Memory Lapse Page 3

  Her voice was rising, growing shrill, and the sound pulled at something deep inside him. Instinct, habit—whatever it was, it seemed natural to hold her, to comfort her, but she had made it clear he had no right.

  “What can I do?” He had meant to sound supportive, to banish her terror, but to his shock his voice was harsh. It was as if, when she drew away from him, she had loosened a tempest, a storm of remembered frustration, that now raged through him painfully.

  He groaned under his breath. Not again. He hated this helpless feeling, the blood-maddening impotence, the shooting fear and adrenaline. Most of all he hated knowing he should save her, but knowing, too, that she would not let him.

  “Damn it, what can I do?“ he asked again. “I begged you before to go to a psychiatrist, but you wouldn’t do it. Would it help to tell you that again? Would you go this time?”

  “I went before,” she began, her voice low.

  “Twice!” He grabbed the edge of the draperies, just as she had done a moment ago, except that where she had seemed to be bracing herself, grounding herself, he was looking for somewhere to vent his unbearable frustration. He wanted to tear the blasted drapes right from the ceiling, to bury them both in an avalanche of red brocade. “Twice! Good God, Laura, you were completely sexually dysfunctional. Frigid! Did you really think two visits would cure you?”

  She stared at him through eyes swimming in tears, her chin lifted high to try to keep them from spilling. But it was in vain—two huge, rainbowed drops overflowed and ran down her cheeks. Those tears were his only answer.

  Of course, he didn’t really need an answer. She had given him one three years ago. It had frightened her, she’d said. The psychiatrist had asked her questions, had tried to make her think about things, talk about things, and his insistence had terrified her as surely as Drew’s touch on her bare skin ever did. She couldn’t go back, she had said, weeping helplessly. She couldn’t go back.

  But though he’d mutely accepted her excuses then, swallowing his bitter disappointment, he found that he couldn’t do so now.

  “This is insane, Laura. I don’t know what I can do for you. I've never known how to help you—don’t you remember that? I've gone over it all a hundred times. A million.” He dug his hands into his hair. “I told myself I should have done something else. Something... different. I don’t know.”

  He didn’t look at her, not wanting to see the tears that he knew were continuing to fall. “I tortured myself with should haves. I should have had you hypnotized. Or committed. I should never have touched you at all. I should have forced you. I should have threatened to leave—I should have made you marry me.”

  A humiliating sting pricked behind his eyes, and he dashed at a stack of books on the desk, sending one of them skidding across the polished mahogany with the back of his hand.

  “I should have, I should have, I should have, until I nearly went crazy.” His voice was raw. “And now, when I've finally stopped tormenting myself, you come back, asking if I'll help you with another problem? Can’t you see how ridiculous that is?”

  Finally he looked at her, half-ashamed of his outburst, expecting to see fear on her face. Instead, though her cheeks were runneled with shining tears, her gaze was steady. It was, paradoxically, as if his loss of control had allowed her to find her equilibrium.

  “All I can see,” she said, “is that I need help. Don’t say no until you've heard me out, Drew. I said I had something to offer in return, and that’s true. My mother’s lawyers tell me you want to buy Winterwalk, but that she would never sell it to you. Well, I will.”

  He narrowed his eyes, forcing his heartbeat back under control. Could he have heard correctly? Was she trying to bribe him into accepting this bizarre assignment? Could she really believe a financial incentive would work where appeals to pity had not?

  But he couldn’t quite read her expression. He saw only intensity. Her eyes were as dark as cobalt, and her gaze seemed to bore into him like bits of glass.

  “That’s my deal. If you'll help me figure out why being in this house scares me so much, why it’s here that I always walk in my sleep, then I'll sell it to you at any price you name.”

  “I don’t need to own Winterwalk that badly,” he said curtly. How little she understood what he had endured, if she really thought one crazy old mansion, however intriguing, would induce him to go through all that again! And he had no doubt that he would go through it again. If she was here, under his care, needy and helpless, it would be sheer torment. “I already live here. I have a ten-year lease, remember?”

