Because of Audrey

by Mary Sullivan

  Thank God. He couldn’t have borne it if she’d suffered or been maimed or, worse, paralyzed. Marnie would have hated that.

  He pressed his thumbs against his temples, trying to block images of that night.

  What he saw was blackness...the lack of all breathing, living creatures but himself. He felt the void that had nearly driven him mad sucking him down.

  “I don’t know how long I was unconscious. When I came to, the car was upside down and Marnie was dead. She’d taken the brunt of the collision on her side of the car. I was trapped in the darkness, my left arm broken. I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe because of the weight of my body on the seat belt holding me in place.”

  He wished it wasn’t nighttime, that the sun was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows to warm him.

  “I couldn’t reach my phone. I don’t know how many hours we stayed like that before a passing car saw us and called 911. It was hell.” He recalled his bone-deep fury. The ranting. The rage against life and fate. Marnie was gone, and he was trapped and could do nothing for her. Couldn’t cut her out. Couldn’t cradle her in his arms.

  Audrey watched him with wide eyes. She might as well know all of his weaknesses.

  “All of my life, I’ve disliked darkness, hated tight spaces and being trapped.”

  Recognition flickered in her eyes.

  “You feel the same way?” he asked.

  “No. I like the darkness. I like tight spaces. Caving is a cherished hobby.”

  “I couldn’t do that.” The thought of being underground left him clammy.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face then dared to meet her eyes. “I’ve always been claustrophobic. Hanging in that car? In the darkness, with Marnie dead beside me? I cried. So you see how weak I am.”

  She’d been pleating her dress, not meeting his eyes, as though hiding something, but her gaze flew to his. “Weak? I’ve never thought you were weak. Of course you cried. You’d lost the woman you loved. I understand a lot now that I know about the accident.”

  She approached him, resting her fingers on his shoulder, their warmth a balm to his aching soul. “Since you came home, you’ve been brittle, on the edge of shattering. Now I know the final part.”

  “The final part? Of what?”

  She glanced away, expression guilty, as though she’d said too much. Then she said, “You might as well know the rest. I don’t know whether Harrison and Abigail would approve of me telling you, but then, that relationship is over, isn’t it?”

  Regret scorched him. God, it had only been one day, yet he missed his parents as though an eternity had passed.

  That relationship is over.

  Had she meant to sound so callous? Then he twigged to what else she’d said. His parents had secrets. At least, separate from Dad and his indiscretion. Yes, he’d already guessed they had.

  It was time to find out what they were.

  “What rest is there, Audrey? Don’t even consider holding back. Whatever you all know about me needs to be told. I’m a grown man.” He wagged his fingers in a come-hither gesture. “Spill.”

  Her decisive nod relieved him. He was too tired to fight, but he meant to have answers tonight.

  “It’s long past time to tell you. Everyone thought it was a godsend when you forgot, but maybe not. Maybe keeping it from you was a mistake.”

  Audrey looked too serious. “Do you remember that we used to be friends?”

  “Nope. In high school, we hung out with different crowds.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m talking about earlier. When we were very small. Five or six.”

  “Nope. We were never friends,” he insisted. “I would have remembered if we were.” Where was this going? Why did the air around him feel so thin?

  “We used to play together all the time. After my mom died, Dad used to bring me to work. You loved the hardware store and were always there, too.”

  Yes, when he was older. Not when he was little more than a toddler.

  “We were inseparable,” she continued, barreling forward when all he wanted her to do was to, for God’s sake, stop. Yes, he’d wanted answers, but not when they filled him with dread.

  Vague images surfaced, ephemeral but possible, of a small buddy beside him as they hammered and sawed using pint-sized plastic children’s tools.

  That hadn’t been a pal he’d made up to replace the sibling he never had? Those vague feelings had actually been memories? That imaginary friend had been Audrey?

  “When we were six and seven, they used to let us run in the fields out behind the store by ourselves. We’d be out there all day and only come back for lunch.” Her tone had become wistful. “We had so much fun in those days.

  “You,” she said, her face full of the blessing of fond memories, “loved the outdoors, loved the wind and the sun and even storms. You adored racing across the fields at full speed. You loved life. You used to laugh a lot.”

  He couldn’t force his gaze from her face. How could he have forgotten all of this? A huge chunk of his life had always felt missing.

  “One day, your parents took us to visit Abigail’s parents who owned a ranch in Montana. It was just shy of your eighth birthday. They let us out the back door of the house and we ran off across the fields. They warned us to keep away from the fenced-off cattle and we did.

  “We’d been outside for hours and were running and laughing and holding hands when the earth gave way beneath our feet.”

  Darkness. Suffocation. No! Gray surged to his feet, his heart beating frantic wings to escape his chest. “Stop. Don’t say another word.”

  “We’d fallen into an abandoned well.”

  Terror. Helplessness.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true, Gray.”

  “No. I couldn’t have forgotten something like that.”

  “It was traumatic.”

