by Mata Elliott
Cassidy refused to crumple in despair. “When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock,” she whispered. She shoved aside the covers and switched on the bedside lamp, erasing the darkness. Sticky with cold perspiration, an extra-large T-shirt clung to her skin. She went to the bureau and pulled out a clean shirt. This one had the name “La Salle” across the front. After walking out on a four-year scholarship to Tilden, she completed her undergrad and grad courses at the locally based La Salle University, funding tuition and books with loans, part-time jobs, and ultimately a chunk of Odessa’s life savings because Odessa wouldn’t have it any other way.
Cassidy sat on the bed and plowed her shaky fingers through her hair. The scarf she’d used to contain her hair had come off during her fitful sleep. She tied the scarf back on her head and stared at the bold red clock numbers. It was after one o’clock. Concerned she might slip back into the lair of the nightmare, Cassidy wouldn’t attempt to sleep again, not right away. Sometimes a warm drink helped her mellow, and she eased into her all-season robe and trod downstairs.
No chamomile available, Cassidy chose a peppermint tea bag and dunked it into a mug of hot, bubbling water. As the unsweetened liquid cooled, she switched on the radio, finding shelter under an umbrella of classical music. She lifted the mug and settled at the table. She and Odessa had shared many good times in this room, at this table, especially when Cassidy was of elementary school age. On any given afternoon, while waiting for a pie to bake, a pan of bread to rise, or a bowl of beans to soak, they sat and had tea parties or clipped coupons or did cross-stitch patterns. Cassidy looked up at the wall above the table. A large wood-framed stitching, sewn by Odessa when her eyesight had been sharper, read, “As for me and my house, we will eat a home-cooked meal.”
Cassidy swallowed a first sip of tea, and the warm flavored water kissed the length of her throat. She peered around the room, finding additions to the quaint kitchen setting tonight—vestiges of Trevor Monroe. Several boxes of cereal, sugar-sweetened brands she’d never consider buying, lined the top of the refrigerator. And on the counter, a jar filled with jelly beans set her face in a grimace.
Stroking one bare foot with the other, Cassidy gazed through the vapor and into her tea. Her mind returned to the nightmare.
She jumped in the river, joining the little boy. They laughed as they smacked the water with their hands, splashing each other. Suddenly, the boy’s laughter turned to cries as the river pulled him away. “Help, help,” he wailed, his small arms thrashing like the wings of a bird that couldn’t get off the ground.
Cassidy began swimming toward him, but the faster she swam, the larger the distance between them grew. “I’m coming,” she cried. “Hold on, hold on.”
“Help me, please, help me.” The child’s pitiful calls sounded more like echoes now.
“Hold on,” Cassidy screamed, although the child had disappeared.
Trevor and Brenda were barefoot, the beach sand filtering between their toes. A light wind whistled under the hem of Brenda’s long white dress, and the fabric billowed like a sail. The same friendly wind wafted through Trevor’s open white shirt. Laughing, hands locked, they cantered to where shore met sea, and the waves lapped at their ankles.
Trevor pulled Brenda into his arms. As their bodies molded, he became oblivious to the sand, waves, and wind. He was conscious only of Brenda, an angel, warm against him. He closed his eyes as his lips caressed hers. The tender trail stretched to her jaw, her neck, her shoulder. Trevor couldn’t keep his lids shut any longer. He had to see her. Had to behold the beauty he was about to cuddle with on the sand. He opened his eyes . . .
Trevor came awake, shooting from the chair with enough force to send it rolling into the wall behind with a powerful punch. Decayed paint loosened from the wall and rained to the floor, sounding like the patter of a million tiny feet. Trevor gripped the edge of the desk, his fingertips stinging from the pressure while he reluctantly rewound to the final frame of his dream.
He had been kissing Brenda, but when he opened his eyes to see her lovely face, it wasn’t Brenda he held. It wasn’t Brenda he desired.
“Cassidy,” he whispered.
