On the other side of the mirror, I saw Heath reenter the dining room. I pushed the iPad aside and moved closer to the mirror. Heath had joined the doctor, and the two men stood in silence in the middle of the empty room, both of their faces pale and haggard.
I watched, heart beating against my chest like a trapped bird, waiting for something to happen, for them to tear into each other or for the heavens to fall, but all that happened was they started talking like a couple of guys who’d just run into each other at the bar. I couldn’t hear what they were saying—if there was some sort of audio connection from the apartment to the observation room, it had been disabled. I kicked at the door one more time. Nothing.
Clearly, Heath wanted to confront the doctor alone. And he deserved that much.
I sat, rebooted the iPad, and opened a file labeled Age 15. The dazzling young man pacing the sitting room on-screen made me suck in my breath. From all indications, he’d reached his full height, over six feet, and even though his face was still rounded with baby fat, his shoulders had broadened and his jaw sharpened. His hair was a shock of shiny black, a buzz cut that had grown out. It was my Heath, raw and coiled, oozing with fresh testosterone and ready to launch at the slightest provocation.
I felt the familiar curl in my stomach. That delicious tightening I felt every time I laid eyes on him.
Cecelia sat on the sofa; her feet were tucked up under her, and a lock of blonde hair fell across her face. She was knitting—a big, nubby, ivory thing fanned out over her legs. An afghan, maybe. Or a circus tent, who knew. I wondered if she and the doctor were still playing their twisted game of push-and-pull, ripping each other’s clothes off in the observation room and using Heath as their pawn.
Cecelia sent Heath a reproving look, then dropped her knitting. “Sit, my dear. Read or work on the birdhouse. Something.”
“Fuck the birdhouses.”
“Heathcliff.”
“Don’t call me that.”
She cleared her throat carefully. “Sam. There’s schoolwork to be done. Reading.”
“I finished.”
“All of it?”
He tromped to the window, and she resumed her work.
“What happened at the end?” she asked lightly.
“Everyone interesting died,” he snapped. “And the ones who didn’t, got married.”
She laughed, but then shook her head and sighed. He dropped down beside her and let his head fall on her shoulder. She shrugged it off immediately, but the needles in her hands stopped moving. There was a moment when neither of them moved. Then Heath scooted down to the far end of the sofa, stretched out, and gingerly laid his head on her lap.
“Heathcliff,” she whispered. And then laid her hand on his hair and began to stroke it.
As she worked her fingers through his hair, his eyelids fluttered closed, and I could see hers lower too, as she watched him. Then, without warning, her hand stilled.
“We shouldn’t,” she said. Her voice sounded tired.
“You said he went into town.”
“I know, I know, but he’ll look at the tape later. And he’ll be angry.”
“I like it when he gets angry. It’s funny.”
“It’s not funny. I hate the way he treats you.”
“I don’t mind it. It’s worth it.”
She was silent.
His voice rose. “I just want you to touch my hair, okay? Just touch my goddamn hair. Is that too much to ask?”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can,” he said. “He doesn’t fucking own you. Or does he? Does that lunatic get to tell you how to spend every minute of every day, like he does me?”
She spoke calmly. “I’m not your mother, Sam. I don’t do the things a mother would do. And besides, it feels like it’s . . .” She faltered.
“Feels like it’s what?”
Her hand went to her chest.
“What?”
“Like maybe . . . it’s inappropriate.”
He stared at her, openmouthed. “What are you talking about?”
She shook her head, but kept playing with the buttons on her blouse. He straightened and shook his head.
“Oh, God. My God.” He laughed, but it was a sharp, harsh sound. “You think I want to . . .” He laughed again, this time a deep eruption from the depths of his belly. “Oh my God. No. You nitwit. You sad, desperate, lonely, dried-up old woman.” He moved closer to her, leaned into her face, and her eyes widened. “You want to know what I want? You want to know what I dream about?”
She didn’t move. It looked like she’d stopped breathing.
His voice was a whisper. “I dream of velvet skin. Of long, silky hair. A perfect face and full, soft lips. Green eyes, blue eyes, brown—I don’t care. I picture them closed when I touch firm tits, flat stomach. A tight, wet—”
She slapped him, hard, across the cheek.
He recoiled, then charged into the adjacent room, the classroom/kitchen combo. Underneath the mirror, there was a long cherry buffet where he stopped. Gripping it with both hands, he reared back his head and banged it against the edge of the wood.
I gasped.
He lifted his head and did it again. Then a third, fourth, fifth excruciating time. When he lifted his head, blood was pouring down his face from the gash on his forehead, dripping, separating, forking in the shape of a tree’s branches down his face and neck. He blinked as the blood coated his eye. I clapped my hand over my mouth when he smiled. His teeth were entirely red, a demon’s fangs behind his lips.
In the next room, Cecelia screamed. She ran to him, just as his knees buckled. She caught him, and he reached up to touch the split skin on his head.
“No, don’t touch it.” She pushed his hand away. “Oh, my dear, what have you done?”
His teeth glistened, one wild, white eye fastened on her.
“I have no pity,” he mumbled. “That’s what Heathcliff says in the book, isn’t it? I have no pity, because I’m not normal, but you are. I’ve hurt myself, and you feel pity. So now you want to touch me.”
She gathered him into her arms. “Yes, yes, my darling. My dearest dear.”
He pressed his face against her shoulder, smearing blood across the sleeve of her blouse. She touched his hair, raking her fingers through it over and over, then pressed a kiss on his head. She rested her cheek against him.
He reached up and took her hand. Worked the ring from her fourth finger, over her knuckle and off. She watched him slide it onto his pinky and study it intently.
I looked down at my left hand, still bare. The ring I’d misplaced—supposedly Heath’s grandmother’s ring—it had actually been Cecelia’s.
On the tape Heath spoke. “This is what people who love each other do. They give each other rings.” He looked back up at her. “Don’t let him tell you I can’t love. Don’t let him tell you that.”
She sobbed and rocked him for a little while longer. When they finally stood, they were locked into each other’s orbit. Like there was nothing and no one else in the universe but them. A chill ran up my back, all the way to the top of my head.
Cecelia sniffed and smoothed her hair. Cupped his face with her hands. “I’ve left the keys to the Nissan under your pillow, Sam. Take it. Take it now.”
For a minute it was as if she hadn’t said a word. Or he didn’t understand.
“Go,” she said faintly. Then Heath tore away, bolting out of the camera’s frame. I heard a scuffling sound, a slamming door, and a keening wail from Cecelia as she sank to the floor.
A loud thud in the observation room shook me from the iPad. The wall separating me from the dining room shuddered, and I found myself staring into the bulging eyes of a grotesquely contorted face. It was a deep purple, the smashed skin, and the veins along the temples pulsed. Even the veins in the eyes were visible, like tiny red starbursts against the glass. Cerny’s eyelid twitched against the mirror—an attempt to blink.
The iPad bobbled in my hands and clattered to the floor. I backpedaled, propelling the chair back against the far wall. Cerny, still pressed against the mirror, was beating his fists on it, clawing at the glass for purchase. I fisted both hands and pressed them to my mouth. Now I could see behind Cerny. Heath was holding him fast by the neck with the doctor’s own brown silk tie. He worked the tie, twisting it, cinching it tighter and tighter.