by Teri Harman
Heat flashed in his cheeks. “I’m not much of a dancer, I’m afraid.”
“You can’t be worse than me,” Matilda said playfully. “I’m the one with the limp.”
Abby laughed heartily. Henry jumped to his feet and offered Matilda his hand. “I guess we can go fumble around and embarrass ourselves. Might be fun.”
Matilda laughed as she took his hand.
They danced for nearly an hour because Henry didn’t want to let Matilda go. His ankle started hurting after only twenty minutes, but he soon forgot it. The hot, sweet air and her body pressed to his—he would have stayed on the dance floor all night. Finally, breathless, Matilda said, “My legs are going to give out and I think we’ve left Abby alone long enough. Should we head back?”
“By way of the donut and root beer tables?”
“Of course.”
Back at the quilt, they found Abby chatting with people nearby. Henry handed her a donut and glass of fresh root beer, and he and Matilda settled in for the fireworks. He placed himself behind her, scooping her into his arms.
The first firework exploded in the satin sky. The ebullient crowd erupted in cheers. Henry felt the boom deep in his stomach. He lowered his head a bit, and spoke near her ear, “This festival makes me think of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury. The fair and the carousel. The fireworks. It’s October in that story, but still … there’s something a bit mysterious and magical about this kind of thing.”
Turning her head to him, she said, “That’s one I haven’t read.”
“Really? Well, I have a copy at my place. We can get it after. And it’s about time you saw my apartment anyway.”
Matilda smiled. They focused on the fireworks again, Henry’s heart pounding. There’d been this unspoken agreement that they would always meet at her house, but he wanted to show her his apartment, make her a part of it. Maybe her standing in the sparse room would lessen the loneliness of it. And to loan her a book—loaning out books was an intimate exchange. Here’s a piece of my heart, a piece of my mind: take it, hold it, experience it.
The fireworks ended with a raucous finale. The crowd cheered until the whole world seemed full of sound and energy. The applause lasted a full five minutes before the crowd started to disperse. As the field cleared, the band played some slower, sleepier songs. Henry felt drunk on it all.
After seeing Abby to her car, he led Matilda through town toward his apartment. They exchanged few words, the silence charged with the possibility of things to come. He allowed himself no expectations; he only wanted to bring her into his world a little more. Kiss her once. Or twice.
Once they were alone on the street, he took her hand in his. So small! And yet, a perfect fit. She smiled in the dark, walking close to him. When they stopped outside the white colonial Mayor’s House, Matilda’s eyes lit up. “I’ve always loved this old building. I love that you live here.”
“That one is mine.” He pointed to the east corner, and then pulled her forward, after him up the stairs. The energy between them was now palatable, frantic, and unsure. He felt it, knowing she did too.
Henry unlocked the door and stepped back for her to go in first. Her body brushed his as she passed; he had to close his eyes. Just loaning her a book, he reminded himself. He switched on the dull kitchen light.
Matilda gasped. “Henry, your books!”
“It’s a weakness,” he grinned. He thought about turning on more lights, but felt it would ruin the atmosphere. The shadows complimented their energy, his mood.
Matilda crossed excitedly to the shelves, and started perusing spines. The bookshelf was nearly full now; the staff at the El Dorado store knew him by name. She touched them gently, lovingly, and Henry felt each one as if it were a caress on his own skin. He watched her, folding his arms over his chest. The tilt of her head. The lift to her toes to see higher. The muscles of her lovely legs flexing and releasing as she moved. He was glad she’d given up the long skirt for tonight. Every ounce of his loneliness skittered away. He found he had never liked his apartment more.
No longer able to resist, he crossed to her, hesitant hands on her hips. “Matilda …” he whispered into her hair. Citrus and cinnamon. She turned in his grip, and now, face to face, he saw something urgent yet unsure in her movement, her expression.
