by Joe Hart
Shouldn’t you be worried about that? The cost for staying might be your sanity.
Lack of sleep paired with stress could do weird things.
Shaun saw it too.
But he could’ve been asleep and dreamed it, or seen something on TV that scared him, Evan retorted. The voice didn’t answer, letting him stew in his own thoughts until they reached the island.
The afternoon passed in a lazy blink of an eye. The sun arced overhead, and Shaun napped. Evan sipped on coffee, maintaining a steady caffeine buzz that pushed him through the day. He cleaned a little, puttering around the house, ignoring the basement door as much as he could. When Shaun woke up, they sat by the lake’s edge, watching the afternoon rays walk across the waves.
When they returned to the house, Evan surprised himself by pulling out the business card with Selena’s number on it. He stared at it for a while, and eventually drew out his phone and punched in the numbers before he could stop himself. The rush of adrenaline from calling her both frightened and soothed him. It was as if he’d just woken up, the day a haze of motions and words until then.
“Hello?”
Her voice startled him, and he nearly fumbled the phone, realizing he had no plan of what to say to her.
“Hey, Selena, it’s Evan.”
“Hi, how are you?” Warmth flooded her voice.
“Hi, um, good. Say, I didn’t know if you’d be in the neighborhood this evening. We were going to have a pizza and thought you might like to stop by.”
Once the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to bring them back, wanted to reverse and not have called her at all.
“You know, I was thinking of going for a paddle in a bit. The exercise should justify some pizza, right?”
He smiled. “Absolutely.”
She laughed, tinkling crystal. “I’ll see you two in a while.”
“Sounds great.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
He ended the call, a surge of excitement rushing upward from the base of his stomach. Immediately a blade of guilt sliced through it, cutting it into pieces that withered and deflated. He walked past the couch on which Shaun rested, watching cartoons, and stepped onto the three-season porch. The cooler air pushed against him and hummed through the screens. He sat in a chair that gave him the best vantage of the lake.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, so low he barely heard the words. “I don’t know what you would’ve wanted.” He laughed and rubbed at his eyes, the moisture in them beginning to sting. “What you really wanted, I guess we never talked about it much. We were always too busy with Shaun and each other to discuss it.”
Evan spun the heavy ring on his finger a few times, noting how well it still shined. He could see himself in its reflection, as well as a distorted image of the room around him.
“I know you want me to be happy, but this still seems fast. It’s like everything came at me at once, and I don’t know what to do.” He swallowed, needing to go on. “I’ll be alone if you want me to, I can do it, no problem. I know you said—”
His face crumpled and he breathed out a long, hot sigh. “I can wait until we’re together again. Let me know what you want.”
A breeze picked up and streamed across the porch, pushing at his hair. For a minute he stared at the lake, the water dull blue, capped with streaks of burgundy where the sun glanced off the waves. While he watched, the constant touch of the breeze caressed his face. The wind chime sung, its sound lighter than he’d ever heard it before, the air picking out its own melody. He sniffed and looked through the screens, expecting her to be there, smiling at him, but nothing so dramatic happened. The breeze finally slowed, then stopped, and the pines became still again.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
~
After Selena arrived, they ate dinner. Evan was surprised and amused at how much the psychologist could eat. As the meal wound down, Selena noticed him watching her, a half grin on his face.
“What?” she said, through a mouthful of pizza.
He shook his head, the smile still tugging at his lips. “Nothing, just wondering how many times you’ll have to paddle around the lake to burn all that off.”
A mock indignant look crossed her face, and she balled up a napkin to throw at him. Evan laughed and dodged it. This caused Shaun to giggle and look back and forth between the two grown-ups.
“You need to teach your dad some manners, Shaun,” Selena said. “Tell him women don’t take kindly to weight jokes.”
Evan laughed. “Oh I wasn’t making fun of your weight, just how much you ate.”
Selena raised her eyebrows. “Well then, I’m thoroughly offended.” With a quick movement, she reached out and snagged one of the two remaining pieces of pizza. “Maybe this will help me feel better.”
He shook his head and, still laughing, shot Shaun a silly face.
They cleaned up dinner, and Evan found a dusty game of Yahtzee in the closet off the living room. They set up the game at the kitchen table and began to play. He and Selena took turns helping Shaun hold the shaker cup and counting the numbers on the dice. Evan noticed a warmth in his chest every time he watched Selena’s long fingers grasp Shaun’s hands and guide them to pick up the dice. The guilt tried to return whenever he registered it, but then he would think of the breeze caressing his face on the porch.
It might only have been a gust of wind.
Yes, and it might not have.
When Shaun couldn’t hold his head up anymore, Evan helped him to bed. Before he could offer to read a story, the boy had drifted off, his eyelids twitching.
“Already dreaming,” Selena said from behind him.
Evan turned and nodded before kissing Shaun on the forehead. He followed her back to the kitchen and walked to the fridge.
“Want a glass of wine?”
“What the hell, I had about seven pieces of pizza, right?”
