www... let’s

—and someone else—

She didn’t know who she felt, but looking out over the shelter’s modest lawn, now blanketed and clean, she decided she didn’t want to know; she decided it might hurt too much. But she didn’t know why she felt that way.

The shelter was a modified hotel, bought with city funds and renovated with mostly volunteer help. It allowed the women with children to have a room of their own, and Brittany was relieved to have one to herself. She wanted the privacy.

A knock. “Come in.”

The door to her room opened, and she turned to face the director of the shelter.

“Good morning, Brittany.” Ms. Sheldon smiled. “How ya doin’ today?”

“Better. The pain’s almost gone.”

“Good. Um... I, um—there’s been a development in your case. There’s someone here to see you. I told her about your condition, so—”

“Who is it?”

“Your sister.”

Brittany flinched. “I thought I didn’t have relatives?”

“Well, the police said she had photos of you two, and all kinds of documentation to prove you live with her.”

Ms. Sheldon opened the door wide, and the young woman entered the room. First, Brittany noticed her black hair. Such a contrast to her own blond. This woman is my sister?

“Brit? Oh, thank God you’re alive...” The young woman lost her breath for a moment, her eyes traveling the length of Brittany’s body, almost devouring the sight of her. Then she caught her stare. “I... you don’t remember me, do you?”

Brittany tried to concentrate on her face, and all she got was a headache.

“I’m sorry. You’re a stranger to me.”

The young woman’s face contorted in an expression of grief and longing, but she got control of whatever slammed around in her head. “That’s okay...

I’ve been looking for you. You disappeared off the face of the earth.” She cleared the choking sensation in her throat. “I didn’t know... how to find you until I saw your picture in the paper.” Tears began to well in her eyes.

“I called the hospital and they put me in touch with the police officer who was working on your case. You don’t know how relieved I was—”

The director cleared her throat. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone.” She closed the door quietly behind her.

The young woman set the knapsack and coat she held on the bed. “I brought you some of your clothes.” She sniffled. “And a coat. It’s getting really wicked out there, the roads are almost too icy to dri—”

“What did you say your name was?” she interrupted.

That pained expression came again, then, “Tru.”

Odd name. Brittany touched the watch on her wrist, remembering the inscription. She had not taken it off, for fear it would make her less a person, somehow.

“I gave you that watch last Christmas... well, I mean, the one before this one. You never took it off... except to shower.” She attempted to smile but failed.

Brittany noticed the silver and turquoise rings that Tru wore on five of her fingers. She saw, too, the similar earrings and other jewelry and wondered what the obsession was. When she focused on Tru again, Brittany noticed that the dark-haired woman still had trouble catching her breath. “This is very awkward.”

“Yeah. It’s—I’ve missed you so much, Brit.” Tru stepped forward, as if to embrace her, and Brittany leaned back, confused. She changed her tone.

“Hey, I brought your favorite jeans and that black turtle neck, and that pink flannel shirt you like.”

Brittany went around the bed and unzipped the knapsack, digging the clothing out, momentarily pleased to have something of her past. She noticed the leather tag sewn into the back of the knapsack. Beside NAME, was written BRITTANY JABOT. “How do I pronounce my last name?”

“Its French. It’s pronounced z hah-bow.”

Brittany repeated the name to herself several times, but it didn’t feel familiar. “What’s your last name?”

She hesitated. “Morgan... why?”

“Why is my last name different? Are you married?” She removed her robe and hospital gown and put the turtle neck on.

Tru averted her eyes as Brittany changed clothes. “Hardly. I’ll explain it all to you when we get home.”

Brittany added the flannel shirt and began to button it. “Home? What if I’m not ready to go anywhere with you?”

Tru gasped. “Where else have you got to go?”

“I can stay here as long as I need to. I can take a cab where I need to go.

Where are our parents?”

“Brit, I’ll explain all that when we get home.” Tru put on one glove.

“What’s this ‘we’ stuff?” Brittany tucked the shirt in and zipped up her jeans. They were a bit loose.

“We have a house together. Why wouldn’t you want to go to your own home?”

Brittany stared at her, feeling lost, trapped. “What if I don’t want to go there?”

Tru sighed. “What are you afraid of? Maybe seeing where you live will help you get your memory back.”