She lifted to her toes, as she’d done with the books. Her fingers came to his lips, as they had in her kitchen on the night of the storm. A small smile played at her mouth, erasing all his hesitation. Henry lowered his lips to hers. The undertow of passion that erupted sent them rocking backward into the shelves. Henry’s foot knocked an entire stack of books to the floor, pages crunching. The feel of her tiny body against his, the taste of her sugared breath in his mouth was beyond anything he’d imagined. Words failed him. The world existed only in her lips.
After several minutes, the kiss slowed. Henry pulled back a little to see her face, to read her emotions. To make sure everything was as right as he felt it was. She laughed. “Why did we wait so long?”
He laughed too, pulling her into a tight hug, lifting her a little off the floor, her chin resting on his shoulder. Suddenly, she stiffened. Everything about her changed from liquid warmth to frigid ice. He set her down, and she jerked away.
“What’s wrong?” he said breathlessly.
She hurried past him. He turned to watch her cross to the desk. Mesmerized, confused, he waited while she lifted a quivering hand to the keys of his typewriter. Laying next to it, betraying him, were several letters he’d written to her during the week. So many daring words! Her fingers trembled above the pages as she shook her head slowly, and then frantically, as if flinging off an unwanted pest.
“No,” she whispered once. Her only word.
Henry fumbled for what to say, wanting to explain the letters she was now shuffling across the desk. “Matilda …”
She bolted.
She was out the door before he could blink.
Matilda
Run. Running. Ran. As fast as she could. Ignoring Henry’s pursuit. His slapping feet on the pavement, his calls of her name.
Matilda charged through the back door of her house and into the dark quiet. Her mind was in denial. “No,” she said aloud. “No. Can’t be possible.” She did her best not to think of Henry’s incandescent kisses, the feel of her body close to his, the perfection of his embrace. How at home she had felt. She couldn’t think of that now. It would get in the way.
Plowing forward, she stumbled into the living room and threw open the coat closet. She dragged the box out, scrambling to disinter the typewriter. Sheet askew, it sat there on the floor, squatting like a predator. The black shining in the silver light. Several fresh letters lay next to it, scales sloughed off.
Sentences leaped up at her.
I’m terrified of what I don’t know. Can you cure the blackness …
I despise my loneliness and yet find perverse comfort in it …
Can you hear the beat of my heart? I swear it matches yours even when you are far away from me …
Matilda backed away, crab walking, until she could tuck herself in the shadowy corner. Knees to chest, tears hot on cheeks.
“Matilda? Matilda!” Henry burst into the room. He saw the typewriter first, a tremor moving through him. He knelt slowly, so slowly. He touched it. Yes, it’s real, Matilda told him silently. He lifted the letters, the paper wavering in his unsure hands.
Henry dropped the pages like hot stones.
His eyes searched for her. Finding her in the corner, he approached cautiously. Don’t scare the natives. “Matilda?” he whispered in a voice that was not his own. “I don’t understand …” He shook his head. No, this is not a dream. Or maybe it is. Perhaps nothing has been real since I woke up in my decaying room. “The typewriters …” Henry breathed.
“The typewriters,” she repeated, her own voice sounding strained and far away.
He collapsed to the floor, legs out, hands hung in his lap. “I don’t …
the letters.”
“Your letters.”
“To you.”
Matilda closed her eyes.
“Did the typewriter … ?” he swallowed, looked over at the black beast.
“Yes, it did.”
Henry exhaled sharply. Matilda opened her eyes. His hair was a mess. She was sure hers was too. “But I don’t …” he started.
“Understand. I … we don’t understand.” She wished he would move closer, hold her. But she also wished he would leave and let her stay in her corner forever. If the letters were real did that mean she wasn’t insane? But wasn’t this an insanity all its own?
“Matilda,” he whispered carefully, “are you missing six years of your life?”
Matilda jerked, pulling her knees tighter into her chest. For a moment, she couldn’t speak. “Yes.” The word could have been an explosive. “Henry, do you have a book called A Thousand Sleepless Nights?”
Henry slouched more. “Yes.”
A clock-ticking silence.
