Chapter 23: Snakes and Ladders

A family is a patchwork quilt
with kindness gently sewn
Each piece an original
with beauty all its own.

With threads of warmth and happiness
it's lightly stitched together
To last in love throughout the years
a family is forever.
-Unknown

He choked on the breath he'd taken, coughed, and sputtered something that sounded vaguely like "What?"

"You know...Melinda," continued Daisy, as though she were reminding him of something as undeniable as the trees were green. "She gives me the stink eye every time I go into the museum."

Enos barely knew where to start with her comment. Somehow, he'd gone from calmly watching the storm and reminiscing over his childhood to being strapped into a runaway freight train with no brakes. "She's not my girlfriend. Where'd you even get that idea?"

"Oh, don't be silly, everyone knows you two are sweet on each other. Besides, I decided to go for a bike ride last Friday night, and y'all looked very chummy on the porch of the Ashbury. Pete said-"

Ah, there was the culprit. "If you've got any questions about me, I'd thank you to ask me, not my deputy."

"When am I supposed to ask you? You're never around."

"Just... never you mind that. I'm here now, ain't I?" He was glad she couldn't see his face. It felt like it was on fire.

There was silence from her side of the room and, if she was the same Daisy he'd grown up with, she was weighing what exactly to say next. Maybe she was. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper.

"I wouldn't know where to start."

"Well, ask me a question," he told her. "Either I'll answer it or I won't."

"You go first," she insisted. "We'll take turns."

He hadn't expected her to flip the tables on him. A question for Daisy? Once upon a time he'd had nothing but questions for her. Except that woman was dead and gone, and he'd had to keep reminding himself of it each time he was confronted with her doppelganger.

"What's losing your memories like?" That was something he'd truly wondered. It had to be awfully confusing.

She laughed, humorlessly. The sound came from the floor, and he pictured her laying on her back staring up into the dark, now that the lightning had passed on to the west. "Like everyone but me has gone crazy," she answered. "I still feel like I went to sleep in 1964 and woke up in 1987. I keep expecting it to all be a dream. Where were you twenty five years ago? I mean, if all of a sudden you woke up back then."

"Probably trying not to flunk outta school."

He counted his age back by tens, then subtracted another five on the fingers of one hand to come up with twelve. Three years before his father had been killed and that terrible line drawn in the sands of his life. He imagined being plucked from those happy days and thrust into the present, for his loss to be new and raw again, as Aunt Lavinia's must have been for Daisy.

"That was before your dad died," she said, mirroring his thoughts. "Before you came to live with us Dukes at the farm."

"Sounds like you already know all about me."

"Not really," she insisted. "Bits and pieces, mostly from my journal, but reading a book about someone doesn't mean you know them."

Whether she knew him or not was irrelevant - he recognized that tone. It meant she had found something interesting and needed to pick it apart, especially after being denied information on the subject. Forbidding Uncle Jesse to tell her about him probably just threw gas on the fire. Daisy never did like the word, 'no'.

"Why don't you tell me what you do know," he suggested, "that way I won't have to repeat myself."

"Is that my question?"

"We've got all night, I'll think up some more."

"Well...the first time I heard your name was when Bo mentioned you last Christmas, but all I could get outta Uncle Jesse and the boys was that you'd been a deputy and were part of our gift exchange. Then Art Sills showed me your race car and told me how you and your dad had fixed it up. After your dad died, your mom left and Uncle Jesse took you in to keep you outta the orphanage. I gotta tell you, Enos, I ain't got much respect for anyone who'd run off and leave their kid."

Agnes Strate had never lost much love on him as a son, but time had softened the pain of abandonment and maturity had brought forgiveness, even if it wasn't warranted. "People deal with grief in different ways," he reminded her. "Sometimes they run away."

Bitter irony, he thought, and told himself that he had not done the EXACT SAME THING, because him leaving Hazzard had been different. So very, very different.

"Still..."

"It was a long time ago, Daisy," he sighed. "Let it go."

"Fine." She mumbled something and he knew it wasn't the last he'd hear about it. "Why'd you leave Hazzard?"

"I reckon you don't remember how Hazzard County's justice system works. I decided to go back to being an actual lawman instead of sitting out at Rosco's imaginary speed traps," he said. "Getting paid enough to eat was pretty nice, too."

It was the line he'd fed everyone in California, and he'd almost started to believe it himself. In fact, before Daisy had shown up in Tamarack with her infectious grin and winning ways, it was hardening nicely into the concrete of solid fact and cold reality.