Brittany went around her and stood at the window. The snow was still a cascade of white. What reason did she have for not going with her? Brittany had no answer, but was nonetheless on tenterhooks. The idea of being dependent on someone else to give her memories back to her was disturbing; she wanted to get them back on her own, so she’d be certain they were indeed hers, and not manufactured by another person who might

have a hidden agenda. Besides, she didn’t trust this woman, and that was reason enough.

“Let’s get out of here. We’ll talk later.” Brittany did not respond to the flat tone of Tru’s voice, she only ran her hand down a flannel sleeve. “You’ve lost weight.”

“Thanks for... I appreciate the clothes.” She turned and went to the night stand again, this time tossing the contents of the drawer on the bed. In an unusual act of kindness, Nurse Sturgis had bought a brush for her, and she worked it through the tangles in her tousled, wavy hair.

“I’m the only family you’ve got.”

Alarmed, Brittany turned to examine this sister she did not recognize.

“What—do you mean?”

“You don’t have any other relatives. Your last relative died a few months ago. Look. I’d rather not start this conversation until we can finish it. I know everything important there is to know about you.” Brittany sat on the bed, placing the items there into the knapsack, one by one. “Brit, you don’t understand. This may take a while. Come home with me. Get settled. We have a lot to talk about.”

Ms. Sheldon walked them out, and Tru ran into the parking lot, disappearing into the bleached void, to bring the Cherokee around so Brittany would not have to walk that far.

“By the way,” Ms. Sheldon said. “A reporter called while ago and wanted to know if you had found your family. “

Brittany’s eyebrows went up, and then she grimaced.

“Don’t worry. I told them you had, but I didn’t give him any details. I didn’t think you wanted the publicity.”

“Thanks.”

The woman rubbed her arms and shivered. “Are you sure this is your sister?”

Brittany shrugged. “Well, she knew what was engraved on the watch without seeing it, first. And she did have all that documentation. If the cops think she’s okay, I guess she is.”

The older woman nodded, handing her a business card. “Don’t forget this address. That’s my cell phone... in case you want to get in touch, or if...you know, you need anything.”

Brittany hugged the woman, as Tru braked at the entrance and disengaged the passenger door lock. She climbed in carefully, and closed the door, zipping out the seat belt. “How do I even know you’re my sister?” she snapped, clicking the belt in place.

Tru filled her lungs with the damp, cold air that had traveled with Brittany into the cab. “You don’t, I guess.”

U.S. Highway Fifty took them out of Montrose, and it would be another fifty miles through the snowy weather before Gunnison. The white flakes covered the window after each swipe of the windshield wipers, and Tru had to keep the Cherokee well under the limit to maintain control on the icy roadway.

“How far is it?”

“You’d better get comfortable, it’ll be another three hundred twenty miles before we get there.”

“Jesus Christ! Where do you live—Tibet?”

“I live on Castle Mountain...” She peered over at her pointedly. “So do you.”

“Then what was I doing way over here in Montrose?”

Tru eyed her briefly, swallowing her remark. “The doctor told me that the accident was on the other side of Gunnison, but that Montrose had the

closest trauma center.” Don’t ask why you were in Gunnison.

“Oh.” Brittany sighed and unbuckled the seat belt to struggle out of her coat. Tru reached over to help her wriggle a sleeve off. “I can do it!” she sniped.

Tru decided not to voice her natural response to Brittany’s uncharacteristic petulance. Could a concussion change someone’s personality? The past was the past, however, and she had found her after all this time, she was alive, and that mattered more than anything. “Castle Mountain’s pretty secluded.

Just above Estes Park. You liked it that way. We both enjoyed the privacy and the peace and quiet. But it’s close enough to Longmont and Boulder and other cities, so that we could go out when we wanted to.”

“I don’t think I’ll be going out any time soon.”

“Probably not,” Tru agreed, unzipping her black leather jacket and turning the heater down one notch. “Technically, we live in Estes Park, pretty close to Rocky Mountain National Park...”

Brittany gave her a blank look, and shook her head.

“Well, I’m sure all that will come back to you. We should be in Gunnison in an hour and a half—unless this snow keeps up. We can stop there and get something to eat if you want.”

“Fine,” Brittany responded wearily, running a hand through her hair. “Do I have my own money?”

