A Trick of the Light

by Tina Wainscott

  CHAPTER 19

  Dylan opened his eyes and stared at the peak of a ceiling far above him. Chimes sounded nearby, a gentle sound, and something fuzzy brushed against his leg. He felt hazy and heavy inside, as though something was crushing his chest. For a few moments he kept the feeling at bay, an ominous monster hovering just out of reach. He focused on his immediate environment, on the mattress beneath him that was so soft he sunk into it. On the dim morning light filtering in from a window. A drape of pastel fabric hanging from the ceiling moved in an air current. On the warm body lying half on his and the thin layer of sweat where their skin touched. The warmth of the room and the scent of lovemaking.

  He let himself remember in small pieces. She’d been shivering outside on the dock, and in his groggy sleep he’d tried to cover her with his body. He’d realized his skin was chilled too, that he needed to get her inside. And they’d made love again on this bed, without words or thought, just a blind reaching out, a burning need.

  The monster loomed closer as he remembered docking the boat and Chloe coming into his arms. The gaping ache in his chest that she’d temporarily filled.

  The reason for the ache.

  Teddy. He squeezed his eyes shut. His son was probably dead, and he’d made love with Chloe. Guilt stripped away his numbness, and red-hot pain ripped through his chest. What kind of cold animal was he?

  He sat up, and she opened her eyes. She touched his arm, a tender look on her face.

  “Don’t …” he said, pushing her hand away. He got out of bed, found his pants and pulled them on. Gypsy, the fuzzy thing he’d felt, stretched and jumped off the bed.

  “Dylan, don’t shut me out,” Chloe said, wrapping her nakedness in a sheet and getting to her feet. “Talk to me. I’m here for you.” She looked like a waif with mussed hair and flushed cheeks.

  “My son is probably dead, and what did I do? I had sex with a woman.” She winced at the generic statement. He looked at her, then away. “With you. If that doesn’t prove how cold I am —” He ran his hand over his face. “You were right. I don’t have enough to give my son — or anyone.

  She grabbed both arms and gripped them hard. “It proves I was wrong. You’re human after all. You have a heart.”

  He looked down into those fiery blue eyes. “It proves I don’t have the capacity to love anyone, not even my own son. That in the worst moment of my life, I thought about sex.”

  She winced at the last word. “It proves you needed me last night. That you needed to connect with me, needed the comfort I could give you.”

  He stared at her for a moment, denying that need. “Sex isn’t comfort; it’s sex. I don’t need anyone, Chloe.” She held onto him as he tried to move away. “Let go of me.”

  She let go. “It wasn’t sex, and you know it. When you came here, when you reached for me, it wasn’t because you were … horny.”

  Her eyes implored him to admit what part of him knew to be true. No, it wasn’t true. He had to remind himself that anyone he’d ever needed let him down.

  “Let me be here for you,” she whispered. “Believe in me, Dylan.”

  He shook his head. “I have to look for my son. I have to …” He drank in the desperate look on her face before wrenching away from her.

  “Let me help you. We’ve worked together before —”

  “We’re not a team, Chloe. We never were, and we never will be.”

  And then he left. What he needed was to put distance between them, to separate himself from her and forget the devastated look on her face and the way she’d caved in as though he’d punched her in the stomach. Somehow she’d become entwined in his soul; somehow she’d become a part of him. He couldn’t let that happen.

  He heard her footsteps pounding down the stairs. “Don’t go!”

  Don’t look at her. If you don’t look, you won’t see the pain, and you won’t want to reach for her again. His shoes and socks were still on the dock. An old sweater was draped on the railing. He threw his shoes on the boat and jumped aboard.

  “Dylan, wait!”

  He stopped for a moment, but didn’t look at her. “I know your compulsion to save things. I can’t be saved, Chloe.”

  The sound of the boat’s engine tore through the quiet morning air, sending a flock of egrets into the pink sky. Her next-door-neighbor watched him with curiosity as she watered potted plants. He must look a sight, bearded, disheveled, turning his back on Chloe’s pleas. He knew what he looked like: a monster.

