The Memory of Us

by Lisa Sorbe

  Next to me, West opens his mouth and then quickly closes it with a sigh.

  I don’t bug him about it, because I feel the same way. I’ve been swallowing my thoughts all morning, gulping them right back down before they can escape my head.

  After a few more minutes of silence, Macy steps out onto Corrine’s porch and waves at us before motioning that she’ll be over with her car so I don’t have to haul my luggage all the way across the yard. While we wait, the air seems to spark, turns electric with a sudden, frenzied energy. My heart is hammering, and I’m suddenly overcome with a hot flash. I swipe my sweaty palms against my skirt and glance up at West.

  This is it. This is good-bye.

  I’ll never step foot in this house again. Nor, probably, this neighborhood. And, even if on some nostalgic whim I do come back here, nothing will be the same. Corrine will be gone, West will be gone…

  And another family will be living behind these walls, walking the halls, dining in our kitchen, swimming in our pool. The rooms will be filled with someone else’s furniture, the driveway with someone else’s car. Their very presence will sweep away the memory of my family as if we never existed at all.

  Someone else will call this place home, and I’ll never be able to again. And while that shouldn’t bother me, what with all the years I spent away, avoiding the place, it does. For some stupid, illogical reason, it does.

  I turn to West, and notice his eyes reflect my panic. And though panic might be too strong of a word, it’s the only one I can think of right now. His stare is fierce with it, determined and desperate and alive with an emotion I won’t lay claim to.

  “Stay.”

  My heart leaps in my chest. “What?”

  “Stay,” he repeats. The crunch of gravel sounds as Macy’s SUV pulls into the driveway. The gears rumble softly as she shifts into park, and West throws an irritated look at the vehicle. “Tonight. Stay with me tonight, and I can take you to the airport in the morning. I’ll clear my schedule, it won’t be hard…”

  “I… It’s not… No.” I shake my head and push to my feet. Reaching back, I grab the handle of my laptop case and swing it over my shoulder. “No,” I repeat, more to myself than him. “That is so not a good idea.”

  West stands with me, reaching out to stop me with his touch. I stare down at his hand on my arm, so similar to the way mine wrapped around his all those weeks ago, when he brought me hot dogs and root beer the night of my mother’s funeral. He refused to stay then, refused to give in, knowing the hurt that would be in store for both of us if he did.

  He was the strong one then, and now I have to be. Because somewhere along the line this summer, we both became weak, making this final good-bye hurt more than it should.

  West smiles and holds up a finger to Macy, signaling that we’ll just be a moment. But when he returns his attention back to me, his expression intensifies. “Do you remember that time you and your family went to the Black Hills? We were, like, five or something…maybe six?”

  “Five,” I whisper.

  He laughs and pulls me closer, runs his thumb over my cheek. “The whole time your parents were planning that trip, you acted like I was going with you all. Like I was just a part of the family and you never questioned it. Remember, Laney?”

  I nod.

  “But I knew that I wasn’t going with you. I knew, but you didn’t seem to, so I went along with it, like it was some game we were playing. Because I didn’t want to think about what life would be like without you around. Not for a week, or a day. Not even for a minute.” His eyes trace every inch of my face, every line and curve, with a desperation that mirrors the one knocking against my sternum. “I didn’t just ‘forget’ to tell my mom that morning. I snuck out because I knew she—hell, both of our parents—would try to stop me if they found out.” He chuckles. “Granted, I didn’t plan far enough ahead to not get caught. But hey, I was only six.”

  “Five,” I whisper again.

  He smiles. “Five.”

  And I feel like I’m five, like I’m caught in yet another time warp—the ones it seems this town is hellbent on throwing me into. Because I’m feeling the same ache, the same frantic anguish I did all those years ago, the very first time we were ever separated.

  I shake my head and close my eyes. “Don’t, West. Please, just…don’t.” I try to back away, to put some distance between us so we that can both regain our composure, but West tightens his hold, cups the back of my neck with his hand.

