Dark Tides. Celia Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ tone. “I’m not entirely certain, which is why I’m asking. However, I’ve some inkling that people usually pack up the belongings of the…of people who aren’t around anymore,” he finished, crossing the linoleum to take his mug and sit down.

      She pulled out the chair across from him, then lowered herself slowly to the seat. “Well,” she murmured, “so they do.” She said no more as she lifted the steaming mug to her mouth and drank. He drank, too, contemplating the curve of her lashes on her lowered lids.

      After a moment, she placed her mug on the table. “How are you feeling?”

      The color of her eyes reminded him of the horizon on a still, clear evening as the sun went down, the sky a blanket of velvet, the only light that brilliant line of green…

      For the love of God, where the hell had that come from? Alarmed, he looked down at the table at the scratch of a word he still couldn’t decipher. “Fine… Better, I mean. Not fine. I still can’t remember anything.”

      She hooked the handle of her mug with her forefinger, moving the receptacle back and forth. “Caleb is a fine New Englander’s name, but I don’t think you’re from around here.”

      “Why’s that?” he asked, feeling a spark of something he recognized as dread.

      “You don’t have the accent. I don’t either, so I recognize when it’s missing. I’m from Pennsylvania originally.”

      “Pennsylvania,” he echoed. The name meant nothing to him.

      He watched her draw breath, take another sip, and set the mug back down. She tucked a handful of tangled hair behind her ear. “I looked in the phone book. And online. I couldn’t find anything that would lead to revelations about who you are.”

      He nodded, not sure what she was talking about. The only thing clear to him was that she still had no idea who he might be or where he belonged. Lifting his mug, he drained the contents, scalding his tongue. “Ouch.”

      She smiled, a small turn of her lips. “You all right?”

      “I’m all right,” he said.

      He wanted to touch her hand, her face, lean across the table and kiss her mouth, take his time, savor the sweetness of her lips and the residue of warm milk on her tongue. Instead, he stood up in a hurry and carried his empty mug to the sink.

      “Matt used to do that,” she said from the table.

      Oh, God, he thought, remembering how clearly she read him. “Do what?” he asked, not turning around.

      “Not wait for the milk to cool. He was always burning himself.”

      He let his breath out as he ran water into the heavy mug. When he spun back toward the table, she held her own close to her chin, staring off into middle space. Not wanting to intrude on her memories, he thanked her and left the kitchen to return to the guest room and his narrow, empty bed.

      * * * *

      Meg listened to the creak of the floorboards in the spare room above, followed by the slow groan of the bed frame. She lowered her mug to the table and stared down into the cooled remnants, the film of scalded milk shifting on top.

      Yes, Matt used to do that before he climbed the stairs to shower or to bed, where he would wait for her to finish in the kitchen and join him. He would lean across the table and kiss her long and deeply in invitation while the flavor of warm milk was still shared in their mouths. Back when he still wanted her, when he’d leap up hard in anticipation of heated flesh, slick, private places, and the intoxication of abandon.

      She let her breath out in a quiet sigh. Odd to find this stranger wanted to kiss her, too. Possibly, he possessed some psychic sensitivity of his own. Since he could bring forth no personal memories, he was perhaps more receptive to hers, reflecting them as if he and she were two mirrors held face to face, silvered surfaces casting back into infinity the image of the other until the origin could no longer be discerned.

      After a moment, she got up to rinse her mug, then dried her fingers on the leg of her sweatpants. Turning out the light, she gazed through the window at the softly illuminated sea. She impatiently dismissed her theory as she recognized its distinct flaw.

      Reflection would be impossible because nothing reflective existed in the darkness where she lived.

      Exiting the kitchen, Meg headed to the living room, her destination before she’d heard Caleb descending the stairs. Some half-recalled sense of protectiveness had apparently urged him out of his bed to investigate. She was used to wandering around in the dark in her own home and hadn’t given it a thought, but she really hadn’t meant to startle him. Alarm couldn’t be good for him in his condition.

      The ambient light through the windows from outside bled the color from the carpet in the center of the hardwood floor. Deep shadows hid the identity of furnishings, but Meg knew every stick and its location by heart. She crossed with an unerring step to the hutch, a shade of gray–brown in the night. Opening the door, she gazed into the dark interior, the drawers hidden but for the dull gleam of the keyholes. What had led Caleb here? What errant thought of hers had entered his mind and made him curious?

      She had watched him cross the floor as if drawn to the aged piece of furniture, saw him reach right out, open the door, and stare inside the way she did now. Rising up on her toes, Meg switched the three-way lamp on top of the hutch to its lowest setting. She pulled a key from the deep pocket of her sweatpants and inserted it into the top keyhole. As quietly as she could manage, she removed the drawer and took several steps backward to the sofa. Clutching the wooden receptacle in both hands, she sat.

      Dog-eared birthday cards and Christmas cards, tattered notes and mementoes filled the drawer. The sum and substance of the good years with Matt. The years before he had changed and she with him. Before love had degraded and trust had altered. Before he had slipped into that bitter place where she refused to follow.

      She tried to recall the first moment she had recognized the difference in their lives, but the change hadn’t happened like that. She couldn’t point her finger at a particular event and say, here is where the end began. It could have begun on the day they wed, really. At the exchange of vows when he became her husband and she his wife. Until death do us part.

      Sometimes, though, it seemed death hadn’t followed through with that promise. The scars of those final days, invisible to others, were always present in her mind. Though Matt had gone, the hurt remained like the sting of a phantom limb after removal. Even so, the pain had lessened of late. She had hoped, in time, to find it gone.

      Meg frowned down at the box of fading memories. She should have chucked them all in the fire pit in the garden a long time ago. Hell, she should have taken an ax to the kitchen table, too. She told herself her practical nature prevented the latter. Not so. One day she’d hoped for an answer to the words he’d carved into the wooden surface.

      So much for hope. So much for answers.

      She gazed a moment longer at the drawer across her knees and then rose. Marching to the kitchen with it balanced against her hip, she paused only long enough to shove her feet into a pair of rubber boots and grab the box of matches before heading out into the night. Once there, she made her way to the garden. Meg dropped to her knees beside the fire pit and removed the lid. Grabbing a handful of items from the drawer, she hesitated briefly before spreading them over the metal bottom of the receptacle. Inhaling, she struck a match against the side СКАЧАТЬ