“No. No. No.” Laura jerked away from the pillow at the sound of her own voice. She pushed against the mattress with both arms, gasped for breath, and gathered bits of drifting information to orient herself to the farmhouse guestroom.
Her dream changed tonight. After three hundred sixty-nine consecutive nightmares with the same incident waking her, tonight a different image broke what passed for sleep.
She sighed defeat, arranged her body into a yoga Cobbler’s Pose and pulled the quilt high. A trace of cedar from the blanket chest reinforced reality. Her imagination packed her dreams with many things, including colors and the occasional sound, but never scents.
Tonight’s mirage took her back to Scott’s funeral. In daytime the ceremony survived as a portion of a blur. According to others’ accounts, she figured her lost time had lasted twelve days. Almost two weeks before the mist lifted from her emotions and memory enough to trust her recall of events.
But the initial horror stood clear and sharp. Her entire world changed with a single push of a plain wooden door. One moment, she opened Scott’s office with an invitation to begin their New Year’s Eve party an hour ahead of schedule. The next instant, she stared at his dead body.
It was a dream. A new twist because I’m in a new location. Only part of her believed the rationale.
A tiny lamp on Roger’s desk made soft shapes of the furnishings around her. She waited for the digital clock to change a number. Is that what she did best?
Wait for the police.
Watch the seasons change.
Work with robotic motions until her employer closed down around her and a dozen others last week.
Sit passive while the world moved around her.
“I don’t want to.” Her soft words settled on the quilt. “I want . . . I need . . . to get on with my life. Isn’t that why I’m here? In Crystal Springs instead of St. Louis? I made plans. I put effort into modifying Scott’s dream—our dream—for a bookstore.”
The new nightmare came back in small scenes. Her back rippled with cold under winter pajamas as each image paraded across her memory.
Her hand brushed against smooth, dark wood. She looked up from the bouquet of six red and six white roses on the sealed casket. All the relatives and friends wore the same face. Scott’s.
Or was it Myles?
What did the man mean at the basketball game? “Are you enjoying the nightlife?”
She calculated an hour to the alarm and lowered the quilt. A shower, a cup of tea, and a confession in her journal would fill the time until the farm animals expected their breakfast.
Twenty minutes later, Laura clutched a mug of orange spice and stared out the front window. Across the road and fields, the security light at Asher’s shone as a sign of civilization. She added the low profile of farm sheds and outbuildings from memory.
Do nightmares visit Brad? Warm, sweet tea bathed her throat while she lined up her micro-sample of combat veterans. Without exception they admitted to night terrors. One comment from John, a neighbor three doors away, stood out. “Experts say they fade. Four years on, I’m tempted to say they’re wrong.”
She closed her eyes and conjured an image of Brad awake in the night staring off in her direction. He fears fire. Do other combat images frighten him? Aware that he’d answered many of her questions with incomplete responses she kept her eyes closed and drew completions where his burn scars disappeared under his shirt. He’d admitted to six months at Brooke, the army’s top medical facility for burn patients. How many surgeries and skin grafts? Exactly where between elbow and shoulder did the prosthesis and stump meet?
She grasped the chain resting against her skin and listened to her heart throb three times for each shallow breath. Scott’s wedding band felt strong and permanent next to her thinner one with the three tiny diamonds.
Talk to me. Point me in the right direction, Scott. Where is justice for you? She’d made a promise—her one clear memory standing before Scott’s casket—to remain the faithful wife until his killer was arrested.
A little later, Laura propped her chin on one hand and scrolled down the collection of emails from Scott. They spanned the final three weeks of his life. Typical for him, they dealt with his work schedule, reports on errands, and ended with a computer smile before his sign-off. She read the familiar tag line finalizing the first one again: “Ever and always, ST.”
In the middle of the fourth message, she spotted it. The word “project” paired with noon, or lunch, or late appeared in each one. Immediately she copied them and consolidated them into one long document. Next she highlighted “project” plus the immediate modifier.
