A Thousand Sleepless Nights

by Teri Harman

  He had to lean into the steering wheel and wait for the spots in his vision to disappear. Now stand. Stand up. Using the door as a crutch, Henry pulled himself out of the car. Next came the big test. If he couldn’t put weight on his right leg, he might as well crawl back into the car and wait to freeze to death. Or drown. He pictured the car filling up with rain, like an aquarium tank.

  Kansas is trying to kill me.

  Briefly, his mind strayed to the words, as it did so easily. What words would he use to write this scene? Hopeless? Stranded? Facing his mortality? “Stop it,” he hissed out loud. This isn’t fiction. This is real. Don’t write. Save yourself.

  Henry eased weight onto his right leg. The pain came from his ankle. Awful, twisted pain. But it took a little weight. Henry hopped backward, using mostly his left leg. He angled himself toward the light. There was an ugly gash in his shin. Something in the underside of the dash must have shattered and cut into him. Blood trickled into his eye now, and his chest felt tight, like a weight had been strapped to it.

  At least I will know the cause of these scars. Maybe I was in an accident before. Head trauma? Amnesia? The idea made him feel even colder, so he shook it off. He needed to help himself now, not worry about before. He needed a doctor. There could be internal injuries, more head trauma.

  Walk.

  But it wasn’t really walking—it was spastic hopping crossed with dragging.

  And how it hurt!

  Once away from the car, Henry found the darkness not quiet so black. The rain seemed to glow with its own light, pearlescent and beautiful. The words tried to come, but Henry pushed them away.

  Back on the road, he stared for a whole minute at his chaotic tire tracks. Gouges in the gravel, like tracks of wounds. How did this happen? An edgy flare of panic raced up his throat.

  Henry turned away and headed in the opposite direction. The rain swallowed him; the wet wind pushed him forward.

  After walking for an interminable amount of time, the pain growing worse with each step, and the rain turning his skin to soppy mush, Henry finally saw a single square of yellow civilized light tucked into a gathering of trees. He pushed forward, turning off the road, and trudged down the long driveway. He kept his arms pressed close to his body, his coat collar turned up. His ears, nose, and fingers burned with the cold.

  Finally, he collapsed on the weathered porch steps of a small farmhouse. In the darkness, the clapboards looked sickly gray, the paint peeling like sunburned skin. Lamplight filled one curtained window, but there was no sound or hint of movement in the house.

  Pulling in air, trying to ignore the throbbing pulse of blood at every injury, Henry bit his bottom lip in hesitation. A sudden shyness stalled his onward attitude. What would these poor people think when he knocked on their door in the middle of the night, beaten to a bloody pulp, soaking, and nearly helpless? Would they help him? Or call the police? Introduce him to the end of a sawed-off shotgun?

  After another moment of pointless debate, he stood, climbed the stairs, and confronted the door. He took a deep breath and knocked quietly. His ears strained to hear a response. None came. Forced to knock again, he did so a little louder this time, Henry grimaced at his intrusion.

  A shuffle of movement behind the door, the thudding of feet, possibly angry feet. Henry swallowed, stepped back. The door flew open to reveal a gruff figure hunched behind it. The man swore under his breath at the sight of Henry and then asked angrily, “Who are you?”

  “I’m so sorry, sir. I know it’s late—” Henry shivered so hard his words bounced around on his tongue.

  “Late? Boy, it’s three in the morning!” The older man, dressed in faded flannel pajamas, straining at the buttons over his generous belly, frowned sternly.

  “I really do apologize, but I … my car slid off the road. I’m hurt.” Henry swallowed and then added quietly. “I need help.”

  “Well, that’s what you get for driving in this freak weather.” The farmer squinted in the dark, narrowing cold, wrinkled eyes at his unexpected visitor. His eyes changed as he finally saw the extent of Henry’s injuries, but there was no softening. The man opened his mouth to say something, shifting slightly as if to shut the door, but was cut off by another voice. “What’s going on, Gill?”

