Bait

by M. Mabie

  I could feel the heat radiating off my shoulders from the hours in the sun. I was thirsty and thoroughly tired.

  That had to be why my mind had finally cracked. Her voice was only a figment of my imagination a reprieve my consciousness gifted to sooth me.

  “Casey?”

  There it was again. The sound was almost clear enough and bright enough to believe. I ignored it. I wouldn't let myself turn around only to learn I really was going mad. Then I felt a cool hand on my leg, as I stood on the lean-to ladder resting against the almost red building.

  The fingers stayed in place and I felt my eyes close. Either I was certifiable or it was real. I was afraid to find out which. I held my breath as fought my mind to tell me the truth.

  Was I fooling myself?

  Was it really her?

  Had I brought her out of the thin air by concentrating on her so hard?

  Then she said, “Hey.”

  I finally allowed myself to look down at my leg. There was a hand. And it belonged to my honeybee. She was really there. On the ground at my mom's house.

  I rested my head against my arm and tried to calm my breath. I didn't know what to say. Excitement at the thought of seeing her ran quickly through my veins. Then, I realized seeing her now would be one more memory I'd have to hide from later.

  “What do you want, Blake?” I sounded tired and beaten.

  She didn't answer, only retracting her touch from my leg.

  I was past the point of tip-toing around her feelings. She didn't mind stomping all over mine in her wedding shoes.

  One shaky foot after another, I climbed down off the wooden ladder.

  “I don't want anything, Casey,” she answered softly.

  “From me, you never do.” Stepping away from the last rung, I dipped down to grab the last water bottle I'd brought down with me. I took a long drink, tipping the bottle back, and I got my first good look of her, that I’d had in months.

  Her hair was the same, but she looked thinner and more tired than the Blake of my memory. When I'd got my fill of water, I poured the last little bit over my face, dropping the bottle onto the ground when it was empty.

  I ran my hands back and forth over my buzzed hair and the water came off the short strands in a mist that felt good on my hot, sunburned shoulders.

  “I just wanted to come and see how you’re doing since…,” she paused not knowing how to word the obvious, “…well to see how you're doing.” She looked over the paint job avoiding my eyes. “This looks nice.”

  I didn't have any fight in me, not at that moment. “It does,” I said, and walked a few feet away to the shade and sat down on the long grass.

  It needed a mow.

  I brought my knees up and leaned back on my aching arms.

  “Look, Blake. I'm not in the mood for your shit right now. If you came here to play the concerned lover, or friend, save it. I don't want to hear it.”

  My abrasive words bounced off her and she finally met my eyes again.

  “I am concerned.” She twirled a finger into the hem of her T-shirt and I saw her other fingers shake from where I sat. My ability to read her body still present as ever.

  “Okay.” I raised my eyebrows when I said it to tell her, with my face, that I was losing my patience.

  Neither of us said anything as she stood there in the sun, beads of sweat beginning to form on her forehead.

  It was a standoff and it was going anywhere. I had to break the silence, move this forward. To where I wasn't sure. “You could have sent a card or whatever. You didn't need to come here.”

  Her voice steady and sure she said, “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “Why?” I drew out the word on a long exhale.

  She looked to me and then to the pail of cherry red color, then back again. I was lost as to what she was thinking. I could see something growing braver behind her eyes. She went to the unused pack of paintbrushes and chose the widest one. She held it up as if to ask if she could do something with it.

  I shrugged.

  She walked to the paint and slowly dipped the long horse-hair brush deep into it, lifting it when it was thoroughly coated. She looked to the wall, silently questioning if it was still okay.

  Again, I shrugged. The whole thing was like a weird dream. Maybe the sun got to me and it was one. Maybe I was laying on the ground unconscious and it was all a fabrication of my subconscious. My vision blurred as I thought about the likelihood of that being possible. I stared off into the woods to the side of the barn.

  Blake saying, “Because of this,” broke my spell. When I gazed back at her I saw that in letters about two feet in height, she'd wrote the word BAIT.

  It stole my breath and it felt like my heart ripped more in a new place and healed in another. My shoulders fell forward, the weight of them more than I could hold up anymore. I leaned up and brought my dirty arms to my dirty knees, tucking my head in the hole it created.

  I didn't know what to do.

  I was sad. She could make me happy. Then she'd kill me all over again.

  Blake came to me and knelt so that we faced each other on the grass. She didn't touch me, but if I knew her as well as I thought I did, she wanted to.

  “Look at me, Casey. We need to talk. We need to be honest.”

  “Honest?” I was always honest with her. It was her who couldn't be honest with herself, let alone me, or that husband of hers. “Haven't we already had this conversation before? Like fifty times? I don't need to hear it again. You didn't have to come all the way here to remind me that you don't want me. That you made your choice. I don't want to fight with you anymore.”

  She bumped my knee, “Oh come on. You miss fighting with me.” She lifted her hand and showed me a gapped pinch about an inch wide, “Just a little?”

  “You know what I mean. This isn't a good time for this. For what we do. I can't.” I sounded exhausted.