  And then, with the lightest of touches, a butterfly’s kiss, he brushes his lips over mine. With his heart in his throat, he kisses me one last time before I feel his breath in my ear.

  “Good-bye, Laney.”

  I feel like I’m waking up from a dream.

  The Phoenix sun is too bright, the sky too open. Palm trees stand like sentients along the walkway to my office, no clouds visible through the swaying fronds. Their whisper is different from the evergreens that crowd Wolf Lake, harsher somehow and sharp, like the hiss of a rattlesnake. The air is different here, too, the smell more redolent of oil and gas and taco stands and sunbaked asphalt and exhaust. Wolf Lake smells like pine and fresh cut grass and sweet holiday potpourri.

  I’ve never compared the two places before, but my senses are suddenly on overdrive, and after being away from the city for so long, the differences are glaring.

  This place no longer feels like home.

  It’s a thought I dismiss, though, because this place is home, has been home, and will continue to be home. I didn’t put in years of time and effort only to abandon it all because of some ridiculous nostalgic whim.

  I’ve just been away too long. And Wolf Lake has a way of crawling under your skin, lulling you into complacency, making you believe in foolish things.

  No, wait. That’s just West. West has a way of doing that.

  Wolf Lake is just a place. It’s a person that I’m running from.

  That I’ve always been running from. At least for more years than not.

  The office is the same yet different, too. When I step off the elevator on the tenth floor, the glare coming in through the floor to ceiling windows is blinding. Everything seems to have a film around it, like I’m walking through a haze. But this is just me coming out of the dream, the pull that was West, and now I need to wake up.

  I had my break. My time to mourn not only my mother, but my entire family.

  It’s time to cut the cords on the memories. Put them back into their boxes in the back of my mind, where they belong.

  But that’s proving to be easier said than done.

  I drop my things off in my tiny office before heading to Helena’s much bigger one. The older woman greets me with a hug, one like a mother would give, before returning to her seat behind her desk. “Sit yourself down,” she commands, a smile softening her words. I do and she sighs, leaning back in her chair and dipping her chin to study me. Her dark hair is pulled back in its usual French twist, and seeing her is the first thing that’s felt familiar since my plane landed yesterday. “You look in the pink.”

  I smile. “Well, I just had a three-month vacation.”

  “Did you deal with everything that needed dealing with back home?”

  “Yes. My mother’s house is cleared out and on the market. The rest I can handle from here.” I make a scissoring motion with my fingers. “Cords are sufficiently cut.”

  Helena’s eyes narrow. “But I’m sensing not all of them. Am I right?”

  I frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Maybe it’s something, and maybe it’s nothing. Could just be my intuition pulling my leg. It likes to do that from time to time…make sure I’m paying attention.” She laughs. “Like the time it urged to me try salsa dancing. As if my body could ever move that way! It was a disaster, but I met Yvonne there, and lord knows where I’d be all these years later if I hadn’t.” Her eyes drift to a framed photograph on her desk, a black and white image of the two women hugging a pair of yell
ow labs to their chests, their laughing smiles a perfect reflection of their relationship.

  “How is Yvonne?” I ask. I’ve been over to the couple’s hillside home several times over the years, a few to dog sit while the pair vacationed and, on a more intimate level, for quiet dinner parties where Yvonne would always try to set me up with a “nice young man”.

  “Good. Just getting ready for the school year to start.”

  “I’m sure she’s looking forward to it.” Yvonne is an elementary school teacher and, from what I’ve gathered every time I’ve spoken with her, adores her job. Kids are her passion, and while she and Helena were never able to have their own, it seems Yvonne has been able to find solace in teaching. And through that, I suppose, she keeps her dream alive.

  “She is, she is. But, back to you.”

  I nod, all business. “Right. Well, I’m ready to get back to work.”

  Chomping at the bit, really. Because I need a distraction. I need a distraction to get me back on track.

