Axis of Aaron

by Johnny B. Truant

  “Definitely.”

  She was looking up at him with light-blue eyes, a sighing expression despite the offishness implied by her story. Maybe he’d scared her away that first day and the days she’d implied followed, but he’d managed to woo her eventually. Vicky might not be girly, but right now she was definitely a girl. One who liked Ebon plenty.

  “You’re going to have to come back to the city with me though. Do you know how much of a pain it is to get here in the winter, once the ferries stop running?”

  “I’ve never been here in the winter,” he said.

  “This is supposed to be a summer house,” she said. But even as Ebon looked around he realized how strange that was. Who built a home so modern and refined in a place where sand and bugs invaded every corner, and even the most fastidious person couldn’t keep from sullying furniture with sweat and sunscreen?

  “This house isn’t winterproof?” With the question, another flash of disconnected memory leapt into Ebon’s mind. He was suddenly sure that there was a fireplace in the bathroom, on the wall between it and the bedroom. Peering over the bed’s foot, he realized he could see a matching fireplace on the bedroom side of the wall, but couldn’t recall whether it truly straddled the partition or if they were two separate units. A summer home, yes … but still built for comfort when the mercury dropped.

  “It is,” she said. “But flights from the city? I don’t mind the cost, but … ” She shivered. “I just hate those tiny little planes. Feel like God is going to swat them out of the air like gnats. Or that they won’t clear the runway and we’ll skid off into the water. It’d be so much easier to meet in the city. I have a great loft downtown. It’s … ”

  “I don’t want to leave the island.”

  Vicky’s shoulders fell, and Ebon realized they’d had this discussion before — perhaps many times. She’d overstayed her summertime and fall on Aaron so far, and Ebon always refused to trade back by visiting the city. But even that raised another set of questions: If Vicky only came to Aaron on the weekends, where did he stay the rest of the time? Was he still at Aimee’s? And what must Aimee think about it all? He and Aimee had traded tons of messages leading up to his arrival, and he was supposed to be helping her fix up her father’s house. He was supposed to be rekindling an old friendship, both of them seeming to hope it would grow into something more. He felt a strange sense of having broached a loyalty by siding with Vicky, and of leaving an old wound untreated. Part of Ebon was desperate to forget Holly … but in the doing, he’d forgotten Aimee too.

  “Just for a weekend. Just come away with me.”

  But Ebon had stopped listening. Now that he’d thought of Aimee, she was a rapidly inflating balloon inside his mind. He slid sideways on the bed, dropping his feet to the floor. His clothes were there in a pile — very Ebon — whereas he was quite sure that Vicky’s clothes would be on a small end table or tucked into a stainless steel bin. Perhaps she’d undressed in the bathroom and come out in a terrycloth and microfiber spa robe, colored Indian ivory to match the rug.

  “Are you leaving?”

  Ebon turned. “Well … ”

  “You always bolt out on me.” She said it playfully, a pout on her lips. Apparently he did always bolt out on her, but it was a quirk — one she accepted, understood, and maybe even liked.

  “I just want to take a walk.”

  “Are you going back to Aimee’s?”

  Ebon stopped, his back to Vicky, then turned slowly.

  “Well … ”

  “I keep telling you. You can stay here while I’m gone.” She crawled forward, then lay on her chest with her smooth back bare. “And you can stay here while I’m here too.”

  Ebon wasn’t sure how to respond. He felt a ticking in his mind, realizing he hadn’t seen Aimee in two months by his most present clock, and for an indeterminate time by the real one. She might not know where he was, despite Vicky’s obvious knowledge of where he spent the rest of his time. Aimee might be worried. Or worse: She might not be worried at all, because she understood exactly what Ebon and Vicky were doing. For some reason, the second notion — that Aimee would understand and not care — squeezed Ebon’s chest like a giant hand. He had to go. He had to get back to the house on the sand, away from this place. He had to see Aimee and hope she’d be worried, or angry, or both.

