The Loving Husband Series

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sarah couldn’t stop thinking about the house she saw when Jennifer drove her home. It didn’t make sense that it should look familiar when it was located on a street she had never been down in a city where she was new, but she was certain it was the one she had seen in her dreams. Since the psychic reading two nights before she felt like she had restless leg syndrome, like she had to keep moving. When she slowed down, even for a moment, odd, unclear thoughts occurred to her. She wanted to sweep them away, hide them in the closet, forget the reading altogether.

Walking always helped to vent her excess energy, so she decided to take a trip across town to look at the house again. It wasn’t very late, the sun just setting. The gray cloth-like clouds were not in formation yet, still filtering in over the bay. It didn’t look like it would rain for a few hours, so she thought she had enough time to make it there and back before the storm broke. She walked along the same tree-lined route Jennifer had driven, careful with her steps, watching for landmarks like the Hawthorne Hotel. She didn’t want to get lost walking home when she was still learning her way.

It was dark by the time she saw the old house waiting stoically along the road, more hidden behind oaks and shrubs than other homes in the neighborhood. Though the others were well lit outdoors, this one stayed dark. She wouldn’t have known it was there if she hadn’t already seen it. There were no lights on inside either, and it looked like no one was home, so she walked onto the lawn and pondered the old wooden structure, wondering what scenes it had seen and what stories it could tell. For such an old house it was well maintained. It looked like other historic buildings in the neighborhood dating from the seventeenth century, only this was no museum as the others were. This was someone’s home.

She thought about the house she left behind in the Hollywood Hills, modern-looking, cookie-cutter, whitewashed stucco, one that looked light and airy on the outside but trembled inside with permanent distress from an unfortunate marriage. The morning before she left for Massachusetts she stood outside and memorized the place where she had lived for ten years, the way it peeked from a catty-corner on the curving road, the feathery bushes on either side, the waving palm trees behind, the border of blue and purple petunias lining the square front yard. As much as she loved the house itself the memories inside were too hard and it had been time to say good-bye. She moved to Salem with the certainty that she needed a fresh start, but now she was confronted with confusing thoughts about an odd psychic reading and a house she thought she knew.

At first glance, the seventeenth-century wooden structure seemed dark, heavy, weighted down by an uncertain past. But the longer she studied it the more she decided that it was warmth and nostalgia she felt. She still didn’t see any movement or hear any sounds coming from inside, so she stepped closer to the front door, inspecting the diamond-paned windows, the wooden slats that made up the exterior walls, the ridge of the shingled roof, the two steep gables pointing upward to the moon in heaven. She walked around to the indented pendill and put her hand on the wood, listening, wondering if she could hear the house explain why it looked familiar. She stepped closer to the gnarled oak tree, touching the rasping bark, searching for some clue about why she would dream about this house. She watched the ghostly branches stretch toward the sky, each reaching for its own memory from the long history it had seen.

When the front door swung open it creaked and startled her. Though it was dark, Sarah saw a man standing skeleton-still in the shadows. He stared at her, his mouth open as if he were trying to speak though he stayed mute. She tried to make herself disappear behind the oak tree, not wishing to disturb anyone, afraid she had been trespassing. She decided she should say something to break the awkward silence.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to look at the house.”

She began to shiver, not from the nip of the autumn air, but from the feeling that she recognized him. What was she supposed to say—“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” It was such a bad pick-up line. She couldn’t explain why she thought the man or his house looked familiar, so she thought she should go home.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I can see I’ve disturbed you. I’ll leave.”

As she turned toward the road she felt his hand on her arm. She didn’t expect him to get to her so quickly from where he stood, and she didn’t understand why he had to grip her so tightly. Finally, she could see him in the slim strings of moonlight, his blond hair, his handsome face. He was intense, needing something, wanting something, but she was afraid to guess what that might be.

He touched his hand to her cheek. “Lizzie. My Lizzie. You’ve come home to me.” When Sarah stepped back he moved toward her, closing the space between them. “It’s all right, Elizabeth. Everything is all right now. You’re home.”

“My name is Sarah.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He kept his hand to her cheek, his skin cool, she thought, like the water at night when she walked near the shore, not cold as much as unheated. He was so taken by staring at her that she thought he must recognize his mistake, but he stayed calm, like mistaking one person for another was something he did every night. As she stared at him she noticed his eyes. In the silver moonlight he looked too pale, but his eyes were darker than a tornado in the night ocean sky. He continued staring at her, intent, desperate, as if he were hoping to see something in her that couldn’t be there. She wanted to run away and not look back, but something kept her there, watching him, curious about him. Drawn to him.

“Are you James Wentworth?” she asked, trying to spark some recognition in him. “Jennifer Mandel said she knows you from the college. We drove past your house and I thought it was interesting so I came back to look. Please, just let me go and I’ll leave.”

There was a flash of light in his stormy night eyes. He let go of her arm and stepped away. “Oh my God,” he said. “Yes, I am James Wentworth. I’m so sorry.” He dropped his face into his hands. “Oh my God,” he said again. When he lifted his head he seemed as if nothing strange had passed between them, like a completely different man—rational, composed, thoughtful.

“I can see I’ve frightened you,” James said. “Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.” He walked closer to her, tentatively, as if he were afraid of scaring her again. He inspected her, searching her face, her hair, her hands. He leaned his face over her head, close to her hair, as if he smelled her. And then it started to rain. Sarah stepped toward the road.

“Will you come back?” James asked.

“Maybe.”

That seemed to be the safest answer. When Sarah looked back he was already by his door, watching her. Some part of her wanted to go back to him, brush his hair from his eyes, ask if he was all right, he seemed so broken. Then she felt the pull of him, as if he reached inside her and found her innermost secrets, the best and the worst of her. There was something in him, some longing, and she scolded herself for wanting to stay and discover its meaning. She needed to be far away from him so she walked, faster and faster, trying not to slip and slide in the slick, wet street, away from the old house from her dreams.