A Gift of Time (Tassamara)

by Sarah Wynde

  “I don’t want you scaring her.” Nat turned to face him. “She’s been scared enough.”

  “Nothing like that.” He put up a hand, fingers spread wide.

  “She frightens easily.” Nat’s mouth twisted. “Yesterday…”

  “What?” Colin prompted when she fell silent.

  “After I got off the phone with you, I couldn’t find her,” Nat said reluctantly. Their eyes met and Colin winced at the guilt in Nat’s gaze. “It took me a while to track her down. She was hiding in the bathroom closet, squeezed into a space that should have been way too small for her.”

  Colin wished he could put a comforting arm around her shoulders and hug her close. The previous day, his sister Jenna, the one closest in age to him, had dropped by Nat’s house with an armload of hand-me-down clothes from her youngest daughter for Kenzi. It would have been a nice gesture, but she’d been bubbling over with delight about his survival and the future, a future she assumed would include Nat. Nat hadn’t been pleased. She’d let him know about it—at a higher than average decibel level—the moment Jenna left.

  “I won’t say anything that would scare her,” Colin promised. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Avoid asking about her parents. She shuts down when you bring them up.”

  “Voice of experience?”

  Nat spread her hands. “Just casual questions. Does your mom make you breakfast? Are your dad’s eyes blue like yours?”

  Those were exactly the sorts of questions Colin hoped to ask. He should have known Nat would be trying the same thing.

  “She’s locking her secrets up in silence. I’ve been looking for the key,” Nat continued. “It’s not parents, it’s not home, it’s not her own toys. It’s not favorite foods or television shows. I don’t know what it is yet.”

  “We’ll find it,” Colin said. “Seven-year-olds aren’t noted for their ability to keep secrets.”

  “She’s doing pretty well so far,” Nat answered, her voice dry. It softened as she added, “It’s too bad that Lucas isn’t here. He could tell us what she’s thinking.”

  Nat’s brother, Lucas, was telepathic. Unlike his siblings, however, he didn’t spend much time in Tassamara. He’d been in town for a few weeks, but on Christmas Day he and his girlfriend, Sylvie, had flown to North Carolina to spend some time with her family.

  “Could you call him?” Colin asked.

  Nat tipped her head to the side, a movement part nod, part shake. “I did, but he and Zane got called in on some government case. They flew to Japan the day after Christmas. He said they’d try to get back to town as soon as possible, but they’re tracking some high-level security leaks and it might take a while. Kenzi’s not in any danger, so I can’t say it’s urgent.”

  “Is there anyone else at GD who could help?” Colin suggested. The company Nat’s family owned had an eclectic staff, many of whom had unusual abilities.

  “Maybe, but we’re closed until after New Year’s,” she answered. “We’re on our own until then.”

  Colin rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble he needed to shave away. “Maybe we could pick up some clues about where she’s from based on her behavior.”

  “Like what?”

  “Table manners?” he suggested. “I don’t imagine squatters camping in the forest devote much attention to teaching their kids how to use silverware.”

  Nat arched a brow, but her look was thoughtful, not doubting.

  “I’d like to take a look at her drawings, too.”

  “Hoping to find the deep psychological undercurrents hidden within them?”

  “Well…” Put that way, it sounded stupid, but Nat shook her head.

  “I’ve been looking, too,” she admitted. “Developmentally, they seem appropriate. Rounded human shapes, a step up from stick figures, with all the body parts one might expect, including facial expressions. She’s using colors, a baseline, traditional symbols. I’m no expert, but I’d say she’s a pretty good artist for her age.”

  “A baseline? Traditional symbols? That sounds like expertise.”

  “Well, art.” Nat gave a shrug, as if her words were a complete answer. She stood, brushing off the seat of her pants. “For psychological analysis, though, we’d need her to explain her drawings. To tell us who the people and places are, her feelings about what she’s creating.”

