After Dark(36)

“Hannah,” Nate answered. “Hi.”

“Hey. How is everything?”

“Fine, thank you. Congratulations on the house closing. Shouldn’t you be knee deep in boxes, or maybe learning to drive a tractor?”

“Pfft.” I laughed. “We’ll hire people to help with the land. And thank you. We’re so excited. We’ve been moving stuff slowly. It’s a process. I don’t know why Matt won’t get a company for the move; something about the experience…”

I rambled awhile, giving Nate details on the Corral Creek house and closing. It had happened quickly, inside of a month. The owners had moved to California and were eager to sell. We offered, they countered, and because Matt was impatient, we paid just shy of the asking price, five and a quarter million. Whew.

“And he’s been elated. It’s worth it just to see him this way, he’s…”

“Like a boy, I know.” Nate chuckled. “His happiness is something else. He’s been sending pictures. That is quite the piece of property. I eagerly await my invitation.”

“Don’t be silly. Come any time.” My big smile started to fade. “Anyway, I’m calling—”

“To ask about Seth. I know.” A pause. “Should I be worried?”

“Huh? I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Not about Seth.” He sighed. “About the degree of your concern, Hannah.”

The degree of my…? I almost dropped my iPhone.

“Uh, no. Er … it’s nothing … nothing like that, I—”

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but you can see why I worry. Your concern is very touching. Of course, Seth is involved, and I know there’s some history.” Nate sounded effortlessly blasé, while I wanted to disappear beneath my car. “The fact is, I feel a little guilty, and I wonder if Matt shouldn’t know how often you—”

“No! Nate, you can’t tell him. I’ll call less. Or not at all.” I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel. Stupid! Of course all this Seth-worry sounded suspicious, but … “Who else can I talk to? Chrissy doesn’t think anything is wrong, Matt doesn’t care, and I can’t be calling Seth and asking him how he is. That leaves you.”

“As far as I can tell, he’s fine. Touring on the West Coast. His discharge papers from last month cite exhaustion as the cause of the collapse.”

“Okay…”

“I worry, too.” Nate sighed in my ear. “But there’s only so much I can do.”

Untrue, I thought. Nate had done much more when Matt was in trouble. And sure, Seth wasn’t drinking himself to death, but couldn’t it get there?

We said good-bye and I ended the call.

My face slowly resumed a normal temperature as I drove home.

Maybe I couldn’t see straight about this Seth issue. Maybe there was no problem, just a tired, hardworking lead singer, and maybe I felt extra guilty for fooling around with him and for the faked death fiasco … which must have hurt him so terribly.

If only I could talk to him. I could call him. I should.

“God, just let it go,” I said aloud to myself.

Matt was moving boxes in our barren living room. Laurence shuffled and stamped. The chaos frightened him.

Matt smiled when he saw me.

Oh, that sight dispelled my cares—shirtless Matt, every muscle in his torso defined as he lowered a box. BIRD’S BOOKS, he’d written on the cardboard. I smiled softly back at him.

“Hi,” I said.

He came to me and kissed me full on the mouth. “Hi…”

We did our dopey-grinning routine, which had only gotten worse since we’d acquired a house, and packed quickly for our first weekend at the new place.

* * *

Our first weekend at the new place.

We hadn’t even moved our bed.

We slept on an air mattress on Friday night and in the tent, in the meadow, on Saturday. As I watched Matt, I remembered what Nate had said: His happiness is something else. It was.

He stormed around the house, dragging me with him.

“Look at this room.” Ducking in and out of bedrooms. “Look at this window! This view!” And then he had to go out, onto our land.

“Hannah, we own this,” he kept telling me. “Look at it. Look!”

I would look with him and see the field, the trees and layers of hillside … beautiful, magnificent, no doubt about it … but I never saw quite what he saw. Whatever he saw drove him a little crazy. “It provokes me,” he tried to explain, charging toward this or that glen. “It’s the same thing I feel when I look at you. I want to have an experience of you, possess you … in a way that I don’t understand.”

