“Oh no. I wasn’t bored I . . . No. It’s not very good.” Blood rushed to her face and burned in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I like your face.”
He grinned. “I like yours, too. Without remorse.”
“No, I meant . . . I doodle. I draw a lot. All the time. Too much, probably. Even when I’m watching TV, but it doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.”
“That’s a relief. I’d hate to think I wasted all that hot air for nothing.” She could tell he was still teasing her. He stood, took a step, and then held out his hand for her pad. “Mind if I look?”
“Yes. No. Not ordinarily, but this one didn’t turn out . . . it doesn’t even look like you. I’m better with still life. Faces are harder.” And they were, but she had a real talent for drawing them . . . usually. “If you have the time, I’d love to try again. I can do better than this. Much better.”
“Come on. How bad can it be? I promise not to laugh.”
With care he pulled the pad from her grasp and turned it over. Embarrassed and dissatisfied, she waited with dread for his reaction. Here was a chance to impress him with her skill and talent and she hands him a . . . a stupid doodle!
She watched the animated face she’d been enjoying as he studied the sketch. The confusion in it she’d anticipated, but there was also a moment of recognition that not only surprised her but flattered her as well. She hadn’t expected him to recognize anything of himself in the portrait. Yet, in the next second when he looked at her with raw pain and disappointment in his eyes, she began to panic. When his emotions finally settled on anger, she was stunned.
“I can do better.” But she didn’t want to try—clearly he was touchy about his looks.
“I think it’s time for you to leave.” He ground the words out as if speaking was the last thing he wanted to do—pinching her head off appeared to be at the top of his list. “If you’re caught on my property again, I’ll have you arrested.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Pack up your junk and get out.”
SIX
“ Are you crazy?” she asked, even as she started gathering her supplies. “It was just a sketch. Not a very good one, I admit, but—”
“Look, lady, I don’t know who you’re working for or what you’re up to, but it’s over. And I’d start packing up over at the Rossinis’, too, because once I tell them about your real purpose for being here, you’ll be out on your ass.”
“My . . . what real purpose? I write books for kids. I told you that.” She zipped up her pack and stood. “What’s wrong with you? I don’t understand any of this.”
“Like hell.... You used the Rossinis to get to me, wormed your way into my life, and then casually drew a picture of my brother to get my reaction for whatever story you’re doing. I think your understanding is clear and very cunning.” As an afterthought—and his most damning complaint—he added, “And cruel.”
“You have a brother?” The veins in his neck engorged and his eyes went dead. “I didn’t know. I didn’t draw—”
“Right.” He spit the word out like a curse and with such fury and hatred in his voice that she should have been terrified. Yet, as sure as she knew . . . well, anything, she knew he wouldn’t touch her. “Get out.”
“Fine. I will.” Her ire rose to the occasion because she didn’t want to cry. Confused, frustrated, and hurt more than she might have imagined, she stomped down the stairs and marched toward the cliff path, keeping her spine straight, refusing to look back at him.
She didn’t get far before she heard him call out. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Home, you idiot, like you told me.”
“More games? Okay. I’ll play if it’ll make you disappear faster. You’re cold. You’re heading in the wrong direction. The path is back that way.”
“I’m cold? Well, if I’m cold, you’re . . . you’re frozen,” she hollered, slashing the air with her hands because she’d hoped for a better comeback. “ And I know where the path is. Contrary to what you may want to think, I didn’t fly over here on my broom, you know.”
“Ivy? I’m serious. Knock it off. Turn around and leave.”
“Make up your mind, Craig. Turn around or leave? Actually, you made your decision. You don’t get to pick anymore. And I pick leave,” she shouted, still heading for the cliff path. “I pick never seeing you again. I pick packing up and going home. I pick forgetting I ever met . . . you.”
“Ivy! Stop!” His order came too late—she already had. “Ivy?”
