Every Waking Moment

by Chris Fabry

  As she slept, she dreamed, and the dream was static, calm, with no movement of the eyes to make the scene shift. Treha liked to dream because this was the only time she saw the world without the motion. If she could dream her whole life, she would.

  Her mother came to her, or a woman she supposed was her mother, and took her by the hand, sunlight silhouetting her face and brown hair curling. She was thin, and Treha liked this because it made her think she would not have to be fat all of her life and that one day someone would see her as something other than damaged.

  Her mother led her to a building with glass windows lining the front. Inside, she could see flower arrangements and beautiful vases and stands to hold the displays of roses and daffodils. She thought it must smell heavenly in there.

  Through the door and color exploded, the greens and yellows and reds, deep red, deeper and darker than she had ever imagined a flower could reach. And blue and violet and white, the palette of God himself all over the walls and into the coolness of the next room, where the flowers were kept until they were cut and sold.

  The hallway became dark but the smell of the flowers lingered. Then through another door and along a corridor that angled slightly up, a ramp of sorts for something with wheels. Grooves in the carpet on either side of her footsteps.

  Treha opened the next door by herself. Her mother was gone, and she stood alone in a room that smelled of wood and metal. The fresh flowers were replaced by silk ones and around the room were caskets with prices printed above the open lids. Treha turned to retreat, but there was no door. She ran the circumference of the room feeling the walls, moving between the caskets and searching for a way out. At the front of the room, where the light was brightest, sat one closed coffin, and Treha was drawn there, though she didn’t want to be. She navigated the room again looking for another way out but came back to the front, back to the closed coffin where the light shone like the sun.

  She stepped to the box and looked down, hands trembling, and as she reached for the lid to lift it, her eyes began the motion again, the back-and-forth, unyielding motion. She lifted the box open.

  And screamed.

  “Treha, you okay?” Devin said.

  She sat up quickly and looked out the window, trying to figure out where she was. Concrete abutments and cactus designs and green street signs overhead. Scottsdale—6 miles.

  “Must have been some nightmare,” Jonah said from the back.

  She nodded and brought her feet onto the seat to hug her knees tightly to her chest. The music was still on low and the air-conditioning gave her a chill. This was how it always happened. Her mother led her into the room, through the flowers, through all things living to all things dead. And before she could see who or what was in the casket, she awakened, frightened, alone, and her life in constant motion again.

  Was it her mother in the casket? Was it someone Treha loved, someone she knew? Was it Treha herself? For some reason her subconscious kept her from seeing this, from deciphering the truth from the dream. Sometimes it was a graveyard. Sometimes an airport, though Treha thought it strange because she had never been in an airport before and had nothing on which to base her view of what the train would look like that delivered her to the terminal, with the dead end and no doors that opened and how all alone she was.

  They made a few turns, moved through areas of the world she had never seen, grocery stores nearly hidden from view, shrouded by shrubbery and facades of stucco and brick, landscaping and high walls. Devin slowed as he drove past a gate and pointed out the subdivision where Davidson lived. They could park a few streets away and walk, but Jonah wasn’t fond of the idea.

  “If we’re going to be gunned down, we might as well park close to the house.”

  Devin frowned and glanced at Treha.

  When a white Valley Cab pulled up to the gate, Devin followed it inside and turned at the first street, around a densely wooded cul-de-sac. There were mimosa and ash trees that seemed to have taken over the street, surrounded by rock walls and fencing that gave privacy to even the most reclusive. Treha imagined backyards with pools and hot tubs and tennis courts, but she couldn’t see from the front.

  Devin made a U-turn and backtracked to park on the street. “That’s his,” he said, pointing to an estate two houses down.

  The three of them sat, trancelike, looking at the home. The shades were drawn and there was no movement except for birds that flitted from ocotillo to hydrangea in the front yard. Several large boulders flanked the walkway leading to the front door.

  “Get the camera and mic her,” Devin said to Jonah. It wasn’t so much a command as an informal to-do list that Jonah acquiesced to immediately. He asked Treha to turn slightly and clipped a small wireless microphone on the V of her top. When he had the camera out and ready, Devin told him to roll.

  “Here?” Jonah said.

  Devin turned and gave the man a look, then glanced back at the Davidson home. “Why do you always wear those scrubs?”

  “I like how they feel.”

  “So it’s a comfort thing.”

  Treha nodded and heard the whir of the camera from the backseat. Jonah had on black headphones that said Sony on the earpieces.

  “I thought you were going to record me talking to Davidson.”

  “We’ll do a little of both if you can have a breakthrough with him. What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m not thinking about anything.”

  “Are you scared of the old man?”

  “No. I’m hopeful.”

  “About what?”

  “That he will have answers about Dr. Crenshaw, about what he wrote in the letter.”

  “Tell us about that, Treha. What letter are you talking about?”

  She glanced at Jonah. A red light stayed lit on the front of the camera.