“Of course. You always hide some at the house. Although if you didn’t tell me about it, you might not be able to find it...And we can go to the bank and get you a new check card.” Tru wanted to ask a thousand questions, but thought better of each, afraid the conversation would lead into areas she felt Brittany could not confront. And more than likely, Brittany wouldn’t have the answers anyway. “Feel free to take a nap if you need one,” she suggested, hoping to avoid the

taboo subjects the easy way. Brittany did not seem interested in sleeping, so Tru kept her eyes on the road and concentrated on driving, as much as the vividly surfacing memories would allow.

Brittany turned toward her now and again, considering her with unabashed curiosity; an action which Tru failed to ignore with rather perilous transparency. Finally, Brittany cleared her throat and asked, “Why do we look like total opposites?”

Tru closed her eyes for a second longer than a blink, and knew the tension in the car threatened to grow stronger. She had to be careful how she answered the inevitable questions that would arise before they were home.

“It has something to do with genetics, I would guess.”

Brittany loosened her seat belt and twisted, lifting her left foot up onto the seat to face the dark-haired young woman. “Does it have something to do with what you said we had to discuss later?”

“Yes,” Tru answered truthfully, reluctant to spill the information without some degree of probing on Brittany’s part. It was a witness stand, and the attorney in her mind coached her to give only direct answers to the questions asked.

Brittany waited an interminable amount of time before she spoke again.

“So, are you going to tell me what the big secret is?”

Tru shifted in the seat and turned the heater down another notch. “I don’t think this is the proper time or place for this conversation.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not going to be very easy.”

Brittany looked down at the console thoughtfully. “Is it about our parents?

Did we have different fathers or mothers or something?”

“No. Well, yes.”

“Am I adopted?”

“No.”

“Well, this is like pulling teeth. Are you gonna tell me or not?”

“Honestly, I’d rather wait until we get home.”

“That’s another three-hundred-something miles, you said. Are we gonna sit in silence until then?”

“I’m sure we can find another topic.”

Brittany frowned. “What have we got to talk about? I don’t even know you.”

Tru cringed, and gripped the wheel tighter.

“Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Why do you get so...tense when I tell you I don’t remember you?”

“Well, I’d say that’s pretty obvious. We were very close, and you disappear, and I search all over creation for you, afraid you’re dead, and then when I finally find you, you have amnesia.”

“You seem a little too tense, that’s all. And it’s not my fault I have amnesia; it was an accident.”

“I didn’t say it was your fault—”

“Well, you’re acting like you think so.”

Tru sighed and pulled what looked like an ink pen out of her jacket pocket, and put the end in her mouth, sucked it, and vapor came out.

Brittany noticed. “What’s that?”

“An eCig.”

“A what?”

“An electronic cigarette.”

Brittany kept frowning.

“They haven’t been around that long, only a couple of years. But they allowed us both to quit tobacco.”

“It’s not tobacco?”

“No, it’s electronic. Battery heats an atomizer and creates a vapor. No tobacco, no toxins. Just nicotine and whatever flavor you prefer.”

“It smells good. What kind is that?”

“Apple.” Tru glanced at her. “I sell them. I have a distributorship and a website.” When Brittany didn’t say anything else, she thought about their harsh exchange of words before the eCig came up. “Maybe it’s my fault.”

“What?”

“Your amnesia. We had a fight the night you had the accident. I asked you to leave.”

“I thought you said we were close.”

“We were—are—but... shit happens. We had a fight, that’s all.”

“What was the fight about?”

Tru took another drag. “It doesn’t matter, now. It’s water under the bridge.”

She experienced an emotional flash the second she made the comment. She imagined Brittany in that car, underwater, drowning...

Brittany leaned her cheek over onto the headrest, and scrutinized Tru as she puffed the eCig, watched the road, and occasionally checked the rearview mirror. She witnessed the fight with some emotion that kept leaping to Tru’s face. “I’m not trying to cause trouble, Tru, I’m trying to find out who I am.”

Tru pulled the eCig out of her mouth. “Give it some time. It’ll come back to you when you’re ready to remember it. That’s what the doctor told me.”

Brittany adjusted the rings on her fingers. “What’s the story with all this silver and turquoise jewelry?”

Tru looked over at Brittany’s hands, pleased to see that she wore the rings, even though they were on the wrong fingers. “I bought them for you.

There’s this jeweler in Boulder that you like. She designs some wonderful things.”

