by Teri Harman
Though she was warm and comfortable, the sound of Lucy and Henry’s breathing the perfect lullaby, sleep could not break through the whirlwind in her mind. She still felt as if she’d left something behind. She ran a checklist of every item they owned down through her mind, from each and every book to the plastic baggie of bobby pins in her makeup bag. It was all there, tucked into the Bel Air. So what was this feeling?
And she could still smell snow—sharp and crisp.
Like the night she fled Silent Fields.
Jetty had always urged Matilda to listen to her instincts. But Matilda wasn’t sure what they were telling her. How did she decipher this tightness in her chest, the shudder in her stomach? Though she did her best to dismiss it as nerves, part of her knew better.
Part of her knew it was more.
Henry
Henry stood outside the hotel. The trunk of the Bel Air was open, waiting for the bags, but he turned away to look at the sky. Dark gray clouds roiled in the distance, the corners swept upward as if by a broom. The road to Kansas City was in that direction, under those threatening clouds. Their new home was only a few hours away.
The wind was calm now, but he wondered if they would drive right into that mess. Not that it mattered—the Bel Air, thick and heavy, was a champ in storms. But still. Lucy didn’t like thunder or driving in the car when it rained. A couple weeks ago, they’d been caught in a mad downpour while driving home from dinner at their favorite burger place. Lucy had screamed, shaking in her seat, fat tears making her big eyes look bigger. She hadn’t calmed down until they’d ducked into the apartment and closed all the blinds.
Henry shut the trunk. Descriptions of the clouds invaded his mind, all the ways he might put it down on paper. Rebel clouds, impending storm, noxious thunder. He shook his head and tried to push the words away before he unburied a typewriter.
Back in the hotel room with its beige walls, maroon bedspread, and bad nature watercolors, Henry found Matilda standing at the window, shoulders tense. She was such a small thing, but he never realized it until a moment like this when he could observe her quietly. Only when her body was still and she wasn’t talking did he see how little Matilda was. He knew something was bothering her; she hadn’t been able to hide an emotion from him from those first moments in the library. But why she felt something often remained hidden from him. She’d never spoken much about why she left home after Jetty’s death. She refused to go back and visit. Henry worried that moving back to Kansas had stirred up some emotion or memory which had put her in this funk.
He crossed over, smiling down at Lucy who sat on the floor playing with a mangled plastic Slinky. The newness of her, this little person, part him, part Tilly, and part her own, had not left him yet. He didn’t think it ever would. He’d never had a real family, and the marvel of it struck him multiple times a day. The permanence and comfort of Matilda and Lucy settled a fight deep inside him he once thought would rip him to pieces. This was what Henry had always wanted, always needed, but feared he did not deserve.
Matilda didn’t turn as he approached. He ran a hand down her long, silky raven hair. “We didn’t forget anything.”
She sighed. “I know. I’m fine.” She let the dusty curtains fall back into place. “This is the right decision. Right?”
Henry’s brow furrowed. This was the first time he’d heard her express doubt about the move. “Of course. It’s perfect for us.”
Matilda nodded slowly, looked away. “Everything in the car?”
“Is this about Jetty? Are you worried about going back to Kansas?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
He reached out to touch her face. Her eyes were almost as dark as her hair—dark but so bright. Sometimes blinding. “Just a few hours and we are home.”
She tried to smile. “Good. It will be nice to get there.” She stepped around him and scooped up Lucy, still intently chewing on the neon orange Slinky. “We’re gonna drive into a storm.”
Henry felt a wave of cold as she said it. Something in her tone. “I saw it.”
“Let’s hope Lucy is asleep.”
n
As they neared Kansas City, about an hour out, the storm growled to life. The sun retreated, throwing the sparse country into slate darkness. An eerie stillness hung in the sky until the thunder set the rain free. For a few minutes it was sideways, pelting rain, but a downdraft of cold air soon turned the rain to snow. Snow so thick Henry had only about a foot or two of visibility off the hood.
