I cleaned in the kitchen, scrubbing the counters and the sink while the burgers fried. The weather and the rusted hole in the grill kept me from grilling outside. It wasn’t the rain, my dad loved grilling out during a summer rain. This had turned into a spring thunderstorm, the wind hissing, blowing rain sideways. The chill in the air was an added bonus and burgers in a skillet sufficed.
Every time I looked at the computer screen, I saw the same thing. The empty room with the bathroom door shut, the chair still keeping bad guys from getting in. I thought about calling her a couple times, thinking maybe she would like something to drink, but then I decided to make her ask for it. She called me for everything else.
Flipping my burgers, I smiled, hearing my phone ring from the table, but it was quickly replaced with a deep breath, a sense of dread.
“Hey, Silas.”
“You good? Everything’s okay there? My nerves are shot. It’s not even six and I’m on my fourth drink.”
I listened to a female voice correcting his math before responding. She was sure it was his sixth and not four. “Yes, everything is fine. Jaq’s fine.”
“Can you give me like five minutes?”
“Five minutes to do what.”
“Not you, idiot. She’s okay, she’s awake?”
I listened to heels walk across a floor and then a door close in the background. “Yes, she’s awake, and she’s fine.”
“Oh, thank fuck. Jesus, Oliver. We’re never kidnapping anyone else. Ever again.”
“Scouts honor.”
“Where is she?”
My gut told me to lie and I did, my eyes glancing out to the window, the wind whipping rain through the air and bending trees. “She’s sitting outside watching it rain.”
“So? It’s okay. She can’t be kidnapped if she’s sitting on the porch watching it rain. Right?”
“Yes, Silas. Besides, it doesn’t even matter. Nobody will miss her. No one’s looking for her.”
“I’ll fly your way in a few days. We’ll talk about it then.”
“No, not yet. I don’t want you to come here. I need some time with her first.”
“This worries me.”
“Well, stop it. You have nothing to worry about. She’s still a little gun shy. I don’t think she’s ready for visitors yet. Oh, guess who stopped me just out of town.”
“Sherriff Jerkoff?”
“Yup, I almost pissed myself. I probably attracted it because I stopped and changed her clothes, worried about that very thing happening.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. I’m going to attract this blonde; I’ll talk to you later.”
Rather than giving him the same facts he’d heard at least a hundred times, I let him go, only explaining the fact to myself. Everyone knows that atoms are in a constant state of motion, and quantum physics proves that depending on the speed of these atoms, things appear as a solid, liquid, or gas. I covered both burgers with Swiss cheese thinking about sound and thought also being vibrations. Just when I was about to have the conversation with myself about every vibration producing a corresponding geometric form, my phone rang.
“Hello, I was just about to call you. Supper is ready. Cheeseburgers, black beans and rice, and fresh asparagus. Are you hungry?”
The anxiety in her tone was easily portrayed. “Yes, but I don’t want to come out. I have a chair in here. Can’t we just do it like we always do? I’ll still talk to you. If you make me come out, I might have a panic attack, and I know I wouldn’t talk to you.”
“It’s fine, Jaq. I’ll leave it at your door. Give me five minutes to dip it out. Would you like a beer?”
“A beer?”
“Oh, you’re a minor. Sorry, I forgot.”
“If I’m old enough to join the army and vote, I can drink a beer. Not that the army would want me or I would know anything about politics, but still.”
I held a laugh in, deciding Jaq drinking a beer was the least of my worries. “I’ll bring you a beer.”
“Okay, but I don’t like asparagus.”
Light filling the kitchen pulled my attention toward the sliding glass door, the wind calmed, and the rain slowed to a drizzle. The thunderstorm moving out as fast as it had arrived, breaking up the clouds for a bright evening sun. I looked around the room, looking for a table that was just the right size, remembering the telephone stand by the door. A house phone wasn’t needed, but the table it was on would be perfect for a one place setting, at least until the painting was done. I planned to buy her a nice little bistro set once the work was done.
“I’m going to set up a table right outside your door so you can eat overlooking the lake. I’ll stay back, but stay close enough in case you need me.”
“No, it’s storming out there. I heard it.”
“It’s done, barely a sprinkle, but it looks so pretty hitting the lake. Please come out. I’ll set you up right by the door. You can even leave it open if you want. That way if you get scared, you can run in. Please.”
“I like it better when you listen and don’t talk. I’m not coming out there.”
I didn’t bother hiding the laugh that time, but I knew she hadn’t taken the bait. “Give me five minutes. Your food and an ice cold beer will be right outside your door.”
“I just told you I wasn’t going out there.”
“I meant the interior door. There’s a table right by your door. I’ll set it there.”
“Where’re you going to be?”
I rolled my eyes, dipping her plate. “Just stay on the phone.”
Catching a glimpse of pinks and purples right outside the door, the thought moved me into action. I looked around for something to put them in, spying a beaker pencil holder in the windowsill. I rinsed it and filled it with water. One daisy and one purple wild flower to the left of her tray completed the ensemble, and I felt great. Liberated. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure why I felt so enlightened, but I did. It brought me great satisfaction to know she was there with me. Why, was another question I couldn’t answer.