  Wearing the yellow robe she’d thrown on, Chloe shivered in the chill morning air. Way to totally humiliate yourself, Chloe. If she could have persuaded Dylan to stay and hear her out, she could have gotten through that thick head of his.

  He didn’t even look back. She’d hoped for at least a backward glance, one more chance to give him a meaningful look. A look that meant what?

  Love?

  Please, anything but that. She sighed as she watched him head out, single-minded in his actions. That’s when she saw the flash of black and white, and the beloved face in the cabin window. Shakespeare! He must have jumped aboard after they’d fallen asleep. The boat cut through the water and disappeared out of sight.

  Just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, she called him. Only Gypsy appeared, meowing for breakfast. Chloe knelt down and scratched her chin. “What are you saying? If only I could understand you the way Stella does.”

  Well, at least she’d see Dylan one more time.

  “You all right, Chloe?” her next-door neighbor Belle asked, oblivious to the stream of water hitting the dock piling.

  “Just a little … misunderstanding.” She forced a smile, knowing damn well she wasn’t convincing anyone.

  She went inside and started to prepare Gypsy’s food. Ground tuna and the other ingredients went into the blender, but her mind was elsewhere. She looked at the posters sitting on her counter. Teddy smiled back, and she felt the first tear fall. Last night she’d been in too much shock to think about him. She’d been too numb to do anything but soothe Dylan’s pain. Now she let that pain wash over her.

  The pain increased when she remembered reaching up to brush Dylan’s hair back and feeling the wetness of a tear. The bottom had fallen out of her heart. She’d vowed to take away his pain, if just for a little while.

  Forget his pain. You have enough of your own to deal with. She’d never met the boy, but he’d been part of her soul for the last week. Whether it was real or not, he’d been connected to her. Now he was gone. And no matter how Dylan felt about her, she would always be connected in his mind to his son. She’d lost both Dylan and Teddy, and she felt incredibly empty.

  Even though Chloe hated listening to the news, she turned on the radio and soon heard about Teddy. She held her breath as Yochem spoke. He believed Teddy was dead, but they were going to look for him as long as they had resources to do so. He said the body would probably come to the surface in a day or so, if nothing else got to it.

  “You cold bastard,” she said, feeling her insides cave in. Still holding onto the blender, she rocked her head back and let herself go. The pain was so intense, she thought she might shatter into a hundred pieces. Her body went weak, and she sank to the floor. Gypsy climbed onto her lap, anxious to make things right. But nothing would be right again. Chloe held onto her cat and buried her face in the soft fur. She was crying so hard that she hardly heard the phone ring.

  She pulled herself to her wobbly legs and picked it up. The dial tone surprised her, especially when it was followed by another ring coming from her bedroom. She followed the sound until she uncovered Dylan’s cell phone under the blanket on the floor.

  “Hello?” she answered in a barely audible voice, dropping down onto the unmade bed.

  “I’m looking for Dylan McKain. Do I have the wrong number?” a man asked.

  She cleared her throat, reaching for a corner of the sheet to wipe her nose on. “No, this is his phone. He’s … not here right now, but he’ll be back later. Can I g
et a message to him?”

  “Is this Chloe Samms?”

  Another surprise. “Yes.”

  “This is Dr. Jacobs. We —”

  “Teddy’s doctor.” She sniffled. “You know then? About …”

  “I heard on the morning news. I called to tell Dylan how very sorry I am.”

  “We just kept hoping,” she said, her voice still thick and squeaky.

  “Hope is a double-edged sword.” He paused for a moment. “There’s something else I need to tell Dylan. I asked him to donate blood, just in case. We routinely test donated blood to make sure there are no contaminants and to type it. That’s when I discovered it.”

  “What?” Her heart seized. Was something wrong with Dylan?

  The doctor paused. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Will you have Dylan call me as soon as he returns?”

  “Yes, of course.” What she wanted to say was, How can you leave me hanging like this?