  “Can’t you tell from looking at them?” Colin asked as he stood and followed Nat up the steps.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him as she reached the door. “No, not really. Although… well, I’ll let you see for yourself.”

  On that cryptic note, she opened the door and went inside.

  Chapter Eight

  Letting Colin stay for dinner was a terrible idea. Polite, maybe, but why had she let her mother’s manners overrule her common sense? The more time she spent with him, the more conversations they had, the easier it was to fall back into their old patterns.

  She and Colin thought alike. In the old days, they could finish one another’s sentences. They’d never shared interests: he liked comic books and football, she preferred novels and art exhibits. But their companionship ran bone deep. It would be much too easy to get used to having him around again.

  And she didn’t want him around. She didn’t want him in her space. She didn’t want to have to remember him here, to picture him sitting on her comfortable couch, his long legs outstretched. When he was gone, she didn’t want to hear the sound of his quiet chuckle in the silence or smell the scent of his laundry soap in the air.

  So many of the memories of her past belonged to him. Her childhood, her adolescence, her college years—all were stamped Natalya plus Colin in the scrapbooks of her mind. She’d spent years missing him as if his absence was a hole carved out of her life, and now that her life was whole again, she didn’t want to give him any part of her present or future.

  At the thought of the future, Natalya searched her mind, hoping to shake loose a premonition, any premonition. Nothing came to her. It was maddening, like not being able to remember her name or her birthday. She was clenching her teeth, she realized, and forced herself to relax.

  Enough thinking. Exist in the now, she reminded herself. The past couldn’t hurt her and the future would be what it would be. Thoughts were just leaves on water, clouds in the sky, floating away.

  Kenzi was still planted on the couch, watching television with hypnotized eyes, the doll Grace had given her tucked against her side. Natalya wasn’t sure whether she’d let it out of her sight once since it arrived. Behavior. What did it mean that Kenzi was so fascinated with television, so attached to her doll? It wouldn’t surprise Natalya to learn the doll was the nicest one Kenzi had ever owned. Grace hadn’t skimped on quality. But that would be true for most children, Natalya suspected.

  The television, though—was it her usual babysitter? She certainly watched with the glazed concentration of an addict, but she’d never once moved to turn on the box herself or even change the channel.

  “That’s beautiful.” Colin’s voice was hushed with awe. Natalya glanced at him in surprise, but he was looking past Kenzi, at the painting of her mother she’d hung over the couch.

  Natalya had painted it from a mix of photograph and memory. The original photo had given her the shape of the nose and the cheekbones, the angle of the neck, the amber gold of the hair. But the stubbornness in the set of the chin and the light of laughter in the eyes—those had come from Natalya’s memories of her mother.

  The curve of the mouth had taken forever. Natalya had wanted to capture a very specific smile. Not a single photograph—not that there were many, given that her mom was usually the one behind the camera, rarely in front of it—had the exact look of exasperated affection her mother had worn so well. It had taken weeks of trial-and-error, of scribbled-out sketches and consultations with her brothers and sister for Nat to get it right, but she had in the end.

  It was probably the best piece of work she’d ever done.

  “Yo
u painted it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s incredible. That’s not watercolors, though.”

  She should walk away, go finish dinner. Letting him into her house didn’t mean letting him into her life. But her art was a subject near to her heart and hard to resist. “No, it’s oil. I started using oil pastels in med school because I didn’t have a lot of time, and they were easy to carry around. And then I switched to oil paint a few years ago. I tried acrylic but it dries too fast.”

  “Aren’t oil paints supposed to be difficult?”

  Natalya made an equivocal gesture with one hand. “Slow to dry. But flexible. I love the translucency.”

  “Is that what gives her skin that light?”

  Damn it. Every member of her family and several friends had seen the portrait of her mother. Every single one had admired it. Her brother Zane had asked for one of her preliminary sketches and it was hanging, framed, in his office. But Colin was the first to express interest in how Natalya had done it.

  “Yes.” She kept her answer short. “I should go finish dinner.”

