The Color of Home: A Novel

by Rich Marcello

  Visibly shaken, the man stood and kissed Sassa on the forehead again. He finished dressing.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I need to go.”

  “Stay.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. I hope you work your way out of this place. By the way, my name is Noah.” He let himself out of the room and quietly closed the door behind him.

  “Sassa.”

  She sat up and slammed one fist into the headboard while holding her sheets over her breasts. As she pushed off the bed with her punch-hand, she let go of the sheets with the other. They plummeted to the ground, like they were made of stone instead of Egyptian cotton. The room was a mess, covered with clothes, towels, sheets, work, and sex. Just like the aftermath in all of the other rooms in all of the other cities. She slipped into her nightgown, picked up around the room until order returned. Order had been key. A large dish of room-service ice cream later, she climbed back in bed and curled up. She was done. She’d crossed too many lines. Just done.

  Restless a few minutes later, she unwound her body and crawled out of bed again. She hadn’t expected Noah. Had a stranger changed everything? With a blanket draped over her shoulders, she balled up in the corner of the hotel room closet and slid the door closed. The small space suited her, protected her, allowed her to hope for deep sleep.

  A man walked into the bedroom and sat on the floor next to her. He had a gray suit on, a black tie, and sported a black fedora hat. Jet black eyes matched his hat.

  “Who are you?” Sassa asked. She pulled up the blanket to just below her eyes.

  The man stared at her.

  “Who the hell are you? Can’t you see I’m not in any state for visitors?”

  The man remained silent.

  “Get the hell out of here!”

  “Do you love yourself, Sassa?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Do you love yourself, Sassa?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Love yourself. All else will follow.”

  “Fuck you!” She woke in a pool of sweat. What a nightmare. Lifting herself off the closet floor, she crawled back into the bed for the remainder of the night.

  In the morning, she cleared the remaining Vicodin pills from her drawer, and flushed them down the toilet, just like in a TV movie. What drama. She canceled her trips to the Santa Fe, and Austin Green Angel’s, and apprised Avis that she’d drop off her rental car in New York instead of LAX. Cobbling together her stuff, she headed toward home.

  Over breakfast at a truck stop in Nevada, Sassa unfolded a large map of the United States and gravitated toward Montana. Locating Great Falls, she pictured Nick in the cabin writing Songs of Love and Loss, and started humming “Good-bye.” A wave of regret later, she sipped her black coffee; God, what an awful drink.

  At roughly the same latitude as Great Falls, she shifted her focus to Idaho. Coeur d’Alene popped off the map, highlighted by a large lake of the same name. Something about the name pulled at her, even though she’d never heard of the place. The googled translation: “Sharp-hearted.” What a cool name. Folding the map down so that all she could see was Nevada and Idaho, she borrowed a pen from the waitress and rerouted her path. About ten hours, if she didn’t stop. Moments later, back in her car and on her way, she thought about Lucia.

  Sassa had decided to spend the summer after college graduation in Ann Arbor working at Lucia’s restaurant, Pellegrino’s. She’d just graduated, had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, and figured she would take the summer to think. She worked as a waitress but often hung out in the kitchen after her lunch shift. Lucia took Sassa under her wing.

  Toward the end of the summer, Sassa, still in her street clothes, was helping Lucia prepare a veal dish. She drizzled some olive oil into an iron skillet, added a handful of sliced garlic, and browned the garlic over a high flame. She’d popped a few extra Vicodin to help with unusually strong pain. No big deal.

  A few minutes after she began browning the garlic, Lucia shouted, “Your blouse is on fire!”

  In a frantic attempt to quell the fire, Sassa accidentally flung the skillet out of her hand, off the burner, and onto Lucia, splattering sizzling olive oil on Lucia’s pants. The oil disintegrated the pants like paper, burning the skin beneath. Lucia screamed and, holding her leg, fell to the floor.

  Sassa dropped to Lucia’s side. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. Can you drive me to the hospital?”

