She considered packing up the old radio as well, but then as an nod to whatever common sense remained, she left it on her nightstand. It was just a piece of plastic and wiring with no magical powers. Yet she couldn't help thinking of her first night in the house and that eerie dedication of their favorite song from “Ethan” to “someone special in Texas.”
Just a coincidence. Nothing more. Stop seeing things that aren't there.
Surely there had to be at least one other Ethan out there, even if the name was uncommon. Still the song had been the one he once dedicated to her in high school, just before summer vacation: “See You in September.”
She made up her mind to focus on getting answers and understanding what had happened, rather than wallowing in an endless quagmire of “what might have been”. Yet recent events eroded her faith in herself and shook her belief in her own sanity.
She pushed her thoughts aside when her cell phone rang and announced “call from Benjamin”. After the usual banter between the two of them, the true purpose of his call came to light. Ben always had an agenda. Of that one thing she was certain:
“You have a new art project waiting for you, Emma. I need you back in Boston as soon as possible.”
“Must I? I can work from here, can't I? Send me something on it.”
“No, not this time. I think this work would go much easier if you were here. It's much too involved.”
“You may have to get someone else then. I've only been here a couple of days. I need to help Dad with readying the house for selling...along with some other things I need to tend to.”
Ben was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, his Boston accent seemed stilted compared to the soft, easy drawl of Cobblers Cove: “Your mother's concerned that, on a whim, you ran away to the exact place that brought you so much unhappiness.”
“I didn't run away...not this time. It's not the place...but what happened here. You forget that my father is here, and my roots are here. I'll come to Boston when things are more settled...when I feel more at peace. I still have unanswered questions. ”
“Obviously, you listened to that crackpot psychiatrist of yours, even though you functioned all these years by blocking out that incident. Recalling what happened may do more harm than good."
“I am able to function...but the images are suddenly back with me when I turn off the lights. I didn’t want to remember, so I closed myself off from it, but I'm at a point in life when I'm ready to face everything. The past will not leave me alone until I understand it and put it to rest.”
“Lets talk about when you do come back to Boston. I want to plan a major party.”
“Sounds serious.”
His voice became less impersonal, dripping into his own imitation of cozy: “It is serious. I expect to announce an engagement...our engagement.”
“You have mighty high expectations, Ben.”
“Only way to play the game, Emma. That's all life is you know...a tough and exciting game. There are only winners and losers, and the best game and the surest winners are right here in Boston. You no longer belong down there in those antiquated backwoods. Come back to the real world once you've finished your ghost hunting expedition.”
After that statement, Emma shut down, and so they said their awkward goodbyes. Emma was left with a vague unease that she could not shake.
Any other woman would be ecstatic to have Ben and his world at her feet.
She thought of Benjamin with his square jaw, cool gray eyes behind the studious, no–nonsense glasses and the oh-so-proper tailored suit. Her would-be suitor looked like someone straight from the set of “Mad Men.” Yet when she thought of him—if she thought of him—she felt none of the sweet churning intensity that had colored her days with Ethan. There was in her heart the free spirit of her youth.
What do you expect, Emma? Ethan was a once in a lifetime blessing that was taken away. Nothing can be that lovely or that painful ever again. You can't allow it.
The first front of autumn blew in with the setting of the sun; a chill seemed to emanate from the high walls of the big house as if to echo Emma's mood. She turned on the gas fire log in the hearth, lit it and soon a steady fire calmed her. The warm glow from it lulled her into a state of total relaxation.
As if in a daze, she climbed the stairs to her room and picked up the box of memories which she looked though for the next hour. She took each item out one last time. A wave of loneliness crashed over her, and she could barely breathe.
Finally, she dried her eyes and brought the box down and set it in front of the fireplace. Sitting cross-legged on the rug, she lifted out each memento: the old photos, the dried flowers, the valentines. She tossed each piece into the fire, one by one. Then she came to the last , the painting. Not this...not this too. She clutched the picture against her chest, saving its destruction for the very last.
As she watched the other pieces disappear into the flames, she felt as if she were in a heavy, invisible blanket that grew thicker and more suffocating each second, until it changed into deep cool water that took her in, just before sealing out all regret and sadness. She could see Ethan's face: tanned and beautiful one moment and gray and lifeless the next. His mouth moved, but she could hear no words.
Tell me what I need to know. Stay with me a moment longer.
Somewhere, someone was calling her back from the infinite depths of her misery.
Emma...Emma.
She did not feel the floor against her body nor the heat from the fire. But she could still hear. The last thing she heard was a song playing somewhere in the recesses of her mind or from somewhere outside of herself:
Traces of love long ago...
that didn’t turn out right...
Traces of love with me tonight.
Then came the urgent whisper that grew louder and louder: Emma! Then nothingness.
The next moment, or an eternity after, she gasped and then choked as she swallowed a fiery liquid she recognized as the brandy her mother once used for Christmas baking. It brought her back, and she suddenly ached for her mother. She felt like a drowning person breaking the surface for air to smell wet grass and fresh air; she opened her eyes to discover she was lying on the front lawn. She tried to focus on a face above her. When she finally spoke, her voice came out detached and weak: “Daddy, when did you get home? How did I get out here?”
