by Lindy Zart
Hands on her shoulders, strong and firm, Mason said, “Look at me, Sara. Tell me what you see.”
“What do you see when you see me?” he asked, eyes intent on her.
Sara set her paintbrush down, turning her attention to him. “What do you mean?”
He motioned to her half-finished project. “I see you glancing at me, and then you paint something. What you’re painting looks nothing like me.” He leaned closer in his chair to get a better look. “In fact, it doesn’t even look human. Or like anything else, for that matter. What is it?”
Sara stared at the blues and greens she’d swirled together. They’d meshed, pulled apart, and gone off in their own elegant tendrils. She cocked her head. She didn’t know what it was. But it signified how she felt about him.
“It’s the blue of your eyes. See here?” She pointed. “That’s the same shade as your eye color. It’s…serenity and peace and wholeness. It’s you and how you make me feel.” Sara shrugged. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“You know what color a painting of you would be?”
She caught the teasing glint in his eyes and smiled. “What?”
“Red hot. Fiery,” he murmured, his eyes darkening.
He reached for her and the artwork was forgotten. He was able to wipe her mind clean of all thoughts other than ones of him. His arms wrapped around her, his scent enveloping her, as he pulled her to him and kissed her like it was their last kiss.
It had been one of their last kisses.
“Sara?” Her eyelids flew open and wine-colored eyes met hers instead of blue. “Where were you just now?”
Sara shrugged out of Mason’s grasp, her stomach churning. She tried not to look at anything in the room, every single part of the room reminding her of him, but it was no use. Her eyes were drawn to all that had a piece of him to them. He lingered in the room. Sara thought she could smell him even. Coffee and cherry Carmex.
There was the rocking chair he would sit in and read as she painted. Pressure formed on her chest, pushing down, making it hard to breathe. There was the easel that still held her last painting, the one with the greens and blues. The pressure built. The walls they’d painted a cheery yellow, getting almost as much paint on each other as they did the walls. Her throat tightened painfully. Vision blurred with wetness, she stumbled from the room.
“I don’t want to do this,” she said in a shaking voice. “I want you to leave and I don’t want you to come back. This isn’t helping. It won’t help. You can’t just make me get over him. I can’t get over him. I’ll never get over him.”
Mason stood near the door and she had to look away. He was out of place. He didn’t belong here, in her house, standing where her husband used to stand.
“What makes you think I’m trying to make you get over anyone? I’m just trying to get you to stop hiding from everything, from yourself, from the world, from your emotions. There’s a difference. It’s been over a year, Sara. What are you waiting for?”
Her face crumpled and she hung her head. Staring at her purple-socked feet, she said quietly, “Do you know what happened?”
“Yes. Spencer told me.”
“Then you know why I am the way I am.”
“I’m no one to judge. I’m nowhere near an example of how to be. Derek died four years ago. I spent the first year hating myself and living in self-pity, doing every kind of drug I could get my hands on. It’s amazing I’m even alive, actually. I overdosed a couple times, had my stomach pumped. I have scars from other dumb things I did.” Mason held up his arm and slid the sleeve of his sweater back, revealing a jagged, raised line of skin pinker and paler than the rest of his arm.
Sara swallowed, tearing her eyes away. She crossed her arms, hiding the veins she’d studied so carefully more than one time.
“You and me, Sara, we’re two peas in a pod,” he said in a low voice. “But you…you have it better than me. Derek died instantly, without me having a chance to say I was sorry or goodbye or anything. Without me being able to tell him how much I loved him and admired him. You have that chance. Embrace it. Don’t hide away until it’s too late.”
“It is too late. He died a year ago. I keep…thinking he’ll come back. I know it’s crazy, but that’s what I keep thinking. Only I know he really won’t.” She blinked her tear-filled eyes. “Please, Mason, just go. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Mason’s eyes searched the kitchen, pausing on the fridge. He grabbed the magnetic pen and paper pad from it, jotting something down. “Here’s my cell phone number. Call me anytime, Sara. I’ll be back next Sunday. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. “I have a task for you. Open up your art room and work. Create something. Anything. See you in a week.”
After he left, Sara stared into the room, the door now open. She took a hesitant step toward it, and another, until she hovered in the doorway. Sara hugged herself, imagining it was him hugging her, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t even close. Sara let her arms drop away and walked to the painting. She trailed a finger along the clumpy surface, seeing his face, seeing his eyes. This time, though, they weren’t laughing or shining. This time, they were dim, unseeing. They were as they had been the last time they’d been open.
***
The phone was hard and cold, quickly warming from the heat of her ear against it. They were like a drug; these one-sided conversations with Lincoln. The soothing pull of his deep voice was an addiction; the peace Sara felt as she listened to him was unable to be imitated in any other way. She could hear the television in the background as she stared at the empty blackness of hers, almost able to see herself sitting beside Lincoln as he talked, watching the same rerun of ‘King of Queens’ right along with him. Absently twirling a strand of her long hair around a finger, Sara silently devoured his words.
