Silent Fall

beautiful cottage on the beach. She had her art, her classes, some friends, good neighbors, people who liked her from afar.
    She smiled to herself at that thought. People always liked her from a distance. But when they got closer they realized she was just too much for them. No one could handle her visions or her nightmares or the screams she suddenly let loose in the middle of the night. The truth was that she’d been damaged a long time ago, and no one ever wanted someone who was broken. They wanted perfect, pretty, easy, uncomplicated, and she’d never been any of those things.
    "What are you doing?" Dylan asked, startling her.
    She set the photograph on the table. "Just looking around," she said, feeling suddenly guilty.
    "It’s okay. You can look," he said.
    "I’m intruding on your grandmother’s privacy," she said, knowing it wasn’t really his grandmother’s life she was interested in, but his.
    "My grandmother doesn’t know what’s going on in the world, much less her own house. Even if she did, she wouldn’t care. She didn’t have anything to hide."
    Catherine wondered if that was true. "Everyone has secrets, Dylan. Some people just hide them better than others."
    He gave her a long look. "Are you picking up on something in particular?"
    "Just the feeling that we’re supposed to be here. That there’s something we need to find."
    "What could there possibly be in this house that has anything to do with Erica?"
    She couldn’t explain. "I don’t know. Maybe it’s something that has to do with you."
    Dylan shook his head, letting out a sigh of exasperation. "I’m too tired and hungry to figure that out right now. Let’s eat."
    "I’ll be down in a minute." She was reluctant to leave. She moved over to the desk by the window, aware that Dylan had not left the room. He was watching her. She put her hand on top of the desk, then trailed her fingers down to the second drawer. She opened it and pulled out a photo album.
    "Stop," Dylan said abruptly. "You don’t need to take a trip down my memory lane."
    "I don’t, but I think you do."
    "Catherine –"
    "Dylan, you said you were going to try to trust me." She set the album on the desk and opened it. Most of the early photos were probably of Dylan’s grandmother, her generation of family, but as the pages turned the family aged. And suddenly she came to a wedding photograph of a young couple -- the same man who was in the photo with Dylan, his father. The man’s arm was around his beautiful, blushing bride, a woman who shared Dylan’s features, had his brown hair, his golden brown eyes.
    She turned to Dylan. She knew he could see the photograph from where he stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips, his features hard and unyielding, unforgiving. "This is your mother, isn’t it?"
    He didn’t move a muscle, and for a moment she didn’t think he would speak.
    Finally he said, "I didn’t realize a picture of her still existed. My father got rid of all the ones in our house the day she left."
    "Do you want it?"
    "No. I don’t need a picture of a woman who left me behind." He put up a hand as she started to speak. "Leave it alone, Catherine. My mother is not part of this."
    Catherine’s hand grazed the photograph as she started to close the album. A surge of heat swept through her.
    A woman cried, her heart breaking in two. Her tears fell in big drops on the sandy wood deck. A pair of child’s sandals lay nearby, along with a red bucket and an orange shovel. The porch swing creaked with each sad, painful arc. In the distance the tide came in, bringing with it more regret.
    Things would never be the same. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t change what had happened. And no one would ever forgive her.
    Catherine shut the book and slipped it back into the desk drawer, her heart beating in double time. She must be so tuned in to Dylan that she could feel anyone connected to him, including his long-lost mother. She was almost positive that his mother was the woman she’d seen in her head -- maybe not seen, but felt. There had been so much pain in her soul she’d barely been able to breathe. What on earth had happened to destroy what had begun so happily in the wedding photo?
    Turning, she caught Dylan staring at her. There was a battle going on in his eyes. He wanted to know, and yet he didn’t. In the end he left, shutting the door