fourteen

Gwen slept at Willa’s cottage. Cooper came home from hitting golf balls at midnight. Apparently, Landry needed to talk and they’d gone out for dinner and drinks. In Gwen’s language, this deserved a “whatever.”

As for me, it’s only 5:00 A.M., but here I am back in the studio. The sun hasn’t joined the day. The Ten Good Ideas line now has inspiration boards stretching along the project table. Sketches and notes are scattered; Pantone color charts and font types are placed in strategic squares for each of my commandments.

A thin, long poster board lists the ten ideas as if they are carved on stone. Francie sketched a mock tablet around the list, where the numbers are listed in arabic.

I am sipping coffee and staring at the list when Max shows up.

“What are you doing here so early?” he asks.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I didn’t finish that wedding run last night and the bridezilla will be here by sunlight to pick up the invitations. Apocalyptic consequences are possible if they aren’t waiting and wrapped in white tissue with satin silver ribbon. So that’s my answer. What’s yours?” He leans over to check the coffeepot.

“I don’t have an excuse,” I say. “Just … here.”

“Good enough.” He fills a large mug with coffee and then joins me at the table. “So what do you think?”

“I think it might be the best thing we’ve ever done.”

“It was your idea,” he says.

“No, it really wasn’t. It was your idea to turn it into a card line. And I’ve been so little help since the accident.”

“You’ve had a few things to keep you preoccupied, Eve. And this wouldn’t exist without you anyway. Any of this…” He sweeps his hand around the room.

“And we need numbers nine and ten,” I say.

“In good time. But right now, I’m going to spend quality time with the printer.” He stretches. “Care if I turn on the music?”

“No, go ahead. I’m gonna catch up on e-mails and paperwork,” I say.

Max stops and turns around. “Speaking of paperwork, the credit card was declined on the ink order. Any reason?”

“No. The bill is paid automatically through e-banking. I’ll call.”

My mind is cluttered with the detritus of my family’s undoing. I want to pay attention to the financial aspects of our business, but I’m distracted. No surprise there. I’ve come to a pause since the accident, and yet I knew the money was waiting in the bank account.

I pick up the phone to call the bank before realizing it’s only 5:30 A.M. I return to the card line, mumbling the childhood wisdom of each idea out loud. I lose myself in this until the bang of the studio door startles me as Willa and Gwen walk in.

“Morning,” Willa says.

“What is this?” Max asks. “Get to Work Before Dawn Day?”

“We heard y’all coming in and we were up anyway,” Gwen says.

“Have you been to sleep yet?” I ask.

Willa and Gwen look at each other and smile. “Nope,” Willa says. “We’ve been up talking all night. We didn’t realize it was soooo late … and then we heard ya’ll coming to work at five in the morning.”

Gwen walks to the table, facing me. “What’s all this?”

“Brainstorming the last good ideas,” I explain.

Gwen stares at the boards, shifting papers and color charts.

“You okay?” I ask her, but I look at Willa.

“I’m fine, Mom. Totally.”

“Go home and get some sleep.” I kiss her cheek.

Gwen nods. “Think I will.” And she turns to leave, but not before saying hello to Max and teasing him about his ink-stained apron.

When Gwen is gone, I pull Willa aside. “Is she okay? Did she tell you … what I found?”

“Yep. She’s pretty upset. She feels … terrible.”

“I’m so worried about her. I need to get her some help.” I rub at my eyes, feeling the too much of everything pushing in on me.

“She’s confused,” Willa says. “And it’s not like I’m much help, since ‘confused’ is my new definition.” She attempts to laugh, but it comes out a near cough.

“Confused?”

“Yes. She wants to know what happened that night. She talks in circles about it, as if she’s trying to solve the puzzle we can’t solve. And she’s really sad. I mean, not just teenager sad. But sad. That’s why she’s doing those stupid things—the drinking, the smoking, the dumb boyfriend. And now wanting to get a tattoo.”

I groan. “No. Not on her beautiful skin. She’s killing me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Take her to see someone or something … a therapist maybe?”

“You really think?”

“Yes.”

“Everything seems to be … coming undone.”

