I smiled, able to meet his eyes now. “From who?” I asked. “Someone poetic and brilliant?”
He returned the smile with a grin, the truthfulness of it lending brilliance to his passionate eyes. “Yeah, Snoopy.”
A beat passed before we both laughed. He stopped before I did.
“You seem to do that a lot.” He leaned forward and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. “Stare at the sky. You did it that night out in the snow too.”
Turning my head to the side, just as his warm hands skimmed my skin, I sighed. “I did, didn’t I?” The tremble in my voice couldn’t be hidden. I doubted that I could hide much from him. “If I remember correctly, I had been contemplating the unusualness of snow in Natchitoches.”
“Yeah, you were. We talked about it.”
I looked down at his boots, thinking. “I remember that. I often think back on that night. Sometimes I see so clearly what happened—between us. I can make out your shape in the night. Hear your voice telling me to take your jacket. I remember feeling safe, after you stayed with me.” I shrugged. “Other times, it’s harder for me to piece it all together. I can’t put a piece where it looks like it’s supposed to go because its shape is wrong. Other times an important piece seems to fit, until I look at it objectively and the entire picture is screwed up because the one piece doesn’t really belong. A puzzle is made up of so many pieces, all destined to make a complete picture. So one piece is just as important as another, you know?”
Instead of hurting through the admission, I found strength in confiding in him.
He smirked. Not in cruelty, but in a way that made me feel as though he had thought of something to share in return. “I remember every second of that night,” he said.
“I question my memories.”
“You can have mine. Down to the second I turned and left.”
Was I strong enough to hear him retell it? What if my memories were different from his? What if I made what we had bigger than it had been? My thoughts and feelings and memories were so muddled, I wasn’t sure what was true and what was lie.
I nodded, despite my reservations. “Yes, up until the point where I left with Ms. Claire. She was the woman who came out and got me. I don’t want to hear the rest.”
Brando moved to the window I had cleaned with my dress. He peered in close and then wiggled the door handle. He knocked, waited a second, and then used his shoulder to rip the wood away from the frame. After instructing me to stay put, he swept through the house. A few minutes later, he came and got me, and we entered together.
“I scared most of the living things in here.” He looked around, eyes narrowed. “I doubt they’ll come back while we’re here.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest. It was chillier inside than it had felt outside. The air was laced with dust and mold, the latter taking a hiatus due to the cool weather. It felt damp from humidity, soaking straight through the velvet layers of my dress.
Brando collected a few pieces of old wood that had been left around and set it in the bricked fireplace. He dug in his pocket, removed a lighter, and then set the wood on fire.
He dusted off two old wooden chairs and placed them close enough to the fireplace that the heat could be felt. I think it was more for my benefit than his. He didn’t seem bothered by the cold.
“Pnina Poésy is going to send the sheriff after me. It’s Wednesday—actually Thursday now—and you’ve been out longer than you should.”
“No,” I said, too fast. I took a breather to stop myself from rambling, from sounding too eager. “I’m staying the night at Violet’s. Her parents are older and less involved in her life. Unless someone else catches her doing something wrong—then they get pretty fired up. But since Mitch promised to bring her straight home, I’ll be fine.” I put my hands toward the fire, the warmth spreading over me in languorous, stretching waves.
I felt comfortable in the house, in the area, but most of all, with Brando. I glanced around the place—I couldn’t seem to get enough of it, dilapidated or not. It felt like home. For the first time in years, perhaps all of my life, a “welcome” seemed to be extended to me from a soft, warm hand that I couldn’t see but certainly felt. Once settled, all fears were put to rest.
“Now will you tell me?” I whispered. “Tell me everything you remember. Please.”
He settled into the chair, his arms resting on his stomach, his long legs stretched out before him, his eyes on mine. He began his recollection with, “You reminded me of a girl dancing in a music box.”
Chapter Five
Scarlett
A spark had gone off inside of me. The undercurrent flowed through me like the echo of an electric shock. It’s dangerously frightening and deliriously surreal for someone else to have this much control.
A week later, I was as tired as the dead but as alive as an energetic toddler. I seemed to float through days, alternately yawning and then smiling and then feeling angry, most of the time in that order.
I had no control over my feelings. There were times I would drift off, finding my mouth curving upward without recognizing the thought that had caused the smile, and then I would look around, finding myself in a place that in my memories I had not been.
School.
Entire days seemed like a blur of clouds and then solid ground. I was with him again, caught in a web of suspended time, and then I was back in school where life seemed to be moving along.
