Flutter (16 page)

“Emery, I trust you.”

“You do? Thanks, but he’s not, we’re not … It’s nothing.”

Gia just gave me a look, winking. “I’ll be texting you later for the details.”

I rolled my eyes. “Gia, thank you for coming. I really needed you.”

“Whatever. I don’t think you did. I think you’ve got it all under control.” Gia blew me a kiss then and started toward her car. “But, Emery?” She turned back to me.

“Yeah?”

“I know you’re totally focused on the loops, the mystery. And I know you’ll get it all figured out. But remember what you told me in the hospital, what you told me you wanted?”

“What?” I couldn’t remember. “A decent meal?”

“To live.”

Even in the distance, I could see the sadness in Gia’s
eyes. She knew that I had meant that I wanted to live … before it all caught up to me. Before I died.

“Thank you,” I said to Ash as I came back in and threw my coat on a chair. Maybe it was Gia’s goodbye, or maybe it was just seeing this little kitten, this gesture of kindness. But I was feeling all kinds of sentimental, blinking tears from my eyes.

“No, no problem,” he stammered. I pretended not to notice when his cheeks flushed, and I noticed he had started a fire. I reminded myself not to fall in love with him.

Ash went out to the clearing and brought in a cardboard box, which contained some kitten food, a water bowl, a scrap of burlap, which I immediately knew I would replace with one of my fluffier bath towels.

Ash took off his coat and hat, hung them on the hook behind the door. He sat on the floor cross-legged. I sat down across from him, and the kitten immediately went to Ash, purring and snuggling up to his chest. Ash produced a little red satin toy mouse, which he dangled in front of the kitten.

Ash tossed the mouse and the kitten went crazy, clawing at it, biting it, flicking it in the air with her paws. I picked up the mouse and threw it in the air. The kitten jumped and caught it, stuck her proud nose high, and pranced back to Ash, leaving the mouse in his lap. We played with the kitten for a long while, the fire crackling behind me. We cooed and fawned over how cute the kitten was. All the while, I stole
glances at Ash, unsure why this cowboy would do this for me, this kindness.

“You have to name her,” I told Ash.

“No,” he said. He held the toy mouse by the tail and jiggled it for the kitten, then shoved it up his shirtsleeve. The kitten knew exactly where it was, clawing at his wrist.

Ash chuckled and let the cat try to wrestle it out of his sleeve. The firelight danced in Ash’s eyes, and I found myself drawn over and over to the gracefulness of his hands. They were large and roughened from work, but they moved with such grace, an artist’s hands.

“Come here, No Name,” I said, clicking my tongue. The kitten had gotten the mouse loose and was giving it quite the business. The kitten ignored me, and Ash as well, batting the mouse under the table, around the kitchen, toward the fireplace.

“Cheap entertainment,” Ash said. “Emery, you have to name her. I’m sure you had a name in mind when you were a kid.”

“No. You name her.”

To my surprise, Ash took one look at the kitten and said, “Eyepatch.”

I wrinkled my nose.

“Too weird,” he said. “Socks?”

“No, too cutesy.”

“How about Dala?” Ash asked.

“Dala?” I considered this.

“So, after you leave, you can have her to remember this place.”

My thoughts quickly turned dark. “I may not be able to keep her and—”

“She can always go back to the barn, Emery,” Ash said, eyeing me.

How could I explain that certainly this tiny kitten would outlive me? That my loops, this mystery, my odd, lonely existence, were surely coming to some sort of conclusion? Hadn’t the older version of my father practically spelled it out for me? Wasn’t that why I was here? To solve this last mystery? Live a little before this all finished me?

I knew this, deep down. But this kitten, brand-new and full of excitement, brought it home to me in a way that I hadn’t expected.

I pushed away these morbid thoughts; they were not helpful. “Dala,” I said, scratching the kitten under her chin. She flopped down in front of me flat on her back, paws raised in the air. “Oh, please may I pet your belly?”

“So Gia is a friend from home?”

“Yeah, a good friend.” I cleared my throat and felt empowered by Gia’s visit. “Tell me about Next Hill,” I said, trying to sound casual. I stole a glance over at Ash.