“My conceit got in the way of his message,” she admitted to the empty room. The first time—every time—she’d interpreted “private” or “secret” with Scott hatching some sort of Christmas or New Year’s plan. He had surprised her in the end with tickets to a concert they didn’t get to attend and a set of kitchen knives she’d hinted about for months. “That wasn’t the project at all.”
Tonight, with clear hindsight for the first time, she understood the words connected with something more important. The flash drive she’d given to the police? How long had Scott been collecting that data? Did he understand the meaning? Did he transfer all of it?
The clock radio blurted an advertising jingle into the quiet.
Laura saved all of the files, debated for about a second if she should send any to Daryl before closing them. He could look at them later today. They had talked about going out for lunch. She’d take her computer along and show him what she found. No doubt he’d think of the next step. Now the question became—could she get him to share?
• • •
“We’ll be back within the hour.” Mary Asher waved to Brad and Laura standing at the large kitchen table now cleared of supper dishes.
“Don’t worry, I remember the house rules.” Brad gave a lopsided shrug and re-tucked his empty sleeve against his six-inch stump.
“This is so lame,” Eric grumbled as his grandmother urged him out the door.
“The boy’s right.” Laura giggled after the door banged shut. “No way does it take both grandparents to drive him home. But I appreciate it.”
“They give it their best. It must be awkward for them at times, having a grown son living at home.”
“How many years were you gone?”
“Depends on how you count it. Ten. Maybe closer to eleven. I didn’t come home much from Madison.”
Awkward for more than his parents. She trembled at his touch on her arm.
“Let’s go sit in the living room. I don’t want you to think this house is only kitchen.”
“I’d never assume that.” Conversation over a savory pork roast supper included a recounting of the remodeling after Brad’s injury. She formed a vivid image of Brad’s bedroom, a guest room, the handicap accessible bathroom and storage area on the second floor. Like many farmhouses of this era, the floor plan included one downstairs bedroom.
“The view of the road is better in daylight.” He opened the drapes at a large window. “We took down the holiday lights on New Year’s Day. Did you get a chance to see them?”
“One trip past, on our way to the party in town the day I arrived.” She made out shapes and struggled to ignore their reflections in the glass. Since she’d walked in to find the family gathering for supper, she’d been conscious of how long at a time her gaze remained on Brad’s shortened arm. “I recall one tree with multicolored lights and shrubs with lighted netting. How close did I come?”
“Accurate observation. Do you put up outside decorations?”
“Dad always insisted on a star above the garage. We also propped up a plywood trio of carolers every year until it became so battered and faded it embarrassed Mother.” She breathed in a trace of cinnamon from dessert blended with sea breeze after-shave.
“And your house?” Brad prodded.
“I put a wreath on the door. The holidays . . . they were hard this time around.” An image of Scott mounting a heralding angel on the roofline intruded. She sighed quiet thanks to the neighbor who finally removed it three weeks after the funeral. In early December, she’d found the box in the garage and shed tears over it. “Does it get better?”
His hand pressed against her waist, heating her with a safe, reassurance.
“Cream rises to the top.”
She turned her head to him. “What?”
“Raw milk,” he began. “If you let it sit, the cream, the portion used to figure the milk price, rises to the top. Think of it as the good part.”
“And how long does this take?” She followed him to the sofa and sat close, enjoying the warmth of his large hand resting over her own.
“Too long.” He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “Why don’t you tell me about Laura Starr, college student?”
“She made several quality friends on campus, the sort that keep in touch, pick up conversations where they were interrupted months ago. Have you ever been to Columbia, Missouri?”
As they traded stray bits of the years missing between them Laura relaxed. Brad prodded memories from pre-Scott years to the surface. Her face exchanged the customer service smile for a smaller, genuine model. Moments before she noticed a car slow and turn into the drive, she felt a seed of optimistic dreams within her germinate and put out delicate rootlets.