Page 19 of Touch the Sky
I can still smell the tinge of cleaning products lingering in the warm, stagnant air. It’s too dim to see much at first, but then Gabrielle flips a light switch on.
“Of course, you can keep any of the furniture you want, or we can get rid of it if you prefer your own things. There’s not much left, really. Yvon took more than I thought. There is still a bed frame, though. Oh, and the table, of course…”
She lists more items as she putters around the space, but I’ve stopped listening.
I can’t do anything except stumble a few steps forward into the center of the room and spin in a slow circle while a thousand images flit through my head, like a film strip playing at double speed.
It’s just a simple room, with a small dining table under a picture window overlooking one of the pastures and the rudimentary kitchen from the ad set up against one of the walls. There are doors leading to what I assume are the bedroom and bathroom, as well as some simple wooden steps up to the lofted area above the empty expanse of floor that would be perfect for a couch and TV.
The walls are a plain cream colour. There are no curtains, no decorations, nothing but some old scraps of furniture, and yet, the place is bursting with colour in my mind.
We could live here.
I can see it all playing out in front of my eyes, like I’m catching glimpses of ghosts—not from the past, but from the future. I can see Shel scampering up the stairs to the loft in her pajamas, begging to spend just ten more minutes reading before bed. I can see photos of my parents on the walls. I can see a handpicked bouquet of wildflowers in a mason jar on the windowsill, the evening light refracting through the glass.
I can hear the TV on low at night while I prop my feet up after a long day out shoeing horses. I can smell cherry pie in theoven, which is crazy because I’ve never baked a cherry pie in my life, but maybe I could get into it, or Shel could, or maybe we’d just pick up treats at Café Cloche to take home and heat up every Friday.
Maybe we’d have little rituals like that. Maybe we’d sit out on the front porch looking at the stars, blankets wrapped around our shoulders. Maybe Shel would make a few friends and have them over on Saturday afternoons, a whole gaggle of gangly ten year-olds out making forts under the maple trees and chucking carrots over the fence to Joaquin.
Maybe I could even give her a kitten. Maybe I could give her everything, and maybe then, I’d stop waking up at night with guilt gnawing at my stomach, its gnashing teeth a vicious reminder that the life we’ve lived so far has been nothing but a reminder that Shel was not part of the plan.
I want to give her a life where she is the center, where she is the start and end of the story, not the plot twist halfway through that everyone had to scramble around.
Maybe I could do that for her here.
“You good?”
I whip around and gasp when I find Jacinthe standing right behind me. She holds her hands up in apology and takes a step back.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I didn’t hear her come inside behind me. I shake my head to clear it, and as I look around the room, I realize Shel is gone. So is Gabrielle.
“Where—”
Before I can finish my question, I hear footsteps up in the loft. A low half-wall along its edge functions as a safety rail as well as a room divider. As I look up, Shel’s head pops up over the top, a huge grin on her face.
“Mom, you have to come see this. It’s so cool!”
She disappears again, and I hear her chattering away to Gabrielle.
My head spins as I try to figure out just how long I was zoned out for. I take a step back and end up clipping my hip against the edge of the table. I hiss with pain and lurch away, which sends me stumbling over my own feet.
A hand clamps around my upper arm, holding me steady.
“Ça va. I’ve got you.”
I catch my balance and find myself staring straight into Jacinthe’s dark eyes.
She’s got gorgeous eyes. I haven’t had a chance to notice them, considering she’s spent most of the time I’ve spent with her stomping around and scowling, but with the tips of our noses just a foot apart, those coffee-coloured irises are impossible to ignore.
They’re warm eyes, like rich brown earth baked by the sun. If I breathed in, I can almost imagine she’d smell like a garden, like damp leaves and deep, dark secrets sprouting up from the ground to taste the light.
I can’t breathe at all, though. I can’t even move. All I can do is stare at her and wonder what the hell is happening until she releases my arm and scuttles away like someone just told her I’m covered in poison ivy.
“Uh, yeah, so, um, you good?”
She raises a fist to her mouth and coughs, her gaze pinned to the bare floorboards.