  Ebon wasn’t sure what he might have told Vicky about Aimee, but he needed something to say, so he said, “I promised I’d help her.”

  “I know. I guess.”

  “I’ll call.” Ebon realized that not only was it the most standard of male brush-offs but that he didn’t have her number. Vicky shrugged and rolled away, neither angry nor pacified. He was leaving her neutral, like the creams and grays in her home’s color palette.

  “Sure, sure. Leave me unsatisfied.”

  Ebon turned. She was on her back again, top half still exposed, hands under the comforter. Whether they were moving or not, he couldn’t tell, but her eyes were on him, play-seductive.

  “Um … ”

  “I’m kidding.”

  But she wasn’t. He could leave her satisfied. It was totally within his rights and responsibilities as her apparent lover. And in fact, he very much wanted to. But he’d just met her; they’d exchanged a handful of sentences and had, by his clock, a mere fifteen minutes of history. He didn’t know Vicky at all. It would be a self-serving violation, like taking advantage of a drunk.

  He thought of Aimee, and how none of this might bother her. Somehow, the idea was growing more and more oppressive, as if a cherished part of him was being suffocated.

  “I … ” Ebon began.

  “I’m kidding, Ebon. Go, go. I know you need your walks.”

  “If you’re sure that … ”

  “I’ll just take a bath.”

  Ebon paused with his pants halfway zipped.

  “And use the spray attachment creatively.”

  Ebon felt lost, suddenly unsure how pants worked.

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Seriously. Go, okay? I’m still sore from last night. What did you do to me last night?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She watched Ebon dress. He leaned over the bed and, feeling like a traitor, kissed her.

  “Do you want a ride over there?” she asked.

  “I know the way.”

  “I know you know the way. It’s a straight shot. I just wanted to know if you wanted a ride. It’s chilly outside.”

  “I want some time to think.”

  “Oh, yes. You always want time to think. You always leave me so that you can think.”

  Ebon stopped, again meeting her quiet eyes and sly smile. Her manner was stuffed with seduction, and he was finding it nearly impossible to turn away. He didn’t know this woman, but he’d felt a strong enough draw to pursue her across the island, apparently several times.

  There were two men inside him, one right and the other wrong, each wanting to approach the moment in opposite directions. He didn’t know which was which, and had no memories to guide him.

  “Go for your walk, Ebon. Jesus. I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure.”

  “And I intend to.”

  “Um … ”

  She kissed him. “You are so easy to fuck with.” Then she gave him a shove.

  As Ebon left the bedroom, passing through the equally stark living room on his way to the front door, he heard bathwater begin to run behind him and wondered if he was making the wrong choice.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Wait and See

  VICKY’S HOUSE WAS PERCHED ON A set of rock cliffs beneath which Ebon had walked the western beach many times. It was south of Aimee’s, maybe a mile from West Dock, roughly equidistant between the cottage and the southern lighthouse. He’d noticed glints of glass high on the rocks in the past, but from the beach the source of those glints was hard to see. Vicky had given herself the utmost in privacy up there — snatching a magnificent view w
ithout allowing anyone else the chance to peek inside.

  Ebon left the glass-fronted house and made his way down Vicky’s private drive, seeming to intuit the way while following the setting sun. He could see the cliffs’ shadows draped over the bay as he descended the gradual decline, then walked in shadow along the beach until the sheer stone grew shorter to the north, the mostly vacant cottages returning to eye level. By the time the high bluffs surrendered to low dunes, the morning sun had climbed above the trees and begun to warm the air. Still, it was chillier than Ebon ever remembered being on Aaron. He hugged his chest. He really needed a jacket, but didn’t seem to have brought one.

  The way to Aimee’s cottage — familiar now that he was on a known path — was more than “straightforward,” as Vicky had indicated. It felt greased. There was a southwesterly wind coming off the bay, and Ebon could feel it behind him like a hand, shoving him north and away from the water. He didn’t need to know the way to get where he was going. All he had to do was stumble forward, no map required.