Someone had turned the light off. Forced to feel his way up the darkened basement stairwell, Trevor groped through the blackness, stumbling along the way, smacking his knee on the wooden stair, then scratching his hand on something unidentifiable. “Ouch,” he hissed. Displeasure tightening his face, he rounded the doorway to the kitchen and found Cassidy. Her eyes flashed aggression as she stood holding an aluminum bat, poised to take a swing at his head.
A perceptible sigh rushed through her lips, and she relaxed her arms, lowering her weapon. “Oh, it’s just you,” she stated, leaving him to speculate on whether she was relieved he wasn’t an intruder or disappointed it was him. “I would have left the light on if I’d known you were down there.” Her expression showed complete disregard, yet her tone had softened, and he decided she was telling the truth. She returned the bat to its place between the baker’s rack and the microwave cart and tied another knot in the belt of her robe before approaching the table.
Trevor filled a bowl with milk and cereal, then moseyed in Cassidy’s direction. Her gaze was fixed on her cup, and he presumed she would prefer he take his bowl upstairs or at least sit at the island on one of the two stools. “I’ll take this seat,” he said, then pulled out a chair and placed his bowl on the vinyl tablecloth. Cassidy slid her mug closer to herself and straightened her back, and Trevor lowered himself to the chair thinking he’d seen mannequins less tense than this woman.
He dipped his spoon and brought up a hill of cereal. He chewed with his mouth closed, but the room was so quiet he was sure Cassidy could hear him crunching. Poopie brushed against his ankle, and Trevor scratched her between the ears, keeping his scrutiny within the boundaries of Cassidy’s face. Some of her features Trevor had noticed before, like the slightly pronounced cheekbones many models would date the devil for. Other features, like the pencil-point mole on the bridge of her nose, he was discovering for the first time. “Are you all right? Your eyes are red.” There were several crinkled napkins on the table, and Trevor believed she had been crying.
“I’m fine,” she said to her unfinished tea.
“Well, if you want to talk,” he said smoothly, “I’m a good listener. And if you want to pray, I’ve been successful in getting a few through.” He bounced his eyebrows and noted that his ploy to lighten her load had elicited from her only a sealed-lips smile.
Cassidy spoke to the tea again. “No. But thanks.”
Trevor put down the spoon, reached the short distance, and slipped his fingertips between her hand and the cup. He felt a tremor pulse through her palm as she watched him through large, baffled eyes. Considering the dream he’d just awakened from, he thought he would want to stay as far away from Cassidy as possible. But here he was, holding her hand. It had been a bold move, but one he could honestly say felt right as he said a short, silent prayer for her.
In a voice that lowered with each word, she said, “I think I’ll go upstairs now.”
“Before you go, there’s something I need to say.”
“Daddy,” Brandi called out, bringing the moment to an abrupt standstill. Cassidy ripped her hand from his as his little girl trudged toward the table, accompanied by a stuffed sandy-brown bear, half her size, led by its ear.
Trevor backed his chair away from the table and hurried to meet his daughter before she tripped over the hem of the nightgown that once belonged to Brittney and was still a bit big for Brandi. He lifted her into his arms. Brandi rested her head on his shoulder, retaining a grip on her bear. Trevor caressed Brandi’s back, cognizant of the smile in Cassidy’s expression as she watched them.
“Can I get in your bed, Daddy?” Brandi whined. “I’ll tell you a sleepy-time story.”
“Okay.” He smiled and kissed her nose.
Cassidy transported her cup to the sink as he offered Brandi warm
milk. “I want you to wait upstairs,” he said, putting Brandi on the floor. He filled her Snoopy mug with milk and placed it in the microwave.
“I’m going that way.” Cassidy smiled at Brandi. “We can walk together.”
Brandi looked as if she were about to pop with approval. “Do you want to hold my bear? His name is Sammy.”
Cassidy’s posture was perfect as she passed Trevor without a glance. “I’d love to hold Sam . . .”
Her voice dwindled to silence as Trevor reached and circled her wrist, slowing her hurried exit. She sent a derisive gaze to the hand on her arm, then threw the same to his face. Trevor uncurled his fingers and mulled over why a woman who only a few minutes prior had accepted his touch suddenly found it repulsive. “Sweetheart,” he called to Brandi, “take Sammy on up and tuck him in. Daddy needs to speak with Cassidy.”