“Man, this is ugly.” Henry glanced back at Lucy, thankfully asleep in her seat, head fallen at what looked like the most uncomfortable angle possible. Henry’s pulse quickened. As someone from Michigan, he’d driven in snow numerous times, but this came on so quickly that he worried about black ice. And it was getting hard to see the lines on the road.
“Should we pull over and wait it out?” Matilda gripped the door handle so tightly Henry wondered if the metal had indentations yet.
“Maybe. Or we might drive out of it if we keep going.” He wasn’t sure what was best. He wanted to be safe, but pulling off the road had its disadvantages. If the storm dumped too much snow they might get stuck and he’d have to dig out the car. Or another car might slide off and hit them. And if he stopped, Lucy would probably wake up. Even moving slowly felt safer than stopping. “We’re close. We can just plug along.”
Matilda nodded stiffly. “It’s snowing.”
Henry frowned at her wistful, worried tone. The temperature in the car had also plummeted and he reached to turn up the heat. That’s when he felt the slippery shift of the car, like the first dip of a rollercoaster. His stomach clenched and he flung both hands back to the large steering wheel.
Matilda gasped. “Black ice! Did we hit black ice?”
Henry fought the urge to slam on the brakes. The car was gaining speed, slipping, sliding. At first the Bel Air stayed straight, but then the fat, weighted backend started to swing out. Henry’s heart leaped into his throat. He turned into the skid, keeping his foot off the brake, trusting physics and gravity, but it wasn’t helping.
Matilda was breathing fast. A mighty scream came from the back seat; Lucy was awake. Matilda twisted in her seat to look at Lucy. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Just some snow.” She turned back and Henry felt the pressure of her eyes, felt the desperate begging in them to keep them safe.
The car was now sliding like the tires were made of silk. He tried to pump the brakes, but it didn’t slow them down. His hands were white on the wheel. “We’re not slowing down,” he whispered.
Lucy’s crying grew louder and louder. Acid anxiety burned the back of Henry’s throat. I have to keep them safe. He pumped the brakes, he fumbled with the wheel. Still, faster they slid.
Matilda’s fingernails dug into his thigh. “Henry …”
The road started to slope downward, adding to their speed. Henry peered out the windshield, hoping there would be a flat patch of shoulder to slow them down, help them stop. He found instead a steep drop-off. All he could see was the knife-sharp edge of the road and an abyss of snow.
I can’t lose them. Then, darkly, Maybe I never deserved them.
“It’s okay, Lucy,” Henry said as calmly as he could, but at the shaky sound of his voice, the child’s cries only increased.
Matilda turned around, took Lucy’s little hand. “We’ll be okay. The road is just slippery. Daddy will slow us down. It’s okay.”
Henry felt sick. It wasn’t okay. The backend betrayed him and swung out to the right. They spun in a full circle. Matilda screamed. Lucy cried louder. Henry felt the weight of the car slop to the side. The car spun again, whipping hard. The wheels caught a patch of gravel.
A rough tug, a squealing whine.
The world turned upside down.
The crunching of the metal and crackling of glass drowned out Lucy’s cries. Henry’s head knocked into the side window; the steering wheel was too close to his chest. He thought he said Matilda’s name, but
wasn’t sure if he only thought it. The car flipped again and again.
Henry couldn’t feel the pain because Lucy’s crying had stopped and Matilda’s body was a rag doll in his side vision. He lost consciousness before the car stopped tumbling through the snow.
Matilda
It’s my fault. My fault. My fault.
Matilda felt far away from herself, like being lost in a dream. But something was tugging at her. Sensations of cold and wet registered partially, soon replaced by a burning, breath-taking pain. She inhaled loudly and opened her eyes. A world of white. Stars showing through holes in the gray clouds.
Panic edged aside her pain. “Lucy? LUCY!” Matilda tried to turn, but found herself trapped against the dashboard, pebbles of windshield under her face. “Henry? Lucy?” Oh, it hurts. It hurts!
Matilda shuddered, kept her eyes closed. The snow. The black ice. The memory of the car spinning and rolling attacked her mind. She tried again to lift up to see Lucy or Henry, but couldn’t move; her seat had her pinned. She turned her head to the left, the glass cutting into her face as it slid along the dashboard.