  At the hospital, they bided time in a sterile emergency room—Lucia on the bed, Sassa at her side. Sassa repeatedly stroked the back of Lucia’s hand. What had she done?

  When the doctor arrived, he treated Lucia’s wound with a thick, purplish ointment that smelled like raspberries and spearmint. He bandaged and wrapped her leg. “You’ll be fine. Change the dressing every other day. I’ll write you a prescription for the pain. You may have some light scarring. Nothing serious.”

  Later, in Lucia’s home, Sassa set the Vicodin prescription down on the table. Her belly knotted. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  “Can I get you a pain pill and glass of water?”

  “I’m fine. I don’t like to take pills. Throw them away for me. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again.”

  On the way back to her car, pills in her pocket, she passed a man on the sidewalk who showed interest. Staring down at the concrete, she tried to make herself small. What was he looking at? She slipped into the car and dashed off. That night, after popping so many Vicodin that she lost count, she passed out on her sofa watching a late-night talk show host tell bad jokes. She dreamed she married him. They had four children, all female, all drug addicts. There was no escape.

  • • •

  Sassa strolled on a long, floating boardwalk that formed the Coeur d’Alene marina’s outer perimeter. The boardwalk was full of people: vacationers, locals, lovers. Some passed and nodded. Others pretended they had the place to themselves. A man tried to start up a conversation, but she brushed him off. After floating for a while, she spotted a red boat parked in a slip not far away.

  At the boat rental shop, waving to the agent, Sassa backed the red boat out of the slip. Twin engines sounded, loud and deep, like a race car, like power. She dropped her black sunglasses down from her forehead, and full-throttled into open water. The lake, huge, dwarfed the boat, as she bounced her way toward a far cove. In the cove, secluded and peaceful, she stripped down to her black bikini and stretched out on the bow to sun herself. As the boat rocked, she could taste the heat.

  She tried to meditate even though she’d never had much luck doing so in the past. Anytime a thought came to the forefront, she labeled it “thinking,” as she was taught to do, then let it go. She’d gone too far. Why did she take Vicodin again? What was she doing with Noah? He scared her. Thinking. A small gap formed, as clear and as still as the water around her. How did she end up in this place? She was numb. All she did was work. She had a lot of work to do to get to whole. There had to be more to life. Thinking. Another small gap. He loved Rachel. How did that happen? She’d blown it. She needed to start over. But where and how? Thinking. Another small gap. Meditating was useless.

  Pressing up on her elbow and shielding her eyes with one hand, she surveyed the lake. A few boats. A handsome man fishing. Beautiful shoreline homes. Nothing hooked her. Maybe that was the point. A few moments later, she raced out of the cove into open water. With the wind brushing her hair straight back, she imagined herself in an action movie, the tragic kind, where the audience knew the heroine was Humpty Dumpty. Splat! Occasionally, someone from another boat signaled to her to slow down. Splat!

  Though no sleeping beauty, back in her room she fell into an impenetrable, deep sleep. Hours later, she woke and immediately searched her suitcase for a stray pill. Nothing. Not a single one. It reminded her of Jessie.

  After es
caping Lucia and Michigan, Sassa arrived in New York City with a $1,000, 100 Vicodin, and no plan. The sun momentarily blinded her as she surfaced out of the Holland Tunnel. She shaded her face with one hand and rolled down the window of her Volkswagen Beetle with the other. Noise. People. More people. Did New York have a distinct smell? Like chestnuts and carbon dioxide. The streets, jammed with more diversity than she’d ever seen even at Michigan, throbbed as if the chaos was organized. Yellow cabs and black limousines checkered the cross street, filled with people chasing dreams or running away. There were so many people in the middle. In side alleys, garbage piled high, awaiting pick-up. How did this place work?

