Season of Salt and Honey (3 page)

Daniel glances at me, silently taking in the knitted sweater and the black dress sticking out below it. When his gaze drops to my feet I remember I'm not wearing shoes.

“I thought you might be here,” he says.

“Am I in trouble?”

He shakes his head and shuffles back a little into the chair. “For running away? I don't think so.”

I might not be in trouble in his books, but I know, with certainty and a pang of guilt, Papa and the aunties will be worrying about me. I look at my can of peaches and imagine their horror.
You can't eat that for breakfast! Please, my love, my heart, come home. You'll fade away.

“How did you know I was here?”

Daniel shrugs. “I thought about where Alex might go.” He
looks at me and I notice how drawn his face is, how dark the circles under his eyes. “Why did you come?”

“Maybe the same reason. I wasn't really thinking. I just had to get out. I ended up here.”

He nods. “Yeah, the”—he can't say it either—“was pretty . . . stifling. It's nice here, huh?”

We both look around.

“Yes. It's nice,” I agree politely. Daniel has always been sweet but formal with me. I recall when I first met him. How old was he? Fifteen? He'd been playing guitar in the basement with a friend, and Alex and I came down the steps holding hands. He'd looked between us and then at our hands and his face had gone dark red.

Alex had cleared his throat. “This is Francesca.”

I remember glowing inside, the way Alex said it, so seriously. Like I was important.

“This is my brother, Daniel,” Alex had explained.

Daniel had kept staring. Then stuttered, “You're one of the Caputo girls.” As if it was like being a First Lady.

“Yeah,” I'd said, and he'd nodded, as mute and bright as Papa's tomatoes.

Even now, years later, Daniel looks uncomfortable, half-perched, half-slumped in the chair beside me. Somehow too tall, or not tall enough, like he's embarrassed about taking up more space than he deserves. He has always shown less confidence than Alex. I try to think of something to ask him, to talk about, but all I can think about is Alex. Alex, in his death, takes up so much space it feels like there's no room for anything else.

“I miss him,” Daniel says in a choked voice, when the silence has gone on too long.

“I miss him too,” I reply softly.

“I can't think of any one thing—like, stuff we talked about or the way he did things. People ask me, what do you miss the most? I don't know what to say. It's just everything, you know? How he spoke, the way he was—just . . . him.”

I nod.

Daniel draws breath. “And the house feels different, even though he hasn't lived there for ages.”

“As though there's a shadow in every room.”

“Yeah.”

“That's why I can't go home.”

Daniel looks at me.

“He's everywhere,” I say. “Everywhere and nowhere. In the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom. Sorry, but . . . all over the bedroom. There's a stack of surfing magazines that he never threw out, they always get tipped over, make a big mess. I was always on him to tidy them up or throw them out, and now I wish the whole room was full of them.”

Daniel is silent.

“Sorry,” I murmur.

“No, I get it. Sometimes I want to tell him to get out. Out of my head, I mean. And then I feel bad because I just want him back. It makes me feel . . .”

“Crazy,” I say.

“Yeah, crazy.”

Daniel pauses, then reaches over and pats my arm.

I look down at his hand. The gesture is unnatural for him, but he is trying. I appreciate that he doesn't ask me questions or tell me everything is going to be okay. He knows the world is changed and there's no way to repair it. I take a deep breath and try not to wish that he was Alex, try to be grateful instead that he's Daniel and the closest thing. Even silent, his presence is the most like Alex's. It's both comforting and torturous.

“He did love you,” Daniel says firmly.

I look at him. He's gone pink again.

“I know you guys had been together a long time, and he wasn't always good at saying . . . I mean, it's a family thing. . . .”

I shift my arm away from under his hand. “I know.”

“He may not have said it all the time. . . .”

“Often enough.”

“And he took all that time to ask you to marry him . . . but he did—”

“It's okay,” I interrupt. Daniel looks at me, concerned. “Thank you. I mean . . . I know he loved me.”

“I wasn't suggesting—”

“We were going to be married.”

“Yes.”

Now, when the silence comes, it seems to cleave a gap between us. Daniel doesn't reach for me and I don't reach for him. I wish I could say “wife” in the certain, always way that Daniel gets to say “brother.”

