Damon

by Vanessa Hawkes

  He blinked, and crossed his arms. “There’s a bed. The rest of the stuff can be stacked.”

  My heart began to palpitate. I kept the curtains closed in that room. “How do you know?”

  “I went in and took a look.”

  “I keep that door locked. Always.”

  He shrugged. “The lock was loose, I just took a piece of wood to wedge the jamb back and it pushed right through.”

  Instantly, I was furious. Furious, like I wanted to kill him. This was one of the mental illness signs that always worried me minutes later, but in the moment, I couldn’t make myself care. I wanted to pick up a handful of dirt and throw it in his face. I couldn’t believe him. I wanted to lunge at him and scratch valleys into his face so deep they would leave horrible scars long after the wounds healed. “You have absolutely no respect for other people’s property, do you? You broke into my house!”

  He glanced at my house then frowned. “I just wanted to take a look.”

  “I don’t care what you wanted! You broke into my house.” Every muscle in my body tensed until I burned all over. Mama had said there was a man in the house. She’d been right, for once. “What did you see?”

  He honestly didn’t seem to understand what he’d done. “I saw that the room wasn’t being used.”

  “What else?” I must have looked like a madwoman just then, but he wasn’t intimidated. He remained relaxed and unconcerned.

  “Not much. Saw the house a little. Said hi to your mom.”

  Oh… dear… god…. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. She was just sitting there talking on the phone.”

  After a long, slow, cleansing breath, I had to laugh. I could do nothing else. Although I still felt like attacking him with a shovel. How could he be so… weird?

  Hadn’t he been able to tell the poor woman crouched on the floor clutching a phone to her ear was terrified out of her mind? He must have looked like a monster to her.

  “You can’t do that,” I told him, no messing around. “She’s on medication. She sees things, and misinterprets things. You can’t just go breaking into houses, scaring people half to death. My mother thought you were gonna kill her.”

  “Kill her,” he repeated, jerking his head in surprise. “Why would I kill her?”

  I stared at him, flabbergasted. “When a strange man breaks into your house he’s not usually dropping by for a cup of coffee and a chat. What did you steal from my house?”

  “Nothing,” he said. Then he reached into his pocket. “Well, just this.”

  In his palm, he held my grandmother’s amethyst pendant. Gasping, I snatched the precious piece of jewelry from his hand. Tears of anger and disbelief came to my eyes. “How could you? How could you do that?”

  His eyes instantly turned wild. “I remember that,” he said, “clearly. The old lady used to wear it around her neck. I need that.”

  “You can’t… god!” I needed to scream. “You can’t just take everything in the world you remember! This was my grandmother’s!” And then what he’d done became much worse. “I keep this in a box in my underwear drawer.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “You are dead,” I said, pointing at him as I jogged away. “I’m calling the sheriff. You’re insane, that’s all.”

  I ran in case he decided to follow. God, he really was insane. And I had let him kiss me.

  Yuck!

  I had thought about letting him do more.

  Double yuck!

  I had thought, at least for a minute or two over the past few days, that he might be my soul mate!

  How sleazy and stupid could I be? I couldn’t tell the good ones from the bad ones if my life depended on it.

  When I reached the back porch and had my hand on the doorknob, I looked back, expecting to see him still standing where I’d left him, feeling sorry about what he’d done. Instead, I turned to see his chest just inches from my eyes.

  And then his hand reaching for me.

  I only had time to cripple myself by locking down every response and function of my body before he had hold of my wrist.

  He pulled and I collided with his chest. He closed his arm around my waist, taking my hand behind my back. And I was trapped.

  I thought he intended to kiss me, forcefully, perhaps painfully, and so I winced and turned my head.

  But his lips stopped close to my ear, and his voice, deep and resonant, infiltrated my head.

  “There’s a secret,” he said slowly, “more important than privacy. More important than laws. More important than you. Or me.”

  He released me at once and stepped back. Yet, I felt pinned by the outrageous change in him. He wasn’t the person I had been talking with minutes ago. This new person was full of radiant energy, full of passion and intense focus. Full of fire and ice.

  I had seen my mother change like this a thousand times.

  Insanity is hereditary… insanity is hereditary… insanity is hereditary… little birds chirped in my ear.

  My thoughts began to churn for answers. What if Damon’s grandfather had really been…? What if Gram really had been having an affair and Damon’s grandfather was Mama’s natural father? What if the insanity came from him? Gram and Grampa Harvey had both been perfectly sane, as far as I knew. The insanity had to have come from somewhere.

  From Damon’s grandfather.

  And now Damon had inherited it, too.

  He moved with me as I inched toward the door, but he didn’t try to stop me. He only seemed intent on staying near me, and I knew he would come inside the house if I went inside.

  Mama got this way sometimes, where she wanted to be so near me I could barely move around, staring at me like she wanted to devour me. Sometimes she would grab my arm, or my hair, but most of the time she didn’t touch me.

