Josh cried out and ceased punching, turning his attention toward unsticking his opponent’s grip. He looked at the hands on his wrist. Had these hands touched her? He heard himself screaming, a feral cry. He wanted to break every one of those fingers.
Somewhere a very small part of his brain noted that the hand that clutched him was covered in paint. Blues and reds inked the fingertips, and a particular vibrant shade of pink lodged under the fingernails. But even as it marked this unusual detail, Josh’s mind was still fixed on the goal of hurting the man who was trying to take his family, and he did not stop to think why there would be paint on his hands.
The fabric of his victim’s shirt finally slipped from Josh’s grip, and Hugo (David!) twisted away, righting himself against the wall. Josh swung out, connecting a body blow (stomach, diaphragm, liver, lung), and the man stumbled away from him, retreating down a short hallway.
“We couldn’t do anything,” he cried.
What the hell does that mean? Josh landed another blow to his back (ribs, lung), and Hugo fell to his knees. Then he was crawling away from him.
Hugo (David, goddamn it!) reached up to grasp the knob of one of the doors, his hand slippery with blood on the brass. Josh kicked him, the top side of his foot meeting with the soft hang of belly (small intestine, stomach, gallbladder), and Hugo fell toppling into this new room.
There he lay, fetal on the floor. Josh loomed over him. A hulk. “Get up!”
“Look,” a thin voice begged from behind those cowering hands. “Just look.”
Josh hauled back his foot to land another kick when he finally realized where he was.
The island.
The walls of the room were painted with exquisitely painstaking detail. It was clearly the work of years, thousands of man-hours devoted to re-creating a dreamworld. It was all there, everything he had heard Rose talk about. The Plank Orb. The Green Lagoon. The Blanket Pavilion. The mural continued up the walls onto a vaulted ceiling, where a watery sun peeked through a cover of clouds.
It was a masterpiece. The detail so fine that the effect was almost photographic.
Josh’s anger fled as his eyes skipped from one detail to the next. Fireflies hovering in the green surrounds of the forest. The placid stare of a herd of Bucks. Rose once had described it to him—how unusual it was to see that many male deer together—but he had never gotten it.
This wasn’t the work of a con man. This wasn’t some comic book, jotted on paper to fool his sweet, gullible wife.
And then he saw her.
She was lying on a field of coral sand (Oh, that’s the pink she meant), looking out from the wall. It was his Rose.
Not Rose now, but how she looked when he had first seen her. Rose in college. Rose in full bloom. Rose before she knew what her life was going to be.
She gazed back at him from the wall, a secret smile on her lips.
Josh touched her painted face, his fingertips sending signals to his brain, informing him of the topography of the painting. The blips and blops of dried paint that somehow together created a picture of his wife.
Josh’s knees buckled under him. He fell. The reality of this room was overwhelming.
He had never for a moment considered that Rose might be telling the truth when she told him she had met the man from her dreams. Of course, he had believed that she believed it; that was easy. It was easier for Josh to believe that something had gone wrong with his wife’s brain than that she was nightly dreaming the same dreams as a stranger.
Josh believed that human beings are closed biosystems. Blood and hormones circulating over and over along the same pathways, trailing their way through the same organs. Living meat. Consciousness reaching no further than the surface of our skin.
But somehow the surface of the wall beneath his fingers disproved everything that he had once believed.
“It can’t…”
Hugo sat up, pulling himself away from the suddenly changed man. He leaned against the opposite wall.
Josh’s fingers swept over the line that described Rose’s collarbone. “I thought she was lying.”
“She wasn’t.”
Josh could barely get a fix on what was happening to him. He felt like … like what? He didn’t know. “How…”
Hugo (Hugo) drew his legs up into himself. “We need each other. We’ve always needed each other.”
There was silence for a moment. Josh traced the line of Rose’s lips.
Hugo’s voice was small but confident. “We belong together.”
“No.” Josh shook his head.