  She turned back to the main street. Vendors lined the sidewalks. Pulling over at a corner, she jumped out, and ordered a falafel sandwich and a juice. As she leaned against her car, she savored a few bites. What flavor, and out of a truck. A moment later, a police officer flirted with her as he encouraged her to move on. Back in her Beetle, she balanced the juice container between her legs and ate the rest of the sandwich with one hand as she inched along. For the next hour, in stop-and-go traffic, she made her way across town to the Williamsburg Bridge. Even though she’d been there only a short time, Manhattan had left its mark.

  Across the bridge in Brooklyn, the streets were less crowded. She found parking close to Jessie’s apartment. Jessie, a close college friend, lived in a large-for-the-money apartment in the heart of Williamsburg, right off of Bedford Street. Sassa had called a week earlier and asked if she could crash at her place until she found her own. She’d also told her the whole story about Lucia.

  After Jessie helped Sassa unload, the two of them collapsed on Jessie’s sofa.

  “You need to stop,” Jessie said. “Give me the pills.”

  Sassa pushed back into the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. She sipped a freshly made glass of iced tea. A moment later, she popped up and walked to the window. The tree-lined street meshed perfectly with opposite rows of brownstones. There was a peacefulness to the place she hadn’t expected. She could stay for a time, as long as no one bugged her. “You know, you don’t need to do this.”

  “That’s not true, Sassa. You have a problem. Otherwise you’d still be in Ann Arbor.”

  “You’re not a doctor.”

  “I know, but I am your friend. Give me the pills.”

  “What about if I limit myself to only a few a day?”

  “Some things are all or nothing.”

  “I can just leave, you know. I have money.”

  Jessie joined Sassa at the window, and folded her arms across her chest. “You have a trust fund, which you can’t touch until you’re thirty.”

  “Fuck, I’m leaving.” Sassa took a step toward the door. Jessie wrapped her arms around her. As they stood face-to-face, an unnatural stillness filled the room.

  “Stay,” Jessie said. “We need to get you help.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to rehab.”

  “You could have seriously scarred Lucia. Or worse down the road.”

  Jessie was right about that. It was only a matter of time until she hurt someone again. What would her mom or dad say? Better to go through the pain when it was still her choice, when she still had a thread of control. And a friend to help. “I can do it myself.”

  “Too hard. You’ll relapse.”

  “Help me. Can I stay with you for a month?”

  “Give me the pills.”

  After hesitating for a long time, Sassa pointed over at her bag with her eyes.

  The next four weeks were the hardest of her life. The Vicodin pulled on her. The urges came every hour, sometimes every few minutes. Her body took over and resisted. She sweat like she had never sweat before. She had the shakes. Her legs pulsed with pain. Her scar throbbed, reminding her of why she got hooked in the first place. She had the runs. She was sure the pain would never end.

  A picture helped her through. In the picture, her entire family was posed in their backyard, Sassa standing in front of her dad, her sister in front of her mom. Her dad’s hand rested on her shoulder. Each time she looked at it, she thought she smelled her mother’s perfume. Each time, she had nothing but sorrow—from time wasted, from causing pain and suffering, from not living up, from being numb, from not having enough strength. Her father, her mother, her sister, stood with her against the pain, against the urge to further numb, against a world where it was so easy to get lost when alone.

  And Jessie stayed with her around the clock. She brushed her hair. She set up a makeshift bed right next to Sassa’s bed. They watched movies. They played checkers. Cold compresses every hour. She spoon-fed Sassa organic smoothies, and acted as a human crutch to and from the bathroom. Sometimes she crawled in bed with Sassa and hugged her as Sassa sobbed.

  Four weeks later, Sassa left the apartment for the first time, Jessie at her side. At the corner market, she purchased cherries, the last of the season. On her way home, with a bounce in her step, she soaked in the sun and popped a few. She was going to be okay. It was time to develop a long-term plan, find a job, a place to live. She would never forget what she’d done to herself, to others, that she was an addict, that there was always the possibility of getting hooked again, that Jessie was a true friend.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Jessie said. “Why don’t you move in with me? I have an extra room, and once you get a job, I could use some help with the rent.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go to cooking school first. I can get trust money for that.”

