Dreaming August (8 page)

“Kind of. I guess. Not really.”

“Well, you are here now. You wanted to see my grave. This is it.”

Benny let it go and instead focused again on the marker, the names and dates there. “You were married.”

“Katherine. Wonderful woman. Love of my life.”

“Kids?”

“Two sons, Philip and Victor, and a daughter, Adriana.”

“Where are they now?”

“They moved out of Bitterly a long time ago. And I am still here. Perhaps they, too, are no longer among the living.”

“But your wife died before you did. Wasn’t she waiting for you or anything?”

“No. She died a several years before I did, so—”

“So, then we don’t all find one another after death.”

“That, I cannot say. All I know is it is not so for me. Yet.”

Benny bit her lip. She wanted this to be real so badly it made her teeth ache. Since Augie first tapped her shoulder, she had something to look forward to again. Weird, perhaps, but Benny once prided herself on weird. Was he real? Or was he wishful thinking gone haywire?

“Augie?”

“Yes, Benedetta?”

“I need something. Something physical.”

“If I could do that for you,
cara mia
, I would be happy to oblige, but as far as I know, such a thing is not possible.”

Benny bit the insides of her cheeks again. “You are a fiend.”

“I think you like fiends.”

She used to. Now she liked…

She cut off the thought before it fully formed. “I meant something physical as proof I’ve not lost my mind completely. Everything happening, even talking to you now, could be memory forcing itself out of my head. The woods right there”—she pointed beyond the wrought iron fence—“is where Henny kissed me for the first time. Maybe that’s where I got your name from. Maybe I saw it all those years ago and now my grief is pulling it out of my brain. I need to know you’re not a figment of my imagination.”

“Sure, sure. Any ideas?”

“I was hoping you’d have one.”

Benny paced, keeping the sense of him ever in her periphery. Perhaps because it was getting dark, there was something different in the glow she imagined him to be, tempting her to look. Was that shadow the faded image of an elbow? The slope of a hip? She squeezed her eyes shut tight. “You said you lived in Bitterly for forty years, right?”

“More or less.”

“Did you do anything noteworthy that might have made the papers? Win some prize at the Fourth of July picnic, or save a puppy from drowning or something?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Hmm, well, maybe you took out a permit to put up a shed or something I could look up in the town records?”

“Permit for a shed? Ha! Benedetta, you could build a whole house in this town back then without a permit, and there were no building codes. I should know. I built my house from…”

“Augie?” She shielded her eyes as she spun to where she last heard his voice. “Are you there?”

“I am,” he said. “I just remembered something, and if it’s still there, it will give you the proof you wish.”

* * * *

Benny switched the headlight of her scooter off as she rounded the corner of Division Street. When Bitterly was first founded, and the Green sat closer to the river, Division Street marked the middle between the northern and southern ends of town. Commerce wisely moved to higher ground after the annual flooding in 1855 devastated the town one time too many, taking the Green and municipal buildings with it. Now it was a strange name for a road out in the middle of nowhere, and clutching the past too determinedly to let go.

Three of the original structures survived—Bitterly Congregational Church, the Bossy House and the Weller house. Benny wondered if Augie’s Katherine was one of the Wellers. Considering she and Augie had built their home on the same street as the original family homestead, she figured she must have been.

Benny’s stomach flipped. Of all the houses in Bitterly, why did the one Augie build have to be 105 Division Street? Why couldn’t it even have been one hundred eight, or two-eleven? Nope. One. O. Five.

Evelyn Taylor’s house.

Dan’s sister.

With whom he lived since her husband skipped town four years ago.

Of course, it was the house Augie built back in 1935. More proof it was all in her head.
Benedetta, you idiot.

But she glided to a stop at the bottom of the drive, parked the scooter and took off her helmet anyway. During the week she stole from Dan, she had never once been in the house. Benny could count on one hand the number of times she had been on Division Street in her life. At least there was that in her favor if she found what Augie had sent her to find.

She skirted the shadows along the driveway, hunkered down behind the big rock with the house numbers on it. There were only two lights on inside—one upstairs and one in the back visible because of the picture window without curtains. The light went out. Moments later, another went on upstairs. Benny checked her watch. After eight o’clock. The party must have ended on the early side. Though she had come prepared to crash with apologies, she was happier skulking in like a thief.

