He passed family homes and winding avenues, reached Main Street and stopped dead because he already knew the place. He almost rubbed his eye at the sight, almost reached out to check it was real. Each building lifted from his painting. He still heard her voice like it was moments before.
I’ll tell you what I miss. I miss when the moon slips under water and turns everything blue. I miss the four faces of time. I miss yellow brick roads and tin men. I miss silver woods.
Green awnings hung over bleached white arches, red brick laid like royal carpet in the center of the sidewalk. He walked up to the gold-faced clock, stared at the time like it had been frozen for twenty-five years. Silver maples held the horizon.
In the Moon Under Water Diner he sat dazed in a red booth and ordered coffee from a girl too young to look so tired. He watched the waking of a town he felt he knew well, trying to ignore the frantic turns of his stomach as people walked to the bakery and the grocery store.
“You lost or something?”
He looked up at her. She wore an apron, and her hair fell in chestnut waves. Serious eyes but the corners of her mouth stood in amusement. “You want a refill?”
“No. Thank you. I’m not lost. I don’t think I’m lost.”
Patch sat there an hour, till sunlight warmed the street and the fountain at the far end spilled water over the stone pool around it. It was a beautiful town, not all that different from Monta Clare. He looked down at the scars that crossed his knuckles. He saw a woman with a stroller bend to fuss with a kid. Normal lives flickered like fireflies, so luminous he wanted to reach out and hold on to them awhile.
“Now you say you’re not lost, but you’ve got that look about you, like maybe you are but you’re too stubborn to ask for help. My daddy was like that. He once drove a hundred miles in the wrong direction because he was too proud to flag someone down.”
Patch smiled.
“You reckon it’s a man thing?”
He nodded. “Could be.”
Her name tag read Katie and she took the seat opposite, bent forward and rubbed her calves. “Nine hours on my feet.”
“Must be tough.”
She waved a hand. “Tough is not paying the bills. And round here, lot of rich folk now so the tips are decent. Unless the cops come in, treat the place like home. One time even grabbed at my ass like the badge gave him warrant.”
“Truth is I’m looking for something, but I don’t really know where I am.”
She smiled. “So tell me, just how long you been lost?”
“I don’t recall a time when I wasn’t.”
Behind her a small television was fixed to the corner wall. He knew that a few days before she might have seen his face on it.
“You want to tell me what you’re looking for?” She raised one eyebrow.
“A house.”
She raised the other to match.
“It’s…it was white.”
“You’re looking for a white house in the South.” She smiled.
“There’s a long driveway reaching to it, with tall trees on either side. Trees that reach over like they’re linking arms to protect the people that walk under them.”
She stopped smiling and listened.
“And grass so green it might have been painted. And in flower beds beneath sash windows butterfly weeds glow like campfire.”
She stopped rubbing her calves and motioned for him to go on.
“There’s shutters at the windows, and a balcony that runs around the entire building. There’s a staircase that winds its way from the yard to the bedroom, and in winter you can see it because the praying trees shed leaves till the house emerges like a snowflake on a summer day.”
She stared at him.
He swallowed, afraid to ask about what he now saw in her eyes. “You know the house?”
Katie slowly smiled. “Yeah. I know the house.”