"Oh."

He looked over at her, though it was too black to see anything. "You sound disappointed."

"I dunno," she said, stifling a yawn, "I guess I thought there'd be a more interesting story behind it than that."

She rolled over onto her stomach, propping her head up on her elbows to look out the window. Enos hadn't countered her with another question, and she suspected that telling her his life story hadn't been part of the plan when he set out to rescue her from the storm. The rain, which had tapered to slow drips while they were talking, began again, beating down in earnest against the metal roof. It reminded her of another storm, not so very long ago...

"Why'd you come here?" His voice was soft against the rain. "To Tamarack?"

It was the question she had expected weeks ago that had never come. Now, here it was. Yet with all her planning, she didn't fully understand it herself. How could she tell him that, while rifling through his personal information, she'd discovered she was his sole beneficiary and had taken a chance that he was more important to her than a town full of random strangers? Either she would never see him again, or he would kick her out and ship her home. She rolled onto her side, facing him, pillowing her cheek against the quilt. It smelled like home; like cotton sheets fresh out of the the cedar closet.

"You mean why did I leave Hazzard?"

Enos wasn't fooled. "No, that's different. You already told me that the day you showed up at my cabin."

"We were close once, weren't we? Like family?" She yawned again and let her eyes slip closed, wondering what was so all-fired important about why she was there.

"Y'all used to say I was practically a Duke."

She imagined him as a little boy, sitting with her at the table watching Aunt Lavinia cook. It almost felt real, but Enos was, and would forever be, part of that dark abyss that she could never light again.

"Enos..."

"Hmm?"

The worlds of sleep and reality wove together beneath the sound of the rain and afterwards, she would not recall having spoken her last thought aloud.

"I'm really sorry I forgot you."

There was something pecking at her window.

At least that's what it sounded like. She drifted up from a dreamless sleep to find herself curled on a quilt in the sunlit lantern room of St. Genevieve lighthouse. A second blanket, scratchy and store bought, had been draped over her sometime in the night. Outside the window, a seagull was pecking at a shell wedged into the grate of a metal balcony. She reached and tapped against the glass and it flew off, screeching its displeasure.

The morning sun was high enough to fill the upper portion of the room, and she marveled that she had slept so deeply with it shining in her face. Enos still sat against the lens (which was even more impressive and massive in broad daylight), eyes closed, his head tilted back against the giant prism.

Sleep smoothed the lines from stress and too many long nights and without them he looked younger than Luke, though she knew they were roughly the same age. His hair, which had seemed black under the artificial lights of the Sheriff's station, was a rich brown with undertones of auburn. His hands rested in his lap, and there were several small white scars around their knuckles, but the nails were neat and trimmed. Not a nail biter, then. The undershirt, stretched tightly across his chest and around his biceps, was slightly too small for him and looked uncomfortable.

He stirred and yawned before his eyes fluttered open and narrowed in confusion. She watched as he remembered, his gaze lighting on her momentarily before he stretched and massaged his neck with a pained expression.

"Morning, su-" She caught herself. Calling him the pet name she used for her cousins probably wasn't appropriate. He didn't seem to notice, just gave her an answering groan as he rubbed his face. "You oughta go to bed when you get back home. You look terrible."

"Thanks," he ground out.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like...you look awful tired, I meant."

He shook his head. "Hungry. Need coffee." He checked his watch and scrambled to his feet, instantly awake. "Possum on a gumbush! It's 10:45!"

She laughed at his antics. "And amazingly enough, the world's still spinning around!"

"I've gotta check in," he said, ignoring her. "'Scuse me, Daisy."

He stepped across her and disappeared down the trapdoor into the service room. She stood up, her back stiff from sleeping on the floor, and looked out across the lake. Superior was calm now, idyllic, as though the storms of the previous evening had been a dream. Seagulls hovered on the air currents, swooping down to the beach to pick over dead fish thrown up on the rocks of the little island. It looked like somewhere rich people took vacations.

She gathered up the blankets to fold them. The scratchy one was an old moving blanket, the kind that Uncle Jesse kept in Sweet Tilly for nights when he'd had a long run and couldn't make it back until morning. Finished with that one, she sat it down and started on the quilt, a faded patchwork 9-square. She shook the wrinkles out without giving it much thought until her eyes caught on something familiar. One of the prints, a calico with tiny blue and pink flowers, looked just like an old apron her aunt used to have. And this one... why, this yellow one with white roses looked like one of her favorite dresses!

"Aunt Lavinia made that for me before she died," said Enos from behind her.

