Shay had spent the rest of the day reading her book and walking on the beach while I finished some work. My enthusiasm for the new company was growing, and I decided to spend some time researching a few of the new companies in outdoor gear. I also divided my massive contact list into people who I might still want to network with and people who were just taking up space on the list.

A few hours of staring at the computer screen in my office and I was ready to head out and see what my tempting houseguest was up to. A hysterical scream blared out of the surround sound system as I walked down the hall.

Shay was sitting on the couch in her cut-off shorts and t-shirt, with her legs crossed kindergarten style on my couch. She was clutching a green accent pillow as she watched the horror movie she'd turned on.

"Is that pillow your shield in case that guy with the chainsaw steps out of the television?"

Shay stared down at the pillow and laughed. "I hadn't even noticed I was holding it, but I guess that's what my silly subconscious was telling me." She tossed the pillow aside and stretched out her long, sleek legs. "Come watch. I think a head is about to roll." She patted the couch cushion next to her.

I sat down but kept a cushion of space between us. It was safer that way. It seemed my plan was working. As foggy minded as I got when I was near her, I felt more focused in other aspects of my life. My business plan was coming together in my head, and I was looking forward to roaring back into the investment world again. Only this time, without someone else's name on the letterhead.

I stared at the side of her face for a minute. Her nose crinkled in distaste as blood sprayed across a white wall. "Yuck, see I told you a head would fall soon."

I glanced at the monitor and caught the last glimpse of a severed head, wide eyed in shock, rolling off camera. "I'm impressed," I said. "I don't know if I've ever sat through a horror movie where the woman was actually watching the gory scenes."

She pulled her eyes from the screen. The glow of the television made the gold specks in her eyes glitter. Or maybe I was just imagining that they were glittering because her face was always so full of life. "That makes me seem a little creepy, doesn't it?" She placed her hand over her face and spread her fingers wide enough to look through. "Is this better?"

"Sure."

"Actually, if you want to change it, I'm kind of sick of this movie. The main girl is just interminably stupid. I mean, how my times can you put yourself within seconds of being brutally murdered before you realize you're a fool?"

"They do always seem to walk right into those dark rooms without thinking about switching on a light." I lifted the remote and flicked through a few channels. I landed on a commercial about animal abuse with a dog chained up in the snow.

Shay grabbed the pillow back and pushed it over her face. "Hurry, change it before the sad song starts."

I switched to the next channel, an old black and white western.

Shay dropped the pillow. "Thank you."

I turned and rested into the corner of the couch. "You just watched a bunch of people get chopped up to pieces as if you were watching a cooking show but a dog in the snow and you covered your face?"

Her smooth brow arched and disappeared under the long fringe of bangs. "Uh, yeah. Of course. Animals are awesome. None of them deserve to suffer. Didn't you ever have a pet as a best friend?"

"No pets. I always wanted one, but I never asked or considered bringing one into our house. My dad has a cruel streak a mile wide, and like you said, none of them deserve to suffer." I hadn't planned to peel open any of the ugly aspects of my childhood, but Shay was incredibly easy to talk to.

She gazed at me now as if she was trying to untangle me, trying to figure me out, but that knot was far too tight. "That's a shame. Every kid should have a pet. We rarely lived in a place where I could have a dog, but I had Tweety, my parakeet, and then there was Tutu, my grandmother's cat, who used to curl up under the covers next to me and purr me to sleep." She turned to face me and again crossed her long legs kindergarten style. Only there was nothing kindergarten about it.

"Maybe if you had just asked your dad, he would have let you have a pet. It might have made him less cruel. Animals add joy to any house, even if it's a one room apartment with stinky carpet and plastic lawn chairs for furniture. Surely your mom was all right with it."

"No mom," I said quickly. "Just me and my old man, Attila the Hun."

I rested back and took a moment to just look at her. She was that kind of woman, the kind you could just sit and admire.

"My dad is proud of being an asshole. It's what he strives for." I stood up. "Do you want a beer?"

"Yes please."

I walked to the refrigerator and pulled out two cold beers.

She peered up at me as I handed her the bottle. She took extra care not to come too close to my fingers. "He couldn't be that bad." She rested back. "You seemed to turn out all right."

"I've learned how to seem all right. But this unusual situation must give you some clue about my true psyche." I sat down in that far away corner, wishing that I could sit right next to her and drag her into my lap.

I drank some beer, hoping to wash away the dirty thoughts that had just crept stealthily into my head. I knew the one subject that could turn me cold even with a hot woman sitting next to me. "When I was nine, I badly wanted this remote control race car I'd seen on television. I was allowed one gift for my birthday, but it had to meet with my dad's approval. The only thing I wanted was that car. I sat at school all day and daydreamed about racing that thing around the house and yard. I was obsessed with having it, so of course, Dad didn't want me to have it."

She looked at me in question.

"My dad thinks possessions make you shallow and stupid. He has mountains of money, but he rarely buys anything."

"He's partially right, but still, if I had mountains of money, I'd be buying all sorts of useless stuff." Her pink lips wrapped around the beer bottle. Her long throat moved with swallows as she drank the beer. I realized I was hyper-aware of every move she made.

"My crazy old man decided my fearsome fixation—his words—on the toy was a perfect opportunity to teach me a lesson. I woke up on my birthday, and for the first time ever, there was a gift box waiting for me that wasn't flat enough to be a shirt or a pair of underwear. It was a big chunky box wrapped in paper that had race cars on it."

"He bought you the car?" she asked excitedly.

"Before I continue, I should probably warn you that none of my life stories have a happy ending."

She slumped back. "In that case—" Again she wrapped her lips around the bottle and gulped the beer. "O.K. I'm fortified. Continue."

