The Shimmering Road

by Hester Young

  It hasn’t worked out that way.

  I don’t regret my choice to come here, exactly. After my son’s death, I needed a change of scene, and our day-to-day existence is, for the most part, a happy one. I only wish we had found a place for us, instead of trying to fit me into a place that is so clearly his. So clearly hers.

  “Sorry about that, hon,” Noah mutters as we head into the store. “I don’t even remember that woman’s name. I think Carmen and I went bowlin’ with her once.”

  I say nothing, just breeze through the aisles to the shelf of vitamins. Inside, though, I’m vindicated. That, I think, is why we’re not buying a house here. Ever.

  Living in Sidalie means living with the ghost of Carmen, and even though ghosts are not exactly an unfamiliar presence in my life, this is one phantom I can do without.

  Two

  That night, as Noah refills my water, I hear a faint metallic clink against my glass.

  I look up from my carton of lo mein. Half-eaten containers of Chinese food, crumpled napkins, and a pair of stained chopsticks litter the table. The only thing out of place in this gluttonous scene is the glinting object at the bottom of my water glass.

  A ring.

  Beside me, Noah awaits my reaction with a goofy, hopeful grin. I love this man deeply, but he should know better. I exhale. Massage my temples.

  “Oh, hon. I thought you finally stopped with the marriage stuff.”

  “Come on, Charlie,” he urges me, his twang sweet and coaxing. “Just try it on.”

  I peer down at the ring. Twirl a strand of lo mein with my chopsticks.

  “You really gonna be like that?” He sits back, his thick, sun-browned arms folded across his undershirt.

  “I appreciate the gesture, I really do. But you know how I feel about marriage.”

  “I know, I know.” His voice rises as he does his best impression of Charlie Being Unreasonable. “Real commitment is about more than a piece of paper,” he mimics. “I get it, already.” He sighs. “Would you just wear the ring? We don’t have to go through a whole ceremony.”

  “If it’s just for show, then what’s the point?”

  “It’s not for show. It’s for our family. Our baby girl deserves a daddy who’s committed to her mama.”

  I give him an affectionate pat. “She already has one.”

  “Not accordin’ to the rest of the world.” He rises from the table, thumbs hooked in the loops of his jeans. “People look at us, Charlie, they do. They look at you, they see we’re not married, and then they look at me. And they wonder what kinda asshole I am.”

  “That’s what this is about?” I pick up a dumpling and dip it in soy sauce, not bothering to finish chewing before I speak. “You want to get married so people will stop looking at you? Noah, my wearing a wedding ring is not going to make that woman in the parking lot judge us any less.”

  “Yeah.” He balls up a dirty napkin and tosses it into an empty container, defeated. “People have a long memory in this town.”

  I reach into my glass with a chopstick and carefully fish out the ring. It’s a simple solitaire diamond on a silvery band, probably platinum. Once upon a time, before my divorce, I would have loved this ring. But Eric cheated, and the divorce happened. My first marriage couldn’t even make it to the four-year mark. If I’m going to make mistakes in life, I’d at least like to make new ones.

  I set the ring on the table. “I could put it on a chain,” I offer, trying to placate him. “Wear it as a necklace.”

  “Doesn’t have quite the same meanin’ then, does it?”

  “What do you want it to mean? We’re together, aren’t we? I’m here.”

  “You’re here,” he says. “But sometimes I wonder how long.”

  I give a rueful laugh. “I wonder the same thing about you. How long is this man in Sidalie? When can we leave? I wonder that all the time.”

  He comes up behind my chair and places his hands on my shoulders, his chin resting on top of my head. “I don’t have any family left, Charlie, none that counts. Don’t even have my dog—he’s Carmen’s now. A person’s gotta have somethin’ to anchor ’em. For me, it’s this town.”

  How can one be mad at a guy who just wants to belong somewhere? As if sensing that he’s gaining ground, Noah sinks his thumbs into the tender muscles of my shoulders, slowly working out knots of tension. The man doesn’t play fair.

