by Tom Deady
She stopped at the threshold, staring at the empty rocking chair. Somehow, Slade’s disappearance did not come as a surprise. Sometime after hearing the unearthly scream while she was destroying the stone, she had realized his presence was gone. It was like a headache going away. You can’t identify the moment it’s gone, at some point it just is.
The plastic ties lay strewn beside the chair, streaked with Slade’s blood. She stoked the dying embers of the fire back to life and threw the ties in, ignoring the noxious odor of melting plastic. She noticed Slade’s business card was no longer on the table. She was dismayed when she realized Zadie’s journal was gone as well. Had Slade taken it, or thrown it into the flames before he left? An emptiness descended on her. She wanted Zadie’s words back. Slade was a different story, though if he came back, she would deal with him.
She threw two more logs on the fire, stretched out on the couch, covered herself with the quilt that was thrown on the back, and slept.
SEVENTEEN: Aftermath
Dalia woke to blinding sunlight bathing her face. The night before came back to her in a rush and she sat up quickly, sending armies of pain marching through every muscle in her body. She winced as she stood, looking around the living room. The fire had burned down to embers but the light streaming through the windows highlighted the mud-stained carpet.
She licked her lips and inched closer to the rocker. The chair looked the same as it always had. Would plastic ties even scratch the hard wood of the antique? She remembered blood flying from Slade’s cut wrists as he struggled, but she’d tracked in so much muddy slop she could not discern any evidence of it. She shrugged, feeling knots of agony in her shoulders, and shambled to the kitchen, hesitating for just a second before moving to the window over the sink.
Dalia didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified at what she saw. The shattered patio, the poorly filled-in hole, and the scattered tools told her beyond doubt that her memories were real. That meant Slade was out there somewhere. Is he, though, Dalia? The voice was surely in her head, but she turned her head in both directions, the pain reminding her of the hard labor she’d done the night before.
She frowned. Something about Slade’s sudden exit bothered her. Why hadn’t he gone outside when he freed himself? He knew she was out there, he’d seen her get her coat. It made sense that he’d see if she knew where his stone was. At the very least, he would have restrained her, maybe tortured her to find out what she knew. But would he really just leave?
She placed her hands on the window sill, then pulled them back quickly. They were raw and blistered. The memory of the poker searing her skin flashed, but looking at her hands, she could not determine if there were burns there or not. Shaking her head, she glanced down, realizing for the first time how filthy she was. Shower, now. The memory brought fresh pain to her ailing heart. She walked back through the living room, glancing at the rocker to make sure Slade was really gone, then took the stairs slowly, moving like a woman twice her age.
In the master bath, she turned on the shower and stripped while waiting for the water to heat up. Her mind was in a fog, the events of the night before somehow unclear. The memories seemed fragile, and she realized she’d kept looking at things like the patio and the rocking chair to reassure herself that what she remembered wasn’t just her imagination. Zadie had taken her own life to protect Dalia from someone returning to the house. Not Slade, but Coleridge. It didn’t make complete sense, but Dalia hadn’t read the journal. She decided there must have been something in it that had made Zadie’s actions, at least to her, justified.
After her shower, she stood at the window in the bedroom staring out at her front yard. The rain had washed away all the snow and the sun was already drying the pavement in the driveway, erasing any evidence of the storm the day before. Her eyes moved up and down the driveway, searching for any signs that a car had been parked there the night before, but saw none.
She went back downstairs, her muscles loose after the hot shower, but still sore. She stepped around the dirty coat and out the back door. The air was crisp, but the sun felt warm on her face. She moved to the edge of the patio, surveying the damage. It was worse than it looked from inside, worse than she remembered.
The entire corner of the patio, at least nine pavers, were completely demolished. She had a vague, fevered recollection of moving about the patio to chase down errant pieces of the stone that had skittered away. In the process, she’d annihilated a huge section of the patio. Besides that, her poorly-filled-in hole was an eyesore, somehow ending up overfilled, as if she’d ended up with more dirt than hole. She turned away, shaking her head at all the work she’d made for herself.
She’d only taken three steps when she stopped, slowly turning back to face the wreckage. Something about that dirt mound bothered her. The size and shape of it… She raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a moan. It couldn’t be. She backed away her other hand flailing behind her for the railing to the steps.
Back inside the house, she reached for the tea kettle, then thought better of it. She took a glass from the cabinet and a bottle from the pantry and poured herself a generous drink. The scotch was top shelf, and she was a teetotaler, so she knew to sip the powerful liquid. It burned on the way down and bloomed inside her with a comforting heat. She carried the glass shakily to the living room, observing the scene of her dubious memories.
Was it possible, she wondered, that the reason her recollections of the night before were so blurry was because they weren’t real? Was it possible what had really occurred was so horrible that some protective part of her brain had simply decided to revamp the memories, make them more palatable? No, that was ridiculous. It wasn’t like the memories she had were very good. But better than what that grave-sized hole could mean, a voice countered in her head.
Dalia slumped onto the couch and took a liberal swallow of her drink. The burn was more tolerable on her throat, and the overall sensation relaxing. She closed her eyes, willing herself to come up with a clear memory from the day before, something at the store, or a way to prove to herself that Slade was real. Had he really been there? All she saw were those strange faces in the fire. They meant nothing to her.
