by Reiss, CD
The porch light snapped off.
My father opened his car door and got in. The headlights bathed the driveway in light, getting smaller and smaller as he headed away from the house and turned onto Dandelion Road.
Chris didn’t come out until the crickets and night birds filled the air with sound again. He was going to call to me and my mother could hear. My parents’ room, the one I was about to paint any color I wanted, was on the other side of the house, but I couldn’t risk getting caught.
I lifted the screen and leaned out. I wanted to say this once and I wanted to be heard. “Wait for me.”
I closed the window before he could answer. I put on a robe and shoes with soft soles. I was sure they looked ridiculous with my nightgown, but I didn’t want to get fully dressed.
If I had on pants and a shirt, I could leave with him right away. We could steal into the night. Never see Barrington again.
Pants. All I needed was a full set of clothing and I’d be ready.
I’d be free.
Without really deciding it, I pulled my nightgown over my head and kicked off the shoes. Jeans. Bra. Clean dark blue T-shirt that would disappear in the dark of night. Socks. Sneakers for running far away.
I stopped before I closed the door.
There was something else.
I stood on a chair to get to the top shelf of the closet to retrieve a shoebox. Inside were photos of Harper and me. A spelling bee medal. An old pearl pin from Grandma. And an envelope. Flipping open the flap, I checked the contents. Seven hundreds, each from Grandpa on my dad’s side. One for each birthday I had before he died. Two twenties earned for the two times I squeaked by with all As. A few singles from the few times I thought I’d put away some money.
Seven hundred forty-nine dollars got stuffed into my back pocket.
I knew where the creaky floorboards were. I tiptoed around them. I had to go past my parents’ suite to get to the stairs, but they usually slept with the door closed. I jumped when I heard a squeak and a breath from the spare room. The door was open halfway.
Someone was in there, and it wasn’t Harper.
Careful.
So careful.
I got past without a complaint from a single floorboard. Now, the suite would appear and I’d have to just be quiet…
But the door was open and the room was empty.
A second parent was somewhere in the house and I was wearing jeans and sneakers as if I was ready to run away. If I’d stayed in my robe, I could have said I was going downstairs to get a glass of water or something.
Okay, well. This was going to be what it was.
I went downstairs, skipping the loose boards. I left through the side door and went to the front, where Chris was. He must have known I was coming that way, because he met me halfway and kissed me before I could get a word in.
“I’ve been going crazy.” He stopped long enough to speak, but not long enough to listen. He was all hunger.
I had to push him away. I put my finger to my lips and pointed up at the guest room window, then at the backyard. We tiptoed to the back like thieves. He led me past the white fence, into the cemetery. Past Hubert and Edith Barrington. Past Timothy Barrington, who built the house in his old age, His young wife, Alice, and his dead child, Frieda. We crouched behind Richard, who had been buried by the river before the house was even built.
Between two rosebushes where it was dark as a cave, Chris and I kneeled with our arms around each other.
“Do you swear you’re all right?” I asked. He looked fine. I touched his face and didn’t feel a bruise or bump.
“Nothing I can’t handle. How are you? Your eyes are swollen.”
“It’s horrible. Everything’s just horrible. I can’t take another minute.”
He held my jaw on both sides and looked into my face. “You can. You’re strong.”
I’d never thought of myself as strong. I only did what was easiest. Doing what I was told was easier than thinking about what I wanted. Chris was the only rule I’d ever broken because once he flirted with me at the club, he was too hard to stay away from. Once he kissed me, I didn’t have the strength to refuse him.
“Only because of you,” I said.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble. I’m sorry I came.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I couldn’t wait.”
“I’m ready. I don’t need anything. We can just leave. Right now.”
He pulled away, keeping his hands on my shoulders. I could barely see the whites of his eyes in the moonlight, but his voice was clear and urgent. “No, Rin. This is never going to be right between us.”
“What?”
Was he breaking up with me? Had he lied? Had I given a liar my body?
“If we run away, I’m ruining your life. We’re going to be two poor kids with nothing. Living on the street. Something has to change and I have to be the one to change it.”
“What are you going to change? My family isn’t changing. Barrington isn’t changing.”
“But I can change.”
“Change into what? A rich man? Here? Pruning rosebushes?” I was sorry I said it the moment the words left my mouth. They were all true, but certain truths were unspoken.
Chris didn’t seem hurt. His expression confirmed that we understood the same truths. “Not here.”
“Where? I don’t understand. You just said we weren’t leaving.”
When he slid his palms off my face and folded my hands into his, I knew what he intended to do.
“You can’t leave me here,” I said.
“I have to. Your parents are right. I’m not worthy of you. I have nothing to offer you.”
The bushes closed in on me. The sky got low, the house inched closer, the river hemmed me in.
“Yes, you do.” A sob choked back the rest of the sentence. What about happiness? What about love? What about two people making something out of nothing? “What about Lance?”