I didn’t ask for clarification. He was deliriously excited, and his excitement passed into me like a current. All day he was a boy—all night, some kind of animal, making love to me as if his life depended on it.

On Sunday evening, we built a fire in the great room—a fire, in August!—and sat on the cool stone floor. A wall of windows gave view to Mount Evans. Night came down cinematically, and I realized I hadn’t been online, watched a TV show, or even listened to music all weekend. I hadn’t wanted to. Matt and this place absorbed me.

I smiled and nestled against him.

The phone rang—the single phone we’d plugged in—and I jumped. Matt smoothed a hand across my brow. “Nate,” he said. “Or Ella or Rick. I wanted to test the landline.” He kissed my temple and jogged out of the room.

I grinned and admired the view.

“It’s Nate,” he called a moment later, his voice echoing down the hall. He sounded so pleased with himself. I laughed and flopped onto a pile of pillows.

Several minutes passed.

The fire started to die and I let it.

Shadows and light flickered on the wall.

Gosh, this place would be a little creepy if I were alone. I sat up and hugged myself. Well, Matt didn’t really go places without me … plus, we’d get a dog or two.

I stood and stretched.

I thought I heard the front door, which made me laugh.

Crazy boy. He kept going outside! He could barely stand to look out the window without vibrating like an excited dog—and then, whoosh, he’d go stalking out the door.

I padded down the hall.

“Matt?”

A faint, angry digital pulse grew louder as I walked. I turned into the kitchen. The cordless phone lay on the counter, the off-hook tone blaring.

“Damn it,” I muttered, slamming it into the cradle.

I hate that sound.

The phone began to ring and I yelped. I checked the caller, my heart hiccuping.

TRENTON, NJ.

I picked up quickly.

“Nate, I am so spooked! I just—”

“Hannah, where’s Matt?”

“Um, I think he’s”—I drifted toward the front of the house—“out in the yard?” I laughed. “But there’s a lot of yard—”

“Listen. Can you find him? Can you see him?”

The first rising note of panic sounded in my brain. Something is not right. Nate’s voice is wrong … different.

“It’s dark … it’s getting dark.” I cupped a hand against a window and peered out at blackness and my reflection. “I can’t—”

“Go out and call for him. Keep the phone. Stay on the line.”

“Nate, what’s—”

“Hannah, go.”

I’d never heard Nate speak like that—with that kind of anger and urgency. I ran to the front door, which hung open. Looking at it, and the panel of night beyond, I wanted to cry.

“I’m scared,” I said, stepping outside. “What’s happening?”

“It’s okay. Just call for him.”

I lowered the phone and called Matt’s name. Somehow, I knew he wasn’t there, but I strained to see. Maybe if he heard me …

“Matt!” I screamed. “Matt!”

The evening swallowed my voice and sent back no echo.





Chapter 28

MATT

“I tried your cell,” Nate said, “and Hannah’s.”

“Oh, I don’t even know where they are.” I laughed and leaned against the island, smiling indulgently at my new kitchen. Our new kitchen. “We’re living like hippies. This place—”

“Could you sit down? Is Hannah around?”

“She’s nearby.” My smile fell. “What’s up?”

“I’d like it if she were—”

“Tell me what the hell is going on.” My heart began to pulse palpably, audibly in my chest. My mind went to the baby. Yes, the baby—Chrissy and Seth’s child—which Hannah seemed to think I didn’t care about, but which was never far from my thoughts.

“Okay. All right, I’m sorry.” Nate’s voice broke. “It’s Seth. Please, go get Hannah.” He started to cry—guttural, shivery sounds. Horrible sounds. He apologized and begged me to call Hannah. He said that he would come to see me.

I began shaking like a frightened animal.

“God, please,” I said. “What’s happening?”

This is the big breath before you go under.

* * *

I ran barefoot down the dirt road.

Stones and burrs tore at my soles.

Get on the grass, I thought, and I did, but the grass was dry, full of points and toothy vines. Nothing is kind.