“That has to be why.”
“No.”
“This doesn’t happen without a reason.”
“This can’t happen.”
Josh felt something wet and hot break a trail across his cheek.
Hugo glared at him, his face bloody. “But it did. It does.”
* * *
Rose was awake when he got home. After Josh had left she clicked into automatic, activating that deep-seated belief of motherhood: Restore order and everything will turn out fine.
She had struggled a nighttime diaper onto Penny’s sleeping body and deposited her into the crib. Penny cooed as her face touched the cool sheet, but she did not wake.
She had a tougher time with the boys, who were clingy, hopped up on soda and television. Isaac and Adam jumped on their beds while she pulled pajamas from their drawers. Their constant motion was grating, but Rose tolerated it without comment. She had let them down. Left them waiting, wondering.
Adam seized her legs in a hug after she pulled the shirt over his head.
“I’m so glad you’re not dead.” He smiled up at her and buried his face in her belly.
Isaac, uncharacteristic, slammed into their embrace, wrapping his arms around Rose and Adam both. He, too, laid his head against her belly.
“I love you, Mom.”
“Me too. I love you, Mom.”
Rose’s chest hurt. “I love you guys, too.”
She held her breath as she leaned in to kiss them good night. She felt dirty, her lips still tainted with evidence of Hugo’s kisses. She was disgusting. A disgusting person to kiss her children with the mouth that betrayed their father.
She took a shower after that. Soaping her body once, twice, three times. She rubbed her lips raw with a washcloth—but each time she ran her hand over them, the texture there felt different. Permanently changed.
Disgusting, hateful, horrible woman.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
She dried herself off and dressed herself in a pair of Josh’s pajama pants. She climbed into bed … but she did not want to sleep.
Sleep would bring him.
Rose’s mind tumbled over the events of her last dream with Hugo. Kissing in the Blanket Pavilion, escalating to more than kissing.
And then they were no longer on the island. And she was no longer herself … trapped in this cruel memory of Hugo’s as it crumbled and transformed into a nightmare. Hugo’s fear had been intense, overwhelming.
It reminded her of the dream she had had of Adam spewing pink sand from his mouth. A terror she was glad to have awoken from.
She did not hear Josh come in. The bed suddenly shifted as he sat on the corner. His back was to her, his body slumped. Something had taken the fight away. He started to talk, his voice low and quiet. Almost a whisper.
“Sometimes, when I’m at work, I’ll be with a patient, and I’ll catch myself thinking about how Adam is exactly what you would look like if you were a boy. And that Penny sounds like you, even when she babbles.” He paused, swallowing. A soft breath. “I love you, Rose. I’ve loved you since the first day I met you.”
“I love you.” Rose’s voice was thin, tense.
“I believe you now … about him.”
Rose made a little sound, a release of pressure. He believed her. Josh believed her. It would be okay. He understood now.
“But—” Josh stopped suddenly, and Rose realized that he was crying. Choking on emoti
on. His voice quavered. “I won’t believe that our life together wasn’t supposed to happen. I can’t believe that our babies weren’t supposed to be born.”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Then why have you been dreaming of him your whole life? Why has he been dreaming of you?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
The silence between them stretched. Rose wished desperately that Josh would touch her, put his hands on the places marred by her mistake, write new memories on her flesh. She didn’t know why she dreamed of Hugo … but she knew now that she wasn’t meant to be with him. Their attempt at being with each other had tossed them into a nightmare world painted by Hugo’s insecurities.
She was meant for Josh. Josh, the good and faithful husband. Josh, the patronizing and the proud. Josh, who saw beauty in her, even when she could not see it in herself. Josh, whose gaze and affection frightened her when they were making love.
How could she have ever thought differently?
Josh was the man of her dreams. Hugo was just the man in them.
His voice cracked. A whisper. “I wish—”
Rose was vehement. Pleading. “I’ll never see him again. I promise. Never.”
