Page 111 of Soft Flannel Hank

In her vision, Esther found herself looking at the window of the den. The lights were off, but she could see the flicker of the television against the sheers. The whole house was otherwise dark.

She was relieved that he’d come home after looking for her at Jory’s instead of tearing off into the night to search elsewhere. He was safe. She crept around the side of the house until she could see into the den window.

Hank sat in his recliner. She could see the TV screen playingThe Golden Girls,and Esther smiled at that, even as it broke her heart a little bit more. He stared off into space without focus, and even through the haze of the dirty window and the distance from her place in the yard, he looked tired. Esther could see it. She couldfeelit. She had the sudden urge to go to him. To climb the steps and cross the mudroom and kitchen and crawl into his lap in that old recliner where it had all begun.

“One more time before I go,” she would whisper against his lips. “One more time before I have to leave. Please give me one more time.”

And he would give it to her because Hank had never denied her anything, and she doubted he ever would.

Her fingers trembled with the urge to grip his beard and pull his face to hers, to devour him with her mouth while her hands committed every single inch of him to memory. She would pull out his ponytail holder and then rake her fingers through the long, dark strands with the silver threads glinting through.

Esther knew this was a vision. It wasn’t real. What would be the harm if she went to him in this space that didn’t exist anywhere but her mind? She had drawn The Tower for her future. Disaster was coming. Her world was going to collapse. Didn’t she deserve a little bit of comfort before the fallout?

She took a step out of the shadows toward the house but ducked back when a dark shadow crept around the shed. A large figure. Human. Or human-looking. Followed by another. And another. They climbed into the dining room window.

Esther looked at the driveway as the floodlight turned on, drenching the parking pad in bright yellow light. As it did, Callum MacLeod stepped out of the night and walked slowly toward the steps that led into the mudroom. A scream caught in Esther’s throat as she saw the man with the tattooed neck and knuckles follow him.

As Callum reached for the doorknob and turned it, Esther’s vision blurred and shifted, until she was watching him open the door from on high. Callum turned and looked into the shadows, and Esther heard a woman’s scream. It sounded like Jory. Callum looked into the darkness with those piercing blue eyes, as if he’d heard it too. He stopped, like a wolf sniffing the air, his body tense.

Esther heard the scream again, and Callum’s eyes went wide with shock. She saw him murmur something but couldn’t make out what. Waves crashed in her ears, and she suddenly felt as if she were drowning, being pulled down to the bottom of a wild, unforgiving sea as the punishing surf raged and closed over her.

In her vision, she tried to haul in air, but water filled her mouth, her lungs, her body. Angry seawater closed in around her and her sight went dark. That flying, too-fast hurtling feeling returned, and with a gasp, she found herself sitting on the floor in front of Jory’s coffee table.

“Esther,” Jory said from her crouch in front of Esther’s quaking form. “Esther, what the fuck? Are you okay?”

Esther was heaving air into her lungs, breathing quick and hard but never seeming to get enough oxygen to slow her racing heart. She shot to her feet, bumping the table and sending her cards scattering across the floor. She snatched her boots from underneath the couch. Jory was on her heels as Esther raced to the back door behind the kitchen, shoving her feet into her boots and knotting them quickly.

“Esther. Esther! What’s going on?” Jory said, trying to turn Esther’s body towards her, but Esther shook her off. She was possessed, with only one thought in her panicked brain. She had to get to Hank. She had to get to him before Callum did.

Esther threw open the door and jumped down the stairs, skipping three at a time.

“Where are you going?” Jory shouted after her into the darkness. Esther took off at a dead run into the night. No coat. No phone. No weapon. Nothing to help her but her body and her beating heart and her love for a man with a hero complex who would sacrifice himself for her if she let him.

And she couldn’t let him.

* * *

Hank didn’t knowhow long he’d sat at the kitchen table with his cheek pressed against the cool, varnished surface. But eventually, he’d gotten a crick in his neck and made the move to the den and the recliner. As much as that damn chair haunted him with memories of Esther, there weren’t any places in his house now that didn’t.

He walked to the den and stood in the doorway, staring at the recliner through bleary eyes. It was as it had always been, and yet it was completely different. Before, it had been just a chair, old and worn with stuffing that had been squished and molded by his body. There had been weeks after he quit his job where he actually wondered how long it would take for the fibers of his sweatpants and the fibers of the chair’s upholstery to start to knit together.

But now, while it was the same chair, it also wasn’t. Because he’d been sandwiched between that same crushed, worn stuffing and Esther’s vibrant, incandescent heat. He’d felt that chair rocking beneath him, squeaking in protest as he braced his feet and thrust up into her.

Everything was different now. And yet everything was also the same.

He was alone.Lonely.That was a familiar feeling. The most familiar feeling, perhaps. How dare she leave him alone with nothing but his memories and his life and his goddamn emptiness. She’d seen the emptiness. She’d measured it with her hands. And she’d left him to it.

No matter her reasons, her misplaced nobility, no matter that she did it because she loved him, the fact remained that the end result was the same. She was gone, and Hank was left with the shell of his life that held the scent and memory of her, without actually holding her at all.

Clenching his teeth, he crossed the den floor and sat gingerly in the recliner, as if he expected it to collapse beneath him, to turn into dust. Like everything else seemed to have done.

Hank had been scrolling mindlessly through the cable guide on his television, watching the program menu glide across the screen without really seeing. He saw a marathon ofThe Golden Girlsplaying on the nostalgia channel from now until two in the morning when the infomercials took over. Maybe he’d pass out by then. Maybe his exhaustion would finally take over and he’d be able to sleep.

Over the sounds of the laugh track, Hank heard a sliding of wood, like a window opening. The floodlight over the driveway turned on. He muted the television and stood slowly, his ears straining to hear.

Adrenaline began pulsing through his body, and he felt all of his muscles bunch and clench. His hands tightened into fists as he listened. It was quiet now. The floodlight was on even though the driveway was empty. But Hank wasn’t foolish enough to believe that this was a false alarm.

The joke was on them, however, because Esther wasn’t here and no matter what they did, he wouldn’t be able to tell them where she’d gone becausehe didn’t know. In that way, it was perfect. If he could buy her more time with his life, it would be enough.