The shovel will answer your questions, Dalia. Zadie’s voice. Had she heard it, or just thought the words in Zadie’s voice? Whatever the case, there was no way she was going out there to re-dig the hole. She told herself it was silly. She told herself she didn’t have the energy. But she knew the real reason was fear. What if the shovel hit something? Something that felt like a body. What if she uncovered Slade? She shook her head. There was no good outcome. If she didn’t find anything there but more dirt, what would that say about the state of her sanity?
She went about the arduous chore of cleaning up the mess from the night before. She hosed off her boots in the laundry room’s work sink, placing them by the fireplace to dry later when she relit the fire. She ran her winter coat through the wash, scrubbed the mud stains out of the living room rug, and mopped the kitchen floor.
Throughout the day, her thoughts kept returning to her deranged memories. She was plagued with doubt about the accuracy of anything she thought occurred the previous night. Three separate times, she examined the arms of the rocker for scratches the plastic ties might have made. Once, she sifted through the cold ashes in the fireplace looking for evidence of the melted ties, or perhaps an unburned scrap from the journal. But she found nothing.
Finally, she put on a heavy sweatshirt and went out to the yard. After putting the tools away, she returned to the patio, walking slowly back and forth, her head on a swivel looking for a piece of rock that didn’t match the rest of the rubble. The black chunks could have been Slade’s stone, but just as likely were the Sahara granite Zadie had used to outline the patio. It was no use, inconclusive. I’m no geologist, rocks look like rocks.
She went back inside, chilled and discouraged. She poured herself a generous refill of scotch and set about lig
hting a fire. Once the fire was to her liking, she sat on the couch sipping her drink, staring into the flames. She expected, almost hoped, to see those faces again, but it wasn’t to be. She poured another glass.
EIGHTEEN: Winter
Dalia stood in the kitchen contemplating the snow-covered patio. She’d become aware several weeks earlier that it had become an obsession, but like any good obsession, realizing it didn’t fix it. She drank her scotch from a tall glass now, much more efficient not having to refill so often. She had changed the hours at the shop to open later on the days she went in, also reducing the number from six days each week to four. She advertised it as winter hours, but deep inside she knew it was really so she could spend more time at the window. And sipping scotch. Her mind couldn’t come to terms with that night. What had happened. Or perhaps, she thought, what hadn’t.
She had stopped going to the gym shortly after that night. She had also started ignoring her friends, letting the house fall into a state of comfortable squalor, and put the shop on auto-pilot, not bothering to change the inventory or displays for the holidays: no Christmas ornaments in December, no love-themed goodies in February. Part of her realized these things, but that part was kept squarely under the thumb of her obsession. Not her manias, she thought ruefully, and took another drink.
Dalia woke up on March 2nd, feeling like her head was overstuffed with cotton along with her usual-of-late morning nausea. She dragged herself through her workday-morning routine of showering and dressing, with the nagging sensation that something was more off than most days. She shook it off, thinking maybe she’d had one glass of scotch too many the night before, and headed for the shop.
The day was sunny but bitterly cold, winter unwilling to relent its grasp. It had snowed again the night before, adding to the near-record totals for the winter. “Snow banks won’t be gone until May at this rate,” she mumbled, unlocking the shop door and flipping the sign over to “Come in, we’re open!” She had long since taken down the little bells that tinkled when the door opened. They reminded her too much of Slade.
She began rearranging some of the items on the shelves by the doors, more out of boredom than any sense of creativity or even duty. The shelves held a mix of picture frames and knick-knacks with a few scented candles that customers seemed to enjoy. Normally, she would have swapped these out to match the seasons, but the ones on the shelves were still the aromas of autumn: pumpkin spice, drying leaves and apple-cinnamon.
It was one of the candles Dalia found pushed to the back of the shelf that made her stop what she was doing, locked in the grip of a memory. The candle’s scent was “Coral Breeze” and the irresistible fragrance of the beach was what brought Zadie back to her again.
Dalia and Zadie are side by side, tearing up strips of filthy carpet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Zadie throws a slab of it to the side, sending a plume of filth and carpet fibers into the air.
“Screw this, let’s go for a ride,” she says, turning to Dalia with a mischievous grin.
Dalia’s heart does that weird thing in her chest, the way it always does when her love for Zadie surges. Which is often. She tears off her gloves and stands. “Let’s go.”
They shower quickly after deciding the ocean would be their destination, donning bikinis under their sundresses. Despite the calendar insisting it was late September, an Indian Summer has claimed the weather, and a swim might not be out of the question.
They arrive at the shore late in the afternoon, but the heat and humidity of the day linger. They begin walking, no destination in mind. The beach is desolate, the summer residents have already flown south, and being a weekday, the locals are all working. It might have been different on a Saturday.
Dalia steals glances at Zadie as they stroll hand-in-hand, admiring the graceful curves of her body and her flawless skin. She feels that flutter in her chest and smiles.
“What?” Zadie asks, looking at her with a smile of her own.
