He emerged onto the top of the car with an assist from Vanessa, and there the two of them stood, seemingly on top of the world, or at the very least towering over the fully grown cornstalks. Beyond them in the near distance, the waves of the lake crashed against the shore, churning from the passing storm and eating away at the banks. For them, though, looking down at the ground, they realized the best way down, really their only option, was to jump. Vanessa insisted on going first, since they couldn't be sure how well his legs would hold up. So, as she leaped into the air and splashed down into a thickening puddle, muddy water further ruining her clothing, she positioned herself best to catch him. Well, not catch him completely, just kind of help to break his fall. It was obvious he wasn't the puny little kid from school anymore.
“Here goes nothing,” he said, taking a leap into the air.
“Adam . . . no! Wait, I'm not ready . . .” Vanessa exclaimed, still trying to secure her footing. The mud sloshed around her ankle, causing her to slide. He was going to land right on top of her, and his weight would . . .
A second later Adam landed awkwardly in her arms, twisting his ankle and crying out in pain. Vanessa had trouble holding on to him, and with the slippery ground there was going to be only one result. They were going down. And they did, in a big wet splash. Mud swirled around them, instantly coating them in a brown mush. Neither one of them spoke a word as they just absorbed the impact of the ground, the slushy feeling of the mud, wetness and cold enveloping them. God, they must look a frightful sight. Vanessa had envisioned various ways she'd meet up with Adam this weekend, and this certainly wouldn't have made the Top Ten list. Not even the top hundred, if she wanted to be honest.
Being honest, now there was a scary notion, even while in his strong arms. Her encounter with Adam had come far sooner than she'd expected, and without warning. Like this was no accident, the fates having their brand of fun instead. As she and her high school prom date sat in the mud twenty years after the event, each staring at the other, she found that words would not come. Wiping brown muck away from her face, she supposed it was a good thing she couldn't talk. She might actually end up literally eating her muddied words.
“So, fancy meeting you here,” Adam said, finally breaking the silence.
“Yeah, funny, huh?”
“You sure you're okay?” he asked.
“A filthy mess. But yeah, I think so.”
He nodded.
She stared at him.
Awkward silence fell between them. Vanessa looked away out of nervousness, and then stole a glance back. His eyes hadn't moved from their position, a hint of blue against a gray sky.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don't know, I mean . . . you look great.”
Vanessa laughed aloud. “Oh yes, covered in mud, looking like a drowned rat. Brown is so my color. Just how I want to appear at my high school reunion.”
“Yes, well, you're not alone there.”
“True, you're kind of disgusting too. But hey, at least . . . you know, we're alive.”
Adam was getting ready to respond when the sky spoke for him. Thunder rumbled again, fierce and loud, dark clouds settling directly over them as a new band of the relentless storm sought them out. Lightning struck again, streaking the low-hanging sky with angry flashes of blazing yellow. They both stared upward.
“Think help is on the way?”
Vanessa looked around at their mangled cars. In the encroaching darkness they were not easy to make out, and soon the stalks would claim them for the long night. Other than that, there was no sign of other people, no passing traffic, no sirens blaring in the near distance.
“Doesn't look like it. You wanna call nine-one-one?”
“I'm not sure where my cell phone went,” he said. “Got thrown when the car overturned. Yours?”
She shook her head. “Not working. The plastic shell shattered in the crash.”
“Convenient,” he said, sarcastically. “Seems as though we're in quite the pickle, and with no one around to help us, looks like we're gonna have to figure something out alone, uh, together,” he said. “Got any brilliant thoughts? Any idea what people did before we became slaves to our cell phones? We should probably seek some shelter. I'd say your car or mine, but we know that mine is rather uninhabitable at the moment.”
“Come on, let's see what we can salvage from mine.”
