A long hot shower failed to wash away my guilt, but it did restore me to some semblance of my usual self. When Marsh's truck drove into the yard I was able to muster an appropriate level of snark.
Overnight he'd morphed back into his smooth talking, lady-killing self. Clean pair of jeans, cut to put his cowboy boots and ass on display; western shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his muscle-defined forearms and unbuttoned to let his pectorals have their turn. He'd shaved, fixed his hair to its usual casual perfection, and his eyes were clear.
At least mostly. Marsh has strange eyes. They're hazel, which isn't the unusual part. The right one has a triangular spot in the iris that has always been greener than the rest. And today, though his eyes were more brown than anything, that triangle was a clear bright green that very nearly glowed like a cat's.
He leaned against the doorframe, letting his gaze run over my body and linger on my breasts. Self-conscious, suddenly acutely aware that my hair was still shower-wet and I wasn't wearing any makeup, I felt the unwanted flush crawl up my neck and into my cheeks.
"Morning, Jesse. Wanna make me breakfast?" His tone was insinuating, his smile knowing, but the seductive effect was ruined by my vivid memory of him kneeling at my feet, face shiny with snot and tears.
"Well, don't you look better," I said.
"Better than what, darlin'?" He actually dared to wind a lock of my hair around his finger, bold as brass and without any sign of shame over yesterday's events.
I knew the man, and I know this: some things will change in ten years, but some things are built in. Chickens can fly, but they're never going to soar like eagles. Marsh was a narcissist. Knowing that he'd been seen running around town like a lunatic should have kept him cowering at home with his tail between his legs, or else sent him after me in a towering fury. Yet here he was, acting as if everything was entirely normal.
I braced myself. "What do you want, Marshall?"
"We never did finish taking pictures so we can get the house listed. You make a mighty pretty doorstop, Jesse, but we'll need some photos of the actual interior. Maybe even your exterior." He pulled out a digital camera and snapped my picture.
"I've changed my mind," I said.
Will came up behind me. I felt him there, didn't have to look, would have known he was there even if I hadn't heard footsteps. It was like some sort of freaky echolocation thing. Between that and Marsh's unexpected behavior, my spider senses were tingling like crazy and I felt ready to jump out of my own skin.
"Changed your mind? I was hoping you'd say that. I'm ready whenever you are, Jesse."
My hand itched to slap him but I clenched it into a fist and refrained. "About the house. I'm thinking about keeping the house."
His eyes narrowed. "But I'm here, already. We could just take the pictures and then we'll have them if you change your mind. Efficiency, Jesse. Then whatever you decide we're good to go." He wasn't looking at me anymore. His eyes had zoomed in to a spot above my shoulder about where Will's head ought to be, and I knew there was a stare down in progress.
"She said she'll let you know," Will said.
Actually, he practically rumbled. Marsh had cause to know about Will's fists; he'd been on the wrong side of them more than once when we were all kids because he was forever picking on somebody smaller than himself and Will had always been the defender of the underdog. A fight between the two of them was the last thing we needed right then, so I slammed the door in his face and locked it.
"I think, as realtors go, yours has become unreliable." Will made a little spinning gesture by his temple.
"You can say that again." I pulled my cell out of my pocket and did what I should have done when I first rolled into town—called Tom Hasbro. He was the realtor I'd set up an appointment with in the first place. But Marsh was the one who showed up with explanations and excuses and I'd bought in.
A receptionist answered, and when I asked for Tom she hesitated a little too long before she said, carefully, "He's taken some time off. Can I help you?"
"I really need to talk to him. Can I have his cell number?"
"He's not answering. I think he's gone fishing."
"You think?"
Silence. "Well, yes. He sent the message with one of his co-workers. If I can't help you, maybe one of the other realtors can?"
"The other realtors are the whole problem. I don't want to work with James Marshall. I want Tom, as I'd originally arranged."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but Mr. Marshall is Mr. Hasbro's assistant—he's the one who told us about the fishing trip. If he doesn't know when Mr. Hasbro is coming back, then I'm afraid I can't help you. If you like, I can have one of the other realtors call you?"
I hung up on her, my stomach twisting like a pit full of snakes.
Will had been listening and there was no need to fill him in. "We'll go by Tom's," he said. "I know where he lives."
My shirt was drenched in sweat and my palms were bloody from digging my nails into them. This business of riding shotgun in Will's truck was going to kill me. Next time we came to town he was riding behind me on the bike. End of story. For now, I needed distraction.
"What do you remember about my mother?"
"Since when do you want to talk about her?"
"Maybe since she died and hauled me back into town. I'm blaming her for all of this." The weight of my own faults and failings was resting heavy on my shoulders. Since I'd stopped blaming Will, I needed a new scapegoat and my mother was perfect: dead, and unable to defend herself.
"Forgiveness isn't really your gig, is it?" Again with the judgment, but he was right. So I kept my mouth shut for a bit, and just watched the town go by.
