A Thousand Sleepless Nights Read online

  ALSO BY

  Teri Harman

  The Moonlight Trilogy:

  Blood Moon

  Black Moon

  Storm Moon

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  © 2018 Teri Harman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. The opinions and views expressed herein belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of Cedar Fort, Inc. Permission for the use of sources, graphics, and photos is also solely the responsibility of the author.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-2886-0

  Published by Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.

  2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT 84663

  Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Harman, Teri, 1981- author.

  Title: A thousand sleepless nights / Teri Harman.

  Description: Springville, Utah : Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc. Springville, Utah, [2018] |

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017049136 (print) | LCCN 2017053318 (ebook) | ISBN 9781462128860 (epub, pdf, mobi) | ISBN 9781462121922 (perfect bound : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Marriage--Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3608.A74478 (ebook) | LCC PS3608.A74478 T46 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017049136

  Cover design by Shawnda T. Craig

  Cover design © 2018 Cedar Fort, Inc.

  Edited by Melissa Caldwell and Jessica Romrell

  Typeset by Breanna Call Herbert

  For my Grandmas: Mary Jo, Loie, and Roberta.

  Thank you for your creativity and humor, your quiet gratitude, and your sassy spunk.

  n

  PART ONE

  Matilda

  Early April 1992

  Matilda White pressed her Aunt Jetty’s withered, skeletal hand between hers. Jetty’s normally milky skin was now ashen and parchment-thin over flaccid blue veins. Matilda stared at the veins, which were easier to look at than her aunt’s sunken face.

  Both the tall, single-hung windows in Jetty’s bedroom were flung open to allow the cool air to flow in over the four-post bed, rustling the creamy sheers hung at the windows and around the bed. The air brought with it the sound of crickets and the smell of grass. The room was dark, with one pillar candle burning on the nightstand.

  “Don’t leave me,” Matilda whispered, her throat tight and face wet with tears. “I can’t stand it. I won’t survive it.”

  “Oh, Tilly,” Jetty sighed, her voice hoarse and dry.

  Matilda finally looked up. Jetty’s jade-green eyes were clouded, the lids drooping. Her wild ochre hair was gone. About a half hour ago, Matilda had removed the emerald silk scarf covering Jetty’s scabbed baldness because it had been itching her. This person was not Jetty. Not the vibrant, unpredictable woman who had raised Matilda since she was six months old.

  Jetty coughed, clearing her throat. “The garden starts will be ready for planting about mid-May.” Matilda nodded obediently. “Don’t forget to prune the tomatoes or all the growth will go to the greens instead of the fruit.”

  “I know.”

  “And water the herbs a little extra. You know they are picky.”

  Matilda held back the sobs rising in her chest. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you won’t be here.”

  Jetty laughed, which quickly turned into a racking cough. “But I won’t be! Fate has spoken.”

  Matilda couldn’t laugh about this. More hot tears tracked down her face.

  Jetty grew quiet, and Matilda’s gaze went immediately to her aunt’s chest to be sure she was still breathing. She was, but it was a Herculean effort. “What can I do?” Matilda asked.

  Jetty smiled, weakly squeezed her hand. “I never told you about Frank.”

  Matilda looked up, sniffed, intrigued despite her despair. “Who was Frank?”

  “Frank Mitchell. He was the man I was supposed to love, but didn’t.” Jetty paused to breathe. Matilda moved her chair a little closer, keeping a comforting grip on Jetty’s hand. “He was so handsome: tall, broad shoulders, thick chocolate-brown hair, and the eyes to match. He was witty and suave. He wanted me to marry him. I said yes and made the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Matilda had never heard even a whisper of this. Jetty had always been so open about her life, sharing stories like cookies, but not this. “What happened?”

  Jetty wearily closed her eyes and shrugged. “I didn’t love him, not really. A year into our marriage, I felt like a prisoner in my own tedious fairy tale. I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t, and nothing kills a person quicker.” She opened her eyes, and a bit of her usual spark was there. “Except maybe liver cancer.”

  Matilda scoffed. “Stop! That’s not funny.”

  “Oh, sure it is.” She closed her eyes again, but the smile remained. “So I left Frank. Best thing I ever did. ’Cause a month later, I met Enzo Amara. I ran away from my marriage, ran all the way to Florida, and found the love I had always dreamed of. I found my life.”

  “Enzo Amara? Another man you never mentioned?”

  “It hurts too much.” A tear slipped down her wrinkled cheek. “Enzo was everything. Devastatingly handsome, but not in that Ken-doll way that Frank was. Enzo had rich character written in the cut of his jaw and eyes filled with a thousand stories. He was quiet and kind, but fiercely passionate. He was a talented stonemason. Oh, you should have seen his hands!” A smile full of memory. Jetty looked at her own hands and the smile slipped away. “He was also Italian and could cook like nobody’s business.”

  “Is that why you love to cook?”

  “Yes, he taught me. I feel close to him when I cook. It’s all I had after he was gone.” A small sigh. “Every time I cook pasta, I can feel his hand on my face.”

