Free Sadie's Mountain by Shelby Rebecca Page B

swallows hard. “Can I talk to you, Sadie?”
    “On one condition.” I decide on the fly, my voice raspy and deep from no sleep.
    “Anything,” he says, curiously.
    “I want coffee and I don’t know how to use that contraption on the stove top.” He peeks over to the stove and smiles at the percolator.
    “I think I can figure it out,” he says, as he walks in and moves effortlessly toward the kitchen. Suddenly, the contraption is in four pieces and he’s rummaging through the drawers. “Filter?” He looks at me questioningly.
    “I’m not sure.” But I help him look.
    “Ah, here we go,” he says, holding the filters up like a prize, obviously proud of himself for having found them in the drawer, neighbors with the tin foil and the plastic baggies.
    “I’m glad you’re up,” he says, as he unfolds the filter and then pops it over the center stem inside the basket part of the percolator. “Coffee grounds?” he says, pointing at the empty basket and scanning the counter top.
    I hand him the tin that has always held coffee grounds since the beginning of time. As he spoons the grounds in he says, “I couldn’t sleep.”
    “Me neither,” I agree.
    “Maybe I’m sleeping right now. It’s like I’m dreaming seeing you here,” he says, as he stops and looks at me as if I might just evaporate into thin air.
    “I feel that way, too.” It’s true. Seeing him here, like a warm memory in Momma’s kitchen folding the filter over the dry coffee grounds with his long thin fingers, reminds me that for the past ten years I’ve tucked Dillon away in my mind in that filing cabinet, too. At first he was real-like in my memories but lately he’d kind of blurred and become really small like a driver’s license picture. Not anymore—he looks very real now.
    “What are you thinking about?” he asks, his voice sweet and smooth like red velvet cake.
    “Caffeine,” I reply dryly as I rest my elbows on the counter top and stare at him impassively from under my eyelashes.
    “I see,” he says, smirking. “Well, it seems this is the one thing I can do for you then.” There was a bit of sullenness in his tone there at the end.
    “What did you want to talk about?” I ask politely. Let’s get this over with.
    “Hey, um, can you fill the percolator with water?”
    “Sure, I guess I can handle that,” I say as I turn on the faucet.
    Well water tastes like childhood , I think as I poor myself a small glass before putting the percolator under the stream.
    He pushes the long stem into the coffee basket causing some of the grounds to pop out where the stem just poked through. “Oh, I hadn’t accounted for that,” he explains and places a lid on top of the filter.
    “Here you go,” I say, placing the big blue pot next to where he’s working and start wiping the spilled coffee grounds into my cupped hand. He puts the whole basket that he’s assembled into the percolator and places the blue lid over top of everything before setting it on the stove. It ticks a few times before the flame catches the gas and he walks back over to me by the sink.
    “Well, if I may be so bold, I’d like to talk about us,” he says, earnestly, overly formal, his accent almost gone.
    “Us?”
    “If you like,” he says, with a gleam in his Tahoe beach blue eyes.
    “Knock it off,” I say and fake punch him in his arm. He smiles but he’s still serious. “Okay, I’m ready,” I state, making my face look stern.
    “Well, first of all, I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”
    “Uh,” I start to blurt but he cuts me off.
    “The thing is, I heard you singing. I was riding down the mountain just like I do every day at that time and I heard a woman singing our song.”
    “Oh!” I blurt again. Embarrassed, my cheeks feel fiery.
    “I started rushing down the mountain faster than I thought I was when I came around that corner and spooked Monty. I was so bewildered that you were really there and not some phantom or something. I