Ben began dialing the phone again. This phone had become his lifeline in the last six months. His brother answered on the second ring.
“Did I wake you?” Ben asked.
“Not completely,” Sam said. “What's up?”
“Did Sharon have her number changed?”
“Yeah. Jeff insisted. Are you the one who's been calling?”
“Occasionally. Not enough for him to get steamed about.”
“He gets steamed pretty easily when you're the topic of conversation. Real self-righteous asshole.”
“I know you're saying that to make me feel good, but it doesn't work. My daughter's living with him, remember? I'd like to think he's half decent.”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, okay, I'll give him that. He's half decent.”
“Listen, I want to tell you something but you have to keep it quiet. Is Jen right there?”
“No. She's gardening.”
“I'm seeing…well, sort of seeing, Eden Riley.”
“What? What do you mean, sort of seeing? Is she visiting Kyle? Does she know any—?”
Ben smiled. “Slow down. She's visiting Kyle for the summer because she wants to do a film about her mother and needs to do some research. So I've seen her a few times.”
“Define 'seen'?”
“Gone out with. Talked with. Kissed.”
“Shit, Ben, you dog!” Sam laughed. “Eden Riley! What about her boyfriend, what's-his-name, that guy she was giving it to in her last movie?”
“I don't think she's particularly enamored by him. Besides, this is just a brief, summer sort of thing.” He had to keep reminding himself of that.
“Does she know about Bliss?”
“She knows there's a problem. She doesn't know what, and she doesn't seem to care.”
“The woman's made for you. Is she as prissy as her image?”
“No, I wouldn't call her prissy at all.” He remembered the hungry pressure of her hips against his last night, and his penis sprang to life beneath the sheet. He laughed. “She's having an effect on me.”
“Well, hallelujah. Go for it, bro. Just…I mean, I hate to inject a serious note here, but don't get screwed, okay? For my sake if not for yours? I don't think I can handle any more of your traumas.”
“Not a word to anyone, Sam. Not even Jen.”
He felt courageous after talking to Sam. So much so that he called Eden to ask her if she'd changed her mind about doing something today. He wanted to drive to Belhurst to buy dollhouse furniture for Kim Parrish's birthday. She'd love to go, Eden said, and for some reason he wasn't surprised at her change of heart. She'd been up for hours, she said, and had made a good start on the screenplay. But Kyle had just handed her another notebook and she wanted to read for a while. Would eleven be too late?
Eleven would be fine.
He got out of bed, put on his shorts and running shoes, and left his cabin for a good long run in the rain.
–20–
March 7, 1945
Last week Matt's mother developed pneumonia and Tuesday she died. Matt blames himself because he thinks he should have gotten her to the hospital sooner, but the doctor told him it wouldn't have made any difference.
He asked me to come to his house last night to help him straighten up. There was not much to do but I think he just didn't want to be there alone when he went through his mama's things.
His mama had taken to reading magazines as she lay in bed, so I sat on the sofa in the living room trying to read Life, but feeling real nervous at being in the house of a dead woman. Matt was in her room sorting through her things, but I couldn't go in her room at all.
After a while he came into the living room and sat next to me on the sofa and I knew he'd been crying. Matt cries very easily. “I'd like you to have this,” he said, pressing something into my hand. It was an oval-shaped pendant, painted white with a purple flower in the middle. It's the most beautiful thing I ever saw. “She wore it a lot and it always reminded me of you, because it's just one flower, all by itself.” He lifted it from my hand and fastened it around my neck and he was close enough that I could see the dark stubble from the last time he shaved. Then he suddenly leaned down to kiss me on the lips and I quickly turned my head away.
“Kate?” he said.
“Don't do that.” I knew I needed to explain my reaction to him, so I told him that I care about him, that I even love him in a way. But I am not in love with him. I'm not prudish, I said. I don't believe you have to be married to make love, but I do believe you should at least be in love with the person.
I told all this to Matt and he said, “I only wanted to kiss you."
“But if we kissed you might think I was in love with you.”
“Well, you've made it very clear you're not.”
He looked sad and I felt terrible. I thought Matt and I understood each other, that we were friends with neither of us expecting more than that.
“I'll walk you home,” he said.
“I can go by myself,” I said. I wanted to get out of that house. It had suddenly changed everything. Before I set foot in it we were good friends, free to say anything to each other, but now we couldn't look each other in the eye. I turned to the door and suddenly he put his arms around me from behind.
“Kate.” He kissed my neck through my hair. “Please don't leave me here alone.”
I held perfectly still and after a while he let go of me, walked into his mother's room and closed the door behind him. I left his house and ran back to the cavern, crying all the way. Once I got there it took me a long, long time to catch my breath.
Today I feel terrible. I woke up sick to my stomach and I know it is because I hurt Matt. I should have hugged him and comforted him, but I was afraid he would start trying to kiss me again. Why did he have to try to get so close to me? He's ruined our friendship. I wish Kyle were here to talk to about this because I'm just not sure what to do.
