Infinite Us(76)

My chest ached a little as I climbed the stairs and I didn't think it was because of the exertion. Some part of me knew when I took my last step and opened that roof deck door, that I'd find her out there, so when she wasn't there, that ache in my chest tightened even more.

The cityscape was boring, Brooklyn always had been. The only thing remarkable about it was the bridge in the far distance, but that was more New York than Brooklyn no matter the name or how close it was to us. Out there in the city, everything moved and bustled. In Brooklyn, on my roof, everything went in slow motion. Especially when I turned and with a jolt, spotted Willow hunkered down, her head hidden behind the long back of the lawn chair as she rested in it.

That wild hair was up in a bun and little flyaways framed her sweet face. She held a box in her lap but didn't touch it, didn't do much of anything but stare forward. Then she seemed to notice me, and sat up straighter, which is when I caught a glimpse of the bottle of bourbon under her arm. Her face was drawn, her features tight with tension but she didn't speak when I moved close and sat, sharing a seat with her.

I nodded at the bottle, but kept my voice calm. "You feeling a little southern tonight?" She'd told me the first night about her granddaddy and his love of cigars and whisky. I'd almost half expected to see her puffing on a stogie.

"A lot southern," she said, drinking from the bottle without watching me.

"You're not from the south, Will." There was a small twitch on the left side of her mouth when I called her that. She'd smiled wide and happy the first night I'd used her pet name, like the sound of the endearment had made her all fuzzy headed.

She set the bottle down next to her hip, steadying it with the crook of her elbow before she pushed the box on her lap toward me. "My folks stopped by yesterday. It's been exactly two months since my great grandfather died and they wanted me to have this box. Dad thought it had been lost, all this … stuff … "

"What is it?"

She waited, licking her lips like she had cotton mouth before she answered. I wasn't sure what to make of that expression. It was serious, a little worried. "Pictures, letters, rings he bent and twisted from silver dollars and pennies during the war when he was on watch." She pulled one out of the box and slipped it on her pinky. It was old, dingy copper, splotched green, but Willow stared at it like it was a Tiffany diamond. I liked the look on her face, how, for a second it made me forget that I wanted her gone, that she'd walked away so easily.



       
         
       
        

"I remember you mentioning him dying."

"Yeah, well, my folks thought I'd want this stuff. It's all the things that meant the most to him, expect maybe us."

Her fingers were small, the nails short but trim and when she handed over a small black and white picture, my fingers grazed hers, lingering as I held the old photo with a little reverence. Not long ago, I'd kissed each finger, and let them run over my body, across my naked chest. There were no calluses, nothing that would take away her softness, nothing that made her seem hard around the edges.

"It's him and … I suppose one of his friends when they were kids back in New Orleans."

I stopped then, frowning when I glanced down at the picture. "My great granddaddy was from New Orleans. They were all Creole. Or so my Dad claimed." The two boys in the picture, a light skinned black kid and a white boy with light hair, were smiling, laughing at something behind the camera, maybe the person who took the picture. Something felt odd, something that twisted my stomach and I caught a flash of déjà vu. It filled up my chest and made it hard to breath.

"Who is this?" I asked Willow, turning it over to see only two things written on the back. "Summer, 1927" and "D and S".

"My great-grandfather and his friend. He's in this one too," she said, digging around in the box before withdrawing another image.

The edges of the picture were frayed and the corner on the bottom left side was torn off. But they were clearly the same two boys, both standing on either side of a pretty girl. Her hair was curled, hit just below her ears and she had dark eyes with the smallest slant to them. That twist in my stomach got worse as I concentrated on the girl, trying like hell to remember why that face looked so familiar, why I knew what the sound of her voice was like or how she looked when she laughed.

"That's … I don't … " And then, it hit me, like a slap across the face. It hit me hard and dramatic and I stood, the photo dropping from my fingers. "That' s impossible."