by Su Williams
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
He stroked my face and delved into my eyes, the heat in his own eyes cooling. “On the contrary, I hope, when you’re ready, you will do it even more.”
Ivy swung the bathroom door opened with a bang. “Aw, come on! Can’t you two get a room?” She giggled, “Oh yeah, I guess I’m the gate-crasher, aren’t I?”
I launched off the couch, almost grateful for the escape and wrapped Ivy in my arms. “I’m glad you stayed. Do you feel better?”
“Yeah! I really do. That’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had since…well, in a while,” she confessed. “But, I really gotta get going. I’ve got to work in an hour and I need to go home and change.”
“Yeah, Christmas Break. That’s a real misser.” A wave of guilt washed through me as I thought of the crowds and the lines—all the screaming kids and cranky parents. “You guys got enough coverage?”
“Eh, you know. The usual. It’s all good.”
Nick and I stood at the kitchen window a few minutes later, sipping hot steamy coffee and waving goodbye to Ivy as we watched her pull away from the house.
Nick stood behind me as we watched Ivy’s progress down the snowy drive. His body radiated heat that warmed away the nervous chills that suddenly cascaded through my nerves. I rummaged through a plethora of questions that remained unanswered, searched for that one adequate enough to distract him from any conversation about the kiss. Though his presence in my memories wasn’t tangible at the moment, I still wondered if he was eavesdropping on my thoughts, trying to ascertain why shivers raced down my spine.
“I’d like to show you something,” he said. My heart hammered in my chest. “I told you the other day a little about memoryprints. Would you like to see how it works?”
I exhaled; relieved for the dodge about the kiss. “Yes, absolutely.”
Nick took my hand and led me down the basement stairs and out into the garage. A sea of boxes and crates flooded every corner and spilled into the middle in tidy rows; all the stuff from my parent’s house that held their memories but I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with. I wavered at the door, my heart racing. Nick tugged on my hand and flashed me a reassuring smile. Reticent, I followed.
“The best vessels are items with sentimental value. We believe an electrical impulse imbeds memories into an object. Memories implanted by Caphar or anchored by stronger emotions linger the longest,” he informed me.
I searched through the boxes until I found the one labeled ‘Bedroom: Jewelry Boxes, Knick Knacks.’ I slid the box into an open space and ran my fingernail along the tape. “Here, let me try.” Out of his pocket Nick pulled a brass pocketknife etched with a scene of trees and deer.
“Nice, my dad gave me one like that once. I still have it somewhere.”
“My father gave me this one, as well.” While he slit the tape on the box, I wondered about the parents he never discussed; what they were like to have raised a son so kind and compassionate. Dust motes danced in the air as we flipped the box flaps open and rummaged through the peanuts to find my mother’s jewelry box.
“Here it is,” I exclaimed with my arms buried up to my shoulders. I pulled on the top of the jewelry box. An avalanche of popcorn cascaded to the floor and into the emptied space. “Whew! I forgot how heavy it is,” I complained as I set the jewelry box on top of a nearby crate. “It’s an antique. Solid oak.” Both were my mom’s favorite collectables. Much of her furniture was antique oak or mahogany. Her bedroom suite; sleigh bed, highboy, dresser, night tables and jewelry box, were lightly varnished, honey colored oak from the 1850’s, complete with dovetail joints, beveled mirror, lion head drawer pulls and skeleton key locks. The original skeleton keys were still taped inside the drawers.
I opened the tiny jewelry box drawers one at a time and lovingly caressed the jewelry pieces my Mom collected over the years. Most of the trinkets were gifts from Dad; a few, childhood baubles from me. Dad’s gifts were gold and silver, embellished with precious and semi-precious stones. My tokens were more costume in nature, but she had cherished them all the same. My heart and fingers trembled as I caressed each piece, drawing on my own personal memories imbedded in them.
A tremor of sorrow quaked through me, a response that didn’t go unnoticed. In silence, Nick stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders, as his magic caught the memories that drifted through my mind. I relaxed against him. I needed no voice for the grief and loneliness I felt without my mom and dad. He knew with a touch, and he held me for a moment. Quietly, he whispered in my ear, “I think I can make this easier for you—if you’ll let me try.” I pressed into him and nodded.