“Oh.” Brittany seemed satisfied, and fell quiet for several miles.

When Tru took the first Gunnison exit, they were both ready to eat an early lunch and go to the bathroom—not necessarily in that order.

Tru carried the pump coffee dispenser inside with her, noting that she had a habit of keeping it with her the last few weeks. She left it for the clerk to refill, and bought two packs of gum, while Brittany ordered cheeseburgers, fries, and drinks from the snack bar. They took the food to go, and trudged through the snow to the parking lot.

“I hope you like cheeseburgers, cause that’s what I got,” Brittany announced. Tru clicked the security module on her key ring to unlock Brittany’s door for her and held it open while she got in. “Gentlemanly of you,” Brittany remarked, looking at Tru oddly.

Tru closed the door and went around to get in, and they were on their way again.

Brittany took the burgers out of the sack, and handed one to Tru. As they ate, Brittany considered the distance they had gone, and still had to go, before Castle Mountain. “Tru—” she said around a mouthful. “How come I was here in Gunnison when I had the accident?”

Tru swallowed her own bite and glanced at Brittany, taking a quick drink of Dr. Pepper. “I guess you kept driving after you left that night. I told you I had a hard time tracking you down.”

“Were you looking for me the whole time I was gone?”

“Night and day. I was afraid—”

“—that I was dead,” she finished for her.

Tru took another bite and remained silent.

“I guess that must have been hard on you.”

“Hard doesn’t even begin to cover it. It was really horrible getting through the holidays all alone. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since you disappeared.”

Brittany frowned and extracted a large ring of white onion from her burger.

She tossed it onto the bag next to the fries on the console between them.

“Lots of onions.”

Tru glanced down at the white ring stained with mustard. “You like onions.”

Brittany halted before she took another bite. “I do?”

“I don’t like it when you eat them—” Tru heard an editing machine click on in her brain. Way to be stupid!

Brittany still held her burger aloft, waiting for Tru to finish her sentence.

“I guess they don’t do great things for my breath,” Brit added.

Well, fine. I’d rather have you say it, than me.

“Are you going to tell me what we had that fight about?”

Tru shook her head. “No sense in opening old wounds.”

“They’re new to me.” She picked up the onion and put it back between the buns.

Tru filled her mouth with a huge portion of burger to avoid a response entirely.

“It’s okay, I’ll wait until you finish your lunch,” she offered smartly, taking a bite.

Tru sighed, and continued to chew, feeling dreadfully like she was in an interrogation room at the police department. She dropped the remainder of the burger onto the bag with the fries, and swallowed. “Why can’t you wait until we get home?”

“I can’t,” Brit dropped her burger next to Tru’s. “I have too many questions.”

“So do I.”

“Like what?”

“You can’t answer them until you get your memory back,” she said matter-of-factly. “Grab that thermos behind your seat. I need some coffee.”

Brittany obliged, and even poured them each a cup, moving their soft drinks to the rear holders and placing the coffee cups in the console. “Okay. We’ve had lunch, I’m not sleepy, and we both have coffee. Now what subject can we talk about without playing cat and mouse?”

“I want to know what the doctor told you. I mean, are you going to be okay?”

Brittany lifted the cup to her lips and blew on the steamy liquid. “I guess I’ll be as good as new eventually. Provided I get my memory back.”

Tru tore her eyes away from the road, briefly. “I thought the amnesia was only temporary.”

“I don’t think they know for sure.”

“What about your arm—isn’t it supposed to be in the sling?”

“Too confining. My arm’s much better, anyway. It’s my head they worried about. I got over the banged up knees and other stuff. Ribs are still a little sore, though.”

Tru lifted her cup and blew on the coffee. “You had a concussion, right?”

“Yeah. Dr. Armstrong said I bruised my brain. Isn’t that charming?”

“You’re okay now, though, right?”

“I guess so. They released me, didn’t they?”

Tru sipped the coffee. “Are you going to need anything? Prescriptions, or the like?”

“I’ve got enough to last a month or so. Why all the questions? You sound more like my mother than my sister.”

“I want to make sure everything’s in order before we get to the house.

Sometimes it’s hard to get back off the mountain in bad weather.”

“Oh.” Brittany picked up her cheeseburger and took another bite. Through a mash of pickles and ground beef, she said, “What are you hiding?”

