Hugo & Rose (15 page)

Rose turned from the strange jumble and climbed the tree root. “Did you get him?” She moved quickly to the forest's edge.

She sighted Hugo standing at the crest of the hill. He was alone.

“He's not important! Rosie, look!” He pointed at the horizon.

Rose followed the line of his hand. In the distance Castle City loomed large. Closer than she had ever seen it before.

And its shield was gone.

 

ten

Rose woke herself and Josh with her shouting.

“We could get in!” she had said, her body sitting up, thrusting her mind from that world to this one.

“Honey? Are you okay?”

Rose turned to the dim form of her husband, eyes adjusting.

A moment ago she had been on a hill, looking out on Castle City, it shining towers freed of their halo. Closer to their goal than they had ever been before.

And now she was here in the dark with Josh.

“Yes. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

*   *   *

Rose stepped out of their bedroom into the hall. The house was dark, a night-light glow bleeding into the hallways from the children's open doors. Rose made her way down the stairs without turning on the lights, her hand trailing against the wall for balance.

She had tried to go back to sleep, but her mind was too full of the dream.

What did it mean?

There was someone else on the island. Another person.

Rose couldn't help wondering if the figure that they had seen wasn't yet another dreamer. Someone like her and Hugo, some sleeping mind that had happened upon their playground.

Or maybe whoever it was had escaped from Castle City.

Rose felt her heart race at the memory of it. Without the halo of the shield blocking their view of the towers, you could make out their details. The unique features of their architecture, cupolas and spires, gargoyles, rounded windows. Their colors were clearer than ever before, reflective blues and greens and yellows.

And just before she woke up, in the windows she had seen movement. Proof of life.

Rose felt a chill under her robe.

She poured herself a glass of milk, the refrigerator spilling light onto the wood floor. She closed the door, feeling the cool sweetness reach her belly.

It was two o'clock. If she didn't get back to sleep soon, tomorrow was going to be a disaster. She'd be short with the kids, resentful of Josh. She'd drink too much coffee to keep herself going and then have that afternoon crankiness that always followed too much caffeine and too little sleep.

She felt a smile creep onto her lips.
They could get in.

A buzzing sounded somewhere in the kitchen. Rose found the edge of the counter, feeling her way to her phone plugged into the wall.

A text from Hugo:

I need to show you something.

*   *   *

Mrs. D couldn't take Penny. She said she was feeling poorly and would be going to the doctor's that afternoon.

As Rose hung up, she had the uncharitable thought that Mrs. D was lying. That she was just making excuses because she didn't like Penny or didn't approve of the way she had behaved during her last visit.

Well,
thought Rose,
if you give a toddler chocolate, she's going to act like a holy terror.

But still there was the issue of how she was going to see Hugo.

She wanted to talk to him about the dream, to see the
something
he had promised, but with Penny to watch …

Rose looked at her sweet girl. Pen had run after Adam and Isaac as they left for the bus.

“Kiss! Kiss!” she had screamed, her pajama'd feet getting wet from the grass, the damp sneaking up onto her legs.

Rose ran after her, but not before Adam doubled back, leaning down to let Pen plant an openmouthed smack on his lips. Isaac watched from the sidewalk, eyes rolling, arms crossed.

“Kiss, Zackie!” she cried.

Isaac looked at Rose.
Do I have to?

Rose shrugged, a benign smile.
Do it for me.

Zackie came over, kneeling for his sister's ministrations. “Eww, she slobbered all over me.”

But even though he made a big deal of wiping his face, Rose could tell as he climbed onto the bus that he was a good boy, a big boy, who loved his brother and sister. And his mother, too … though sometimes he did not let on.

Little Boy. Littler Boy. Littlest Girl.

Rose had dressed Penny while she waited for Mrs. D to return her call. Penny was beginning to give her opinion on the clothes Rose chose for her. The boys had never cared one shirt from the other. Finally Rose gave up and just let Penny choose. She tugged on the tights and skirt, figuring they would be Mrs. Delvecchio's problem during potty time today.