Dalia feels her face flush. They’d been a couple long enough that Dalia shouldn’t feel this way, but she still can’t believe Zadie is her girlfriend. Her lover, she thinks, and feels the flush deepen. “I was just thinking how lucky I am. You’re beautiful and smart and funny and everything—”
Zadie cuts her off with a kiss. Not a peck; a full-on, passion-filled, tongue-searching kiss. Dalia responds, feeling the flush and flutters all throughout her body.
“What the fuck!” The voice cuts through the moment, starting them. They pull apart and look around for its source. A pair of badly sunburned men are walking toward them, beers in hand. From their gait, the beers are not their first. “Didn’t you read the signs?” one man yells, as he and his friend step closer. Too close.
Dalia looks at Zadie, all her happiness eroding and slipping close to fear. She looks up and down the beach but they are alone.
“What sign is that?” Zadie asks calmly.
The man takes a drink from his beer, draining it and tossing the can onto the sand. “The sign that said no dykes allowed,” he says, and his friend barks out a laugh. The first man isn’t laughing though, he looks angry. The dangerous kind of angry that Dalia has seen before.
She takes Zadie’s hand and pulls her back the way they came. “Let’s go, Zadie.”
Zadie gives her hand a squeeze before pulling away. She steps closer to the man. “I’m sure whoever read the sign to you was mistaken. Why don’t you show me where it is, and I’ll read it for you? Nice and slow, so your little lizard brain can understand it.”
The man’s eyes narrow and his jaw tightens. His friend snorts out another laugh. Dalia reaches for Zadie’s arm, but something about the look on Zadie’s face, the intensity of it, stops her.
“You stupid, cunt-licking bitch,” he snarls, hands curling into fists.
Dalia watches the other man, slightly relieved to see that he looks nervous. She can’t tell if he’ll turn out to be an enemy or an ally if things go bad. Zadie had taken some self-defense training, but was it enough against a man this big and strong-looking, fueled by anger and booze?
“Those are some big words for you. And not entirely accurate. I happen to be well-educated, quite far from stupid. I can be a bitch at times, and as far as the cunt-licking, well…” She shocks Dalia by grinning salaciously and putting an arm around Dalia’s waist. “What’s a girl supposed to do?”
The dumb look of anger and confusion on the man’s face brings out a giggle from Dalia.
“Come on, man, let’s head out.” The friend sounds unsure and puts a hand on the man’s arm. The man shakes it off.
“Who do you think you are? You come on to a public beach and go all lezbo, making everyone uncomfortable.”
Dalia’s laughs subside but a smile remains. The man had lost most of his bluster. He’d clearly expected a scared little girl…like me, Dalia thought…and instead gotten Zadie.
“I’m not uncomfortable.” She pins the friend with her gaze, “Are you uncomfortable?” The friend’s eyes widen. He shrugs and shakes his head, stepping away. “See, I’m not uncomfortable, I know my wonderful lover isn’t uncomfortable, and even your…is he your friend or partner? It doesn’t matter, he’s not uncomfortable either. So, you have to ask yourself, what’s the real problem here?” She tilted her head, never breaking eye contact with the man.
The man’s face was venturing toward purple and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes, but something else, too. He might not be scared, but he has his doubts about how this might turn out. Perhaps with him in the fetal position clutching his swelling balls or his broken nose.
After a long moment, he makes a dismissive noise and turns to his friend. “Let’s go get some beers and find some real girls.” He struts off, leaving his friend standing there. The friend shrugs again, looking quite embarrassed, and turns to follow.
Dalia watches them go for a moment, then turns to Zadie. “You are amazing,” she says, circling her arms around Zadie’s waist. �
�Crazy, but amazing.” She leans in and kisses Zadie. “Let’s go home and you can show me what a girl is to do.”
“Miss? Miss, are you okay?” The hand on her shoulder brought her back to the present.
Dalia stared at the older woman, confused the look of concern on her wrinkled face. “Yes, I’m fine.”
The woman pulled a handkerchief from her purse and offered it to Dalia. “You’re crying, dear. You look like you just lost your best friend.”
Dalia ignored the hanky and swatted the tears away with the back of her hand. “I have,” she said.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of customers and sadness. Several times she’d caught herself crying, the raw scab ripped off the wound of her loss. She’d welcomed the tears. They felt real, and she realized nothing had felt right since Slade’s visit. She finally flipped the shop’s sign to “Closed” and headed home.
The roads were icy and it took all her focus to drive, allowing her some freedom from her sadness. She pulled into the driveway, half-expecting a strange car to be there. Slade’s car. But it was empty.
She braced herself against the gusting wind and walked quickly to the door. Once inside, she shed her heavy coat and set to getting a fire started. That task completed, she went to the kitchen and pulled out a glass and a bottle of scotch. The glass was half full before she realized what she was doing. The alcohol had become her routine and she was acting on sheer muscle memory. An almost debilitating sense of guilt and self-loathing came over her. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. What would Zadie think of her lover now? She poured the amber liquid slowly down the drain, then carried the bottle out to the patio and smashed it on the frozen ground. The broken glass shone like jewels in the dying sunlight.
NINETEEN: Spring Means Rebirth