Somehow she managed to get up from the slippery puddle, then helped Adam to his feet. He hobbled along beside her, wincing still from the pain of his freshly injured ankle. She hoped he hadn't broken it during his landing, she wasn't sure she could carry him, much less balance his weight against her body. The insistent rain continued to fall on them, and the threatening dual presence of lightning and thunder continued; this was the most persistent summer thunderstorm she could remember. Shouldn't it have passed by now?
The two of them made their way across the road to Vanessa's car, inconveniently parked in the cornfield. Mud swirled around the tires; it was clear the car was going nowhere without the assistance of a tow truck. And she rather doubted one would magically appear, not when they'd seen no sign of an ambulance or police or any kind of Good Samaritan. For the moment, the world was theirs, the two of them doing battle against the elements.
“I suppose we could wait out the storm in my car,” she said, “making more of a mess of it than I've already accomplished.”
“Not much choice. We need shelter.”
“But we also need to get out of these clothes . . .”
Adam grinned. “Why, Vanessa Massey . . .”
She blanched. She couldn't help it. No reminders, not this early.
“Sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate.”
An attempt at a brush-off laugh, Vanessa said, “Get your mind out of theâ”
“Mud?”
They shared a genuine laugh, awkwardness fading between them for the first time. It felt good, like a breath of fresh air.
Still, Vanessa suddenly looked away, embarrassed by the heated, sexual connotation of not only what she'd said but also Adam's quick reaction to it. Were her cheeks reddening? Could he feel a change in the air, in her? God she hated her lack of a poker face. Reva was always calling attention to it on those occasions when they gambled, either in the casinos of Europe or in the love department. She felt like Adam could read her mind right now, and that was not a good thing. Not now. Perhaps not ever.
“Really, I'm sorry, I didn't mean . . . it's just . . . I didn't mean to offend you.”
“It's okay, Adam. You just caught me by surprise. I mean, given our past . . .”
“Vanessa, forget I said anything,” he said, making an attempt to touch her shoulder but pulling back at the last moment. The sweet gesture was intended to comfort her, and Vanessa decided to make nothing more of it than that. Adam didn't give her the chance anyway. He was ready to spring into action, his ankle notwithstanding. “Come on, let's focus on here and now, getting us out of this storm and into some dry clothes. I could go back and get my suitcase . . .”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “The farmhouse!”
“Okay, you got me there. What farmhouse?”
“About half a mile back, I noticed an old farmhouse situated up on the hill. A big house with a porch, a swing, expansive lawn. We can make it there, I'm sure, and ask the people who live there for help. Surely they have a phone. Not like it's the eighteenth century. What do you say, your ankle up for a quick hike?”
Thunder rumbled once more.
Adam looked up; rain washed over his muddy, bloodied face, leaving streaks.
“I hate thunderstorms.”
“Storms always did me in too,” Vanessa said.
“Every summer in Danton Hill,” he said.
“Almost like every day during a Danton Hill summer.”
Their shared memories had already begun.
“One storm ruined my swing set. I was five.”
“You've changed.”
“God, I hope so.”
“That farmhouse, it had a porch swing, I saw it, moving in the breeze.”
“Lead on,” he said. He smiled and she attempted one back.
The two of them started forward down the stretch of road, sticking to the shoulder for safety's sake but looking for any sign of a passing car. They walked side by side, not touching, not even attempting one . . . at least, not until she slipped on a rock and nearly fell in the ditch beside the road. Adam went to grab her. As their hands touched, she felt the spark between them give deeper heat to the humid night. She looked into his face and realized she was not in the company of the innocent young boy from her high school days but a handsome, strong man who produced within her something that had gone untouched for years. Almost a reawakening of something hidden deep inside her. Like she wasn't even the woman she'd known these thirty-eight years. She felt a fleeting rush of emotion that had once existed between them flare up inside her, making a sudden return, and with such a sensation racking her body, she figured such heat could dry their clothes and possibly melt her heart too.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
He doesn't know everything.
She wondered if he knew anything, about them.
They forged on, together.
Shelter awaited them just around the bend in the road. So too did the unforeseen.
But hadn't she lived with a notion of uncertainty for twenty years?