  A short woman, round and soft in all the grandmotherly ways, appeared behind her bald husband. Her hair was raincloud gray and hanging in thin long wisps around her kind face. She took one look at Henry and put a hand to her heart. “Oh, you poor thing! What on earth happened to you?” She pushed passed an annoyed Gill.

  “Abby, we don’t have any idea who this guy is,” Gill protested. “You can’t …”

  “Oh, shut up, you old grump,” she shot back. “The boy needs help. And I can tell just lookin’ at him that he’s good through and through. Be a decent Christian for once in your miserable life.” She frowned reproachfully, but then turned a bright smile on Henry. “You a thief?”

  Henry blanched, blinked. “No, ma’am.”

  “Ax murderer? Annoying salesman? Fugitive? Nail biter?” She smiled as she said the last one and the tension in Henry’s gut eased slightly.

  “No, ma’am.”

  Abby nodded and reached for him. “Then you come in now, out of the icy night, and let’s see what we can do.”

  Henry looked to Gill, who huffed and stomped away. Abby gently took Henry’s arm, pulling him forward. “Come on. That old dog won’t bite, he just likes to bark and act tough.” Gill’s scoff was loud, but Henry sighed with relief and almost smiled at the older couple’s banter.

  Abby tucked a crocheted throw around his shoulders and pulled him into the small house. He looked down on the top of her head; she was short and waddled when she walked. She gestured to the sagging couch in the living room that appeared trapped in the 1960s.

  Henry sat heavily and promptly passed out.

  Matilda

  Matilda spent the next day cleaning and cleaning some more. The house was done except for Jetty’s room. She couldn’t bring herself to go in there yet. She’d done some stuff in the yard, but running back inside at the sight of any person really slowed progress. She’d eaten most of Thea’s pasta and tried to keep her thoughts from wandering into the blackness.

  Now, desperate for sleep, she lay in bed, unable to get comfortable or to turn off her anxiety. At midnight, rain pouring outside, Matilda finally abandoned the effort to fall asleep and picked up the strange book that had been sitting on her bed with the typewriter. Perhaps reading it would help her memories surface.

  At two-thirty, Matilda turned the last page of A Thousand Sleepless Nights, breathless and uneasy. Such words! Words that agitated things deep inside her: longing and ideas that had always been there, but that she pushed down. That pernicious craving for more. So much more. She lowered the book to her bed and pressed a hand to her aching chest. She wanted to cry, but fought it. There had been enough crying.

  Something about Winston’s effulgent words frightened her. Even holding the book made her heart beat irregularly and her mind spin with questions. Reading it had felt essential. But now what? It hadn’t brought back any lost memories, only unidentifiable emotions.

  She set it down carefully on the bed. Bent from hours of reading, the pages of the book would not lay flat, like a door that would not close. An open door. An invitation. A shouting mouth. Matilda turned away to look at the black eyes of her bedroom windows. The glass was now scrubbed clean and the laundered sheers were drawn, but she could still make out the shape of the large oak trees in the front yard, the curtain of rain. The lightning and thunder were frequent and flamboyant. The book yawned at her, like a demanding cat. You didn’t help me remember, she scolded it silently.

  “Jetty,” Matilda whispered, desperately needing to talk to someone. If only her aunt could answer back from wherever she was now. “What does it mean, this beautiful book? Where did it come from? Why does it make me feel like this? What happened to me?”

  The rom
antic stories in A Thousand Sleepless Nights—the imagery, the metaphors, the characters—all felt real, as if she were remembering them instead of reading them for the first time. They opened a closed door inside her, a longing she didn’t have a name for. And didn’t want to know.

  The phone rang.

  Matilda jumped, but turned to pick up the receiver.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Thea, it’s two-thirty in the morning.”

  “So? I’m not sleeping ’cause I have a little ninja in my belly and I had a feeling you weren’t ’cause, well, you’re all mysterious and tortured now.”

  Matilda frowned at the body of her old-fashioned rotary phone, black with a white dial. “That doesn’t mean you should call me in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “I know.”

  “Remember how it snowed the night you left? Something about this rain reminds me of that. Not sure why, but it’s creeping me out.”

