Something Beautiful

The dining room table sat empty, its wood grain gleaming in the soft glow of the outside lights. The chairs were all pushed into the table, and nothing moved. For an unbelievably strong moment, she wished she’d housed Steven inside their home and not out in the guesthouse. Then, if she heard a noise, she might attribute it to him, not this invisible Lyle. And, if she heard something, she might call for him to investigate it.

“Mommy?”

Jillian reluctantly turned around, gazed into the reflection to meet Allie’s innocent eyes. “Yes, sweetie?”

“Do you still think about Daddy a lot?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“Lyle says you won’t for much longer.”

Jillian felt a swift rise of anger. “Well, you can tell Lyle he’s wrong about that. I’ll never forget your daddy. And neither will you.”

“Lyle says a bunch of his friends are coming soon.”

Oh, God, Jillian thought, a whole houseful of invisible creatures. Just what she needed.

“He says when they come, you won’t remember Daddy anymore. That no one will remember any bad stuff anymore.”

“I wouldn’t exactly put your father in the ‘bad stuff’ category,” Jillian said, and ruffled Allie’s hair to take the sting from her words.

To her relief, Allie smiled. “Me either.” Then she added wistfully, “But it would be nice to forget bad things, wouldn’t it?”

Jillian felt her heart wrench painfully. “Yes, it would, sweetie. That would be very nice.”

“Lyle can do that for you, Mommy. He can just touch you and make the bad things go away.”

Jillian couldn’t possibly have said anything to that. The idea of Lyle touching her made her skin crawl, made her breath snare in her throat. If she felt even the gentlest of breezes stir her blouse, she would probably scream.

“You want him to touch you, Mommy?”

“No!” Jillian said sharply, then held Allie tighter to let her daughter know it wasn’t her she was snapping at. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and tried finding some semblance of rationality. She said, finally, “Allie, the bad things don’t just go away by themselves. Or by something like Lyle touching you—”

“They do, Mommy! I know, because—”

“No, Allie. The bad things that happen to us…happen. And we have to learn how to live with them, understand how we’ve been changed by them. We have to learn how to go on. Like going on without Daddy. We’re learning that. If we ignore that pain, pretend it never happened, we can’t go on. Do you understand?”

“Lyle made it where I don’t have nightmares anymore,” Allie said, almost belligerently, as if daring her mother to come up with some other reason the bad dreams were subsiding.

Where was Gloria now? What on earth was Jillian supposed to say to this revelation? She decided to take the coward’s way out and say nothing at all. Allie’s nightmares were becoming less frequent these days, and had seemingly since Lyle’s arrival.

But a year had passed since Dave’s murder. She herself was sleeping better lately. Not since Lyle, she thought with an odd feeling of shock, but since Steven had come.

For the first time, she thought she understood Allie’s fascination with Lyle. Whenever her daughter talked about him, her features seemed suffused with delight, flushed with pleasure. The invisible, imaginary creature seemed to grant her daughter some respite from grief, some lessening of the hold that fear had over her.

She understood it now, because that was exactly the same reaction she had to Steven’s presence. Hadn’t she felt that way when she opened the door and saw Steven standing there? Had she felt that first relaxation of grief at that precise moment?

Somehow, the day that Steven had arrived seemed every bit as important as the day when Allie had awkwardly danced for Lyle. And that night, for the first night since Dave had been shot, she’d slept soundly, peacefully.

Jillian stroked Allie’s hair, comforting herself as much as comforting her daughter.

“Mommy…”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“What’s the equinox?”

Jillian didn’t blink at the swift change of subject. Abrupt departures into other topics were the prerogative of children everywhere.

“There’re two equinoxes, the spring and autumnal. Those are the first days of those seasons. The summer and winter first days are called solstices.”

“Why is this one so important?”

“I didn’t know it was, sweetie.”

“Lyle says it is. He says that’s the day all his friends are coming over.”

She’d been mistaken; Allie hadn’t changed the subject, she’d only swung back around to an earlier one. “Well, I hope he isn’t planning on putting them all up here. We simply haven’t got the room. Maybe they can go to one of the bed-and-breakfast places near the Plaza. But they’d better book their rooms now, because Indian Market is that weekend, you know.”

As she’d hoped, Allie giggled, covering her mouth with her hand, as she’d done ever since losing that all-important front tooth. Jillian smiled with her, grateful that whatever strange hold Lyle had on Allie, he hadn’t totally squelched her sense of humor.

But she’d smiled too soon, for Allie turned abruptly, her eyes unerringly going to that spot some four feet above the ground. Her shoulders tensed, her body stiffened, as if she were trying to hear something far away. Then she looked back up at Jillian.

“He says it’s not funny, that we shouldn’t laugh.”

Irrationally, Jillian felt a strong urge to whip around and chew Lyle out. She said stiffly, “You tell Lyle that I’ll laugh whenever I please, and so will you. And if he tells you not to, he’ll have to reckon with me. You understand, Allie? You have every right to laugh.”

Allie continued looking up at her, as if surprised by her vehemence, stunned by her reaction to Lyle’s words. As well she should be, Jillian thought. The source of the words wasn’t any creature, invisible or otherwise, it was her little girl. All the more reason for letting her know she could laugh.

A year of darkness was long enough. Allie had to find the brightness again. And Jillian had to help her. Lyle was a dark side of Allie…and she had to serve as his counterpoint. It was a hard role to play.

But hadn’t she already felt a difference inside herself? Walking around the grounds with Steven, she’d noticed the condition of the yards for the first time in a year, seen the passage of time in the accumulation of debris. And had felt the rays of the Indian-summer sun warming her shoulders. It was as if his arrival somehow punctuated a change in her, a change in the season, a change in life.

Now she had to convey that difference to Allie, that sense that all things—bad and good—would eventually pass away.

“Allie, has Lyle ever told you exactly why he came here? Came to you?”

Allie tilted her head, making Jillian ache. “Yes,” Allie said finally. “To change things.”

Jillian felt herself relax. Gloria had been right; Allie needed Lyle. As she had apparently needed Steven. She remembered trying to ask him, that first afternoon, what he wanted, what he needed, but instead she’d only asked if she could help him.

And he’d answered promptly with a simple “Yes,” as if that answered everything. Then he said he’d seen her place, and thought he might be what she needed. And she remembered thinking that he’d spoken nothing but the raw truth, that on some deep level she did need him.

Was that how Allie felt about Lyle?

Allie was quiet again, assuming her “listening” pose. She nodded once, but didn’t translate for Jillian.

Jillian waited, trying to convey love through her touch alone.