C
HAPTER
4
N
OW
T
he farmhouse, with its wraparound porch and Old Worldâstyle cupola jutting up from its angled roof, turned out to be nearly a mile from the crash site. By the time Adam and Vanessa had made their way to the protective covering of its gabled porch, few words existed to describe just how soaked to the skin they were. Their clothing resembling mere tatters of cloth now, soggy, muddy, and wearable never again. For Adam, he was never more grateful to see shelter, something he'd never even given any consideration. He'd always had a roof over his head. He kept an apartment in a high-rise steel building in Manhattan, and currently still owned a summer home in the rolling mountains of the Catskills. Life had been kind to him and he'd tucked away a good amount of money, which had allowed him to take full advantage of every chance afforded him. The idea of being caught without a place to stay or to keep him protected, without any way of communicating with the outside world, seemed positively barbaric. Add to this his balky ankle and Adam Blackburn suddenly found himself being thankful for the little things in life.
“Here we are, at last,” he said, dropping to the porch steps from exhaustion. “Thank God we made it. I wasn't sure how much longer my ankle could hold out.”
“I was beginning to think I might have to carry you on my back,” Vanessa said, suppressing a rare smile. Not that they'd had much reason for them given their situation. “Rest your weary self, I'll knock and see if anyone's home. Though from the looks of the uncut lawn and the empty driveway, I'm not sure anyone has called this place home for a while.”
“Gee, great. What more could go wrong?”
Adam gazed around. No cars in the driveway, the grass overgrown, the slats of the porch in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The porch swing was the only evidence that someone called this place home, its gentle rocking in the wind a tease of life recently lived. Vanessa was right, they may have just stumbled upon a place that could offer covering but little else in the way of amenities. No clothes, no food or beverages . . . that probably meant no working phone or electricity. Like the fates of fortune continued to fail them. Still, it felt good to not have the incessant rain pelting down on them like a continuous form of Chinese water torture.
As Vanessa made her way to the front entrance, Adam untied his shoe and freed his foot. Rubbing his ankle, he noticed just how swollen it was. He moved it around a bit, grimaced again from the shooting pain. It wasn't broken, that was his sense, otherwise how could he have made it this far? He'd only had to lean on Vanessa a short while until he'd felt he could put his weight on it again. He wondered: How was it that during their thirty-minute walk through the storm en route to this deserted farmhouse they hadn't come upon another living soul, not a single car or a wayward individual out for a walk during nature's wrath? Not even a barking dog. The world, as far as they were concerned, had gone quiet.
“Hello, anyone home? Hello?” Vanessa said, rapping her knuckles on the screen door.
From his position on the porch, Adam watched Vanessa knock again, this time opening the weathered screen door and hitting the thick front door harder, all while peering through the glass. She knocked again, calling out once more. What came back in response to her gestures and words were hollow sounds, an echo of her own self that rang inside the old home. If someone was home, they were deaf, a deep sleeper, or dead.
“Nothing,” she said, turning back to Adam. “Got any ideas?”
He shrugged. “Try the doorknob. Maybe it's unlocked.”
She tried it. The knob did not turn.
“Got any other ideas?”
“Break the glass, then turn the knob from the inside.”
“Adam, I'm not breaking and entering into someone's home.”
“Hey, Vanessa, we're not exactly criminals here.”
“Still, I can't do it.”
Adam groaned as he stood up, hopping over to the front door while hoping to avoid getting a splinter in his exposed bare foot. He knocked loudly with his fist, calling out, “Hello, we need some help here, anybody home?” Waiting two beats and getting no response, he shrugged once in Vanessa's direction, and seeing the anticipation cross her face, he used his elbow to crash through the square window. The glass shattered easily and fell to the floor in dangerous shards, unlike the window of his wrecked car. Adam stepped away from a nasty slice that nearly impaled his foot. Then he reached in, careful to avoid the lingering glass, turned the dead bolt, and then pushed open the door. It swung wide with a slight creak of age or neglect, letting a musty smell drift outward, as though the air inside had been trapped and desperate to be freed, now taking to the wind with a exhale of relief.
