“I know she used to laugh in her sleep. I know she had a tattoo of a butterfly on her left breast. I know that she thought orange cats were the best animals in the world.”
“You could have gotten that from my book,” I grumble.
“I know she used to stare at the stars and talk about whether or not her family was ever going to come back for her.”
Pausing, I stare out the window. That part wasn’t in the book, and as far as I know, no one except me knew that Fran thought she was from another planet. I can feel my ears start to buzz and I’m sure an attack is imminent. Blinking hard, I try to talk myself out of it.
“So, Esmé,” I say loudly to combat the buzz. “What made you move to the Caribbean from Chicago?”
“There wasn’t anything left for me there. My lover left me for another woman. We’d been together for seven years. I think she was my rebound from Fran.”
“How long were you and Fran together?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want the answer.
“Ten years.”
I look at her, not sure I can believe that she’s old enough to have had at least seventeen years worth of relationships. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“So you and Fran were pretty young.”
“We were pretty young.”
She pulls up in front of The Sands and stops the car. “Are you going in for lunch?”
“No, I’m just going to get a ride home from Sam.”
“I can take you home.”
“Not in this car, you can’t.”
Standing outside of the front door of the hotel, I watch her drive away. She glances back once and I slowly raise my hand. My ears are still buzzing, so I sit down in the lobby and ask the front desk clerk to page Sam. The tunnel comes down over my sight and I can see Esmé and Fran, young and troubled, clinging to each other, both of them with tears in their eyes. I don’t know whether it’s a vision or my imagination, but I’m drawn to Fran’s young face, her light brown eyes and her pale skin. The shock of red hair, curly and full, was just as beautiful in this vision as it was years later when she came into my life. The vision darkens and for a second, all I can see is Esmé. I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, looking back at her. Her face is deathly white and there is a trickle of blood coming out of her mouth. As I slowly become aware that Sam is holding my shoulders and shaking me gently, the tunnel lifts from my sight. Sam’s face, full of love and concern is inches from mine.
“Sam,” I whisper. “I just can’t do it again.”
Chapter Three
Sam takes the cap off a bottle of water and hands it to me. With my feet hanging in the pool, and a cool breeze coming in off the sea, I’m feeling refreshed. Leaning back on my hands, I look up at the few clouds in the clear blue sky. Part of me is avoiding Sam’s gaze, but the other part is genuinely absorbed by the beauty of the Caribbean. The resort’s in-ground pool is on a raised area, so people on the deck can look out over the sea. The water seems to blend seamlessly into the sky and the few sailboats dotted along the horizon just add a bit of color to the vista. Sam is sitting silently next to me. When I look at her, she’s gazing at her toes which are wiggling in the water.
“So, I suppose you’re wondering why I called you here today.” I grin, going for a humorous tone.
Sam isn’t buying it. “Let’s talk about your episode.”
“Let’s talk about your incredibly shitty taste in women,” I spring back.
“That’s a given. I want to talk about this seizure.”
“It wasn’t a seizure.”
“Well, what was it?”
I shrug, staring at the water again. Looking back at her, I open my mouth to speak, but close it again before any sounds can escape. It’s crazy, but for a second there, I thought that I was about to cry. I love my best friend and all, but I definitely don’t want to cry in front of her. Hell, I don’t even cry in front of myself. As good as a friend as she is, Sam is not particularly sympathetic to tears. The one time I cried in front of her, years ago, a few days after Fran’s funeral, she cleared her throat, slapped me on the back, gave me a hard one arm hug, and took off for the kitchen to grab a beer.
Composing myself, I try again. “It was just an episode.”
“What’s the difference?” she asks.
“Do I look like a doctor?”
Sam shrugs. We both stare off at the water again.
The episodes started on my thirtieth birthday. My mother had died a few months earlier. Susannah was in full melt down mode. Our other sister, Jamie, was in Africa and had not only refused to come back for the funeral, but had continued to refuse to come back long after, despite Susannah’s heartfelt pleas across expensive long distance phone calls. Our father, a silent man who made a life out of hiding in his workshop to avoid our mother’s constant harassment, had burrowed even deeper into his own silence. I had thought that the death of my mother, a woman who, by her own admission, believed that the only way anyone in the house could be happy was by keeping her happy, would have helped to bring him out of his shell. He would no longer have someone yelling at him if his boots were dirty, or screaming from the upstairs bedroom that he still hadn’t fixed that old light fixture. I guess that deep down the old man must have liked having someone control his every move, because once mother was gone, Dad was at a loss. A couple of years after my thirtieth, when I moved to the Caribbean, Susannah was livid. She felt it was her obligation to stay and take care of Dad, and she wanted me to stick around to help her out. I remain of the opinion that an able-bodied man who is fully functioning and financially independent should be able to take care of himself and I have never had an interest in giving up my own life in order to keep house for the old man.