Dr. Strange Beard

by Penny Reid

  Her eyes moved between mine, like she was reaching inside my head, seeking to read my thoughts. “But you don’t know how long.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “So how can you say it’s temporary?”

  I sighed, but she wasn’t finished.

  “You are too bright—too brilliant—to put yourself in danger like this.”

  “I’m not in danger.” I was in a little bit of danger. A very little bit. A wee, itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny bit of danger. But she didn’t need to know that.

  “Ha!” The sound was strangled, full of fear, and she pulled me against her again.

  I understood my mother’s terror. Her half brother, who’d been fifteen years older than her, had died in Vietnam, and she had two uncles that had died in World War II.

  “This country doesn’t deserve you.” She placed a kiss on my neck and I sighed again, because those were the same words she’d said to my brother when he’d seriously considered joining the navy.

  These also happened to be the same words my sister Dani had said to me when I told her I was joining the bureau.

  So I repeated the response I’d given to my sister. “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

  My mother laughed, it sounded desperate but also amused, and maybe a little proud.

  Whereas my sister had simply glared, unimpressed. Her perspective was more, You don’t need to live in the world to change it. Become powerful enough, and you can bend the world to your will.

  Ah, dearest Dani. Warm and fuzzy, she was not.

  We stood silently for a while, hugging in the kitchen, the clock on the wall ticking softly the only sound in the room, other than our soft breathing. My stomach growled, and my mom laughed again.

  Sniffing and stepping away, she held my cheeks in her hands and captured my eyes once more. “I’m proud of you, I hope you know that.”

  “I do.”

  “Just . . . don’t take any unnecessary risks,” she said firmly.

  “I won’t.”

  “And text me if you’re going to be later than midnight.”

  My protest died on my lips when I perceived the slight flicker of fear behind her eyes. So I nodded.

  “Good.” She let me go and straightened the front of her bathrobe. “I’m going to bed. I don’t need to tell you to clean up after yourself.”

  She didn’t need to tell me. Working for the bureau carried some risk, but not cleaning up after myself in my mother’s kitchen was taking my life in my hands.

  “I will.”

  She yawned and turned for the hall leading to her room. I watched her go. Taking a deep breath, I turned for—

  “Simone.”

  I jumped, gasped, clutching my chest, because there was my father, standing directly—like six inches—behind me, his arms crossed, bathrobe and glasses on, stern expression on his face.

  “Dad!” I hit his shoulder.

  “Oh”—he lifted an eyebrow—“did I scare you?”

  My mother’s laughter carried all the way to the kitchen.

  Chapter Four

  “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.”

  Gabriel García Márquez

  *Roscoe*

  The house was quiet when I made my way downstairs Friday morning. That was to be expected since I reckoned I was alone.

  Jethro, Sienna, and my nephews were still in Boston where she was filming her latest movie. Billy—who, when in Green Valley, lived in the main house when Jethro’s family was gone, and in the carriage house when the family was in town—had probably already left for work. My brother Billy split his time between the state capital when government was in session and our hometown, where he still managed the day-to-day operations of Payton Mills.

  Cletus and Jenn had their own place, but if anyone was around this morning—likely skulking—it would be Cletus. He liked to drop in at odd times, fiddle around, do his laundry. He said the old house missed him when he was gone. My brother Cletus often had odd ideas, so this notion wasn’t out of his range of normal.

  Ashley, Drew, and their daughter lived up on Bandit Lake in a house deeded to his family. Beau and his lady friend Shelly also lived on Bandit Lake, in the old Weller house, which was more like a mansion than a house. Beau said he’d won it from Hank Weller in a staring contest. This wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Hank Weller was eccentric on a good day, nuts on a normal day, and downright insane on a bad one.

  Duane and his wife Jess were settled in Italy for the time being as they awaited the arrival of their first child. We were all planning a visit come summer, and I could not wait. I’d only been to Italy once, when I’d taken a semester off college and traveled part of the world with Drew. The entire country ranked high on my list of most beautiful places in the world.

  Convinced of my solitude, I hummed lightly to myself as I descended the stairs. Since I hadn’t picked up the doughnuts, there was no reason to call anyone over for breakfast, and maybe that was for the best. After last night’s events, which I hadn’t allowed myself to dwell on in any meaningful way, a little solitude before meeting Drew for a day’s work vaccinating bear cubs sounded like a good idea.

  I didn’t mind the quiet. The old house provided more than enough smells, sights, and sounds that I could easily fill the space with my family if I chose to, vivid memories of louder, happy times.

  I was recalling one of these times, specifically Cletus trying to teach a fourteen-year-old me how to pack sausage and Beau mucking everything up to Cletus’s chagrin, when I walked into the kitchen and stopped short. The house was quiet, but my earlier assumption that I was alone had been a faulty one.

  Cletus sat at the kitchen table, as did Beau, Shelly, Billy, Drew, and—amazingly—Jethro. They all glanced up as I entered, peeking over their newspapers, magazines, and other sundry reading material, with Jethro lifting an index finger to his lips.

  “The baby is asleep,” he whispered, as though that would explain what in the heck everyone was doing in the house on a Friday morning at 8:00 AM, making no noise whatsoever.