“You know I was kidding,” he said, pulling the last bottle of cab out of the fridge.
“Mmm-hmm, sure,” she said.
Her eyes danced and she smiled. Evan poured them each a glass, handing Selena hers as he sat at the table. They sipped in silence for a while, and amidst the pleasant quiet, he wondered if everything he’d experienced on the island truly had been an overactive imagination on his part. With Selena sitting across from him and Shaun sound asleep in his bed, he very much wanted to believe that was the case.
“What are you thinking?”
Evan glanced at her and shook his head. “I’m not going to answer that question from a psychologist.”
She smiled, but became sober again. “Sorry, it seems that you’re distracted a lot of the time.”
“You’re right, I do get sidetracked, always have.”
“It’s not a bad thing, you know, it’s usually characteristic of a creative mind. You mentioned you’re a writer, right?”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t call myself a writer. I’ve had one article published and written a few others.” He shrugged and sipped his wine.
“It’s nothing to scoff at.”
“It’s nothing to do cartwheels over either.”
“Well, you do have more responsibility than most people, you know?”
He nodded. “It’s funny. I never think of it that way. Shaun’s been like he is for over four years. It’s our life now, I’m used to it, as much as anyone can be. Sometimes I think about what things would be like if we hadn’t gotten in that crash, how life would be now, but it’s really a waste of time, right? The past, I mean.”
She smiled. “That was almost poetic.”
“Almost.”
“It’s scary, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“Being the only one he counts on every day. I can see it in the way you talk to him sometimes.”
“What scares me is what would happen if I weren’t around anymore. I have things set up for my best friend to take care of him, but ...”
“But the
thought of him being here without you—”
“Terrifies me, yeah. I can’t think of anything more frightening.” he swirled his wine and watched the red liquid spin. “Sometimes I wonder if other people know how good they have it. They take life for granted until a car comes along, or cancer, or a million other things that happen.” He shook his head. “I know I did.”
“Everyone does,” Selena said. “Until it happens, you don’t worry about it, unless you have a disorder, and I’ve seen my share of those. Some patients I’ve treated can’t leave their house for fear of something happening to them, can’t go to the grocery store without worrying someone has poisoned all the fruit.”
“Yeah, the old saying always comes to mind, if everyone put their troubles in a pile, you’d grab yours back.”
She nodded. “Very true.”
They drank in silence for a while, then Selena asked, “So how long are you planning on staying here?”
“I don’t know, we were thinking at least until fall, maybe longer. We’ll see.” Evan watched her take a drink of wine. “How about you? Sticking around for the foreseeable future?”
“I think so. I have a steady client base, not too busy, not too light. It fits around everything else I like to do.”
“What else do you like to do?”
“I like to hike, and obviously canoe. If it’s rainy, I read.”
“And fishing?” he asked, with a smile.
Selena’s face grew somber. “I haven’t since my dad passed away.”
“Would you like to go sometime? With Shaun and me?”
She considered it for a moment, tilting her head so that her long hair swayed in a way that he liked.
“I think that would be nice.”
Their eyes held for a beat, and before Evan could look away, Selena did, glancing at the floor.
“So what are you writing about now?”
He licked his lips, his eyes skimming over her shoulder, to the basement door. “Here, let me show you.”
He led her down the steps, holding her hand in the dark—completely on the pretense of avoiding a fall, he told himself—and turned the lights on in the basement. It was nice having someone with him down here; the air felt better, lighter. When Selena spied the clock at the far end of the room, she stopped, transfixed.
“Whoa.”
Evan kept walking toward it. “I know, it’s pretty impressive, right?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it impressive. ‘Weird’ might be the word.”
“Definitely weird. Come here, let me show you the sides.”
Grateful that he’d cleaned up Bob’s message the night before, he brought her close to the clock’s intricately carved case and let her examine it.
“Wow, it looks like writing or something.”
“Good, I’m glad you think so too. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me.”
She studied the clock from all angles, peering up at the looming structure as she walked to its other side, her stance almost like she expected the timepiece to topple forward at any second.
“So this is what you’re writing about?”
“Yep, and I’ve already started digging into things a little bit. Seems it’s got a fairly dark history. Its maker disappeared the same night his wife died, in its presence, over ninety years ago, and I think another person did too, but I’m not sure yet.”
Selena took a few steps back, bumping into the worktable and causing one of the brass weights to roll toward the floor. Evan reached out and caught it before it could fall.
“Sorry, it’s really ...” She searched for the word, bringing her hands up before her. “Odd.”
“Yeah, I’m excited to delve into the story a little deeper.” he paused, glancing at Selena and then the clock. “You wouldn’t want to come with me somewhere tomorrow, would you?”
“Where?”
He cleared his throat. “To the house where it came from.”
Her eyes grew large for a moment, and she tilted her head again. “Oh, wow, why?”
He had to smile at her discomfort. “I want to take a look around, get a feel for the place if I’m going to include it in the article. We might even find something interesting there.”
“Do you have permission to go inside?”