  “You do know it’s my job to observe, right? To find the needle in the haystack, so to speak? To pull the truth from the pile of bullshit?”

  I shift in my seat, giving the hardwood floor beneath my foot a few nervous clicks with my heel. “And you’re damn good at it.”

  “My daddy said I should’ve gone into detective work, what with the knack I had of always knowing things I had no earthly way of knowing.”

  I sit ramrod straight, refusing to believe that my hard ass yet incredibly caring boss who happens to be one of the best criminal attorneys in the entire southwest is somehow also a psychic intuitive who can read my thoughts and feelings like a book.

  All, I need—all I need—is to dive into a case, get back on track, so I can effectively rein in all the sentimental feelings my trip to Wolf Lake unleashed.

  So I play it cool. Laugh, like she’s joking. “Well, with that being said... If you wouldn’t mind letting me in on the winning lottery numbers of tomorrow night’s big drawing, that’d be super.”

  Not about to be sidetracked, Helena dismisses my joke with a wave of her hand before sliding her glasses down her nose and peering at me from over the top. “You’re here, but you’re not really here. Are you darlin’?”

  My heel starts to knock against the floor again, and I press my hand over my knee to stop it. I turn my smile up a notch. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because you have that look.”

  I raise my brows and give my head a little shake, wondering if my boss somehow lost her mind while I was away. “What look?”

  Helena props her elbows on her desk and temples her fingers under her chin. “It’s the same look I’d see every day in the mirror, back before Yvonne would admit that she had…feelings for me.” She leans forward in her seat slightly, angling her body over a pile of legal folders.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not following you. I don’t have,”—I laugh and hook my fingers in the air—“a look.”

  But she continues on like I haven’t spoken. “Tortured and euphoric,” she says to herself, appraising me. Then she cocks her head and grins. “You, darlin’, have the look of someone in love.”

  My office is smaller than Helena’s, maybe even the smallest in the entire firm, but it’s mine. And today, the size doesn’t matter because it offers the one thing I need.

  Privacy.

  I finally escape Helena’s clutches with the promise that we’ll do lunch sometime this week and the assurance that no, I’m not, in her words, tortured and euphoric.

  Tortured, maybe. But definitely not euphoric.

  I’ve been sitting in my own little world for only ten minutes when a knock on my door announces the apocalypse.

  I quickly sit up straight and try to smooth out the wrinkles on my forehead. Because I’ve had my head propped on my forearms since I sat down, the creases from my suit jacket are surely embedded in my skin, giving me the appearance of having aged forty years in ten minutes. I swipe desperately at my brow, then pull my laptop close and open it, pressing the on button as I call out, “Come in!”

  I smell him before I see him, that signature cologne that never bothered me before but makes me cringe now.

  Brent smiles, perfect lips framing perfect teeth. He’s excellently put together, like he always is, though now he appears greasy, somehow. Smarmy. Slick like an eel.

  Poor eels. What have they ever done to deserve to be compared to Brent?

  Slick like a snake. That’s it. An oily snake who purposefully seeks out people to sink its teeth into.

  And while I doubt that even a snake has motivations that are purely malevolent—I’m pretty sure humans are the only beasts on the planet that inflict pain for the pure pleasure of it—it’s the closest correlation I can make.

  “Elena.” Brent’s smile brightens, and I can almost hear the gears turning in his head. Wondering how he can take this situation and swing it to his advantage.

  I nod, my eyes narrowed. “Brent.”

  He glides into the room, pausing by the chair on the other side of my desk. His large hands grasp the back, fingers pressing lightly into the leather. “Mind if I sit?”

  I’m opening my mouth to tell him that yes, I do mind, that he can shove that chair right up his ass, when the bastard rounds my desk and takes a seat on the edge. He kicks his legs out and clasps his hands in front of him, his smile having never once wavered.

  It’s almost creepy, if you think about. Really damn creepy.

  I look up at him and try to appear nonplussed.

