me to run over for anything.”
“Great! He sounds like a pain! I just checked in with the kennel. Boy sounds like he’s having enough fun that he might not want to come with me when I go to pick him up on Saturday.”
“That’s good. If I ever need to kennel for Smokey, I’ll keep them in mind.”
“And take the risk that he’ll never want to leave either?”
The screen on my phone displayed [Laughter]. Something else I always found amusing about the app. It had no other tag for non-verbal sounds it picked up from the other end of the call.
“I do make the poor pup work hard. Given a choice between coming home with me and staying at a doggy hotel, I’m not sure he’d leave.”
“I honestly don’t think you have anything to worry about. It’s obvious that he loves you more than sunshine and kibble.”
“Him and Boy?” Amy asked.
“Yes. I think Boy will be very happy to get me back. I’m still planning on coming back on Saturday.”
“What time?”
“My flight gets into Boston a little after noon. This gives me three hours or so to get out of Logan and swing by to pick up Boy. I should be back to the cottage between three thirty and four.”
“Moe tears has a special this week on crown roast. Really easy for me to cook and carry over to the cottage.”
I had to laugh at the app’s interpretation of Motier’s. Something to add to its hearing dictionary from the transcript after the call. “Would it be easier to cook it at the cottage than to bring it over?”
“It would. But only if you wouldn’t mind me being in the cottage for a few hours while you’re gone.”
“Not at all. It would be nice to come back to warmth in the cottage and good food. I never complimented you last time for the chicken. It was delicious.”
“You just said that so I would cook some more for you.”
“Maybe?” I teased, and I found that each word made me smile that much more.
“How is everything going for you today?”
“I was a little bit unsettled at the funeral home. Some of the old pictures were hard to look at.” As I said that, I remembered the one picture in particular on Ashley’s board that had bothered me. The long drive had almost dispelled that one from my mind. “I got through it without falling apart, and my ex kept her distance as she’d offered. I straightened out a bunch of roads afterwards, which helped a lot.”
“Straightened out some roads?”
“Slang for riding hard on a twisty road.”
“I can think of almost nothing I’d enjoy less, but I’m very happy that it has helped you today.”
I remembered her telling me about the car accident she was in as a young girl and could imagine that she’d want no part of that type of driving. “Well, I’m sure there are things you do to take care of yourself that I’d be averse to as well.”
“Probably. Maybe we’ll find out what some of them are.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“I’m glad you called. I was worried.”
“I’m glad that you called today, too, Amy. It was really good to know you’re thinking of me. Have a good night, and I’ll talk to you some time tomorrow. I’ll be taking a day trip up into the Smoky Mountains after the burial and spending one more night here before I fly out on Saturday.”
“I’ll be here. Take care of yourself.”
“Always,” I said and disconnected the call.
I had another call to make, to Mom. I’d hardly spoken to her since I’d been in Berwick, sure she’d call, and I’d text to say that I’d call her back. I even forgot to tell her about the funeral. I didn't want her to worry. She didn’t deserve that, and I had to be a good son. She had no one left apart from me, and so far I felt as if I was abandoning her, which wasn’t right.
◆◆◆
Old Lucy Norton got herself a second perfect day. As we left the church after the funeral service, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was early enough in the season that the air was pleasantly warm but not stuffy in the absence of a breeze. I was able to leave my coat in the car and be comfortable in just my suit jacket.
At the cemetery, I found a knot of people standing a little bit back from the seats set aside for family. I recognized a few faces from the day before at the visitation but nobody I’d ever talked to. There was enough of a crowd where I was standing that I could easily slip behind them and be completely hidden from where I knew Ashley would be sitting.
The graveside service was quick without being rushed, and soon after, it broke up. I saw Ashley’s back retreating with some of the other relatives, so I allowed myself to step to the side of the grave and wish the old matron one more goodbye before heading back to the rental car. I was most of the way there when I caught sight of Ashley out of the corner of my eye, clearly moving to intercept me. I could have bolted for it, but I couldn’t imagine being that undignified in Lucy’s presence. I swallowed hard and found myself grabbing for my phone.