  Entombment.

  He tried to swallow, but had no moisture in his mouth. He’d forgotten. Had forced himself to. Now it was forefront. He saw everything. “How...how long were we down there?”

  “Ten hours. When we didn’t return for lunch, they came looking. When they couldn’t find us, they set up search parties. Finally, they heard my singing.”

  “Singing?”

  “Well, half humming, half singing. All of it off-key.” She laughed, but there was no true humor in it. “I’m a terrible singer, Gray.”

  He had a memory of a song. “‘Up Where We Belong,’” he whispered.

  Audrey smiled sadly. “I know. Dumb symbolism, but it was all I could think of at the time. I was so young. I’d been hearing it a lot on the radio.”

  He knelt in front of her. “You sang it for me.” Over and over. He heard it. Saw it all, images on top of feelings on top of sensations.

  “You hated being down there. You cried. I tried to comfort you.”

  “I should have been comforting you,” he said, vehement in his frustration with his own weaknesses.

  “No. Stop. Don’t beat yourself up. I was the quiet one. Introspection, reading, sitting quietly all came naturally to me.” She laid a cool hand against his cheek. “You were all about fresh air and action and daring feats. And...and hurtling through life. I loved that about you. You took me outside of myself. You gave me the world.

  “Singing to you and holding you while we were trapped was my way of giving back to you.”

  He could see light so far above, as though it were heaven, and the dark chilling well they were in was hell. But he had warm little arms around him. Audrey had been his buddy. His other half. She’d probably saved his sanity that day.

  How had he forgotten all of this? Was it possible to hide a huge chunk of experience from yourself? To suppress so much?

  Apparently.
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  She’d meant so much to him. He’d forgotten. He thought of how he’d treated her since she’d handcuffed herself to the greenhouse: sometimes well, but sometimes with disdain, and he felt ashamed.

  They’d lost time and experience. They could have been friends all of their lives. No wonder he’d longed for a sibling. For a few years, he’d almost had one.

  “They finally came after dark.” She took her hand away from his cheek, and he missed the warmth.

  He remembered—light diminishing, weakening, dying until it was gone, taking hope with it.

  Then someone big came down on a rope and rescued him. Aboveground, they were separated, and he was welcomed into his parents’ arms. Then...she was gone from his life.

  “Why?”

  She’d been watching him, and answered as though she’d followed his memories with him. “After that day, every time you saw me, you became hysterical. My presence reminded you of what you’d been through. Abigail and Harrison decided we should separate. Almost immediately, you buried the memory of the well and of our friendship. After that, when we met in town, it was as though we’d never been friends.”

  He couldn’t believe he could bury a memory that profound. He’d heard stories of people repressing memories, and had scoffed, full of cynicism and doubt. Now he knew it could happen. “So that’s why I’m claustrophobic.”

  “Yes. Abigail once told me that you spent your childhood years sleeping with the light on.”

  As he did now. He’d started his old habit again after the accident.

  “No wonder the car crash affected me so badly.”

  “You lost the woman you loved.”

  “Yes. I was grieving, but there was so much more in me that I couldn’t understand.” He stared at her. “I thought when I left Boston that things would get better, but they didn’t. I came home to Accord and started to get all of these awful feelings. I think memories were trying to surface, but I was repressing them. It made me crazy. I couldn’t figure out why the accident was affecting me here.”

  A thought occurred to him. “Why wasn’t it in the newspapers? I mean, a pair of kids trapped in a well is big news. Why didn’t I hear about it later?”

  “It happened in Montana. It was in their papers, but your dad managed to keep it contained and out of our local news. That would never happen these days with the internet.”

  He understood so much now. It all made sense.

  “We can fix this,” Audrey said. “I can help you to overcome your fears of the darkness. Your claustrophobia.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t need to overcome anything. I’m fine.” Now that he knew the truth, he was sure he could handle his fear of close spaces. With his new understanding, he’d be okay.

  “Did you listen to yourself when you told me about Marnie’s death? About you being trapped? Utter detachment. You are so not dealing with this.”

  “Maybe it looks and sounds that way, but I’m unemotional because I’ve already dealt with it. I’ve had an entire year to deal with it.”

  “A year isn’t that long.”

  “It’s long enough.” If he was too forceful, so be it, with Audrey insisting on things that weren’t true.

  “You’re hurting, Gray.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Come into the caves with me.”

  His heart lurched, flat-out just about jumped out of his chest. Go into a cave? “Are you insane? I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

  “I’m talking about healing.”

  He wouldn’t entomb himself.

  He couldn’t see clearly. Couldn’t think. Had to get out of here. His vision narrowed as debilitating panic grew, turning his world dark, until he had to run. To escape the box of his fears.

  He strode to the door. “This conversation is over. I’m leaving.” He stepped outside, slamming the door behind him, gulping air.

  Who did she think she was, believing she knew what was best for him? Bullshit.

  He heard the door open behind him. “Gray?”