“Will you come and say good night to Sammy and me?”
Cassidy cradled Brandi’s chin. “I’ll be up soon.”
His baby out of the kitchen, Trevor gave Cassidy his full gaze and said what he had been on the brink of saying at the table. “It’s a week late, but I owe you an apology. Brandi and I had no idea you were in the bathroom. We didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I wasn’t frightened,” Cassidy asserted a bit too frantically for it to be believable. She put calm in her next sentence. “I was surprised.”
“Then . . . I’m sorry we surprised you.”
“Well, I am accustomed to the privacy of my bathroom.”
“You don’t have a problem with me using the same bathroom as you, do you?”
She raised her face to him. “Actually, I do.”
He felt a strong impulse to laugh at Cassidy’s frown. But he kept a straight face and pulled a container of cocoa from the cupboard. It would make a nice treat, since Brandi loved anything chocolate. “Then I have good news,” he said. He took the mug from the microwave and stirred in the cocoa.
Cassidy uncrossed her arms and appeared relieved. “Thank you for deciding to use the third-floor bathroom instead of mine.”
“When did I decide that?” He stood in front of her, the mug of hot chocolate between them. Lowering his head and voice, Trevor leaned in close and said near Cassidy’s ear, “My good news is that I’ll always knock first. That way you’ll have plenty of time to grab a towel if you don’t have that T-shirt handy.”
Shock turned to fury on Cassidy’s face. “Move,” she ordered. When he didn’t budge, she seemed to deliberate pushing past him, but realized this might jar the cup, risking burns for one or both of them. She squared her shoulders and retaliated with words. “Anyone with a third of a brain knows not to give a child who can’t sleep chocolate milk. The sugar and the caffeine in the cocoa will simply make her fidgety.”
Trevor lowered his eyes to the hot chocolate before returning to Cassidy’s faultfinding gaze. He thought she looked sexy in her scarf, and for a moment, he thought about pulling it from her head just to see what she would do. Cassidy’s neck-cradling, ankle-shading robe also appealed to Trevor in a way he hadn’t expected. The cottony-looking garment, colored in the blue family, gave her the appearance of being wrapped in a piece of twilight-time sky. But right now the stare “Sky” was giving him was anything but heavenly. The woman’s pupils were pitchforks. Not wanting things to get out of hand, he stepped aside, careful not to step on Sky’s pretty polished toes.
“There’s one more thing,” Cassidy said, her tone still tetchy. “In the future, I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from walking around like that.”
He squinted in confusion. “Like what?”
“Naked,” she said sharply, and hurled a glare of disapproval toward his bare chest.
He taunted her with a grin. “This isn’t naked for a man. In order to be naked”—he tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants—“I’d have to take off—”
“That’s enough, Trevor,” she scolded, and turned away.
He chuckled and followed her to the top of the stairs. “Don’t forget you promised to tuck my daughter in, Sky.” He rumbled the nickname much deeper than the other words.
Her voice snapped through the air with the spunk of a whip. “What did you call me?”
Finished teasing Cassidy for now, he gave her a dense stare and strolled away. He found Brandi nestled between the sheets, Sammy tucked in on one side. “You were almost asleep. Maybe we should save this for morning,” he suggested, setting the cocoa on the stand beside the bed. He didn’t know if it was myth or fact that sugar made kids hyper, but if Brandi were to drink something now, she’d be peeing the rest of the night.
“I was not almost asleep,” his daughter whimpered, rubbing droopy eyes with small fists.
“You looked just like a sleeping doll to me.” Cassidy positioned herself on the edge of the bed. “I have an idea. Why don’t I tell you a sleepy-time story?”
Tired from a demanding workday and from being up so late, Trevor was thankful Brandi acquiesced without tears, pouting, or additional whining. He eased the cup of untouched cocoa off the table and returned to the kitchen. He washed Brandi’s mug along with the things he and Cassidy had dirtied, confounded by the magnitude of his attraction to Cassidy. Only one other woman had ever stirred him like this. “Brenda,” he whispered, hoping that when he fell asleep, his darling wife would meet him again in his dreams.
chapter eleven
Cassidy!” A quartet of girls from the neighborhood squealed and ran toward her.
