Autumn Dreams

by Gayle Roper

  Cold prickles traveled the length of Cass’s spine. “That was you Friday?” she asked in an appalled whisper. “That gray car?”

  He nodded. “Silver. They call it silver.”

  She glared at him. “Like it matters.”

  “Yeah.” Dan nodded and sighed. “Like it matters.”

  It helped a bit that he seemed to understand that car color was nothing compared to a mother’s encroaching senility, but it tore her heart that he had seen Mom at her worst. She managed a tight smile in spite of the tears that gathered. “We’d better get in there.”

  “Hey,” Dan said, frowning. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She blinked the tears away. “Don’t worry about it. I’m really not upset at you. It’s Mom. She’s always been so dynamic, so strong, so much fun. Then suddenly she became someone totally different, a stranger.” She swallowed. “It’s hard.”

  Dan ran a finger across the dust on the dashboard. “Does she realize what’s happening?”

  Now there was an interesting and scary question. What would it feel like to know you were losing your mind? “I don’t know. She’s never said. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to remember you and the car and Friday, so she thinks she just met you. She’d be mortified if she knew you’d seen her in that condition.”

  “It’s our secret,” Dan assured her.

  Cass nodded and climbed out into the crisp autumn sunshine. He walked beside her up the walk. He held the door, and she passed through. She felt the heat of his hand at the small of her back as he directed her to the noisy family group the hostess had wisely seated in the corner, all the kids at one table, the adults at another.

  Dante’s was unusual in that it had a family side and a fancy side, the menu and prices differing significantly. The Merton party was on the family side. Somehow their waitress made sense of everyone’s orders and which meal should be on which check. Cass couldn’t decide whether she was more embarrassed or pleased when Dan insisted that Cass’s meal was his treat.

  “Does that mean us, too?” Jared called from the neighboring table, pointing to himself and Jenn.

  “Sure,” Dan said. “Why not?”

  “But, Dan—” Cass started, looking at the handsome man seated next to her.

  “Cassandra Marie,” Mom interrupted from her seat across from Cass. “You must never argue with your young man in public.”

  Her young man? “But Mom—”

  “Why,” she continued, smiling sweetly but looking alarmingly vague, “Jared is taking care of his girlfriend very nicely. Let—” She looked at Dan, obviously at a loss for his name.

  “Dan,” he supplied.

  Mom nodded. “Dan. Of course. Let Dan take care of you.”

  Cass looked at her mother. “Jared’s girlfriend?”

  “Certainly. That lovely girl sitting beside him. I forget her name.”

  Cass felt tears again prick her eyes. The lovely girl sitting next to Jared was Jenn.

  Mom had forgotten her own granddaughter.

  Eight

  TUCK STOPPED AT the door of Sherri’s bedroom and let his eyes wander. He shook his head in disgust. Patsi hadn’t let anyone move a thing since the day Sherri disappeared, and the room had become a shrine. The only things missing were lighted candles and a haloed icon of Sherri.

  He crossed the pale yellow carpeting to the windows with their yellow and blue floral drapes. The view was similar to that in the backyard, L.A. in all its glory. He could just imagine Sherri sitting here on the window seat staring at the city lights, a smile curving her lips as she dreamed her sweet dreams.

  She had been so optimistic it gave him stomach cramps just thinking about her.

  He turned from the window and began one of his frequent but secret forays about the room. What would he do this time? Steal something? Break something? Ruin something?

  Part of the fun of invading his stepsister’s domain was the surprise of suddenly realizing what was the right thing to do this time. It was almost mystical, the fine certainty that stole over him and caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand erect. He’d smile. The family princess was about to suffer significantly more discomfort than a pea beneath her pile of mattresses.

  The first time he’d experienced this knowing, he was nine. Four-year-old Sherri had been in the kitchen being fed by their cook. Hank was still at work, of course, and Patsi was at one of her unending meetings, keeping the world safe from predators who killed whales and baby seals and dolphins.