She crept up the driveway and slipped around back. Even in the dark, the landscaping was lovely. Stone walls, not the farmer-walls cutting through every property in New England, but carefully constructed and meticulously placed stone walls, lined the yard. Plantings accented the walls. A grape arbor, heavily vined and currently lightning-bugged, stood back against the trees. Somewhere, lilies bloomed. Their scent was sweet, heady, and unmistakable. Benny sighed softly, bit her lip, and started her search for the proof Augie said would be just off the cellar doors.

* * * *

The sound of feet crunching on the gravel driveway lifted Dan’s head. He listened, but it didn’t come again. Instead of unbuttoning his jeans as he’d been about to do, he re-did the first one and headed downstairs barefoot.

He looked out the front window, then the back. Nothing but a quiet yard, and maybe deer. Pretty as the gardens were by day, Dan preferred them at night when all the night-bloomers popped. The hedge of four o’clocks, the evening primrose, night gladiolas, the copse of snow-white moonflowers and, his favorite, Casablanca lilies that cost him a small fortune his sister didn’t know about.

Pride swelled. Winters in Bitterly were long and white. Plowing had always brought more money in than landscaping, but creating whole worlds in miniature, of color and scent with living plants and native stone, made him the artist he would never claim to be. The New Yorkers currently buying places in the country brought more work than he could handle this summer, and it wasn’t even July yet. If Bitterly didn’t depend upon him and his plow, Dan wouldn’t even have to work next winter. It would be nice to spend the cold months scouring seed catalogs, maybe even building a greenhouse to—

Metal scraped on stone. Dan grimaced. Something was in the little alcove off the cellar. Raccoons after party leftovers that didn’t get cleaned up, more than likely. Scaring them off was easy enough, but they’d be back as soon as the lights went out. Someone had to clean up whatever they were after. As always, that someone was him. Dan grabbed a garbage bag and went to investigate.

“Dammit!” A hissed whisper came from the alcove as he opened the back door. Not raccoons. He craned his neck. Big as he was, Dan Greene was no fool. Even Bitterly had its delinquents. Reaching slowly for the light switch just inside the door, he caught sight of the intruder’s shadowed silhouette. And knew it instantly. Having memorized it one stunned and sleepless night watching her dream beneath the stars.

Dan treaded carefully. He didn’t want to scare her off. She was sitting at the wrought iron bistro table, in a chair still tied up with balloons. Head in her hands and grumbling, she didn’t hear him approach. Neither did she hear him clear his throat.

“You are not making all this up, Benedetta Marie Grady,” she whispered harshly. “You are not losing it. You’ve believed in this shit all your life and now it’s actually happening and—”

Dan stepped on what felt like a bottle cap. “Oh! Ow-ow-ow!”

Benny’s head shot up.

Hopping on one foot, Dan caught her chair before she toppled. “Sorry, sorry!” He fought off the balloons. “I was trying not to startle you. Wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Dan, I—I—I—hi.”

Benny looked up at him, her eyes big as moons. He put his foot down gingerly.

“Hi.” He wouldn’t blink, afraid she would disappear if he did. “What are you doing here?”

Benny’s head bowed, robbing him of those eyes.

Idiot. Wrong words. Fancy meeting you here? No. Dumb. You looking for me or trying to beat the raccoons to the pickin’s? Dammit.

“You invited me to the party,” she said. “Remember?”

“The party was over hours ago.”
Dammit again.

“I see that.”

Silence fell and lingered. Benny’s head didn’t come up, but she didn’t leave either. Dan steadied his heartbeat, and his hands, and thought about what Charlie might say, or even Tim. Just not Henny.

“You want a beer?”
Okay. Not bad.

She lifted her head. “Beer? No, thanks.”

“You want to come in? There’s still some food left—”

“No. No, thank you.” She stood up. The balloons hit Dan in the face. He batted them away and caught Benny trying not to laugh. She bit her lip. Adorably.