  For half an hour she paced and wondered and worried. She told herself it wasn’t going to do any good, but half an hour later she was still pacing and wondering and worrying.

  When her phone rang, she lunged for it.

  “Is this Chloe Samms?” a man’s voice said. Not Dylan.

  “Yes.”

  A woman said, “We’re Mac’s parents.”

  “Oh, yes, hello.” Chloe leaned against the counter and tried to picture them. “How is he?”

  “He’s … okay. It’s going to take some therapy, but it looks good. We wanted to thank you and Mr. McKain for what you did. I know you weren’t looking for our son, but … you saved his life.”

  Chloe smiled. “I’m glad we did.”

  “Have you found your boy yet?” the man asked.

  Your boy. Chloe’s voice went thick again. “It looks like he … drowned.”

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman said. “What horrible timing we have.”

  “No, it’s all right. At least something good came out of all this.” She cleared her throat. “I’m so glad Mac’s going to be all right.”

  “He wants to see you. He said you held him and cried with him. We want to do something for you. And the reward … we offered forty thousand dollars —”

  “Keep it,” she said. “I know I speak for Dylan, too. It was enough to return him to you. And I would love to see Mac. But not right now.”

  “Sure, we understand,” he said. “We’ll let you go for now. But we want to give you our number. In case you change your mind about the money.”

  “And when you’re ready to see Mac,” she said.

  Chloe wrote it all down, hung up, and sank into the nearest chair. They were so happy. She wished she could be happy, too. But Teddy’s story wasn’t going to have the same kind of ending.

  During the day some of the ladies of Lilithdale called with condolences. Gisella offered to take down the posters. Chloe was in tears again by the end of that call.

  When she finally got control of the grief, she spotted a piece of paper on the carpet. Whenever Gypsy killed something, she always covered it. Let it be a roach or a spider, Chloe thought, removing the paper.

  The shattered remains of a butterfly lay on the peach carpet. Gypsy meowed and came over, probably proud of her kill. Chloe tried to fight the new wave of tears, but her lower lip trembled, and out they came.

  “Why does everything have to die? Why?”

  Gypsy climbed on her lap and nuzzled her chin.

  “Don’t die, okay?”

  A short while later Chloe dragged herself up to answer her door. Stella and Marilee stood there with worried expressions on their faces. Without Lena. Chloe found herself falling into their offered embrace, wallowing in their warmth and familiar herbal scents, clinging like a little girl who’d just lost her mom.

  “Hon, we’re so sorry,” Stella said when they finally parted. “We saw the paper this morning. We thought you might need some company.”

  Marilee held up a purple container. “Brought you some more pickle soup.”

  “Oh, goodie.”

  “And something else.” She pulled out a silk ribbon with a red stone wheel. “A jasper necklace. Earth’s energy stone for inner strength.” Chloe bowed her head and Marilee slid it over her head.

  “Thanks. I could use some inner strength,” Chloe said in a raspy voice. She felt as fragile as that butterfly on the carpet.

  Chloe put on some coffee and a Sarah McLachlan CD. Soulful, plaintive music fit the mood. The three women sat on the cushions in her living room and drank Sweet Dreams coffee. Chloe blew bubbles and Gypsy jumped up to catch them. For a while no one talked. The only sounds were the thump of paws on carpet and the melodious tinkle of wind chimes outside. Stella sat behind Chloe, rubbing her shoulders with a woodsy-smelling Patchouli oil.

  “Lula said she saw a man leave this morning on his boat,” Stella ventured after a while. She was wearing a green caftan and matching hair bow, and Rascal was nestled in the length of fabric.

  “Lula?”

  “Well, and Belle.”

  “Oh, brother. It was Dylan. Well, you probably knew that. He came by last night to tell me … about Teddy.”

  “Sex is great comfort,” Marilee said with a knowing nod, poised in a Yoga position. “It renews the soul, signifies life. What, you didn’t think I got to be this age and not know everything there is to know about sex, did you?” she asked at Chloe’s surprised look.

  Chloe found herself smiling. “No, it’s not that. I just didn’t think you thought about it anymore.”

