Garden of Stones - By Sophie Littlefield Page 0,77

all week when she made the trek from the house to the burn barrel with the trash, or to dump wash water on the shrub roses along the back fence. She had in mind to start a rock garden of her own, a miniature version of the ones she remembered from Manzanar.

She had scouted the best location, the scarred and barren earth beyond the porch addition at the opposite end of the house from Garvey’s apartment. From the looks of it, no one ever went there; an untended plot of land separated the motel from the street. The narrow strip was shielded from view on two sides: by a sagging trellis in the front, and an overgrown tangle of blackberry canes that sprawled into the neighboring lot. Her stones were piled next to the house, some as small as a robin’s egg, others larger than her fist. She wanted to plunge her hands into the warm earth, to sift out the pebbles and twigs and create something orderly, something that was hers alone.

Lucy cleaned the first three rooms without incident, but when she got to room nine, she found the door slightly ajar. She knocked, not hard, hoping no one would answer. Lucy usually preferred to avoid the motel guests, with their lingering stares and awkward apologies upon seeing her scars.

From inside the room came the sound of a man hawking phlegm, and Lucy turned to go. But she’d gone only a few steps when he called out. “Hey! Girl! Come on in. You can clean around me, just pretend I’m not here.”

Lucy came back, leaving her cart outside the door as she tentatively entered. The door swung shut behind her. Inside, the room looked much like any other: the bedcovers were mussed, half a dozen cigarette butts were crushed in the ashtray, a suitcase lay open on the bed.

The man at the sink didn’t turn around. He was shaving the underside of his chin with a safety razor. “Start on the bed,” he said, and his voice triggered something inside her, a warning, a memory. Lucy tugged at the handle of her cart and tried to ignore her sudden unease. “Don’t mind my stuff, you can just throw it on the chair.”

A crumpled pair of pants had been discarded across the bedspread, inside out. When Lucy reached for them, she saw that the man’s underpants were twisted in the pant legs. She glanced back at the man, his muscular back and close-shorn, wheat-blond hair, and something snagged in her mind. Her hand hovered in the air as the memory took shape.

And then she knew, and it was too late.

“Well, what do you know.” He turned around and smiled at her. “Little Lucy Takeda. With a face like that, I’d know you anywhere.”

Lucy backed away, banging into the desk chair, but Reg Forrest was fast. He crossed the room in a few strides, standing much too close to her. He hadn’t bothered to rinse away the flecks of soap on his face, but he was as handsome as ever, even in his undershirt and shorts. Another man’s knees would be knobby and his gut flabby; another man would be self-conscious about his state of semi-undress. But Reg watched her like a cat with a mouse.

“I’ll leave,” she said quickly. “I can come back later, I can—”

“No, Lucy, stay and talk to me a minute.” He maneuvered himself between her and the door. “Tell me what happened to you. How did you end up here?”

“I—I just—” Act like nothing’s wrong, she thought, and maybe he would too. Maybe he wouldn’t remember. But she remembered.

“Feeling shy, eh? Just like your mother. Oh, she was a quiet one all those nights—fellows breaking their backs trying to get her to look at them and she didn’t give them anything. Except to George, of course.” He laughed, a hard grating chuckle. “Old George. Rest his soul. As for me, I got promoted, you know. Well, you probably don’t know, seeing as you were in the hospital. Sorry we didn’t visit, by the way...me and the boys. Some of them, well, after what your mother did, you can understand.”

Lucy’s fear trickled through her body, immobilizing her. It was like the night in the gardens, when Reg gave her the message from George Rickenbocker: his voice was pleasant, his expression friendly. There was nothing to suggest he intended her harm. Neither had there been that night—even as his fingers deftly pinched the nerve in her neck, causing