“I carried you out of the house. I came home and found you. You had turned on and lit the gas log with the flue closed and inhaled carbon monoxide. For the love of God, Emmie. I checked that flue before the cool snap. Why'd you close it?”
“ What, in God's name, are you're trying to say! No...no. I didn’t try to...”
“But you closed off the flue.. unless someone else was here...and why would anyone close it any way? That's an easy way to go to sleep and never wake up.”
“Who else could have been here? I locked up when I left to meet Amy. Someone had to come in without my knowing, but why would anyone do that? How could they get in? Everything seems fuzzy right now.”
Lucas' eyes narrowed and his mind burned with thoughts he could not share. Whatever he believed, he kept to himself.
“Lucky for you I walked in when I did. Another few seconds...” His words trailed off as he helped her into a lawn chair and slumped down beside her. Father and daughter sat sipping her mother's aging Christmas brandy in absolute silence. Emma fought the wooziness that wore down her will like waves towing her under. She struggled against it, until it subsided at last.
“When I was a kid, you always called me Emmie when you were worried about me...like when I ran a temperature or even when you were put out with me...when I did something that scared you and took me out of your reach...like when I climbed that big old oak when I was five. Which is it this time, Daddy?”
“Has it been that long since I called you by that name?”
“It has been.”
He smiled, reached out for her hand in the darkness but then drew back.
/> “By the way, you haven't called me 'Daddy' since you were a kid. In answer to your question...maybe it's the same feeling as when you climbed that thirty foot tree. Part of me feared you'd fall if I didn’t get a ladder and rescue you, and part of me wanted to let go long enough to see if you made it down on your own.”
The next moment, her father was handing her the painting and watching for her reaction. “This was in your hands when I found you.”
Emma stared down at the painting, the one out of all of her work, that represented all that young love can be: the one of herself and Ethan by the water. But it was not the same. She could see what had been done to it in the garish glow of the flood lights: Someone had obscured their faces with gray smears of still wet oil paint, like the supplies she kept in her artist case. Could I have done such a thing?
Emma exhaled in one continuous ragged breath:“Dad...as it turns out...I may need that rescue ladder after all.
4: The Past Revisited
Lucas did his best thinking while working at manual labor. Somehow his brain functioned more clearly when his hands were busy. He was not the kind of man who sat and stewed, nor was he the kind of man who revisited memory lane—except for a couple of pleasant detours here and there. It was easy to look at life on those simple terms when he was out in the fields baling hay, mending fences or tending to the birth of a calf.
A lifetime of ranching had conditioned him to accepting life's inevitability and its rhythms. It had centered him, bringing him to deal with what he could and leaving the rest to fate. When it came to his daughter Emma, it became more complex. So the next morning, after the scare of the previous evening, Lucas was more than ready to be outside. Yet he hung around the house later that usual to be sure Emma was alright.
Emma surprised her father by fixing bacon and eggs and then sat peering at him across the breakfast table until he squirmed in his chair.
“I'll be okay, you know,” she said at last.
“What's that?”
“You can go out to the pasture or to town... or wherever you need to go. I'll be okay.”
“I would bet on it, but why not get your mind off things. Why don’t you and Amy Walker do a little shopping and have lunch.”
Lucas was not the type of man to reach over and pat a woman's hand in reassurance; and his words came out rough around the edges . Yet Emma could see through to his heart and smiled nonetheless.
“I don’t know that I can deal with Amy today, Dad.”
“And I don't know if you can deal with Brad Caldwell either. He's coming over to help me mow. I know there's been a rift between you two over the years. But the weeds are sky high with that rain we had the other day, and I have to change a belt out on the John Deere. Brad has his own place to keep, but he thinks I need looking after.” Lucas took a couple of bites of egg and looked up. “Do I look old to you?”
Emma squinted at her father over her coffee cup. Even in the harsh glow of the overhead light, he didn’t look half bad. She would have fibbed a bit if it came to it but was glad she didn't have to.
“Actually, I was just sitting here thinking that you are still a handsome man and in decent shape—despite years of existing on chicken fried steak at Ruby's.”
A ring of red crept up from around Lucas' collar, until his face flushed. Emma could only speculate at his reaction to the mention of the fireball Ruby.
“All the same,” he sighed. “I'm beginning to feel my age...a little stiffness in the hands and knees from time to time. This place has taken its toll. That's why I gave Tommy Walker the key to the place and told him to show it till he sold it. Doesn't matter much. Haven't had many prospects lately, and I 'm sure not going to go live with your mother. I'll stay here 'til I croak, if I have to. ”
“Dad...this is a sensitive subject...but why is it you and Mom didn't divorce years ago and move on with your lives? You're still young enough to find someone.”
Lucas crunched on a piece of bacon stalling for time, weighing his answer: “The fact that your mother is a devout Irish Catholic has a lot to do with why we're still married. I could have handled divorce, but Grace wouldn't discuss it...and your grandmother would have disinherited her if she had. It's that simple and that complicated. But I'll always care about your mama.”
