He watched for a moment, frowning at the dark depiction of the sea, the tide executed in gradations of purple, midnight blue, and blood red, the sky above a mass of storm clouds in varying shades of gray. The picture disturbed him.
Leaving her to her work on the unsettling painting, he went into the living room, seeking distraction. There, he found a variety of children’s books with her name as illustrator on the cover of each, although the authors varied. In light and evocative watercolors, she had created beautiful scenes of wildlife and snowfalls, of children and young animals, of gardens and mountains and ancient, gnarled trees from which swings hung drifting in the breeze. Studying the pictures, he understood Meg had been happy once. Clearly, by the painting in her studio, she wasn’t now.
Caleb flipped through the pages of a book he had removed from a stand that was centered on the bookshelf—a recently published work, as the year of copyright on the front page coincided with the calendar he had seen hanging in the kitchen. Carefully, he put the volume back where he had found it. Turning to move on, he stopped at a clatter of falling objects from the nearby room.
“Are you all right?” Caleb called out.
Meg appeared on the threshold, standing on one foot as she leaned into the room, wiping her hands with a paint-smeared rag. He could smell something pungent coming from the cloth and wrinkled his nose.
“Turpentine,” she said. “Paint thinner. Hard on the hands, but gets the paint off.”
He nodded.
“I’ll be finished in here in a minute.”
“Don’t stop because of me. I’ve just been looking at your books.” He pointed to the nearest. Her gaze darted in the direction he pointed, her expression altering. He couldn’t read the change, and in the next instant, it was gone, reverting to the smile she’d been wearing when she came in. He frowned.
“Be right out.”
As soon as she disappeared, he continued his circuit around the room, picking up objects for a brief examination and putting them back down. He paused in front of an old hutch, his attention caught by the worn, barn-red doors. Grabbing the painted knob on the right side, he pulled the door open to reveal a column of drawers, each with a scarred, brass keyhole. Meg’s light footsteps tapped across the hardwood floor behind him.
“This feels familiar,” he said, without turning. “Is it a common type of furniture?”
She stepped past him, closing the door with a definitive click of the latch. “There’s nothing in there.”
“I wasn’t…I wasn’t asking.” Yet he felt like perhaps he had been. “It was just…well, it seemed I’d seen something like it before.”
“That’s entirely possible. Probably not one exactly like this, but it is, as you said, a common type of furniture.”
He continued to gaze at the shut door, visualizing the drawers behind it. He imagined they held all sorts of personal items, hints at a life, records and receipts and so many things he couldn’t put a name to, things he almost remembered, sitting hidden from light at the edge of thought.
“Caleb? Are you all right?”
He grunted.
“Have you been reminded of something?”
“I think so. I think maybe I had a hutch. That’s what it’s called, right? I think I had one in the life I can’t remember.” She looked at him with sympathy before she touched his arm in reassurance and turned away.
I don’t want your pity.
Shocked by the vehemence of his reaction, he clenched his hands into fists on the denim covering his thighs. A moment later, he scented the fragrance of her hair as she returned. She closed her fingers over his, pulling his left hand up between both of hers. “It’ll be all right, Caleb. I don’t know when. Just believe it will.”
He met her gaze in defiance of the confusion that dashed with glancing blows around his brain, unable to believe anything would ever be all right.
* * * *
Lying in the dark, Caleb stretched in the confines of the narrow bed. He tucked his arms behind the upper part of his head, avoiding the goose egg. His gaze followed the shadowed path of a late moth across the ceiling. He had slept for a little while and then had come fully awake, with no idea of the time. In his disorientation, he could have been sleeping for hours or a handful of minutes. Somehow, though, he had the feeling he’d woken in the middle of the night.
Across the hall and down one door was her bedroom, by day a light-filled chamber with most of the lace-covered windows facing the ocean. When he had come up to shower, he had remained in the doorway for an inordinate amount of time, studying the accoutrements, the personal items scattered about—books and discarded clothing—the arrangement of furniture, the painted cast iron bed, the pair of dressers, a small desk in the corner, a worn, overstuffed chair in need of reupholstering. After, he had turned away, feeling guilty for his curiosity.
He wondered now if she slept untroubled or if she lay in her bed awake and uneasy with his presence in her house. He certainly would not blame her, knowing he occupied the room nearby, a stranger not only to her, but also to himself.
Letting his breath out, he closed his eyes and visualized Meg Donovan against his lids. Small in stature, she possessed an artless grace, moving restlessly from location to location as if she had no more weight or substance than one of the leaves in the breeze outside the window. It didn’t matter if she was drawing the blinds or rinsing paint from a brush or rising up onto her toes before the bathroom mirror to comb her hair.
Ah, yes, well, he hadn’t meant to walk in on her then. He had turned the corner to go into the bathroom and found her there, right in front of him. Although wearing thin and ratty sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, she may as well have been naked. Dressed for bed, she would have walked out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where she would have climbed beneath the mounded covers. During her marriage to her husband, they had most likely engaged in intimacy in that bed. He didn’t want to think about it, yet he kept doing exactly that, visualizing Meg and a faceless man who occasionally appeared in his mind’s eye bearing his own.
Disgusted with himself, he took to watching the moth again, gray-winged in the silver night. Despite the autumnal chill, he had lifted the sash an inch so he could hear the constant rhythm of the surf against the sand. Nearer, hot water ticked through the pipes of the old radiator. Fluttering erratically, the moth moved toward the open door and out the narrow space between the door and jamb. A shadow passed in the hall.
Sitting bolt upright, Caleb suppressed a groan as his pain-racked body protested the sudden movement. In the shower, he had located additional bruises on his torso and limbs, and all were bringing him noticeable discomfort. Swinging his feet over the side of the single bed, he snatched the borrowed blue jeans from the footboard. After tugging them on, he stepped shirtless into the corridor.
The half moon shining through the window at the far end illuminated an empty hallway. In silence, Caleb strode along the worn runner toward the sound of someone descending the stairs with quiet steps. Glancing at Meg’s door, he saw it remained shut. Not her, then. His body tensed.
Taking the back stairs swiftly in his bare feet, he crept into the kitchen. Someone, or something, moved across the floor. The hair lifted along his arms.
The light went on. He squinted against the sudden, fluorescent glare.
“Caleb, I’m sorry, did I wake you? I tried not to make any noise.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” he answered, more gruffly than he intended. “I thought someone had broken in.”
She arched an eyebrow