Adam and Vanessa gave each other one last look before stepping inside the musty home.
“Hello?” Vanessa called out.
“I think we've pretty well established that no one's home,” he said. “Come on, I don't know about you but I could use a shower. Wash this mud off me.”
“Let's see about finding a working phone first,” she said, moving farther into the house. “The sooner we find help, the faster we're back on the road. There is our reunion to attend. Isn't that why we're here?”
“The reunionâI think it's already begun,” Adam remarked.
Her eyes shot him a nervous look, fingers absently tugging at her damp, limp hair, before gazing back inside the house.
Adam closed the door behind him, not bothering to turn the lock. Why bother? What were the odds someone else would stumble upon the house? As he followed behind Vanessa, he noted that the living room to the left of them was still furnished, albeit covered in clinging white sheets. Like only ghosts wafted about, living here beneath a coating of dust. They made their way toward the rear of the house, coming upon a sizable kitchen, obviously the heart of the home where family played, worked, talked, ate. Adam could almost envision the occupants, a kindly older couple making large, old-fashioned meals for their visiting children, grandchildren, distant relatives. He could see the woman of the house standing over a large pot, boiling the fresh corn she picked just that morning from the side of the road. Adam's stomach grumbled loudly in the quiet of the room. He wouldn't mind an ear of sweet, buttery corn right about now. Heck, he'd even eat the stalks.
But what most interested him right now was what he found on a wall separating the kitchen from the pantry. An old rotary phone, complete with the twisting black coil that connected receiver to base, was mounted on the wall near the stove. Like something reaching out from the set of Mayberry. Where was Aunt Bee along with some fresh-baked cookies? Vanessa reacted first, picked up the hard receiver and putting it to her ear. Even had her expression not faltered, Adam could have guessed the phone wouldn't work. Because in the silence of this house, even a dial tone would have been deafening.
“I think that phone only calls the nineteen-fifties.”
She frowned wanly.
“Well, so much for that brilliant idea,” she said, leaving the receiver to twist in the air. The way it swung off its cord, Adam was reminded of the weaving porch swing and how it had given off false hope of life. This house seemed to embody the idea of souls having left the building, like they'd just missed whoever called this place home. The images in his mind were not unlike those depicted in movies about a full-fledged Armageddon, leaving the world empty. A hollowness pervaded the room. But nothing destructive had happened in the world, only a fierce summer storm had swept by, wreaking its vengeance on a small part of it, catching Adam and Vanessa in its wake.
“So, got any fresh ideas?” Vanessa asked.
“I'd like to go back to my original one of a shower. Might help clear my mind.”
“Fine, you get cleaned up first, I'll see about some food. Got any favorites?”
Adam smiled. “Spam and baked beans, at the rate we're going.”
“Go shower, see about that cut on your side. Your shirt is sticking to it.”
Adam had nearly forgotten about the streaks of blood on his side from where the seat belt had shredded both shirt and skin. The cotton material was probably caked into his skin, peeling it away would not be the prettiest of things. Hopefully the shower had hot water and could help melt away the pain.
He started off, but quickly turned around. “Hey, Vanessa?”
“Yeah?”
“This is kinda weird, isn't it?”
“You could say that.”
“I did.”
She laughed at him, the sound filling the cozy room. “Thanks, Adam. After the stress of the accident, I think I needed that kind of release.”
“I think we both did. We need to laugh. The other option is . . .”
Vanessa quieted him by placing a finger to his lip, the physical act so quick but intimate. Adam nearly kissed her finger in return, but something held him back. “Go. I have a strange sense we're not going anywhere for a while, so there's plenty of time for talk . . . you know, later. Guess we're going to have our own reunion.” She paused, and again her eyes glazed over with a faraway look. Then what came out next was but a whisper of emotion. “A private reunion, and one a long time coming.”