Ashley waved at me with some small and meek body language, as if asking to approach. I gave her a small nod.
“Hi,” she said, when she got right to the edge of where she knew I could read lips well.
I just
nodded again.
“Thank you for coming down. I know it was a hard decision for you to make, to come down knowing I’d be here too. But I thought it was what Grandma would have wanted.”
“I agree,” I said, offering nothing more.
“You know, I’ve missed you a lot.”
“I did too. For a while,” I said. “I’m not living in New York anymore. I sold the apartment, but you know that, seeing as you claimed that you were due some of the proceeds of the sale.”
That was another thing she did, which annoyed me. I’d bought the apartment she was renting when she moved into mine. We split the bills. She never paid anything toward the home loan. She had helped decorate by putting furniture in the place, but for some reason she’d contested that she was owed some proceeds of the sale. At the time, I was brokenhearted and agreed, but afterwards I regretted it. Even now, it brought back bad feelings about her, something that I wanted to avoid, especially now.
“Anyway, I took a leave of absence from the firm,” I said, quickly changing the subject so I didn’t get annoyed with her.
“Where did you end up?”
“Away for a while.”
“Somewhere nice, I hope?” Ashley asked. Her left hand looked completely bare without the engagement ring on it. I looked at her throat, and she was not wearing a necklace. For years, even before we’d gotten engaged, she wore a twisted silver chain that I’d bought for her. Every morning she would pick out a different pendant for it. She’d stopped wearing the engagement ring in the couple of weeks between breaking the engagement and when she got the last of her stuff out of the apartment. But even then, she’d still worn the necklace.
“Yes.” I really wanted to get out of the conversation.
Ashley suddenly frowned and pulled her phone out of her pocket. I saw her swipe at the screen with a frustrated look on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said as she dropped her phone back into her pocket. As near as I could tell, she didn’t realize that while she’d been swiping at the screen, she’d mouthed, “F off, Scott.”
“Anyway,” Ashley said, looking up at me. “I was wondering when you’re heading back. Do you have time to maybe get a drink, talk a bit?” I knew her body language. The tilt of her head, the coy smile, hands going behind her back, her whole body leaning sideways. That was her flirtation pose.
“No,” I said as the pieces started falling into place.
When I was in the hospital after the attack and they told me nothing of mine had been taken. The police report was clear on that. What the police report mentioned, and I found it strange at the time, was on the inventory sheet from the hospital, I’d brought in two phones in my possession.
The picture on Ashley’s board at the visitation—the one that bothered me. It was of Ashley, without her engagement ring, without the silver necklace, but with Scott. My oldest best friend, who’d been one of the first to back away from me after the attack.
Ashley mouthing, “F off, Scott,” right in front of me.
“What?” Ashley asked.
“Like a flash of lightning, it’s all coming back. You and Scott.”
“Did you ever remember? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. How sorry I am about all of that.”
I could feel my hands in my pockets trembling, and my knees threatened to buckle. Things were coming back, memories, from the lost days before the attack.
Except it wasn’t an unprovoked attack. I’d gotten up in the face of somebody much bigger than me and who carried himself like a man who was used to beating down other men. I’d gotten into it with him because I was drunk, and I was drunk that day because I’d come home unexpectedly from work to find my fiancée and best friend in bed together. I’d taken Scott’s phone and discovered it wasn’t just a little thing about Ashley’s needs not being met while the Cruckson case had been going on. The two of them had been seeing each other behind my back for a few years.
“Ashley…”
“You’re just now remembering?” she asked, taking a careful step away from me. “It’s just coming back now? Literally right now?”
“Get away from me for good!” I snarled.
Chapter Fifteen
Amy
The Present
I heard Noah’s ringtone, and I picked up immediately.
“Hello!” I said, really excited to hear from him. “I’d expect you to still be out driving right now. You’ve got plenty of daylight left.”
“I’m actually at the airport right now, trying to rebook my flight. I want to come home as soon as possible.”
He’d said the word home. I wasn’t sure whether he’d been talking about my cottage again or New York. He was clearly in a very bad place. I could tell, because his voice had gone flat and toneless.