“I borrowed a sweater,” I say, changing the subject, then nod towards the peaches. “And some food.”

“Sure. That sweater was Granddad's. Alex loved it. He was
Granddad's favorite—you probably know that already.” Daniel gives a small smile. “Granddad did everything in that sweater, including fishing . . . I don't know how often he washed it.”

I shrug. “I can't smell anything but mothballs.”

“That's Mom. She hates the bugs. I could bring you more clothes,” he adds. “If you're staying?”

Despite not being able to bear the thought of going home, I haven't considered staying. Now I rapidly imagine my aunties back in Seattle, still wearing their dark clothes, heavy sobs shaking their shoulders. I imagine the phone ringing in our apartment—my boss, Alex's friends, my cousins. Explanations, commiserations, and condolences that feel foreign and empty.

Daniel studies me. “I'll call someone,” he says, trying to be helpful. He's used to being the youngest, letting others make plans for him, without him. This is new. “Your sister . . .?”

“Bella?” I almost laugh. What help would she be? I'm not even sure where she is. Somewhere in Portland, where she's been living since she left Seattle? I don't have a current phone number for her. Besides, you can't trust Bella with anything. Not even to come to your fiancé's funeral. “Papa will help,” I say. “Are you sure it's okay for me to stay here?”

Daniel shrugs. “No one else is using it.”

“You don't want to—”

He cuts me off. “I've got to be with Mom. My parents, I mean.”

“Okay. Thank you, Daniel. I just need some . . .” But I can't finish the sentence and Daniel doesn't press.

“Hey?” I manage. He looks up. “Will you do me one favor?
Will you please call me Frankie? I feel so old when you call me Francesca.”

He nods but looks away. “Sure.”

I follow his gaze, but there's nothing to see but forest. Cedars, firs, brave ferns growing high on a fallen tree. A tiny bird effortlessly balancing on a new branch that bends and bounces like a high wire.

“Thank you,” I say again. For coming. For patting my arm. For sounding so much like Alex that it feels good and burns all at once.

He nods again. “No problem, Frankie.”

He stands, and moves towards his car, then turns back to me. “I'll call your dad,” he promises, “and bring you some more clothes. There's a gas bottle in there somewhere—did you find it already? There's a camp stove.”

I shake my head. “I'll find it. You go. Your mom will be worried.”

“You don't want my phone?”

“No.”

He stares at me a long moment before nodding.

This is the thing about grief: it allows you to be stubborn, even if it's irrational and impractical. People treat you delicately, as though you have a terminal illness, and grant you your unreasonableness. Except for my family, of course, the Caputo clan, who somehow become bossier and more prying. I know the aunties will be distressed that I'm missing, though Papa will do his best to reassure them. That's the way with the three of them: Concetta and Rosaria—Zia Connie and Zia Rosa to Bella and me—the
two all-knowing, dictatorial, elder sisters; and Giuseppe, our father, Joe, the placating younger brother. Papa will tell them I'm okay, that I'll come back, not to worry. He will be worrying too, but he trusts me. He has no reason not to. The aunties will be whispering about Bella too—loud enough for Papa to hear, although he'll pretend not to.

“Call Papa straightaway, will you?” I call out to Daniel.

“I'll drop by,” he reassures me.

He curls himself into the driver's seat and reverses. The ground is noisy beneath his tires. He lifts his hand in a wave. It reminds me of Alex leaving for work.

That's when I remember the man at the window. “Wait!”

The car slows to a stop. Daniel sticks his head out the window. I curl my fingers over the edge of the window frame. “There was a man here this morning. . . . He was talking about trespassing. About calling your parents. Do you know him?”

Daniel shakes his head. “Maybe Mom hired him.”

We both look back to the cabin, the tidy ground around it, the weeds held back from crawling over the wooden walls.

“I'll talk to Mom,” he promises.

“Okay.” I uncurl my fingers and step back.

He surveys me. “Are you sure you're—”

“I'll be fine.”

He nods slowly, disbelieving.