  I wish I could provide him with the clan he feels he lacks, but the fact is I’ve never had much in the way of family myself. A drug-addicted mother who left when I was too young to remember, an alcoholic father who died when I was fourteen, an aunt and cousins I never see. And while Noah loves my grandmother, the formidable woman who stepped in to raise me, Grandma’s eighty-eight years old. She doesn’t have a lot of time left.

  Just one more way that Carmen outshines me. She had a tribe with Sunday dinners, nieces and nephews, an abuela who harassed them every weekend about their baby-making plans. I have no one.

  I wipe my mouth and push away the rest of the food. “I know you’re attached to Sidalie,” I tell him. “I get it. Sometimes I miss New York like crazy. At the end of the day, though, there’s nothing really keeping us here.”

  “My company’s in Sidalie,” he reminds me. “I have forty guys dependin’ on me for a salary. After all the years they’ve given me, you really think I can just walk away?”

  “Yes, I do! You have millions of dollars lying around in a bank account you’ve never touched. You could pay those guys a lifetime of wages and just go.”

  His face clouds over at the mention of his inheritance. “I don’t want that money,” he says flatly. “I’d just as soon burn it. It won’t bring my father back.” These days, we don’t talk much about what happened in Louisiana, but in the battle for Most Dysfunctional Family History, I’d have to say he’s winning. “If it’s the money you’re after, woman, you better take off right now.”

  The accusation of gold digging is a joke, of course. I just sold my house in Connecticut; I’m sitting on plenty of cash. In truth, you couldn’t pay me enough to stay in Sidalie. Only the heart would stick this one out.

  I follow him down the hall into the bedroom, watch him strip off his jeans and undershirt. He deposits his clothing into the hamper (the man can be taught) before flopping onto our bed. His body, taut and tan from all the hours spent at work outdoors, both entices and discourages me. How can I keep up with that? He’ll never have to worry about stretch marks, baby weight, or C-section scars.

  “You comin’?” He holds his arms out as if I might tumble into them. “It’s gettin’ late.”

  “I don’t want to sleep yet.” I linger in the doorway, not quite meeting his eye. Noah lifts his head, and I don’t have to say a word. He understands.

  “You can’t stay awake forever, baby,” he says. “I know you’re scared you’ll have that dream again, but sooner or later, you gotta get your z’s.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s just a dream, no matter how many times you have it.”

  I stare down at my protruding navel and bite my lip. Neither one of us believes that, not completely. I’ve been seeing myself die in a shower since the end of June, and if experience means anything, that’s no accident. “Anytime I see something, it either happened or it’s going to happen,” I murmur. “You know that.”

  “This is different,” Noah insists, settling himself beneath the sheets. “Those were dreams about children. This one’s about you, about our baby. I read that What to Expect book. They said lots of pregnant women have weird dreams, that it’s just hormones.”

  “Maybe,” I say, because beneath his calm exterior, I know he’s scared. Losing me, losing his baby daughter—this sudden, unexpected blessing we’ve both upended our lives to accommodate—is an idea too terrible for him to contemplate.

  “I’ll go to bed in
a minute,” I tell him lightly. “Just let me clean up the kitchen a little.”

  He gives a grunt of assent. Rolls onto his stomach, face squished against the pillow in his signature sleep pose.

  Now the only one awake, I’m lonesome. There’s a lump in my throat as I clear the table of my remaining Chinese takeout. I repackage the leftover dumplings, slip packets of soy sauce and spicy mustard into a kitchen drawer of items I will never use but can’t seem to throw away. The ring remains on the table, a shiny and expensive reminder of our disparate goals for the future.

  Suddenly I want to cry. Whether it’s the dream, my life in Sidalie, or simply a wave of aftershock from the changes I’ve experienced in the last year, I don’t know. I sit down at the table and crack open a fortune cookie, taking a few bites of the tasteless, hard shell before I read the message inside: Love takes practice.

  That’s it. I burst into nonsensical tears. I am officially a giant, pregnant disaster.

  What am I doing here, anyway? Living month to month in this impersonal little apartment, refusing to purchase a more permanent home or solidify our future together in any meaningful way—why did I come to Sidalie at all if I wasn’t in it to win it?

