Page 64 of Light in the Dark
She stirs a nauseating amount of sugar and cream into her coffee and sits at the little round table—as time-worn and love-smoothed as everything else in this time capsule of a house; the walls in the kitchen are a pale yellow, the appliances from the late nineties, and the flooring and counters are laminate. A backdoor beside the battered white four-burner electric range leads to a small fenced-in backyard, overgrown now, the grass knee-high. If I squint, I can see what it must have once looked like—a play structure, a sandbox, a little girl running around as her parents watch from the kitchen. Maybe a puppy bounding after the little girl.
"Like what?" Faye asks, shaking me out of reverie.
"Oh. Um." I sigh. "Nothing."
"Don't start that ‘nothing’ bullshit with me, missy," she grumbles. "Ain't been any secrets between us yet, no sense starting now."
So, over French toast and half a dozen cups of coffee, I relate the story I told to Felix, and this time it's easier to get through. Getting it out once loosened its grip on me, I guess. It hurts less. I feel…lighter. Freer.
Faye doesn't say much—she doesn't have to. She just rests her hand on mine and stares into space, and the brief, haunted expression on her face tells me she knows firsthand that there isn't much to say, one woman to another.
I glance at her, after a while. "You tell Tommy?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "Goodness, no. That's one secret I kept from him—the only one. It'd have killed him. Or put him in prison, which would have been worse. He knew something had happened, but I told him I would be okay. And I was. Wasn't the first woman to go through that, and won't be the last. Knowing about it wouldn't have helped him, and he couldn't have done anything about it—the man who did it was killed in a robbery gone wrong a few months later anyway. Tommy had just made detective and his caseload was just unbelievable. He'd have torn the planet apart trying to find the man, and if he had?" She shakes her head. "No. I think he suspected. He was…he knew what to do. Hold me. Give me time. Just love me, and be patient. I got through it and moved on, the way we women always have and always will. God knows men aren't strong enough for some things."
"You're my hero, Faye," I whisper, holding her hand and holding back tears. "I mean that."
She dashes a wrist under her eyes and shakes her head. "Enough of this maudlin bullshit. Let’s pack up and get this show on the road." She points at me. "You wearin' a bra?"
I lift up the shirt, flashing her. "No ma'am, I am not."
She unzips her track suit top, yanks it open, and shows me her boobs, too. "Me either! Let's fuckin' go!"
I whoop and dissolve into laughter as Faye shakes her wrinkly, saggy tits at me, and I do the same to her.
* * *
It turnsout Faye only needs one big suitcase and one small one, and one box of her most sentimental objects—a handful of photos, a few mugs and other tchotchkes, and the precious items of Tommy's I'd seen on the dresser.
I stock the vintage SUV with the requisite road trip snacks and a cooler of sparkling water and soda. After inputting her daughter's Los Angeles address into my phone's GPS, we're on the way, California bound, just two crazy widows on a cross-country road trip.
In the back of my mind though, I know I'm only delaying my introspection.
But come on. How could I not go with her?
Eleven
FELIX
My house feels empty, now. Which is odd, because Ember was only in it for a few hours, but in that time she filled it with life and personality. It's always felt empty because it is…but now, without her in it anymore? Feels like a tomb.
She has my FJ40, so I can't even busy myself with that. I consider heading out to my build site, but for once, I just…don't want to.
I putz around for a while, doing a few odds and ends I've been putting off—fixing the guest bathroom sink so it doesn’t drip, replacing a handful of screens that have been ripped and patched a billion times, replacing the loose, creaky boards on the steps to the back deck, putting WD40 on the squeaky hinges of the door into the garage…
It's bullshit busy work, but it keeps my mind occupied…ish.
Okay, no, it doesn't.
More than once, I find myself standing around with a tool in my hand, staring into space, thinking about Ember. Mostly, I'm daydreaming about her body and the borderline miraculous things she did to me.
Thinking about that stuff is a hell of a lot easier than thinking about what she told me. Or about my own shit. Yeah, no. Fuck that.
Daydreaming about those big, fat, juicy tits is way better than thinking about Amy Quincy, or Ember's tragic history.
Problem is, thinking about those big, fat, juicy tits makes me horny, and as has been established, Ember is gone.
Eventually, I run out of busy work projects, leaving me at loose ends again. I could bust into the materials I have stored in the basement and start putting down that luxury vinyl plank like I've been putting off for months, but it's already almost nine o'clock at night and I'm in no mood for that.