  She took three steps away and was almost at the door to the kitchen when Colin spoke again. “She wasn’t mad at me, you know.”

  Natalya’s chin went up as she turned back. “She never got mad at you. You were the golden boy.”

  Colin chuckled, but his eyes were on the portrait. “Well, the whole pitiful orphan deal was good for a pass on most stuff.”

  Natalya pressed her lips together. Colin might make light of it now, but his parents’ deaths had been devastating. He’d wound up spending almost as much time at her house as his after that. Not because he didn’t have relatives who wanted him—he did. But he’d bounced around from house to house, family to family, as situations changed.

  His aunt got pregnant and he moved to a sister’s. The sister got a new job with a longer commute and he wound up with his brother. He failed chemistry and his grandmother decided his brother wasn’t responsible enough to be taking care of a teenager, so he moved to an uncle’s. The love and family support had been consistent, but still, her house was as much his own as any of the places he’d spent the night.

  “That wasn’t it, though,” he continued. “She thought I did the right thing.”

  “She—” Natalya snapped, her voice hot. And then she paused. Kenzi was looking at her now, face unsmiling. Natalya took a deep breath, released it, took another, and when she spoke again the heat was gone. “She was wrong.”

  “You were unhappy. She saw that. She wanted what was best for you.”

  “I was perfectly capable of making those decisions myself.” Natalya’s words were even, her tone calm.

  “But you wouldn’t. You would have just waited it out.”

  “Colin?” Natalya waited until he looked at her instead of at the portrait. “Cut it out or you’re going hungry.”

  A corner of his mouth turned up and he looked back at the portrait. “I miss her still.”

  Natalya opened her mouth and then closed it again, the words unsaid. Unfair, unfair, her brain protested. One short conversation and the solid wall of her resistance to him, the one that should have been made out of impenetrable steel, had melted into something more like flimsy wood.

  Maybe she should forgive him. Not get back together with him. That was definitely out. But let go of being angry at him? Stop holding onto a grudge that didn’t do much except tie her stomach into knots?

  “I’m going to finish dinner,” she said brusquely and headed into the kitchen.

  Not much needed finishing. The chicken enchiladas had five more minutes on the timer and the salad was the rip-open-the-bag-and-toss-it-into-a-bowl kind. But she wanted the moment of solitude.

  He’d shut her out of his life, she reminded herself as she lifted plates out of the cupboard and set them on the counter. He’d chosen to live without her, she thought as she pulled silverware out of the drawer and set it atop the plates. He hadn’t wanted her, as she found the salad tongs.

  But she sighed as she tugged open the bag of lettuce. Knowing he would die, waiting for him to die, and never knowing when had been hell. Those months were the worst of her life. When she’d gone away to medical school, she’d buried herself in her work, but every minute she’d been away from Tassamara, she’d known she was safe. He was safe.

  The best months were the winter months. The tree-lined road in her premonition could have been many times, many places, but not a northern winter. She’d hated the cold, though. Snow was fun the first time and thoroughly unpleasant on every subsequent experience. Why didn’t the romantic Christmas specials ever mention that snow burned when you touched it?

  And she’d missed home. Living in the outside world meant always guarding what she said, always avoiding revealing her foreknowledge. Working in a hospital made that close to impossible, and she’d had to learn to accept the peculiar looks and whispers. In the end, tired of fighting fate, she’d come home.

  She stared down at the salad bowl, not really seeing it. Thinking about the past wouldn’t get her anywhere. She needed to focus on the present. Kenzi. That’s who she should be thinking about. What could they discover about Kenzi without words? What did she already know about her that she hadn’t realized she knew?

  She didn’t hear any conversation coming from the living room, so she crossed back to the archway leading to the other room. Colin still stood where she’d left him, his gaze on the girl. Kenzi ignored him, but she was holding her doll a little tighter.

  “Kenzi?” Natalya wasn’t sure if this would work. Seven. What did parents expect from their seven-year-olds? When Kenzi looked her way, she said, “The sheriff’s going to be staying for dinner. Would you come set the table, please?”

