Connected (47 page)

Looking into his powerful green eyes, I said, “Promise you won’t get mad?”

“
You don’t even have to ask that, but I promise,” he said, taking his free hand and crossing his chest. I find it so adorable when he does that.

“
I want to explain something to you,” I told him, caution clear in my voice.

He nodded and ran his free hand down my bare thigh. “Okay.”

Clenching his fist with both of my hands, I held his fingers in place as I explained that my house still had remnants of Ben everywhere. That I hadn’t really removed anything that belonged to him, only what I’d started to pack up before leaving for Las Vegas. I further explained my sad life over the last two years and how I’d just recently decided it was time to move. That I’d actually just put the house on the market.

He listened intently, acknowledging my words, but never interrupting until I said, “I just don’t want it to be weird for you, or me, if you come there and see pieces of my life with . . .”

Not letting me finish, he slightly lifted himself off the bed and pulled me down to him. Resting my head on a pillow, he caressed my cheek. Leaning in he kissed my nose, then slid his lips to my ear. “I understand, and I want to take you home.”

I left it at that and let him kiss me, stroke me, hold me, and love me for the rest of the night. But now, as we’re pulling up to my 1940’s Craftsmen style bungalow, I’m suddenly not sure this is a good idea. Looking at the purple wildflowers, which have taken over the yard, and the low-pitched gabled roof desperately in need of repair, I start to feel a little uneasy.

Turning the car off, he shifts to look at me and grins. “I never pictured you living in a yellow house with a white picket fence.”

“
When you want to live close to the beach, you take what comes available on the market,” I smugly answer, feeling less nervous already after his smart-ass comment.

The rain is pouring down so hard, the visibility is close to zero. There are flood warnings and I wonder if the old roof on my house is leaking again. River pulls on his beanie as he opens the door. “Stay there, I’ll come around and get you.”

I love when he wears that hat; it always reminds me of the first time we met. He grabs my bags out of the trunk and comes around to my door. Of course neither of us has an umbrella, so as I attempt to use my purse for cover, he removes his leather jacket and tents it over my head. We both run quickly up the stone pathway to the covered front porch.

Wiping the drops from my face, I glance at the large arched front door. It is slightly ajar. Terror shoots through me as thoughts of a masked man engross my mind.

Pushing me back with his arm, he asks, “Were you expecting anyone to be here?”

My heart starts pounding out of my chest. “No,” is all I can manage.

He moves toward the door and I yell, “No! Don’t!” My whole body is trembling, and fear surges through me. My jaw is tightly clenched and I’m feeling slightly sweaty. Ignoring my plea, he continues toward the door kicking it completely open with his boot.

“
You don’t have an alarm?”

“
Alarm?” I ask with a quivering voice. Then realizing that wasn’t an answer I say, “No. No alarm.”

His sharp voice pierces through the open door, “Hello?”

He starts to move inside, and I grab his wrist. “Are you insane? We can’t go in there! Let’s go back to the car and call the police.”

Gently pulling his wrist free, he says, “Dahlia, I don’t think anyone’s still here. Let me just check it out. See if we even need to call the cops. You stay here.”

“
No. You’re not going in there alone and leaving me out here,” I whisper in case someone is in there. I’m scared shitless and not sure why we’re even going in, but I follow him.

As we enter the house, my senses are on full alert. River takes small, cautious, steps as we enter the foyer and I hesitantly trail behind. Looking down I see Ben’s keychain on the tile floor next to the old key-shaped holder we bought when we first moved in.

Peeking over his shoulder I see the family room is a complete and utter mess. What had been packed in boxes is now strewn all over. The sofa cushions are torn and stuffing covers the hardwood floors, the TV hangs by cords from the wall, various electronics are smashed on the ground, ashes from the fireplace seem to dust everything, and glass lays shattered into a thousand tiny pieces on top of the hearth.

Running to the fireplace, I fall to the ground clutching one of the broken pictures. It’s a photograph of Ben and me at graduation. The frame is broken, but the photo is still intact. As I stare at the face of the man I once loved for so long, my eyes shift to the other items collapsed around the fireplace.

I assess the damage to my most cherished memories, and I realize they are all broken. My Purple Rain tickets mounted next to my father’s smiling face are ripped, but my dad’s big brown eyes seem to be looking back at me, trying to provide comfort. The picture of my parents and myself outside The Greek, proudly displaying our newly purchased concert wears, lays shattered on top of another photo. This snapshot is torn in half. It is of my aunt and uncle holding me as the priest baptizes me, branding them as my godparents. My aunt’s mother, Grammy, is standing next to them wearing her bounty of pearls.

River lightly places his calming hand on my shoulder as he bends to kneel beside me. “Be careful. There’s glass everywhere.”

Nodding my head, tears are steadily trickling down my face. “Who would do this?”

“
I don’t know,” he says in a tone as grim as I feel.

Taking the broken frame from my hand, his eyes narrow as he stares at the picture for a long while. I feel like recognition flashes across his face, maybe even pain as he says, “Is this him?”

Turning to face River, I hoarsely answer. “Yes. That’s Ben.” I’ve noticed, that just like Aerie, he never actually says Ben’s name but for a completely different reason.

Setting the picture down carefully, he stands up and holds out his hand. “Come on, let’s see if anything is missing and call the police. Whoever was here is gone now.”

Clutching his fingers tightly, I feel every muscle in my body tense as I force oxygen back into my lungs to stop from hyperventilating.

He points to the small vestibule in the back of the room that leads through the old butlers pantry to the kitchen. “That way?”

Inhaling deeply, I nod my chin. “No, follow me.”