  He’d been curious to see how the little princess lived, so he prowled the room, at first just looking. Then he poked into her drawers, fascinated by all the miniature clothes. Her closet held more dresses than most children’s departments, and her toy box was filled to overflowing with any toy a little girl could desire. The lower shelves that ran around the walls held games and the higher ones a collection of designer dolls too high for Sherri to reach.

  “These dolls aren’t for playing,” Patsi had told Sherri. “They are too valuable.”

  Tuck studied the dolls with their pink cheeks and rosy mouths, their curling hair and magnificent outfits. Why would a girl want dolls she couldn’t play with? A pretty doll with brown hair that hung to her waist caught his eye. She reminded him of Sherri.

  And the knowing zinged through him.

  He grabbed the glorious doll from the shelf. While she smiled sweetly, vacantly at him, he took Sherri’s pink plastic little-kid scissors and chopped her hair off. Silken curls fell to the floor, and he smiled. He hacked and hacked until only a couple of inches of now ugly, uneven hair remained. He very carefully set the doll, the shorn hair, and Sherri’s scissors on her bed. Then he pulled her desk chair over to the shelf where the doll had stood.

  He stood back and studied his crime scene. He grinned. He skulked down the hall to his room where he played a computer game with the sound muted. He wanted to hear when the doll was discovered.

  He wasn’t disappointed. Patsi screamed in distress, then anger as she upbraided her darling daughter for such a vile act. Sherri was in hysterics as she pleaded her innocence, and all the designer dolls disappeared for safekeeping in spite of Sherri’s tears.

  For fifteen years he kept up his subtle torture of his stepsister. A much-loved stuffed animal would be found lying in the sodden grass after a rain or floating in the pool, ruined. A favorite article of clothing would develop a mysterious stain. A CD acquired a scratch that warped the music. A report for school inexplicably disappeared from the computer.

  At first Sherri ran to Patsi or Hank about every little thing, and they scolded her for her carelessness. Then he became aware that no one suspected Sherri any longer, and he relished this turn of events because it made the game that much more interesting. Get in, do the deed, and get out undetected. He was twelve when Hank took him to a child psychologist, the first in a long line of shrinks of all kinds and philosophies.

  Like they would ever persuade him to give up that zing.

  The years he was away at college were probably a relief to Sherri, but they were hard on him. He’d learned to like wielding the power of emotional pain. He had to make do with vacations and summers. Then she went away for the whole summer, first as a camper, then a counselor. He missed her terribly. How could he hurt her when she was gone? He still prowled her room, he still plotted, but he yearned for the immediate satisfaction of her distress.

  His most daring act occurred the night before she came home from camp the summer before she disappeared. He crept into her room and attacked Happy, her parakeet. Before that night he’d only damaged inanimate objects. But, oh, the zing in upping the ante.

  When she came home, she found the bird flopping in his cage with a broken back.

  He still smiled over that one. As she wept on Patsi’s shoulder, it was as if her tears had washed over him in a fragrant waterfall, comforting him. Even Hank’s glares and Patsi’s looks of disbelief, all aimed at him, hadn’t upset him. No proof.

  And t
hen, not too long after, Sherri had disappeared.

  He missed the pain.

  Nine

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON CASS was dusting in the common room when she heard the melody of the phone buttons being punched just around the corner at the registration desk. She walked to the doorway and there sat Brenna, the phone clamped to her ear. Again she was staring out the side window at nothing. Again her face was etched with equal parts pain and sorrow, and her eyes swam with tears.

  As Cass watched, she couldn’t help wondering why the girl was using the office phone when she had a cell phone of her own. Cass had seen her use it countless times, usually talking with Mike. The only thing she could think was that Brenna didn’t want the number to show on her bill—which would also be Mike’s bill if they had a joint plan. If she called from SeaSong, no one—certainly not Mike and probably not Cass herself—would notice one or two or even half a dozen extra calls since she paid a flat rate for SeaSong’s 800 number.