Then came the call. She couldn't do it.

But Rose wanted to talk to Hugo. To see his face as they talked about this new aspect of the dream.

Penny sat on the floor, quietly pulling books from the shelf and looking through them. She ran her finger along the words and babbled, pretending to read.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad … maybe she could bring her.

*   *   *

“We get out now?” Penny was astonished when Rose opened the door.

Of course she's surprised,
thought Rose.
Every time we've been here before we've sat in the car for ages.

But Hugo didn't know that.

Hugo had texted Rose the address of his home. Rose had felt a flush of shame at this. At Hugo's ignorance. At her omission of the fact that she had been following him for weeks before she revealed herself. That she already knew where he lived, where he shopped, what he did with his days off.

But what did it matter now?

Now that they had found each other and could just tell each other the details of their lives—no reason to confess to her earlier sins.

Rose held Penny on her hip as she made her way up the cracked concrete walkway. So strange to be walking on something she had studied for so long, like stepping through a bubble while keeping its structure intact.

She rang the doorbell. Pen wiggled to be let down, her attention captured by a line of ants that marched from a crack in the stair.

Hugo's lips were spread in a broad smile when he opened the door … but it faltered upon seeing Rose with a toddler around her waist.

“Oh.”

“I hope it's okay. I couldn't get a babysitter.” Rose pushed her way past him into the house. Maybe if she rushed through this moment—Hugo's disappointment that they wouldn't be alone—it would have less impact. It would be a glancing blow to their time together rather than a fatal setback. A flesh wound.

Rose corrected herself. Corrected her thinking.

Penny was a fact of her life. She had children. A life outside of her dreams.

Hugo would just have to deal with it.

Rose swung the diaper bag onto the worn coffee-colored wall-to-wall, taking in the inside of Hugo's home.

In all her time watching him, she had never seen more than the shallow angle he revealed as he came out the door. Hugo was private, his shades permanently drawn. When she knew he was inside, she would imagine him moving about in the hidden world behind the shades. She wondered what the furniture looked like, the walls, the tile in the bathroom.

She had gotten it right.

It was clearly the home of a bachelor. Swiss coffee walls. Dusty baseboards. The couch was angled onto the TV, situated so that one could sprawl on it alone, legs extended, and surf the channels.

The few pictures on the wall were stock prints, the kind that came with a frame, and all of them had the haphazard look of art hung as an afterthought. Rose recognized one of them, a cool-color still life with a jug, berried branches angling out from it. It had hung opposite the toilet in the powder room of her parents' home for years and was thus subject to more reflective study than any of their “good” art in the more public areas of the house.

“I had that same picture in my house growing up.”

Hugo beamed, forgetting Penny for a moment. “You did?”

He was clearly pleased with the concurrence. It was strange for Rose seeing it here, but also somehow comforting. A connection they had beyond the dreams, like having the same blood type or loving the same flavor of ice cream.

Rose's mother had declared the print “dated” and banished it to the attic. She wondered if she could get her to send it.

Penny wriggled.

“Will your cat be all right if I put Penny down?”

Rose cringed. Inside for only ten seconds and she'd already made a mistake.

How would I know he had a cat?

Idiot. Liar. Fake.

But it was already out there. She turned to Hugo, ready to see the questions in his eyes.

But his eyes were locked back on Penny, straddled on Rose's hip. Distracted.

“Uh … she's out … so…”

Penny looked at Rose. “No kitty?”

“No kitty, honey.” Rose set her daughter down and began pulling the toys she'd packed out of the diaper bag. Best to move on to the next subject, keep things moving. Ignore the toddler in the room.

“I actually woke myself up. That's how excited I was. Every night for decades that thing has been there, covering the city…” Rose felt Penny's small hand creep up the back of her shirt, the air hitting the exposed skin above her waistband. The unsexy elastic of her stretched-out panties.