Henry lay over the steering wheel, his face bloodied. The sight took her breath away and black spots appeared in her vision. Panic tasted foul in her burning throat. “Henry! Wake up!”
Henry did not move, did not open his eyes.
“No, no, no. Please don’t. Please!” Matilda swallowed bile. “Lucy? Can you hear Mama? Lucy!”
Matilda had never heard such silence, like the cold stare of an accusation, like a death sentence. She started to cry, which only made the pain worse. This is my fault. I should never have run away. I’m being punished. I’m finally drowning in my deep end.
Matilda blinked her tears away, trying to see clearly whether Henry was still breathing. She needed to get to Lucy. Struggling, Matilda managed to get her hands on either side of her head, pressing hard into the dashboard. She shoved with all her might, screaming with the effort and the pain it caused. The first time nothing happened, but a wave of anger made her try again and this time her seat gave way and she collapsed back.
Free.
Surprised, she could only lie for a moment and breathe in gasps of wet, cold air. Then she turned over, howling in agony at the wallop of pain from her left leg. She looked down at the white and red exposed end of a bone. Her vision went gray and she nearly fainted, but she turned away. When her eyes fell on Lucy, Matilda no longer felt her own pain.
Lucy’s precious little body was askew in her car seat, her dark hair wet with blood. Her tiny round face white. Matilda felt the earth shift. “Lucy … baby?” She scrambled toward her, ignoring the glass and metal cutting into her and the movement of the broken bone in her leg. She reached out a trembling hand to touch Lucy face. Cold. Too cold.
“No.”
Matilda’s hand dropped to her child’s chest. Silent and unmoving. Great, powerful sobs swelled in Matilda’s own chest. “No,” she cried loudly. “Lucy!” A hot black grief sprung to life in Matilda’s gut. The air filled with smoke. My parents. Jetty. Lucy and Henry. I am cursed. Her whole body began to tremble with anger. This was more grief than anyone should be asked to bear. How could she possibly survive its murky weight?
“Matilda?” Henry called out weakly.
She couldn’t turn to look at him, did not register any joy that he was alive. “She’s gone.”
“What?” Henry shifted, yelling out in pain from his injuries. “No, Tilly—”
“Yes. Lucy’s gone.” Matilda fought a wave of dizziness. “It’s my fault. I never should have …” Did I bring this on us? Jetty, you were wrong.
“Matilda?” Henry’s voice was desperate, tight with pain, but also commanding. “Look at me!”
Matilda slowly turned her head. “I wish I had never met you.”
Then, blackness.
PART TWO
Henry
Henry woke with his face on the table in the Detroit Public Library, sun burning his cheek. He blinked several times, disoriented. Then he sat up sharply, heart thudding.
This isn’t right.
“Hey, man, are you okay?”
Henry turned toward the voice attached to a hippie-looking guy in loose jeans, a grubby black shirt, and long, nasty dreadlocks. The hippie’s eyes were pulled wide with worry, his body slightly leaning away as he looked at Henry.
“Uh … yeah,” Henry mumbled. “I just … fell asleep? Weird dream … I think.”
Hippie nodded. “Looked like you might be having a heart attack or something.”
“No. No, I’m fine. Thanks.” But I’m not fine. I don’t remember coming here. I don’t …
The hippie nodded once again, “Cool typewriter,” he added and then strolled off.
Henry frowned. What typewriter? His eyes dropped to the table.
A blank piece of paper, his pen. Just like always. But also more. A book and a sleek black typewriter. It was obviously old, with ribbon and keys, no source of power other than fingers pounding those shiny letters. It sat low and long, like a cat, the exposed grin of typebars shining in the light. Along the bottom frame in silver letters it read Remington Rand. Something about it sent a nervous chill through him. He looked around the library as if someone might explain to him the appearance of the items. Had someone left them while he slept? Was I really asleep? But both the typewriter and the book faced him, waiting patiently at his elbow. His fingers itched to touch the round keys, to slide the platen until it dinged. But touching it felt dangerous, so instead he moved his attention to the book.
