Free Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley

car seat. He was the grass stain on the seat of Adam’s soccer shorts. He was the head of the PTA, peeling an orange for her youngest, inquiring whether Rose would be attending Mommy’s Margarita Night.
    Rose had watched the woman’s fingernails slide under the skin of the orange, pulling the fruit from the pith. It wasn’t possible. But still …
    â€œRose? Will you be there?” The woman had had to pull her away from her thoughts of fast-food restaurants and imaginary men.
    â€œYes. Maybe. I—I’ll try,” Rose stammered, trying to cover.
    Her dreams during this time did not change at all. There was nothing different about the island. Nothing different about the business she and Hugo conducted. Castle City remained a distant goal, the island remained a paradise.
    No, that wasn’t entirely true. There was something different. Rose noticed it in the moments of calm, when she’d watch Hugo as he beamed his confident grin at the distant horizon, studying the shape of his jaw, the trace of his hairline, comparing him with the Hugo she’d seen in her waking hours. The Man Who Was Not Hugo.
    On those occasions, when Rose would turn to him to steal a look, she’d catch him glancing away furtively. As if he’d been studying her, too. And wondering the same things.
    But upon waking, instead of lolling in the remembered glow of her time with Hugo, or resenting the fact that she had to wake up at all, Rose would lie in bed, her thoughts immediately traveling to a truck stop town sixty miles away, an inconsequential food stand, and the man who could be starting his shift there.
    *   *   *
    Naomi had a theory.
    Rose had debated telling her about the apparition. She was worried it would make her seem crazy in a “not good” way. Movie crazy. Institution crazy.
    That was why she had not told Josh. She didn’t want to see the look on his face that would confirm her worst fears. That she’d come unhinged. That her mind had broken. That she was a disappointment yet again.
    But somehow with Naomi, it came out.
    The events of the day: the boys, the rain, the man in the window. The words spilled from her almost against her will. She felt more like a storyteller than a witness. Was that how things had happened? Had it happened?
    When she finished Naomi was quiet for a moment. Rose could tell she was selecting her words.
    â€œYou said you started dreaming about Hugo when you had a bicycle accident. When you were six?”
    Rose was surprised by this tack. “Yes.”
    â€œAnd Isaac, who’d been giving you trouble that morning, he wants a bike for his birthday.”
    Rose shook her head. She wasn’t sure where Naomi was going, but she was certain it was the wrong direction. “That’s not. It’s not … I did see him.”
    Naomi was cautious. Gentle. “I’m just suggesting that dreams … That this man in the window … maybe in the heat of the moment, you were so upset with the boys, so out of control of your emotions, maybe your mind felt like you needed Hugo, so this man … coalesced with your image of him.”
    Rose was silent for a moment. This idea that her brain was tricking her. It was what Josh would have said. Dark corridors and spooky houses.
    Of course that’s what it must be. It sounded right.
    But it didn’t feel that way.
    Still, Rose knew what she needed to say.
    â€œMaybe.”
    Naomi looked at her a moment. “Rose, you know it wasn’t really him.”
    â€œYes. Of course.”
    *   *   *
    That afternoon Adam got off the bus wielding a piece of paper. He waved it as he ran toward Rose.
    â€œI drew a picture of Hugo!” he yelled, excited, breathless.
    Rose held the page. “Who’s this?” She pointed to the smaller figure, with a red crayon “U” of a smile standing next to Adam’s vested rendition of