Cassidy smiled at the seven- through eleven-year-olds. Their skin tones ranged from the darkest of chocolate to French vanilla.
“Look at my necklace,” one said after hugging Cassidy. She pointed to the rope of bright beads around her neck. “I made it myself, and I’m making one just like it for my mom.”
“It’s beautiful,” Cassidy exclaimed. The smallest of the girls continued to hang on to Cassidy. Crumbs circled her mouth, and some of them were sticking to Cassidy’s coordinating cotton shirt and pants. Accustomed to having crumbs and marker stains and snot from runny noses rubbed into her clothing, Cassidy continued to grin.
The girl smiled up at Cassidy. “I’m going to make you a bracelet.”
“You should put lots of pink in it,” her friend recommended, “so it’ll match her outfit.”
The girl beamed in agreement. “I’ll have it ready for you when you get home.”
The girls dashed back to the steps of the house where they’d been sitting, and Cassidy walked to the corner, increasing her pace until she reached the speed she wanted to maintain. A swift walk three times a week was her prime method of exercise, and although Germantown had its share of unkempt properties and streets, a walk through the area was especially rewarding on sunny afternoons like this one. The predominantly black, predominantly working-class neighborhood was a city within a city, and there was much to appreciate if you took the time. Within a ten-block radius sat several elite private schools and a host of historic house museums. One of her favorites, located on the same street as Charity Community Church, had once been a stop on the Underground Railroad. A lively shopping district comprised of numerous thrift and antique shops stretched up and down Germantown Avenue. Cassidy often frequented the thrift stores, on the lookout for scarves and hats and mittens she would give out during the winter to students who were without.
Today Cassidy stopped at the bank, the post office, and the produce market. She weaved through the heavy volume of Saturday shoppers, past the farm-fresh eggs and around a huge ring of fruit and vegetables. She ended up in front of a display of jarred preserves, boxed baked goods, and see-through canisters packed with nuts.
“Ah, Cas-si-dy, how are you?”
Cassidy always smiled at the way Gabriel divided her name into syllables. “I’m fine, Gabriel. And you?”
He laughed, his baritone thundering over the countertop. “As long as the Father above affords me breath, I have no grievances. What will you have today?”
“The usu
al,” she requested of the sturdy black-bearded Amish gentleman in the straw hat. He opened a plastic bag and scooped from a well of almonds. Remembering that Brittney and Brandi were staying at the house, Cassidy quickly changed the order to a half pound, more than enough to share, and better for them than the sweets their father provided.
“Anything else?” Gabriel twisted a tie on the almond-fattened bag.
“A quarter of walnuts and quarter of pistachios . . . unsalted.” She would have a broader offering in case the sisters didn’t like one or the other. “I don’t see Beatrice today,” Cassidy mentioned while waiting.
“There’s a good reason for that.” He boomed, “My wife is going to make me a father this winter. She had morning sickness today and couldn’t make it.”
Cassidy was sure she’d never seen Gabriel smile so. She congratulated the proud father-to-be, elated for anyone who found joy in the prospects of parenting.
“How awful,” Lena was saying as Cassidy entered the kitchen, returning from her walk. There was an open container of strawberry yogurt on the table, and the spoon in Lena’s hand was poised to dip.
“What’s so awful?” Cassidy dropped her bag of nuts on the kitchen counter.
“Mother Vale was telling me how she isn’t feeling the best. She’s unsure if she’ll be able to go out this evening.”
Cassidy sat at the table with Odessa and Lena. She checked Odessa’s forehead for warmth. Cassidy couldn’t recall the last time Odessa had something as mundane as a cold. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Well . . . yes . . . there is something you may be able to help with.”
Cassidy expected to be asked to run an errand or heat some soup. Waiting for instructions, she began removing the pink and purple bracelet her young neighbor had tied on her wrist. The beaded jewelry was cutting off her circulation.