  Noah’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve all my moods and personality flaws, the sudden bursts of grief for my lost son worsened by baby hormones. Noah didn’t ask for an accidental pregnancy to rock his life, didn’t ask for his fling with some Yankee woman to permanently alter his existence just months after his divorce.

  Except, I realize as my eyes fall again on the ring, he is asking for it.

  I set the ring down in the palm of my right hand. Touch the diamond with my index finger. It’s both solid and delicate, beautiful yet hard, a lump of coal shaped by the earth’s pressure into something strong and dazzling. I can’t wear it, of course, won’t let myself get sucked into all that, but I don’t want Noah to return the ring, either. I open the drawer of items I can’t quite throw away and tuck it in amongst the old phone chargers, hotel soap, and rubber bands.

  He’s right. I’ve got to get some sleep.

  I head back to our room and climb into bed with him. Begin the elaborate arrangement of pillows that must occur each night before I can sleep with this belly.

  From his side of the bed, Noah lets out one sudden, single snore, a noise that sounds remarkably like the low setting of our blender. I feel a rush of tenderness toward him and, almost immediately after, guilt.

  “I’m trying to be happy here,” I whisper into the dark. “I’m really trying.”

  I turn on my side. Close my eyes. Stroke my belly and whisper, “Good night, baby girl.”

  • • •

  I AWAKEN A LITTLE AFTER ONE A.M., the need to pee as insistent as an alarm. It will be nice, I think, when I no longer have a small person pressing against my bladder 24/7. I roll heavily out of bed and pad down the hallway to the bathroom.

  The apartment is quiet except for the low groan of the air conditioner. You’d never know we have a lot of neighbors; Sunview Apartments is inhabited by polite and sensible people who wouldn’t dream of making a peep after nine p.m. on a weeknight. For a moment I miss New York, the feeling that somewhere there’s a diner, a bar, an all-night pharmacy still open and populated by a community of fellow insomniacs. But who am I kidding? I’m not in my twenties. I’m pushing forty, and I’d resigned myself to a quiet suburban existence in Connecticut years before I met Noah. My reservations about Sidalie have nothing to do with the town itself and everything to do with Noah’s history here.

  Moments later, I stumble out of the bathroom, still half asleep. The moon is high and full as it floods through the skylight, and for a second, I think it’s playing tricks on me, casting eerie shadows on the carpet that weren’t there when I entered the bathroom two minutes ago.

  But they aren’t shadows, I realize as I peer down at the trail of dark and blotchy spots. Suddenly I’m awake, far more awake than I want to be. I take a few steps closer, the back of my neck tingling as I realize what I’m looking at.

  Footprints. Very small footprints, and they’re heading for our living room.

  I sink down to the floor in an awkward, pregnant squat and gingerly reach out to touch one of the prints. It’s thick and wet on my fingers, the smell metallic yet sweet. Blood.

  It’s not real, I think, but it doesn’t matter. I’m already disappearing. Losing myself, giving in to that sweet, dark pull. Around me, the ceiling drops and the walls shift noiselessly, forming a new space. The carpet dissolves beneath my feet, turns to cheap vinyl tile.

  The footprints are still there, glistening in the dark. I’m in someone else’s apartment, a place that smells of stale smoke and some kind of floral air freshener. A pile of Barbies clutters the floor, bodies contorted into odd shapes, one doll missing a head. I navigate past crayons, an adult-sized pair of flip-flops, an empty water bottle. On the wall, I see a mirror with a shiny metal frame shaped like a sun. I note my own reflection as I walk past, silvery and ghostlike, lips parted, my eyes unnaturally bright.

  The footprints continue through a living area to a partially open sliding glass door. I step outside, barely able to make out a small patio. Beyond, the land drops off into an indigo void. All that blue seems to ripple and blur around me, and I think that I’m underwater at first, weedy plant life swaying in the current. Then the air stills. I see the jagged lines of distant mountains, realize it’s not ocean flora that I’m looking at but cacti, their plump limbs reaching upward, grasping at the low-hanging sliver of moon.