March 12, 1945
Matt hasn't come to the cavern since before his mama died. Next to Kyle, he is my dearest (and only) friend and I have failed him terribly. I know he only wanted my comfort the other night at his house, that he wasn't about to pressure me for more, but I am so afraid of being close to another human being that I had to get away from him. I keep thinking of what that night must have been like for him, feeling left by his mother and turned away by me.
Matt needs a better friend than I can be. He deserves a better friend. Maybe I shouldn't let him come here anymore. I should force him to go out and mix with other people.
March 13, 1945
Matt came to the cavern last night, just as I was writing in my journal. He walked in, sat down in the rocker, and said: “Everything's got to be on your terms, Kate, doesn't it?”
“I don't know what you mean,” I said.
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
I wanted to apologize, to tell him how much I care about him and how sorry I am for hurting him. I tried to find the right words but couldn't, so finally I handed him this journal, opened to what I wrote yesterday, and let him read it. There's no better way I could think of to let him know how I feel.
I felt naked as he read it, more than I did the night of the Christmas party when I opened my coat in his car.
When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “I'm not going to beg you to love me, Kate. But please don't tell me I can't come here anymore. Let that be my choice.”
So we sat, and he read and I wrote, just like nothing ever happened.
June 2, 1945
I graduated today and at the ceremony, Sara Jane announced she is marrying Tommy Miller in July. I wrote as gentle a letter as I could to Kyle.
August 14, 1945
Today the Japanese surrendered and we got word Kyle is coming home!
August 21, 1945
I have bound up ten of the stories I typed over this long year with a cover so it looks almost like a book for Kyle to read. Only two days til he gets back. I also have the arrowheads in a b
ox to show him. I'm so excited that I can't sleep at all and can barely eat enough to stay alive. Susanna and I are buying all his favorite food, Matt bought him some new shirts, and Daddy bought champagne!
August 23, 1945
I am so confused. Susanna and Daddy and Kyle and Matt are all in the house celebrating Kyle's return and I am here in the cave by myself. I feel more like crying than writing and actually, I am doing both.
Kyle came home just a few hours ago, around dusk. He was earlier than we expected and I was writing in the cave, trying to keep busy to steady my nerves while I was waiting for him. Suddenly I saw him silhouetted against the entrance to the great room. He was still in uniform, tall and beautiful, and I felt actual pain on the inside of my arms which I knew would only stop once I wrapped them around him.
I jumped up and ran to him but he put his arms out to stop my hug.
“Damn it, Kate,” he said. “What the hell are you still doing in this cave?”
I stopped in my tracks to try to make out his expression but it was too dark. I thought he must be joking, so I reached out my arms for him again and this time he grabbed my arm.
“You promised me you'd leave it,” he said.
“But I like to write here,” I said. I was feeling guilty.
“God, what is wrong with you? This is crazy, Kate. Do you hear me? It's crazy! You're eighteen God damn years old. You're a woman, for Christ's sake.” He picked up the book of stories I'd bound for him and threw them across the cave into the darkness. “Screw your writing!” he said.
He grabbed my shoulders then and for a terrible moment I thought he was going to kill me, that maybe his military training had gone haywire and he couldn't stop killing and hurting. “I'm not the enemy,” I said, scared as I've ever been in my life.
He let go of me so suddenly I nearly fell. “I expected you to grow up this year,” he said, and then he turned and left the cavern.
I waited, thinking he would calm down and come back. When he didn't I crept through the dark forest to the house, just close enough to see the four of them in the kitchen. I wondered where Daddy and Susanna thought I was. I could see Kyle's face clearly and he looks years older. We are both eighteen for this month, but he is a man now. His chin has grown square and solid and his face has nothing of a child left in it. I felt about ten years old, standing there watching them. Finally I walked back to the cave.
For the first time I can understand how a person can feel empty enough to kill themselves. I pity my poor mama and her sister for feeling this way so long.
August 24, 1945
I waited until the house was dark before I went back last night. I considered spending the night in the cave but I couldn't bear to be that far from Kyle, whether he wanted me away from him or not. Everything was quiet as I tiptoed through the kitchen and hallway, and when I reached our bedroom I discovered Kyle was not in his bed. I went out in the parlor and there he was, sleeping under a blanket on the sofa. I watched him for a minute and then went to my own bed for a good cry.
I finally fell asleep and when I woke up it was still dark out and Kyle was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my hand. When he saw my eyes were open he said, “I worry about you, Katie. I'm sorry for the way I acted last night, but what's made this last year bearable for me was thinking that you were out and living a normal life like other girls your age. When I saw you in that cave, I just…” He shook his head. “There's a world out there, Kate. I have to get you away from here somehow.”
I felt like a burden to him. I sat up and leaned against the wall. “You don't need to worry about me. I'm content just as I am.”
