A Memory Away

by Melinda Curtis

  Eunice blinked at him. See my pretty eyes. Be mesmerized by my pretty eyes. Blink-blink-blink. “I brought breakfast.” She stopped blinking long enough to try to peer around him, but couldn’t see a thing. He hadn’t opened the door very wide and his shoulders were so incredibly broad.

  “We had breakfast already.”

  “Maybe you’d like this for lunch.” She held the warm casserole dish close to her chest, not wanting to hand it to him and lose the opportunity to come inside. “Why don’t I just put this in the kitchen for you?”

  There was a coldness to Duffy’s features this morning, as if he’d awoken from centuries of slumber in a block of ice to find everything around him wasn’t as it once was. “You’re not going to go away, are you?”

  His direct question took her by surprise. “I live next door.”

  The rain beat steadily while he studied her.

  “I mean...” He sighed, rubbing a palm over the dark whiskers covering his chin. “You want to come in. Right now.”

  “Thank you for the invitation.” She bumped her arm against the door, causing it to swing open wider. Ducking past him, she headed toward the kitchen, raincoat, rain galoshes and all.

  Inside, everything was clean. The kitchen. The stove. The living room. From the kitchen pass-through she could see a folded blanket on top of a pillow on the hearth. Cross out the suspicion that they were lovers. Someone had slept on the couch.

  “Where’s Jessica?”

  “In the shower.” Duffy raised an eyebrow. “Did you come to see if something was going on?”

  “No.” Eunice sniffed. Why did the man always seem to know what she was up to? He’d probably ask her to leave next. “I came to be neighborly.”

  “You’re dripping all over my kitchen.” He stared at the trail of water she’d made across his hardwood floor, sighed wearily, and pointed toward the door. “Boots and jacket go in the foyer.”

  He was letting her stay? A rush of excitement had Eunice scurrying over to shed her wet things.

  Duffy dragged a towel across the hardwood floor with his foot. “How’s that cat?”

  “I don’t have a...” Too late, Eunice realized she’d been caught.

  “Ah, I got you.” He chuckled, but it was a chilly chuckle. He finished cleaning, sat on his couch and picked up the remote.

  Shoot-shoot-shoot. “I had a cat. Once.”

  His television was tuned to one of those sports news channels that didn’t interest Eunice. The sound was muted, but by the way his thumb roved the remote, she could tell he wanted to turn it back on. Instead, he said, “Cats are independent creatures. Did it run away because it wanted privacy?”

  Annoyance elbowed aside the embarrassment Eunice had been feeling. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.” Didn’t he know how to be a good neighbor?

  “I’m not in a very nice mood in the mornings, Eunice, not until I’ve had more than one cup of coffee.” A mug rested on the black lacquered coffee table.

  She considered his closed-off expression, weighing it against the grumpy texture of his mood. “How many cups have you had?”

  “This is my second.” He angled his head toward her, wrinkling his nose. “What’s that smell? It came in with you.”

  Eunice squared her shoulders proudly and moved toward the kitchen. She so rarely had a chance to show off her cooking skills. “It’s bananas wrapped in ham with hollandaise sauce.” It had been one of her mother’s favorite recipes. “Would you like some?”

  Duffy opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  Jessica emerged from the bathroom, wearing gray sweats that dragged on the floor and an army-green sweatshirt that stretched across her girth. She looked like a child who’d raided her father’s closet. Or more likely, Duffy’s. “What’s that smell?”

  Eunice widened her eyes and gave Jessica her sweetest smile, the one that always landed her modeling jobs. “Bananas wrapped in ham with hollandaise sauce.”

  “It’s just as shocking the second time you say it,” Duffy muttered.

  Jessica placed a hand over her mouth and nose. “Baby is sensitive to smells, but it sounds...lovely. Is there a story behind it?”

  “It’s a Fletcher family favorite, born of the need to entice my younger sister to eat. She loved bananas and she loved hollandaise sauce.” They both stared at Eunice. She stood in the kitchen doorway holding her smile and herself very still, because that’s what beauties did. They held still for everyone’s regard.