She stood staring . . . at the rocks, the foliage, the cliff, the sky, the trees, and the ornate wrought-iron bench she’d drawn the day before. Her heated blood drained from her face, leaving it cold and tingling—her fingertips throbbed from a surge of raw adrenaline when she began to comprehend that there was no cliff path. There was only the dead-end alcove, though in her mind she could recall every step of every trip she’d taken along the well-worn trail . . . that didn’t exist.
Her body was quaking as she turned, weak-kneed, back to the gazebo and Craig—to see if they really existed or if she’d made them up, too. There was no way she could make it back to them in time, to anchor herself, to keep herself from lifting off from the earth and into oblivion. She was alone, on the cliff, losing her mind....
Craig moved. To the bottom of the steps. To thirty feet away and then fifteen—but he didn’t seem to be walking, just flashing forward, toward her; it was taking forever. If only she could hang on till he reached her. Hang on. He was mad at her but he’d help her. He was . . . Craig. Craig the Dependable. Craig of the Everthere. The words echoed from a dark corner in her mind, over and over, attempting to soothe her.
Finally, he was there, taking a firm grip on her shoulders and shaking gently. “Ivy? What’s wrong? Can you hear me? Talk. Speak to me. Tell me what’s happening? Are you ill?”
Her head wobbled on her neck then settled on a nod.
“What’s wrong? Talk to me, baby, tell me what I should do.” He pulled her close, latched one hand to her waist, palmed her cheek with the other. She leaned back against his arm for support. He lowered his voice and spoke calmly. “What’s happening?”
She glanced back to make sure the path was still missing—then let him pull her face back to his. She clung to his moss green gaze.
“The path is gone. I drew a whole story in my sleep. I hear things and see things, but nobody’s there. I fall. All the time. In my sleep. I don’t sleep. And I know things. I know things . . . like the silk and wisteria . . . like there weren’t any bullets in the shotgun.”
“What shotgun?”
“Gus’s. And I knew him. He didn’t recognize me, but I knew him. I did.” His expression was becoming more and more confused. And alarmed. Worse, she could hear how completely nuts she sounded but she couldn’t stop talking. “And the gazebo. I remembered it and it felt so . . . oh God, it was so peaceful and I felt so quiet . . . inside.” She lifted a fist to her heart. “Like when I hear your voice.”
His eyes broke contact then came back. “What about Oliver?”
Whoa. That came out of left field and pulled her up short. “Patty Ann’s Oliver?”
“My brother Oliver.”
“You have a brother named Oliver?”
“Had. He died. Two years ago.”
“I didn’t . . . I’m sorry.”
I’m here! A voice whispered in her head. I’m here.
“I don’t . . .”
Get it? You will.
Her knees finally gave out, and Craig followed her to the ground, breaking her fall. It felt as if she was entering a tunnel, backward—her vision growing darker and darker peripherally but focused on the light at the end. “He can’t . . . he needs . . . he’s a . . .” Ghost.
Good. Finally. Man, it took you long enough.
She came out of the tunnel facing the light, the foggy blackness receding at a crawl, her senses returning even slower.
Nausea and cold were the fi
rst signs of life she recognized. Voices, near and far, and then one particular intonation, low and soothing, that drew her like the moon pulled the tides.
“Yes, yes. Here she comes, Mr. Craig.” A woman’s voice. Ivy felt something cold and clammy pressed to her face, here, there. “She’ll be dandy in a minute or two. She’s only fainted, you see.”
“Yeah?” The relief in his voice made her heart smile—he wasn’t angry anymore. “Okay. So let’s load’er up and get her to the hospital and—”
“No, no, no. She’ll not thank you if she faints regular. Big fuss for nothing. Wait and see how she feels once she’s full awake.”
“You’re sure?”
“Course.”
“Here, give me the cloth. I can do that.” A big sigh. “Go tell Gus to keep the motor running, will you?” A moment passed and she felt the clammy pressure on her face again. She reached up to push it away. “Ivy? Hi. Can you open your eyes for me?”
She did . . . and looked straight into his. They smiled and crinkled at the corners for her.