“I’ll take him with me.”
“Me too. Take me too.”
“You have to finish here. It doesn’t matter if I drop out of school,” he said, trying to be comforting, “but you—”
“I need to graduate?” I couldn’t let him finish his lie. “For what? Why does it even matter? I’m not Harper. I’m coasting.”
He squeezed my hands so hard it hurt. I cried for real, but not because of the pain. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to be pressed so hard my bones broke and the agony leaked through the cracks.
“I’m coming back,” he said. “I’ll get something going and come back for you.”
“When?”
“Soon. I swear it.”
Soon?
Barrington was a prison. What was soon to its prisoners?
And if he wanted to go, why would I keep him here? Why wouldn’t I let him save himself? Why wouldn’t I want better for him?
In that, I found a little bit of strength. It came from the same place as the double-dog-dare I’d laid on my parents that afternoon. I wanted to be with him. I needed him to come back, but setting him free to become all the great things he wanted to be was a source of power.
“Chris Carmichael.” The tears stopped as if I’d twisted the faucet. I pulled my hands out of his, and he looked up in surprise and a little fear. “I swear to you, right now, and I mean it, I am not going to be with anyone else. I am here the same as always. So if you go off and do whatever? Change? Get a job? Find someone else?”
“I won’t.”
“Shush. If you do, you’d better write me and set me free, because I’m waiting for you.”
“Okay.”
“Say you understand.”
“I understand.”
“Say you’ll tell me right away if there’s someone else.”
“I’ll… there’s no—”
“Chris!” I said through my teeth. “Say it!”
“Catherine Barrington, I swear that if I lose my mind and find someone else, or maybe, like,
if an army of winged wild monkeys hold—”
“Winged monkeys?” I laughed as I wiped my eyes.
“Or feral unicorns.”
“How far away are you going?” I tried to laugh quietly and ended up crying. He held me tight and kissed my hair. I rested my head on his shoulder.
“If I’m insane, or trapped, or if I’m possessed by the devil, I might come across another woman who’s entirely wrong for me. Before I commit to a lifetime of misery with her, I’ll set you free.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
What now? Was he going to walk away and leave me behind a gravestone?
I wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t going to turn his back on me.
I stood. He got to his feet and tried to touch me, but I pushed him away. I wanted to frustrate him. Let him feel what I was feeling before he went off to make himself into a man.
“I’m going in the house,” I said. “Please stay here until you’re sure I’m in bed. Wait as long as you can. Then just go.”
“Can I kiss you good-bye?”
“Promise you’ll take care of yourself.”
“I promise.”
He leaned in for a kiss, but I pushed him away. When I leaned back, I felt the stiff mass of money in my pocket. My hand shot back to make sure it didn’t fall out.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want some last kiss you have to appreciate. You should have known the last one was going to be the last.”
“You’re punishing me?”
I slid the envelope out of my back pocket. “Here.” I slapped his chest with it.
“What…?” He opened it and thrust it back at me. “I can’t take this.”
“How much do you have on you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not taking it.”
“You are. If you fail, you don’t come back. I’m invested in your success.”
He wavered, then came back to his original answer. “No.”
“It’s been sitting in my closet.”
“I said no!”
“It’s my guarantee!” I hissed. “You’ll come back to pay me if nothing else. Even though I don’t need it, because I live in a mansion with a staff and everything, you’ll get back here to pay back a stupid seven hundred and forty-nine dollar loan. So take it or I’m going to think you want to cut me out of this deal entirely.”
I snapped the envelope out of his hand and stuck it down his shirt. He laughed.
“Fine. But this is a guarantee,” he said. “I pay my debts. I’m coming back with the money and more.”
“Okay.”
“And when I do, I’m bringing you a rose for every dollar.”
“Just don’t take them out of this garden or Mom’s going to freak out.”
He smiled. “Okay, deal.”
“Deal.”
We had nothing left to say. I sucked my lips between my teeth to fill the vacuum where words should have been. I already felt a little more distant, a little more cut off, a little more alone.
“Stay here until I’m in my room,” I said.
I stepped back but couldn’t do it. Whatever strength I had wasn’t enough to deny my own need to kiss him. I had all the strength I needed because of him, but none to stay away from him.
Clutching the back of his shirt, his fingers in my hair, the force of his body against mine, I thought if I could just enter him, crawl inside him, he could take me along. Maybe that dream could happen. Two people making it work despite all the odds.
When I told myself the truth—that no matter how much I wanted to be with him every second, the odds were bad for a reason—I pulled away.
“You’re going to wait here, right?” I asked.
“Yes.” His arms relaxed and fell away.
“I love you,” I said, stepping back until I could see all of him.
“I love you too. Always.”
Not another word. Not another kiss or breath. Not another sight.