  I sensed that Damon didn’t intend to touch me, for now. Others might have thought this type of behavior intimidating, but it seemed to me more a way of expressing affection. Even if Mama never let me touch her when she was this way, or speak to her, I knew she wanted attention.

  But there was also a belligerence about it, and any reaction on my part was perceived as an opportunity to bite back.

  So I did what I’d always done. I went about my business. Into the house with Damon close on my heels, first to make sure Mama was still asleep, then into my room to kick off the new shoes that made my feet cramp, and put on my comfy sneakers.

  Damon stood over me while I sat on the bed and tied the laces. I could block him out. I’d had a lifetime of practice.

  In fact, his behavior seemed very familiar and comforting. This was what my life had been like.

  I couldn’t always understand people. But this I could understand.

  He deftly moved out of my way when I strode from the room. I needed to set out something for supper, and call Bella and tell her I wouldn’t be back in today. I couldn’t very well take Damon to the store with me.

  Chester and Bella were of the few people who really knew what my home life was about, and they made concessions for me that I could never hope to repay. They’d promised my grandmother on her deathbed to watch out for me. And they did. I loved them like real grandparents.

  I took out the hamburger I’d defrosted in the fridge and transferred it to a bowl. I lifted the bowl then froze in horror as I realized I was about to drink the blood pooled at the bottom of the bowl, right there in front of Damon.

  Letting out a breath and harshly reminding myself not to act crazy, I dropped the bowl and reached for the phone.

  With one step, Damon beat me to it, and held the receiver firmly against his chest.

  “Who are you calling?” he asked.

  “I need to call the store.”

  “What about the sheriff?”

  Well…. I couldn’t turn him in now that I knew what I knew. Or suspected I knew. I couldn’t turn him in any more than I could turn Mama in for throwing plates or books or hammers at me. He might be family. And my family was
crazy. A simple fact.

  I had to protect them. They had no one else in the world.

  “I’m not calling the sheriff,” I told him. “I need to call the store.”

  He stepped back and listened while I made my call, then he moved to the kitchen table and sat down.

  Now he sat there as if we were old friends, spending some casual time together. He smiled at me and his eyes were clear and pleasant again.

  And then I remembered something important. “Oh, crap. I have to clean the bank tonight.” I took a good look at him, wondering what I could do about this problem. “I fill in for Carrie McMullen when she has to be away. I can’t back out now. I promised her last weekend.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll tag along.”

  “No. You’ll rob the bank.”

  He shrugged, not seeming offended. “Then I’ll stay here.”

  “God.”

  “Do you want to go with white, or try something different?” he asked.

  “With what? Oh, the paint. White. And the shutters hunter green.”

  “I’ll get started on that in the morning.”

  I set about making coffee, needing the caffeine boost to clear my mind. He might actually be doing me a favor, if he knew how to paint. I couldn’t really afford to have the house painted, but I was dead-set on making the outside of the house look nice. Even if it meant going without many things for the next few months, even coffee.

  “I’ll buy the paint,” he said.

  “Good. If I have to feed you and put you up with a room….” And put up with you. I wasn’t feeling very charitable now that I had two nutcases to look after and support. I loved my mother, but she had worn down my good graces over the years.

  “And there are a few other things you can do around here. The bathroom needs caulking. A dozen little things like that. I had to take all the screens off Gram’s old room to replace the ones up front, so those windows are bare. If you open them, bugs will swarm in.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Easy to fix.”

  “And you’ll stay out of my room. No exceptions.”

  He stared at me, and didn’t agree.

  “Either stay out of my room or get out of my house.”

  He crossed his arms and hiked his ankle up on his other knee. “I’ll stay out of there in the evening.”

  “All the time,” I demanded. “I have to have one safe place in this world. One place all my own.”

  “I might want to take a look in there.”

  “That’s exactly why I don’t want you in there. Damon, god, I don’t want you snooping around in my things. It’s creepy. And really, really, unattractive. Besides, you’ve already seen it all.” That notion gave me chills. “I won’t forgive you for that.”

  “I didn’t see everything.”

  “You were in my panty drawer!”

  “Just for a minute.”

  “You’re conniving,” I told him, forcing my voice into a light, lilting song. “You’re baiting me and I won’t respond. You think I’ve never seen anything like you. I see it every day. You’re no original.”

  I turned my back on him and concentrated on deciding what to do with the hamburger. A casserole would go farthest with three people. I took down my grandmother’s recipe file.

  “I’m not who you think I am,” he said.

  His voice sounded odd, distracted, and I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not like her.” He pointed into the living room.

  Realizing what he meant, I rushed to look around the corner. There stood Mama in her nightgown, staring at the stranger at the table. She was extremely relaxed and glazed, swaying where she stood.

  “Are you up?” I asked her, rushing to wipe away the drool slipping down the corner of her mouth before Damon saw. “Why don’t you sit in your chair, Mama? You’re still half-asleep.”

  “Who’s the fella at the table?” she asked.

  “He’s an old friend. He won’t hurt you. His name is Damon.”

  I sat her in her recliner and propped her feet up, then covered her legs with her afghan. “Sit here till you wake up. Supper’s in about two hours.”

