Return To Me. Shannon McKenna
Simon had only this cryptic note from a dead man.
Nothing and no one else in the world.
The knot in her throat swelled. Simon’s stoic loneliness and Gus’s tragic solitude spoke to her own. She ached with it, amplified it like a resonating chamber. The wind in the trees was mournful. The crickets’ song said too late, all gone, never again. It broke her heart that Gus had condemned himself to loneliness when love was there for the taking. But he had found no way past his anger and fear. He had lost himself.
It made her sick and sad. Even the moon sailing across the sky looked solitary and remote. And she was working herself into a state. She had to cut it out this second, or she would start blubbering. Simon would not appreciate that. God forbid he think that she pitied him.
She blotted her runny eyes on a hank of her hair and sniffled very quietly. She refolded the piece of paper and handed it back to him. She didn’t trust herself to speak for several minutes.
Simon was in no hurry, either. He tucked the piece of paper back into his wallet and stared up at the moon.
When she could count on her voice not to shake, she tried again. “Do you have any idea what he was talking about in the e-mail?”
Simon shook his head. The wind ruffled the hair that dangled around his jaw. “Not a clue,” he said. “No idea what story he wanted to tell me. No idea what the proof might be, or how my mother could possibly guard it, being as how she’s been dead for twenty-eight years. The timing is so strange. Why send me that, after all these years, and then stick a gun in his mouth? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed.
“I’m so damn curious, you know?” He laughed softly. “It’s like a kind of torture. Gus used to love to tease me like that. Dangle the bait, make me beg for the punch line. But as contrary as he was, he wouldn’t kill himself without telling me the story just to spite me.”
“Good Lord,” she murmured. “I should think not!”
“I’ve racked my brains about what the damn story could be about. There was him getting shot up in Vietnam, but I don’t know the details. And something bad happened to him when I was small. I remember my mother being upset. Then she died, and I stopped noticing anything. There’s a big blank spot in my memory right about then.”
Ellen had been only six, but she remembered the day Simon’s mother had died in that fire. Sparks from her wood-burning stove, it was said. Every kid’s worst nightmare, and for Simon, it had come true.
From then on, he’d been set apart from the rest of them. He knew a terrible secret that none of them wanted to know.
“I learned not to ask questions about certain things after I went to live with Gus,” Simon said. “I asked once to see the pictures he took in Vietnam. He freaked. I never asked again. Same thing happened whenever I talked about my mother, so I learned not to mention her.”
“Is there anyone else who might know?”
He shook his head. “There’s no family left to ask. He had no friends that I knew of. Sometimes, when he was drunk, he would harangue an imaginary enemy. Stuff like, ‘you’re going to burn, I’ll see you writhe in the flames of hell,’ yada yada. I figured it was memories from ’Nam plus what happened to my mother. Plus bourbon.”
“I see.” She wanted so badly to scoot close to him, take his hand, or put her arm over his shoulder. She didn’t dare give in to the impulse.
“When Gus started to talk to the burning guy, that was my cue to get the hell out of there and sleep in the woods.” He shot her a sideways glance. “Or in your room,” he added. “That was even better. Warm and soft, and it smelled good. You were so sweet to me. All those cookies and chocolate milk and leftovers. My Tupperware angel.”
The caressing tone in his voice made her shiver. “Don’t make fun of me,” she whispered. “I had to make sure you ate something. You never ate anything at Gus’s house.”
“Oh, that’s not strictly true. I did OK in the mornings,” Simon said. “It was the evenings that were rough. By then he was drunk, and he never wanted to eat when he was drunk. It spoiled his buzz. Besides, evenings were when he started in on ‘what evil lurks in the hearts of men,’ which was a huge downer. I tried to avoid that particular rant.”
His casual, ironic tone made the lump swell up in her throat again. Even now, he pretended it was no big deal.
“Maybe the e-mail was just paranoid alcoholic rambling.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “Guess I’ll never know.”
“Did you ever try to reply to his e-mail?” she asked.
“God, yes. Over and over, but he never got back to me. Then I got Hank’s letter, and finally understood why.” He buried his face in his hands. “I was deep into this intense project in Afghanistan. If I’d known…but it wouldn’t have made any difference. His e-mail is dated the estimated day of his death. I just wish…ah, fuck it. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. My mother used to say that.”
Crickets sang, wind rustled and sighed. Ellen pressed her fists against her shaking mouth and silently ached for him.
“Did you know that some of Gus’s Vietnam pictures won journalism prizes?” he asked.
“No,” she replied softly. “I didn’t know that.”
“He was talented. Before he got wounded, anyhow. That’s when his troubles began. But he was really, really good. One of the best.”
“Like you,” she said. “He was proud of you.”
Simon lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “Hmph.”
“So am I,” she insisted.
“You’ve never even seen my work.” He sounded quietly amused. “How would you know?”
“I just know.”
They stared at each other. The shadows of the night wrapped them in hushed secrecy. The butterflies in her belly dipped and whirled.
Simon reached out and gently pushed her hair back over her shoulders. “Don’t hide behind your hair. That’s a bad habit. A sixteen-year-old can get away with it. A gorgeous woman has no excuse.”
She was intensely conscious of her nipples pressing against the thin cloth. “And you, embarrassing me and putting me on the spot? That’s a bad habit of yours. And you have even less excuse than me.”
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He brushed the tip of his forefinger across her cheek. Her breath caught at the sweet, tingling shock of contact. “How’d you get to be so fucking beautiful, El?” he asked. “How could you do that to me?”
“Simon.” She forced the word out in a shaky whisper. “Don’t.”
His hand dropped.
She turned away, wrapped her arms tightly around her knees. “So…where did you go for dinner?”
“Claire’s,” he said. “I went with Cora.”
She stared at him. “Oh. Good steaks,” she said finally.
“The best,” he agreed. “Cora seems to be doing well.”
“So did you guys, um, catch up on old times, then?”
He laid his warm hand on her knee. She jerked, and he lifted it quickly away. “Cora’s great, but you’re the one I want to catch up with.”
Ellen twisted her fingers together. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? So, um, what did you eat?”
“I had the fries, she had the salad. I had a beer, she had a frozen margarita.” Amusement softened his low voice. “We talked. Afterwards, I took her home. Then I went for a ride up on Horsehead Bluff to watch the moon rise. Otherwise, I would’ve been