“Remember that painting you made of the forest outside the house that Cole lost? I have a confession to make: I stole it. It’s in my bedroom, on the wall above my bed. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. “I think he knew. I mean, he had to have seen it, right? I’m sure he was in my bedroom at least once since you painted it. Never said anything. Maybe he thought I needed it more than he did.
“I don’t know why I took it. I suppose I could have just asked for it. But where would the fun have been in that? You’re so talented, Sara. You could paint a nondescript ball of nothing and it would be amazing. You know that, right?” Sara closed her eyes at his kind words, not really believing them, but thankful for them just the same.
Lincoln sighed, sounding tired when he said, “No, I suppose you don’t. You always think less of yourself than is warranted. I always hated that about you; probably the only thing. You never thought you were smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough, strong enough. But you are. You always have been. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. I mean it, Sara.”
How did he know her so well? She had always had an insurmountable mountain of insecurities, no matter how she wished otherwise. But Lincoln, Lincoln always seemed to know them all and denied each and every one as well. Sometimes Sara thought Lincoln knew her even better than her own husband, which was ridiculous. Warmed by his words, she had hope that maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to fall asleep now after hearing his voice. Before she’d called him, it had been futile.
“I got an early start tomorrow, so I’m signing off for the night. I’ll be seeing you soon. Good night. Take care, Sara.”
6
As the days came and went, pulling her closer to that fated day marked on the calendar, the nightmares didn’t remain during the nighttime like they should. Sara saw the pain in his eyes at the collision. She felt his hand tighten on her in fear. The immediate loss as his touch was wrenched from her. She saw it all, whether her eyes were open or closed.
The hollowness was growing inside her. At times she looked down, expecting to see a round circle of emptiness where her stomach should be. A gashing wound where her heart was. Time healed all wounds was th
e saying. That saying was a lie. Time made the wounds deepen; it made them grow. It was her enemy and it was winning the battle against her soul. Time was ruining her, dissolving her, destroying her. It was all she had and everything she hated. Time mocked her in vivid detail of that final moment.
The time it had taken for the car to crash, time as it had slowed down and sped up; the last minutes she’d had with him, the seconds his eyes had filled with anguish and disbelief and the seconds it had taken for the light to fade from them. The hours she’d sat in the hospital, hoping and praying and hating herself. The days and months she’d had to exist without him. It was all about time. And it was killing her.
Sara clutched the phone to her chest, her first impulse to call Lincoln and confess everything. Instead she set the phone down, grabbed keys off the hook by the door, and braced herself against the cold and snow as she walked to the short driveway. The icy wind snapped at her, his worn sweatshirt not enough to keep her warm against the frigid air. White, fluffy snow seeped through the soles of her old shoes, making her toes stiff and her feet uncomfortably wet.
She tried not to think about what she was doing or where she was going. Sara sat in the car, shivering as she started it up. Her breath was visible in puffs of misty air as she inhaled and exhaled. She drove down the street, taking a left and heading out of town. Five miles outside of Boscobel, she parked the car and turned it off. Her eyes swept over the snow-covered scene. It looked different. Everything did now. Nothing was as beautiful. Nothing was as peaceful. The haze of pain covering her eyes had darkened the world to her. The trees were tall and spindly, their leaves gone. It saddened Sara, seeing them in their dilapidated state. It was as though they wept for him too; they cried as Sara cried; each lost leaf, a teardrop for him. She sucked in a sharp breath, her body trembling.
Sara got out of the car and stood there, envisioning him the second time she’d seen him. He’d stood just a few steps to the right from where she now stood. Sara could feel his warmth; she could smell his scent of coffee and cherry Carmex, and man. She could feel the sunshine beat down on her as it had that day, masking the bitter cold of the present.
She’d been walking, careful to stay near the road and out of the woods. Part of her had wondered if the mysterious man would be there again. Part of her had been excited by the thought, especially when she’d thought of that smile of his.
His back had been to her, broad and muscular through the long-sleeved red Henley shirt he’d worn; his faded jeans tight against his defined backside and legs. His physique had made her mouth go dry, especially watching his muscles clench and bunch as he worked. He had a chainsaw in his hands, the engine loud and grating to her eardrums as he’d cut fallen tree limbs in half.
She walked past, eyes on him the whole time. Sara had known the exact moment he’d sensed her. The engine had abruptly cut off and a deep, raspy voice had called out, “Aren’t you worried about serial killers with chainsaw fetishes?”
Her heartbeat had picked up as well as her breathing. Sara had spun around, blinking at the sight of him. His tall body had lounged against the back of a blue Dodge Ram, one elbow on the tailgate. His eyes had been hidden below the bill of a dirty white baseball cap, but she’d known they were watching her raptly. Sara had felt them on her, going up and down the length of her, searing in their intensity. He stripped away her clothes with that look, visualized himself and her naked together, writhing on a bed, or maybe against the wall, intertwined. She’d known it and it hadn’t bothered her one bit.
“Wrong state,” she called back.
He tipped his head back and laughed. “I think you’ve watched too many horror movies,” he drawled, removing his cap to wipe a hand across his forehead before tugging it back down in place. In that brief moment he’d been hatless; his electric blue eyes had zapped her, her body unconsciously jerking in response.