  “Don’t talk to me. I’m going home.”

  He stalked to the elevators, punching the button. “Come on. Come on.” He clawed at the snug neck of his T-shirt.

  “Gray—”

  “I said I’m leaving.”

  “Gray,” she shouted. What was her problem? He spun around.

  “You live here,” she said. “I need to leave. Not you.”

  Coming to his senses, the black haze of panic, fear and anger cleared. He glanced around. He was standing in his own building.

  He leaned his forehead against the wall and sucked air into his lungs until the dizziness gave way to reason and sanity. His denial was going too far. He’d ignored his problem for too long.

  From the moment he’d buried his memories and had given up his little friend for the sake of his own mental health, he’d carried a burden—and today, at this moment, he’d reached his limit.

  Good thing he was a man in control of his emotions, or he’d be punching a hole in the wall.

  You’re hurting, Gray.

  He wasn’t.

  You’re hurting, Gray.

  Yeah, he was.

  Badly.

  He had to fix himself.

  She watched him with so much tenderness, he came undone.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said, capitulating because, in some strange way, he was helpless in the face of Audrey’s compassion.

  Heaven help him. He really would think about it.

  He touched her cheek. He’d wanted to touch her since the day his foreman had summoned him to handle a weirdo causing trouble, and instead he’d found the most strangely beautiful, unique woman chained to his father’s greenhouses.

  He’d stolen those kisses because he wanted his hands on her all the time.

  Jackie O meets Betty Boop. Audrey Hepburn meets Elizabeth Taylor.

  The lush softness of her skin welcomed him, made him consider possibilities, made him want to follow through on those stolen kisses that had felt like lust and salvation rolled into one.

  Those possibilities were not possible, though, and reality a persistent bitch. “I still have to follow through on the sale of my father’s land.” His voice sounded foreign to him, tinged with too much affection. She was his opponent. He had to bring her down to save his mother and the company and all of its employees. “I still need cash. I will file to have the sale of the land dismissed if I get guardianship of Dad’s property. I’m getting that land back.”

  Her expression shifted, hardened.

  “You can try.” She punched the elevator button.

  “You still want to take me caving?” He turned hard, cynicism a shell against her disappointment.

  “Yes.”

  “You planning to take me into one of those hellholes and leave me there?”

  With a bittersweet smile, she stepped into the elevator and said, “While the temptation is strong, I’ll resist.” She touched the button for the ground floor, the compassion back in those lovely violet eyes. “I’ll take care of you, Gray.”

  A promise. A benediction.

  The doors closed, taking her away along with the warmth of the day, so chillingly similar to another time he’d completely forgotten about until today.

  Cold, he returned to his condo and sat on the sofa holding his head in his hands, about as lacking in energy as a wrung-out washing rag.

  If only he could talk to his parents.

  No more hiding.

  He’d been through the emotional wringer, but Audrey had been there beside him. She was willing to go even further if he was willing to take her help.

  First, there was healing he had to do on his own.

  If Audrey had enough faith
in him to trust him with his past and to think he could be cured of his fears, then he owed it to her and himself to pull himself together, to give the future an honest shot.

  He called his office in Boston. When the receptionist put him through to his chief financial officer, he ordered him to sell the business in Boston.

  “You want to sell?” Bob Craven asked. “I had no idea you were thinking of this, Gray.”

  “I wasn’t. This is new. Find me a buyer as quickly as you can. I want good terms—retain as many employees as possible. We’ll provide attractive severance packages to whoever isn’t offered a job, or whoever decides not to stay with the new owners.”

  “You know this will take a while. Months. Six. Maybe seven.”

  “I know, but get the process started.”

  He called a real estate agent next and put his Boston condo on the market.

  It was time, past time, to say goodbye to Marnie. When the dust had settled, when papers needed to be signed and the condo emptied, he would make the difficult visit to her grave for the final goodbye.

  * * *

  JEFF HAD LIFTED weights again yesterday and was better for it, not as grumpy or as helpless. It felt good to be active, for his body to move again.

  He wasn’t ready to be an old man yet.

  He didn’t know where Gray was. Even though he’d committed to being there for Jeff, he hadn’t shown up. Teresa had helped set up the machines. The gym was adding raised figures to some of the weights so he could load the machines himself.

  “Jeff,” Teresa said shortly after breakfast, “I want to go out to that nice-looking bakery in town.”

  His mood fell. He was getting used to having her here. Liked having her here, even though only one week ago, he’d hated the very idea of a therapist. Teresa wasn’t what he’d expected. She taught him a lot, and she did it with patience and humor. “For how long?” he asked. “Will you be back by lunchtime?”

  “No,” she answered, “I didn’t mean I want to go out alone. I want you to come with me.”

  Walk on Main Street? Eat in front of strangers when he had trouble finding his mouth? What if he spilled coffee on himself? He didn’t at home anymore, but what if he got rattled in public and got messy? The place was always crowded.