“Can I get some water?” she asked, pointing to the tub of melted ice where bottles of water and a few cans of soda bobbed. Dan grabbed one, wiped it dry on his shirt and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” She cracked the cap. Dan tried not to stare at her lips on the mouth, at her throat as she swallowed. Benny gestured with the bottle. “It’s really pretty back here. You did all this?”

“Mostly.”

Benny took another sip. She fidgeted from foot to foot. “The walls?”

“Yup. Every rock.”

“This patio?”

He tapped his bare foot on the pavers.

“This too. It used to be a concrete slab. The arbor is pretty much the only thing I didn’t put in. It’s been here since before Evelyn and Paul bought the place.”

“It looks old.”

“Probably almost as old as the house. Evelyn says a Weller girl married an Italian immigrant back during the Depression. He built this house. I bet he did the arbor too. I found a press and some old barrels in the cellar when I did the renovations for my apartment.”

“Really?” The uncomfortable fidgeting vanished. A glimpse of the old Benny before the cloud of grief doused her shined out of her like moonbeams. “That doesn’t sound like a Weller.”

“I like to think she was a rebel. Evelyn says it’s because the Italian was good-looking and had an accent.”

“How does she know?”

“She doesn’t. Wishful thinking.”

Benny laughed. The sound reverberated in Dan’s gut.

“So,” she said, glancing at the ground, “this used to be a concrete slab?”

He pointed to the French Doors. “Those used to be old cellar doors too. You know, the kind that pull up? The foundation of the house is mostly stone and dirt. No rec-room for the—”

“The old patio isn’t under this, is it?”

“No…why?”

Benny took a long swig of water. Something was up. After telling him she was seeing someone just the other day, she was suddenly sneaking into his yard, and it wasn’t to discuss the landscaping. Dan crossed his arms, then uncrossed them before she noticed and took it the wrong way.
Cut it, tool-bucket. She’s here. She’s talking. Don’t blow it.

“The concrete was thick.” He flexed like a muscle-man in an old comic advert. “Took days to break it up.”

Benny rewarded him with a smile. A real smile. She sipped her water.

“Any bodies underneath?” she asked. “You know…Italian? 1930s? Maybe some mob connection.”

“You’re such a racist.”

“I can’t help it. It’s the way I was raised.”

Silence fell. The easy kind that came as naturally as the banter back and forth. She had been his best friend’s kid sister, then his other best friend’s wife, not a romantic interest, and thus a girl Dan never felt awkward around. It hadn’t changed when his feelings for her did, and now the easy and natural banter coexisted as equal parts relieved and giddy. The warmth radiating up from his toes and out the top of his head made him feel like his hair was on fire. It took all his effort not to pat at it, just to be certain.

“This is going to sound strange,” Benny said. “But were there…handprints in the concrete. Like, kids’ handprints?”

Dan’s belly lurched. “How did…” He shook it off. “Come with me.”

“Huh?”

“Just come on.”

Dan resisted the urge to hold out his hand for hers. She wouldn’t take it, and he’d be a fool twice over. Instead, he led her to the detached garage, and switched on the light. He and Evelyn kept no cars in there, only his landscaping equipment, the plow for his truck, and the sleigh-cum-carriage he took out at Christmas for the sleigh-rides on the green. The same carriage he had taken Benny out in on Valentine’s Day.

“Over there.” He helped her navigate around and between things, taking her arm instead of her hand. The broken-off slab of cement leaned up against the far wall, just where it had been the last two years. Benny squatted down before it. She traced the initials—PF, VF, and AF—then the handprints. Dan squatted down just beside and behind her, his knee almost touching the small of her back.

The silence stretched while she stared, her fingers tracing and tracing as if trying to prove what she saw was real. Dan’s knees began to ache, but he would not move, not when she was so close her flower scent made his head light, the heat of her body aroused. So close he could almost hear her thoughts.

“Why did you save this?” she asked without turning.

“I just couldn’t do it,” he said. “Tossing them out with the rest of the rubble? Just couldn’t.”

“That’s really sweet.” She glanced over her shoulder. “So unlike you, right?”

“Totally out of character.”

“If only the world knew what an asshole you really are.” They laughed together. Dan’s knees popped as he rose. Benny stayed where she was.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.