“Time.” I finish for him, my voice flat. “Yeah, I know.”
I turn away from him, back toward the television, and after a beat, he follows, the mattress wobbling beneath us once again. He drapes a long arm around me, casually cupping my breast, a position so common and comfortable, the intimacy of it doesn’t even register.
“When did you say they’re coming to fix the air again?”
“Monday,” I say.
He grunts. And then: “We should get out of here. This weekend. Go to the Poconos or Cape May—or what about that place in Jersey with the huge artwork garden you’ve been wanting to see?”
“Grounds for Sculpture.”
“Grounds for Sculpture,” he repeats. “We could stay in a third-rate hotel, swim in the overchlorinated pool, eat those rubbery just-add-water powdered eggs at the free breakfast in the morning.”
“I love those rubbery just-add-water powdered eggs.”
“I know.” He nuzzles my ear. “What do you think?”
What do I think. I let his words roll around in my head: We should get out of here. I think about the last time he said that, when we were living in Philadelphia, just after our second miscarriage, and the weekend trip ended up with us moving here. I think about how spontaneous it was, so unlike Harrison, and how he’s doing it again. I think my husband is changing right in front of my eyes. His beard, his spontaneity, how he needs time. I think about how time feels like the one thing I don’t have to give him.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
The Game Show Network moves on to its nightly lineup of five Family Feuds in a row. At some point, Harrison removes his glasses, unbuttons his shirt. And then his arm grows heavy over mine, his breathing deepens. I nudge him gently and he rolls off of me, to his side of the air mattress. I turn off the television and lie beside him, waiting for sleep to come. But it doesn’t. I listen to the rattle of the air-conditioning unit in the window, and then the overwhelming silence it leaves behind when it suddenly clicks off. I stare up at the crisscross shadows of the exposed wood rafters holding up the roof.
Restless, I pick up my phone from where it lies on the ground beside the air mattress and click on my text messages. I reread the last few from Oliver, and without hesitating this time, I hit send on the picture I took of the carnival painting.
Then I navigate to the message board again. As I’m searching for an update from MissyK874—she hadn’t been on all afternoon—my phone comes alive in my hand, startling me.
It’s loud, the buzzing, in this tiny room, and I slide my thumb on the screen to answer it quickly, simultaneously registering that the name on the screen is Oliver.
“Hello?” I whisper, heart racing. I glance at Harrison’s sleeping form. It doesn’t stir.
“Do you know that place?” Oliver’s voice demands in my ear. There’s an edge of panic to it that sends my heart galloping even faster.
“Wait—hold on.” I roll off the air mattress as smoothly as I can. I tiptoe to the door, easing it open and then pulling it closed behind me, as I step out onto the gravel. The rocks dig into the bare soles of my feet.
“What are you asking?” I say, gingerly hopping over to the grass for relief.
“Your painting. The amusement park. Where is that? Have you been there?”
“No.” I cross an arm over my stomach, to ward off a sudden chill, even though the night air is still thick with summer heat. “It was a dream. A dream I had. One about you. We’re there, in that carnival at night. Alone at first, and then all these people are there, too . . .” I trail off. “Why?”
He doesn’t say anything for what feels like hours and I grip the phone, waiting. Wondering. Is it a place he recognizes? Somewhere he’s been before?
“Oliver? What is it?”
“It’s just . . . I’ve had that dream, too.”
Chapter 16
After two days of sleeping on the air mattress in the studio and taking showers in a house so hot, I feel like I need another one the second I step out of it, I’m near salivating at the idea of a hotel room.
That’s how I find myself sitting in the passenger seat of Harrison’s Infiniti Friday night, heading south on Route 29 toward Hamilton, New Jersey, home to the Grounds for Sculpture, a forty-two-acre art park and arboretum known for its oversize three-dimensional sculptures of famous paintings. Though it’s a short trip—only forty-five minutes—my mood buoyed the second we hit the highway, remembering the many miles Harrison and I traversed during our first few years together; road trips home for holidays, to weekend weddings, short beach excursions. I often loved the ride more than the destination, even though Harrison’s Jeep rattled like the frame was going to come completely off the wheels at any speed above forty-five. It just added to the exhilaration of having Harrison completely to myself for the stretch of time and highway in front of us.
The Infiniti is smooth, quiet as it barrels down Route 29. Too quiet. I roll down the window and hot air whooshes into the car. I stick my hand into it, let the wind dance through my fingers.
My cell vibrates in my pocket and I dig it out, peering at the screen through the hair that’s whipping around my face. It’s Oliver.
I think this might be it.
I cast a sideways glance at Harrison. The day after my phone conversation with Oliver, I drifted around in a kind of stunned fog. So we did have the same dream, at least once. But what did that mean? It was so maddening, getting these little puzzle pieces that didn’t seem like they would ever add up to one big picture. I told Harrison that night, but he didn’t say anything. Just stared at me like I had sprouted a third arm, and sighed—a long, controlled exhale of breath—making me feel even crazier than I already felt.
Meanwhile, Oliver has gone into a deep dive of amusement parks in the United States. He’s convinced the one in our dream must actually exist and keeps sending me images he’s found online. At first I thought he might be on to something. The problem, I’ve found, is that they’re all so similar—carousel, wooden roller coaster, Ferris wheel, funnel cakes. And I’ve started to wonder if the details I’m painting are from my dreams—was the carousel horse really ivory with a gold and red saddle?—or from some collective memory of what a carousel is supposed to look like.
I enlarge the current image Oliver sent with his text. It’s an ornate carousel, with intricate gold curlicues decorating the rafters of the ride. I squint at it. There is something vaguely familiar about it—but then, there was something familiar about the last eight.
Maybe, I type back.
He sends another picture: a Tilt-A-Whirl with royal blue domed seats on a mechanical track. I sit up.