Ashes of Foreverland (7 page)

Look what you do to me.

Alex lifted her hand halfway to her head before stopping. She thought the voices were beginning to swarm, but it was just the lawnmower. That strange crowd of voices, young voices like children, still came in waves. If she listened for them, they were always there, in the distance. The doctors had no explanation, just to be patient.

Hank came back into the kitchen and asked for a corkscrew. Madre refused to let him open the wine. They argued while he pulled the cork out.

Cheese and crackers were served and nearly gone when Samuel finished mowing. Madre's worry lines had faded in the warm glow of red wine. Now there was just laughter, and a warm feeling infused the room, like sunshine beamed from the light fixtures. The last time Alex felt like that she was very young, before she was saddled with worry and declarations.

A sunbeam sliced through the window; a heavy cloud of dust danced in the light when she noticed the distant chatter, like a crowd on the other side of the fence, the garbled words muffled in the trees. She paused at the sink and looked into the backyard until the voices faded.

Samuel had turned the yard into paradise. Almost everything was blooming yellow, her favorite color. Butterflies and bees and dragonflies came to visit and never seemed to leave. And the scent of her favorite shrub filled the kitchen, violet flowers in full bloom.

Lilac.

——————————————

H
ank dropped the last card on the pile and they added up the points. Alex wrote down the scores while Madre gathered the cards to shuffle. Samuel excused himself to find another bottle of wine.

“When are you going to start writing?” Hank asked.

“When I'm ready.”

“Well, how long does that take?”

“I'll know.”

“You know what they say about getting back on the horse?”

“Wear a helmet?”

Hank bellowed laughter like a distant relative of Santa. Madre arranged the cards all in one direction, tapping the deck on the table, and began the ritual of shuffling exactly seven times. She placed the deck in front of Hank.

“Whatever happened to the piece you were working on, the one on animal abuse?”

“Hank.” Madre knocked on the deck. “More cards, less talk.”

He nodded and dutifully cut the deck. Madre began dealing. Alex didn't answer. She didn't want to talk about writing or hospitals or accidents. She caught Samuel's cards before they slid onto his chair, and waited for his return.

“What's done is done, Alex,” Hank said. “You can't fix the past.”

A cantankerous old fart, Hank liked politics and drama. Not the usual modus operandi for someone that grew up in the country.
If you're not pushing buttons,
he once said,
you're not living.
Hank insisted that stones were not meant to sit and rest, but to turn over to see what was hiding beneath. Sometimes that meant you had to throw a few.

“I'm not trying to fix the past, Hank. Just leaving it where it belongs.”

“But you're not writing. Sounds like the past is still in the present.”

“Stop,” Madre hissed. “Talk is over, old man.”

“I'm just saying.” He gave his patented shrug and leaned back with a slight smile. It was the equivalent of a boxer taunting an opponent with his chin. “Alex is a writer. She's not writing. So is she Alex?”

“Bones don't heal overnight,” Alex said.

“Or maybe they're not broken.”

“You still limp.”

He patted his hip. “That's hard living,
chica
.”

Alex bristled. He only called her
chica
when he was bored, his way of saying she hit like a girl.

“You could get it fixed,” she said.

“It's not broke.”

“Then why do you limp?”

“Old men are supposed to limp.”

“You're saying your past makes you who you are? Sounds like someone isn't present.”

“I'm saying I'm exactly who I should be. Old men die and babies suck on mother's milk.”

“Enough.” Madre slapped the table. “No more talk of
niños
. Look at your cards before I take them.”

Lines carved her forehead, but these were different than the ones Alex feared. This expression Madre reserved for her husband, when he forgot to take out the trash or pushed arguments too far.

He scooped up his cards, adding a twinkling wink that said meet me out back later and we'll finish this. Samuel came back with a fresh bottle and filled all the glasses. The game resumed; cards were played.

Jazz streamed through the speakers and somewhere outside children were playing. Samuel began to whistle and Hank asked him to stop and Madre told them to behave themselves. The hand was almost over when someone said.

“Don't forget who you are.”

“What?” Alex said.

“Your play,” Hank said.

“No, what'd you say?”

The others looked confused. “It's your play, Alex,” Samuel added.

“No, he said something else.”
Don't forget who you are.

Alex waited. She wanted to push more, but Madre's lines of impatience could turn to worry, so she dropped a card. Madre smiled, played her trump cards, and the hand ended soon enough.

Samuel corralled the deck.

Alex noticed the subtle tracks on the polished surface, a light dusting. She dragged her finger across the table, wondering where all the debris was coming from.

“Some things you can't forget,” Hank said. “Or shouldn't.”

But when she looked up, the old man was finishing his wine. And Samuel was eating a cracker. Madre tallied the points.

She didn't ask him to repeat it. Instead, she excused herself to the bathroom.

Madre didn't need to see her breakdown.

——————————————

A
lex went to the bathroom then hauled the recycling out to the garage.

She didn't explain why she felt compelled to do it before the card game was over, just called out from the kitchen and walked out before anyone could argue.

Hank got to me.

The old man never argued with Samuel. Maybe because Samuel was a lawyer, a damn good one, or a man. Or maybe because Hank knew Alex would give him a good fight but, in the end, he'd get the final word. She couldn't recall anyone ever winning a debate with Hank, whether it was politics or Chinese checkers.

But she'd never heard him pretend not to say things.

She didn't imagine that. He wasn't pretending. He couldn't have said it because
he had a throat full of wine
.

She took a deep breath, made a detour through the backyard, and cleared her mind. Despite the cloudless sky, it was brisk. She hugged herself against the chill and wished she would warm up. She needed to clear the clutter in her head. Maybe a nap. Sleeping had been doing her good lately. She always woke up refreshed and happy.

