by Ryan Field
Then the breeze stopped blowing and the window slammed shut all by itself. The entire room went completely silent, and Avenir knew he was alone again.
Chapter Twelve
On Monday morning, Sienna woke with Latte under her arm. She’d never owned a cat, so it was difficult to make a comparison, but this one seemed awfully strange. He followed her around like a small child, and when she spoke to him he seemed to understand what she was saying. She only had to show him the litter box once, and he started using it immediately. But more than that, the first night she had him she said, “Now I’m going to bed and you can sleep next to me, here.” She patted the bed a few times with her palm and smiled. Latte looked up at her and meowed. He cocked his small head to the left, and then jumped up on the bed and sat in the exact spot she’d just tapped. Sienna rubbed the top of his head and he purred for her. She assumed it was just luck and that he really didn’t understand her, but she wanted to rub his head anyway.
Latte was purring when her cell phone rang that morning. She reached for it on the nightstand and said, “Hello.”
“It’s Jaydin,” he said. “Gretchen is in Mt. Desert Island Hospital.” He was breathing heavily and he spoke fast.
She bolted forward. “What happened?” The first thing she imagined was a fall. Gretchen had been wearing her high-heeled sandals again and she’d fallen down a flight of steps and shattered her hip.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just got the call. They saw my number first on the contact list and they called me. I’m leaving right now.”
“I’ll meet you there,” she said. Then she closed the phone and jumped out of bed.
She left food and water for Latte next to her small kitchen table. Then she went next door and left a note in the kitchen of the main house for Karla.
The drive to Bar Harbor seemed to take forever, and she drove twice as fast as she normally drove. When she reached the hospital, she parked near the emergency room and jogged to the entrance. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore a gray sweat suit and training shoes. She focused on taking deep breaths; because her heart was beating so fast she was afraid she’d hyperventilate.
Jaydin was in the waiting room. He was sitting beside Larson on a long green vinyl sofa, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. When he looked at her, the corners of his lips were turned down and his face was puffy from crying. She’d never seen an expression like this on his face. She dropped her purse and sank into her shoulders. Her knees buckled and she felt the floor coming toward her. Then he lifted his arm fast and said, “No. She’s still alive. She’s still here.”
She picked up her purse and jogged toward them. “Where is she?” she said. “I want to see her.”
Jaydin and Larson stood up together. Jaydin hugged her and said, “She had a stroke. They are preparing to bring her to the intensive care unit on the second floor. They said they’d let us know when she was being moved.”
Sienna stepped back and shook her head. “I want to see her now.” Then she ran over to the admitting desk. This was one of the huge differences between Jaydin and Sienna. If they had told Sienna to wait, she would have ignored them and followed them into Gretchen’s room. But Jaydin just sat there, waiting because he’d been told to wait, with his head in his hands.
There was no one there at the reception desk. So she turned to the right and headed down a wide hallway to find Gretchen herself. The beds in the emergency room were separated by curtains; there were no private rooms. And because it was so early in the day, most of the beds were empty.
At the end of the hall, she heard beeps and whistles coming from behind one of the curtains. She pushed it aside and saw Gretchen lying on a hospital bed. Her eyes were closed, she was hooked up to machines, and a nurse with curly brown hair was checking the IV tubes on her arm. Sienna stopped short and placed her hands over her mouth. Gretchen’s skin was pale and gray, and the skin on her face looked like it was shrinking in and resting around the bones in her face. Her feet were covered with a hospital blanket, but Sienna could see that her toes had gone limp and curled forward.
The nurse turned and said, “Are you family?” She was a large woman, wearing a loose, pale blue uniform. Her hands were large and her fingers were thick.
Sienna nodded. “I’m her granddaughter. How is she?”
The nurse smiled and said, “She’s stable now. The doctor will meet you outside in the waiting room and explain everything to you.”
Sienna placed her purse on a blue plastic chair and looked the nurse in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’ll wait for him here.”