  “I know some folks. I can hook you up.”

  “Thank you. I’ll never forget what you did for me these past few weeks.”

  “You did all of the hard work. You’re strong. I know you’re going to be fine.”

  Back in her Coeur d’Alene hotel room, she slipped out of bed, and stared out the window onto the water. She’d lost her strength. How had she reached that point? Again? She thought back to that long-ago porch swing conversation with her mom. Had Vicodin fueled her down the path of least resistance? Again? Yes. The time had come to stop cold turkey. Stopping for good was the only way to get whole. And the time had come to forgive Nick. She owned what happened just as much as he did. Rachel’s death was an accident, that’s all. Not an ending. No one could predict the future. A single event hadn’t locked it in, couldn’t split them apart forever. They would always have some kind of connection. Her breathing relaxed and the lightness in her chest almost caused her to smile. A current shot up through her body, the kind she got when she knew something for sure.

  • • •

  On the fourth day in Coeur d’Alene, Sassa went over to the marina earlier than usual. Searching her map of the lake, she pinpointed a small cove on the far side that called to her. She fired up the twins and motored there. In the cove on another boat, a tall, muscular man in bathing trunks, much older than her, waved. Waving back, she navigated to a spot far enough away and dropped anchor. She stripped down to her bathing suit, undid the strap on her top, spread lotion as far as she could reach, and lay face down. She fell half asleep.

  Sometime later, giggling. What the heck? Holding the top of her bathing suit in place with one hand, she pushed up with the other, and scanned around the boat. Two girls were treading water near the other boat, throwing a Nerf ball back and forth.

  “Sorry to disturb you. My granddaughters decided to go swimming,” the man shouted.

  “No problem. They’re adorable.” Sassa fastened her top and sat up.

  “I’m Ashoka. These are my granddaughters, Adira and Nireille.”

  “Sassa.”

  “I’m so sorry they bothered you. Can I make it up to you with something to drink?”

  On the one hand, Sassa couldn’t see how a drink with a stranger could possibly help. On the other hand, she hadn’t spoken with anyone at length for a few days. Maybe it would do some good to talk. “Okay. Be right there.” She dove into the water and glided over to Ashoka
’s boat. The water, cool, refreshing, renewed her.

  As she climbed aboard, he greeted her with a large beach towel. He smelled like coconut. Close-up, he looked like an aging movie star.

  “Grandfather, can we stay in the water?”

  “Okay, but you have to play where I can see you.”

  “What wonderful girls.”

  “Thanks. They’re a handful, but they’re great kids.”

  “I can see it. Where are their parents?” Sassa asked.

  “Business trip.”

  “Are you here alone?”

  “My wife is back in the hotel room nursing a cold. And you?” Ashoka asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I get you a juice?”

  “Sure.”

  “Girls, come closer to the boat so I can see you.”

  Adira threw the Nerf ball at Sassa, who snatched it out of the air with one hand, then tossed it back in the water. When was the last time she had played like that? When had work stopped being play? When had it consumed her? Things were much easier in Portland. If only Nick had joined her then.

  “Come in the water with us,” Nireille said.

  “Maybe later, honey.”

  Ashoka handed Sassa her fresh orange juice. “Grandchildren are one of the greatest gifts of a long-time family.”

  “You’ve been married long?”

  “Yes, though for a time, I didn’t think I was going to marry at all.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Culture got in the way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Culture planted all of these ideas about how our relationship should be. When things didn’t go according to plan, I felt awful. My body ached.”

  Did she really want to take the conversation further? Why not? She was done with mystery. And he seemed sincere. And wasn’t truth the name of the game? She glanced out at the girls floating in the water. It had been easier then. Much easier. “Mine aches now.”

  “How come?”

  “Long story.”