  I looked around the table at my family, my gaze settling on Drew. “Is Ashley here?”

  He nodded and pointed at the ceiling.

  “Where’s Bethany?” I asked, thoroughly confused. Bethany was their daughter, who was two and a half, and the great love of my life.

  He pointed at the ceiling again, whispering, “With Ashley.”

  I thought about that, scratching my head. “Are they—”

  “Shhh.” This curt chastisement came from Cletus. He was frowning, a deep V between his eyebrows, and peering at me. “Your curiosity is not an emergency.”

  I glared at my brother, but said nothing else, moving to the cupboard where the coffee cups were kept. I retrieved a cup, closed the cupboard door, and came face-to-face with Cletus. He’d moved across the kitchen without making a sound, or at least no sound that I could hear. I hated it when he did that.

  “Cletus,” I whispered. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” he asked, his eyes never leaving my face as he reached for the coffee carafe, filled his cup, and set it back on the warmer.

  “Sneak up on people,” I said, though I would’ve thought it was self-evident.

  “I didn’t sneak up on you. You need your hearing checked. If you wake up that baby, you’re responsible for getting him back to sleep.”

  “I won’t wake up the baby.” I rolled my eyes at his histrionics. “Besides, Drew and I should be leaving soon. I’m working with the sweep team on vaccinations today.”

  “You’re not going anywhere if you wake the baby,” he warned.

  I reached in front of him for the coffee carafe. “I’m not going to wake the baby.”

  “Would you two quiet down,” Billy rough whispered from his seat at the head of the table, glaring at us over his newspaper. “You’re going to wake the baby.”

  Cletus turned a flat-lipped, somber e
xpression toward me, his eyes hooded as though to say, See what you did?

  I ignored this look, concentrating instead on pouring my coffee as quietly as possible, because I didn’t want to wake the baby.

  Before Jethro and Sienna had their first child, I didn’t understand parents and their obsession with naptime and bedtime. My ignorance on this matter had swiftly been rectified. Benjamin, their oldest son, never slept. So when he did sleep, Jethro and Sienna would become rabid about the need for absolute silence, with Jethro convinced Ben could detect minor seismic shifts of the earth and infrared radiation—because why else would a baby wake up just a half hour after falling asleep?

  As it turned out, Ben had adenoid problems. Once those suckers were removed, he’d started sleeping through the night just fine. But by then, Andy had arrived and the whole hypervigilant process started all over again.

  Cletus meandered back to the table and I followed, sipping my coffee and wondering what the chances were that I could talk Beau into making breakfast. He made a mean omelet, always getting the egg cooked through without browning the outside and the cheese perfectly melted.

  Maybe if I prep the ingredients, he’ll cook it for me.

  Then, the doorbell rang.

  Everyone tensed.

  Panicked, wide-eyed stares were swapped until Beau whisper-hissed, “Someone go get the door before they ring again.”

  Na-ah.

  Not me. If the baby woke up, Cletus would say I’d walked or turned the doorknob too loudly. As I glanced around at my brothers, I saw everyone was having similar thoughts.

  Shelly, the only one who didn’t look near a fit, folded her paper, setting it neatly on the table, and stood calmly from her seat.

  She announced quietly, “I will get the door,” and left, the rest of us on high alert, straining our ears and staring at the baby monitor.

  But before we heard the door open, it happened. A wailing cry pierced through the speaker of the portable monitor, and Jethro sighed mightily.

  “Sorry, Jet,” Billy said, using his normal voice. “We tried to buy you some time.”

  “It’s fine.” Jethro shoulders slumped as he stood. “It was going to happen sooner or later. Besides, I got to read half an article. That’s a miracle.”

  Drew stood, too. “I might as well go check on Ashley and Beth.”

  “Now that the baby bomb has exploded, will someone tell me what’s going on?” I stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking at each of my siblings.

  “Everyone is home for the long weekend. Mystery solved.” Cletus took his seat again and picked up his paper, adding under his breath, “If you would check your email, you’d know.”

  “Why can’t y’all use a group text message like normal people?”

  “Because we’re not normal and because some of us don’t like group text messages,” Jethro responded as he left the room.

  I heard his voice a moment later—further away—say, “Oh, hey. Hello. How’re you?” A pause, then, “Yeah, that’s the youngest.”

  “None of us like group text messages.” Billy folded his paper and glanced at his phone.

  “I like group text messages,” I mumbled, taking the seat Jethro had vacated and peeked at the magazine he’d been reading, Family Knitting. On the cover was a picture of a man, woman, and baby. They all wore matching sweaters, and I smirked. I wouldn’t put it past Jethro to knit his entire family matching sweaters.

  “She brought doughnuts,” Shelly’s voice announced from the other room, sounding like she was just outside the kitchen. The words she and doughnuts snagged my attention and I glanced up from the magazine to the kitchen entrance.

  “That was nice of you,” Drew said, sounding farther away.

  “It’s no problem. I’ll make sure they save some for you guys,” a friendly voice responded.

  And I froze. Because that friendly voice definitely belonged to Simone Payton.