Jaq answered on the first ring, her tone anxious. “Hello, I don’t want to. I’ll just stay in here. Please don’t make me, Ollie. I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Jaq. I swear. Your door doesn’t even have a lock on it. Don’t you think if I planned on hurting you, I would at least lock you in? I made you food. Would I do that if I wanted to harm you?”
“I don’t want to.”
I breathed in a deep breath, my nostrils flaring with frustration, “Your supper is right outside your door. I’m going to hang up so I can get my own food. After taking her warm clothes from the dryer, I moved my laptop to the kitchen and fixed my own plate, hoping, praying that she emerged. No sign of her at all. It wasn’t until I was ready to dig into my own delicious cheeseburger that she stuck her head out of the bathroom, her eyes cautious, glancing around the empty room. I just couldn’t understand it, the thought behind her locking herself in bathrooms, afraid of her own shadow.
“Come on, Jaq. Come on,” I quietly coaxed as she made her way to the door. A gravely groan gurgled in my throat when she turned back and then stopped, trying to talk herself into it or out of it at the same time. With a swift peek around the corner, Jaq grabbed her plate and slammed the door.
I called to her across the room, through her door, my hands clapping like she had just taken her first step. “You did it. I knew you could.”
“I don’t like beer.”
An instant smile spread across my face “Okay, my brother left a bottle of wine. Do you want to try that?”
“Okay, but I might just want a coke.”
“Can I bring it to you?”
“I’m scared.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Jaq. You know that. Don’t you know that?”
“Yes, but it’s still hard. You don’t understand.”
My first thought was to remind her that I didn’t understand because she wouldn’t talk to me, but I held that one in. “I’m trying.
I’m opening the wine right now. Give me two minutes. Look out your doors, tell me what you see. Look how beautiful it is, Jaq.”
“I see a pretty cat. She’s all white with a patch of orange on her front shoulder. I think she’s going to have babies.”
“That’s nice,” I replied sarcastically, not wanting the stupid critter hanging around. That wasn’t the beauty I wanted her to get excited about. I never was much on animals. That was Silas. My dad used to call him the deer whisperer because he could get so close. Not me. I mean they were pretty to look at, I just didn’t need a personal relationship with them. Besides, I was too busy being my dad’s shadow to care about that. Sipping Jaq’s wine, I snarled my nose, knowing she would hate it. For just a second, I felt a surge of nerves, my hand on the doorknob.
Her eyes met mine and I slowly walked the glass over to her, swapping it with the beer. Jaq didn’t move a muscle. She sat there in a frozen state until I was on the other side of the door.
Well, that went well. Things were moving right along. I was pleased. Very pleased. I took my plate and my notebook to the table, trying to answer her call.
“I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere. You don’t look how my mind saw you. You’re taller.”
“You’re taller than I thought, too. You saw me when I brought you here. Maybe that’s it.”
“How did that happen? I don’t remember anything.”
“Wallace called me. He said you—.”
“I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You should have called me. What happened, Jaq?”
“The toilet wouldn’t flush. It just kept coming and coming until the floor was one big puddle. I didn’t know what to do, and then a man came, and then another one. They broke through the locks, through the sofa, and they still got in.”
“Shhh, it’s okay. Just eat your asparagus.”
The asparagus teasing moved her mind from the scary thought, my plan exactly. “I hate it, but I like wine. It’s good.”
That caused an eyebrow rise. “Really? Well, have at it. I hate it. I think I’ll just stick to the beer. I thought maybe we would make you a nice little sitting area out front, right down the steps in front of you. We could plant some flowers, maybe put a bench under the oak tree for you to sit under, some pavers for a walk. What do you think?”
“Why are you doing this?”
Once again, she asked the loaded question I couldn’t answer. “I can’t answer that, Jaq. I feel responsible for you. You make me feel like I have a purpose in life. I know that sounds creepy and crazy, but it’s the truth. I don’t have any other answers for you, but I swear to God, I would never hurt you.”
“I don’t think it’s creepy or crazy. Thank you, and thank you for the flowers.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Ollie?”
I swallowed the food in my mouth, blinking away the aha-moment. Something special I didn’t really understand. “Yeah?”
“You can’t fix me.”
“Don’t think about that. Think about happy memories. Look for those.”
“I don’t have happy memories.”
A momentary recollection of Silas and me around the lake crossed my mind. Those were the years that I lived. Really lived. When time didn’t exist and every minute was in the now. If we weren’t planning a sleep-out, an adventurous hike where we’d find buried treasure, or a fishing trip, we didn’t think about the future. There were no nine to five jobs where you worked to save for retirement. Those were the days I wanted to live in. If only we weren’t forced to grow up. “You have to have some. What about when you were a little girl. When all you cared about was playing make believe?”
“I didn’t do that either. I heard something. Right outside the doors. I don’t like all this glass.”
