North Carolina? Luis Alvarez? If so, who had screwed up?
* * *
Ryan and I have differing views on, well, most everything not work-related. Nevertheless, we’re like atoms interacting in space, our mutual positive and negative fields attracting, drawing us together. Until Lutetia, of course.
Was the old current still humming below the surface? Was that the reason for my snappishness at the ME’s office?
Maybe. But no way I’d test those waters with our daughters around.
That evening Ryan and I were in total agreement. Katy and Lily were being a double-barrel pain in the ass.
On the way to Lanikai, Ryan and I bought sushi, a foodstuff curiously approved by both sides of the warring home front. After much discussion, we opted for a policy shift. Since sanctioned separation had proved a disaster, we would now implement compulsory companionship.
That decision was wildly unpopular.
Dinner was eaten in glacial silence. Afterward,
Katy liked Julie Andrews. Lily said Julie was lame but loved Max von Sydow. Katy thought Max was a pansy.
Ryan swore he spotted Bette Midler doing a walk-on as a ship’s passenger.
I was skeptical. Nineteen sixty-six? It would have been a very young Bette.
By eleven we were all in our rooms.
Maybe it was too much panko-crusted ahi. Or mango crab salad roll. That night I had one of the strangest dreams of my life.
When Katy was ten she attended equestrian camp. Her horse was a small chestnut with a white blaze and stockings, named Cherry Star.
In the dream I was riding Cherry Star bareback down a long white beach. I could sense the mare’s muscles rippling beneath me, could feel the sun hot on my back.
Beside us, water stretched clear and still as far as I could see. Midnight green kelp floated and curled just below the surface.
Cherry Star’s hooves kicked up spray as we galloped. Fat flecks burned my face like snowflakes in winter.
A tiny black speck appeared on the horizon. Grew. Took shape.
Katy, on horseback. On Cherry Star.
I waved. Katy did not wave back.
But I was on Cherry Star.
Confused, I looked down.
I was walking.
I looked up.
Cherry Star was thundering toward me. I watched her blaze grow bigger and bigger. Turn yellow. Gold. Sunlight shot from the shiny metal surface.
Blinded, I threw up a hand.
Surrounded by a halo of fragmented light, Cherry Star’s shimmering blaze changed shape. A diamond. A half- moon. An inverted mushroom with a bifurcated stem.
Suddenly Cherry Star was on top of me. Her back held no rider. Her reins were dragging in the sand.
She’ll step on them and break a tooth!
I lunged but couldn’t grab the trailing leather straps.
I could smell the horse’s sweat, hear the air rasping in and out of her nostrils.
Cherry Star threw back her head. Opened her mouth in a silent scream.
I saw amber teeth. Curled lips. Saliva foaming in glistening streams.
Heart hammering, I tried to run.
Every step sank me deeper into the sand.
The dream shifted.
I was treading water.
Using both arms, I rotated shoreward.
The land was very far off.
Kelp surrounded me.
I watched the green-black clumps slowly coalesce. The dark circle closed in.
Something brushed my foot.