  Matilda’s heart fell. “What happened to him?”

  Jetty’s tears flowed more freely now, and her breathing grew loud, ragged. “He fell. Off a ladder. Just a normal day at work and then … it wasn’t. It was the end of everything. I got only three blissful years with Enzo. A blink of an eye, really.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jetty.” Matilda matched her aunt’s tears. “He sounds amazing. I wish I’d known him.”

  “I’ve never been that angry. It was a desperate kind of anger, that helpless kind that eats away at you.” She took a hard breath. “Twice I woke up with the curtains on fire ’cause of that nasty grief.”

  Matilda rubbed Jetty’s hand. Jetty loved to embellish, to add magic to the ordinary. “Really?”

  “Truly.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I came to Silent Fields; they needed a kindergarten teacher. I bought this house. No one in town knew what I’d been through. I couldn’t stand the idea of sharing it. I told your mother, of course, but no one else because speaking
his name sliced open my heart.” She sighed. “It felt like I was bleeding to death. Slowly. I buried that fiery grief and parts of me turned to ash. I never got them back.”

  Matilda began to worry about how upset Jetty had become. Her breathing and heart rate were irregular. A cold sweat had formed on the back of her hand and across her bare forehead. “Jetty …”

  “I’m okay.” She took a slow breath. “If you had not come to me, I may not have loved anything or anyone again.” She touched Matilda’s cheek with her cold hand. “I lived in a fog of grief until you came. And that’s not to say I didn’t grieve my sister and your father—their deaths hurt something awful—but you gave me a reason to live again. You need a reason to live after a tragedy.”

  Matilda kissed the back of Jetty’s hand. She knew that her aunt was trying to teach her something, to help her deal with what was to come, but Matilda didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to plan for a life without Jetty. “I wish I had known Mom and Dad. I wish they were here.”

  “They’d be very proud of you, Tilly.” Jetty tucked Matilda’s long black hair behind her ear. “You look so much like your father: the dark hair and dark eyes, perfect olive skin. But your shortness—that’s all Ivy. She was the shortest person I knew until you.” Jetty gave her a teasing smile. “Sweet, short Ivy.” An extra strain appeared around Jetty’s eyes. “Your poor mother. Please don’t be angry at her.”

  Matilda frowned. “Why would I be angry at her?”

  Jetty’s brow lowered. She looked at Matilda for a moment as if ready to say something, a struggle in her eyes. “I think I need some water,” she finally mumbled in a rough voice. She coughed weakly.

  Matilda turned away to grab the cup and straw. When she turned back, Jetty had her eyes closed. She took a tiny sip of water and then, “You know, Parker reminds me of Frank,” Jetty whispered.

  Matilda’s stomach tightened. “What? No. I love Parker.”

  “I don’t doubt that, but Tilly … is he your Enzo?” Jetty looked at her straight on, her expression serious. “Remember when you were learning to swim? It took you a long time to get comfortable with it, but even once you knew what you were doing, you were extra cautious. Do you remember?”

  Matilda nodded, her mind filling with the sound of lapping water and excited children. “That pool seemed as big as the ocean.”

  “You would sit in the shallow end and watch the kids jump off the diving board. You watched them with such fierce longing. You wanted to do it, but you never talked yourself into it. You chose the safer road.”

  Matilda recalled with stark clarity that feeling of wanting. Wanting but fearing. And fear winning over. It hadn’t been only swimming. There had been many moments in her life of fear and wanting, including this moment of watching Jetty slip away. “It scared me,” she mumbled meekly.

  Jetty closed her eyes and nodded. “I know, my girl. I think you have too much of both your practical mother and your crazy aunt in you. Those two sides are at constant war. But you’re about to face a hard time. You’ll have to wrestle with your own grief. You’ll need someone to help clear the fog. Can Parker do that?”

  Jetty was right, of course. Matilda had fought a battle of practicality and spontaneity every day of her life. Craving to fly but scared of heights. “Parker is a good man. He’ll be there for me.”

  “That’s not what I asked. I think maybe he’s a Frank, a shallow end. I haven’t said anything because I kept waiting for you to decide on your own. But I’m out of time and can’t go without speaking my piece.”

  Matilda blinked. Her heart raced as her mind fought Jetty’s opinion. She didn’t know what to say. Mostly because she was afraid Jetty might be right.

  Jetty went on, her voice low and tired. “I’m not saying he’s a bad choice. Parker is a good man, like you said. He’s been a wonderful friend to you. Marrying him is a very practical choice. But the question is this: Are you sitting in the shallow end wishing you could dive?”

  “I don’t …”

  “I don’t want you to live like I did, first with Frank and then after Enzo’s death. I don’t want you to live weighed down by sadness or paralyzed by fear. I want you to be happy. The kind of happy that borders on insanity. Playful and emotional and barefoot in the rain and kissing in the moonlight at three in the morning. Not he reads the sports section while she reads the travel section over breakfast, and pantsuits, and perfectly clipped hedges in the front yard. That insane kind of happy is far more interesting and fulfilling. I don’t want you to deny yourself that kind of joy because of practicality or because you’ve suffered tragedy.”