  “Okay, pretty face,” she said softly. I handed her the TV remote but she was content to just sit and listen to the voices in her head. They couldn’t harm her when she had her medication.

  “Thirsty?”

  “I drank from the sink,” she whispered.

  Damon watched me as I returned to the kitchen. “Need me to peel the potatoes?” he asked.

  His question almost slipped past me. “How did you know what I’m planning?”

  “I can read your mind. I’m telepathic.”

  Oh really? “That’s a scary thought.”

  “You think I’m weird,” he said. “Though it doesn’t take a mind reader to guess that. Everybody thinks I’m weird. I can deal with that. But I’m not like her. I’m not sick. I know exactly what’s going on. I see everything.”

  Yeah, sure, whatever. I didn’t feel like talking about Mama’s illness. “Where is your car?”

  “In the garage.”

  Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d obviously decided to move in the second he’d found the house. “Did you rearrange the spare room?”

  “I just stacked the boxes and stuff. Put my things away. Made the bed.”

  I had to stop searching recipes and look at him. “How long were you in this house today?”

  He shrugged. “Half hour. An hour, maybe.”

  “I don’t believe you. That scares the daylights out of me. What if you’d been…? My mother was here all by herself.”

  “I know. I saw her. I said hi.”

  “How’d you find the house so fast?”

  He grinned rather sheepishly. “I already knew where it was.”

  “Then why did you act like you didn’t?”

  “I wanted you to bring me here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you leaving the first day I got here. I followed you to town and saw where you worked. Then I waited for you to talk to me.”

  “You mean….” I walked over to stand by the table. “You were sitting out there day after day because of me?”

  “Sure,” he said, as if his actions were perfectly normal.

  “Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

  “You wouldn’t have trusted me,” he said.

  “I don’t trust you now. You lied to me. And acted really… weird.”

  He shrugged. “I’m telling the truth now.”

  “I don’t get you,” I said and turned away. I needed bread. I didn’t have any bread in the house. And I couldn’t find a can of cream of mushroom soup for the casserole.

  “You do have a pretty face,” he said. “The prettiest I’ve ever seen.”

  I sent him an annoyed glance. I wasn’t easily flattered. I’d heard it all before.

  “I want you,” he said with a dark seriousness. “You are life. Life and blood and heat and… wonderful.”

  Oh god. I did have a bit of the crazy gene in me because his suggestive statement made me go weak in the knees.

  “You’re my cousin. Don’t say things like that.”

  “I’m not your cousin.”

  Apparently, he hadn’t come to the same conclusions I had. “We might have the same grandfather – biologically. My grandmother was sleeping with him. And my mother….”

  “She’s not his.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Your mother is over fifty.”

  “She’s fifty, even. So what?”

  He sighed then smiled with patience. “My grandfather was out of the country between 1960 and 1965. Your mother was born two years after he left.”

  “Gone out of the country where?”

  “Just gone. He worked for an oil company. He traveled a lot back then.”

  “So, what, you took the time to do the math?”

  “I wondered, the same as you. My dad’s like her
. Sick.”

  “Your dad’s sick?” I pointed toward the living room. “Like her, sick?”

  He shrugged and nodded. “Pretty much. He’s lived in a hospital for as long as I can remember. That’s why Granddad raised me.” He looked at me then, and realized he was only further convincing me we were related. “But I was adopted.”

  “No, you weren’t.” I knew this to be fact. No agency in the country would have given my mother a child to adopt and if his father was sick enough to live in a psychiatric hospital, then he was worse off than my mother. Damon had apparently been with his grandfather at least since he was five years old - putting spiders on my face.

  Not much had changed, metaphorically speaking.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m not adopted. But we’re not related. I’d be able to tell. And I can prove Granddad was out of the country when I said he was. I have papers and letters to my grandmother, still in the envelopes. Postmarked. If we’re related, it goes back farther than our grandparents. And then, it doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “Hmm.” I wasn’t sure I believed him, but supposing he was telling the truth, it cleared up a few things. And made a few things more complicated. I couldn’t decide if it meant Damon was still crazy, or… if I was the one. Or neither of us. Or both.

  And did that mean I was still interested in starting something with him? My head began to throb.

  “I need to go to the grocery store,” I told him. “I don’t have everything for the casserole.”

  He stood up and blocked my path when I headed for the archway. I stepped to the side to go around him and he moved in front of me again. “Move,” I said.

  He did move, to put one arm around my waist, and to lift my chin with his finger. He gazed into my eyes, seeming to be reading my mind, just as he’d claimed. “Let me come to your room tonight,” he whispered.

  No, that was out of the question… probably.

  He pulled me closer, until the heat of his chest burned into my breasts, and his breath tickled my lips. “I want to be with you, and hold you close, and discover life again. I’ve been lost for so long.”

  I tried to push him away - a pathetic attempt because I really didn’t want him to let go of me. I was almost hypnotized by his heat and energy, and when he lowered his head to trail soft kisses over my neck, I lost all willpower.