He looked like he didn't believe me and shifted on the bed so his back was against the wall too. He needs some new pajamas. Those he was wearing are way too small for him now.
“Why are you sleeping in the parlor?” I asked.
“We can't sleep in the same room anymore. Guys my age don't share a room with a sister. It's not natural.”
“That's crazy,” I said. “We've done it all these years just fine.”
“No, it's not right. It's not done. I'll just stay on the sofa.”
I decided not to argue with him just then. I figured in a few days he'd be back to his old self and in a more normal state of mind. We talked awhile longer and then suddenly he said, “Kate, do you realize I'm out a lot sooner than I'm supposed to be?”
“Well, the war's over,” I said.
“Yes, but you don't just come home the day after the war's over. I've been discharged. What they call a medical discharge.”
My heart just about stopped beating. “Are you hurt?” I asked.
He was rubbing my hand hard and slow, like he was trying to work a cramp out of my fingers. “What I'm going to tell you stays between you and me, right? You won't tell anyone? Not even Matt?”
“No,” I whispered.
“They discharged me because I had a breakdown.” He lowered his eyes and I didn't really understand what he was saying, but I knew it shamed him.
“What do you mean?”
“You have no idea what it's like, Kate. I killed people. The first time it was hard and then it got easier. You start thinking it's either them or me and damned if it's going to be me. It scares me, how easy it got. I started having nightmares, about things I was seeing in the jungle, or sometimes about Mama the night she…you know. The dreams got so bad they finally sent me to the hospital, but I wasn't much better there. Finally the army just figured a loon like me wasn't much use to them and sent me home.”
“I'm glad they did,” I said. “And you're not a loon.”
“I'm still afraid to go to sleep at night,” he said.
I sat away from him. “Is that why you don't want to sleep in here? Are you afraid you'll wake me with a nightmare?”
He smiled, the first smile I've seen out of him since he got home. “No. We're not sleeping in the same room anymore and that's the last word on the subject.” Then his smile was gone again. “The whole time I was in the hospital I thought of you. All these doctors were trying to get me to talk to them and looking at me like I was crazy and I was thinking there was only one person in the world I could really tell anything to and who would care about me whether I was crazy or not. I missed you so much, Katie. I don't ever want to be that far away from you again.”
“Well, you're home now,” I said. “You're safe. No place safer than Lynch Hollow.”
He went back to sleep in the parlor, against my wishes, and this morning at breakfast he was smiling. He said it was the first good night's sleep he'd had in months.
Eden found Kyle in the springhouse. She stood quietly in the doorway for a moment, watching him. He sat with his back to her, his head bowed under the circle of light from a desk lamp, and she knew he was painting the tiny identification numbers on fragments of pottery. Marked fragments covered the surfaces of the three long wooden tables that nearly filled the tiny stone springhouse.
“Kyle?”
The old wooden chair creaked as he turned to face her. “Come in.” He motioned to a chair on the other side of the nearest table.
She sat down. It was cool in the room, but not so cool that she needed to hug her arms against her chest, as she did now. He turned back to the desk and she watched his steady hand as he finished painting the numbers on a fragment. The lamp lit the silver frames of the glasses he wore for close-up work. She waited until he looked up at her before she spoke.
“I didn't know about your discharge from the army, Kyle.”
“No, not many people do.” He put down his brush and pushed his chair a few inches from the desk. “I finally told Matt about it a couple of weeks after I got back. Matt had a way of making you feel sane even if you weren't. You could tell him the craziest thing you'd ever done and he'd act like you were talking about the weather. And I've told Lou, of course. But I don't think there's anyone else who knows.”
“Do you want me to leave it out of the film?”
Kyle la
ughed. “It's the kind of thing you're ashamed of at eighteen, not sixty-four. I don't care who knows now, but back then, I thought I was going crazy—that I'd inherited some of my mother's loony genes.” He took off his glasses. “You know, on the one hand I was angry with Kate for not leaving the cave. On the other hand, I was jealous of her. Right then, I wanted to hide away, not have to face what was going on in the world. But I was supposed to be sane and stable. Kate could get away with holing herself up in a cave. I couldn't.” He smiled at her and then suddenly sat up straighter, his eyes at her throat. When he spoke again his voice was soft. “I haven't seen that in a very long time.”
Her fingers felt the pendant at her throat. “It's the first time I've worn it.” She'd put it on just an hour ago, when she'd read about her father giving it to her mother.
Kyle shuddered a little, picked up his paintbrush again. “A little bit of a shock, seeing you in that. You look so much like Kate to begin with.”
Eden lifted one of the larger pieces of pottery from the table in front of her and felt the smooth surface with her thumb. “Kyle,” she said. “I'd be more than happy to help out with…I'm not sure how to say this. Please don't take offense. But I'd like to help with the site. Financially, I mean."