“What happened?” I asked. I knew that Ashley must have done something. I’d never met her, but right then, the anger I had toward her was immeasurable.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Noah said.
“Start wherever you want to. I’m here for you.”
I heard him take a few long breaths to steady himself. “Well, to start, yes, she did try to open the door. Maybe to getting back together, maybe to close the book or something. I don’t know. I didn’t let her get that far.”
I didn’t want to admit to having feelings for Noah. It would have simply been the advice of a friend. But since I had let my mind and heart consider things with him, it was also coming from a place of jealousy. I didn’t want that woman who shoved him out of her life and broke his heart to be coming around somebody I wanted to get to know much better.
“Don’t worry, Amy. I’m done with her. Done for good,” Noah said.
“This isn’t just about being around her and having the wounds of the breakup opened up again, is it?”
“No,” he said, and I heard him breathe heavily again. “Much more than that.”
I slid off of the couch and onto the floor. I patted the carpet next to me, and Smokey trotted over to lie down with his head in my lap. I suspected I’d need the big guy’s support for the conversation.
“I think the best way to describe it is that I got a couple of keys that unlocked some memories.”
“The missing days before you were attacked?”
“The missing days, but I wasn’t mugged. I’d gotten into a drunken fight with some sort of street brawler or something. I started it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I was stupid drunk and just stupid in general, because that day, I’d found out Ashley and my best friend had been fucking and not just once.”
“Oh,” was all I could get out.
“Yeah, the crazy part is I don’t know what I was thinking—any normal person would have stormed in on them and then had it out. But I didn’t. I just did some crazy shit that day. It was weird,” Noah said.
“It was like a lightning bolt. Everything just came into place. All the memories I had suppressed like a Pandora’s box, were open. It’s insane!”
“Noah, I know that feeling too well. I was the same after the accident. Apparently, it’s normal.”
He sighed. “Yeah, but with you, it happened after a few weeks. This has taken well over a year, nearly going on two. I had to call Mom to get the rest of the details filled in, because I knew that I’d never be able to hold anything together if I didn’t get myself as far from Ashley as fast as I could.”
“Your mom knew?” I asked.
“She kept as much hidden from me as possible. She didn't want me to deal with Scott and Ashley as well as losing my hearing.” Noah went on to tell me about how he’d swiped the phone as he left the apartment and had it for quite some time before his best friend figured it out.
“Mom was exceptionally concerned about appearances and my career and the intersection of the two. She knew that if it ever came out that I’d gotten injured by getting drunk and throwing down against a stranger much bigger than me, I’d lose face and my future with the law firm. So, she jumped right
in and took control of everything. The benefits of having money and being able to pay the right people to keep their mouths shut.”
Noah paused. In the background, I heard a flight being announced. “She’s a very smart woman. When she recognized that I was carrying Scott’s phone, which had been reported stolen, that Scott had called her during the day wondering where I was, that Ashley was in a panic wondering where I was all day. Well, she figured it out right away. As soon as Ashley got to the hospital, Mom pinned her down and got the whole story out of her. Being the widow of a really good lawyer and a manipulative old bat, Mom could drop threats of legal action better than even I can. She put the fear of fifteen different gods into Ashley and pretty much dictated the script of how she was going to leave me over the next few weeks and get out of my life never to return.”
“There's a small part of me that can understand what your mom was thinking, but I can’t imagine doing anything like that. For what Ashley’s infidelity cost you, you at least deserved to know the truth,” I said.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “That wouldn’t be Mom’s style, though, and it made sense why we were never that close. We were a little after Dad died, but since I’ve been in Berwick, I haven’t felt the need to call her. I haven’t felt so alone.”
“I wish I knew what else to say,” I told him.
“Really, just listening to me tell you about it helps a lot.”
“I imagine. I still wish there was more that I could do for you. I can’t imagine suddenly finding out that some parts of my life were one lie plastered on top of the lie that my life had been for years before that.”
“I wish I knew what you could say to make me feel better.”
“Would you like me to move our dinner plans up to this evening?”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Noah said. “I won’t be good company tonight. I’ve called the kennel about picking Boy up a day early. I think I’m going to do that and spend the night being miserable with just my dog for company.”