  “A woman never forgets the glory of sex,” Stella confirmed with a nod.

  “Let’s not talk about sex,” Marilee said. “We’re here to talk about you. Are you all right?”

  Chloe nodded, then shook her head. “I feel dead inside. I feel like I let everyone down. Especially Lena.”

  “She couldn’t come. She wanted to, but she just couldn’t. You understand, don’t you? It’s too close. Her chakras are a mess, let me tell you.”

  “I do understand the way she feels. Because most of all I let Teddy down. I keep thinking, was there something I could have done? Why couldn’t I have sensed he was on that boat earlier?”

  “You did more than most people would have done. And you and Dylan did save that poor kid who’d been kidnapped.”

  “Yeah. His parents called to thank me.”

  Stella looked over at Marilee, then back at Chloe. “Hon, we’re worried about you. You’ve been through a lot lately. First the accident, then this boy you’re obviously connected to, and falling head over with his father —”

  “I’m not head over,” Chloe said. She looked at their doubtful expressions. “I’m … attracted to him. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “You might fool yourself, but you’re not fooling us,” Marilee said. “We know that face. What would you call it? A lah-lah face maybe.”

  “It’s a marshmallow face,” Chloe muttered.

  “We’re not here to give you a hard time over it. There’s a lot of emotional turmoil swirling around you. We thought we’d balance your chakras, see if that’ll help.”

  “You think I’m head over Dylan because my chakras are off?” Chloe asked, then realized what she’d said. “Okay, balance me.” She looked from one to the other. “Go ahead, I dare you.”

  Marilee got to her feet and walked over to where Chloe sat on her cushion. She rubbed her hands together, then let them hover over Chloe’s head. “Let’s concentrate on your sixth chakra — the third eye. The chakra that governs your imagination, your ideas and your awareness. Focus on the area between your eyes and visualize a spinning blue orb. Imagine it filling your mind with beauty and healing. And repeat after me: I am receptive to the Higher Self’s direction and insight.”

  Chloe closed her eyes and repeated the words.

  “Now picture yourself as a child, running through a field of dandelions, sending the seeds floating into the summer breeze. Let the image flow through your mind. Feel the sun shining down on you,
filling you with love.”

  “I can see the field,” Chloe said, smiling. She was running and laughing. And there was Teddy, absorbed in one of the dandelion puffs. Dylan was watching them.

  “Better?” Marilee asked after Chloe opened her eyes.

  There was no use lying to them. “I think I’m beyond balancing. I’m still head over him. But you don’t have to worry about me. Dylan’s not my soul mate or anything. He isn’t. We’re so incompatible it’s almost funny. And with — now that we’re not looking for Teddy, there’s no reason for me to see him again. Well, except for Shakespeare.”

  “Shakespeare?”

  “He stowed away on Dylan’s boat. I imagine he’ll come back for his cell phone too. Dylan, not Shakespeare. And that’ll be that. Everything will go back to normal, the press will forget about us again, and life will go on.” She didn’t believe that for a second, but she hoped wishing would count for something. “I plan to go back to work tomorrow. Some of the women in town …” She fidgeted with the hem of her pajamas. “have taken away their accounts.”

  Stella waved that away. “They’ve got their panties in a twist. They’ll get over it and come back, you’ll see. You’re right, it’ll all die down, Lena will come around, and we’ll be just like normal.”

  “One normal, happy family,” Marilee chimed in.

  “Well, as normal as we ever were,” Stella said.

  “Sure,” Chloe said, forcing a smile.

  It obviously wasn’t a very good smile, because Stella and Marilee both frowned. “We’re sorry you had to go through all this. Sorry about the boy.”

  “Sorry you’re head over,” Marilee put in.

  Chloe had to laugh at that one. “Yeah, me too. But that too will pass.”

  They shared another cup of coffee in comfortable silence looking out at the bay. Chloe tried to pretend she was watching the way the wind rippled across the surface of the water. She gave up and stared in the direction Dylan would be returning from.