Tru’s foot came off the accelerator almost imperceptibly, then resumed its original pressure. “Who says I’m hiding anything?”

“You’re somewhat transparent.”

Tru glanced over at her, trying not to lose sight of the roadway. “Heavily into body language, now, are you?”

“Don’t try to change the subject again.”

Tru set the windshield wipers on a slower speed, to counteract the noise they were beginning to make as the snowfall eased. “I think my information is best discussed after we get home, like I said before.”

“Your ‘information’? You sound like a double agent.”

“Close.”

Brittany put her foot back on the floor and faced the front. “This is getting old. You can’t even tell me what this is all about.”

“It doesn’t bother me. I know who I am. It will, however, bother you.”

“How do you know?”

Tru cast a look her direction. “Educated guess.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge?”

“The judge—” Tru smirked. “That’s a good word. You might want to sentence me to hell when you find out.”

“Find out what, dammit!?” Brittany turned in the seat again.

“Want some gum?” Tru fished in her pocket.

“No, I don’t want any stupid damn gum! Spill it!”

Tru released a lungful of air. “I don’t know how to say this...don’t freak out, okay?”

“Tell me,” she ordered.

“I’m not your sister.”

Brittany sat stone-faced, absorbing this information. “Okay...you’re not my sister. . .that’s not a total shock. Why—why did you tell me you were?”

“So you’d trust me and come home.”

“Okay, we’re not sisters. That explains why we look like total opposites, but

—”

“We’re lovers.”

Brittany froze, letting this newest tidbit soak in atop the others. “We’re what?”

“Lovers,” Tru confirmed. “You’re gay. I’m gay. We live together. We share a life. We’re lovers.”

Brittany eased herself back against the seat and stared at the dashboard. She put her coffee in the console and blinked a few times, swallowing as if she had something foreign in her throat that would not go down. “Stop the car.”

“What?”

“Stop the fucking car!”

9

TRU ROLLED HER EYES ON A SIGH, her foot pressing only slightly on the brake. “Don’t be ridiculous—”

“Damn you! I said stop the fucking car!” Brittany shouted, her fingers gripping the door handle, forewarning.

Tru took her foot off the accelerator dubiously. When she saw Brittany pry on the handle and release the door, she braked. “Okay! Okay! Jeez, calm down—” The Cherokee skidded to a halt sideways in the gravely sludge of the shoulder.

Brittany launched herself out of the car, Tru suffering the sensation of cold air rushing into her right ear.

Tru gasped, wiggling a fingertip in her ear to release the pressure. She saw the other young woman trudging down the road ahead of her. Where does she think she’s going?

Brittany stomped through the snow, pausing every few steps to kick clumps of it out of her path. Tru sighed, refreshing her coffee from the thermos, and letting the steam warm her face as

she continued to watch Brittany, fully expecting her to grasp the irrational nature of her response. Minutes passed, with Tru drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, watching the woman’s form shrinking into the distance.

Shaking her head, she dropped the gear shift into drive and let the Cherokee creep along the side of the glassy blacktop.

After walking the length of a football field, Brittany began to clench her side and huff, and Tru thought she looked like an angry human freight train, as her breath formed billows around her head. Tru eased up beside her and fingered the electric window switch on her door. The glass hummed down into the passenger door. “Pretty cold out there. Aren’t you cooled off, yet?”

Brittany shot a glance at her and kept walking.

Tru examined the curve in the road ahead, careful of any oncoming traffic.

“Brit. Where are you planning to walk?”

“ To hell if I have to!” she sneered.

“You don’t have to go there to get warm.” Tru leaned back to avoid the oncoming scowl Brittany tossed over her shoulder at her. She realized that sarcasm would not get her back in the car, and tried to imagine what Brittany would want to hear. “We have a big fireplace at home—”

“Shut up!” Brittany thrust her hands in her jeans and continued.

“Brit, do you realize how stupid this is?” Tru crept along beside her and listened for a response, that did not come. “Shit.” Tru stopped and lifted the shift into park. Carrying the coffee with her, she got out and caught up with the young woman. “Brit. Hey. Slow down.” Tru snagged her at the elbow, and Brittany wrenched her arm away, the action causing a sharp pain in her tender ribs. She stopped to wrap her arms around herself. “Hey,” Tru stopped beside her. “You okay?”