When Gretchen heard Sienna’s voice, she opened her eyes and tried to lift her left arm. The right side of her body seemed lifeless. She tried to say something, but the words came out jumbled and confused. The left side of her lips twisted up and the right remained pinched and frozen.
Sienna forced a smile and walked to her beside. “Just relax, and don’t try to speak. You’re going to be just fine, and I’m here with you.” She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists to keep herself from crying in front of Gretchen. She knew she had to be strong, and that any outbursts would only drain Gretchen’s energy.
But Gretchen shook her head and spoke again. She said, “P-p-aint…look.” Then her left arm went higher and she pointed at Sienna with two fingers. Her face remained expressionless, but the look in her eyes suggested serious determination.
Sienna looked at the nurse and said, “Has she said anything else?”
The nurse shrugged her shoulders. “I think she’s trying to say, ‘paint-look.’ She’s been repeating the same thing since they brought her in this morning. I’ve been with her the whole time. And she hasn’t said anything else.” Then the nurse reached for Gretchen’s hand and said, “Calm down, sweetie. You don’t want to work yourself up now.”
Sienna smiled at Gretchen. “Don’t try to talk,” she said. “We’ll talk when you’re feeling better. Right now the important thing is to rest and listen to what the nurse says.” She forced a smile, but there was a pull in her stomach.
Gretchen’s eyes became wide and she tried to lift her head again. Her eyes darted but nothing came out of her mouth.
Sienna thought for a moment, then said. “Are you trying to tell me about the painting?” She didn’t want Gretchen getting all worked up over this now. She needed to preserve her strength and fight.
Gretchen’s arm went down and she sighed. Then she nodded yes and repeated, “P-p-aint…look.”
“You want me to look for the painting, don’t you?” Sienna asked. Evidently, she was so obsessed with the lost painting she couldn’t focus on anything else. So Sienna smiled and said. “I’ll look for the painting. I promise. But right now you have to calm down and be still so you can get better.”
Gretchen nodded yes and rested her head on the pillow. The doctor stepped into the room. He picked up a clipboard at the end of Gretchen’s bed, stared at it for a moment, and said, “We’re talking her up to ICU now. There’s a waiting room up there and when she’s settled we’ll come out and explain her condition.”
Sienna nodded to the doctor, and then she leaned forward. She put her arms around Gretchen and hugged her hard. “You’re going to be just fine,” she said, with tears streaming down her face, “I love you and I’m here for you. And as soon as they get you settled in intensive care, I’ll come in and sit with you.” Then she wiped her eyes and kissed her on the forehead.
Two hospital technicians arrived with a gurney, and Sienna stepped out of the room. She stood against the wall, watching while they loaded Gretchen onto the gurney and checked to see that she was still hooked up to the machines. The tears poured from Sienna’s eyes; she wiped them with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. And when she watched them roll Gretchen out of the room, she reached out and touched Gretchen’s arm. She wanted to go with them, but the nurse grabbed her by the hand and said, “It’s better if you wait. You don’t want t
o get in the way.”
Sienna nodded and wiped a few more tears from her cheeks. All she saw was the back of the bed heading toward the elevator, surrounded by hospital technicians pushing machines on wheels, and a long strand of Gretchen’s frizzy red hair hanging off the mattress.
“You’re going to be just fine,” Sienna shouted down the hallway. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.” Then she grabbed her purse and jogged back to Jaydin and Larson so they could go up to the ICU waiting room with her.
An hour later, a doctor stepped into the intensive care waiting room and told them that Gretchen was gone. Sienna stood up and crossed to where he was standing. He frowned and looked down at the floor; his hands hung limp at his sides. “We did everything we could,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He was a small man with dark hair and thick black eyebrows. He spoke with a foreign accent and his brown eyes were large and warm. When Sienna’s knees buckled, he put his arms around her and hugged as hard as he could.