A Thousand Sleepless Nights by Louis Winston.
Henry read the title three times, hoping it would sound familiar. It didn’t. And in all his extensive reading, he’d never heard of an author named Louis Winston. The only connection he had—which seemed meaningless—was that his middle name was Winston. Heart pounding, it took Henry several minutes to gather the courage to pick up the book.
The cover was dark blue, with mountains, a field of grass, and a big full moon. Henry opened it. The air suddenly smelled of snow. His chin jerked up to look out at the warm spring day beyond the window. He turned a page and nearly dropped the book.
On the title page, in a round, elegant, feminine hand, the words: For Henry.
For Henry. This is my book? But …
The smell of snow grew stronger and the room felt like it would close in on him. He looked from book to typewriter to window, feeling flustered and antsy. Henry thought about leaving the two anomalous things behind, but found he couldn’t. Quickly, he shoved the book into his backpack, scooped the typewriter under an arm, and fled. Standing on the steps of the library, he tried to catch his breath. The typewriter felt like a cinderblock in his grip, the book an anvil on his back. He turned to look up at the massive gray Italian Renaissance–style building. The many large arched windows looked the same, the big trees rustling in the breeze were the same. He scanned the street, Woodward Ave. It all looked the same and yet slightly different.
Confused, and moderately dizzy, Henry slowly descended the steps. He stopped next to a row of newspaper bins. His eyes focused on the one closest. The date caught his attention and the street seemed to quake under his feet.
Sunday, May 3, 1998.
He tried to swallow the knot in his throat. He looked around, frantic, heart punishing his ribs now.
That’s not right!
To Henry, it was Friday, May 1, 1992.
Matilda
Matilda sat bolt upright in her bed in Jetty’s house.
Breathing hard, confused, she looked around. Everything was wrong. Her dresser and armchair were brown with thick dust. The windows were grimy, the corners filled with cobwebs, the sills littered with fly corpses. The many books on her shelves were shrouded in dust and webs as well. The air smelled stale, unused.
Like the room hadn’t been lived in for years.
Matilda shut her eyes and shook her head. A dream. Another dream. I dreamed I left town in a snowstorm an
d now this …
She opened her eyes to the same scene. Turning, she looked to the place on her nightstand where the picture of her and Jetty should be, but it wasn’t there. An empty space. Her heart pounded harder, her head felt tinny.
This isn’t right.
Matilda’s head snapped up when she thought she heard a baby screaming, but the sound faded too quickly to be sure. Goose flesh rose on her arms and as she moved to rub the skin, she noticed the book and the typewriter. Sitting at the foot of the bed, spotless and clean.
The book was thin, trade paperback size. “A Thousand Sleepless Nights by Louis Winston,” she read aloud, her whispered voice loud in the grubby room. On the cover, a pearl-white full moon rose over a generic set of jagged mountains, skirted by an indigo expanse of open land. There were tall grasses around the edges, bent as if by a stiff wind. The moon made Matilda think of Jetty, and her stomach tightened. The pages were rippled from being wet at some point.
She picked it up.
Thousands of books had passed through Matilda’s hands. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps. But none like this. Never before had a book made her fingertips burn, the skin on her neck grow cold, or her heart struggle to pump blood into her arteries.
This is not my book.
Compelled by a strange feeling, she opened the book. In black ink, written on the dedication page were the words For Matilda, in a slanted, broad-stroked handwriting, like a man’s. Water had made the ink lines puffy, bleeding into the paper. Bleeding.
Everything went cold.
A blackness roiled in the back of her head, a crushing sense that something was wrong. But it’s not my book … She flipped another page, thinking, My middle name is Louis, after my dad’s grandfather. The dedication caught her attention. She read it out loud in a cautious whisper, “‘For my wife, who breathed life into these once-pathetic stories and awakened my shy heart with her shining brilliance and sublime beauty.’”
Tears came to her eyes, emotions she didn’t understand stirred up by the words.