  Matilda looked over at her windows. Thea was right and the point was not lost on Matilda. She pushed down the cover of A Thousand Sleepless Nights. The book and the rain. This feeling in her chest. “It’s just rain.”

  Thea hummed a half-hearted consent. “Was the pasta all right?”

  “Delicious. Thanks so much.” Matilda thought of Parker touching her face.

  “You’re welcome. I figured you wouldn’t want to venture out yet.”

  “You figured right. I’m not sure I have the guts to leave this house even though Parker said everyone already knows I’m back.”

  “Don’t worry about them. It’s just something to talk about. There’s never anything to talk about.” A shuffle on the phone. “Good grief. Even rolling over is a major effort.” Thea grunted. “What are you going to do? I talked to Beverly today. She said if you want your job back you can have it.”

  Matilda sat up straighter. Go back to the library? She hadn’t even thought that far ahead. “Really? I don’t know …”

  “It’s better than sitting around that house or darting in from the yard like a scared cat the second you see someone. Yeah, Rosie Silverton saw you run away as she came around the corner.” Thea sighed. “Anyway … come back to work. Beverly said she’s still mad about how you left without giving her any warning. That was incredibly inconvenient for her, of course”—Thea’s tone was thickly mocking—“so you would be on probation. One single, teeny-tiny mistake and she will fire you on the spot. And enjoy it—a lot. Possibly heft you over her head and throw you down the stairs.” Thea laughed; Matilda smiled. “Of course, she can’t really fire you once I have my baby or she won’t have enough minions to do her bidding.”

  Matilda shook her head. “Thanks, Thea.” Go back to the library? It felt strange. But what didn’t now? She couldn’t sit around the house wondering—she might go truly insane. If she couldn’t remember, she could only move forward and hope that answers would come soon. Pray that soon she’d know why she couldn’t remember six years, why her arms and face had scars, why she now walked with a limp, and why there was this pressure in her chest.

  Thea went on, “You’re quite welcome. It’ll be nice to have you back. Especially if I can wear you down and get you to spill all the secrets of the last six years.”

  Thea’s tone was playful, but Matilda’s gut twisted painfully. She rubbed at the sudden throbbing in her temple. “When can I start?”

  “Wednesday. Eight sharp.”

  “Wow. Okay. Soon.” It was Tuesday morning. “But I’ll be there.”

  “With bells on.”

  “Unlikely.”

  A long yawn. “Well, suddenly, I’m very tired and ninja boy has settled down. Go to sleep, Tilly.”

  “Thea, are you mad at me for leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  Matilda blinked. “But …”

  “But why am I being so nice?”

  “Yeah.”

  “’Cause you looked so lost yesterday. So you ran off—good for you. I’ve wanted to do that a million times. But you’re back now. And you need someone on your side.”

  This was not the Thea Matilda remembered. This was a thoughtful woman, not a silly girl. “That’s pretty amazing.”

  “I know.” Another grunt of movement. “But, Matilda …”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t steal my husband. You left him.”

  “I know that. He’s all yours. You are better for him than I was anyway.”

  A relieved sigh. “That’s true, of course.”

  “Go to sleep, Thea.”

  “I will, hopefully.” She laughed. “Night.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Matilda hung up the phone. She looked at the book, her pile of pillows. Instead of lying down, she went to the window to watch the rain. Memories came of the last time she’d stood here looking at the snow. What really happened that night? And every night since? A curious feeling wormed in her stomach, that kind of feeling like something is going to happen. She’d felt it that night too, while gazing at the heavy snow. That time she’d left town. What should she do now? What would tomorrow bring?

  She touched the rain-cold window, tracing the rivulets of water. “It’s a sign,” she whispered.

  Henry

  Time to wake up, handsome.”

  The voice sounded so far away. Henry didn’t want to leave the comfort of sleep. Though he’d had dreams, horrible dreams.

  “Come on. I got bacon and hash browns and fresh coffee. And drugs. You’ll definitely want those.”