“Fucking fantastic!” Brittany straightened with a stunted sigh, her eyes studying the snow-laden trees beside the road. I can’t be gay. Why does my mind want to reject something I can’t even remember?

Tru stepped in front of her and offered her the coffee. “You’re going to get sick out here.”

“I’m already sick.” Brittany took the steaming Styrofoam cup and held it between her red fingers, then suddenly threw it on a clump of snow in front of her. The brown liquid sank into a tiny indention, steam rising from it in puffs which caught in the wind and were gone.

“Hey, that’s from my finest collection of Styrofoam,” Tru tried to joke. “I swear, we can’t have nice things—“ Brittany ignored her. Okay, jokes aren’t working.

Brittany stood with her arms around herself. Is it really wrong to be gay, or is what I feel a knee-jerk response?

“This isn’t going to help anything. Get back in the car. Please?”

A pickup truck whooshed by, splattering Brit’s leg with slush. “Oh perfect,”

she grunted, looking up at the shrinking tail lights of the offending vehicle.

Then she froze. Taking a sudden step forward, she crushed the cup into the snow, walking stiffly, as if mesmerized, toward the bend in the road.

Tru frowned. “Brit? What’s the matter with you?”

Brittany kept walking, oblivious to Tru’s interrogations. Tru glanced back at the Jeep, its engine idling, the exhaust creating clouds at the back bumper, and decided to leave it to follow Brit around the bend in the road. She watched her move to the rail on the bridge and stop. Tru came up to her and searched her face. Brittany released all the air from her lungs and swallowed thickly.

“What’s wrong? Are you really sick?”

Brittany’s only response was to put her arms back around herself, her breath coming in short wisps in the frigid air.

“Brit? What’s—”

“It was here—” she gasped, swallowing over and over as if the action would remove the feeling. She stared, transfixed, at the new reflective steel posts which had been placed in the break between the poles; the railing ends were jagged and curled in a sinister metal grin.

Tru watched her, suddenly afraid to speak, recognizing the crippling memory as it enveloped the other woman.

“The wreck,” Brit whispered, focusing beyond the rail, now.

Tru surveyed the icy river beneath them on the bridge, conjured an image of Brittany’s car smashing the guard rail and plunging into the wintry water—

saw her trapped inside the car—and a haunting, rippling queasiness passed through her.

Tru managed to get Brittany back into the Cherokee, tossing the empty Styrofoam cup she had retrieved from the roadside into the back floorboard.

She fixed the seat belt around the woman and buckled it, as Brittany leaned her head against the headrest and stared over the hood onto the road. Tru fastened her own belt and inched out onto the blacktop once more.

Tru glanced over at her, and back at the road sign. “We’ve still got a long way to go. Can we just be civil?” When she saw that Brittany did not intend to respond, she got another Styrofoam cup from the bag under the seat and set it in the console between them. “Drink some coffee. You need to warm up.”

Brittany looked down at the thermos numbly, as if she could not, at first, identify its function. Then she picked it up.

Little was said over the next few hours. Tru took comfort in the radio, tuning to Brittany’s favorite station. Tru remembered a song as it began, and turned up the volume. “This is one of your favorite songs,” she said.

Brittany looked down at the radio as if it were a TV. “It’s Heart...

remember?” Brittany listened to the driving guitar and lyrics of

‘Barracuda’. ‘So this ain’t the end, I saw you again... today...’ and shook her head. Tru leaned back and let it play, remembering what Brittany could not.

By the time Tru made it to Arvada, she glanced over at Brittany, hoping she’d remember the area, but saw that she still slept soundly. She had either been asleep for the last four hours, or pretending to be asleep. Either way, she did not wake her, but let herself enjoy the tension that had drained from the cab of the Cherokee since Brittany had closed her eyes and dozed off.

Two hours later, with Boulder in the rearview mirror, she turned off Fall River Road, onto Castle Mountain Road, and crept into a long driveway, braking softly in front of the garage door.

“We’re home,” she whispered. Brittany did not stir, and Tru leaned her head on the steering wheel and thought of all that ‘home’ used to mean. Softly, she began to cry, but shoved the tears away and patted Brittany’s arm. The young woman’s eyes fluttered and opened, to the view of the garage door, and a rock and cedar Ranch-style house. She looked over at Tru, a sleepy question in her eyes.

“You’re home, Brit.”