And happy wasn't a word she wore often.

She dumped the recycling and crossed the driveway. The neighbor across the road waved from his mailbox. Alex waved back and slowly made her way out to the curb.

The street was lined with mature elms that arched overhead. Despite the dappled shade, it was warmer out there, almost ten degrees. She already felt good inside and out. Must've been the fresh air.
Sometimes a short walk is the remedy.

There was a wad of envelopes stuffed in the mailbox; she sifted through them on the way back, half of it junk. The garage door was still open. She tossed all of it into the recycling bin but noticed the address on a large envelope.

Alessandra.

A wave of gooseflesh raced down her arms. Alex looked around, even at the blue sky. She'd done a story once, when she first started as a journalist for
The Washington Post
, on paranoid schizophrenia. One of her subjects insisted there were cameras always watching, satellites that recorded everything. He described how he got this feeling when the spies were watching him, how his joints tickled and the back of his throat itched.

She never forgot that.

She tore the envelope open. Several glossy sheets fell on the concrete. It was from a travel agency. The fliers advertised package deals all over the world with illustrious beaches, endless sand and swaying palms on uninhabited islands.

She flipped the pages over, admired the views and, one by one, dropped them into the recycling bin. But they seemed familiar.
Where have I seen these?

It was the last page.

White sand was on one side of the island and cliffs on the other. The view was from above, taken from a helicopter or a drone.
Maybe even a satellite
.

She'd seen this photo, seen this island.

“Alex!”

She dropped the photo. Samuel was on the back porch.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes, sure. Just...picked up the mail.”

“You want to finish the game?”

“Yes, of course.”

How long had he been standing there? Was that what she felt?

She wadded up the page and tossed it. Of course she hadn't been there. She'd never been to a remote island in her life. She'd seen a thousand photos of beaches. She climbed the steps and noticed the red tulips in the bed Samuel had mulched.

He stood with the door open. When she turned around, the tulips were yellow. Maybe she needed to schedule another appointment with Dr. Mallard or Dr. Johnstone. She wasn't just hearing things.

She was seeing them, too.

Upstate New York

T
he tulips' petals had fallen.

They rested on the mulch in various degrees of yellow, faded by sunlight and age, signaling the end of spring. Alex snipped the tulip stalks. She had plans for the backyard. A row of fruit trees against the fence and a vegetable garden in the corner.

She entertained thoughts of moving to upstate New York or even western New Jersey, where they could purchase acreage. Samuel could still get to the city and, should she decide to write again, she could get to her agent.

For now, she just wanted to be home.

There was a hole in her glove and dirt was getting under her fingernail. She went to the garage and found another pair, almost new, in the bottom of a bucket, but they were too small even for her hands. They were for a child.

Alex searched under the workbench for another pair of gloves. She noticed her briefcase stuffed inside a plastic bin. It was on top of a stack of papers, empty cups and sweaters. Samuel must've cleaned out her car.

It had been months since she drove her car. In fact, she hadn't even left their property.

The leather smelled like work. Life was smooth now, like gliding over black ice. She hadn't seen her briefcase since getting out of the hospital, hadn't even thought about it. Half-written notes and unsigned contracts were mixed with traffic tickets.

The small raincoat was at the bottom of the plastic bin. She pulled it out and something fell. It was the
National Geographic
, the one from the doctor's office. She hadn't seen it since the hospital.

The bookmark.

She'd forgotten about that. Her name had been written on the piece of notebook paper in green ink. It was rather shocking at the time. No one ever used her full name, not outside the family at least. Now it was gone.

She smoothed the wrinkles on the cover. The island was small and isolated in an endless ocean. A sense of déjà vu passed through her. The issue was a few years old, which would explain the wear. She licked her fingers and flipped to the cover story.

Places You'll Never Want to Leave.

The piece was dominated by photos of remote tropical islands.
Heaven does exist
, said one blurb.
It's just hard to get to
.

The photos were stunning, but the centerfold resolved the sense of déjà vu. That was the one from the travel agency, the piece of mail she'd opened when Madre and Hank were visiting.

The exact same photo.

There were no credits. She turned to the front, went through all the names where the photographers were properly recognized, but nothing was credited for the tropical island.

“There you are.”

Alex dropped the magazine. Her heart thudded. Despite the clear sky, thunder faded in the distance. Spring showers were coming.

Samuel had the mail in one hand, a tall glass of tea in the other. He handed her the glass and shuffled through the mail, dropping most of it in the recycling after ripping the junk in half. One of them was a large white envelope addressed with green ink, her name in big block letters.

Alessandra.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Did you clean out my car?”

“Someone had to.”

He began searching the shelves for car wax. Alex remained in the garage, staring at the recycling bin. The return address was a travel agency. She couldn't remember the name of the other one, but they had to be the same.

It was getting hot and stuffy. The afternoon heat was picking up fast. She pressed the glass of iced tea against her forehead.

“Where'd you get this?” Samuel held up the
National Geographic
.

“It was with my stuff.”

He thumbed through it, frowning. His complexion turned a shade darker, eyebrows protruding. She felt the heat of his anger and took an involuntary step back.

“I didn't put that in there.”

She shrugged. “I didn't clean out the car.”

“Where'd you get a three-year-old magazine?”

“It was from the doctor's office. I had it with me in the hospital, remember?”

He fanned through the pages. The bookmark fluttered out from the last couple of pages. It landed on the workbench, her name staring up at him in green ink.

Green ink.
The travel agency envelope was also lettered in green ink. Samuel grunted. Something twisted inside her when he made that sound, like predators were nearby.