  Was Brenna trying to keep secrets from Mike? All kinds of questions about how he and Brenna were getting along raced through Cass’s mind. When she’d hired Brenna, she hadn’t known the young woman was living with her boyfriend. By the time she found out, Brenna had proven to be an excellent worker, and Cass couldn’t see letting her go over the issue, even though she didn’t approve of cohabiting. Once she’d actually talked to Brenna about it.

  “Why don’t you guys get married if you’re living together?”

  “Married?” Brenna looked surprised at the suggestion. “But I’m only twenty.”

  “What about the idea that sex and marriage are supposed to go together, and you shouldn’t have one without the other?”

  Brenna wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad. “I’ve heard that.”

  Cass waited for the but. Brenna didn’t disappoint.

  “But no one follows that old-fashioned idea anymore.”

  At least not many. “I do.”

  Brenna just looked at her, and Cass realized that in Brenna’s eyes her singleness was proof that she was wrong. If she put out a little, Brenna was too polite to say, she wouldn’t be climbing alone into the rinky-dink bed under the stairs every night.

  “I’m a Christian, Brenna, and I want to do things the way the Bible says to. And the Bible says wait.”

  Brenna nodded. “I know that.” She set her jaw. “I just didn’t want to.”

  “Has living with Mike made you happy? Filled all the holes inside?”

  “Were you ever in love with anyone, Cassandra?” Brenna asked, ignoring the question.

  Interesting question. “I don’t know. I was almost engaged to a guy once a long time ago, but he decided he loved a little redhead who came to my elbow. At the time I thought my heart was broken. Now I wonder.”

  “Did you sleep with him before the little redhead came along?” Brenna folded her arms, waiting for the truth.

  “Brenna!”

  “Hey, you brought up the subject.”

  True. “No, I didn’t. He was a Christian too, and we both felt the same way about being chaste.”

  “You’re an anachronism, Cassandra.” Brenna reached over and patted her hand. “But you’re a great boss.”

  Cass smiled at the girl to show she understood Brenna meant nothing nasty with the old-fashioned crack. “All I’m trying to be is an obedient Christian.”

  “Um.” Brenna frowned. “Don’t you get lonely all on your own?”

  Cass thought of the many times she and the Lord had talked about that very topic.

  “Yes, I get lonely, but I know that the Lord should be enough.”

  “Sounds good, Cass, but the Lord can’t hug you. I’ll take Mike any day.” And Brenna had disappeared into the next room to strip the bed.

  But it seemed everything might not be hunky-dory in Brenna and Mike’s little paradise. She was clearly bothered, obviously struggling with—what? Cass had no idea. All she knew was that Brenna no longer automatically smiled when she spoke of Mike, and she didn’t call him on her cell a million times a day. She seemed more solemn and preoccupied. Add secret, teary phone calls, and Cass thought she saw the handwriting on the wall.

  As she watched Brenna on the phone, curiosity about the person at the other end wiggled actively in Cass’s brain with all the energy of a pup wagging a greeting. Ruthlessly she made the nosiness sit and stay as she backed into the common room to give the girl privacy.

  The minutes spun out as Cass dusted the rocker, the escritoire she’d gotten at an estate sale in Haddonfield, and the Federal style fireplace with its collection of antique candlesticks, all with candles, ready for a summer electrical storm or a fall hurricane to knock out the lights.

  She found herself straining to hear Brenna’s voice. However, Brenna didn’t speak. She didn’t say a single word. Strange. Very Strange. Dial a number, but don’t talk to whoever answers?

  Concerned, Cass walked openly into the front hall where Brenna could see her.

  She could also see Brenna clearly, and Cass’s breath caught at the tears bathing that lovely face. Instinctively, she held out a hand. “Brenna?”

  The girl dropped the phone into the cradle and spun. “I’m sorry!” she blurted, her voice quavery. “I’ll pay; I promise I will.”

  Cass shook her head. “I’m not concerned about that. I’m concerned about you. Are you all right?”

  Brenna backed toward the swinging door behind her. “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Honey, fine people don’t cry. Maybe I can help?”