Heading back to the foyer, we start down the short hallway that leads to my bedroom and Ben’s office. He pushes in front of me and I keep my eyes straight-ahead, scanning all the while for possible intruders that I know are gone. The house is too quiet for anyone to be in here. It is the same quiet I experienced hour after hour, day after day, for far too long.

A crunching beneath my feet makes me jump as we almost reach my bedroom. We both stop instantly. He turns around and we look down at my black converse sneakers as I lift my foot. Underneath it lays a crumpled up piece of paper. I recognize the golden gilded edge of the paper immediately. It is a page from one of Ben’s many journals.

Bending down, I carefully pick up the waded piece of parchment, caressing the satiny edge and holding it tightly. I try to keep my tears at bay and fail miserably as tears of sadness and sorrow bleed down my cheeks. My heart breaks as I glance into the office. Ben’s most cherished journals cover the knotted pine floor along with pieces of his laptop and various books torn at the bindings. Many more, once pristine, journal pages lay ripped, torn, and balled up everywhere. His beautifully scripted handwriting is still visible through the vile mess.

Covering my mouth with my hand, “No, not his journals,” escapes my mouth as I completely fall apart.
Who would do this? Why?

River holds me tightly as we stand between my room and the office. “It’ll be okay. I’ll fix this for you. Come on, let’s go back outside,” he whispers.

Pulling away and wiping the steady flow of tears from my face, I shake my head. “I want to see everything. This is my life. Broken and destroyed. I need to see it,” I cry these words as I move toward my bedroom where I stand frozen in the doorway unable to move, but unable to pull my eyes away.

Pillows are torn open, the mattress is upside down, and a chair is flipped on its side. What I see next, as I glance down at the floor, tears through me like a knife into my heart. Amidst all the mess and chaos, are my broken necklaces and scattered dolls, the items I cherish most in this room. Pearls, white and black, cover the floor, stuck in the grooves of the wood planks; some start rolling as I finally find the courage to move toward them, picking up my Ken doll as I walk.

Totally losing any sense of saneness, I put the doll on my dresser and grab the silver-plated coffee mug lying on top of my t-shirt quilt. Collapsing to the floor, I haplessly start pinching the pearls from the ground and depositing them into the cup. Ironically it is the one unbroken item in the room; the gift given to me by Ben as a gesture to fix what was once broken between us.

River bends down and takes the cup from my shaky fingers. Furrowing his brow, and with concern in his voice, he says, “Let me do this. But first, let’s get you a glass of water and take you to the car. I think you’ve seen enough. It looks to me like random vandalism.”

Sadly enough, I think he’s right. Nothing seems to be missing, but everything is destroyed. It’s like a tornado ravaged my safe, but sad house, taking in its path anything that remained of the people I’ve loved and lost. As if my world hasn’t already been torn apart enough, now I have nothing left but my own fading memories. The house looks like how my soul felt for so long after Ben’s death. Swollen with emotion, my internal wounds rip apart and the old feelings of hopelessness start to swirl around in my mind.

He’s talking, but I can’t hear him. A haunting ringing of my broken days echoes in my mind. Dark clouds begin to settle in before I blink away the eerie feeling. I try to see outside of my own head, but the destruction I’m looking at is causing all the grief to come rushing back. Everything is broken. Everything I have left of him, of my parents, has been taken away from me. Even the memories are surfacing less and less, and now my daily reminders are gone. I need them back. I don’t want my memories to fade away.

Hysterically, I grab the cup back. “No! I have to collect these.” Then setting the cup on the floor, I crawl on my hands and knees, picking up the glistening pearls. “These were my aunt’s. She loved them. They were her mother’s, my Grammy’s, and they meant the world to both of them.”

He crawls next to me and deposits a pearl in the cup. Then stroking my cheek before gently lifting my chin, he looks at me with nothing but love. “Okay. I understand. Let me help you.”

Pulling myself together, comforted by just his simple touch and soft words, I continue to pick up what I can of the pearls before stopping and rising to my knees. He continues to collect all the magical beads and I now feel like I should explain my hysterical reaction to my broken necklaces.

Wiping my tear-stained cheeks once again, I fumble for the words. “River,” I mumble before crawling over to him, needing to be near him. Glancing up at me, he sits up on his knees and pulls me close to him, clutching my arms and not letting go.

As we kneel on the floor that the devil just walked across, he simply presses his forehead to mine. My mouth remains stoic even as the words come out, and without looking at him I begin. “When I was a little girl I would often go with my aunt to her mother’s house to visit with her. Even though my aunt’s mother wasn’t really my grandmother I loved her so much. I called her grammy and really she was like a grandmother to me, the only one I ever knew.”

Pausing, I pull away and pick up the cup. Fingering the pearls that are no longer connected to their splendid strands, I say, “She wore these pearls all the time. Whenever I visited her house she would put them around my neck and call them magic wishing wells.”

Swallowing, I set the cup back down and draw imaginary circles around my neck before continuing. “Grammy would always tell me that wearing these pearls would make all my dreams come true.” Sighing, I take a deep breath and add, “When she died, they became my aunt’s and then when my aunt died, they became mine.”

I collapse back to the ground and hang my head in my hands unable to bear the pain any longer. His strong arms surround me, and he whispers into my ear, “She sounds like an amazing woman. We’ll get her magic back, Dahlia, we will. But right now, you need to take a break.”

River’s words soothe my pain and as he pulls back, I catch his loving gaze. Exhaling the breath I’ve been holding, I feel a sense of calmness flow through my veins. New emotions bubble to the surface as I throw myself toward him. Clutching his face and staring into his eyes, the words I’ve been unable to say suddenly pour out. “River, I love you.”