  He thought of Aimee, himself, and what had gone missing.

  The truth was obvious, though he had trouble admitting it: He’d clearly had some sort of a breakdown. Somewhere inside, a faulty gear had slipped its mate and gone haywire, tossing clockwork into his mind and causing something to sunder. But what did it all mean? How would he deal with it? And most importantly: would it happen again?

  Unbidden, he thought of the time he’d hurt his back.

  Ebon had never been remotely athletic, but plenty of the kids in his college dorm had been. One spring day, he’d been dragged into a game of flag football on the quad. Within ten minutes, he’d been knocked into a bench by a tackle that shouldn’t have been a tackle, wrenching something hard and leaving him struggling to stand. Whatever it was soon loosened enough for him to act blasé, and he’d sat out the rest of the game, pretending it was no big deal. But it had been a big deal, and he’d woken the next morning curled into a painful comma. He’d been laid flat for the next few days (and left hobbling for weeks after that), unable to reach for the back edge of a counter without crippling agony. He’d never gone to see a doctor because he was sure they’d tell him he’d slipped a disc and would require surgery. But he didn’t want surgery. He wanted to pretend it was okay and wait for it to get better. Eventually, slowly, it had. He’d taken six months to slowly writhe, stretch, and massage his way back to completely pain-free health, but he’d done it, and he’d done it without doctors.

  He’d either beaten the system, proving that quick medical fixes weren’t always the answer … or he’d been stupid and lucky, ignoring a problem that should have destroyed him because he’d been too afraid to face it.

  Whatever had gone wrong in his mind felt the same.

  I’ll be careful. I’ll see how Aimee reacts, then play along. I’ll take a few days to reacclimate, get my bearings. Maybe whatever went wrong will untie itself. That happens with memory loss, right? They don’t DO anything when you lose time, right? No, they don’t; I’m sure of it. They just tell you to hang tight and see if your memories return. That’s the way it always is in the movies. And sure, movies are movies, but those writers must do their research. A day or two of “wait and see” won’t hurt. If it’s still a problem by midweek, I’ll go see a doctor then. But not now. Not yet.

  Sure. That made sense. It’s how he’d approached his damaged back: As long as things slowly improved, he’d stay away from the hospital. He could always reverse course and seek help if it got worse, but even the smallest improvements meant you were going forward. And besides, movies had established that emotional trauma sometimes caused spontaneous problems with memory. He’d had plenty of emotional trauma lately, but it was over, and he’d come here to let it pass. The movie solution was to keep walking around, hoping that everyday stimuli would catch something and trigger his memory’s return. So that’s what he’d do.

  I can trust Aimee too, if I have to trust someone. Which I totally will if I need to. At any point, I can (and will!) fess up. Tell her what’s wrong. She’ll help. She’s there to help. It’s the reason I came here. Well, that and so I can work on her father’s house, which I might also be neglecting while running out to get my pole waxed.

  It was true. He might not have been helping with the cottage at all. Vicky was seemingly weekends-only on the island, and she’d basically told him he was at Aimee’s during the weeks. But anything might have happened during those two missing months, and neither woman would necessarily know what it was. He might have gone off on some sort of bender, spending weeknights at the inn and frittering away hours at the tavern. He might have done any number of things to offend or bother Aimee. He might even have been an entirely different man for the past two months, causing problems, drunk despite his typically seldom drinking. Or he might merely have seemed drunk, his brain rattling loose and making him rough, rude, or chronically forgetful. How could he be sure of any of it? Vicky hadn’t known the old Ebon, and would have no baseline to tell him if he’d changed.

  Ebon shivered, his insides suddenly icy.

  Had that happened? Had he snapped? Could you be normal one day and out of your head the next? He might have been having spells without realizing it all this time. Maybe he’d been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ever since he’d answered that call from the highway patrol — the call that had ended his old life not with an exclamation point, but with a calm and obedient period.