  “Dr. Crenshaw wrote a letter and it was opened by accident. Mrs. Howard and I think this man, Davidson, may know something about a mistake Dr. Crenshaw said he made long ago.”

  “Did you know Dr. Crenshaw before Desert Gardens?”

  “No.”

  “Then what kind of mistake could he have made?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell us more about your relationship with Dr. Crenshaw,” Devin said.

  She did the best she could, telling him about the word games and riddles the man gave. She didn’t like talking, but Devin asked good questions that made the conversation easy, and he was bright, though a bit quirky and locked in on the task. He had a long face, dark hair and eyebrows, a bit of chin stubble. His hair was silky, parted in the middle, and was the kind that fell into place with a simple whisk of the hand. She could almost predict the frequency of the hand through his hair.

  “So this letter is a big deal to you.”

  “I want to know if Dr. Crenshaw was talking about me.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty.”

  “And you haven’t gone to college, right?”

  She shook her head.

  He seemed a little nervous now, unsure of himself. “Miriam Howard spoke highly of you.”

  Treha didn’t answer.

  “She said you have an incredible ability. A way to connect with older people. Which makes me wonder why Desert Gardens would let you go.”

  “A new person is running the facility.”

  “Downsizing?”

  “No, she said I was upsetting the residents.”

  “Upsetting them how? Mrs. Howard said you were a great employee. The residents love you.”

  Treha didn’t answer.

  “So what do you do to wake them? Is it a technique? Do you put some kind of spell on people?” He motioned with his hands, fingers moving all around. She looked at him and he smiled; then it disappeared when she didn’t respond.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “You don’t have to give away trade secrets. I’m not going to steal them. If you slip something in th
eir Ensure before you talk, I won’t tell anybody.”

  She sat with the silence between them. The leather car seats were aged and cracked, but she could tell the man took pride in his car, kept it clean and emptied the trash. There were no used cups or wrappers strewn about.

  “People respond to touch.”

  He turned toward her, a look of relief on his face. “Really?”

  Jonah snorted. “If you’d have given him a hug, he would’ve tossed the gun away and started talking.”

  Devin frowned. “I think this guy needs something more than a hug.”

  It was easier to speak with Devin looking forward, with both of them focused on the house rather than on each other. “Older people become isolated. They draw inward. And they are starved for human touch.”

  “Does it matter what type of touch?”

  “I put a hand on an arm or shoulder. Or rub their back.”

  He turned to study her but she kept her eyes on the house.

  “You must think about this a lot.”

  “I don’t think about it at all.”

  “How did you figure it out? How do you know what to do?”

  “I just know it.”

  “When did you know you could do it?”

  “Not until Desert Gardens.”

  “So you didn’t do this when you were younger?”

  “When I was younger, I didn’t know older people.”

  “Who did you know when you were younger? What’s your story, Treha?”

  “I don’t have one. Not one I can remember.”

  It felt hard to breathe in the silence that followed and she wondered if she had said too much. But Devin seemed to understand and process the words.

  “Mrs. Howard said when you talk, it draws them out. Like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. That’s what we want to see.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what movies are about. Asking questions. Discovering. And I think it’s fascinating. If you can really do this, we should bottle it. People would pay big money. They’d come from every continent. You’d be a spiritual guru.”

  “Is that what you want? To sell what I can do?”

  “No, I want your story. I want to tell it well and to discover the backstory as well.”

  “Backstory?”

  “What happened before, earlier in your life. How you acquired this ability.” Devin cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “Are there people you can’t reach?”

  “Some have gone too far, at least to get them to speak. But sometimes a smile is enough.”

  “Enough for who?”

  “Enough to let me know they hear me, they know I’m there.”

  “Are there different categories of people you reach? Aren’t some stuck in their childhood? They think they’re living back in the Depression?”

  She nodded. “I met a man who had not spoken in several months. He was bedridden and couldn’t communicate with those caring for him. I rubbed his hands. He opened his eyes and his mouth began to move. Several minutes later he tried to get up.”

  “Must have scared you.”

  “I wasn’t scared; I was concerned he would fall. I told him to lie down but he said, ‘I need to milk the cows.’ I told him there were no cows. ‘They are full; they need to be milked. Can’t you hear them?’”

  “What did you do?”

  “I hit the alarm and held him down until help arrived.”

  “So you can’t always be sure how they’ll respond?”

  She shook her head and a flash of memory from her childhood came back that she didn’t want, hadn’t asked for.

  “I guess that’s the downside of having the gift,” Devin said. “Can I ask you a different question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever smiled?”

  She glanced at him, then stared out the windshield again. “Perhaps when I was a girl.”

  “Why don’t you smile?”

  “Perhaps there is nothing to smile about.”

  “Or you could just not be able to. Have you ever tried? Even a fake smile?”

  She perfunctorily pulled the edges of her mouth up to show her teeth. Then she resumed her deadpan.

  “At least we know the muscles work,” Jonah said.