“It’s all my fault,” she says quietly. “I would do anything to fix it all. To go back to the one minute that night that might have changed everything. Maybe I decided not to sing. Or I went to the coffee shop instead. Or I didn’t see Cooper. Something. Anything.”

“It’s not your fault. What is coming undone has nothing to do with what you did or did not do that night.”

“Yes, it does.” Willa stares at the project table as if she’s here and far away at the same time, as if we aren’t discussing Gwen at all. “Number nine,” she says.

“You remember it?” I ask.

She lifts her gaze from the table as if her pupils themselves weigh too much to heft upward. “Remember what?”

“Number nine.”

“Number nine of what?” she asks.

“Willa,” I say. “Go get some sleep. I can’t believe you both stayed up all night.” I want to jolt her mind, shake her memories clear. “What did you talk about all that time?”

“Everything and nothing really. Breakups. Blackouts. And my weird dreams. Which is why I don’t want to sleep. Which is why I want to stay up all night and talk to Gwen and never close my eyes.” Her voice is clear now, changing tone in those quick instants.

“What dreams?” I ask.

“The ones about the car.…” Her voice trails off, fading like color at the edges of an ink run. “And the man chasing me.”

“You had that dream in the hospital.”

“I still have it.”

“Have you asked the neuro practitioner about it?”

She shakes her head.

“Why not?”

“They’re just dreams. My scrambled brain sending out bullshit messages. I’ve heard about it. Like when an eye can’t see right because of macular degeneration or something, and people hallucinate because the eye wants to see something, anything, so it makes something out of fragments to create a new image.”

“Yes,” I say with my newfound understanding and need to separate fantasy from truth.

“That didn’t make sense, did it?” She places her hands on either side of her scalp and groans a sad, low sound. “I never seem to make sense, even to myself.”

“I thought you said the writing and singing were helping.…” I am out of things to say.

“They are. But helping is not the same as fixing. I still can’t put things in the right order in the right place.”

“You will.”

She shakes her head. “I have to accept that I might not. That’s what they tell me. Accept it—I might not remember entire chunks of my life and I might have trouble finding words and names forever or for a day. Which I guess will be really great when I go crazy, because you won’t know I’m crazy, because I’m already a freaking mess.”

“You are not a mess.”

“But I am, Eve. I am. Memories flirt—I mean flit—in and out of my head. I see something, an image or a word, and then it melts away. Like we learned from that pamphlet, I remember things in a different … formula. No, format. The place where I would know a word or a person or anything at all gets shifted to another area and I don’t know how to find. I try to follow the thread of something—like that woman’s voice—and I get lost, finding threads that aren’t tied to her voice at all.”

“I wish, God, I wish I knew how to help. But I know this from what we’ve read and heard—it’s not linear. Healing isn’t going to go in a straight line and remembering isn’t … and…”

“What is linear in all the world?” she asks with a sly smile.

“Not much,” I say.

“Well, I know I’m lucky. In a weird way, I’m really lucky. I’ve read about other people with these injuries. They can’t remember names or they have terrible pain or they can’t relate to others at all. I’m just … struggling with memories and words.”

“Lucky? As if you can compare?” I ask.

“Yes, I can compare. I am comparing. It could be worse.”

“Yes.”

“But no matter what I read or hear, I know this—everyone says creative expression is key. So I’ll keep on. And I want to tell you something weird. So just humor me for a minute.”

“Go ahead.”

“The man … the one in my dreams.”

I nod.

“I think it’s that homeless man they found in the alley.”

My breath rises and I exhale to take in another that tastes like metallic fear. “Go on.” I speak quietly, hoping Max can’t hear us over the music.

“Well.” Her eyes fill with quick tears, clearing the haze of the blue world inside. “I know you’re going to think it’s insane, so pretend you don’t think so.”

“What is it?”

“I think we hit him. Or I hit him. Or he hit us. Or he was there that night. He’s not haunting my dreams … or maybe he is, but I dreamed about him before I heard about him, not after.”

“But you may be projecting now. In the hospital, you dreamed about a man chasing you and then Cam told us the story about the homeless man after you left the hospital. So maybe you’re confusing them.”

“Yes, I may be doing that. Of course … but I’m going to ask for a favor. One that is more than what you should do for me, because you’ve already done too much and this is your husband … but…” She bit her lower lip.

