Across from her, a muscle pulsed in Eli’s jaw.
“Yes, that’s right. He mentioned that. Where’s your husband? Will he be here?”
For a second, it felt fresh and raw. She hadn’t had to tell anyone for so long. But the answer might raise too many questions. “No,” she said quietly.
“Which one is your son?” Noelle asked.
“Number eleven. He’s playing the baseline right now.”
“He’s got great hands for a forward. And boxes out really well. He just made a jump shot.”
“Your Kirby isn’t bad either. He’s been starting guard since his sophomore year. He’s really nailing his three-point shot this season. But basketball runs in your family. Kyle was all-state, and they won the state championship. I think there’s a trophy in the case. I’ll show you at halftime.”
“Thank you, Lee.”
Eli glanced at her too, warmth in his eyes.
Lee let it sink in, possibly too much, as she turned back to the game. Noelle had no idea what a treasure she had in that man.
Kirby managed to swish five three-pointers, Derek driving for the basket for sixteen points before the first half ended. The Huskies topped the Blue Streaks by four points going into the locker rooms.
Lee nudged Noelle. “C’mon. I’ll show you those trophies.”
“I could go for a bag of popcorn. It smells fabulous.”
Noelle hated popcorn. At least ever since she’d cracked her tooth on an unpopped kernel at a game a few years ago, when Kelsey played volleyball.
Lee led her down the bleachers, Eli rising behind them. They hit the floor as the band began to play.
“Hey, Noelle, wait up!”
Lee turned to run interference as Jill Markson caught up. Her son played fullback for the Huskies but rode the bench most of the basketball games.
“I was wondering if you’d fill in on concessions for me next week,” Jill said. “Brandon is playing on JV and their game is scheduled during the slot I volunteered for.”
Noelle’s eyes widened and she drew in a breath.
“I’ll do it,” Lee said quickly. “No problem.”
“Thanks, Lee,” Jill said. She made to turn away but then glanced back at Noelle. “I heard that you fell on the ice or something. Are you okay? I missed you at spinning this morning.”
Noelle nodded, but Lee could see her smile didn’t touch her eyes. “Just fine. Thanks.”
Jill scooted off and Lee looped her arm through Noelle’s. “Jill Markson. She runs the fitness center. And is the spin instructor.”
“Spin instructor?”
“Stationary bicycles. We call it spinning.”
“So that was my 8 a.m. appointment at the fitness center. Eli and I spent the day poring over my weekly schedule. I do a lot of volunteering—the school reading program, the library committee, the thrift store, and I also work at the care center?”
“You read to the folks there. And help some of the more able seniors in assisted living with art projects.”
“Art? So . . . I haven’t completely given up painting?” There was a desperation in Noelle’s tone that stopped Lee.
“Uh . . . Noelle, I’ve only known you well for about five years, but really, you’ve mostly been a mom. I don’t know anything about you doing any painting.”
Noelle swallowed, her face pale.
Eli had come to stand behind her, wearing a stricken expression.
It almost looked like guilt.
Noelle drew in a long breath. “Show me the trophies.”
Lee glanced at Eli as she led Noelle to the hallway. Jammed with people, it smelled of popcorn oil, pizza, and hot dogs on a roller grill, and her stomach roared. But she still had venison stew on the stove and would eat with Derek after the game.
She refused to let him eat alone.
She pointed Noelle to the display case. Inside, each sport had its own shelf, except for the football team, which spilled over. Yet there in the center sat the display for Kyle’s championship basketball team, their picture emblazoned on a plaque, the names of the team listed below it. Their trophy sat in the case next to the picture.
Noelle seemed to drink it in. She began to examine the other trophies, moving to the football section, the volleyball team.
The same team that had placed second in state during Kelsey’s junior year.
Oh—
Lee glanced at Eli, who had gone pale.
“Hey, there’s a girl on this plaque with our last name. Hueston. Kelsey Hueston.” Noelle turned to Eli. “Do we have relatives here?”
Lee wanted to cry for him. Because as much as she disagreed with this abhorrent idea of keeping Kelsey from Noelle, how much more tragic for Eli to have to erase his daughter too.
“Not anymore,” he said quietly.
Lee closed her eyes. She let the noise of the crowd, the kids’ voices, the sounds of the community fill her. Life went so brutally on, left others standing in the dust. Not anymore.
“I’m going to get some popcorn,” Noelle said.
Lee looked at Eli as his wife moved to the concession line. He appeared bereft.
Perhaps she wasn’t the only one alone at this hometown basketball game.
Eli felt like he’d brought home a stranger.
No, worse, he felt like he’d taken her prisoner, returning her to a life she didn’t recognize. A life she didn’t want.
That counted as twice Noelle had asked about painting. Sure, she’d been an art major when he’d met her, but he’d considered it a fill-in major until she might decide to do something real. And to his knowledge, she hadn’t painted anything besides the kids’ rooms their entire marriage.
Who was this woman he’d brought home from the hospital?
He sat in the truck, motor idling, flakes peeling from the dark sky and skimming across his hood, watching Lee move around inside her house. He’d just wanted to make sure she’d arrived home all right after the game.
