Familiar Spirit

He moved away from her into the dimness of the shed and returned with the items she had asked for.

“And I guess I’d better have the shovel, too, just in case.”

Now he looked at her. “What are you going to do? Smash somebody in the head and bury him?”

“Yeah, you got it.” She waited for him to repeat his offer of help. This time she would accept it.

“Well, good luck,” he said. “Have fun.”

Walking away from him was like pulling tape off tender skin. “Thanks for this stuff. I’ll get it all back to you in a couple of days.”

“There’s no hurry.”

She felt the pressure of his gaze on her back. Call me back, she thought fiercely. Tell me you still want me. I know you do. It isn’t too late. Call me back. Don’t let me go, you bastard.

“Sarah.”

She turned to face him, her mouth dry, wondering if she should drop the tools and rush across the grass that separated them, into his arms.

But his arms were folded tight against his chest. “Sarah, I’m glad you came by. I know it’s hard . . . I’ve felt you’ve been avoiding me, and I never wanted that. I know you have every right to be angry, to hate me, but I want us still to be friends.”

Her throat and stomach hurt. She couldn’t even swallow.

“I just want you to know that if you need anything, you can always come to me. I hope we can be friends.”

She waited for something more. Surely he knew what she needed from him. He wouldn’t have been able to express such pious sentiments if she had been standing close enough to touch him. Suddenly she was furious with him. She shrugged, her throat still too tight for speech, and turned and walked to her car. The weight of the tools she carried made her stagger slightly, but Brian did not come rushing after to offer his assistance. From the car she watched him go back into his house. Tears blurred her vision for a moment.

“I can’t be your friend,” she muttered. “I don’t want to be. Because I don’t like you. I just love you.”

There was a dead bird at the foot of the steps.

It had been a big, black grackle, now silenced forever. It had been violently killed, the head nearly wrenched off, and feathers speckled the pale, dusty ground, dark as spilled blood.

Sarah stared down at it. Another death, she thought. What did this one mean?

She looked around uneasily, feeling watched. But if there were eyes glaring at her out of the tall weeds at the side of the house, she could not see them. Was the dead bird a warning? Had Jade gained new strength from this act?

She leaned the shovel against the house and cradled the crowbar and hammer awkwardly in one arm. As she let herself into the house she was tense, already anticipating some attack.

But the house felt empty. Sarah went through it nevertheless, holding the crowbar like a weapon as she looked inside closets and peered under furniture. But she was being silly, she thought, looking for some physical danger. It was being alone that made her so nervous. If Brian were here—

She remembered how he had looked at her, and how he had avoided looking at her. The thought of that sleepy, seductive glance and the sound of his voice saying her name made her weak with desire. She leaned against the bedroom wall. She remembered how charged the atmosphere between them had been, and she cursed the missed opportunity. Why had she waited? I could have had him, she thought. He wanted me.

She wondered if he was thinking of her now. She could almost see him as he must be, still in his bathrobe, slouching on the couch, his coffee grown cold while he brooded.

It would have been so easy, she thought, there in that apartment where shared memories conspired to bring them together, to forget the recent past and heal all the hurts by the movement of their bodies together.

Dazed, half in a dream, Sarah walked slowly into the kitchen and stared at the bright red telephone. It wasn’t too late. He would come if she called him.

Call him. Call him now. Get him over here.

Swallowing hard, Sarah crouched by the telephone. She had to call Brian. He could make things right. He wouldn’t reject her again, he couldn’t, not here in her own house. Here, she would be the strong one, and she had desire enough for both of them. She knew how to please him, she knew what to do. And she would do anything, say anything to have him again, to be able to wrap her arms and legs around him, and feel him inside her, their two bodies straining to become one, just as it had been before, as it should be now.

All she had to do was to get him over here. Sarah drew a long, shuddering breath and picked up the telephone and dialed the well-remembered number.

The telephone rang in her ear.

She tried to think of what she could say: something plausible, not too threatening.

“Hello?”

“Brian,” she said. Her mind had gone blank. She couldn’t even remember why she had called him.

“Oh, Sarah, hello, is anything the matter?”

“I wondered if you’d help me. You said you’d help me.”

“Sure,” he said cautiously. “What did you want?”