  “Jetty, I don’t know. That doesn’t really sound like real life. It’s sounds like a story. It sounds—”

  Jetty started coughing violently. Matilda moved onto the bed and slipped her arms around her aunt’s frail form. She held as tightly as she dared as Jetty hacked.

  A splatter of blood fell across the white sheets.

  Matilda wanted to scream.

  Once the coughing eased, she tried to offer Jetty another drink, but she wouldn’t take it.

  “Just hold me, Tilly-girl.”

  “Okay, okay,” Matilda answered softly, and a little desperately. She leaned back into the headboard and cradled Jetty in her arms. Jetty didn’t speak; her breathing was enormously difficult. Matilda felt she should answer Jetty’s questions about Parker and herself, explain how it was all right, but found she didn’t have anything to say. She didn’t know how to answer. And that made a knot form in the back of her neck.

  Jetty stirred. “I’m so sorry … I won’t be … at the wedding. Don’t … let this … ruin it.”

  “Shh,” was all Matilda could say. She didn’t want to think of the empty chair at her upcoming wedding. She didn’t want to think about the wedding at all.

  “And … Tilly. Be careful … with your grief. It’s powerful; it’s a … terrible thing. And you still … carry so much from your … dear parents. I’m sorry …” Jetty coughed painfully.

  Matilda held her until it passed; her own eyes pressed shut, tears leaking onto her cheeks. “Shh, now. Rest. Don’t worry about me. Just rest.” Matilda put her cheek against Jetty’s cool head. She didn’t want to think about grief. Just the idea of what was to come made her bones shake and her mind rattle into panic. Jetty’s fate—and her own—sat in her gut like a sleeping beast.

  Matilda looked over Jetty’s head to the bedroom windows. A quiet, moonlit night lay beyond. “It’s a full moon, Jetty. Your favorite.” Jetty’s body relaxed a little more into Matilda’s. “The yard looks like I’m seeing it through an antique mirror. The trees and grass are silver. There’s a breeze in the treetops. It smells like life; spring is almost here. The clouds don’t dare touch the moon for fear of hiding its brilliant light. I think it’s shining just for you.”

  Jetty sighed quietly.

  Her last breath.

  Which rose from her cracked lips in a lacey white puff.

  Henry

  Henry Craig sat at a table at the back of the Detroit Public Library Main Branch, bent over a blank sheet of paper. It was cold in this corner, by the large window. Henry was bundled into a hooded sweatshirt, ink stains on the cuffs. He tapped his pen on the table, nothing in his head. No words. No ideas. Nothing.

  I’m supposed to be a writer.

  He looked up from his page at the shelves and wandering patrons. Of course, sitting at this table every day doing nothing doesn’t really qualify as writing.

  Throughout his terrible childhood, as he was passed from one awful foster home to the next, all he’d ever wanted was to read and write. To write like the authors who swept him away from his own pitiful tragedy. He felt their passion as keenly as anyone; he felt the words roaring in his veins. And yet here he sat, nothing but frustrated scribbles on his page—again.

  He shoved the page into his tattered backpack and stood, scraping the chair back loudly enough to solicit a harsh, faceless shush from among the sta
cks. He frowned as he stomped down the stairs and out into the noisy city street.

  The cold air hit him like shards of glass, penetrating his thin sweatshirt. He flipped his hood up, pulling it low over his freckled face, and plunged his hands into his pockets.

  He was late for the night class he taught at the community college. Creative Writing. Henry shook his head and nearly laughed out loud. True, he nearly had a PhD in creative writing, but that didn’t make him feel like a writer. He wouldn’t feel like a real writer until he could unleash the passionate words trapped inside him. Like an obsessed treasure hunter, he knew they were there somewhere.

  He just needed to find a way to dig them up.

  Matilda

  Matilda’s first day back to work at the Silent Fields Library after Jetty’s funeral was not going as well as she hoped.

  The whole town had turned out for the untraditional funeral. Jetty had never attended church, though she’d donated money, food, and clothes to all three of the local congregations when they were in need. Many neighbors had ignorantly whispered behind her back about her quirks. That silly old maid, Jetty Oliver, with her jars of herbs and obnoxiously colorful house. Her wild hair and even wilder gardens. But underneath the gossip everyone loved Jetty; it was impossible not to. Many had passed through her kindergarten classroom, young minds set on fire with learning and discovery, or learned to draw at the community center under her tutelage.

  So the town had dutifully gathered in the Silent Fields Cemetery, around Jetty’s simple reclaimed-wood casket, the surface carved with a sun, a moon, and a sky of stars. There were mountains of flowers, pale lavender lilacs, and bold yellow tulips mostly—Jetty’s spring favorites. Matilda read the last chapter of Bridge to Terabithia, Jetty’s favorite book. Matilda doubted anyone had been able to understand what she read through her tear-tight voice.

  Then, with the sun shining and the air cool, it had been over.

  Done.

  Jetty gone.

  And the beast in Matilda’s gut had rumbled awake with a bitter growl.