When the doctor released her, Larson walked Sienna to a chair. She sat down and folded her hands on her lap. She stared straight ahead, without blinking, trying to process what had just happened. She was in shock. Voices sounded hollow and throaty, as if they were all trapped in a deep tunnel. She felt Jaydin’s arm around her shoulders. He pulled her into his chest and held her tightly. Then she watched as Larson stood up and shook the doctor’s hand. He seemed to move in slow motion. Larson said something to the doctor about calling the local funeral director, and then she fell into Jaydin’s arms and sobbed so hard her whole body trembled.
Gretchen had left specific directions for her funeral. They’d been handwritten on notepaper with a psychedelic Peter Max image of a peace sign in top right corner. She wanted to be cremated and she’d requested that there be no religious service of any kind. And she wanted everything done fast, without hesitation. The ashes were to be scattered into the ocean from a cliff on Mt. Desert Island (she didn’t care where), and she wanted background music of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind.” And, most of all, she wanted this to be private, which meant no one from town, especially not Robert or Karla
LaFramboise. She only wanted her family: just Jaydin and Sienna.
And when Sienna received Gretchen’s ashes a few days later, this is exactly what they did. It was a bright December morning, and unusually warm in the sun for that time of year. They brought Gretchen’s ancient portable stereo, a cassette tape of “Blowin in the Wind,” and a black box filled with her ashes to the edge of a cliff on Avenir’s property. When Avenir had heard what Gretchen wanted, he offered his property at Oceanview to Sienna and Jaydin without giving it a second thought.
And Sienna had accepted without argument. This was partly because Oceanview had a symbolic meaning to her family. Gretchen wasn’t a Harrington, but it had been
Sienna’s paternal family home. And it had been the place where her mother, Gretchen’s daughter, had died. The other reason was because Avenir had been so kind and understanding.
He’d even seemed visibly shocked when he’d heard about Gretchen’s death. He’d gone to the bar looking for Sienna that night, with a cute little cat toy that resembled a fuzzy mouse wrapped in pink and gold paper, and found a sign on the front door that read, “Due to a death in the family, we’ll be closed until Friday.” When he’d seen this sign on the front door, he’d jumped into his car and raced over to Raspberry Hall to see if Sienna was okay. He’d banged on her door so hard that poor Latte ran under the bed shaking.
After they scattered Gretchen’s ashes into the sea, Sienna placed a small concrete statue between two large rocks. It was a statue of a young woman carrying a basket of flowers. She had long wavy hair like Gretchen’s and a calm expression on her face. Her head was tilted to the side and her lips were pressed together. Sienna placed the statue so that it was facing the ocean. She left it there because she wanted to be able to go back and visit the exact spot where she’d scattered her grandmother’s ashes.
Then they went back to the nursing home and loaded the back of Jaydin’s truck with Gretchen’s belongings. There wasn’t much; she had no money or property. Mostly, it was her paintings and a few personal items. They squared their shoulders and packed her things into boxes and brought them back to the basement at Applejacks. They would sort through them later. Neither one of them wanted to deal with it right away. The only thing Sienna kept was a small, silver ring with a turquoise bumblebee. She knew this ring had been Gretchen’s favorite. Gretchen had read once that bumblebees were not anatomically designed to fly, but they learned how to do it anyway.
On Friday night, Jaydin opened the bar again and Sienna went back to work. She’d only taken two days off that week from her job at Raspberry Hall, but she hadn’t worked at the bar in almost a week. And she depended on that extra money for law school. Sometimes it seemed as if she’d never reach her goal, but she was determined to change her life and become a lawyer.
