Dreaming August (4 page)

Nothing. Tears welled. Could it be…?

“Henny? Is it you? Oh, please. Please let it be you.”

No squeeze, just the lingering sensation of a hand on her shoulder. Benny squeezed her eyes tight. The tears welling fell free. Not Harriet. Not Henny. Definitely someone, or something, trying to get her attention. Or she was completely losing it, once and for all. Opening her eyes again, she didn’t turn to look, but peeked out of the corner of her eye. Nothing stirred the air beside her. Still the silent cemetery, still sunshine, but the touch did not fade.

“Please. Who are you?”

The spectral hand lifted, but did not fall away. She felt fingers in her hair, a breath upon her neck, and single word whispered into her ear.

August.

See Not As the Eyes of Man

“Here she comes, Harriet. Here she comes.”

“Calm yourself. I see her.”

“What do I say?”

“What are you asking me for? She’s been talking to me since she was a child and I never felt the need to answer. This is your idea, August, not mine. You’re the one who wants out of here so bad. Figure it out.”

“You’re just angry because I’m leaving you.”

“Angry for the first peace and quiet in donkey’s years? Not likely.”

“You’ll be lonely, when I’m gone.”

“You think you’re such good company? Go on. Off with you, before I box your ears.”

“If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have ears.”

“I’ll box them anyway. Don’t test me ’less you want to find out.”

* * * *

Benny stayed away from the cemetery for a few days. It wasn’t hard. Between tending the newly planted fields and selling flowers to the locals sprucing-up their gardens, June was a very busy time at the farm. The blog brought even more customers to Savvy’s. New Yorkers ‘in the country’ for the summer came in their never-seen-a-dirt-road SUVs and filled them with flats of annuals. Benny liked watching the kids’ faces when they saw the baby animals. They never made the connection between those in the pen and the grain-fed, cruelty-free meat Savannah sold discreetly out of a walk-in around back. She stocked not only beef and pork and chicken, but venison, goose, turkey and, occasionally, bear supplied by local hunters. The goat cheese and soaps sold in-store were made by an old high school friend of Benny’s, Darla, and her wife, Sandra. They traded their services for all the wool they could shear, card, spin, dye, and knit into the textiles they sold out of their shop in town. Benny already had her eye on one of their baby blankets.

Three days of guilty avoidance passed before she caved and headed for the cemetery. How would she stay away for months?

Riding through the dusk, she flew between the gates minutes before the cemetery officially closed, even though there was really no such thing for Bitterly Cemetery. In the earliest days of her widowhood, when summer still made nights cool instead of cold, Benny pitched the tent she and Henny bought for the big camping trip they never took, and slept at his graveside, waiting. If she believed hard enough, he’d find a way to her. And Benny believed. She felt whole worlds just beyond her fingertips when she stretched her arms out wide. It was there. She simply could not reach it. Yet.

August.

The word bounced about Benny’s head, clear as it did three days ago. August was the month Henny died. Was it connected in any way? Or did it mean whatever it was trying to reach her would do so in August? Tossing and turning through the night, Benny tried to make herself believe it was, after all, Henny trying to contact her, and that on the anniversary of his death, something would happen. But there had been no squeeze when she asked. In her heart, she knew it wasn’t him. She never felt Henny in the cemetery, despite her almost-daily visits, only an empty space he used to fill up.

Flopped on the ground beside his tombstone, arms behind her head, gazing at the clouds, Benny let go a long sigh. “Sorry I haven’t been here. I got totally freaked out the other day.” She rolled onto her side. Flowers needed dead-heading. She plucked at a few. “That’s not quite right. I didn’t get freaked out. I got hopeful. But it’s not you trying to get my attention. You have it already, don’t you, Henny. All of it. Almost. This is just so weird. All the years I did séances with my friends and dabbled in Wicca even though it made Ma’s head explode, I wished so hard to see something otherworldly, and now this…whatever it is. Part of me says it’s bullshit. Part of me says
finally!
But I want it to be you, Henny. I just want it to be you.”