“You can’t make that promise.”
“I can.”
He sighed as a great sadness broke over him. The grief that came with the belief. “You’ll break it the moment you go to sleep. Every night. You’ll go to sleep with me, but you’ll spend the night with him.”
Rose let this wash over her. It was true. Hugo was inescapable.
“Then I’ll stay awake.” Even as she said this, she knew it was impossible. The promise of a child.
“Not forever.”
Rose was distraught. She had thought that if he believed her, things would be better. That he would know she was not crazy. That he would forgive her for the way she had failed him today and on all the other days.
But this was so much worse than when he believed she had lost her mind. Worse than when he threatened to remove her from her children. It was sadder. Deeper. Like a death. Like she was a ghost in their bed and he a new widower.
He still had not touched her. One cannot touch ghosts.
“I love you, Josh.”
He was quiet for a moment. “That only makes it worse.”
* * *
Josh watched Rose later that night as she fell asleep. He sat on the floor opposite their bed.
They had conceived Penny in that bed. Josh thought of that while he watched Rose’s chest rise and fall in the dark. The mattress she slept on was witness to hundreds of hours of marital discussion: where they would retire, how much the cable bill was costing, whether or not they could afford private school, whether or not it was worth it if they could.
He loved her so much.
Josh could tell by the sound that she had finally slipped away. He wondered what it was like for her. Was it like waking up in a new world, suddenly delivered on a new shore? Or was it more gradual than that?
He went over the little he remembered about the dreaming brain from medical school. REM sleep. Theta waves. Josh could see the textbook in which he’d studied these phenomena in his mind. He remembered being exasperated that they even had to cover it. So many more important things to study.
Rose’s breathing stopped for a moment. A pause in the rhythm.
Was she with him right now? On the island?
He felt a pain in his chest. Oh, Rose. My sweet Rose.
Asleep, his wife looked younger. Like she had on the wall.
Rose’s eyelids betrayed the movement of her corneas beneath them. She was definitely dreaming.
What about when they are not both asleep? What then? Surely, every time Rose takes a nap, Hugo cannot also be sleeping. And yet she says he is all she dreams about. He is always with her.
His hands hurt from the beating he had given Hugo. Somehow, he had cut his knuckle. It was scabbing over, but the small fan of dried blood was still there. He had probably left stamps of his blood all over Hugo’s face and back.
He was lucky the man had not called the police. He was lucky he had not broken his fingers, given the force of the blows he had landed. He was lucky he was not in jail right now, facing the end of his career.
But he did not feel lucky.
eighteen
If it had not been for her legs, Rose would have not known she was dreaming. She was loading the dishwasher, moving plates from sink side to the prongs of the trolley basket. It was something she did at least twice a day in her waking life, the never-ending cycle. A volley of plates from the cabinet to the table, from the table to the sink, from the sink to the dishwasher, from the dishwasher to the cabinet. Repeat morning and night, ad infinitum, forever and ever, amen. She was finding a home for one of Penny’s sippy cups (top rack only) when she caught sight of her legs.
They were bare, her skin honey silk stretched over shapely muscled calves. This could not have been more different from their usual state, pale stubble, with a few bruises of mysterious origin.
She was dreaming.
She was dreaming of loading her dishwasher.
That’s new, she thought. A little mundane and weird … but new.
“Mom?”
She looked up. Josh and the kids stared at her from the table.
“You’re here!” she heard herself say. It was so strange to know that she was dreaming and yet to see her family. Apart from her nightmare about Isaac and the brief glimpse she’d had of Penny in Hugo’s nightmare, the experience was completely new to her.
Josh grinned. “Of course we’re here. This is our home.”
It was home. Rose looked around. This was her kitchen and her kitchen table. Her family. Her life. Her dream.
She laughed. It was wonderful.
“Honey, can you bring over the waffles?” Josh nodded at a platter on the countertop.