  I hear panting. A whimper. Someone’s out there.

  I scan the desert landscape until I spot something moving: a shadowy, huddled mass by an immense cactus. The figure seems to sense me, pausing before rising.

  A little girl. Chubby, with a mess of tangled black hair, her body quivering like a rabbit. She stares straight at me, half frightened, half hopeful, and I have no idea if she’s alive or dead.

  Mama? she calls, and when I don’t respond, she tries again. Mama?

  I’m not your mama, I tell her.

  The night is hot with no wind, yet I find myself shivering. In the blackness of the night sky, the moon seems to shudder.

  I want my mama, the girl says, her voice wavering. Please. I want my mom.

  I think of my own son, just four years old when he died of a sudden brain aneurysm. Did he utter these same words as I raced to join him at the hospital?

  Tell me who you are, I say. Tell me what you need me to do.

  She tilts her face to the sky and lets out a low, animal-like keening, to me or God or maybe just the desert moon, I don’t know. I feel her cry, an almost physical thing squeezing at my chest, my heart. Then she’s silent, just a small slip of a girl against the vast, empty desert.

  Above us, the slice of moon swells to fullness. A single crimson flower spreads across its surface in a disturbing, bloody bloom.

  I need to go to her. Need to do something. I leave the patio, take a few quick strides in her direction, but she’s gone now. The desert, too, has vanished.

  A mound of blankets, that’s all that remains. White blankets with long, dark strands of hair spilling from its folds. She’s in there, I know she’s in there. I must unwrap her. Must see what I don’t want to see.

  The moment I extend my hand, I feel a jolt. My body hits a wall.

  I stumble back, aware that the desert and the child wrapped in blankets have been replaced by my own moonlit living room and the very solid wall that I’ve just tried to walk through.

  I rub my head. The room is spinning, my head and shoulder shooting pain. I feel a series of sharp, irritated kicks from within as my daughter protests this rude awakening.

  The carpet is clean. No sign of bloody footprints.

  Am I sleepwalking through my visions now? Wandering through my apartment in some altered state and crashing into
walls? Not an encouraging development, Charlie.

  But at least I’m not dreaming an ugly future for my baby again. She’s alive. I’m alive. That has to count for something.

  I find my way back to the bedroom, lumber into bed, and begin arranging pillows the best I can, though my hands are unsteady. Sooner or later, that little girl will surface in my waking life, possibly dead. That seems to be how it works.

  Noah’s still out, absorbed in the kind of deep, untroubled sleep I always envy. For once, I follow his example. Perhaps I’ve finally grown accustomed to these dreams, or perhaps my physical exhaustion is greater than my anxiety. It doesn’t take long to fall asleep again, and when I do, I’m out until the morning.

  • • •

  NOAH IS ALREADY UP and showering for work when I awake. Inside the kitchen, I find a pot of decaf coffee waiting for me like a love note. I pour myself a mug, mentally organizing my day. Book promo stuff, mostly, and a magazine article I need to finish.

  Over on the counter, my phone begins to vibrate. Not a New York number and not local, either. I answer anyway, bracing myself for a telemarketer.

  “Charlie?” The familiar Boston accent doesn’t bother with the r in my name. “It’s your aunt Suzie.”

  “Suzie! Hi . . .” A phone call from my aunt is a rare occurrence, and generally not a harbinger of anything good. “Is everything okay?”

  “Not really.” She launches unceremoniously into her reason for contacting me. “I got a call this morning from the Tucson Police Department. Donna’s dead.”

  “Who?”

  “Donna,” she says. “Your mother.”

  I grip the handle of my mug, curiously numb. I haven’t heard a thing about my mother in decades, haven’t known where she was or what she might be doing, and I’m not sure I want to know these things. For all intents and purposes, I’ve excised her from my family tree. More accurately: she excised herself.

  “My mother’s dead? In Arizona?” Given what I’ve heard about her propensity for addiction, I’m amazed the woman survived this long. I’ve always sort of assumed that she overdosed years ago.