Nick lifted pieces out of the jewelry box, his fingers slow and reverent. He held each of them for a moment, smiled and replaced them. “Your parents had a wonderful life together,” he murmured fondly.
“They did. They were adorable together,” I told him as I handed him a silver-framed picture of my parents wrapped in each other’s arms. “I used to watch them together all the time. Every time they parted or came back together, they kissed. I would giggle and blush if they caught me watching them. That box,” I pointed to a large one in the corner, “That’s all the photographs he took of her. She was his greatest subject. There’s pictures of her when they were first married; she was sixteen and he was seventeen; and of her in the hospital holding me after I was born. He chronicled her entire life. There’s ten times more pictures of her than there are of him.” Yet, their past remained blank to me.
My mom’s cameo locket and my dad’s military ribbons dangled from his hand. “These pieces tell me more than the pictures could,” he said.
We scavenged some more in the dresser and highboy drawers. In one of the nightstands, we found an old pocketknife belonging to my Dad. Nick smiled as he squeezed it in his hand for a few moments. “This will do nicely,” he declared. He picked up the other two pieces and took my hand, led me back inside to the warmth of the living room. He guided me to the couch. “Sit. I’ll go make you some tea to warm you up.”
I nodded and swaddled myself in the blanket from the back of the couch. Rummaging in the garage was like rummaging in a meat locker—I was chilled bone deep. My body shivered uncontrollably even curled up in my blanket and I rested my head on my knees. Was I really so physically cold, or was it just the chilly climate around my heart?
Nick returned with a steaming cup of tea for me. “Oh my gosh, thank you,” I said as I inhaled the tendrils of fragrance rising from it. Gingerly, I sipped the sweet, earthy flavor. “Hmm. This is different. I recognize chamomile, but I’m not sure about the rest.”
“It’s a relaxation tea with valerian, catnip and chamomile.”
“Me-ow,” I purred.
Nick laughed. “It won’t put you out, just help you relax a little. I thought, maybe, your mind would be more receptive to the weave if you were more relaxed. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to. It will help warm you up, regardless.”
I gazed thoughtfully into the swirling steam, and inhaled the fragrant aroma of the tea, deliberated over the charms of the tea. Finally, I sipped some more and patted the cushion next to me. Nick sat watching me with those incredible blue eyes that pierced into the cool deep green of mine, as if he were trying to read something arcane immersed inside me. I was frozen, but not from the cold. I was mesmerized, fixated on those eyes, his soul so intensely focused on mine. My heart raced, and heat surged through me, radiated to the tips of my fingers and toes.
The warm cup lifted from my grasp but I remained frozen, my eyes locked on his. His fingers sizzled against my cheek. My chest heaved as if I couldn’t get enough air. He slid closer, moistened his lips, and pressed them to my mine with gentle caresses. Fire surged through my body, my lips parted in a sigh. He pulled away from me and pressed his forehead to mine, eyes closed, quiet for a moment. I placed my hand on his chest. “Nick…I…”
“I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Again,”
he said and flopped back against the couch. The lines between his brows deepened in frustration.
“I’m not afraid. Exactly. Not of you.”
“I know.” He tucked my hair behind my ear, and the corners of his mouth twitched up with an embarrassed grin. “I just can’t seem to help myself. You are just so…” he paused searching for words.
“Crazy? Messed up?” I offered.
He chuckled and squeezed my hand. “That too. I was going to say beautiful, amazing, enticing. I’m just—drawn in by you.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Um…” So loquacious.
Nick retrieved the still-warm tea from the coffee table, still chuckling at me. “I’m sorry. I just got a little carried away. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way. I had almost forgotten what it was like to really care for someone; to really feel passion first hand.” His eyes mirrored the winter night sky.
“What do you mean ‘first hand’?”