Brittany massaged the back of her neck and looked around the place. None of it looked familiar to her. She distinguished the glow of the front porch light from beside the garage, its beam peppered with the light snowflakes that were beginning to fall. “You’re the one who’s home,” she said.

10

TRU UNLOCKED THE FRONT DOOR AND MOTIONED Brittany inside ahead of her. “Have a seat, I’ll start a fire.” Tru set Brittany’s backpack on the floor by the sofa, and greeted the calico cat that appeared from the kitchen to rub itself against her leg. “Hey, Dropsi-doodle. Have you been lounging on the countertops since mama’s been gone?” The cat mewed a response, and continued to circle Tru’s leg affectionately. “I’ll feed you in a minute.” The cat noticed Brittany, then, and her eyes widened in recognition. She meowed loudly and ran to Brit, stretching up to put her paws on Brit’s leg.

“She missed you.” Tru found that the cat’s response made her misty-eyed.

Brit patted the cat’s head, then picked her up and stroked her.

Tru took kindling from the cabinet beside the pit. Stacking it on the andiron, she set aflame the Fatwood Firestarter stick with a long match.

As Dropsi leaned against Brit, purring softly, she inspected her new milieu.

The smoke-gray sectional was positioned in an “L” configuration. She seated herself on the one facing the fireplace and watched Tru place a log atop the flaring tinder, as Dropsi settled onto her lap, still purring. She noticed the framed photo on the mantel of she and Tru posing with their arms around each other in a wooded area. “Where was that picture taken?”

Tru glanced over and then up to the mantel. “That was in Nederland. One of our weekend camping trips last summer.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s West of Boulder, in the mountains. Really quaint.”

Brit’s stomach growled. “Got anything to eat around here?” She petted the cat absently.

Tru turned from her squatted position to peer back at her. “I think there’s some roast left. I’ll heat some up for us.”

Her first need addressed, Brit recognized her second. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Tru blinked away the aloof tone of Brittany’s voice, and pointed toward the doorway. “Through there, second door on the left.”

Brittany hauled herself out of the plush sofa and disappeared into the hall.

Dropsi followed Brittany, knowing that a trip to the bathroom usually meant she could get some fresh water from the sink.

Tru took the poker from its wrought iron stand and jabbed at the logs until satisfied that the flames had caught. She drew the wire mesh screen closed in front of the pit and sat on the carpet, leaning back on her hands.

Obviously locked out of the bathroom, the calico returned and stepped into

her lap, kneading her legs with her clawless paws, Tru stared into the pit and tried to concentrate only on the flames. They leaped blue, red, orange, and yellow, licking the wood and chewing it up, then spitting it out in small particles onto the stone of the fireplace ledge.

“I thought you were going to heat up the roast?” Brittany said behind her, indignant.

Dropsi jumped out of her lap and darted into the kitchen, as if startled by Brittany’s voice. Tru bit back the retort which leapt to her tongue like the flames of the fire she had been watching. Instead she pushed herself up with a grunt and headed for the kitchen mumbling, “Yes, My Queen...”

“What?”

Tru threw back over her shoulder, “I said, ‘those logs are green’—it may take them a while to catch.”

Brittany looked over at the fire and back toward the kitchen doorway, through which Tru had disappeared. Rubbing her neck, Brittany returned to her spot on the sofa and stared into the flames. As the fire crackled, she considered her predicament. It would not be long, she guessed, before this Tru-person began to make a move on her. Brittany almost hoped she would, so that she could put her in her place. If she thinks she can bring me to this cozy little retreat, build a nice fire, provide a warm supper, and then get a little repayment for her trouble, she had another think coming. It wasn’t my idea to come all the way out to this God-forsaken mountain; I resisted strongly enough. Well, let her accept the situation on my terms, then, she decided emphatically.

Brittany heard a beeping of the microwave, and a few minutes later, Tru appeared with two steaming bowls. “Here ya go.” Tru placed the dish of roast on the coffee table in front of Brittany.

Brittany looked up at her with a pithy smirk. “Thanks.”

Tru turned around with her own bowl quickly, so that Brittany’s expression would not make her feel like a serf at the foot of a master. She sat at the

opposite end of the sofa and began to eat; glancing every so often at Brittany, who ate her own meal in abstract silence.

They finished at precisely the same time, and Tru rose to retrieve the bowl from Brittany. “Feel better, now?”

