The Summer We Came to Life by Deborah Cloyed Read Free Book Online Page B

with his daughter’s, the mixture spilling into the hallway outside her bedroom. The way Isabel talked with her hands, the private jokes she shared with Samantha—everything was an excruciating reminder of Mina’s absence.
    And then he kept envisioning his wife, Maliheh. Her laughing eyes. The jasmine scent she wore. Arshan had learned to accept these fleeting glimpses of his wife, but still they startled him, like the richness of gourmet chocolate. He slipped into the past like an egg sliding into water to be poached. Arshan regularly boiled himself alive for his mistakes as a husband and a father.
    He remembered every second of the day before Mina was born.
    Maliheh lay on the bed, with her puffy eyes and swollen belly. They’d moved to the U.S. in a haze after losing theirson in Iran. Maliheh had hardly spoken to him in the months since. Betrayal by God. That was the only way to describe the pain of losing a child. But on that day, when Maliheh had taken his hand and put it on top of the baby, they had stopped discussing.
    Maliheh was always the stronger one. She told Arshan that their child could not be born into such sorrow, that he must promise her to be kind, to be open, to laugh. Arshan’s heart was reborn, looking into the eyes of the only woman he’d ever loved. He promised her then and there that the three of them would be happy and safe.
    But he’d failed. He’d failed them all.
    Suddenly, he felt Lynette staring at him. He glanced over and she looked past him, embarrassed.
    Arshan smiled, even though his skin was still scalding. He broke his driving rules to look at Cornell asleep in the back-seat, drooling on a pillow.
    Lynette looked at her husband and smiled, too.
    Â 
    I was thinking about Remy. I sipped a Coca-Cola and slipped into my new favorite fantasy: being married to Remy Badeau. I pictured an art opening with flashing paparazzi. I pictured us on the covers of French magazines. I pictured a home chef serving us dinner under a chandelier. I started to picture us in bed. Suddenly I felt a little carsick. This had happened a few times recently, as a matter of fact. I was attracted to Remy. He was ruggedly handsome. Other women obviously thought so, too. And the man certainly had skills between the sheets. So what did the spin-cycle stomach mean?
    I tried thinking about him again, starting with his smile—the smile that melted me like butter on a skillet every time. Remy must’ve gotten away with a lot packing that smile. It was disarmingly boyish and more contagious than chicken pox.
    I remembered the day he threw out my collection oftrinkets. I’d been collecting them since I arrived in Paris—matchbooks, scraps of advertisements, discarded ticket stubs. The plan was to incorporate them into a new series I’d begun, have them morph into photos or get mired in paint. Yes, they looked like junk, but weren’t they obviously collected in a pretty box for a reason?
    Remy tossed them out along with my fashion magazines. Man, was I furious. Livid. I’d barged in on him when he was working, with my chin thrust out for a fight. When he understood what he had done, he chuckled. I checked my earlobes—yep, hotter than a newly murdered lobster. A sure sign I was as angry as I could get. He dismissed his assistant and held out his hand. I shook my head, so he laughed again, and swept his arm wide to suggest a place to sit. Dizziness was fast replacing my rage, so I sat and watched him, fuming.
    Remy scratched his head for comic effect, then turned his pockets inside out. From the floor, he retrieved a match-book and a few coins and a mint wrapper. He crawled on the carpet to the wastebasket, sniffing and wagging his butt like a puppy, and took out a magazine, scripts, and a newspaper. He shredded them with his teeth, growling, then got on his knees at my feet. When he looked up at me, presenting his peace offering of garbage, he smiled that smile of