  What . . .

  What the hell was she doing here?

  I stood, backing away from the table and turning toward the back door.

  “You already done with your coffee?” Cletus asked, and I looked at him. His eyes were moving over me like he suspected I was untrustworthy. “’Cause if you’re done, you need to wash your cup before you leave. We’re not here to do your dishes.”

  Sending a quick glare to my brother, I grabbed my cup, dumped it out in the sink, and moved to the back door.

  “I said wash it. Don’t just leave it dirty in the sink, that’s no help.”

  Exhaling through clenched teeth, I stomped back to the sink and flipped on the faucet, reached for the soap, and washed my freaking coffee cup. All my siblings treated me like I was still a kid sometimes, but Cletus was the only one who did it all the time.

  “Here is everyone,” Shelly said from someplace behind me, making me tense, because now Simone was in the kitchen and I’d lost my chance to escape. Heat crawled up my neck, but I didn’t turn around. I’d successfully avoided looking directly at her last night and I wasn’t keen on avoiding eye contact again this morning.

  “Simone.”

  “Well look who it is.”

  “’Morning.”

  Chairs scraped against the wood floor. I imagined Beau, Cletus, and Billy were now standing from the kitchen table and closing in on the woman. Noise followed, a general chatter as I dried my coffee cup and put it back in the cupboard, all the while pushing back against the scene playing in my head.

  “Simone.”

  “Yes?” She had her eyes closed, her dark lashes feathered against her cheeks, her head lolled to one side, long braids spilling over her shoulder.

  She was so pretty.

  I wondered if she’d remember this tomorrow. I knew I would.

  I shut my eyes tight and brought forth the memory of kayaking in Doubtful Sound with Drew. I’d been nineteen. Dolphins appeared and swam next to us, white haze rising from the water, a tumbling waterfall in the distance, looming mountains. My kayak was orange. The dolphins looked lavender up close. The water moved like quicksilver. I could feel the mist in my face.

  When unhappy or painful memories were forefront in my mind, I’d learned I could usually push them aside by focusing on the task at hand, reciting the dictionary, or superimposing other recollections. Basically, I distracted myself.

  Every memory was always there—every single one, like books on a shelf—but I usually had some control over which took precedence at any given time as long as I remained calm. But if I wasn’t calm, if I had to battle both emotions in the moment and the emotions from multiple memories of different times, keeping my mind ordered and focused was near impossible. I’d have to retreat, confront the recollections while alone, talk myself down.

  I wasn’t so good at this when I was a kid or a teenager, which meant folks often thought I was off sulking, or brooding, or too sullen to respond to a question. In reality, I was trying to reorder my brain, calm down, so I could engage in the present.

  Thankfully, I was much better and faster at this now. I was also better at avoiding situations that might spark a cascade of unhappy memories.

  Take now, for instance.

  Currently, as the conversation behind me flowed, hope arose anew that I’d be able to slip out the back door undetected and completely avoid interacting with Simone or making any new memories of her. I could then text Drew from the backyard and tell him I’d meet him at the north Cades Cove station rather than riding over together.

  I’d opened the back door, stepped outside, and was just closing it behind me when I felt resistance and was forced to look up.

  And there she was. Round amber eyes with starbursts of gold, big happy smile bordered by full luscious lips, her gorgeous face was framed by a halo of brown curls, which I knew would have highlights of auburn and copper in the sun. Basically, the woman was loveliness incarnate.

  Motherfucker.

  That’s right, go clutch your damn pearls and take a powder. That word was the wo
rst, most heinous curse as far as I was concerned, and this moment required it.

  “Hey Roscoe,” she said, her voice like silk, coming out of the door and shutting it swiftly behind her. “I was hoping you were here.”

  Heartbreak, that hopeless, empty, all-encompassing sensation, dimming and numbing everything but the focus of your desire and the pain of the unobtainable, hit me in the chest and stomach. A one-two sucker punch, I almost grunted at the impact.

  Motherfucking motherfucker.

  Simone’s smile waned as her gaze moved over my face and took on a slightly forced quality when I said nothing.

  I couldn’t speak.

  “I’ll never love anyone that way.” Simone frowned at me, then at the hand at my side. “Especially not you.”

  I winced, ready to relive any memory—any memory at all—except for that one.

  My memories were an emotional time machine, which meant I was as raw and speechless now as I’d been then. Nothing I could do about that.

  But what I could do was tear my eyes away and clear my throat; I could take a few steps back to lean against the rail of the porch; I could cross my arms and distract myself by thinking about whether the porch needed a new coat of paint. So I did.

  She said nothing, just hovered by the back door watching me. After a time, during which I struggled to breathe normally, focus on the cracks in the paint by the porch beam, and school my expression, I sensed Simone move closer.

  “I wanted to check on you,” she said with her lovely voice. “After last night, with your dad, I was—uh—worried.”

  “I’m fine.” I peered over my shoulder, squinting at the mountain behind our house and the withered wildflower field leading to its base.

  A memory floated to the surface, seeing the field like this, cold and frozen, and I grabbed hold of it. My momma had given Simone and I food to leave at the edge of our property, which ended at the border to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.