Avenir came in at around nine o’clock. He kissed her on the cheek and ordered a drink. She hadn’t seen him since the day he’d come running over to her apartment banging on the door. They didn’t officially make up from the fight they’d had at the Christmas party. And that’s because Sienna wasn’t mad at him anymore. When she’d opened the door for him the day Gretchen died, and she’d seen the relieved expression on his face when he saw that she was okay, Sienna realized for the first time that he did indeed have serious feelings for her. And the cute little cat toy, in the pink and gold package, made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Grace had called in sick that night. She was coming down with a bad cold and she could barely get out of bed. So Larson, of all people, was filling in for her. He’d never worked a day in his life at a bar (or anywhere else), and he fumbled every drink he mixed. He screwed up orders and dropped a jar of olives all over the floor. But you couldn’t fault him for offering to help, and every time he made a mistake Jaydin bent over laughing with his hands pressed to his stomach. It was almost like old times again, except now they were more than just good friends.
A few hours later, Jaydin told Sienna to go home. He said that he and Larson would close up the bar. And she didn’t argue. She reached for her purse under the cash register, kissed him good-bye, and headed out to her car. She had a feeling that Avenir was outside waiting for her. And when she saw him leaning against her car with his hands in his pockets, she felt lighter than she’d felt all week.
She walked over to him and smiled. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I wanted to thank you for the cat toy. Latte loves it. He can’t stop playing with it.” But she liked it more than Latte. Whenever she held it in her hand she smiled. She knew he must have gone out of his way to buy it, too. It looked as if it had come from an expensive pet boutique in Portland.
He shrugged and pouted. “Grace told me you found a cat, and I figured you’d like it.”
She placed her palm on his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s wonderful. And it was very thoughtful of you to think of that. Most men would need someone to tell them to do it. But you thought of it all on your own.” She tapped his shoulder and said, “I’m proud of you. I thought you were just a loud, obnoxious brute. But you’re really a sweet guy deep down.”
He smiled and looked up at the stars in the sky with his most innocent expression, then he changed the subject and said, “Are you going right home?”
“Why?”
“There’s something we need to talk about,” he said. “It’s about the lost painting, and something I’d like to show you at Oceanview.”
She sighed. “This damn painting haunts me,” she said. “It was the last thing my grandmother said to me on her deathbed. And I’m not sure I even believe there is a hidden painting.” She sighed and shook her head. “I feel as if I’m being haunted by it.”
“I think there is a painting hidden somewhere,” he said, “I think Gretchen was right.” He put his arms around her and inhaled. “Can you come with me
to Oceanview?”
“I have to go home first and check on Latte,” she said. “But I guess so.”
He kissed the top of her head and said, “Let’s take my car. You can drive mine when you have to go home.”
She squeezed his chest muscle, then she said, “I just have to go across the road and check the mailbox for Jaydin. He has a post office box in town, but for some reason there’s always junk mail in the mailbox across the road, and it hasn’t been checked in a long time.”
“I’ll wait for you at the car,” he said.
When she turned and walked toward the parking lot entrance, she was smiling. There was nothing soft or delicate about Avenir, but he always made her feel comfortable and easy. And it wasn’t just about his good looks. It was the way he showed emotion, even though it didn’t always come naturally to him. She knew he forced it sometimes; she could tell by the way his upper lip twitched, the way he didn’t know where to put his hands, and the way he sometimes stammered during intimate moments. But the fact that he tried to be sensitive compensated for the fact that it didn’t come to him naturally. Sienna knew herself well. A man without a few fundamental flaws would have bored her to death.
The road was so dark she had to look down at the ground to avoid tripping over a stray rock or an imperfection in the pavement. There were deep ditches on both sides of the road, and she was sorry she hadn’t checked the mailbox while it had still been light out. She stepped onto the pavement without looking and crossed the road. And when she opened the mailbox and filled her arms with all the junk that had accumulated, she turned back toward the parking lot.
She dropped one of the supermarket advertisements in the middle of the road, so she pressed the other junk mail to her chest and squatted down to get it. Some of the flyers and papers were made from shiny paper. They were slippery and she didn’t want to drop more of them. Sienna hated litterbugs, especially the summer tourists from the city who tossed fast food bags and soda cans out their windows without thinking about the environment.