"I remember pulling off the shiny ribbon. My heart was racing. But I kept reminding myself that there was no way the car was under the paper. I knew he would never buy it for me. The paper ripped free. I jumped up and down, yelling and cheering, something I was never allowed to do in the house. Or anywhere near my dad, for that matter."

Shay sat forward in anticipation. "It was the car?" Then her mouth turned down in a sweet frown. "Oh my gosh, was the car box filled with underwear?"

I laughed. "Actually, I'm surprised it wasn't. It wouldn't have been nearly as cruel as what happened next."

She held up her hand for me to stop as she finished the beer. "All right. Go ahead."

"After I finished jumping around and cheering, I sat down in front of the box, ready to open it and live out my remote control race car dreams. Dad pulled his keys out of his pocket. I thought he was going to use them to cut the tape from the box. He told me to pick up the box and go out to the car. I was still in shock that he had bought me the gift, but something about the way he was acting began to worry me. I could feel the rush of excitement flowing out of me. I'd stupidly let myself believe that he had done something fatherly, something human, something that made me smile. We climbed in the car. I held that stupid box on my lap as if I was afraid it would jump out of my arms and out the window. My mind circled the possibility that he was driving me to the park so I could really race the thing. But that notion was quickly squashed when he turned the car into the Goodwill parking lot. I still remember what he said when he pulled up to the donation center. He said 'Nash, there are many kids who don't get any toys on their birthday'. And I thought—yeah, I'm one of those kids. He watched and waited while I climbed out of the car. I was holding back tears, knowing that they would only get me in trouble. I walked up to the donation center and handed over my prized possession, my dream toy. I never even got to see the thing out of its box."

Shay's brown eyes looked slightly glassy as she looked at me. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, but your dad is seriously twisted. I'm glad you never had a pet."

"Yep, me too." I sucked down the rest of my beer. "That's why you can't watch a commercial with a dog shivering in the snow. You grew up with love and happiness and you learned about love and empathy."

"Hmm," she said quietly. She scooted into the corner of the couch and hugged the pillow to herself. Her gaze dropped, and she fidgeted with the tassels on the pillow. "One night, when I was twelve, I was sitting at our wobbly kitchen table doing my homework. My mom cooked up macaroni and cheese from a box while I finished my algebra. We ate it a lot. We would spice it up with a dash of hot sauce and pretend it was a gourmet meal. That night I knew my mom was in one of her dark moods. I know now that she struggled with depression, but as a kid, her dark moods meant that she didn't like to talk or laugh or get out of bed. This time the mood had stretched on for two weeks, a long time in my twelve-year-old world."

She stopped tugging on the tassels and just gripped the pillow against her. "I was so relieved when I finished the last algebra problem. I hated math. My mom walked into the kitchen. It was late fall, and she had pulled on her sweatshirt because the apartment heater had never worked right. She handed me my sweatshirt too. I didn't think anything of it until she told me to put on my shoes. We're going down to the beach, she said so quietly I was sure I'd misheard her. We'd only ever gone to the beach in summer and even that was rare." Shay's attention was temporarily pulled to the window. A moon hung low over the water, casting a yellow stripe across the ocean.

"She was silent on the entire bus ride," she continued, pillow still in her arms. "She held my hand, but she didn't say a word. I knew better than to ask her why we were going to the beach because I knew in her dark mood she wouldn't have enough energy to answer my question. So I just sat there quietly watching the other tired looking people on the bus, most on their way home from work. I figured my mom wanted to go to the beach in hopes that it would cheer her up and kick her out of her dark mood."

She pulled the pillow away from her and looked at it. "I'm destroying this. Poor thing."

"No, it's fine. Hug it all you want. The decorator put a bunch of pillows around the house, and I really don't like them."

Shay hugged it in her arms again. "Thanks. I'm actually becoming quite attached to it." She stretched her legs out and stared down at her bare feet. "I remember the beach was deserted and most of the lights along the path were broken. We took off our shoes. I'd only ever experienced hot sand, and I was giggling at how cold it felt between my toes. My mom laughed with me for a second, and I was relieved. I was sure the beach was going to help her mood. We walked down to the water and sat in the moist sand. The waves looked scary and black and I kept imagining ugly tentacle-limbed creatures lurking on the sandy bottom."

Shay stopped and took a slow breath. Her expression said it all. I knew what was coming next. My throat tightened. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt a lump in my throat.

"My mom stood up and brushed the sand off her pants. She leaned over and kissed the top of my head and told me I was the only star that ever twinkled in her dark sky. I was trying to figure out what was happening." Shay's voice wavered. "It all happened so fast. She ran into the water, and I assured myself she'd turn around soon. But she didn't. She just kept swimming. I jumped up and ran in knee deep. But I couldn't swim. I screamed for her so loud and so long, I couldn't talk for days afterward. And there was no one around, no one to hear me. I just remember her long hair disappearing beneath the surface. She never came up for air. They found her body two days later a mile down the coast on some rocks."

"Holy shit, Shay."

She sucked in a long shuddering breath. "Don't get me wrong, up until that major parenting misstep, my mom had been great. We never had much and we always struggled. She did have her low moments, but we were good friends. I guess that made losing her that much harder. And I did go through a period where I was mad as hell at her for killing herself right in front of me. But the more I read about depression, the more I realized she just wasn't in a place to make normal decisions, the more I learned to forgive her. Yes, I grew up with love but happiness was sporadic, and there was nothing normal about my childhood. Afterward, I went to live with my grandmother, who wanted me about as much as she wanted the painful arthritis in her gnarled fingers." She relaxed back, still clutching the pillow.

I badly wanted to hold her, and for once, the thought of touching her had nothing to do with sex.