Adelyn slept fitfully, tossing covers, pulling them back. Garnett finally laid a hand on her to still the motion. Half-awake, she knew she had been dreaming—her husband lay by her side, in their bed, in their home. She knew she had been dreaming even while it happened. Innis suspended over and around her, a misty collection of clouds sometimes blocking him, making him less substantial. Yet his anger burned her with a physicality that surprised her.
“It constantly pains me. You were with Garnett at my funeral.” She couldn’t hide that she knew right away what he meant. “Long ago, Innis.”
He surrounded her, his image poking into her space first from the left, then above, then the right.
“Long ago?” A phantom hand reached out to touch her cheek and it felt like a soft breeze that ended with a chill. “Just yesterday, Addie.”
“I came to Savannah to meet his train.” Her thoughts took over as she felt a world of words coming from Innis to her but not spoken. “What do you mean, just yesterday?”
“Yes, it is.” No longer in the white suit he’d worn at each of his visits, Innis now dressed like when they first met. “Countless times I wanted to reach you to let you know. It can’t be this way.”
The scene changed from nowhere to a permanent place, outside the hotel. “You expect things to change. But they’re frozen, Innis. This is forever.” He disappeared, and she called him back with a question. “How can you be so angry?”
Adelyn woke from a deep slumber. The room seemed out of proportion to her, hazy and ill-defined, furniture resembling oblong or square objects, no drawer handles on the armoire or pulls on the dresser. Someone shook her; she heard her name.
“Adelyn. Wake up, wake up.” Garnett pressed his fingers into her arms and the tightness of his grip finally roused her. “You were dreaming.”
His lean jaw accentuated the sternness of his face. Still taking stock of her surroundings, Adelyn drifted half in and half out of the dream. The bed posts, her silk hosiery listlessly draped on one post, the other lingered on the back of a chair. Her mind raced to the progression of each of these things being removed. Innis, what if he saw us, saw it all?
“You were dreaming. Of Innis. You called his name.”
The sound of her lover’s name coming from Garnett woke her fully.
“Blame me for dreams?” She shocked herself with her own cruelty for saying this to Garnett. She had a strong desire to go on dreaming to learn more of what Innis tried to tell her. “He knew we were together in the barn.” In the second she said it, she regretted it.
“That’s what you dreamt?” He had a hold on her arms still and she wrested herself from him to see the room more clearly. A vision took shape, a woman, behind the opaque curtains. The shape disappeared as soon as she thought of it. Heat oppressed the room that not even the big ceiling fans could abate. She left the bed and went to the window to find the shape and looked in the direction of the ocean, listening for waves. “No breeze; tide’s out.”
Garnett watched her. “Seems like your words and motives come from his lips. Wishful thinking, Sugar?” An undeniable acid in his expression. The day faded; he sipped the Tanqueray, ice cubes clinking on the glass.
She chose to ignore the remarks, and climbed onto his lap, brushing his hair off his forehead with her lips. “Sip.” She guided his hand holding the glass to her lips. The smooth Tanqueray gin slid down her throat, cooling it, then spilled into her stomach like a small fire. “Not much of this left.”
Garnett sat more upright in the rocker. “You shivered just a moment ago, when you were still waking. Why did you shiver, chère?”
She ignored his question. “Sometimes I feel half in another world.”
Garnett’s breath felt hot as he spoke. “That would really be nice for you, 'cause then you’d have us both. Listen, love me, Sugar.” His voice low, he wanted confirmation.
“You sure are funny tonight. I can’t be hung for a dream.” She hugged him but that did not satisfy him.
Adelyn’s thoughts returned to the full-figured shadow that passed her eyes. She wondered if Garnett saw it too. Could he; did he? Yet why would he not say anything? Why call me by a French nickname? And Cajun, it was Cajun French, said ‘sha’, not ‘chère’. Momma Sorrow? Here? Filling Garnett; influencing his speech?
The phone rang in a loud vibration that stirred her further from her dream and what she just witnessed. Garnett reached and picked up the heavy receiver. “Yes. What time did he call? Did he leave a number in New York?” He turned to her. “John Calloway called from New York. They have the message at the desk. I’ll slip down there and be right back.” She didn’t want him to leave her in this room. She didn’t trust the room, and if pressed to explain, she knew she could articulate the reason, which would be all the more disturbing.
He lifted her lithe frame onto the bed, picked up his slacks, pulled on a jersey top, shoving his bare feet into loafers. “I’ll be right back, so don’t be leaving.” And he was gone.
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