“What does it mean?” Matilda dared to ask. Henry did not look at her. He looked at the typewriter. She looked at it too. They sat in silence, imprisoned by the dark and the night’s pernicious revelations.
The phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Henry
A tremor of white moonlight hovered near Henry’s right foot, flickering with the movement of the clouds. He stared at it as if not knowing what it was, what it meant. There’d been noise and lights and happiness tonight. Was that tonight? It now felt so far away. His body had grown stiff and uncomfortable. The phone rang, again and again. But he didn’t hear it, only hyperaware of Matilda trembling in the corner, only an arm’s reach away. Every hitched breath she took was his, every confused beat of her heart he felt in his own chest. Yet, he did not have the strength or the will to move to her; the air was too charged with their discoveries. If he moved that energy would shatter the whole world.
The phone, a fly buzzing in the background.
To his other side sat her typewriter and his letters, half buried in a white sheet. Taunting ghosts of what they did not know. The impossible words swam about his head; he desperately wanted to swat them away, but felt he deserved the punishment.
Matilda sighed. The small, despondent breath tugged at him, awakening him from the haze of the night. He wanted to touch her; he wanted to run away. “Tilly?” he mumbled, his voice not his own.
She noticeably flinched. “You’ve never called me that.”
He blinked, confused. The name had come as easily as breath. He slid closer to her, careful not to disturb the weighted air. “Matilda …”
She wouldn’t look at him and shrank away as he drew closer.
The phone again.
“Answer it,” Matilda said. She sat up, looked at him, her eyes red and tortured. Something flashed on her face. “It’s Abby. Answer it!”
Henry got to his feet. “How do you …” But he was running to the kitchen. Henry answered the call. “Abby, what’s wrong?”
Crying on the other end, muffled and broken. “Gill … a heart attack. He’s not …”
“We’re coming,” Henry said quickly, the fog leaving his head. It wasn’t a question of if Matilda would come with him or not; she had followed him in the kitchen and was headed to the door. And he could not leave her now even if his own heart stopped.
“Abby …” The line had grown so quiet.
“Dr. Wells’s clinic,” was all she said, the exhaustion and fear in her voice stabbing Henry in the gut.
“Five minutes.”
Matilda opened the door. Henry took the keys from her as they hurried into the Beetle. He drove in silence, panic clogging his throat and the desire to hold Matilda’s hand blurring his eyesight. The streets were deserted. The town slept soundly after the giddy exhaustion of the celebration. Burned sparklers and food wrappers lay forgotten on the side of the roads. The air still smelled of roasted meat and donuts.
Matilda stared out her window and didn’t look at Henry once. Every moment of last night flashed through his mind fast, faster until he was nauseous. The letters … my letters. The typewriters. Six lost years. Kissing Matilda in my apartment. He looked at her profile, her hair slung down along her jawline. He felt he should know something more about what they’d discovered. Sitting in this car with her felt eerily familiar. He felt he should understand, but did not.
Not at all!
Henry and Matilda ran into the clinic. Only half the lights were on inside. The oak paneling glowed yellow, the white walls nearly gray. They rounded the empty reception desk and found Abby standing in the exam room hall leaning into the wall, arms hung limp at her sides. Her face was nearly as gray as the walls and looked older, more burdened than Henry had ever seen it.
“Abby,” he whispered as they came near. She startled and then collapsed into his arms, sobbing loudly. Henry’s guilt soured the back of his throat. Abby was the only person who had ever been there for him. Always there exactly when he needed. And now, when she needed him, he was late.
Matilda hesitated, uneasy behind them, and then stepped forward to put her hand on Abby’s back. Henry’s eyes met hers over Abby’s shoulder. She looked away, but put her other hand on his forearm.
Dr. Wells came out of the room next to them. His thick limbs hung heavy, crumpled forward. Seeing Henry, the doctor ran a hand back over his slate gray hair and shook his head. Dropping his chin, he slipped away down the hall.
Henry’s stomach dropped to his feet. He tightened his grip on Abby. Matilda wiped her cheeks.