  Jessica made a small mewling noise, which Eunice translated to yum.

  Duffy was suddenly on the move and heading toward Eunice. She’d forgotten the magnetism of her pose, the allure of her smile, the power of her incredible eyes.

  “Whoa, big fella.” Eunice raised a hand. Men in her day weren’t as tall a specimen as Duffy. “I know I pack some powerful mojo.” And it had been years since she’d wielded it toward a man. “I’ll tone it down a notch or two.” Turn her smile into a small, secretive one, take her peepers off her wide-and-innocent setting.

  Duffy paused in front of her. All six-foot-plus of big, intense man. “I’m here for the dish.”

  Eunice felt a jolt of indignation. She was not that kind of woman. “I’m old enough to be your grandmother,” she sputtered.

  “I’m here for that dish.” He pointed to her casserole.

  “Oh.” Pity. For a moment, she’d felt twenty-five again.

  “Let’s put it in the stove for now.” Duffy slid her dish into the oven, and then opened a window. “Coffee?”

  “Please. It’s my one vice.” Eunice didn’t count chocolate as a vice. Or keeping up with the neighbors. Those were necessities.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “No, ma’am.” He opened a cupboard filled with coffee mugs.

  Eunice rose up on tiptoe to see inside, and then dropped back on her heels in disappointment. There were no university logos, no Playboy bunnies, no comic book characters. Nothing to say what kind of man Duffy was. There were business mugs. Sam’s Auto. Mike’s Tractor Repair. Hancock’s Fertilizer. Boring.

  Duffy opened an old canning jar that had sugar in it—not packets, not sugar substitute. Real granulated sugar. His refrigerator was loaded and looked as if a woman had stocked it with healthy food.

  Eunice hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this...this...averageness.

  Jessica entered the kitchen and filled a glass with water, easy as you please. She rolled up the sleeves of her oversize sweatshirt another turn. “Thanks for the loaners, Duffy. And for letting me do laundry.” Her feet were bare except for the velvety-brown color on her toenails.

  Eunice had never been pregnant. “When is that baby due?” Soon, by the look of her.

  Jessica waddled out to the living room. “Two more months.”

  “That long?” Eunice accepted her coffee from Duffy and trailed after Jessica. “You look ready to...” She didn’t think pop was a politically correct term. “Ready to go.”

  “Nice save,” Duffy murmured.

  He really had the most annoying way about him. Eunice almost felt as if he didn’t take her seriously.

  Eunice dragged a dining room chair with arms near the couch. “Whose baby is it?” She smiled expectantly at Duffy.

  “Not mine,” Duffy said flatly.

  Jessica’s brows met together. She had the most beautiful skin and her long dark hair wasn’t bad, either, but she shouldn’t frown. It caused wrinkles. “It’s—”

  “None of your business, Eunice.” Duffy sat on the couch opposite Jessica and cradled his coffee cup in both hands.

  “Well...” Eunice regrouped with what she knew. “Sadie told Agnes that Jessica used to date your dead cousin or uncle or something.”
<
br />   “My life is like a game of geriatric telephone.” Duffy contemplated the ceiling. “She dated my deceased brother. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “I can’t prove who the baby’s father is,” Jessica said, making Eunice’s jaw drop and Duffy’s brows draw down. “I’m sure it was Duffy’s brother, but I can’t remember.”

  Eunice leaned forward. “Why not? Were you drugged? Were you kidnapped? Did you have some kind of psychotic episode?”

  “It was immaculate,” Duffy blurted, earning two feminine scowls for his impertinence.

  Eunice could barely sit still. This was better than the time Chadwick Spencer had fallen off a ship off the coast of Africa and returned years later with a beard and a scar and a vendetta. Of course, that was on a soap opera. This was the real thing!

  Eunice was going to be queen of the next meeting for Mae’s Pretty Things. If only she could collect more details. If only she could wait until next Saturday to say anything. If only the rain continued all winter, trapping Jessica here for good.