“You want me to ask Cooper about it?”

“No!” she says, shaking her head, so her hair whips her cheeks.

“We have to believe him, Willa. It’s all we know, and meanwhile we need to try to heal you, find out what happened to you.”

“I was gong to ask you to take me to the morgue or police station or wherever they’d have photos.” She closes her eyes. “I know it’s the most disgusting request, but I have to know if he’s the same guy … and then I can let this go.”

“Same one?”

She opens her eyes to me. “The same man I see in my dreams.”

“Oh.” I sit at the table again. “But let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Have you heard from a reporter?”

“Yep. Some guy from the Savannah News. He said he’s writing on article on the Savannah homeless community.”

“He told me he was writing an article on Preston Street and its dangers,” I say.

She shrugs. “Maybe that’s part of it—the homeless and that street.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I told him it was no use talking to me because I don’t remember anything and I’m officially mumbled in the brain.” She stops. “Not mumbled. Scrambled. Anyway, he’s stopping by tomorrow.”

“You told him he could come here?”

“He’s just writing about homeless people. It’s not like I asked Charles Manson to stop by for some helter-skelter.”

I laughed loudly. “God, Willa. What am I gonna do with you?”

“No idea,” she says, and smiles.

Then her eyes snap as if some leftover lightening from that stormy night remains inside her mind. She picks up a pencil and scribbles the word FORGIVE in all capital letters. A quick burst of laughter before she says, “Number Nine. Yep, that just happened.”

*   *   *

The day passes quickly with our assignments and appointments, with phone calls and e-mails. Gwen stops by in the late afternoon to tell me she’s found a ride to work and that she’ll be home by ten, when they close the shop. I kiss her and whisper into her hair, “I love you.”

“I know.”

The rude accountant, Mary Jo, stops by to see her second concept designs and talks only to Francie. A photographer picks up his stack of new business cards and Max offers the bridezilla her wedding invites with gracious aplomb, as if he hasn’t been up since five in the morning.

It’s the restaurant owner—Larry Ford—who changes the afternoon when he arrives to pick up his new menu cards. Larry has been our client for years, a loyal customer who has us do his weekly menus along with his logos, posters, and cards. Many restaurants print their menus on cheap paper and in black ink, but not Larry. He likes to change the font, change the color, and print on linen paper. He is a kind man—tall and skinny, which I find humorous, since he owns an Italian restaurant.

“I’m having a party,” he announces.

“A party?” I glance up from the table, where I’ve been sorting through a file.

“Yup. I’m having a party to celebrate my five-year anniversary. And you’ve all got to come. I found you at the very start of my business and I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment, Larry, but I think you owe your success to your overflowing plates and cheese-laden pastas.”

Max butts in. “What Eve meant to say was ‘Brilliant idea.’”

Francie stands. “Yep. planning parties is my favorite procrastination tool. I’m on it.”

“Okay,” I say, laughing. “Good idea.” It’s then that I remember to call the bank. I pick up my cell, and within seconds I hear a deep male voice on the phone. “Mrs. Morrison, how are you? This is Neal Bush.”

“Fine, Mr. Bush. Thanks for asking. I’m calling about The Fine Line, Ink account. It seems there was a mix-up in the e-billing and the credit card payment was rejected.”

“The payment didn’t go through because you were overdrawn at the time. You are fine now, if you’d like to resubmit.”

“What?” A cold chill moves underneath my skin.

“When the funds were transferred out for a week, you were overdrawn. Because of your extraordinary credit, I didn’t charge you overdraft fees.”

“Transferred? I didn’t authorize any fund transfers.”

“Well, someone did.” His voice is losing its surety.

“Will you please check for me?” I ask.

The music playing while I’m on hold butchers the theme song from The Sound of Music. I glance toward Max. Would he have withdrawn or moved money? Francie? Had I done it and not remembered?

Max is wearing his apron, stacking paper to place under the platen. His eyes are focused on his work and his dark hair falls across his forehead. And in that moment, I see everyone I love through a different lens—it’s a quick and disturbing flash. What are they capable of doing? Do I see them only the way I want to see them, not for who they really are?

