Free Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne DeMaio

“After all this time? What’d you see?”
    Paige’s words seem lost in the barn, in the vast space of memories and echoes and images that fill it if he turns a certain way, or when the lighting shines low at the day’s end. When he hears Neil’s voice talking up some renovation plan using the white sand as the cottage canvas, the colors of the harbor boats brought in with paints, starfish cutouts in the eaves and an elevation looking out to sea.
    “The reflection,” he says. “In the rearview mirror. Now I can’t get it out of my head.”
    “That means something, when the memory comes back. Doesn’t it?”
    “It means being back at this cottage is a mistake. I was doing fine until I decided to move the business here.” He looks up at the old rafters. “This is all a mistake.”
    “Can’t they give you something to speed your memory?”
    “No. I’ve got to do it myself.”
    “But if you’re under a doctor’s care,” she persists. “Or therapy maybe.”
    “Damn it, Paige.” Jason sweeps the old lobster trap onto the floor. “Just leave it alone already.”
    “Okay. Okay, I get the message.” She holds up an open hand and backs away. “Well it was fun spending the holiday here, and we’ll be back in a couple weeks. I’ll have the kids stop in to say goodbye. Try to be nice to them, would you please? You’re their uncle.”
    “Yeah.” He looks down at his hand, then reaches for a clean rag from a worktable, pressing it against the gash. If only it were that easy. Bandage it and let it heal. Medication, alcohol, exercise, time. They are all bullshit bandages. He’s tried them all, and yet when he walked on the beach alone late last night, he’d heard it in the waves. It sounded far away, just like then, that engine opened all the way, a ton of metal bearing down on them from a distance. He’s never forgotten that sound. But last night, a flash of the image finally returned when Kyle’s voice talking about the weather became Neil’s voice behind him on the bike. Memory triggers, his doctor calls them. Moments. Moments that bring it all back.
    He kicks the broken lobster trap aside, his leg feeling better now. The same way one pain displaces another, one thought does the same thing. He turns to go inside and wash out the stinging cut on his hand, knowing that it was Maris Carrington beside him on the beach who had displaced the vision of the accident last night.

.

    Chapter Eight
    O n a hot July Saturday, all Lauren thinks about is painting driftwood on the beach, while all she actually does is take summer inventory at Bayside Department Store. But it is a temporary job from the employment agency, and at least it brings in a paycheck. The store is closed to shoppers while the help tickets and inventories the summer merchandise. She uses idle time to collect empty cartons from the storage room. They are perfect for vacation packing, and she thinks she just might toss her paints in one.
    At noontime, she settles in her car and directs the air conditioning vent at her face. The store isn’t far from home, and it’s easy to add ten minutes to her lunch hour without much notice to drop off the boxes. Driving down her street, the house looks deserted with no bicycles in the driveway, no kids drawing chalk games on the sidewalk. The drapes are drawn against the sun’s rays and the grass wilts beneath the heat. She lifts the cartons from her trunk and sets them in the garage, keeping them out of the oil that leaked from Kyle’s pickup truck. After neatly stacking the boxes along the back wall, there’s enough time to make a quick sandwich for lunch. When she opens the garage door into the kitchen, Kyle is coming in through the front door carrying a mixed bouquet wrapped in cellophane.
    “Hey, Ell. These are for you.”
    Lauren leans against the closed door to the garage. “For what?”
    “It’s a celebration. We’ll take the kids out for burgers tonight. They’ll love it.” He reaches for