  “You look well,” he says.

  The compliment rolls so easily off his tongue, but now that I’ve distanced myself from him these past few months, I detect the condensation in his tone. It’s mechanical, his flattery, and I’m starting to wonder what the hell I ever saw in him.

  Then again, maybe that’s the point. I didn’t see anything in him—no future, no security, no reason to get attached—and that was probably why I handed myself over so willingly.

  “Thank you.” My reply is as counterfeit as his compliment, and I don’t offer to return the sentiment. Of course, he’s incredibly handsome. Although, if you look closely—with your heart and not your eyes—you can see the cracks. Notice the fissures. Just as it was with my mother’s house, the flaws are only noticeable when you get up close and personal.

  Or, in Brent’s case, when you cut through all of his bullshit.

  His hair is a little too slick with product, and his shoulders aren’t as broad out of his suit as they are in it. His nose is a little too long, and a swollen red pimple peeks in and out from behind the stiff white collar of his shirt when he shifts positions.

  And the most unattractive quality…his eyes. The smugness that hovers at the corners and under the shadow of his brow. It’s something more felt than seen, but it’s there, toxic and invisible and settling on me like some tasteless, odorless gas.

  I haven’t slept with the guy in months, and suddenly all the showers I’ve taken between our last meet up and now aren’t enough.

  I grimace, though quickly turn it into a smile as fake as his. “I have to admit I was a little shocked when Helena told me you’d requested my help.”

  Brent chuckles and reaches up, rubbing his thumb and forefinger along his jaw, the movement pulling my attention to his stupid Harvard ring. The bulky way it sits below his knuckle, the arrogant way he’s always flashing it around like it’s one of the damn crown jewels or something, is nauseating.

  “Well it shouldn’t. You’re a great attorney. I want my team made up of the best, and that includes you. Not to mention…” He shrugs and attempts a remorseful expression. He reaches down and trails his fingers over my cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

  I jerk away and hold up a hand. “Stop. Okay? Just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Brent twitches as if he’s been slapped, and for a moment it looks like he’s gulping for air when in reality he’s doing something I’ve never seen him do before—
searching for words.

  “And before you say anything, this has nothing to do with what happened between us on a personal level. And if you did miss me at all, it was only for what I could do for you career-wise.” I smirk up at him. “Like you said, I’m a great fucking attorney.”

  It’s like I’m shifting back into my old self, my Phoenix self, but maintaining the clarity, the perspective of my new self. The person I became these last few months in Wolf Lake. With West.

  “So I’ll work with you, because it’s my job. And, as you know, I’m nothing if not professional.” I lean forward, lift my chin. “But if you ever come uninvited behind my desk and touch me again, you’ll be sorry.”

  Brent pales under his tan, the skin of his neck graying wear it meets the white of his shirt.

  I sit back in my chair and cross my legs, allowing my forearms to drape casually over the armrest. “Now, why don’t you have a seat,” I say, nodding at the chair opposite mine, “and let’s get caught up, shall we?”

  Arizona is hot. Always hot.

  Even in October.

  The air in the conference room feels oppressive, sort of in the way the last two months of my life have.

  No matter what I do, I can’t seem to settle in. Get back in the groove.

  My condo feels cold, the lines too sharp and the furniture too stiff from never being used. The city is stifling, and there’s barely any green…anywhere. The gym is crowded with sweaty bodies striving for perfection, and I find that I miss my quiet walks with Casper; the morning hub-bub in Wolf Lake is a quiet hum compared to the gym’s clink and clatter of weights, the grunts and groans of its members as they hurry to work off their weekend indulgences.

  I tried to go on a lazy morning stroll last week. It wasn’t relaxing. It wasn’t the same.

  Maybe I need a dog.

  Maybe I need Casper.

  And, on that note, maybe I need We—

  “Elena?”

  “Hmm?” I look up from a witness deposition I’m supposed to be reading but, due to my wandering mind, have barely scratched the surface of.