Habit rolled Benny onto her belly and she instantly felt the pressure across her swelling abdomen. Burying her face into her folded arms, she inhaled the earthy scent. In. Out. The grass, newly cut. The dirt still damp from its daily watering. Intoxicating in its way. And the pressure across her abdomen a real and unavoidable reminder of the child she carried. Not Henny’s. Dan’s. A man she had known all her life, yet barely knew at all.

“I was lonely,” she told the grass and earth. “And he is…he’s Dan. He did that stupid, does-this-smell-funny thing one day at CC’s and I fell for it. He wiped the cream from my nose so tenderly, you know? And when he said I needed to get out of the house, and who better than a harmless old bachelor friend, I said yes before I even thought about it.” Another deep breath in, out. “I didn’t realize how much I missed laughing. We had fun. When he asked if I wanted to go to the movies, I said yes. Another dinner? Yes. He showed up at the house with that horse and carriage of his on Valentine’s Day and took me for a ride. That was the night, Henny. It was the only time we—well, you know how babies are made.”

She sniffed back tears.

“He told me he was falling in love with me. Why did he have to say those words and ruin it all? I’ve been avoiding him all these months, knowing I couldn’t forever. Knowing it was wrong. This is his baby too, right? When I saw him at CC’s the other day, I didn’t know how to act, what to say. I—I think I miss him. There. I said it out loud. I miss Dan. I miss the way he made me laugh and how he made me feel. And now you know. But you have all along, haven’t you? You saw me with him, didn’t you?”

Tears spilled into sobbing. She had put it out of her mind, the notion Henny had watched his wife, the woman who promised him forever, make love to another man. It didn’t matter it was Dan. Good guy Dan. Funny guy Dan. Old high school buddy Daniel-freaking-Greene. It would have been better if he’d been a stranger, or some asshole she wouldn’t think a second thought about. Sex was biology. Making love was an entirely different thing.

A touch, first cold, then spreading warmth through her body. Benny stiffened, but she didn’t bolt upright. Keeping her head enfolded in her arms, she waited. The touch moved up and down her back, then in circles. Soothing. Comforting. Like her mother did when she was small and so easily upset. It made her sniff back tears. It let her forget Dan and Henny. For now.

“Who—who are you?”

“August.”

Not a voice. Not really. A sound inside her, making itself known.

“Why are you…contacting me?”

“You talk. I listen. You need a friend. So do I.”

Lying on her belly was getting uncomfortable. Benny shifted. “I’m going to sit up. Okay?”

“Do as you wish, but I believe you must not look at me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I only know when you do, I am pulled away.”

“Okay. I won’t look at you.” Benny pushed herself upright, careful to keep her eyes on Henny’s tombstone. She felt—August?—that presence off to her left. Shielding her periphery, she rested her elbows to her knees. “Is…was your name August?”

“I prefer Augie.”

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“Are you buried here?”

“I am. I lived in this town for forty years.”

“I’ve lived here all my life. Does your family still live in these parts?”

“They left long ago. We are forgotten here.”

“This is so…wow. I have so many questions, my head is kind of spinning.”

“Soon, but now, our time is short. Already it pulls me back.”

“Back where?”

“Where I have been. You are the first. My first. I am not sure how all this works. I didn’t know—”

“Didn’t know what?” Benny lifted her head. “August? Augie?”

But she felt no presence. Chancing a glance out of the corner of her eye, she saw nothing. Her shoulders slumped. Not another car, scooter or bike awaited a rider. She was the only living soul in the cemetery. Pressing her palm flat to her husband’s tombstone, she said, “I think I’m going nuts-o, Henny. What the hell is happening to me?”

That warmth returned to her shoulder. No presence. No sound inside her making itself heard. Just the warm sensation proving she wasn’t alone. Benny lifted her hand from the granite marker. It trembled, but she moved it slowly, touching the spot to make sure it was real.

“Augie?”

The warmth gripped, like a hand grasping hers.

* * * *

“That was fast.”

“But I did it, Harriet. Do you think I frightened her?”

“Nah. Not that one. She’s been waiting all her life for a man like you.”

“I am glad to see your sense of humor isn’t as decayed as your corpse.”

“Be nice, Augie, or I won’t let you in on a little secret about being dead.”

“I am nice. What secret?”