The little bottles of fluid nagged at me. What were they? What had my mother been up to? I had to know; I had to figure out what she was doing.
"Did you see her, when she was here? Did she talk to you?"
He didn't answer right away. He pulled up on the street in front of Tom's house, which was locked up tight. Windows closed, shutters drawn, no way to peek inside. Maybe he'd gone fishing, maybe he hadn't. His car wasn't in the driveway.
A thundercloud broke open and rain sluiced across the windshield. The wipers swished the drops away but they came back, endless and dreary and unstoppable. All we needed now was a cow and a ditch and the lake but I was almost too tired to be anxious.
"She came to the house a few times to talk to my dad."
A certain awkwardness in his voice clued me in. Reminded me of a summer afternoon in our childhood, Will's and mine, building a tree fort in the yard behind his house while his dad and my mother had coffee and talked. When I'd tried to go in for a glass of water the door was locked. As a child, I thought nothing of it. Later, I'd wondered.
"Talking?"
He shrugged, but I saw the way his jaw clamped tight, one hand shifting its position on the steering wheel. "Can't say for sure. He might have been the reason she came back into town. Just before she died they—argued."
This time I just waited, letting the silence between us grow into something uncomfortable.
"All right," he added, "they fought. I didn't hear the words, I was outside. And then she slammed out of the house and didn't come back. He started going downhill about then and a few months later she was dead."
"That puts my childhood in a whole new light."
"Tell me about it."
"Will, we need to go see your dad."
"No."
His tone surprised me with its bitterness and finality. "If you're trying to protect him from me, I promise—"
"I see him on Fridays."
"This week you're seeing him on a Wednesday."
"Jesse, I said no."
"Fine. You can wait outside his room. I'm going. If I'm going, you don't have a lot of choice. I need to ask him a question."
He snorted. "You can't ask him questions. He's forgotten everything."
"Don't care."
"I am not driving you there."
"I'll walk."
Will had his stubborn face on and his eyes were that dangerous serene blue that meant a big storm was brewing. He wasn't going to listen to me. So when the truck stopped at one of the only three stoplights in town, I bailed. Out the door, into the street. Rain bounced off my head, big fat drops that were going to soak me in minutes.
I chose a slow walk to give him time to come to his senses, because already I could feel the pull on my heart. Not pain yet, just a warning, but it grew in intensity with every step. Will rolled down the window and shouted at me. "Jesse. Don't do this."
Not even looking back, not pausing, I kept on putting one slow foot in front of the other. Now it was starting to hurt and I knew he was feeling it, too. I also knew he wasn't going to give in without a fight. As kids we'd once broken a toy we were in conflict over, right down the middle, because neither one of us would let go.
The next step was harder, the one after that made me feel like I would soon be moving my feet but staying in the same place, like tires spinning on ice. But the light changed, as I knew it would, and he pulled up beside me.
"Jesse, get in."
"I have to go see your dad."
He had options. He could floor it, drive until the pain crashed us both. He could cruise along beside me. Beat me into submission. Not that Will was into hitting women, but you've got to remember we'd been more like siblings than anything when we were kids. Probably I'd given him a black eye or two, and yes, he once bloodied my nose. I deserved it; no hard feelings on that one.
If he'd ever had a right to pummel me, it was now, but he wouldn't. I wished he would. There was no other way I could think of to make things right between us. And I kept setting myself against him to make him hate me more. Nothing to be done about it, though.
His dad was important. According to Will, he had seemed fine until the argument with my mysterious absent mother, who had left me test tubes full of what I feared might be dreams.
The truck continued to roll along right beside me. The driver of the car behind us, impatient, laid on the horn. Will gave them the finger. "J. Get in. Tell me what you think my dad has to do with all of this."
It was the use of the old pet name that melted me. I opened the door and clambered back in, refusing to look at him.
"I think—" but I couldn't finish it, half choked on the words. It sounded so stupid in the bright light of day. "What do they think happened to your dad?" I asked, instead.
"Nobody knows. Dementia doesn't usually hit so hard and fast. I thought it must be a stroke or an aneurism. Something medical. Docs ran all of these tests—CT scans and MRIs and whatever—and his brain actually looks relatively fine. Early Alzheimer's, but nothing that accounts for how he is. His memories are gone and his reasoning ability is shot to hell."
He glanced at me sideways, and I felt his body go to goosebumps as it hit him. "You think your mom had something to do with it."
"I don't like coincidences."
"Sometimes they're just coincidences." His voice was more gentle than it had been since I'd fessed up to my sins, and that gave me the courage to go on.
"She left me something. A couple of test tubes with liquid inside. They look like the dream stuff, only different. I don't know what she was doing with them."
"Damn."
His acceptance of my insane premise without the need of any explanation scared me more than anything that happened so far, but I kept my mouth shut and let him drive.