Mr. Bush’s voice returns. “Mrs. Morrison?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“Your husband, Averitt. He moved the money from the Fine Line account and then replaced it a week later.”

My heart is pushing against my chest. Yes, Cooper has access to our company account. This is a small bank, owned by a friend of my father-in-law. Our family accounts, the philanthropy accounts—everything is there in one place. But Cooper has never touched our company money before.

“No,” I say. “That must have been a mistake. He wouldn’t move company money.”

The uncomfortable pause leaves me holding my breath. “Well then, you need to ask him, because I am looking at the signed transfer slip.”

“To where?” I ask. “To what account did he transfer it?”

“If you’d like to discuss this, you can come into the bank, Mrs. Morrison. This is not the kind of information we normally discuss on the phone.”

“I will.”

I hang up, and Max lifts his head. I imagine he felt me staring at him. “You okay?” he asks.

“I need to get to the bank.”

*   *   *

The bank is in an old schoolhouse converted, as is everything, to accommodate the business. It’s a bloodred brick structure with curved windows and dark brown trim that mimics the color of rusted iron. The windows, wide-paned and tall, reflect the cloudy afternoon, appearing murky and shadowed. I park on a side street and deposit my quarters into the meter. The afternoon is heavy with threatening rain. I stop for a minute and glance up toward the sky. When I was young and overwhelmed, afraid, I would stare into the sky through the tangle of gnarled branches and imagine the world like a puzzle I could put together. The sky—divided into pieces by oaks—was really whole and complete, and I liked knowing this fact. That no matter how I looked at it, it was still the same sky—always.

I enter the bank and cold air whooshes toward me. The entryway is decorated like a waiting room in a plush doctor’s office: muted photos of Savannah framed in white; overstuffed peach-colored couches and a large glass-topped coffee table. A receptionist sits behind a long white desk, where she types into a computer. She looks up as I approach her. “Hello, Mrs. Morrison. How are you?” Her voice could come from a computer, it’s so polished and robotic.

“I’m here to see Mr. Bush. He’s expecting me.”

“Well then, go on. He’s waiting.” Her gaze returns to her computer as her hand waves me toward the back hallway.

The second door on the right is where I find his office. Mr. Bush is standing behind a long table, and he smiles at me as I enter. He’s an intimidating man, his hair gray around the temples and his blue eyes dark. He flashes a grin and points to a chair across from his shining black desk. He then sits and clicks on his keyboard before twisting the computer screen toward me. “These are your family’s multiple accounts: family; business, LLC, philanthropy.”

“My name is on all of them?” I ask.

“No.”

“Can you tell me which ones don’t have my name?”

“I can print you a list.” He speaks like an unpracticed ventriloquist, his lips barely moving.

“Great. I’d appreciate that. For now, I’m here to figure out where Cooper put the money when he moved it for a week.”

“It was divided up, Mrs. Morrison. If you’d like, I can print you statements of your full accounts, but it will be Mr. Morrison who knows where the installments went and why.”

“Was any of it transferred into the family account?”

“No.”

“Okay, if you will please print all statements from all accounts, I’d appreciate it.”

He clicks his fingers across the keyboard and his mouth is screwed up tight, twisted. Beneath his rimless glasses, his eyes squint. He is quiet; the room is quiet, until the printer groans and spits. Within minutes, he hands me a stack of papers. “I hope this will help. But please know that the exact amount that was transferred was replaced.”

“I’d like to change the permitted users on my account, please.” There, I’ve said it.

Mr. Bush raises an eyebrow (only one), and his forehead doesn’t wrinkle. Botox on a banker. This makes me want to laugh. “Okay,” he finally says. “You’re the primary account holder and the LLC is in your name.”

I hear the words beneath the words: Your husband is one of our most influential customers; you shouldn’t be changing things around. Maybe I’m making this up, but then again, maybe I’m not.

Mr. Bush reaches into a filing cabinet and pulls out some papers. “These must be signed, dated, and notarized before any changes are made.”

I take a pen from a tortoiseshell holder on Mr. Bush’s desk. When I’m done filling out all the blanks, I look up. “It’s just me. I am the only authorized user right now, until we can get this figured out.”