  * * *

  DUFFY NEEDED THE kink in his back worked out. He needed a few hours of uninterrupted sleep in his own bed. He needed his normally quiet Sunday morning.

  Nothing was quiet with Eunice around. “Long story short, Eunice, Jess has amnesia.”

  Eunice raised a hand to her cheek and gasped dramatically, as if she were a star in a silent film. She blinked at Jessica in that owlish way of hers. “Do you know who you are? Who the president is? What year it is?”

  “Yes.” Jess explained about her condition, occasionally flashing Duffy looks that said his rudeness and sarcasm weren’t appreciated.

  Give Jess a week with Eunice stalking her and she’d change her tune.

  A week?

  He didn’t want Jessica to be here another day. Every time he’d nodded off during the night, an odd thought would jolt him awake, until he was bleary-eyed and lay staring at the ceiling, waiting for a reasonable hour to get up and make coffee. Those thoughts terrified him.

  Jess can’t make it on her own with a baby to support.

  That baby is Greg’s and deserves his money.

  Someone should check on her regularly to make sure she and the baby are okay.

  He’d spent the past fifteen years trying to balance the needs of his future with the needs of his parents. Weekends spent making sure Mom got a break and Dad could get out in the world. Nights spent juggling figures, trying to make his salary stretch to support two households. Watching commercials for vacations on television knowing he could never afford to get away.

  Was it too much to ask that he not have another family member come into this world that needed his help?

  Jess doesn’t want my help.

  He should have been relieved. Instead, his brain rejected her independence. His brain worked out ways to help her without seeming to. Dropping packages of diapers on her doorstep. Setting up a college fund. Encouraging his parents to watch the kid an afternoon or two a week. His brain wasn’t supposed to be on nurturer mode.

  Outside, the rain kept up a steady downpour. If Duffy squinted, the continuous drops on his windows looked like thin bars.

  “So all you need is stimulation of your mind to remember.” Eunice popped out of her seat and eagerly hurried to the bookshelves with Duffy’s family pictures. She picked up a photo of his parents standing in front of their old house, moving the frame in and out. She slid on a pair of black glasses, hunching over as if she didn’t want anyone to see her wear corrective lenses. Tucking them away, she faced Jess. “Here. Look at this. Perhaps it will help. They’re just average old people, but—”

  “Those are my parents,” Duffy grumbled. “She’s never met them.”

  “How do you know?” Eunice glanced down at the picture, squinting, but her secret was out. She was blind as a bat. No wonder she’d had to press her face against his kitchen window.

  “Maybe Greg had a picture like this at his apartment,” Jessica said kindly, accepting the photo.

  Duffy could tell by the blank look on Jessica’s face that the image didn’t jar any memories.

  “Does your dad come here to visit?” Jess asked, studying the picture.

  “Not yet.” Did she recognize his parents? “See anyone you know?”

  “No. I’m just...trying to remember if Greg had any family pictures in his apartment.”

  “He didn’t.” Nothing personal, either.

  Jess nodded. “It was like walking into a high-end hotel room. Impersonal, but lavish.”

  Duffy hadn’t thought of Greg’s things that way before. He’d looked at the extravagance and thought about the number of utility bills or car insurance payments that might have been made. He hadn’t taken in the apartment in total. Jess was right. There was remoteness to it.

  Jessica spoke softly. “It makes me sad to think he’d live that way, distancing himself from his family.”

  Without having to take responsibility or care for others. For a moment, Duffy envied Greg.

  The moment was short-lived. He’d never envy a thief, especially one who sounded like he’d been lonely. “Do you have pictures in your apartment, Jess?” Duffy tried to envision what her place would look like. Comfortable furniture, for sure. Maybe an afghan for when she napped on the couch.

  “A few. My friends from culinary school. A picture of me at my high school graduation. None of family...”

  Because she had none.

  “I have pictures on display at my house.” His neighbor was hunched in front of his bookshelves, trying to hide the fact that she had those Clark Kent glasses back on.

