Entangled by Barbara Ellen Brink

our young bodies like
sheets on a line. The scene was so clear in my mind that I wondered
if it were a memory.
    “Did I sneak out one night, while we were
here, and meet you in the vineyard?” I asked, my senses filled with
damp soil, grape leaves, moonlight, and a hint of the spicy
aftershave Handel wore.
    His fingers tightened slightly around mine as
he stopped to face me. “Then you do remember,” he said, his eyes
reflecting the heaven’s lights. “I knew if I brought you out here
it would all come back.”
    I licked my lips; afraid his expectations
were slightly higher than my own. “I don’t remember anything; it’s
more of a picture in my mind. Feelings, snapshots, even smells, but
nothing definitive.”
    He rested his hands on my shoulders; his
fingers warm against my skin. “That’s what memory is. Sounds very
definitive to me.” His lips curved up. “Unless of course,
Minnesotans have a different definition for memory.”
    “You don’t understand. I can’t tell whether
the images are memories or just imagination.” I pulled away from
his hands and started walking again, setting my course for a dark
clump of Olive trees about a half mile away.
    “So, you’re prone to a lively imagination
then?” His teasing tone, softened by the night air around us, felt
too intimate. He kept pace with me, kicking at dry clods of earth
as though the tow-headed boy had possessed his feet.
    “Not usually.” I pulled a leaf from the vines
we passed and absently tore it to shreds, letting the pieces
flutter lightly to the ground. “Imagination isn’t something I’ve
needed a lot of since I became a lawyer. My clients provide more
than enough of their own.”
    He laughed quietly. “I know what you
mean.”
    We walked on without speaking, letting the
symphony of the night play on our ears; a cricket’s chirp blended
with the whisper of the wind in the vines and away in the distance
a lone dog howled at the moon. Handel reached out and took my hand
again, making it appear a natural thing to do, guiding me around a
low spot in the trail as though I wouldn’t have noticed it.
    “Don’t you find it strange that your memories
of this place and the weeks you spent here are forgotten?” he
finally asked. “I know you were young, but so was I. Those weeks
are very clear in my mind.”
    “Everyone’s not the same. Our brains don’t
all work the same. Maybe you remember that time because it meant
something special to you. I forgot it because it wasn’t special to
me.” I pushed the hair back from my face and sighed. Why did he
care whether I could remember two weeks of my life at the age of
eight?
    “Now you’re just being mean. Your mother said
you were very excited about the winery. You spent a lot of time
with your uncle, learning and exploring. And we became friends. I
know we were just kids, but a bond like that doesn’t disappear.” He
shook his head when I looked at him. “It might fade with time, but
it doesn’t disappear.”
    I stopped, his gaze piercing my psyche like a
needle in my thumb. “We were children, Handel. Just children.”
    “I know.” He reached up and pushed a strand
of hair behind my ear that the wind had pulled loose. “Children
that found solace in one another.”
    I narrowed my gaze, a questioning frown
furrowing my forehead. “What do you mean?”
    He shrugged, his eyes filled with sadness and
an underlying anger. “I came here at night to get away from my
father. He was an abusive alcoholic. I was his favorite target.” He
paused. “I don’t know what your personal secret was. You didn’t
say.”
    My eyes widened with comprehension. “You
think my father was abusive too,” I gasped. I shook my head, surety
in the strength of a lifetime of memories not forgotten. “My father
was a very passive man. Believe me, I would know. Just because he
had a fight with his brother once doesn’t mean he would ever hit a
child. He didn’t even believe in spanking.”
    Handel