“I like your eyes.”
“I come from a long line of miners, so I’m very attracted to the gold in yours.”
He was—she could see it. His attraction, his passion, his desire to kiss her. A mighty temptation. Unfortunately, she was under the distinct impression she was falling in love with him, and what could be worse, more unfair, more unkind, more unloving than acting on it while in the process of losing her mind?
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. You started talking crazy and passed out. I thought you were having a stroke or something, but Wanda said no. Do you faint often?”
“Never.”
“Do you want to go to the hospital? Get checked out? We won’t think brain tumor until we’ve ruled out everything else.”
“No. No hospital.”
Tell him, the voice in her head whispered. Tell him I’m here.
“Not yet. I have to tell you . . . Oliver—”
“Shhh. Don’t. I’m sorry I accused you of lying. I should have believed you, trusted you. I’m sorry. Your sketch . . . there was a strong family resemblance between us. My brother and I . . . well, except for our hair. He had lighter, sort of reddish blond hair. And my mother’s blue eyes. He was nine years younger but you could always tell we were brothers. I believe that you didn’t know anything about him.”
“Will you tell me about him?” She struggled up onto her elbows, and when he would have kept her prone, she smiled and shook her head as she pushed herself up and lowered her feet to the floor. “Was he a pain in the neck?”
Hey!
“Jay was, until we grew up. Still is, actually. Sometimes.”
“Yeah, he had his moments.” He laughed from his perch on a coffee table in front of the big soft leather couch she sat on. From the many mementos along the wall, she gathered they were in a family gathering place with a lot of oak and a deep, rich green and gold paper above the shelving, a huge fireplace, pictures and keepsakes everywhere. A comfortable room. “When he was little it was like having this really great pet you could teach to do tricks. Like sit up and walk and talk. Of course, after he mastered all that he was a pest. Following me everywhere, getting into my stuff . . . and he was so much younger he couldn’t keep up. I constantly had to go back and get him, help him up, wait for him to catch up. And questions—he used to drive me crazy with questions.” One corner of his mouth curved up. “I was pretty smart, though. I’d tell him to go ask Mom or Dad and off he’d go and then I’d hide from him. I was a horrible brother.”
“ At least you went back for him. I’d have left Jay in the dust if he hadn’t been able to run faster than me. He’s only fourteen months younger . . . and a boy, you know?”
“You like boys better now, though, right?” He grinned at her, playing hopeful.
“Some.” She let her eyes tell him which one in particular, but then remembered the circumstances and lowered them away. “You and your brother became friends eventually?”
He leaned back physically—pulled back emotionally, reluctant to go on, but he did. “I don’t know. I thought maybe . . . I hoped, but I don’t know.” He sighed heavily. “He was barely nine when our mother got sick. I was eighteen, ready for college. I wanted to stay home but my parents insisted that I go as planned, that they were going to lick the cancer. They didn’t want me standing around like a ghoul waiting for her to die because it just wasn’t going to happen. So I left. I drove home every other weekend to spend a few hours with her. She looked worse every time I saw her. It wasn’t long before I was forcing myself to go home, using every good excuse I could think of not to but . . . I was there when it happened.” He shook his head, laced his fingers together between his knees, and leaned on his forearms. “She warned me. She tried to tell me but . . . too much time went by before I realized . . . before I knew what she meant. I was too late.”
“For what?”
“Oliver.” He lowered his lids over the guilt and regret in his eyes, concealed his pain from her, kept it private and untouchable. “After . . . I stayed away as much as I could. I hated going home. It was like a museum—all these cold facts of the past, a lot of artifacts of what had once been a family but no sign of life. My dad was a hollow shell. He threw himself into the company. He started drinking. A lot. Oliver got kicked out of a new school every other month it seemed like. Dad finally put him in a military school.” He stood suddenly, stepped to the front of the big empty fireplace and kept his back to her. “They damn near broke him completely. A school for delinquents was the last place he needed to be.” His voice said he wanted to argue his point but there was no one there contradicting him.