  They stared at each other a long moment, two poker players, each gauging the extent of the other’s bluff. But her gaze fell first. And suddenly, as if she knew that she had played her only ace, her poise shattered.

  “Oh, Drew,” she cried, raw need on her face and in her voice. “Drew, please!”

  Seen like this, with her defenses completely breached, she looked seventeen again, the same age she’d been the first time he’d tried to touch her. He could hardly bring himself to look at her. She had that same exposed fear shining in her eyes, that same desperate quiver at the edge of her lips.

  He’d told himself back then that her reaction was perfectly normal, that the tears and breathless trembling were simply signs of sheltered innocence. It was much later that they realized it was something far, far worse.

  “Drew, can’t you see? Mother never told me much. I don’t even really know what I do, not completely. It has to be someone I can trust. When I'm sleepwalking, I'm as vulnerable as a woman can be. I'm alone. I'm unconscious.” She bit back a sob. “I'm naked, Drew.”

  Jesus. He cursed under his breath and moved away from her toward the window. The snow was falling heavily now, piling in the corners of the window. Naked in the snow. Oh, God...

  “Can’t you imagine how terrifying that is? I need someone I know would never hurt me. And you're the only one I have.” She wiped the tears away with the heels of her hands. “I'm not asking for miracles, Drew. I'm only asking for a friend to watch out for me, to make sure I don’t hurt myself, to see where I go, what I do and maybe, just maybe, help me figure out why I do it.”

  A friend. He nearly laughed at that, but it came out like a snort, an angry, bestial sound, so he cut it off abruptly, rubbing his hands across his face. A friend.

  “All right,” he said, his voice leaden, a condemned man’s voice. “All right, Laura. We can give it a try.”

  * * *

  AFTER THAT, without putting anything into words, they both seemed to call an emotional truce. Drew gave her a few minutes to pull herself together and then took her in to lunch.

  Though Laura knew it was only the eye of the hurricane, she was extremely grateful for the respite. The pine refectory table was set with fresh flowers. The creamy tomato soup was piping hot, perfect for a snowy day, and the chicken breasts were grilled to perfection.

  A decidedly efficient performance, she thought, and quite a change for Winterwalk. Laura’s mother hadn’t really been up to running a house this size, especially after her husband’s defection, when her emotional condition, which had always been fragile, had truly begun to deteriorate. Laura remembered her childhood as a series of bland or burned meals served by surly maids, eaten alone at this same long table while her mother rested in the bedroom upstairs.

  How different this was! Laura was impressed with how quickly Drew’s cook had managed to provide for a surprise guest, though halfway through the chicken she realized that the food she ate probably had been intended for Ginger. The thought spoiled her appetite, and she lay her fork down slowly.

  “Would you like to look around a little?” Drew took a last sip of coffee and, as he set his cup in the saucer, nodded at the maid, who hovered nearby, waiting to clear their plates. “It’s been a while, and you might want to get reacquainted.”

  “Yes, thanks,” Laura said, trying to sound enthusiastic. Reacquainted? She remembered every ostentatious square inch of this ho
use, the way she might remember a particularly vivid nightmare. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  “Let’s start with the conservatory.” Drew stood, tossing his napkin on the table. “It’s the only thing I've changed much. The new gardener is a wizard. He’s brought everything back to life, even some of the plants I’d given up on.”

  The conservatory. Laura mangled her napkin in her suddenly moist palm. She pictured it as she had last seen it—an eerie, abandoned place, an iron-domed Victorian vault of filthy, smudged glass and brown, withering twigs. A shiver ran over her skin.

  But she should have known that Drew would try to revive that once lovely room. He’d always said it was criminal how Elizabeth Nolan neglected it. But Laura understood completely. Damian Nolan had used the conservatory as both studio and gallery, filling it with his sculptures and marking it indelibly with his presence. After he left, her mother had entered that room only when she absolutely had to—only, that is, on those nights when Laura walked in her sleep.

