Chapter Eighteen
The cuckoo clock chimed the half-hour. Wearing nothing but a pair of cargo shorts, Daniel sat slouched in one corner of the couch, bare feet on the coffee table, the remote control resting on his thigh. His hair, still wet from the shower, dripped on his shoulders, water trickling down his chest.
He looked up at the hand-carved clock, a clock that had come to America on a ship along with his Scottish ancestors. The bird disappeared and the wooden door clicked shut. Nine-thirty. The evening was creeping.
The clock was another obsession of Beau’s. Daniel preferred not to wind the bird at all. Who needed a cuckoo chirping and clicking twelve times in the middle of the night? But Beau, being the obsessive-compulsive person he was, cranked both pinecone weights to the top every morning before breakfast, giving the bird a full twenty-four hours to chirp away.
Saturday night. The Tastee Delight stayed open until ten-thirty on Saturdays. The house seemed so damn empty with Beau gone. Beau hadn’t even left the dog to keep Daniel company. Instead, he’d taken Premonition with him, explaining that he wanted Matilda to meet him.
“She has a fenced yard behind the store,” Beau said. “Where Premonition can stay until I get off work.”
Daniel knew it was good for Beau to have a job. Good for him to be somewhere where he could see a lot of people. Beau thrived on contact with others.
Here all along Daniel had been thinking of Beau as a burden, albeit a welcome one. But in reality, he wasn’t a burden at all. Taking care of his brother had given Daniel’s life a purpose, a direction. Now, with Beau increasingly more independent, Daniel was beginning to wonder where he fit in the picture.
Preoccupied, Daniel picked up the remote and flicked through the channels, not seeing anything that could serve as a distraction.
A knock sounded at the door even though he’d heard no footsteps. He turned off the TV, dropped the remote on the couch, and answered the door, flipping on the porch light at the same time.
Cleo.
He ran a tongue across dry lips.
Through the screen, she said, “I brought some of Premonition’s things.” She lifted a small, white paper bag that looked suspiciously like the bag he’d delivered breakfast in that morning. “Toys. Shampoo. He has to have a special shampoo.”
She stepped inside, a gust of wind almost sucking the screen door from his hand. The air smelled like rain. “Couldn’t it have waited until tomorrow?” he asked.
“I needed a change of scenery. That motel room-” She swallowed and made a nervous gesture with one hand. “It gets smothering at times.”
She seemed a little keyed up. A little distracted and nervous.
Without waiting for an invitation, she dropped the sack on the coffee table, then sank into the floral-patterned couch with a sigh.
“This room is just so heavenly,” she said, eyes closed.
He shut the solid wooden door, silencing the wind.
He and Beau didn’t hang out in the living room much, but their mother had. She used to sit in the very spot where Cleo now reclined. He could still picture her curled up in the corner with her reading glasses slipping down her nose, poking a needle through the hoop she always carried. Counter cross-stitch was what she called it, because that was what Beau called it. She could never convince him otherwise, so she’d just joined his camp. When it came to Beau and his stubborn streak, that was usually the best way to go.
Daniel had never thought about the room being heavenly. But now, as he looked at it with fresh eyes, he could see that it was definitely a woman’s place, from the African violets Beau so patiently cared for, to the doilies scattered here and there.
Cleo was so quiet and so still, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. What did she want? What was she after? With Cleo, he got the feeling things didn’t just happen by chance. Everything she did, everything she said, seemed to be part of a greater plan. So what was she up to now?
Her hair was tied back, but some of it had escaped to curl wildly about her face, the red of those strands contrasting with the porcelain paleness of her skin, which in turn set off the color of her full lips. Her eyelashes, pale and devoid of mascara, rested childlike against her cheeks, casting shadows.
While he stared at her, she opened her eyes.
“Where’s Beau?” she asked, glancing around.
“Working.”
“Oh.”
Was she thinking what he was thinking? Was that the reason she’d come?
“You’ve got a strange look on your face,” she said.
“I was thinking of the saying third time’s a charm. You familiar with that?”
She gave him a lazy smile, lifted her arms above her head, and stretched. “How about this one? ‘Three on a match.”
She got to her feet as if preparing to leave. He wanted her to stay.
“That was quite a show you put on today,” he said.
She tipped her head to one side and looked boldly into his eyes, trying to find the truth in there somewhere. “You liked it?”
“You had those people eating out of your hand.”
“But not you.”
“Never me.”
“You knew I was faking?”
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t say anything.”
“I’ve warned them, but they won’t listen.”
She came close enough to stand directly in front of him. He could see the starlike pattern in her eyes-green shot with black. “You’re not saying words they want to hear,” she whispered. Her hands were at her sides, her head tilted back so she could retain eye contact. Scarce inches separated them.
After last night, he wouldn’t have thought she’d want to breathe the same air as him, let alone stand so close. “Why did you come here, Cleo?”
She slid a sandaled foot between his bare feet, hooking a thumb in the belt loop of his low-slung shorts in a way that seemed way too familiar. He liked it. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think I came to see you.”
He smiled then, a smile that began deep inside him, a smile that was suddenly reflected in Cleo’s face. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said.
He felt the weight of her pressing against him. He had to do something to make up for last night. A thought came to him. A great thought. So great, he marveled at his own brilliance. He took her by the shoulders and set her away from him. Her smile immediately faded.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Wait here.” He turned and hurried down the hallway, opened the storage closet, clicked on the light, and began digging.
Cleo stood in the living room, arms crossed at her chest, watching as Daniel disappeared into a walk-in closet. She heard things sliding across the floor.
She thought she’d come to get away from the motel room and to bring Premonition’s things, but had she really come to see Daniel one last time before leaving? Had she become so accustomed to subterfuge that she could no longer see into her own heart?
Daniel must have found what he was looking for, because he emerged from the closet, a black box in his hands, then disappeared immediately into another room. A few seconds later, she heard running water. Then he was back with the same box. “Wait there.” He dove into another room off the long, narrow hallway, shutting the door behind him.
She couldn’t imagine what he was up to. While waiting, she wandered around the living room, lifting framed pictures and putting them down, easily picking out Daniel and Beau.