He scratched the stubble on his chin, and if we were playing poker, I would bet that this was his nervous tell. “I actually have to go,” he said, getting up from the floor.

“You do?”

“I do.” He grabbed his coat and hat. I thanked him again, and he left us then. Dala and me.

This was going to be harder than I thought. I filled Dala’s dish with water. She swirled between my feet the whole way into the kitchen, rubbing up against my ankles.

But Dala got agitated then, as I bent down to fill a bowl with the food Ash had left for her. She meowed loudly, and clawed at my feet, my ankles.

“Shh,” I told her, and I set her in front of her food, but Dala wouldn’t have it. She meowed more loudly now and jumped up at me, clawing at my jeans, desperately trying to get me to pick her up.

So I did, and it was then that the buzzing swelled behind my eyes. My eyelids fluttered.

I quickly sat in the kitchen chair. I tried to push back the swell, but it was too big, too forceful. The cat nuzzled her face into the crook of my elbow, hiding. “You knew,” I said. Then my body stiffened.

I was gone.

I’m sitting on a hot plastic lawn chair at the public pool in Ann Arbor, in my old neighborhood. The sun beats down on the concrete pool deck, on my arms, my legs, in my eyes. I watch several small kids splashing and laughing in the water with their moms holding them. They wear bright orange floaties and crazy-happy smiles. I smell sunblock and fresh popcorn from the concession stand
.

I instantly spot my own mom. She is young and pale, her dark hair pulled back from her face, a small patch of freckles dotting the bridge of her nose. I had forgotten about her freckles. Her face is tilted back in laughter, and there I am, in her arms, splashing, kicking. I’m being held by my mom. I’m small, curly-headed, in my pale green bathing suit with the blue, glittery fish print
.

My four-year-old self keeps pushing away from my mom, keeps saying, “My own self!”

Mom lifts me and gently places me on the side of the pool, and I don’t hesitate. I back up, take a running start, and fling myself into the water, a look of pure joy on my face. Mom catches me as I go under
.

I remember this day. I remember parts of it. Refusing to wear the orange floaties. Mom’s laugh, the way the water beaded on her long lashes. I remember being so happy
.

“That’s my girl!”

Her voice is loud, clear, rising above the clatter and splash of the swimming children. It takes a beat for me to realize that Mom is looking right at me, the grown-up me, speaking to me
.

I point at my chest. She nods. I wonder briefly how I can be here—two me’s at one time. But I don’t care. It’s Mom
.

“Yes, you, Emery,” she says, and nods. “I love you.”

I feel then this spot of aching, this empty place inside, so familiar, so part of my everyday that I notice it now only because it changes. I feel it shrink, heal itself somewhat, fill itself up, and I smile at her. She is beautiful, just as I remember her, and she smiles back at me
.

The colors fade in around my vision
.

I wave goodbye
.

I woke up smiling from my first-ever loop with Mom. My head was lying on the kitchen table, my body slack in the chair. Dala was curled up at my head, now trying to lick my cheek. It was dark in the cabin, cold. I got up to stoke the fire and could barely stand. My vision tunneled, blackness puddling around the edges. I sat back down and put my head between my knees. I stood up again after a few minutes. I was okay. Still dizzy, worn, definitely worse than my usual after-loop self. But I was happy. I felt that tingle behind my eyes, that rush in my head, and pushed back the tears. Mom. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her.

How much seeing her would mean to me. How much a few words of encouragement might hearten me.

When the fire had warmed, I crept into my bed, fuzzy-headed and hollowed out from my loop. Dala nestled herself into the crook of my neck and collarbone. I sighed a deep sigh and scratched Dala’s ears, my mom’s face still burning brightly in my mind—and her words burning in my heart—as I drifted off to a happy sleep.

Dala bit at my hair, pulling it, tugging it. I woke up and saw that the sun was high in the sky. We had slept late. I sat up and instantly noticed a note on the floor, as if it had been slipped under my cabin door. I padded over to it.
Dinner tonight?
was all it said. The neat, elegant printing made my heart leap inside my chest.

I knew it would be hard—no, impossible—to keep things all business between us. And this scared me, but it also thrilled me. And, really, after my loop with Mom, I felt different. Like I could do anything. Like maybe I just had to dive right in.