  She scooted closer and threaded a leg underneath mine and wrapped her other leg around my back. She turned my face to meet hers. “Well, I miss it. I miss it a lot. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, but—”

  She cut me off. “But now isn't the time to worry about that. We'll sort all of that out later. Whatever you decide I'll agree to.” Her voice, coaxing and smooth, felt like a balm on my soul. “Right now, you need a bath. You need to let me feed you. And I'm going to take care of you.” Her smile was warm and I didn't have the heart to refuse her. I couldn’t have refused her anyway, because I desperately need this. So much.

  As we walked up through my mother’s terraced garden onto the concrete patio behind the house, I asked her, “How did you know I was down there? I was behind the shed.”

  She laced her fingers with mine and said, “I could hear your music when I got out of the car out front. So, I followed my ears.”

  “And how did you know I was here at this house?” My phone had been dead.

  “Audrey told me,” she said, then turned to face me. “Why didn't you want them to call me? Why didn't anyone tell me?” The hurt on her face was as plain as day. I always knew that when she finally learned about what had happened, that she’d feel terrible I didn't want her to know.

  “I asked them not to tell you.” It was the wrong thing to do, but knowing that my mother hadn't told me about her condition because she didn't want me to stop pursuing Blake still ripped at my insides. My mom wanted me to win her, even if we'd lose precious time together.

  “Why would you do that? You know I would have been here for you.”

  “It's complicated,” was the only thing I could honestly say. She took it for what it was worth and gave my hand a squeeze. Feeling her hand in mine really did help.

  It didn't give me my mom back and it didn't give me back the time I wasted chasing her to spend with my sick mother, but it felt good.

  She was right. I didn't have to have everything figured out right now. I just needed to feel something better. I'd worry about the rest when she would eventually leav
e me again. I wondered who would be here for me then.

  The house was pretty much a mess. The last week hadn't been that great and cleaning wasn't on my to-do list. There were dishes in the sink. A bag of beer bottles stashed next to the trash can. Papers scattered all over the counter and plants from the funeral were dying all over the place.

  “Wow,” she said in awe at the mess I'd let get out of hand. When I looked down to see her expression, she wiped it away and replaced it with one that was more nonchalant than anything, “It's not that bad,” she finally added with a small smile.

  Her eyes darted around to the fresh vegetables and fruit I'd brought in from the garden. I saw a plan forming.

  “Okay,” she said. “Since you're already dirty take a few of these,” she said as she handed me a half dozen ears of corn and continued, “and go outside and shuck them. Make sure to get all the silk off.” She turned me back around and pushed me toward the large French doors with both hands in the middle of my back.

  When I got to the table and unloaded, she'd already run inside and grabbed me a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. I looked at it and questioned if drinking was a good idea.

  She must have seen the words on my lips, because she said to my unspoken statement, “You're only having a few. And I'm having some, too.” She turned and went back into my mom’s house. I watched the sway of her hips and felt a peace wash over me like I'd never known.

  This is what it would be like if she would have chosen me. We'd never done anything domestic like this. She was a chef and she’d never cooked for me. We’d spent all of our shared time in other cities, in hotels.

  I wondered if I would have shown her that I wanted this, if she would have wanted it with me, too.

  Maybe it was the sun still getting to me—even though by then it was already tucked behind the timber—but it felt like a rogue puzzle piece had finally locked into place.

  I had blame in what had happened between us, or what consequently didn't happen, too.

  I'm sure it was probably too late. But for the first time in what felt like months under water, I took a long breath and started to regroup.

  I finished cleaning the corn meticulously, not wanting to disappoint a chef with my negligent work. I picked up the ears and bundled them in my battered hands. The sun was almost completely set and the kitchen lights lit up the back of the house.

  Before I got to the doors I stopped.

  She looked like a dream. My favorite dream. She looked like my home.

  She'd done a fast, but thorough job picking up the trash and emptying the sink of week-old dishes. She was in her element. She’d put my mom’s apron on.

  Seeing that, my eyes grew hot and burned. I couldn't move. She’d even folded the middle up around where it tied so that it wasn't too long. Just like my mom did.

  My honeybee was in my kitchen cutting up carrots and peppers and god only knew what else to make food for us. Places inside me melded back together, and I physically felt my heart beating again. Part of me felt wary, but I was too damn tired to feel anything at that moment. I just needed to take it in and enjoy it. Surrender to this unexpected gift.

  My fight for her wasn't over. As long as both of us could keep finding our way back to each other, it might never be. In that moment, I didn't care about her marriage with Grant. It didn't matter who she chose to marry. It mattered that we had something that you couldn't put down on paper. Something you couldn’t choose, but was chosen by. Something bigger than merely changing your last name. What we had was only for us. It was indefinable.

  We were both slaves to it.

  Saturday, October 17, 2009

  I'M A SLAVE TO this pull that Casey's heart has on mine. I'd thought that not seeing him in so long would dull it. It never did. If it wasn’t love, then it was something equally unconditional.

  When my eyes fell on him earlier that day, I almost didn't recognize him. His face looked hollow and lackluster where it used to glow and shine.

  He'd cut off his beautifully wild hair, and in place was a short buzzed replacement. I can't say that it didn't look good, but it didn't look as good as his curly locks did. I missed them. I missed the way they would automatically wrap around my fingers like they were holding me close. The way they moved when he was animated.