  “Eunice, which bothers you more?” Duffy was in an ornery enough mood to smile as he asked, “Needing your glasses to snoop or the fact that you don’t have free rein of my house?”

  The old woman startled at his question and fumbled to take her cheaters off. “Glasses? I... I don’t need glasses.” She returned to her seat, spots of color on her cheeks that made Duffy regret teasing her. But only a little.

  “You have very pretty eyes.” Jessica made up for his bad manners with kindness.

  Eunice angled her head and batted her eyes as if posing for a camera. “I do, don’t I?”

  Even Jess, tolerant as she was, struggled to hide a smile.

  The older woman fluffed her purple-tinted hair. “I was a model, mostly for makeup and...eyeglasses. I was flown everywhere—New York, Paris, Japan. Until Daddy died and Mama said we didn’t need to work anymore.” This last part seemed laden with regret.

  Jess made a sympathetic noise. “Your father was wealthy?”

  “It was really Mama who came from money, but Daddy was convinced we had to save for a rainy day, which meant we all had jobs. Lucky for me, Mama knew that I could earn a living with my purple eyes.”

  Duffy may have been blind to reds and greens, but he saw nothing special in Eunice’s eyes. They looked brown to him. And he couldn’t imagine her as a model. She was short and age-rounded. Her hair was an unnatural color. He supposed if she didn’t scuttle around bushes and spy on him—last week he’d found her behind his trash can—he might say she had a friendly smile.

  His gaze drifted toward Jessica. She was beautiful. Her long hair was dark, almost black, the color of rich walnut wood. Her eyes were also dark, wide and expressive. Her face and body were filled out and curvy from the pregnancy, but there was something delicate about the way she moved her hands that gave the impression of grace. She considered her actions and words carefully. She’d never blink her eyes owlishly at him and overshare. She’d enter and be everyone’s calm and reliable rock.

  Sure, she’d shown up in Harmony Valley and asked if he was her husband. But she hadn’t been hysterical. She may get upset when he touched on a nerve, like when he challenged that self-reliant streak of hers, but he doubt
ed much rattled her. She was taking Eunice’s interrogation as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.

  Jess was a surprise. Surely, she’d surprised Greg. Maybe he’d loved her. Maybe he’d regretted taking her money.

  And maybe pigs could sprout wings and perform flybys at football games.

  He didn’t want to think about Greg.

  Duffy sank deeper into the couch, letting his eyes close, listening to the women without hearing their words.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “WAS YOUR MOTHER a good cook?” Jess asked Eunice, trying hard not to think about how horrifying the smell of the hollandaise and banana dish had been.

  In his corner of the couch, Duffy’s eyes were shut. At rest, the distance and skepticism were in remission, the barely veiled pain and sarcasm only traces in the air. Everything about him gentled, became more approachable, more in line with her memories of Greg, which should have brought her dead lover’s face to mind. But try as she might, Jess couldn’t recall watching Greg doze, couldn’t superimpose Greg’s face over Duffy’s.

  “Mama was inventive,” Eunice was saying. “Ahead of her time in the kitchen. She made the best grilled-cheese-and-jelly sandwiches.” While Jess tried to wrap her head around those tastes, Eunice continued. “When Daddy was alive, butter was sometimes too expensive for his budget, and Mama didn’t approve of margarine. First she tried frying cheese sandwiches on top of pickle slices. Then she experimented with frying them in tomato juice. But the big hit was slathering both sides of the bread with jelly and frying them up in the pan.”

  Jessica’s stomach rumbled. Grilled cheese and jelly didn’t sound half-bad.

  “He’s lonely,” Eunice whispered in a voice that blended with the persistent rain. She inclined her head toward Duffy. “I’m so glad you’re here. Is he like his brother?”

  “I can’t really say.” Her gaze drifted toward the photo of Greg and Duffy as boys in front of the Christmas tree. At first glance, they were exactly alike. Closer inspection revealed Greg’s smile had been wider, bigger, brighter. They were the same, but different.