“Not your other employees?”

“No. Just me.” I stand and hand the papers to Mr. Bush.

“These need to be notarized,” he says.

“Then notarize them.”

“My notary isn’t in today.” He stares at me without standing.

“You’re kidding, right? I mean, you are a witness standing here watching me. This is my money, my company. Authorize it now.”

He takes the papers from my hand, the papers I am waving at him as if fanning him for the heatstroke he looks like he might have. “Thank you, Mrs. Morrison.”

I turn to leave, but then at his door I stop to look at him one more time. “Thanks for your time.”

The rain starts just as I slam shut my car door and see the fluttering white paper on my windshield: a parking ticket. Five minutes past my meter time. Just perfect.

I’ve avoided eye contact with anger for most of my life. When I feel it coming, I run or hide into something more appropriate. Gentleness, I was taught, brings the best results. Yet ever since shattering the wineglass on the kitchen floor, something red-faced and boisterous was released in me. I feel it now staring at the wet and fluttering parking ticket, seeing Mr. Bush’s righteous eyebrow lifting. I drop the F bomb as loudly as I can inside my empty car, then slam my fist onto the steering wheel.

I returned to the studio in less than the twenty minutes it took me to drive to the bank. My heart slows and I calm down. I’ll talk to Cooper tonight. There must be a reasonable explanation. He accidentally moved it and then put it back. He bought me a gift. He was planning a surprise and … No. None of it makes sense. I run out of reasonable quickly.

I walk into the studio, to find Max, and I realize that he’s the reason I’ve driven so fast, the reason I came straight back here. He turns when he hears me, and I reach his side to see what he is looking at with such intent. It’s number eight: Find Adventure. “What do you see for the design?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“When you think Find Adventure, what do you see?”

“This one is tough,” I say, sitting to look up at him. His dark hair is a mess; an ink smear runs across his forehead, where he’s been brushing his hair all day. My hand reaches across the space between us to wipe off the ink.

He draws back and away when my fingers touch his forehead. Embarrassment flutters through me with sharp-tipped wings.

A long silence grows between us, and I’m not willing to fill it or answer his reaction with my own. He speaks first. “I see something like two people walking through the forest, where anything at all is possible.”

I nod and rest my hands one on top of the other in my lap. “That’s nice.”

Nice—what an inane thing to say.

When I first met him, Max was attending SCAD. In three short years, he had his degree in book arts, with a minor in folklore and mythology. His parents could pay for only three years of college, so he did everything he could to shove four years into three. His love of ancient stories often rises up in imagery. “There’s this story,” he’ll say. Which is exactly what he’s saying now.

“And?” I ask, still refusing to look at him, at the ink smear I want to clear.

“There are dreams that are usually called ‘the dream of the predator’—you know, when someone is after you, chasing you.”

“Willa has one.” I look at him now, and he smiles. “She keeps having a dream like that.”

“They’re really normal dreams. One of the most famous folklore tales is the one about the bride who goes into the woods.” He takes a breath and looks off, as if the story is written on the far stall’s wall. “There’s this bride. It’s her wedding night and she gets that thing—that intuition that tells you that something is just not right. She suspects something is wrong with her groom, but she’s not sure. Every night, he sneaks into the woods and returns quietly. So the night before her wedding, she goes into the same woods and hides in the high branches of a tree and waits.” Max pauses, picking up the charcoal pencil and sketching a tree, naked at first but filling with leaves as continues the story.

“It was dark and the tree hid her well with its dense leaves. She waited and waited, finally falling asleep in the crook of a branch. But then she was startled and awoke, to see her groom below the tree, digging a hole and singing a song about how he would bury his bride there.” He stops and leans back to look at me and then sings in a low voice, not his own. “Good-bye, my love. Good-bye, sweetheart. Sleep well and long.…” Max draws out the last word.

“Stop.” I say. “You’re creeping me out. You’ve told much better stories.” Laughter gathers at the edge of my voice. “That’s terrible and sad.”

“No, that’s a great story,” he says. “She went on an adventure and found out the truth and didn’t marry him. Otherwise…” He pauses and slashes the edge of his palm against his throat and rolls his eyes back into his head, imitating death, but with a smile.