“I stayed in school, nursed my sorrow in private, moved forward. Summers, and for four years after I graduated, while I worked on my thesis, I worked the mines. Most of them. Straight labor at first, then some of the heavy equipment. I drove a truck for a few months one winter in New Mexico. Just about the time I got good at something or started settling in, word would come down from on high that I was to go somewhere else, do something different. And that was okay.” He shrugged. “It was part of the plan. He couldn’t just turn the company over to some green kid fresh out of college. I needed to work my way up like my grandfather and my dad after him.” He chuckled absently and half-turned to her. “Lucky for me I wasn’t trying to marry the owner’s daughter. Dad used to say his love was sorely tested.”
“I bet.” They shared a smile but all too soon his faded.
“Point is: Oliver was alone. I was older and still connected to Dad through the company, but Oliver was ten, eleven, twelve, then fifteen and sixteen, and without my dad or me, there was no one to support him or share his pain or show him how to go on without a mother . . . without a family, really. He tried shutting himself off like my dad did and running away like I had, and all it got him was a military school for ‘last-chance kids’—that’s straight from the brochure I found in my dad’s desk after his funeral.” A long moment passed before he spoke again, his voice strained with emotion. “He wasn’t a last-chance kid.” He cleared his throat and turned to her. “He also wasn’t in that school anymore. I had to get special permission to check him out of court-ordered rehab so he could go to Dad’s funeral. And I . . . I was like everyone else in his life who thought he was a spoiled little shit, a rotten rich kid who didn’t care about anyone but himself.”
She watched the battle in his expression as he tried to decide if he could reveal any more of his shame and sorrow—felt an urge to cry when his faith in her won out. He sat in the rich green and maroon striped high-backed chair beside the fireplace and crossed his legs, though he was anything but relaxed.
“It took his first suicide attempt to shake some sense into me. I stood at the end of his bed watching him after they pumped his stomach, waiting for the pills he took to wear off—waiting for him to come around and explain himself. I was mad . . . and so oblivious. For weeks he
just sat in a chair in his room staring out the window, not talking to me or his therapist or the staff. Anyone. They had him on suicide watch because they suspected he’d try again first chance he got. One afternoon we were sitting there in the silence and I was racking my mind for answers, wondering what I should do with him next, wondering how my parents would have handled it, thinking how awful my mother would have felt if she’d known that her sweet baby, Oliver, had given up on the life she’d given him.” He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out slow. “I must have said something out loud because he looked at me and said, ‘How would I know? I can barely remember her.’
“I was so self-absorbed,” he said, flashing his palms in failure. “All those years and I never once asked him what he was feeling or how he was handling . . . any of it. I didn’t even think about it. I realized that what had started as a cry for a little attention had ended as a scream for help. Even if I had thought about it, I think I would have simply assumed Dad was handling it. My dad, the emotional zombie . . .”
“But you were young, too. You were learning to cope as best you could with your own life. Sorrow is . . . hard. It’s personal, and everyone deals with it differently. You can’t teach someone else how to grieve.”
“No, but you can share it with them. You can be there and listen to them, pay attention and act like you care about them. My dad and I just wandered off and left him hanging. He was a kid. Dad . . .” He shook his head. “I should have been there for Oliver.”
He was. Tell him he was . . . when it mattered most.
“Your dad’s heart was broken.” He nodded, looked away as if recalling. The voice in her head kept issuing orders, but she knew if she gave in to it she’d be lost. “Your parents must have loved each other very much.”
A single chuckle bubbled loose in his chest and he smiled. “Embarrassingly so. My teen years were a nightmare. I couldn’t go anywhere with them. I used to try to tell Oliver how awful they were . . . always holding hands and whispering to each other and laughing and sneaking kisses when they thought no one was looking. Mortifying. And he’d end up crying, from laughing so hard. And the more he laughed, the more I’d exaggerate . . . but not by much.”
The Unquiet Page 37