Vincent Zandri - The remains

Without thinking about it, I slipped my hand in his. He turned to me, set his wine glass gently onto the coffee table, moved into me and started kissing me.

I kissed him back but then pulled away.

“We should eat.” I smiled.

From where we were sitting I could hear the water boiling on the stove in the kitchen.

“Do you want me to spend the night?” Michael softly spoke.

I turned to him, looked into his brown eyes. I could see his desire to protect me. “If you’re going to stay, I suggest you call your mother first.”

“She doesn’t wait up anymore. I’m forty-three years old, don’t forget.”

I shook my head, rolled my eyes. Maybe this was a bad idea. Or maybe not. But just the mere suggestion of Michael staying with me proved a comfort.

“I’ll go put in the pasta,” he said. “You relax.”

He got up, went into the kitchen. As much as I wanted to take his advice and just relax, I knew I should be giving Robyn a call. It was important that I tell her about my plan to take the next couple of days off. After all, the school of art studio classes had to go on, not to mention the mid-month meeting with the board of directors, not a single one of whom was an artist.

I got up from the couch.

Locating my phone in my jean jacket pocket, I speed-dialed her cell. It was little surprising to get her message service. Robyn always picked up my calls. I left a message anyway, telling her about the days I would be taking off. Before I hung up, I decided to tell her that I would be having some company tonight in the form of my ex-husband.

“Please don’t call past nine,” I said.

Unlike Robyn, I didn’t get a thrill out of answering the phone while snuggling up with a date.

After dinner I asked Michael to check the doors and windows in the apartment. By the time he came back in, I was already in bed, waiting for him. Was I making the right decision by letting him stay over? Was I being an idiot? Was all this happening way too fast?

Somehow my sudden, almost abrupt desire to be close to him overrode common sense. With only a lit candle set out on the dresser to see by, he slipped in under the comforter and gave me a comforting smile.

It’d been a long time since I shared a bed with my ex-husband. You might think I’d be all over him, and he all over me. But inside that dimly lit room, with only the flickering candlelight glowing against the plaster walls, we lay on our sides facing one another, looking into each other’s eyes, not saying a single word but shouting out volumes.

For more than a few instances it seemed almost as if we’d never been separated or divorced; never spent even one minute away from one another. I wondered how it could be that two people who loved each other could not find a way to live together. But then I also had to wonder what still attracted us after all we’d been through; after the secret I had revealed to him.

After a time, Michael reached out and touched my face. The gentle gesture sent a chill through my body. He leaned into me, kissing me on the mouth. I kissed him back. He moved in closer, then slid one arm under me and the other around me. He pulled me close to him and he held me. He held me so tightly, I thought he’d never let go. And when he began to cry, so did I. I felt our tears combining and I tasted the salt from them, and we hardly made a sound other than the beating of our hearts.

For that brief eternity I was him and he was me and there was no past or future. There was only the sweet right now and all the wrongs that had occurred between us-all the hurt and all the pain-had suddenly and very definitely disappeared. In a word, Michael and I were new again. The love that had died was resurrected.

I became convinced that if there indeed was a God, He truly did work in mysterious ways. Maybe He’d taken away the sister I adored more than myself, but somehow, He’d given me back Michael. He’d given me back my soul mate

After a time, we lie on our backs feeling content and happy, holding hands, staring at the ceiling, not speaking or needing to speak, but just watching the flame-shadows that danced upon every surface that surrounded us from floor to ceiling. Set beside me on the table, my old dog-eared copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s now delicate pages stuffed with sketches of Whalen from thirty years ago. As I lay in bed, I felt like taking one of the candles to it and lighting it on fire. I felt like destroying it and my past. But I knew I wouldn’t.

When Michael got out of bed, he replaced the comforter over me. He blew out the candle and slipped back in bed. Reaching out, he took hold of a small tuft of my hair. He didn’t hold the hair so much as he let it rest in his fingertips, allowing the rest of the hand to sit on my pillow.

“Love you, Bec,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

Maybe four minutes later I was listening to the sound of his breathing as he slept soundly. For that one moment I felt happier than I’d felt in years.

I fell asleep to that happiness.

I’m walking with Molly along a stream bank surrounded by trees. The water flows as wide and heavy as a river. In the dream I’m walking right beside her, but I am also seeing the entirety of the dream as though looking at a movie screen.

Although no one is speaking I know we are looking for a place to cross the wide stream in order to go deeper into the forest. This is a forbidden place, but I am too far gone now; too far into the woods to go back. My only choice is to follow Molly; keep my eyes peeled on her red Paul McCartney and Wings T-shirt.

Soon we come upon a place in the stream that is shallower than the rest. There’s a series of boulders that rise out of the moving water. The boulders form a natural land bridge.

Molly turns to me, that smile on her face wider than ever.

“ Here,” she exclaims, as though she’s been looking for the spot all along. It’s then of course that I know for certain Molly has been here before. She’s defied our father, explored the woods without his okay; without my knowledge.

“ Stay close,” she orders as we traverse the rock bridge to the other side of the stream. “There, I can almost see it.”

Molly knows something is out there. It’s why she made me go into the woods with her in the first place.

We walk maybe another one-hundred yards before that thing takes shape.

“ You see it, Bec?” Molly shouts. “Can you see it?”

I can see it by then. As amazing as it seems, as buried as it is in the trees, I see it as clearly as I see Molly before me.

A house set in the middle of the woods.

Then a noise.

My cell phone vibrating.

And a voice.

“Rebecca.”

The name was not screamed, nor spoken. It came to me as a kind of whisper. Or maybe it just came to me. Maybe it just happened inside my head.

The cell phone went from vibrate to chime.

I thought I heard movement coming from inside the living room. I sensed movement anyway, the same way an expecting mother might sense baby’s first kick. Heavy booted feet shuffling against the hardwood.

My prone body was bolted to the bed. It wasn’t a bed at all. It was a concrete platform and I was bolted and chained to it.

Heart drummed triplets against my ribcage.

Was my cell phone really ringing? Was this a repeat of two nights ago? Had a voice been spoken? Had it been whispered? Had it all been a dream?

“Rebecca.”

I listened. I must have heard a voice. The voice had personality. It was gruff and low. There were specific details to the voice. There was a smell that went with that voice.

The smell of stale cigarettes. I knew that smell, recognized it. Cigarette butts.