“So all these years you've had no one in your life?”
She wasn't letting it go that easily. Lucas pushed his plate away and leaned forward, eye to eye: “I didn't say that. Let me tell you, real men have a sense of honor about women. They don't kiss and tell. I'm not discussing my love life...or lack of it... with my daughter.”
“Is it Ruby?”
Lucas threw up his hands in surrender. “You win. Okay. She's a little rough around the edges...but goodhearted...and a good friend. And I am not answering any more questions!”
“A man's code of honor.”
“That's what I said. Instead of trying to conjure up a spirit from your past, you would do well to learn something about real live men!”
As if on cue, the side door opened, and Brad stepped into the kitchen. Obviously, over the years, Lucas had given him free reign at the St. Claire house, to come and go as he pleased. It occurred to Emma that Lucas thought of Brad as a son, and she could see why: Brad was cut from the same mold in blue chambray shirt, Levis and well worn boots . It crossed Emma's mind that Lucas probably had visualized Brad as what a son of his might have been.
Add a cuddly puppy in his arms, and he could sell a woman a hut in Outer Mongolia. Some women that is...but not this woman.
"Aren't you two speaking to each other?” Lucas asked, looking from one to the other. “You act like strangers. You two used to be thick as thieves. I remember the time when you both were three years old, and I pulled the two of you out of the same mud hole, kickin' and screamin'. Took Grace and me an hour to clean you two up. Where one of you was, there was the other.”
Brad and Emma looked at each other for a moment, and Emma decided she should be cordial: “Hello, Brad. What are you up to this morning?”
“Just came down on the tractor to cut grass around the house. ”
“You drove the tractor here?”
“Well...sure...have you forgotten where I live? I'm less than two miles down the road.”
“I forgot. I am in East Texas.”
She caught him averting his eyes and realized she was still in her pajamas. It had never bothered Brad before, but that morning he seemed almost irritated by it. He must have seen her in night clothes a hundred times growing up. Then looking down, it became apparent to her, the difference in a girl and a woman. Emma's face turned red.
“I haven’t forgotten where you live, Brad. Your house was like a second home growing up. I haven’t lost all memory...just some, you know?”
“Don't get bent out of shape. I meant nothing by it.”
Emma shrugged and began taking dishes to the sink. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Brad pour himself a cup of coffee and chug it, as if in a hurry to be anywhere but around her.
Lucas shook his head, grabbed a denim jacket from the back of his chair and headed toward the door. “I'll be out in the barn if you need me,” he called over his shoulder. “Don't bother with lunch. I'll grab something in town later.”
“One of Ruby's daily specials?” Emma called after him with arched eyebrow.
Lucas turned and gave her the “don't go there” look she remembered from childhood.
“You know something? You can be a real pain in the butt sometimes...just like your mother. I sure hope my DNA kicks in before I turn you loose on the world again. You've been too long in Boston with the blue bloods. The problem with you is...as I said before...you need a nice Texas country boy to straighten you out.”
Emma smiled in spite of herself. “I deserved that. I promise I'll try to be on my best behavior here on out.”
“And you, Brad...stop standing there shifting from one foot to the other,” Lucas barked. “Get yourself some breakfast, but
beware of the piranha circling the kitchen. It's female and the deadliest kind.”
“No thanks, sir. I think I'll just get to work.”
Without another word, both men went outside: Brad to his tractor and Lucas to the barn; Emma finished up in the kitchen and went upstairs and checked her emails from her lap top. She scanned down until she saw Ben's familiar email address: “Please come to Boston” said the message. He just wouldn't stop, she decided.
“Maybe sooner than expected,” she typed and paused for only a moment before hitting the send button.The second she sent it, she knew it was a lie.
From the bedroom window, she could see the lake and in front of it, Brad on the lawn tractor working through the front, neatly cutting concentric circles. She opened her window to the earthy smell of freshly cut grass and sweet air. September was sometimes the last time for mowing, before an early freeze in October. It was a time of change when Mother Nature was whimsical. One never knew what September would bring . How well she knew.
As if with a will of their own, her eyes were drawn outside to Brad: his strong hands expertly turning the wheel, his jaw set and resolute. He seemed more of a man than she remembered, with shoulders broadened by years of physical labor.
She smiled, remembering the two of them as far back as Kindergarten, when he was a bucktoothed runt, and she was a pig- tailed tomboy. He had been her buddy, her confidant, her protector. He had taught her how to throw a ball, ride a bike, and spot poisonous snakes. Later on, he was always in her group of friends, always somewhere near the perimeter of her world until that day seventeen years ago.
It had been he, her best buddy Brad, who had chosen to tell what she wanted to believe was a lie, or some mean-spirited rumor, about “the other girl” in Ethan's life. And so had begun the disagreement that had brought Ethan to that deadly decision. She had not given Ethan the chance to tell her the truth or ask for her forgiveness. She blamed herself for Ethan's death. But she blamed Brad as well.
September Song Page 3