“Well, to feel another’s passion in a dream or a memory is one thing; while the heart may race, it lacks the actual physiological responses—the surge of adrenalin, the rush of fire that consumes the body in reality. It would be the difference between reading something and experiencing something. It has been many years since I’ve had these kinds of feelings,” he explained. His head and shoulders slumped forward as if carrying a great weight.
“Do I remind you of her?” I wasn’t certain I wanted to know the truth of this one and I knew he would tell me the truth.
He smiled tightly, aware automatically that I meant his wife, Felicia, and shook his head. “No. Not in the least. She was quiet, breakable, fragile in heart and body.”
“Whereas I’m a complete basket case, just as breakable and easily shattered by my circumstances.”
He traced a finger down my wrist and my mind flashed momentarily to the sharp, shiny blade. “Her mild constitution would not have allowed her to endure one tenth of what you have.” His eyes returned from somewhere far away and long ago—her graveside probably. “You are far tougher than you give yourself credit for.”
I laughed. “It’s nice that you can see it. Maybe I’m too close. Or maybe, you’re completely blind and I’m really a hapless puddle on the floor.” He joined my laughter. “Most of the time, I just feel like a victim of some colossal bully trying to exact some sort of cosmic revenge.”
“What? Like God? The Devil?” his brow corrugated.
“No. Nothing like that. I don’t believe that’s God’s style, that He sends bad things to test and punish us. And the Devil? Well, I guess I think people like to give the Devil way more credit for stuff than he deserves. A lot of people say ‘the devil made me do it’. I think they simply made stupid choices and are now having to live with the human consequences of those choices. Their choices are human nature not demonic influence. It’s not that I want to point my finger at someone or something specific to lay the blame on. It’s really more that I feel like a victim these days without any choice of what happens to me.”
“Well,” he said sagely, “then choose not to be a victim anymore.”
Could it really be that simple? Just another choice?
He placed a tender kiss on my forehead and nodded to the cooling cup of tea. “How are you feeling?”
I purred at him like a content feline. “Very relaxed, thank you very much.” My limbs were heavy, my brain uncluttered.
“Perfect. We don’t want you asleep, just relaxed.” He shifted our bodies on the couch so he was half-reclining and I was nestled up against him. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. Our heartbeats slowed, we breathed as one. “Who would you like to visit first? Mom or Dad?”
“Dad,” I whispered, vaguely uncertain.
Nick smiled and withdrew Dad’s pocketknife from his breast pocket. “I think you’ll be very pleased with this one,” he said with a knowing smile. “Close your eyes. Relax,” he crooned. I made a dramatic show of shifting and cuddling into him. He laughed. “Comfy?”
“Mmm hmm,” I hummed, and rubbed my cheek against his chest.
“Ready?”
“I think so.”
“Okay. Here we go,” he said, and placed his hand on my cheek.
My mind plunged into blackness…
It was a scorching Mississippi Delta day. The air was alive with the sound of crickets and katydids, and I was seeing the memories of a ten year old, towheaded boy. Zecharias Sweet, my father. He was wiry and handsome, dressed in rolled up jeans, probably handed down from one of four older brothers, and tied at the waist with a chunk of rope. His back was bare, as always as soon as the weather was warm enough in the spring. His skin, bronzed by the Mississippi sun, mottled with patches of pink on his shoulders, in various stages of blistering and peeling. His feet were bare but callused. He had an easy smile and mischief flickered in his eyes. I had seen that look many times myself, usually preceding some adventure we were about to embark upon.
“My Dad.”
“Yes.” Nick beamed at my enthusiasm.
Little Zecharias crouched on the ground in the shade of a cotton shed. The walls and roof bled rust orange like the buildings at the lumber mill on the way to Dead Man’s Creek. My dad hunched down in the shadow that was barely cooler than out under the direct sun. His browned fingers labored zealously, cutting a strip of rubber from an old auto tire tube with his pocketknife. He had a scrap of leather from the tongue of a discarded work shoe and a forked stick laying on the ground beside him. He was just a kid, too young to use a gun, so he was making a slingshot for his hunting excursions. He crouched for several more moments, using the knife to shape the leather and trim the wood and rubber. He folded the knife shut against his leg and slid it into his pants pocket, then smiled triumphantly at his creation. He tested the hold of the rubber strap and centered the leather, then scooped up a handful of rocks that he shoved into his pockets. He ran into the woods that surrounded the cotton field, his small, flattened feet thudded softly in the powdery fine dirt and puffs of dust erupted from under each footfall.