He’d forever be in the back of my family cemetery with his hands reaching for me and his lips claiming an eternity he didn’t own.
I ran to the house without looking back.
* * *
I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t hear him leave and I didn’t check.
In the morning, the back of my great-grandfather’s headstone had a crude picture of an animal with wings and message scratched into it.
Not even winged monkeys
Not even.
Part II
Chapter 18
CHRIS
Dear Chris,
Your letter came as a surprise. It’s wonderful to hear from you after all these years. How they’ve flown by!
I’d arranged for Lance to be buried on Friday morning. The body had been transferred. The plot purchased. A little stone tablet would say Lancelot Carmichael, Brave Knight. Marked territory in Barrington and New York City, 2004-2017.
Just because Catherine didn’t want me wasn’t enough reason to insult Lance’s memory. And maybe I’d find a reason to knock on her door and see if she was home.
I flew into the landing strip outside town and took a cab into Doverton, where the club had a car for me. I didn’t tell the driver who I was or why I was there, sure that I was as anonymous as I’d always been. My life in Barrington had been in the shadows, behind hedges, forgotten and never known by anyone but the girl in the tree. The girl on my lips. Catherine of the Roses.
As we passed Barrington, I saw the roofline of the factory her father had owned. Nothing new had popped up. No new businesses or signs. Exactly the same.
I could have asked the driver to make the turn onto the factory service road. I could have walked over the bridge to her house or pulled right up to her front door.
I am so sorry to hear about Lance. I think burying him at home is the right thing. I know Joan buried Galahad on Wild Horse Hill. You should get a space nearby.
The letter was so cold I could feel her effort to contain herself inside the page. I thought about why and knew it wasn’t anything as simple as another man. If there was someone, she’d invite me to dinner with him and we’d reminisce about everything but the way she gave me her body. There was more to it, and it was obvious. I’d written to her until I stopped. Those letters might have meant something to her, and I’d stopped because I needed a response she might not have been able to give. I’d abandoned her. I had no right to her. She wasn’t obligated to save me from a meaningless life I hated.
Though it would be great to see you, I’ll be unavailable while you’re here.
She was unequivocal, and she had me dead to rights. It had taken me four years to get out of the gutter and another two to make real money. I could have come to her a hundred times, but it was never enough. I was nursing some old wound where I wasn’t good enough. Never good enough.
So there I was. Not good enough because I’d waited too long to be good enough.
She was right there, over that little crest of land, behind the factory that had closed eleven years before.
Not waiting. I should have known. Why would she wait? It wasn’t long after I left that she started dating Frank Marshall, the best-dressed kid in our grade. I should have given up on her then, but I couldn’t.
I could go see her. Nothing was stopping me. She could tell me she didn’t want me to my face. She owed me that.
She didn’t.
Since Lance had been from Johnny’s litter, I left him a message with the details. I didn’t know if he’d even remember me.
The roses were being trimmed outside the club’s café. An older man with a floppy hat covering his brown skin was doing an efficient and more than adequate job of it. I went in for an early dinner and took a table overlooking the bushes. A few flowers braved the autumn temperatures. Even through the glass, I could hear the pock pock of tennis balls.
I was a paper cutout of a sixteen-year-old boy, sloppily taped onto the page of his life thirteen years later. Or maybe I was the hedge fund manager tripping into the
scene of a play he’d starred in as a boy.
“Chris Carmichael?” A woman in a navy suit stood over me with my Coke. She put it in front of me and folded her hands in front of her. She had a blond bob and fresh red lipstick. She looked nothing like the girl I’d known when I worked the grounds, but I recognized her anyway.
“Marsha!” I stood and shook her hand. She pulled me forward and embraced me. I pulled out a chair for her, and she sat. “I didn’t think anyone would recognize me.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly,” she said. “I saw your name in the registration log.”
“Really?”
“I’m part owner here now, so I check it daily to make sure everything’s taken care of. I couldn’t believe it when I saw your name. How far you’ve come from biking all the way here from Barrington!”
“Yeah, and you.” I indicated the breadth of the club. “Part owner?”
She waved it away. “It was invest in something or starve.”
When we were kids, I’d thought people like Marsha had infinite resources, but as a man, I learned better. Anything could be lost.
“Good investment then.”
She put her elbows on the table and leaned over her folded hands. “What brings you back?”
I’d come for two reasons, and both sounded ridiculous when repeated.
“My dog died. He was born here, so I figured I’d bury him here. Up at Wild Horse Hill.”
“Aw, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes flicked to my left hand. She was looking for a ring. I saw hers. The diamond was the size of a gumball. “My daughter buried her bunny up there.”
“You have children?”
“Two by my first husband. Mattie and Oliver. You have any?”
“No.” The shortness of the answer begged for clarification. I had nothing to lose by making conversation, except time. “Never got around to finding the right woman.”