  Without hesitation, the girl hopped off the couch and joined her in the kitchen. Natalya watched as she looked around the room, spotting the plates and silverware on the counter. Trying not to look as if she were attending to Kenzi’s every move, Natalya turned to the oven, finding a mitt and taking the enchiladas out.

  Carefully, Kenzi set her doll on the seat she’d been using at previous meals, then crossed to the counter and reached up for the dishes. Back at the table, she left the dishes stacked as she climbed up on a chair and took table mats from the pile in the center of the table, then distributed the mats, plates, and silver. That answered that, thought Natalya, grabbing a serving spoon out of the container set by the stove.

  “Interesting,” Colin said quietly from the doorway.

  “She makes her bed every morning,” Natalya answered, equally quietly. “It’s what made me think of it.”

  “Huh.” Colin cocked his head to one side. “We might have to consult an expert or two, but I think that could be considered unusual.”

  “Little pitchers,” Natalya cautioned, but she knew exactly what Colin meant. How old had she been before she made her bed every day without maternal prompting? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?

  As they ate, Colin chatted as easily as if his companions were responding, but Natalya was as silent as Kenzi as she turned over her interactions with the girl in her mind. Kenzi definitely wasn’t autistic, she decided firmly. The psychologist had seen her lack of eye contact, her refusal or inability to speak, her social withdrawal—all of which were potentially symptoms of autism. But she hadn’t seen the fuller picture.

  “Nat?” Colin’s voice interrupted her reverie. “Earth to Nat.”

  She blinked at him, brought back to her surroundings. “Lost in thought. Sorry.”

  “Great enchiladas.”

  “Thanks.” Her eyes narrowed. Was he going to start reminiscing about their past? That she’d had enchiladas in the oven was pure chance, but they’d shared a fondness for Mexican food during their UCF years. The first few times she’d made them at home, he’d been her appreciative and tolerant test audience.

  “I like the kick.” His words were polite, but the minuscule tilt of his head in Kenzi’s direction was loaded with meaning. Natalya
followed his gaze.

  Kenzi’s shoulders were slumped as she eyed the food on her plate with all the misery of a prisoner contemplating the firing squad. As Natalya watched, she took a bite. The wince and shudder as she swallowed were subtle, but unmistakable.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. You should have…” She stopped herself before letting the words slip out. Kenzi could have told her, but she should have paid more attention. Or at least been more thoughtful. “You don’t have to eat that.”

  Kenzi stared at Natalya. Her gaze darted to Colin’s face and back again, but she didn’t push her plate away in relief or even put down her fork. If anything, she clutched her fork tighter.

  Natalya pursed her lips before exchanging glances with Colin. With a raised eyebrow, she silently asked him what he thought. He lifted a shoulder, then reached across the table and took Kenzi’s plate. “I love enchiladas,” he said cheerfully, scraping her tortillas onto his plate. “But maybe Nat can find you something less spicy.”

  “Toasted cheese?” Natalya asked Kenzi. The little girl’s eyes were bright as she nodded.

  After the cheese sandwich was made and duly consumed, Natalya suggested to Kenzi that she show Colin her drawings. As Natalya cleared the table, she could hear Colin admiring Kenzi’s work in the front bedroom. A reluctant smile curled her lips at the sound of his voice saying, “Interesting use of color. You must have worked hard on that one.” It sounded as if he hadn’t forgotten her lectures on what an artist wanted to hear.

  She separated the leftovers into multiple plastic containers. Usually she got a week’s worth of lunches out of a pan of enchiladas, but not this week. But as she looked for space in the crowded fridge, she sighed. She wanted to stir up the embers of her anger against Colin and it got harder by the minute. But he’d made the choice to push her away, to shut her out, and there was no going back from that.

  “So…”

  She jumped at the sound of his voice right behind her, sending the last container skidding onto the floor. “Damn it.”