I tried to prepare myself for any outcome. I mean, what did I think I was going to do, tell Ash my secrets over dinner and then he would explain to me exactly what was going on in my loops, figure it all out, wrap it up in a bow? Then maybe confess his odd and inexplicable attraction to me as well? It was ridiculous, and I knew that this was true on some level. But so much of my life up until this point had been ridiculous.

I trekked to Hansen’s for some groceries and then spent
most of the morning trying to replicate the stained glass from my loop with my brush and acrylics. When I had finished, it was okay, good enough to show someone—like the historical society in Charlevoix—in order to ask if they’d seen it. But it wasn’t perfect, so I started over with watercolors. I concentrated on my technique, forcing myself not to think only about Ash.

As the sun set, I was shaking my head against my every thought about him, cutting up tomatoes, when I heard the knock on the door. Even his knock was deliberate, forthright.

I steeled myself as I opened the door, trying to calm the ridiculous beating of my heart, telling myself to settle down and quit acting like a fool.

You just have to figure out how he fits into this puzzle, what information he has
, I told myself.

“Emery,” Ash said with a smile that was just a tad crooked to the left, and I could feel my resolve quickly slipping away. Dala greeted him enthusiastically, circling his legs, purring and purring.

He waited there at the door until I asked him to come in. “I can take your coat,” I told him.

I savored the scent of him as I took his coat and hung it on the hook on the back of the door. We stood there together, just inside the threshold for a moment, smiling at each other. He took his hat off then, and reached past me to add it to the hook on the door. As he did this, he leaned so close to me—soap, hay, him.

I wanted to reach my hand over to him and feel the rough scrape of his stubble under my fingertips. The need to touch his face was overwhelming, but I bit my lip and got control of myself.

“Let’s eat,” I said cheerily, and we made our way over to the table. I put out the tossed salad and served us both a bowl of soup; then I quickly toasted the bread for the grilled cheese, tomato, and bacon sandwiches I had been preparing. “The pickings are a bit slim when you only have a hot plate,” I told him as I finished up the sandwiches and joined him at the table.

“Thank you. It’s good,” he said, tasting his soup. He averted his eyes.

“I just wanted to apologize for ambushing you at the Wingings, and for attacking you at the stables, being ungrateful—”

“No problem.” He didn’t look up. I watched him break off a tiny piece of bacon and give it to a very grateful Dala.

“I acted ridiculous,” I told him. “I just have been kind of under a lot of pressure, and I don’t usually cry on a stranger’s shoulder, or pass out upon meeting them, or need constant attention, or generally act like a lunatic.…” I smiled wryly, trying to lighten the mood.

He didn’t look up. He didn’t laugh. He took a big bite of his sandwich and licked his lips, nodding.

I stirred my soup and took a sip of lemonade. Okay …

“You don’t need to apologize.” And then he looked up. “Are you sick?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“But you were in the hospital.”

“Yes. It’s complicated.”

“And it has to do with what you thought I knew about you.”

“Yes.” A part of me just wanted to spill it all to him. I was nearly positive he would believe me. But that wasn’t the part that worried me. I didn’t want to give him any reason to leave, to be scared of me. And given my current status in life, I knew I was acting ridiculous thinking about us together beyond this dinner. But I was. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was a stupid thought. But there it was, stronger and more real than almost anything I’d ever felt.

We ate in silence for a bit. I picked. He ate and ate more. “You’re a good cook,” he told me, smiling that smile again, and my insides turned to jelly once more.

“So had you been living here in our stolen cabin long, before I came and usurped?” I asked.

“No, not long. A couple of weeks.”

“And have you been in Esperanza long?”

“A few months.”

“Jeannette said you have your own place.”

“I did, just a one-room over the Laundromat.”

“But not anymore?”

“I needed the money for other things.” He didn’t elaborate.

“And you didn’t get stitches like I told you to.”

“I just put a butterfly bandage on it. It’s fine.”

He sat back and pushed his plate away. He produced something from his jeans pocket then, and I immediately recognized it as the crumpled portrait of me. “What didn’t you like in my picture?” He didn’t talk around it. He didn’t apologize for wanting to know. He just asked.