The Painting

#50 I Love You - Is Brea Liom Tu

It'd been forty two days since I met Lyle and thirty eight since I met Monroe and somehow –slowly but surely – things were starting to get back to normal. Initially when I returned to White Pine days went by at a snails pace where one day would feel like an entire week. I could stare at the clock for an hour and swear it was ticking backwards just to torment me. Time passed regularly now as we checked off our duties at the B&B with nothing irregular to separate the days. The nightmares didn't go away but we were coping as best we could.

We walked along the cobblestone street at the head of the gathering mass of locals and tourists. The farmer's market was flooded with folks toting baskets and carts filled to the brim with fresh produce creating a rainbow sea of fruits and veggies. As we waded into the gathering buoyed by two tight rows of tented stands I held fast to the list Grace sent us with. My other hand found Lyle's as we weaved in and out of the crowd to my favorite stands gathering the necessities plus plenty of fruit.

Lyle was quiet the whole morning, which wasn't unusual for her, except for the fact that every time I looked beside me her shoulders were slumped. The confident yet relaxed posture I was so used to seeing was reversed as she stared the table before her. I squeezed her hand and she feigned a smile as she looked right through me. Clearly something was on her mind.

"Are you alright? You've been distant all morning." I asked as we separated from the throng of shoppers and headed towards the wooded trail.

We each held two canvas bags in our hands forcing us to walk a few feet apart.

"I don't think I can keep pretending that this is normal anymore." Her voice was even and crisp causing me to stop mid stride.

"What do you mean?"

She tilted her head in the direction of White Pine. "Two nights ago I broke your lamp because I thought I was fighting Monroe in a dream," Her words were pained. "You wake up every night in a cold sweat and we pretend that nothing's wrong."

"We're trying Lyle, not pretending." I furrowed my eyebrows at her. We were stopped at the end of the market, half a block from town square. "Where is this coming from?"

"May, we're avoiding him – it whatever. We don't even turn on the TV because we're too scared to see him."

"Shouldn't we be?" I almost laughed. "After what he did. Beth and Ivy almost died because of him, you almost-" My voice cracked and I stopped mid sentence.

Lyle and I never shared our dreams with one another, the process, we silently agreed seemed unnecessarily taxing. Neither of us wanted to relive them when we were already forced to by our subconscious. Undoubtedly, Lyle assumed mine to be about Monroe and my mother, but there was one image that strayed from the line.

In black and white the images started appearing first irregularly, but since Lyle returned they were almost every night. The view was disjointed making it appear as if the ceiling of the room was so low even a child would have to stoop to enter. No decorations hung from the walls and nor were any pieces of furniture seated on the wooden floor. The room was empty except for a person lying on their back. I would see it from afar first then slowly my mind's eye would zoom in until I could see the face, each time I thought the outcome would be different. My optimistic side always managing to hold on until the last minute when I'd get so close that it was impossible to deny. Behind a blank stare, Lyle. Her eyes were glassy and the freckles were nearly invisible blending into her pupils.

I managed to bury the image when I woke up but as I spoke the visions came back to me exploding from the ground and my heart stopped.

"I am so sorry," I dropped my bags. "I'm so afraid he'll hurt you, like he tried to do to me and then Ivy and Beth. Monroe is my responsibility, he is part of me and I can't take the thought of him hurting you or anyone else because of me and who I am."

All the muscles in my body seemed to instantaneously turn to lead dragging me down to the sidewalk. It took every ounce of strength I had to stay where I was and look Lyle in the eye as she took three steps toward me.

"It's not your fault that Monroe is who he is." Taking my hands in hers she squeezed them gently. "I know it's hard to talk about, but you deserve to know what happened to your mother."

"You think I don't consider that every fucking day? I wake up and I see his face where I used to see my mother's." My voice was soft and I held on to Lyle's hands, now it was my turn to stare at our discarded groceries.

"I've been grasping for any spec of information about my mother for years, and this is what I got. I'm not letting go of it - I'm not letting go of you." Tilting my head up I met her eyes as the sun washed over her face. Even without the sun illuminating her features I knew her to be warm and I let go the thought that I'd been holding on to since we'd met. "I love you."

She smiled the action overtaking her entire face as she shared my timid stare. "I love you too."

Wrapping our arms around each other we stood alone in at the edge of town. The rustle of the trees a few feet off faded into the background as we held each other. We seemed to be best at that, holding onto each other as if no one else existed. Almost as if we were keeping each other up, like two broken china dolls that had been glued back together. We embraced too keep the fresh glue from slipping but in the process our pieces stuck together leaving us forever attached.

Lyle kissed the top of my head and then pulling away momentarily brought her lips to mine.

"What should we do?"

The question fell in the open spring air as we walked hand in hand through the tree line. We were a quarter mile out from White Pine and my arm ached from carrying the bags of produce.

"He's guilty, we know that. We just have to prove it."

"How do we do that?" I blew a piece of hair out of my face. "Any evidence from my mother's death has to be long gone and you said Smith cleaned up at Beth and Ivy's house."

"But he did bribe the police," Lyle pointed out. "There has to be some kind of money trail."

"We get him for a different crime." A rush went through my system at the thought of seeing Monroe handcuffed and behind bars.

"Exactly." She turned to wink at me.

I smiled to myself at how we finished each others thoughts, reminding me of Beth and Ivy's playful kitchen banter.

"Ok, so how the hell do we do that? Call in a tip? Shake down his accountant?"

Lyle laughed at my poor attempt to resemble a hardened criminal. "We can't be sure who Monroe owns in the police, but, I do know a guy."

- 

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