  For some mysterious reason it had always been Laura’s destination. Night after night she crept down to the dying conservatory, took off her clothes and knelt beside the pond that once had been full of water lilies, and she had cried, as if she wanted to replenish the pool with her tears.

  But Drew couldn’t have known that. He couldn’t have guessed, as Laura followed him through the serpentine trail of rooms that led to the south wing, that her heart was knocking strangely, and she couldn’t manage even a murmur in response to his polite small talk.

  When they reached the door, Drew flung it open, standing back to allow Laura to enter first. For a minute she thought she wouldn’t be able to do it. Her heart seemed to be pounding in her ears. Her head was light, and her feet felt numb, but she forced herself to walk, slowly, carefully, watching the ground, taking the black and white marble tiles one at a time, concentrating on not stepping on any of the cracks, like a kid playing a game. It seemed to help, a little.

  “What do you think?” Drew put his hand lightly on the small of her back, and she was grateful for the balance it offered her dizzied world.

  Slowly she looked up and, stunned, she caught her breath with a gasp. It was beautiful. It was green and lush and warm and wonderful—and for a fraction of a second she thought she could remember being happy here, happy and loved, long, long ago, before Damian had left them, before her mother’s heart and spirit had been broken, before the decay had set in, killing the leaves and flowers, breeding contagion in the stagnant pool...

  She blinked. Had it ever really been like this? Had it ever felt so clear and clean and fresh? Or was this some magic Drew himself had worked, some glimpse she was getting of an Eden she would never know?

  “Oh, Drew,” she breathed, afraid to break the spell.

  The pressure of his hand increased. “Like it?”

  She almost said yes. She almost let herself believe that Drew had changed it, that he and his wizard gardener had been able to rid this place of its secret poison. But just then Drew shut the door behind them, and a current of air swam invisibly through the greenery, subtly agitating whatever it touched. Suddenly everything seemed alive, shifting, whispering.

  And then she saw it. From behind the thick trunk of a twenty-five-foot Monstera plant, almost lost in the foliage, a white hand beckoned, palm up, its slender forefinger crooked enticingly. Laura’s knees seemed to liquefy as her eyes sought the space, just slightly higher, where a white face peeked around the trunk, smiling knowingly, silently, urging Laura to come farther, deeper into the room’s maze of trailing, twining vines.

  Laura steadied herself against the back of an iron bench as she stared into the blind marble eyes, fighting a strange rush of nausea. “The statues,” she said to Drew, her voice faint. “You've put them out again.”

  “Yes,” he said, moving past Laura to pluck a dead leaf from the smiling statue’s wrist. Laura shuddered, watching his strong golden fingers on that cold, pale skin. “I think I've got them in the right places. I wanted it to look just the way Damian designed it.”

  Drew sounded pleased, and as he surveyed the room with an air of satisfaction, Laura forced herself to look around. Was it exactly the same? Suddenly compelled by the need to be sure, she moved into the center of the conservatory, where she could, by turning slowly, see all the statues.

  She knew so well where to look. One little girl crouched in the corner, frozen in an endless game of hide-and-seek, her hand to her mouth as if smothering a giggle...or a scream. Another child, over in the ivy, was even younger, almost a baby. He reached up with both chubby hands, begging to be lifted free of the vines that snaked around his bare feet and ankles.

  Just beyond the bank of dragon’s mouth orchids, the lily pond shone like black glass. And there a girl raised herself out of the water on slender marble arms—an emerging mermaid, her back arched, her hair streaming across her naked torso.

  Yes, they were all here, all the sweet, silent children her father had sculpted. He had never sold any of his work. Some people said, behind their hands, that he didn’t have to. He had married money, and now he could indulge his hobby full-time, like the dilettante he was. But Laura had known that he really loved his work. She could almost see him now, hunched shirtless over the statues, his bare back sweating as he rubbed over and over, roughly but rhythmically, at the stone, polishing until it gleamed like smooth, wet ice.