  A white mail truck drove past the mailbox and parked by Davidson’s driveway.

  “Hey, this looks interesting. Get a shot of this.”

  The window came down in the back and Jonah pointed the camera toward the carrier walking up to the house. “Mailman doesn’t seem scared of the old guy’s gun.”

  “It’s not a mailman,” Treha said.

  “What?” Jonah said.

  “It’s a woman.”

  “Yeah, okay, mail lady, then. Sorry.” Jonah zoomed in and watched through the camera. “Hey, I think I got something. The woman rang the bell twice and knocked on the door. It’s like a USPS code or something.”

  The carrier returned to the truck and drove away. A moment later the door opened a few inches and someone retrieved the package sitting outside.

  “Okay, this is great,” Devin said. “We know he’s there.”

  “We know someone’s there; we don’t know who,” Jonah corrected.

  Treha grabbed the door handle.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to use the secret code.” She opened the door and stepped out.

  “Will you be able to get the audio signal from here?” Devin said to Jonah.

  “Should be fine.”

  Devin locked eyes with her. “We’ll be listening. Be careful, okay?”

  CHAPTER 27

  MIRIAM HAD NEVER seen a human use so much sweet-and-sour sauce. Du’Relle ate his fried rice in a bowl like cereal.

  He finished before Miriam was halfway done with hers and asked if he could watch TV. Samantha suggested he go to the corner store and get a candy bar, handing him some change from a jar by the door. Du’Relle was instantly out the door, his worn-out shoes slapping the concrete. With him gone, Samantha spoke freely.

  “We were having troubles before he deployed, Du’Relle’s father and me. I don’t think either of us thought we would make it. That’s one of the reasons I transferred out here. I wanted things to be different when he came back. I wanted to show him I could make it on my own, instead of him calling the shots. I guess that was a way of preparing me.”

  “Did you get details about what happened?”

  “They told me about the attack and how Wayne was protecting his men, but I don’t remember much.”

  “That’s something to hang on to. His selfless nature.”

  “I halfway wonder if he didn’t go out there and put himself in the line of fire on purpose.”

  “Why?”

  “We had a fight three—no, two days ago. If I’d known that was going to be our last conversation, I never would have ended it that way.”

  “You can’t hold yourself responsible, Samantha. We all have regrets.”

  Miriam watched the woman compose herself and thought of her own life, her own regrets. Things she would do differently if she had the chance.

  “Du’Relle looks like he’s adjusted to the move here.”

  “He has problems in school sometimes. I have to work evenings, so he comes home to an empty apartment. I worry. Been trying to get on the day shift, but there’s a few in line ahead of me.”

  “Where do you work?”

  Samantha told her and Miriam recognized the hospital across town. “I don’t get home till late.”

  “Du’Relle seems to have latched on to Treha.”

  The woman smiled. “That’s been the bright spot. He follows her around like a puppy and says he’s taking care of her. She seems okay with it.”

  “Do you know her very well?”

  Samantha shook her head and waved a hand in front of her mouth. The kung pao chicken was a little spicy. She took a drink of water and continued. “I thought she worked at a hospital or at some vet clinic when I first
saw her. You say you work with her at a nursing home?”

  “It’s a modified retirement center and nursing home. I just retired but have taken an interest in her. That’s actually part of why I’m here. We’re trying to piece together some of her past.”

  “I’m sure she appreciates the help.” Samantha looked at the front room and rose, bringing back a picture of her husband and setting it on the table. “I think about Du’Relle and what he’s going to go through without a father. Maybe sometimes it’s better not to know your past.”

  “Where will the funeral be?” Miriam said.

  “Back in North Carolina. That’s where his family lives. The military will fly us there after the arrangements are made.” She wiped a tear away and then put her head in both hands. “I want to be strong for Du’Relle.”

  “It’s okay to grieve. It’s a huge loss. Even if there was trouble between you two. It’s not just his death you’re dealing with but the death of the two of you together, the death of a dream.”

  “You sound like you’ve been through this before.”

  Miriam thought of her life—losing her mother, losing one of her best friends to cancer, losing the dream of children. “Nothing compared to what you’ve gone through. Is there anywhere in this area you can go? Any family or friends? I know that can be a tremendous help.”

  “We’re alone here. But that’s okay. I don’t think I want to be with anybody right now. I talked with my sister on the phone for a long time this morning. That helped.”

  Du’Relle came back from the store with a Snickers as big as his forearm and turned the TV on in the living room. Miriam took the empty plates to the sink but Samantha said she couldn’t let her do the dishes. “You’ve done enough just bringing this food in and talking with me. You were a gift from God today.”

  Miriam gave her a hug and wrote her phone number on a scrap piece of paper. “You call me if you need anything. A ride to the airport or help with Du’Relle . . .” She paused. “You know, I just met someone who helped Treha a long time ago. The family ministers to widows and orphans.” She pulled out the brochure for James 127 House. “Call them. They’re great people and might have resources for you and Du’Relle.”