  The moment was a photograph, forever frozen in his mind.

  Sitting in front of his computer. Music on in the background. Sprite in a clear glass to his right, on a coaster, condensation sweating on its outside. Bubbles (like a champagne supernova) in the glass, clinging to the inside with a firmness of memory that his prior two months were missing. He remembered the officer’s words and the way he’d said, “I see” when the officer had finished speaking. He’d wanted to take those two words back as soon as he’d said them, to erase this faceless person’s first impression of him as callous, but he’d only been able to stare at his Sprite, wanting to flick the glass and set the clinging bubbles free.

  I see.

  He might have broken right there, right then. It happened that way in movies. It even made sense. He remembered very little of the rest of that day. There was no memory of standing to leave the office, no memory of the drive over. All he remembered was ID’ing Holly (and, unofficially, the car’s other occupant nearby) as she lay on a chrome table, his every cell numb.

  Or maybe he had very clear memories of the last two months, but they were trapped inside his Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde would have seemed alien to Aimee. Ebon had no idea what he could be walking back into. He might have shouted at her. He might have been strange or violent. He might have been pathetic, whining about having always loved her, begging her to love him back. He might have been cruel, throwing Vicky in her face. She might have been hurt, and that would be awful. Or she might not have cared at all, and that would be far worse.

  Ahead, Ebon saw a rise of dunes between a line of boulders. A peek of gray-blue roof. And then it was gone.

  What was he walking into? Was this a bad idea? He was suddenly certain it was. He should have called first to test Aimee’s temperature. When you lost your head and went on a bender, no good could ever come from it. He’d been sure about Vicky’s name (and he’d been right; he’d peeked at the mail in her mailbox on the way out) and about the layout of her bathroom, which he hadn’t visited but had seen behind his eyelids like a snapshot.

  And he was right about this. About his bad behavior. About how he’d ruined things with Aimee.

  He stopped in the sand, then turned around and began walking back toward Vicky’s, determined to think further before acting. But as soon as he turned south, he found the going as rough as his northward trek had been smooth. Wind slapped his face, making it hard to breathe. It was still blowing out of the southwest, shoving him away from the water and toward Aimee’s.

  The more steps he took to the sout
h, the harder the wind seemed to push against him. He lowered his head, but the wind seemed to take offense at being avoided, and a wet gust — feeling like the ocean’s will itself — rocked him sideways, sending him stumbling toward the rocks.

  More steps. Another gust, this one almost flattening him.

  Ebon turned, subconsciously nodding his obedience as if the wind and ocean were conscious beings. They were right: He had to face Aimee, and sooner was better than later. He couldn’t just keep putting it off, hoping the problem would go away without confrontation. That strategy might work for back pain and amnesia, but it was worthless for afflictions of the mind or soul.

  The wind pushed at his back, now rough. Now spiteful.

  Go, it seemed to say. Go on, and be done with it.

  The dunes loomed closer. This time Ebon allowed their approach, the wind nudging him forward like a shy boy shoved onto the dance floor by well-meaning friends.

  He stood in front of the small, blue-gray, immaculately painted cottage, its facade somehow different than he remembered. His feet ceased their plodding. Again, a gust rocked him forward onto his toes, the wind’s breath repeating Go into his frosted ears.

  So he went.

  He could see Aimee’s silhouette puttering around inside. Somehow he’d hoped she’d have gone to the store or the flower shop and he’d be able to procrastinate. But there was only now, and only the cold November wind between them.

  Ebon marched forward, unready to face whatever he’d done.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Renovations

  EBON FOUND AIMEE IN THE KITCHEN, holding open the door of a cheery-yellow antique refrigerator he didn’t remember at all. She turned at his footsteps, and there was an awkward moment while he waited for her to speak. He wasn’t sure what might have happened between them, so it was best to let her go first, and set the tone.