Ugh.

She pivoted, angling her exposed back away from sight. Keeping up the same frantic pace of conversation. “And then … it's gone.… I honestly couldn't believe it. And I would have waited until I could get someone to watch Penny. But I wanted to see you.…”

Rose looked up at him. His eyes were still on Pen, watching her pick up the toy cell phone Rose had tossed onto the floor.

“Hugo, we could finally get to the city.… Hugo?”

It took him a moment to tear his eyes from her daughter, to swing them to Rose. “Uh. Sorry. Yes. We could.”

And then his eyes were back on Penny as she squatted, awkward, next to Rose, reaching her rounded hands into the recesses of the diaper bag.

This was a mistake,
thought Rose.
You should go. Take the child and get back in the car. Come back another time, when you're free, unfettered …

But it was impractical. Too far a drive. She was already here.

“What did you want to show me?”

Hugo's eyes snapped back to life, suddenly present. “Uh…”

He glanced back toward the hallway … almost as if he expected someone to step out. He was holding his breath. Deciding.

Penny grabbed his pant leg and Rose caught his visceral flinch at the touch.

“No kitty?” Pen wanted to be sure.

Rose swept her up. Carrying her away from Hugo and his discomfort. Setting her on the couch. “No, honey. No kitty.” She handed her a pile of books. “Here, you read.”

Rose perched on the edge of the sofa next to her. Placing her body between Hugo and the girl. She wouldn't let Penny touch him again. She didn't want to see him cringe again at her daughter's touch. Didn't want to explore what such a reaction could mean.

“I'm sorry.”

Hugo shook his head. “No, I…”

“Why don't you show me, while she's occupied?”

Hugo hesitated. He glanced back at the hallway. This was not quite what he had planned. But then:

“Stay here.”

*   *   *

The albums he brought out were large. Leather bound. Their spines were rounded and wide, four inches at least, enough to accommodate the hundreds of pages inside.

Hugo had handed her the topmost of the first stack, before leaving to get a second pile. “Here, this has the oldest ones.”

Rose opened it.

On the first page, carefully wedged between two sets of photo corners, was a child's drawing. A picture of a beach, ocean, sun, clouds. Two smiling stick figures sat upon it, a triangle and two lines flanking the head of one of them, signifying its female gender.

It could have been one of the drawings Adam taped so faithfully to the wall above his bed.

But in the lower right-hand corner, in a careful black crayon scrawl, it read:

“Hugo.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Rose heard herself say.

She turned the page. Another. Another. The book was filled cover to cover with drawings, scenes from their dreams as children.

Rose heard a thump as Hugo set down another stack of portfolios.

“I put them in the books a few years ago. There were a lot and most of them weren't dated.… I did what I could.”

Rose looked up at him. His mouth was closed. Waiting.

“This is every picture you ever drew of us?”

He shook his head. “Just the ones I kept.”

Rose gasped. “I remember this!”

On the page, a crude drawing of Rose as a child dangled from a vine strung between two cliffs. Above her, the meaty legs of a giant Spider reached down from the cliff's edge.

“I was at sleepaway camp when I had this dream! I woke everyone up when I started screaming in my sleep … they didn't leave me alone about it all week.”

Hugo leaned against the wall, grabbing his wrist. “I drew that one a lot. You'll see, I wanted to make sure I got it right.”

Rose flipped a few pages, and indeed there they were. Multiple studies of the same scenario, all in a childish hand: from below, above, elevations that removed the second cliff.

“Wow.”

Rose reached the last page and closed the portfolio. She grabbed the next one. The work in this one was older, more mature, the crayons giving way to colored pencils. A few pages in she found a self-portrait of Hugo.

“Oh, my God! You used to look like this!”

It was Hugo at about twelve, his face just starting to lose its roundness. His eyes large and chocolate. Lips coral. Hair curled above his eyebrows.