short, but so's my time

Chapter 10

Gil appraised the room with a practiced eye. �He changes such subtle things.� Sara ran her finger along the height markings on e last time before joining him. �Like?�

�The sofa cushions. This one belongs on the right, that one on the left.�

She looked dubious, �Uh, you know which cushion belongs where?�

His mouth twisted as he considered, �The wear pattern. We�d sit here together and watch TV, or play cards. He sat on the left; I was on the right, when he was taken no one ever sat in his spot. Eventually the right side got a little threadbare while the left stayed intact.

�And now it�s the opposite. Maybe he just made up for lost time sitting on his side.� �The right side isn�t worn at all Sara.� It was a quiet declaration, made as he turned for the kitchen, Sara at his heels.

�Check the dates on the perishables.� While she did he looked in cabinets and drawers.

�Milk went bad about a month and a half ago, eggs same time, those are the most recent dates.�

�Red.�

�Huh?�

�Red dishes, red bowls, red cups. Mom�s few things she left behind and his red ones. No blue.�

�Didn�t she take the blue with you when you moved?�

�No. It was as if looking at the blue only reminded her of the missing red. The morning we made the discovery I had my breakfast in a white dish, grown up dishware I suppose, and from then on it stayed the same.�

Sara chewed her lip and narrowed her eyes. �He�s erasing you.�

�Not exactly. I exist until the kidnapping.�

�So he�s playing it out as if he was left behind and you were taken.�

�It seems that way. Yes.�

She stood close to him and touched his shoulder. �You okay?� He favored her with a smile that never quite reached his eyes, �So far. You?�

�I keep trying to picture you as a child, see you in this place.�

He looked at the room through memory and tried to recreate it for her.

�She would come home from the gallery around 4:30 and pay the sitter. I used to play outside watching the ants march in lines or creating forts from branches that had fallen. I never stayed inside when the sitter was here. She snapped her gum and tried to make me practice dancing to chubby checker records with her.�

Sara hid her smile behind her hair, charmed at the image of a young Gil Grissom doing the twist with poodle skirted gum snapper.

�As soon as mom got home though I�d come in. She�d always ask what I learned that day, even when I wasn�t in school. She said a day we didn�t learn was a day we weren�t fully alive. I�d try to invent something important to say and then I�d return the question. She�d respond with elaborate stories of colorful artists and patrons, always with a moral at the end. She would sign it as she spoke I would try to mimic the signs. When she�d begin dinner I�d sit right here on the floor and�� he reached behind a cupboard and pulled a largish matchbox out. �ah, yes, right where I left them.�

He slid open the box to reveal 10 old silver jacks and a red rubber ball. �She would cook and I would play jacks almost obsessively.�

�Orderly and repetitive, that sounds right.�

�There�s a rhythm to it, a solid game of jacks is like a good piece of music, it builds, gains intensity�� His voice trailed off and he looked at the jacks in his hand. Sara watched him quietly for a moment and then theorized, �Great for increasing manual dexterity too, right? Made your hands faster for signing?�

�And bug catching.� This time the smile did reach his eyes. He put the jacks in the box and returned it to it�s hiding spot with a sort of reverence, a small ceremony that enabled Sara to imagine the complicated, deliberate boy he had been.

�Anything else moved in here?� �Not that seems significant. He used the kitchen and living room but the entryway looks like he never went there except to dump mail.� �So some of you mom�s mail still comes here, after all of this time?� �That�s an assumption I�m not ready to make, let�s not get ahead of ourselves honey, there�s more house to see.�

She flattened her hand against the white painted wood of a door off the kitchen, �What�s behind this door?� �That�s the thing. I know what was there 45 years ago, canned food, cereal, peanut butter. Now? I don�t dare guess.�

Sara took a deep breath and tugged at the door. Swollen with humidity it stuck, groaned and relented so fast it sent her back a few steps, nearly enough to land her in Grissom�s extended hands, but not quite. Steadying herself she timidly stepped closer and pulled the string that would illuminate the contents.

click here to add to the 0 comments so far

previous - next