“Does it matter?” Brittany responded caustically.

Tru stood over her, holding both empty bowls, and after a brief, pregnant silence, she turned and took the dishes back into the kitchen. When she returned, Brittany stood in front of the fireplace, her arms folded. Tru came to the fire and held her palms out to its warmth. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

Brittany snorted. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Tru could feel the hair on the back of her neck rise up, and had to concentrate all her energy on maintaining control of the raw temper that this new version of Brittany seemed to incite in her. The frustration she had felt when they first met sprang from sexual tension, and Brit’s aloofness, but she had never been mean. Tru bit her bottom lip hard and exhaled slowly.

“Oh,” Brittany turned to face her, sarcastically. “Did you expect me to bed down with you?”

Tru felt the restraints she had placed carefully around her temper stretch and break. “Hey!”— came the angry shout.

Brittany gawked at Tru, her eyebrows high on her forehead.

“Do I have green teeth?”

Brittany cleared her throat, mumbled something which Tru cut off.

“—am I seven feet tall, hairy like an ape, with swamp slime oozing off me?! Am I?!” she demanded.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s simple enough.” Tru counted off each item on her fingers, “Do I have green teeth? Am I seven feet tall? Am I hairy like an ape? Do I have swamp slime oozing off me? Well?”

Brittany stared at her, transfixed by the redness of Tru’s face, the way her dolphin-gray eyes turned to pewter. “I never said—”

“No! You never said it! But you sure as hell treat me that way! I’m not a monster! Get over yourself!” —and she stomped from the room, down the hall, and slammed the guest room door behind her.

Brittany stared at the doorway for a long moment, her eyes moving as if reading some invisible words in the air.

Slowly, she smiled.

A half hour later, as Brittany watched CNN, Tru appeared in the doorway.

“I’m sorry for—losing my temper...”

Brittany smiled demurely. “No problem.”

Tru hesitated, then moved to the sofa to sit. She watched headline news for a moment, and

the anchor announced that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his son were injured in a

motorcycle accident.

“Governor Schwarzenegger?” Brittany said. “The actor?”

Tru smiled. “Yeah. I guess it sounds crazy if you don’t remember it.”

They continued to watch, until the ticker mentioned snowstorms in Colorado. Tru picked up

the remote and tuned to the Weather Channel, to find that it was headed in their direction. “It’s going to get pretty nasty outside tonight.”

The phone rang and Tru answered it, telling Brenda that Brittany was fine and still recovering from the accident. She hung up. “Brenda said to tell you hello and she’s thinking about you.”

“Who’s Brenda?” Brittany said.

Tru blinked a few times. “Never mind.”

The small talk disintegrated into no talk at all, and finally they were left with only the sound of the television.

As Brittany flipped through channels on cable, Tru pulled her laptop from the bag beside the sofa, and booted into Windows, opened Outlook Express and opened the mail in her eCig folder. She had new orders to fill.

Brittany watched her for a moment. “Do I have my own computer?”

Tru looked up. “Um...yeah...it’s in the bedroom closet, in a black bag.”

Brittany got up and fetched it, soon settling back down on the sofa next to Tru. Oddly, she found that she knew exactly how to boot up and use it.

Those memories had been untouched. But she had no idea what she would find. She opened her own Outlook, and then watched her inbox start to fill up. “Holy crap,” she murmured.

“What?”

“’You’ve got mail’...” she mimicked the infamous sound byte.

“I bet you do.”

Brittany watched as they added: offers for penis enlargement, fake lottery winnings, and Canadian prescription offers; mail from Brenda, with subject lines growing progressively worried about where Brittany had disappeared to; funny pictures and joke forwards from Jan, Liz...and a mail from someone named Travis, letting her know he had a guest room if she needed it. Odd. She glanced at Tru and decided against mentioning it, but wasn’t sure why. “I got a mail from Brenda.” She said instead. “Should I write

back? I mean, I don’t know what to say, because I don’t really remember her...”

“Well, I contacted most people and let them know the situation. They understand.”

“Oh.” She looked up at the doorway to the hall. “Are you going to show me around the house?”

“Okay.”

Brittany stood and followed as Tru started toward the hall. Tru indicated the first door on the right. “The master bedroom. You can sleep in here.”

“Alone, right?”

Tru sighed. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”