Little Zecharias searched for the perfect target and found a large leaf dangling from a branch several feet over his head. Loading a stone, he raised the slingshot and closed one eye to take aim. He drew in a breath and held it—then let fly the stone—and missed. Dad would not be discouraged; it was only his first shot, after all. He loaded another stone, and again took one-eyed aim. A miss, but closer. He smirked, confident in his next shot. The third rock soared home as first it tore a hole through the leaf, and then ripped the leaf from the tree. He whooped for joy. He’d done it; created his weapon and sighted it in.
The image blurred and darkened, then crisply refocused on Dad as he practiced his shot. He’d gotten quite good and I was sure some time had passed, that this was not the same sultry Delta day. Something moved in the rocks nearby. He eased himself closer, his body vibrated with tension and excitement as he edged closer to the coil of glistening black stripes that basked in the Mississippi sun. Gravel crunched beneath his feet and he froze.
The pit-viper head arched slowly back, the forked tongue flicked out assessing the danger. The bright white maw gaped open at the center of the coil and needle sharp fangs oozed with lethally poisonous venom. Cottonmouth! I had heard lots of stories about these things. They were dangerous, and noxious; quickly deadly to the body of a gangly barefoot boy.
The gaping white target was what Dad had been waiting for, to know for absolute certain that he was aiming for the head. The rubber thong creaked softly as he pulled it taut, though it groaned like a bear to his hyper-alert hearing. He slowly drew in a breath and held it, then, with a whispered prayer, he let fly the rock. It audibly whizzed through the air and landed with a dull thud smack down the throat of the fierce snake. The head rocked back, jaws and skull crushed. Dad jumped back as the coil twisted and writhed in the dirt until it finally lay limp and still. He loaded another stone and eased up gingerly to the snake, still out of striking distance. Drawing an
other bead, he shot the snake in the head again for good measure. With the use of a long stick, he poked and turned the snake to verify it was truly dead.
Memories of hunted birds and snakes with his trusty slingshot flashed through my mind; days of adventure filled with launching stone after stone at anything that moved and some that did not. I’d swear he must have shot five or ten tons of rock through that sling shot one small stone at a time, and thrilled at every single one.
The vision shifted to the day when he was about twelve and his daddy finally felt he was old enough to handle a gun; and not just handle one, but actually go out on his own and hunt. Grandad unfolded a ratty old cloth and revealed the .22 rifle. Stuffed nervously in his pockets, Dad’s hands squeezed his trusty pocketknife reflexively, as his daddy lectured him on safety and operation and “a gun ain’t no toy. You don’t aim at no one, lest you plan on killin em. And your finger don’t go on the trigger, lest you’re gonna pull it.” Dad barely contained his excitement, barely listened to the words his father spoke. His fingers twitched against the pocketknife, itching to get onto that gun.
Once he got the gun, he spent countless hours hunting small game like squirrels and rabbits. He was often up before dawn, out hunting by himself. In the cool morning air, he could see clouds of white rising in puffs with each breath. He cherished the golden glow of the mornings, the dew glistening on the trees and cotton bolls, the smell of the dew-drenched Delta soil, and the scents of nature the sun’s heat culled from everything it touched.
Some nights, with only the stars and moon for companions, he would don a carbide headlight and creep out to the pitch-black woods that surrounded the farm. Rabbit’s eyes shone like big round coals of fire skittering through the inky dark night, a glowing target.
My vision blurred and refocused again on a Fourth of July community celebration. There were games for the kids, and tables of fresh, home-cooked food, pies and preserves. Men from around the county brought their best “coon” dogs to see which was best at pulling down a big boar raccoon that was chained to a log about thirty feet out in the water of the local swimming hole.