Today’s excursion into Noelle’s schedule had made him wonder if he knew her at all. Even before the accident. He knew about the spinning, the thrift store, and the school. But her appointments simply didn’t add up. Like the space of time on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 4 p.m. She designated the time as fitness, but when they’d gone to the athletic center in hopes that it might trigger a memory, he checked the schedule.
There were no spinning classes scheduled in that time slot.
And then there was this memo on Friday mornings. Classes. But as she’d stood in the elementary school hallway, examining self-portraits the fourth graders had painted, he’d asked the secretary, who confirmed that no, she didn’t volunteer on Fridays.
It didn’t take his skills as a sheriff to realize that Noelle’s calendar contained unexplained holes.
He watched Lee picking up before she went to bed. Wow, he’d nearly hugged her at the game today when she slipped right into her role as Noelle’s friend . . . and when she stood with him after the potential bomb about Kelsey.
Do we have relatives here?
He cupped his hand over his eyes, let out a trembling breath. Not a flicker of memory about their beautiful daughter.
A knock at the passenger-side window startled him.
Lee stood in the snow, wrapped in a blanket. She opened the door, the cold sliding into the warm cab. “What are you doing out here?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She gave him a look of tenderness that only made the bubble in his chest grow. Then she got in, pulling the door closed behind her. She wore her pajamas under the blanket and a pair of snow boots, snow glistening in her auburn hair, falling over her shoulders.
He looked away. “She didn’t even know Kelsey’s name.”
Lee said nothing.
“And the worst part is, as I sat there at the game listening to her cheer for Kirby, suddenly I felt as if she’d come back to me.” He ran a thumb under his eyes. “She hasn’t cheered in three years. She goes to the games and sits there, says
nothing.”
“I remember when she used to paint her face with Kyle’s number.”
“She lived for the kids’ games, would drive to every one, even if it was five hours away.”
“She was a sports mom—of course she did.”
“But she vanished after Kelsey. And tonight . . . tonight she was back. I thought she was going to run down to the court and start brawling with the refs when they called Kirby on that travel.”
“I could have sworn she offered to help the coach with some tips.” Lee smiled at him. “Yes, she was . . . better. Which sounds strange because she doesn’t even remember Kirby.”
He knew she didn’t mean to bruise, but he felt her words right below his sternum. “Or me. Which frankly, Lee . . . was kind of nice.”
“Oh, Eli, c’mon.”
“I’m serious. She actually high-fived me once, and sitting there, it felt like we were a couple again. Even though, yeah, she considers me the guy who kidnapped her.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“It’s true, though. She keeps asking me about whether she painted anything. Seriously? She never mentioned painting in all the years we were married.”
“Never? Not once?”
He hated how Lee’s words had sharp points tonight, skewering him. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Lee pulled the blanket tighter around her. “I used to play the piano classically; did you know that?”
“Not a clue.”
She smiled. “Clay went to a couple of my recitals, but we couldn’t afford a piano, so I just . . . I quit. I haven’t touched a piano for thirty years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Emma inherited my musical genes. I probably enjoy listening to her play more than if I played myself. But the point is, people let go of things to pursue others. Noelle was a mom. There’s not a lot of room for painting time there.”
“Except maybe there was.” He handed her Noelle’s appointment book. “Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Friday mornings. She wasn’t at fitness class or school.”
She looked at the book, then returned it. “You have no idea where she was?”
He closed the book and stared out the window. “Kyle and I had a terrible fight at the hospital. He said . . .” He clenched his jaw, the words still so sharp they might wound coming out again. “He said I forgot our family long before Noelle did. He said it was my fault she had forgotten everyone.”
“That’s absurd. You were taking care of everyone, Eli.” Gently she reached out and pressed her hand on his arm. “You never abandoned anyone.”
As he looked at her hand, he wanted to slide his over it. She had pretty hands, and suddenly he could imagine them playing the piano. He would have liked listening to her.
“Is it terrible if I hope she doesn’t get her memory back?” He said it so softly, it seemed he might have just thought it.
But Lee drew in her breath, withdrew her hand. “Why?”
He played with the keys on a chain—he’d picked up Noelle’s from the hook, not wanting to dig around the pockets of his coat to find his. She always left her keys just so on the rack. “I liked her tonight. I liked knowing that she’d forgiven me.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Eli.”
His mouth tensed around the edges. Yes, in fact, it was.
“You couldn’t have known that kid was on his way into Deep Haven to cause trouble. You knew him.”
“I trusted him. I should have never let my guard down.”
“That’s what small-town cops do—they have to figure out how to keep the peace and live with their neighbors. You have to stop blaming yourself.”
He fingered each one of the keys. “Tonight, sitting beside Noelle, her memory wiped clean, I did. I felt free. Like I never have to return to that night again.”
“But neither does Noelle.”
He turned to her, thankful he had a friend who would sit in a cold truck listening to him. “And that’s the point. Maybe this is our chance to start over.”
She nodded, her mouth a tight line, but her eyes offering kindness.
He couldn’t help it. He reached out, took her hand, squeezed. “Thanks for listening, Lee. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Noelle could drown in the immensity of her king-size bed. Or freeze to death. She lay in the middle of the bed, curled into a tight ball.