“You’re working too hard at it.”

“At being dead? I assure you, I’m having no trouble with—”

“Not that, you ninny. I mean you’re pushing the boundary too hard, that’s why it keeps pulling you back. Just be.”

“Just be? What does that mean?”

“Try it next time, and you’ll see.”

* * * *

Bitterly Cemetery was big enough to make checking each headstone for the name
August
daunting. Asking Charlie to let her into the archives was a waste of time. The cemetery wasn’t computerized and sifting through probably nonexistent old files was even more daunting than walking the whole thing. She’d see if it happened again first. Then, if she wasn’t nuts-o, she would ask Augie himself where his final resting place was.

Only he wasn’t resting.

Benny tucked the hair coming lose from her ponytail behind her ear. It was at that too long to leave loose at work, too short to put up length. Annoying, to say the least. Growing it out always seemed like a good idea, until it reached this point and she chopped it into a bob to tease at her chin. Her mother always claimed the fashion magazines said tall, curvy girls should not wear their hair short.

“You’re far away, sugar.”

Benny turned to the familiar drawl, a smile coming to her lips. Savannah took the clippers from her hand.

“Why don’t you go to my office, rest a spell.”

“Again?” Forced laughter trembled. Benny cleared her throat. “I’m not tired. Just preoccupied.”

“You have been preoccupied since the day I met you,” Savannah said. “I believe it must be your natural state.”

“I used to daydream.” Benny hung her head. “Now it’s more like nightmares all the time.”

Savannah bundled her into a hug. “You need a break. To my office with you. No sass-back. I’ll bring you tea. We’ll have a cup together.”

“Herbal,” Benny tossed over her shoulder as Savannah gently shoved her in the direction of her office. Grateful for the whining air conditioner perched in the window, Benny slumped into the comfy office chair rather than on the cot where her boss sometimes slept during lambing season. She breathed deeply, collecting thoughts before any more escaped.

Savannah pushed through the door, and set a cup of fragrant tea down on the desk. “You okay, Benny?”

“I keep telling you, I’m fine.”

“And I keep not believing you.”

Benny chuckled softly into her mug. Smart woman. But she took the opportunity as it came. “I’m thinking about taking a trip. Getting out of Bitterly for a while.”

“Oh? When?”

“After Labor Day, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t. Where are you thinking about going?”

“North Carolina, to see my brother Tim and his family. I just feel like…like I have to get out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Really?”

Savannah tucked the same escaped lock of hair behind Benny’s ear. “Home and family can be as smothering as comforting,” she said. “And I don’t just mean your mother. I mean every little familiar thing here. They remind you, and keep you locked in a place you no longer know how to get out of, with memories that hold you back.”

Benny sipped her tea. The kinship between them had always been natural, and only now did she wonder why when Savvy was tough as a steel-toed leather boot, and Benny was soft as an over-worn ballet slipper. But they both loved the farm, and growing things and—

“Why did you come north?” Benny asked.

“That you’re asking just now tells me you know.”

“You lost someone you loved.”

Savannah nodded.

“Who?”

“Everyone,” she said. “We are talking about you, Benedetta, and how you need a change of scenery. Have you told your mother?”

“I haven’t told anyone but you.”

“Good. Don’t tell anyone else until just before you leave. Bless her heart, but your mother will try to talk you out of it. You need to go. You need to find your happiness again.”

Head bowed, Benny twirled her wedding ring around and around her finger. Happiness. She had moments of it, certainly—like her week with Dan, and when she imagined holding her baby, rocking him to sleep, even changing diapers. Yet…

“It makes me feel guilty to think about being happy,” she said. “How can I ever be happy again when Henny’s dead?”

“Denying yourself happiness doesn’t bring him back to life. It only wastes yours.” Savannah hugged her from behind the chair. “Listen to me, sugar, as one who has been where you are. There are victims, and there are survivors. You are a victim. I am a survivor. Do you see the difference?”

Benny leaned into her. How many times had she wished she were more like Savannah? Moving north, buying a farm, living all on her own without any help, she lived. Every moment of every day, she lived deep in the life she built for herself, by herself. It made Benny feel weak, and sad, and too many things she had no name for.