“I turned my back on him,” Abby wept. “He said he didn’t feel right and I turned and walked out anyway. I was mad. I wanted to go to the festival. I should have known. He has a bad heart. I should have stayed.” She took an unsteady breath. “He was alone.” Her sobs became wails of agony.
Henry swallowed hard. He didn’t know what to do with that kind of grief, with such raw, electric emotions. Matilda nodded to the chairs nearby. Henry led Abby to them and settled her shaking body into one. Holding tightly to her hand, he said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words sounded so pathetic.
Matilda walked away. For a moment Henry thought she was leaving, but then he smelled coffee brewing. He wanted to say more to Abby, but words failed him. And that made him angry. Of all the times not to have beautiful, comforting words …
Abby sniffed loudly. “I found him when I got home. He must have been lying there for hours. His face was blue, but he was still breathing … barely. I begged him to live … I yelled at God.” Henry put his arm around her. She fell against his shoulder, her body heaving with her crying. Say something to her! But his mind remained empty. Abby went on, “I told Him He couldn’t possibly be so cruel as to take Gill too. He’d already let the man I married slip away after the babies, but at least Gill was still there. The house wasn’t empty.”
“You don’t deserve it,” Henry mumbled weakly as his eyes began to burn with tears.
“He never woke up. I never got to tell him I’m sorry and that I love him …” Abby grew unsettlingly quiet, her body stiff. Henry rubbed her arm, frantic for something to say.
Matilda came back with three mismatched mugs of steaming coffee. “Abby, here …” She held the mug out, Abby reached out to take it. She circled both hands around it, leaning her body forward to let the steam rise to her face. She sipped slowly.
Matilda frowned as she handed Henry his mug, avoiding his eyes. He lifted his hand to reach for her, but she moved away to sit on the other side of Abby. After a few minutes of silence, Matilda leaned close to Abby. “Before Jetty died, she told me that grief can be dangerous. I’m still so sad and angry. More angry than I thought possible. It’s stuck like a bur in the side of my heart. I’ve felt its pain with every beat, every breath. For years.” She sighed, shook her head. “It’s the ugliest feeling. Don’t be angry, Abby. Not at yourself or Gill or God. Gill loved you
. You loved him.”
Henry’s lips parted in astonishment. Matilda had said the words he couldn’t find. Abby began to cry again, but in a different, more solemn way. She nodded as she reached for Matilda’s hand. Matilda finally looked over at Henry. Something in her expression tugged at him. He felt he’d seen that grief and sadness before—in her, in himself. His stomach tightened as he realized what the typewriters and letters meant. We knew each other. BEFORE. Henry took in a breath. And something terrible had happened. But what? Matilda nodded, as if she’d heard his thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, but then remembered Abby sitting between them.
“Come home with me, Abby,” Henry said softly. “You can rest.”
Abby looked to the closed door behind which lay her dead husband. “This doesn’t feel real.”
Matilda took Abby’s empty mug. “Did you say goodbye?” she asked.
Abby nodded, inhaled sharply. “What will I do without him?”
Matilda winced, the look so painful that an ache rose in Henry to match it. “We’ll help you,” Matilda answered. “Let us take you to Henry’s. I’ll cook—” Abby began to shake her head. “I’ll cook and you will eat. You have to eat. And Henry will read to you until you fall asleep. Okay?”
Abby shuddered, her eyes still on the closed oak door. Matilda took her hand. After a moment, Abby looked at her, nodded. Henry helped Abby to her feet; Matilda picked up Abby’s purse. Dr. Wells stepped out from behind the desk as they approached. To Henry he said quietly, “There will be arrangements …”
Henry cut him off. “Do what you need to do. I’ll check back in the morning.”
Dr. Wells nodded with understanding. Matilda handed him the coffee mugs and he retreated.
Henry eased Abby into the front seat of Matilda’s car. Matilda sat behind her, leaning forward to keep a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. As Henry walked around to the driver’s side, he quickly brushed the tears away that finally found their way down his cheeks.