As his car drives away the music is turned up, blaring so loud it's as though he wants it to smother him. I hear it long after the car has disappeared from sight. When it's gone I feel cold again, as though a ghost has returned to stand beside me.

• • • •

I
find the camp stove in the sink cupboard, pushed to the back and covered in dust.

I stand taller, make a list of supplies in my head for Papa to pack.
Towel, washcloth, soap
. This makes me feel oddly purposeful. I scan the cabin again and notice things I missed in my first assessment. There's a small lump of soap, yellowed and cracked, on the windowsill. The open pages of the coloring book have been neatly colored in all the wrong shades. A purple sun, pink ocean, orange grass as if on fire. I run my finger along the spines on the bookshelf. A historical account of the Second World War, several
Reader's Digest
s, four
Story Collections for Boys
from 1951, 1952, 1963, and 1966. My finger pauses on
The Swiss Family Robinson
by Johann Wyss. I remember the Disney film. The elaborate tree house, the handsome sons, the elegant, practically effortless way they all adapted to their new, lonely fate. I loved that movie. There's a purple hair tie on a hook on the back of the door and I use it to lift my hair into a ponytail. Alex liked my hair up. The ghost leans heavily against me.

I walk to the sink and run the tap, glancing out the window
before unzipping my dress. I let the dress fall from my shoulders and onto the floor before rubbing the wet bar of soap under my arms. Water splashes on the floor as I rinse it away and then lift water up to my face.

I'm standing in my underwear when I notice the shrubbery moving outside. I squint, wondering if it's a bird or an animal. A bear. I didn't ask Daniel about bears. Though an animal lover, Bella's greatest fear when we were growing up was bears. We'd seen a movie with a bear in it that opened its huge, dripping mouth and roared and shook a car full of people screaming. Bella had never forgotten it. In my crueler moments as a big sister I'd remind her, in whispers, of that bear from the movie and watch her face turn white, her bottom lip quiver.

It's probably just a bird, maybe a squirrel.

I pull up my dress and, on the way out of the cabin, pick up
The Swiss Family Robinson
. The cover is dusty beneath my fingers. I pull on the boots from the closet to protect my feet, though they are huge and loose. Then, instead of sitting in one of the chairs to read, I find myself stepping, as quietly as possible, around the back of the cabin. The cedar needles give off a lemony-peppery scent as I crush them with the heavy boots.

There's a rustle from one of the trees above. I freeze and feel my heart thumping in my chest, as though it wants to be free of my body. I glance up and spy a foot. Small, brown, and bare. A bird nearby takes flight in a squawking, urgent rush of feathers.

My gaze follows the foot up to a leg, a leg that quickly disappears behind a trunk that's forked in two. I step around the tree but still can't find the owner of the leg.

I clear my throat. “Hello?”

A rustle.

“Hello?”

A head appears. Small, with dark hair, and eyes that could belong to an animal. Black and blinking. I exhale a small sigh of relief. A girl, I'm guessing, not much older than eight.

I try again. “Hi.”

The girl stares.

“Please, be careful up there.”

She shrugs. She stares from my dress to the boots and back again. Assessing it all. “I'm not allowed to talk to strangers.”

I recognize the voice now. The child calling to her father this morning. I glance around for any sign of him but it seems to be just her, all alone. The two of us stare at each other for a while. She's wearing a pink T-shirt with what looks like a Popsicle stain down the front and yellow leggings. As far as disheveled goes, we're an equal match.

“I can whistle,” she says.

“Oh.”

“My dad taught me.”

“That's good.”

I don't spend much time with children other than my cousins' kids, who are more like puppies than children, rushing at you from every side, kicking balls into your shins, dropping food on your shoes.

“Can you?” the girl asks.

“Whistle?”

She nods.

“Yes, I can whistle.”

She looks unconvinced so I give a little whistle and it sounds so ridiculous I quickly stop. The girl gives an approving nod. She clambers quickly to the ground. She only comes up to my chest, her frame lean and lanky, and her curls dark and springy. Unbrushed. Whoever looks after her isn't like my aunties, especially Aunty Rosa, who insisted on ironed slacks and spotless, food-free cheeks.