Rose was giddy. She was dreaming about having waffles with her family. No monsters. No Castle City. No Hugo. “Of course.”
Her hands were wet from the dishes and she wiped them on her apron.
Apron?
She was indeed wearing one. The fabric of it was busy with brown and yellow marigolds. Yellow piping outlined the edges and the pockets. It looked like something Mrs. Brady would have worn if Alice took the day off.
Rose grabbed the platter and walked to the table. She sat and forked a waffle onto each of the boys’ plates. Penny gummed at hers, softening the bread.
Josh took her hand and smiled.
Rose grinned at the touch. Somewhere in her mind, she remembered something about wanting him to touch her. Needing him to touch her. His hand felt good over hers.
“I love you, Rose.”
“I love you, too.”
God, this is good. Rose was so happy. This must be what it’s like for other people. They dream about their families. About their lives.
Adam’s face was sticky with syrup. “Can I have another one, please?”
“Sure, honey.” Rose leaned over to put another waffle on his plate.
When she sat back, Hugo was sitting in Josh’s chair.
Rose was startled, but nobody else seemed to register the change. The children kept eating their waffles as if their father had not just been replaced by a stranger. Hugo looked broodily at her kids.
“I don’t like this, Rosie.”
His hand was in the same position as Josh’s had been, cupped over hers. Rose slid her hand out from beneath it. Some strange cruel trick had been played. Hugo in Josh’s chair. Hugo in her husband’s place. A spark of anger flared inside of Rose. He has no right to be there. No claim to it. Rose felt suddenly as if Hugo had borrowed something without asking. Something deeply personal and beloved. Something she never would have loaned. To anyone.
“Where’s Josh, Hugo?”
Hugo scratched his head. Looked away. His face was …
His face is grumpy, thought Rose, like a child who isn’t g
etting his way.
Hugo sat back in Josh’s chair. The chair the kids called Daddy’s place. It was Josh’s. Left empty if he wasn’t home. A representative in his absence.
“I don’t like it here, Rose. I think we should go back to the island.”
Rose suddenly felt very sure that Hugo had done something to Josh. Hidden him or hurt him in some way. He was dodging her eyes.
“Hugo, where is he?”
He crossed his arms at his chest, frowning at the kids. “I don’t like them. I want it to be just us. It’s better when it’s just us.”
God, he was so frustrating. Like Isaac and his negotiations. Intentionally slippery and dissembling.
Rose heard a thump on the ceiling. Movement upstairs. It was heavy. A sudden, almost violent drop. She stood. “Did you do something to him?”
Hugo looked up at her, his mouth closed, smug. Bratty.
But he said nothing.
Rose wanted to smack him. She hated it when the boys did this. Lied. Treated her as if she were an idiot. Made her pry information out of them. Made her find the evidence of their wrongdoing.
She shook her head. This wasn’t the boys. The boys were still politely eating their waffles. This was Hugo. Hugo, dissembling. Hugo, making her pry.
Another thump sounded upstairs. He glanced at her. Guilty.
“Josh!” Rose broke for the steps, taking them two at a time.
She heard the squeak of Hugo’s feet behind her. Following her up the stairs into the hallway.
Rose began opening doors. The bathroom. The boys’ room. Penny’s. The guest. “Where is he?”
Hugo watched her from the top of the steps. “You’re not listening to me. It should only be the two of us.”
Rose turned the knob for her room. “Honey?” The door swung wide into a space that wasn’t her own. Her bed, her nightstand, gone, replaced by the boy’s bedroom from Hugo’s nightmare. The one into which they had fled from the rushing water and those laughing bullies. Star Wars sheets. Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Flip-board clock.
But no Josh.
Hugo stepped just behind Rose and she heard his breath stop at the sight of the room’s contents. He was nervous. “He’s not here, Rosie. Let’s go.”
Laughter came bubbling through the open window. Rose moved away from him, toward it. Looking down.
Hugo & Rose Page 20