“Our cars crashing like that, you think something else is at work here?”
“Like what?”
“Fate? Destiny? If you believe in such things,” he asked, his words like a question.
“Do you?”
A strange, uncertain look crossed over Adam's face, his eyes darting around the spacious kitchen and homely feel of yesteryear. A chill hit him, despite the humidity floating through the house. “I feel like I've been here before.”
“Well, we did grow up in Danton Hill.”
“No, no, I mean this house.”
She shook her head. “I don't think so, at least, nothing strikes me as familiar. You?”
Adam continued to look around at the old-fashioned country kitchen. What stared back should have been homespun, old-fashioned warmth. Instead, that chilling sensation remained, digging deeper into him. He shivered. “I guess not.”
“You want to know what I think?” Vanessa asked. “You banged your head good and it's making you think weird thoughts.”
He wanted to be convinced. The uncertainty, though, was beginning to settle in.
“Still, it's like something brought us here.”
She pushed him away. “Stop spooking me. Go, get cleaned up.”
As Vanessa began to pour over the kitchen supplies to see about getting some food into their systems, Adam made his exit. He hobbled back down the hallway and, with a strong grip on the railing, began to make his way up the long wooden flight of stairs near the entrance hall. With sweat now mixing with the mud and blood, he at last came to the landing on the second floor, sensing that shower spray just down the hall. Opening door after door, passing bedrooms and, thankfully, a stocked linen closet. He grabbed a couple of clean towels, and then continued to the next door, where he at last found the bathroom. There was both a separate shower stall and a large, claw-foot tub, and while the idea of luxuriating in a bath was appealing, what he needed right now was the pelting spray of the shower to wash away all the mud and muck. As he adjusted the nozzles, he thought of the irony of going from outside rain to shower, how one had sullied him, the other would cleanse him like a baptism. Adam then began to remove his clothes, stopping short at the shirt, which still stuck to him. He left it on and stepped into the shower.
“Ohhhh,” he said as the spray of heat hit his body. “Thank You, Lord, the boiler works.”
He let the steam swirl around him until the stall was fogged up, and then he doused his body with hot water, stinging his side. He peeled the shirt off, grimacing from the pain. But at least he was free of it and he tossed it over the side. Time to clean up, dress his wound. He must have remained within the confines of the shower for a good twenty minutes, watching as the water turned to brown, only to return to a more favorable pink coloring as his body was rinsed clean. With the help of a stray bar of soap he found in a drawer, he washed his bloody side and for a second the water turned red; he'd reopened the wound. The sting from the soap made him cry out, but he was grateful to feel anything after the numbness his body had felt when he'd been trapped inside the upturned car. Setting about cleansing himself one more time, he made certain he wiped all the caked mud out of every nook and crevice. At last he turned off the shower nozzle, wishing he could have remained for hours. But who knew how long the hot water would last, and he didn't want to deprive Vanessa of the same bliss he'd just experienced.
Adam stepped out of the shower and grabbed the towel, wrapping the thick terry cloth around his waist. Leaning into the mirror, his fingers probed his hairline where he'd just noticed a small cut intersected with his forehead. Blood had dried here too, and the gash remained opened. He peered in even closer and detected a miniscule piece of glass inside the cut that the water hadn't washed out.
So that's where the blood had come from that had leaked down his cheek.
“Oh, nice,” he said, wondering just what he should do about it. The wound didn't hurt, but he was afraid if he jostled the shard of glass he might start to bleed again, or even worsen the injury. “Leave it alone for now,” was what he said to his reflection.
The wound on his left side was far more in need of immediate attention. Looking down, he could see the red welt he'd received from the seat belt when it pulled at him when the car had overturned. Small droplets of blood still seeped from the streaks on his side. Guess the shower wasn't going to be the easy fix he'd hoped for. Grabbing for a washcloth from the side basin, he dipped it into hot water, then gently pressed it against his skin. Immediate pain shot through his body and he pulled the cloth away.