  “I’m fine,” Brenna repeated as she backed through the door. The tears continued to run down her cheeks. “Never felt better.” A shaky laugh drifted through the whishing air as she let go of the door and fled.

  Cass was thoughtful as she went back to her dusting. She was wiping down the books on the lower shelves in the library when Dan walked in carrying a novel.

  Cass stood, telling herself that what she felt was simply an innkeeper glad to see a guest. “Having a good day?”

  He shrugged. “Not too bad.”

  A short silence ensued while Cass tried to think of something to say. Dan walked to the shelves and slid the novel into a slot. He cleared his throat. “I told Brenna to tell you how good the omelet was this morning. Did she?”

  “Yes, she did. Thanks.”

  Dan scanned the shelves. “Um.”

  “Remember you told me you saw her make an almost phone call?”

  He looked at her over his shoulder and nodded.

  “She just made another one, only this time I think she held on long enough for a connection.”

  Dan turned to face her. A sly grin slid over his face. “You can usually tell there’s a connection because people say interesting things like hello.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “They do? Well, that’s the weird part.” She stuffed her dust cloth into her jeans pocket. “She didn’t say anything. When I walked to the registration desk, she slammed the phone down and bolted.”

  Dan leaned against the bookshelves, looking thoughtful. “Why would she make a call and say nothing?”

  “Good question. And she was crying, really crying.”

  “Ah.” He nodded sagely as if that information answered all their questions. Then he shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “I can’t figure her out either. I just hope she comes to work tomorrow.”

  “She wasn’t mad that you saw her, was she?”

  “No. Just incredibly sad and embarrassed.” Cass reached over and pulled a novel from the shelf. “Here. Read this one by Harry Kraus. You’ll like it. It’s a mystery about a man trying to create a new identity for himself.”

  He took the book even as he looked at her strangely. “I haven’t read as much fiction in my whole life as I’ve read since I got here!”

  “It’s good for you. Relaxes you.”

  “It makes me tense. I keep feeling I should be doing something worthwhile.”

  “Reading’s worthwhile
.”

  “Fiction?”

  “Sure. It lets you see life as it could be or should be. At least the novels that offer hope do. The bad guys get caught. The lovers get together. The quest is solved. Besides, Jesus told stories.”

  Dan looked intrigued. “The parables. I never thought of that. And don’t worry about Brenna. She’ll show.”

  Cass sighed. “I just wish I could help her.”

  Dan put his novel down on a shelf and moved closer to Cass. “I know you’re worried about her. It speaks volumes about you that you care so much for someone you’ve only known a couple of months. But if she won’t let you get close, there’s nothing much you can do, at least for now.”

  Cass frowned. It was almost as bad as one of the brothers patiently explaining something beyond her understanding.

  Dan saw the frown. “Come on.” His voice was light, teasing. “You know I’m right.”

  Cass pulled out her dust cloth and swiped at a few more dustless books, then stood staring at their spines. He was right, and she did know it. “I hate it when I can’t fix things.”

  “Are you telling me you’re a control freak?” He sounded appalled.

  She glanced up, ready to argue, and saw his grin. She couldn’t help but grin back.

  “Have dinner with me tonight.”

  She couldn’t hide her surprise even as she tried to tamp down the pleasure his invitation brought.

  “Please. I’m so tired of eating alone I could scream.”

  “Oh.” Of course. It wasn’t that he was dying to have dinner with her. It was more that she was the only person he knew. She was merely a hedge against another night of boredom. She gave a mental shrug. So what? A dinner with Dan was a dinner with Dan. “What time?”

  “You have to feed the kids, don’t you?”

  “You mean they aren’t invited?”

  Dan looked momentarily startled. Then he caught on to her wide-eyed innocent act. “Cute. Is seven okay?”

  At six-thirty Cass put the kids’ meal on the table. She’d thought Jared would never get home from football practice. She had time for a quick shower and a general spruce-up before she met Dan in the lobby. She reached in her cubbyhole of a bedroom and grabbed her robe off the back of the door. She started up the stairs to the family bathroom.