“No, but from what I gathered, there hasn’t been anyone living there for a long time. At the very least, I want to see the outside. I’m going out there tomorrow afternoon.”
Selena gave the clock another look, and then turned her gaze to him. “This is important to you, huh?”
He nodded. “I think the article might get my foot in the door with a magazine in the cities. I—”
“What?”
What the hell. If not now, then it would be later. “I lost my last job after borrowing some money that wasn’t mine, to pay for my wife’s treatments. I paid it all back before they even knew it was gone, but they caught it in the accounting office and let me go a few weeks back.”
He waited for her reaction, and when she only nodded, he continued. “I never did anything like that before, and I don’t plan to ever again, but it was what I had to do at the time. If I sell this article, it might help get our lives back on track. We need this.”
Selena watched him for a time, her eyes running over him as though she were inspecting the clock again.
“You think I’m a criminal,” he said.
“No, I don’t. I think you’re a sweet man who loved his wife very much.”
His throat swelled, and he nodded, looking down at the floor.
“I’ll go.”
A smile pulled at his mouth, and he tried to restrain it from becoming goofy without much success. “Great.”
“Now, can we go back upstairs?”
“Sure.”
He followed her toward the kitchen, throwing one last look at the clock before killing the lights.
13
Evan hoped for sunshine but received a sky full of clouds instead.
The day dawned gray and unyielding, the lake’s surface coated with a thick layer of fog that obscured everything in a soupy haze. Sometimes it sounded like a boat passed only yards from the island, but Evan knew that fog distorted noises, giving sounds hallucinatory qualities. It hadn’t rained yet, but the sky threatened it, hovering close, with rounded bellies of thunderheads nearly skimming the treetops.
They spent the morning inside, away from the cool air and clinging mist. Evan practiced letters with Shaun and helped him pronounce several short words until he said them correctly. A few minutes to noon, the fog began to lift, but the clouds remained, their cover tainting Long Lake an icy color of ash.
“It’s supposed to be warm, Shaun,” Evan called out as he readied lunch. “This is springtime, not fall, buddy.”
Shaun peered at him from the kitchen table, not sure if he should smile or frown at his father’s statement. Evan laughed. For the first time since they’d been there, his spirits were fairly good. After seeing Selena off the night before, a sunset glaze coating the dark lake as she’d paddled away, he’d slept well. No dreams jerked him awake, and when he rose, the cloaking fatigue he’d worn the days prior didn’t follow him out of bed.
“Tuna sandwich, my boy,” he said, sliding the plate onto the table. “Your absolute favorite.” At least it had been before the accident. “There you go, buddy.”
He guided Shaun’s hands toward his mouth, not helping him as much as he normally did. A small amount of tuna and mayonnaise fell out and landed on Shaun’s shirt, but he didn’t notice. He took another generous bite and chewed, watching Evan with large eyes.
“Eat?”
“Yep, we’re eating, buddy.”
“Eat?”
“Oh, you want me to eat? I will after you’re done.”
As Shaun finished his last bite, the sound of a boat motor neared, becoming louder and louder, and Evan walked to the window overlooking the lake. A small red boat coasted to a stop beside the dock, and Becky Tram tied a moori
ng rope to the supports before climbing out. She wore jeans and a windbreaker, with a hat pulled down over her dark hair.
“Your friend is here, Shaun. Will you be okay if she stays and Dad goes to town for a bit?”
“Yesh.”
“Really?”
“Na.”
Evan frowned. “Well, which is it? Yes or no?”
Shaun smiled and turned his head to the side but kept his eyes on Evan. The expression looked so funny, Evan burst out laughing.
“You’re a card.”
A knock came from the door, and he went to let Becky inside. When he opened the door, the young PCA stood on the stoop, a little out of breath.
“Hi, Becky, nice to see you.”
“You too, Mr. Tormer.”
“Call me Evan,” he said, leading her inside.
“Wow, this is really nice.”
Evan watched her turn in a small circle, her eyes roaming the walls and floors.
“Thanks, it’s actually my best friend’s place. We’re watching it for him.”
“Hmm,” Becky said.
“Hi,” Shaun said.
“Hi, Shaun,” Becky said, walking over to the table. “How are you today? Good?” Shaun reached out and tried to touch her face. “Are we going to have fun this afternoon?”
Evan let Becky and Shaun get reacquainted before leading her on a brief tour of the house.
“And what’s through those doors?” Becky asked, pointing to the master bedroom and basement when they reentered the kitchen.
“The master bedroom and basement. You won’t need to go in there,” Evan said, tapping a notebook on the kitchen counter. “Here’s my cell phone, and here’s Selena’s number in case of an emergency. If you need anything, call and I’ll come right back. I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few hours.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. We’re going to do lots of stuff, right, Shaun?”
Becky knelt next to Shaun’s chair. He kicked his feet with excitement and smiled. A sudden anxiety gripped Evan, a cold fist inside his chest. An overwhelming urge to stay blanketed him. He frowned, trying to trace where the feeling came from, but as swiftly as it appeared, the dread vanished.