“Maybe,” Sara had said, slowly moving toward him. She’d been scared. She’d been scared and it had had nothing to do with serial killers. Sara had been scared because she’d never been so instantly attracted to any man before.
“So…Sara…Cunningham, is it?” She nodded. “Miss Cunningham, I do believe you are a thrill seeker.”
“You think so?”
“I do.” He straightened as she drew nearer, naturally looming over her at his height of somewhere around six feet tall. “Why else would you have shown up here a second time?”
“I like the scenery?”
His lips had formed into a slow smile and her stomach had dipped at the facial transformation from sharply angled features to rugged handsomeness. “Which scenery?”
Oh boy, she thought, I’m in trouble.
“I think I should take you out,” he said before she had a chance to form a reply.
“Take me out where?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. She had been almost to him, close enough to know the top of her head might have reached his chest if she were to test it out.
“How about a movie? What are you in the mood for? Some ’Texas Chainsaw Massacre’?”
She laughed and he grinned and a date had been set.
Sara shook her head, pushing the image away. Only he didn’t fade away. She inhaled raggedly, closing her eyes against the tall form walking toward her. It was a ghost, an illusion. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t really there.
“Sara? What are you doing here?”
She opened her eyes, her racing heart slowing. It was real. But it wasn’t him. Lincoln made his way to her, his features becoming more defined the closer he got. He had on jeans, boots, a red flannel jacket with the hood of a gray sweatshirt sticking out the back of it, and leather work gloves. He pulled his gloves off as he reached her, shoving them into the back pocket of his jeans.
“I’m…” Her teeth chattered together, making it almost impossible to form words. She hadn’t realized it was so cold, lost as she’d been in her memories.
“Shit, Sara, how long have you been standing out here?” Lincoln exclaimed as he moved closer, briskly rubbing her arms to bring some life back to them.
“I don’t…know.”
“Come here.” He enfolded her between his arms, his clean smell mixing with the scent of the wood burning stove from the house nestled back in the woods. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
Sara couldn’t speak or move. It felt like a betrayal to him to have his brother’s arms around her. She wanted to pull away, but couldn’t gather the strength to. She felt safe, safer than she had since her world had been destroyed.
“Come on. I’ll drive your car over to the house. What were you thinking, coming out here without a coat or boots or anything?”
“I…wasn’t thinking,” she stuttered, following him to the red Pontiac Grand Prix.
“That much is obvious.” He opened the door for her, shutting it after she was in the car.
“What were you doing?” Sara asked as Lincoln started the car.
“Looks like I was rescuing you from being frozen alive.” He pulled the car onto the road and drove the two miles it took to reach the house he’d grown up in. It was a two-story log-sided cabin, almost disappearing into the trees cocooning it, becoming part of the background. Smoke curled up from the chimney, lights shone through the windows in the gloomy-skied day.
Will the sun ever shine again?
Sara walked up the steps that led to the large deck, nostalgia hitting her. She went still, thinking she heard his laughter on the wind, picturing him standing at the now-covered grill, flipping burgers, a beer in his hand. Sara would have been sitting at the black wrought iron patio set, eyes repeatedly pulled to him as though a magnet connected her to him.
“You okay?” Lincoln asked, watching her, one hand on the doorknob.
She nodded, shifting her gaze from his. This was the house he and Lincoln had been raised in, and after their parents moved to Florida to retire, the house they’d shared as bachelors until she’d come along and changed all that. What if she hadn’t go
ne for a walk that day? Would he still be alive, living his life with some other woman?
Sara hadn’t been to the house since before the accident. She inhaled deeply, the scent of coffee enveloping her as she stepped inside, the heat of the interior quickly warming her. Her eyes went to the black leather couch to the left, where they’d sit and watch movies. He’d play with her hair, his arm around her, his lips smiling against her cheek as he kissed her.
“Coffee?”
She blinked at Lincoln. He’d removed his jacket and hat and stood by the coffeemaker in the kitchen area to the right. He looked back expectantly. His features changed, altered, and she was staring at her husband. She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, and when she opened them, he was Lincoln again.
“Yes. Please.”
“I was walking.”
She frowned at him. He set a mug of coffee on the black marble countertop and pulled out a barstool across from her. Sara did the same, sitting and wrapping her frozen fingers around the hot cup.
“In the woods. I was walking. I didn’t have much to do today for work with the snow and all, so I went for a walk. Some days are great, others kind of get to me. Today is one of the latter days. I thought some fresh air might help clear my head.”
“Did it?”
Lincoln gave a short bark of laughter. “Nah.”
“What does help?” Sara sipped her coffee, hoping he had some magic answer that she could try. She knew she was wishing for things that could never be before he even answered. There was no quick fix; there was no magic solution to eradicate the guilt and sorrow she carried around.
He tapped the fingers of one hand on the counter. “You know, I don’t really know. If I’m kept busy I don’t dwell on things too much. I guess work helps.”
Mason’s demand that she work on her art flashed through her mind. She didn’t know how to do that without being overwhelmed by the past. How would that be helpful? It wouldn’t. His next visit was only a few days away. She sighed, rubbing her forehead.