“I’m sure it was nothing. You hear things out here, but they’re not scary. A lot of animals wait until night to come out.”
“That’s dumb, I wonder how many actually make it through the night.”
It was all I could do to keep her talking long enough to get through our meal. She was becoming more and more anxious. More than likely due to the setting sun. I had to keep talking her off the ledge, assuring her that I was right around there. Jaq didn’t care. As soon as her plate was empty, she was gone, back to the bathroom behind the closed door.
I did more cleaning and more beer drinking…alone. The living room this time, dwelling in a flood of memories. All the photos of Silas and me, mostly Polaroids oddly placed in weird photo frames. Wiping the grime away from a photo frame made to look like a helm, I smiled at Silas, his mouth wide enough to hear the yell as he let go of the rope swing. I glanced out to the lake in search of the rope, unable to see it. Not that it would have still been safe, but a hint of nostalgic adventure vibrated through me, thinking about it. There was no doubt that I’d do it, right out to the deepest and coldest part of the lake. Liberation at its best.
My attempt to talk Jaq out of the bathroom failed, but I did leave clean clothes on her bed, cotton pants and a white tee with pink and white stirpes. Not that it mattered, she never came out of the bathroom to change. She did, however, take a bath. I heard the water running from the other side of the door.
I never intended on drinking that many beers. It was something about the lake. My dad always had a beer in his hand here. It didn’t matter what he was doing, a cold bottle of beer was never far from him. Except in the lab that is. He didn’t know where Silas and I were when he was in there, let alone a beer. Of course, that led me to wonder where the notebooks were again which led me to search. There was something in there that would help a lot of people I was sure, but Jaq was the only one I cared about. If I could mimic the formula, Jaq could function as a normal human being, and I could keep her.
My eyes blinked away another fun memory with my last thought, Silas and I laying in a hammock, reading two different books, Silas’s a Goosebumps book, Stay Out of the Basement, and, mine, The Law of Success, by Napoleon Hill. Keep her? What the hell did that mean?
Chapter Eleven
I couldn’t talk Jaq out of the house the next day either, but I did catch her standing at the door while I worked right out front. Figuring that side of the house was the most important and wanting her to see me, to learn to trust me.
The day was weird. One minute the sun was shining and I was sweating my ass off, and the next cloudy with a chill. With all the tall pines, and rolling hills over the east side of the cabin, the sun didn’t even dry the dew until afternoon. Another reason Silas and I loved it here. You could sleep in a tent until noon with the perfect sleeping temperature.
I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe sweat from my forehead when Jaq called, standing right there in the door. “You know you could just open the door and talk to me. Come out here. It’s nice.”
“No, I don’t want to. What are you doing?”
I opened my hand and cocked my hip, staring right at her. “I’m making a garden with a path. Remember? We talked about this last night. You told me you wanted flowers that attracted butterflies, pink roses, and red tulips.”
“I thought we were just counting Skittles because I had an anxiety attack.”
I opened my hands toward the sky, directing her to look at the beauty. “No, I meant it. Look at this area, these trees, the view of the lake, it’s perfect.”
“I want flowers there. The path should go over there.”
My eyebrows raised with a hint of aggravation and my hand directed her attention to the six feet of sod I had just shoveled from the ground. “What do you think this is?”
“Oh.”
“What? You don’t like it?”
“I just thought you would make it go that way.”
“There’s a ravine there. Do you want to jump over it every time you walk around your flowers?”
“I’m not going to walk on it, but if I was, I would.”
A deep breath of air filled my lungs, and I gave her what she wan
ted. I’d always do that. Why? Now that was the unanswered, stepped-over question. “Here?”
“Left.”
“Here?”
“One giant step left.”
“Here?”
“Yes, perfect.”
Keeping my annoyance hidden, I placed my foot on the shovel and my phone on an old tractor tire, a makeshift sandbox holding even more memories. If she wanted it to go this way, she could have said something two hours ago. I literally just sweated my bag off for nothing; to cover it back up, that’s it. After the fifth attempt to get past rocks, I picked up my phone and broke the news to Jaq.
“I can’t go that way. There’s a huge rock. How about here?” I questioned, my shovel stabbing into the dirt and my phone landing face down on the stump. A distinct scraping noise shifted my attention from Jaq to the red brick, a confused feeling and a frown following. Wondering how it got there, I dug around it, finding another one and another, not just a few, a bunch. An entire walk way, but how? When? There was never anything like that here. My father built the house, and I was sure there was never a brick walk there, ever.
I quickly moved dirt with one swipe, wanting to see how far and where it led to. That’s when I remembered Jaq. “Do you see this?”
“Yes, I’ve been yelling your name for five minutes. That’s perfect. That’s exactly where I would do it.”
“No, it’s a brick road, Jaq. I didn’t do it. It’s already here, but I don’t know how it got here.”
“Maybe your mom did it.”
Letting that thought marinate for a moment, I discarded it. “No, she never came here.”
“Hello, how are you?”