“Got it,” I say. “So, yes, a forest is good, but let’s not have her hide up in a tree.”

“Agreed,” he says. “Adventure means going out into something new, right?”

“Something unknown,” I say. “And what’s more unknown than a forest?”

“Especially a maritime forest, like around here, where you might end up in dense woods or the river, depending which way you turn.”

“Yes! Add a river in the background, a hint of water in the middle of the trees and dark.”

“This is where we need Francie,” he says, loudly enough for her to hear.

“Moi?” she asks, looking over her shoulder.

Francie comes to us. We catch her up with our idea. “Awesome and all that. But I’m late for a gig tonight. I’ll start in the morning, okay?”

“What gig?” I ask.

“Playing at the coffee shop. Nothing big.” She waves a dismissive hand and gathers her things to leave. “See you tomorrow.”

Max and I sit there, again alone with our designs and stories and thoughts. As the studio doors slide shut, he stands, and I think he’ll leave, but he walks to the steel cabinet and pulls out a bottle of Jameson and two glasses I bought at an antique show when I meant to buy carved-wood fonts.

He returns to the table and sits, pouring a glass for each of us.

“No way,” I say. “I haven’t slept in days. I can’t drink dark liquor or I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” he asks.

“Regret it.”

“Or find adventure,” he says, and pours a half inch into my glass.

“Adventure.” I lift the whiskey and tilt my head back, allowing the liquid to burn past my tongue and down my throat, past the ache in my chest. Tears spring to my eyes. “That story you told,” I say through a cough. “You didn’t just mean it for the card line, right? You meant it about Willa, too.”

Max drinks his whiskey. “Yes … probably.”

“It’s not that easy—like hiding in the wood to wait for the answer. Memory isn’t like that. It’s not some time line like in history class. It’s not some fact sheet, and it’s certainly not linear. Memory is mixed and messy even in the best minds. I see pictures from my childhood and I think, Oh, I remember that day. But do I only remember it because of the photo? Is it even a real memory? Add getting hit in the head and weird dreams and … how could she possibly make sense of anything?”

My hand rests on the table and Max places his hand over mine, hiding it completely. “What is a real memory anyway? But we can make some sense of it, right? We can find out the best we can for her,” he says.

The Jameson is loosening my thoughts. “All we can know is what we know.”

“No,” he says softly.

“How, then?”

“There are things I don’t know yet. Things you don’t know yet.”

I stare at my empty shot glass and wonder how many people have drunk from this old glass. How many to celebrate or, like me, forget?

Max speaks first. “For now, though, let’s go hear Francie sing. What do you think?”

“That is by far the best idea you’ve had all day.”

“Wow, thanks. Not the forest or the tree or coming to work at five A.M. to avoid full-on warfare with one of our esteemed clients—”

“Not those at all.”

“Well, did I tell you my idea for world peace?”

“Yep, right after you told me how you planned to cure the common cold.”

“By drowning it?” And with that smart-ass remark, he pours an inch of whiskey into his glass and takes a big swallow. Then he fully grasps my hand underneath his, no longer resting his palm, but surrounding my hand with his. My body relaxes with an exhale of tension and tight control. I look at him and he at me. Then he lifts my hand and brings it to his forehead, to the place I tried only moments before to touch. Using his own hand, he runs my fingers across his forehead, only further smearing the ink: an apology of sorts. Then just as quickly he drops my hand and stands to look down at me. “Ready? Let’s go. You’ll really like this. Francie is good.”

“It’s bad that I haven’t heard her sing, isn’t it?”

“Don’t try to find something to feel bad about.”

“I’m not.”

“Not just a little bit?”

“No comment.”

Together, we walk outside. “I’ll drive,” I say. “You’re a shot or two ahead of me.”

He locks the studio doors, shaking them for security. Close by, an owl hoots, an echo. We both look toward the trees and then back at each other. “Owls aren’t usually out right now,” he says.

“Me, neither,” I say, suppressing a smile.

“Well then, wonders never cease.”

“Dingle,” I say, settling into the driver’s seat.

He laughs before asking, “Did everything work out okay at the bank?”

“Yes. Sure. Yes. Everything is fine.”