Daisy startled and dropped the quilt, not having heard him come back up the ladder. He picked it up where it had fallen.

"She told me whenever I felt lonely to remember that I was family - no matter that my last name wasn't Duke." He held up part of it for her to see. "Looky here, she put a little piece of everyone into it. This square was one of Bo's shirts, and here's Luke, and Uncle Jesse's, Aunt Lavinia, and you...and this one's mine." He pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes as he folded it in half and draped it around her shoulders. "I didn't mean to leave it here last time I came, but I'd forgotten I put it in the cedar chest."

She hugged it to herself, not knowing what to say, while he moved on to another subject. "Joy says they just got the road clear." His brow knitted together as though he had only just noticed something. "I reckon you'll want a shower and some clean clothes. I hope that shirt ain't too musty. I started keeping an extra uniform in the truck after dragging one too many four wheelers outta the swamp."

"No, it smells like Old Spice."

"We'd better git," he continued, picking up the moving blanket and tucking it under his arm. "It's supposed to turn cold later, and I ain't used the fireplace since March. I'll have to sweep the chimney before I light it." He motioned that she should go first down the ladder. "I'll need to lock the trapdoor."

The coast road was littered with strips of sand blown in from the beach, and the pavement wore the last of autumn's bright leaves. She had to laugh at Enos' description of the stark trees as 'plucked chickens' as he loaded her bike into the back of the truck. The day was warm, but the warmth had a fleeting quality to it - a stillness, as though it were waiting for something. She suspected it might be winter, a prospect which both thrilled and unsettled her, and by the time they pulled up to the cabin, the breeze had a noticeable chill to it.

She snagged her still damp shirt off the backseat and, after a moment's thought, grabbed his wet clothes as well. "Enos, this uniform's still wet. Do you want me to wash it?"

"Shoot, I plum forgot about that," he said. "If you don't mind, I'd be much obliged."

"It's not a problem. I've got some towels I need to wash, anyway." She hesitated and then said, "If you've got any other clothes, I can put them in, too."

"No, that's alright," he said, fumbling for the door key before he realized it was unlocked. "That's awfully nice of you to offer, though."

She had to bite her cheek to keep from giggling at his starched politeness and the blush he tried to hide, and guessed that her washing his boxer shorts was a little too close for comfort. She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help picking at him. "I did the laundry for three men," she reminded him, "I've seen unmentionables before."

"I think I'll manage."

Stop. Stop before you make him angry or run him off and ruin everything, she told herself - then promptly disregarded her own advice. "Don't shrink your boxers like you did your undershirt," she snickered.

Now he did look at her, his face an even deeper shade of red.

"I'm really sorry, Enos," she rushed, mortified. "The filter between my brain and my mouth got kind of leaky after my accident, but the medicine the doctor gave me to help just made me want to stare at the floor all day, so I dumped it in Hazzard Pond. I'm just joshin you."

His expression shifted to one she couldn't read. Sadness? Resignation? "I know you are, Daisy." He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then pointed back towards the loft. "I've got to get some old clothes on to sweep the chimney." Halfway towards the stairway, he stopped and turned back. "Don't do that."

Her heart sank. She'd upset him after all. "Don't do what?"

"Apologize...for teasing me. Don't do that again."

"I-"

"I've gotta get dressed." He disappeared up the stairs, ending any discussion of the matter.

She started the washer, then lay down on the cot and stared up at the ceiling. The last twelve hours had been a whirlwind of discovery, both about Tamarack and Enos, while details about her own past remained sketchy. Uncle Jesse and the boys had been counseled to keep it from her, and to be honest she wasn't sure how much she wanted to know, anyway. Her life was like a game of 'Snakes and Ladders', and in October of 1987, she'd landed on square with the slide going all the way back to the start.

What did it matter what she had done? She couldn't go back.

'Don't apologize for teasing me.'

She felt like she had missed something, but trying to navigate their tangled former friendship without her memories was turning out to be like playing checkers blindfolded. It took the entire twenty minute wash cycle for her to come to the conclusion that her teasing him was normal, and to apologize for it had been tantamount to her own character assassination.

Her thoughts were interrupted by him knocking on her door. She hopped up and opened it to find him, not in ratty clothes, but a clean uniform.

"You wearing that to sweep the chimney?"

"Joy just called," he said. "There's been some drunk guy hanging around the museum all day. Pete worked night shift, and Rodney's still on vacation, so I told her I'd go check it out."

At the museum? she wondered. I'll just bet you did.