Jennifer Greene: Conquer the Memories

“Men.” Her mother grinned. The two of them shared a chuckle of mutual understanding. Though they’d seemed at loggerheads when Sonia was growing up, a special closeness had developed as she matured and learned to relate to her mother woman-to-woman.

“The farm going okay?” she asked.

“Mmm. Fine. Need a rain, but then we always need a rain in June.” Sonia had inherited her love of roses from her mother, who now studied her daughter’s plants with a critical eye, poking a hand into the soil to rub the texture between two fingers. Both knew, though, that the visit to the greenhouse was only an excuse to steal a few minutes together. “He’s fine, Sonia,” June said absently. “Or he will be. I can see his ribs still hurt him when he moves, but that’s to be expected.”

“He still gets these terrible headaches,” Sonia worried.

“But that was no small concussion. Two weeks isn’t so very long.”

“If I could get him to stay off his feet more…”

They closed the door on the greenhouse, and Sonia walked her mother to the car. “He’s just like your father,” June commiserated. “Men are sheer nuisances when they’re ill.” She paused. “Every blasted last one of them, I believe.” She gave her daughter an affectionate, if gingerly, peck on her smudged cheek. “Your roses are doing beautifully. Coffee grounds, Sonia, just a few grains sprinkled around them a few times a week. The plants like that acid. And stop worrying. You two are such a pair! He’s worse than you are, grilling me four times over the minute you’re out of sight about whether you’re really feeling all right. Now it’s time both of you put the incident behind you.”

“Hmm.”

“Smile,” her mother ordered.

Sonia smiled. “Go away. I hate good advice.” Laughing, June got into the car. Sonia leaned through the window to hug her mother. “Give Dad a kiss for me, would you?”

Charlie, with a fork poised over a sizzling frying pan, shot Sonia a sardonic look. “It’s going to rain, you know.”

“It is not.” The tray was already on the kitchen counter.

She drew out two Cornish hens from the refrigerator and put them on the tray, then added silverware, salt and pepper, a chilled bottle of wine, and two glasses. “Now what else do we need?” she asked absently.

“A night with no wind. That is, if you plan to cook those outdoors over a fire. If you plan to eat them raw, won’t make no difference.”

“The wind is going to die down, the minute we go outside,” Sonia informed him.

“Oh. That’s different, then.” Charlie nodded sagely.

“You’re just angling for an invitation.”

“Are you joking? I got a pan-fried steak and CSI, coming on. Besides, the minute I saw the wine on the tray I had you figured for being ‘in the mood.’ Sure do hope Craig had a nap this afternoon.”

Sonia picked up the tray. In spite of herself, she felt color rising in her cheeks. She opened her mouth to make a fitting retort, then closed it. Charlie burst out laughing.

She went outside and closed the sliding glass doors on him, balancing the tray precariously on one arm. Charlie was…irrepressible. If she didn’t love him so much, she’d be inclined to muzzle him.

He didn’t, at least, live in the house; he just cooked there. Not that Charlie’s bunkhouse didn’t have a fully equipped kitchen, but he and Craig had been talking “ranch” over meals for so long that Charlie was more than half family, and besides, she had learned a great many secrets about her husband while chopping onions with Charlie.

Occasionally, he had the misguided notion that he could outthink her, which was totally untrue. Sonia set the tray on the patio table and anchored the napkins with the silverware against the puffing breeze.

Warm fingers of air ruffled her dark curls and teased at the open throat of her white satin blouse. The full sleeves billowed above the tight cuffs, and she could feel that most impertinent wind sneaking beneath the smooth material to her bare skin.

Craig loved her “pirate blouse.” When they were alone.

It was one of several garments in her closet that he preferred she not wear in public. At the moment, it was cinched at her waist with a scarlet scarf, above her favorite jeans and her bare feet. The wind was whipping away her perfume, she thought irritably, as she picked up the tray again.

Charlie could think what he liked. She’d only worn the blouse because it was a favorite. Lots of times she felt like dressing as if she were a wanton Gypsy.

Craig could see his wanton Gypsy approaching as he spread the blanket out on the riverbank. The sunset was behind her. The mountains were behind her. Their house, a wandering design of glass and stone, was behind her. Sonia was part of all of it. The soft flame and fire in the sunset was very like her: she had that fresh, untamed core, that soaring ever upward quality that was intrinsically part of the mountains; and she’d fussed over every stone in the house, just as he had, when they’d built it together.

She could have looked more beautiful; he just didn’t see how. Curls were bouncing wildly around her cheeks; she was flushed and smiling, and there was a devil-spark of laughter in her eyes as she set the tray down on the ground near him. “I suppose you don’t believe we’re going to be able to cook anything in this wind.”

“Did I say that?” He’d managed to start the fire through sheer willpower. By some miracle, it was holding on to life, its flames licking high in the air, sparks flying toward the river.

“You’re a doubting Thomas. Just like Charlie. I’ll collect more kindling, and by the time I get back, the wind will have completely died, you’ll see. You just stay right there-no,” she corrected herself. “You open the wine. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

She raced off before he could say anything, and a slash of a smile touched his lips. Naturally, she’d darted away; she was afraid he was going to call off their cookout simply because a dozen dark, clotted clouds were rolling in low and the wind was bringing in a storm with dizzying speed. She’d misjudged him. He wasn’t about to rain on her parade; the skies were going to do that all on their own.

He had his eyes full, in the meantime. With hands loosely on his hips, he just watched her. Her breasts were clearly outlined as she walked into the wind; her steps were lithe and free. She had a way of tossing back her head as if she were vibrating with the sheer joy of being alive.

Woods bordered on the riverbank, a tall, heavy stand of pine and hardwoods. The wind tossed up the branches and crooned a whispering song through the leaves. He saw Sonia look up suddenly, and his smile died.

She loved the woods; she always had, and they were safer here than anywhere on earth. A fleeting, haunted fear still touched her features, and then the ghost of a shiver ran through her before she squared her shoulders and entered the shadowy stand of trees. That slight terror wouldn’t have passed over her before the incident in Chicago. She’d never associated isolation with vulnerability.

She hadn’t known fear before. Rarely did it show on her face, but he’d caught passing glimpses of it in the past two weeks. She’d wake up trembling in the middle of the night, or she’d be reading and all of a sudden touch her throat…They were only isolated incidents, moments. Rationally, he knew they were to be expected. She never mentioned them. But every time he saw that shadow of terror on her face he felt guilt tear at his stomach and rip straight through him.

Sonia emerged from the darkening forest, her arms loaded with twigs. She dropped them all in a haphazard pile next to him, adding a sigh and a chuckle for her efforts. “You only have to do one thing. Pick out two of those that we can use as spits. The last time I chose our makeshift spit, if you’ll recall-”