  Finally she forced herself to look to her right, where a pedestal had once held the block of marble that Damian Nolan had gouged and chipped and chiseled until it looked just like his ten-year-old adopted daughter. Her mother had banished the marble head to the basement, along with the other sculptures, and the pedestal had stood empty for fifteen years. But apparently Ginger had seen it, so Drew must have returned it to its place of honor. Funny—she would have expected him to leave it in the basement, not wanting any reminders of his faithless fiancée to mar the beauty of this restored conservatory.

  Without breathing, Laura lowered herself onto the white iron love seat, staring at the sculpture, remembering the long hours she had sat there, on that same cold bench, posing for her father.

  It was like meeting a ghost of herself. The sculpture had a strangely unfinished look. The eyes were by far the most detailed feature, large and wide and clear and brimming with sadness. The rest of the face was almost unformed, as if time had yet to decide whether she would be firm of jaw, sensual of mouth. Only the sadness had been predetermined.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Drew put two fingers under the child’s chin. “Damian was a very talented sculptor.”

  Her own chin tingled, and she lifted it, breathing deeply.

  “Did you ever think it was strange,” she asked suddenly, sweeping an arc around the room with her gaze, “that he sculpted only children?”

  Drew tilted his head. “Strange?” He frowned at the marble portrait of Laura. “How?”

  She wound her fingers tightly together in her lap. She and Drew had never agreed about Damian. Through the years, Laura had always been deeply resentful, blaming her father’s desertion for the dramatic decline of her mother’s emotional stability and the ensuing loneliness of her own life. Drew, on the other hand, had admired the sculptor greatly and had more than once suggested that her mother’s eccentricities might have driven him away.

  “Didn’t you ever think...” She hesitated, wondering how she dared voice this terrible idea to Drew, who had been so fond of Damian. But surely it had occurred to him before. His older sister, Stephanie, had been the model for the mermaid. Look at the high, budding breasts of that statue, at the come-hither sensuality in the other statue’s white, beckoning hand. “Did you ever think that perhaps his interest in children was—” her eyes finally met Drew’s “—unhealthy?”

  “What are you suggesting, Laura?” Drew withdrew his hand from the marble head as if it had suddenly burned his fingers. “Do you mean it might have been sexual?“

  She nodded, the idea settling
like a cold chunk of stone in the pit of her stomach.

  “I'm saying perhaps he molested the little girls who posed for him,” she said slowly, painfully aware of the implications. “I'm saying perhaps he molested me.”

  3

  “DO YOU really believe that, Laura?”

  Drew’s skepticism couldn’t be more obvious, though his voice was gentle, as if he was humoring a sweet, delusional great-aunt—reluctant to offend her, but loath to let her lose touch with reality completely. “That doesn’t sound like Damian to me. Do you actually remember anything like that happening?”

  “No,” she admitted, shifting on the iron seat. “But perhaps I wouldn’t. I mean, maybe it’s a memory I've repressed.” She saw his brows lift, and her voice tightened defensively. “It happens, Drew. The papers are full of it.”

  “Yes,” he said mildly, “it’s very much in vogue, I hear.”

  The implication stung, and she pressed her fingertips into the bench, trying not to grow angry. After all, he could be right. She didn’t really know that any such horror had ever taken place. She was only guessing, trying to make the jagged pieces of her life fit together somehow.

  “Actually, that psychiatrist you recommended so highly was quite fond of the theory,” she said. “Every question he ever asked was leading me toward that conclusion. It’s as if he assumed at the outset that I had been abused, and it was up to me to prove I hadn’t been.”

  Drew frowned slightly, and she subsided, forcing herself to swallow the lump of self-pity that had risen in her throat. Whatever had or hadn’t happened to her—none of it was Drew’s fault. He was only trying to help. But he didn’t understand, no one could, how terrifying it was to have these blank spots in her life, these nightly descents into the underworld of her soul. And it was even more frightening to know that, if she was ever going to understand what was happening to her, she had to do battle with all the hideous creatures that might be hiding there.