  But it was his eyes that were the most changed. The light that was there had dimmed. I felt bad for thinking it, but I hoped it was because of his mother's passing and not because of me.

  I’d tried to call his phone, but then I absolutely couldn't take not hearing from him anymore. So I called Bridgett to see if I could work out of the San Francisco office for a while.

  It worked out well for us both, since Melanie was on a month-long trip to Costa Rica and they were a little short staffed while she was away.

  Grant didn't like it when I let him know I was going to be gone for a month, but he eased up when I told him I would come home for a long weekend in the middle. It wasn't like we were going to see each other that much anyway.

  We never did.

  I busied myself cleaning while Casey removed the husks from the fresh corn outside. I'd taken the trash out to the bin that I'd seen on the side of the house out front when I arrived. I loaded the dishwasher and tried to make some order of the counter space. The whole house wasn't a colossal mess; it was concentrated into one central place. The kitchen.

  I'd looked in the cupboards and found some vegetable stock and decided a light vegetable soup would do just fine. There were some chicken breasts in the freezer and I had them thawing in the empty sink.

  I could tell that it was a kitchen that got used a lot.

  It was a home. It even felt like one to me.

  Grant and I had renovated an entire house, but it didn't have a feeling like this place did. It didn't have any of the natural charm. It didn't have the notched wood in the pantry marking every inch of two boy's lives. It didn't have the calendar with birthdays and anniversaries scribbled down months in advance.

  My heart was heavy for Casey, and Cory, too. But Casey mostly. Cory was starting his own family and he had Micah, who no doubt would be supporting and caring after he'd lost his mother. But Casey seemed to be alone.

  I didn't have time to think about those things. It wasn't the best time to talk to him about how I'd made such a terrible mistake. And how if only he could give me some time, I was going to ask Grant for a divorce.

  But I couldn't do it right away. We'd only been married a few months. But crying on your honeymoon behind big black sunglasses, and saying it was just a bad hangover wasn't normal newlywed behavior. It had instantly felt wrong. It felt like an injustice, to both me, Casey and Grant.

  I loved Grant. I cared for him a lot. But I never felt as powerfully consumed by him as I did by Casey. Sadly, it took seeing the grass on the other side of the fence to prove to myself it was greener.

  But all of these thoughts were for another time. Another day. I prayed Casey would allow us to have them. Even though, he didn't owe me anything.

  I heard him at the door just as the broth was beginning to boil with the potatoes I'd quickly cut up. So I wiped my hands on the apron I'd found hanging in the pantry, and went to open the door for him.

  “All done?”

  “Yep, probably not as good as you would have done, but to be fair I'm not a chef.”

  “This is very true.”

  “It looks better in here.”

  I looked around and agreed. It did.

  “It wasn't that bad, I told you,” I repeated, even though my initial reaction was shock when we came inside earlier.

  “Whatever, it was bad. Thank you. It even smells better in here. What is on the stove?” He talked as he walked over to the pot that was perched atop the six-burner range. Like I’d said, his mom's kitchen was pretty amazing.

  He still didn’t have a shirt on and I could see how the sun had scorched him badly. “Just a quick soup and some chicken, then we'll take a bath. Wash your hands and sit d
own.” I took the corn, rinsed it, and then stood them on their ends, running a sharp blade down the long sides scalping the cob. “Need another beer?”

  “Yeah, I'll take one, but I can get it. Are you ready?”

  “Sensuous,” I said playing his game from our former life.

  He chuckled and it was music to my ears. He seemed different than when I'd first showed up. Hopefully, he decided not to hate my guts like I deserved. I'd made a decision before I even got on a plane to California that even if he hated me I would help him somehow. I had to. So, now with the change in his attitude, it seemed like things might be all right. And all right was better, because we were at least in the same room. Fighting or otherwise. If we did fight, it would be because he was right and I had been so very wrong.

  I couldn’t concentrate on that in that moment though. I just needed to be there. For him.

  He opened the cold bottle of honey-brown lager and placed it where my empty stood. After discarding the old one, he took a sip and sat across from me, watching as I cooked. We were both quiet, but there wasn't the monstrous tension from before.

  With us, sometimes it was like dipping your foot into a very hot bath, you had to go in slowly or it would scald you. We were readjusting. Something we actually were good at.

  He cleared his throat and asked, “So you're in town for work?” as he traced imaginary circles on the counter top not meeting my gaze.

  “Well sort of,” I answered. “Do you know where there's a colander?”

  He pointed to above my head behind me and I turned to locate it. It was nestled atop the cabinet, along with some matching handmade, I guessed, pottery bowls. They were beautiful. The paint was blue and it faded into a teal green color at the bottom. They looked like they were fired when they were still wet, because each had unique drippings down the sides.

  I turned around, but knew that it would be a stretch. I wasn't super short, but it was up way high.

  I'd met Deb a few times and she wasn't taller than me. I assumed there was a footstool or a step ladder close by, but when I didn't find one with one glance around, I decided to make a go of it and pray I didn't drop his mother’s beautiful colander.