  A twinge in his stomach. Henry blinked hesitantly. His whole body ached fiercely. Nothing about this place was familiar. He was naked expect for his boxers. A spurt of panic flared in his throat. When his eyes popped wide, the woman said, “Whoa! Easy. You were in an accident. Remember that? Your car went off the road in a rainstorm. You walked—God knows how—a few miles to my house. I’m Abby. Abby O’Nell. I’ve got a grumpy husband called Gill; he answered the door. Remember any of that?”

  Henry looked at her, her eyes the color of weak tea and her shoulder-length gray hair hanging in a braid. She wore a stiff-looking royal purple blouse and bright-yellow pants. “Abby?”

  “That’s right. You passed out right after I brought you in the house. Scared the life out of me. I called our Dr. Wells, who came right over.” She motioned for him to sit up and put a hand under his arm to assist. Sharp stabs of pain answered every movement, but he managed it. Abby pulled a large plate heaped with food from a simple wood nightstand and set it in his lap. “Eat while I talk. You need some nourishment.”

  Henry picked up his fork. The sight of the eggs made him both ravenous and nauseated. He looked around the small bedroom with wood-paneled walls, a rickety twin bed, and an oak dresser. “Am I still at your house?”

  Abby sat on a chair that looked like it’d been brought in from the kitchen, fifties-style with metal frame and red vinyl cushions. “Yes, our spare room. Dr. Wells didn’t think it wise to move you. Your ankle is pretty bad, and you knocked that head around a bit. Doc splinted the ankle and wants to get x-rays as soon as you’re able. He cleaned and bandaged up your nastier cuts. He also said several of your ribs are bruised, but not broken.” She looked at his arms and forehead. “Looks like you’re no stranger to cuts and scrapes.”

  Henry wanted to hide his scars, but didn’t want to put aside his plate of food. In his head, he heard crunching metal and shattering glass. The excruciating walk in the freezing rain came back to him, every awful, hopeless moment. He cleared his throat. “How long did I sleep?” He took a bite of the hot food; it was divine.

  “About six hours. It’s nine in the morning now. Tuesday.” Abby handed him a cloth napkin. “Is there someone I can call for you? I looked in your wallet—hope you don’t mind—and didn’t find any pictures or phone numbers.”

  Henry swallowed a mouthful of bacon, looked down at his plate. “No. It’s just me.” He felt Abby study him.

  “And where were you headed la
st night, Henry Craig, from Detroit, Michigan? That’s a long ways from the forgotten corner of Kansas.”

  Henry looked up to see her smile, an encouraging expression that somehow made him feel at ease when he shouldn’t. “Silent Fields. I’m the new editor of the Silent Fields Post.” His eyes widened. “I’m supposed to start today. I’m supposed to be there right now.”

  Abby laughed and slapped her knee. “Really? Ronnie finally gets to retire? Oh, he must be tickled pink with joy. We all thought he’d die sitting at that cluttered desk.” She shook her head, laughed again. “Don’t look so worried. I’ll call over and tell him what happened.”

  Henry nodded, some of his panic easing. What a way to start a new job.

  He finished the last of his breakfast and Abby easily pulled the plate away, replacing it with a mug of steaming coffee. “So you’re a journalist?”

  “Uh, sort of. I’m a writer, anyway.”

  Abby put her head to the side, evaluating him again. “So why take a newspaper job in little ole Silent Fields? Not much chance for prestige or wealth.”

  Henry sipped his drink, avoided her eyes. “It’s a good job. A steady paycheck. Those are hard to come by in my profession.”

  Abby said nothing. Only looked at him as if she could read the truth under the partial lies. She nodded. “I did my best to clean you up last night. Sadly, your clothes were a loss, but I pulled out some old stuff of Gill’s. It won’t fit great—you’re much taller and he’s much fatter—but we can pick up your things at the police station. They fished them out of your mangled car.” Henry’s stomach lurched. His things. A fleeting relief came to him. His things were fine. His copy of A Thousand Sleepless Nights and the typewriter. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing either one. He needed them, even if he didn’t know why.

  Abby was still talking. “Also, it was pure delight to find all those freckles under the blood.” She pointed to his face and he blushed. “I’d guess you’d like a long hot shower?” She reached for a bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand, dispensed two into his hand.