Would it never stop snowing? She watched through the dark window as snow flurried outside, the wind now and again shivering the house.
She’d heard Eli leave an hour ago, shortly after they’d returned home from the game. Not before they’d celebrated the win with Kirby, however. Apparently the Huestons had a tradition of ice cream sundaes after a win.
Now there was something of herself she might recognize. She took a small scoop, nothing decadent—after all, someone had to take care of this body the old Noelle had bequeathed her.
That’s how she saw it somehow. The old Noelle—about whom she could admit feelings of anger—and herself. The woman who had stepped into the molded footsteps that should be her own but still seemed an awkward fit.
She wished she could sense anything—a nudge, a shadow of memory—but as far back as she reached, it seemed she just swatted thin air.
She wanted to remember. Really. Because sandwiched between Eli and Lee tonight, she had sensed that yes, she’d been a part of something bigger than herself. She lost herself in the game, cheering for Kirby and the Huskies, a warmth building inside that she longed to attribute to memory but was probably just the absence of fear.
She belonged here; she could admit that now.
But if they wanted her to stay, someone would have to turn up the heat.
Noelle kicked off the covers and went to the dresser, where she found a pair of wool socks. She added a blue Huskies sweatshirt with the number thirty-five on the back. Probably Kyle’s—she’d noticed his number tonight when reading the trophies.
Kelsey Hueston. The name had lodged into her brain, but for no other reason than Eli’s pale face, the way he appeared, just for a moment, as if she’d slapped him. It seemed an innocuous question—do we have relatives here?
Not anymore.
Maybe Kelsey was a cousin.
She went downstairs to the desk in the kitchen, searched for a phone book, flipped it open to the Huestons. E. Hueston. No others.
Perhaps, like he’d suggested, they’d moved.
She replaced the phone book and patted Riggins, who nudged her knee. Noelle bent down, caught the dog’s jaw in her hands. “Fur, that’s what I need.”
Maybe she could find another blanket. It still felt rude, however, to root through the closets. Nothing felt like it belonged to her. She stopped in the bathroom and opened the closet. Towels, but no extra blankets.
She turned and stood at Kirby’s room a moment, his door ajar, the glow of the snow upon his long, lanky body in bed.
The warmth returned when she looked at him, too.
She stopped at the next door, Kyle’s room. He’d arrived at the end of the game—she saw him walk in wearing his deputy’s uniform. What a handsome man, with that bronze hair, those high cheekbones. He glanced at her, sent her a smile, but didn’t sit with them.
She tried to decide if the feeling inside could be labeled disappointment.
Entering Kyle’s room, she switched on the light and read his various trophies, caught a picture of him with a girl who might have been a date for a homecoming dance. She was pretty—long blonde hair, blue-green eyes. They both stuck their tongues out at the camera.
More pennants lined the walls, along with a framed newspaper article about the state basketball championship. She ran her finger down the image of his senior picture. He sat holding a basketball, his eyes shining. She would like to remember this happy season with him.
Flicking off his light, she crossed the hall to the guest room. The unmade mattress seemed so forlorn in the middle of the room.
She opened the
closet. Behold, blankets. She pulled them down, found a mattress pad and sheets, and smoothed them on the bed. The patchwork quilt bore the colors of the Huskies. Perhaps it had belonged to Kyle—what if she’d made it? A graduation present? Would she have done such a thing?
She returned to the closet and found a pillow, the case still on it. Noelle held it for a moment, then, inexplicably, brought it to her nose. Inhaled. Besides the scent of fabric softener, she smelled something sweet, powdery, almost floral. She inhaled again, and the scent settled into her bones next to that warm place. This was what a home should smell like.
She placed it on the bed, then found a knit afghan on the floor of the closet. This she wrapped around herself like a cloak. It too smelled sweet, floral. Lilac?
The made-up bed had transformed the room to something friendly. Even welcoming. Noelle fluffed the pillow and went to the window. She couldn’t explain it, but the snow seemed to glisten, illuminating even the darkness. Riggins wandered in only to crumple at her feet with a sigh.
She liked this room. Probably because it felt the most like her—forgotten. But it just needed a little redressing, a little patience, a little love.
It hadn’t been lost on her that sitting beside Eli at the game, being around him tonight, had made her feel safe. Or perhaps it was the way he’d driven her into town earlier, helped her sort out her daily schedule. She had a busy life—spinning in the mornings and working with Sharron at the thrift store. Sweet that Eli arranged for Sharron to cover her shifts for the next week. He’d taken her to the school and she’d stared long at the self-portrait paintings the fourth graders had done. She might not be able to accomplish even that right now.
They’d stopped by the care center, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t know the residents’ names. The way they greeted her, some of them with eyes, others with hands that touched hers . . . yes, deep down inside she felt she knew them. Especially the ones who sat in their wheelchairs staring out the window as if wondering where their lives had gone.
One couple in particular moved her. The woman, her white hair like spun sugar upon her head, sat in a wheelchair, her eyes distant. Her husband sat next to her, reading the Bible aloud.
The Shadow of Your Smile Page 11