In the distance, a siren wails. Hearing it, Tully cocks his head to one side. Simpkins told me about the warrants out for Tully’s arrest, and on the lam, Tully must be hyperedgy and irrationally aware of sirens and police patrol cars.
“You call the police?” Tully asks.
I nod. There’s no need to tell him about the Valium-laced tea or that Trish was supposed to lavish me with enough money to pay off both Simpkins and himself, no need to tell him how I was supposed to have enough money to make a killing on my investment tip and enough money to pay off Laurel’s student loans. The ambulances and EMTs will arrive and save me from dying. I will live to see Laurel again. I will live to see Trish again so I can tell her how sorry I am. I hope she can forgive me. The siren becomes louder. More blood trickles from the gash in my neck, making me woozy and cold. What I need is a jumbo-sized Band-Aid and a doctor to stitch up the cut. That and a few fingers of twenty-one-year-old Scotch to ease my nerves.
“Why’d you do that? You trying to screw me? Is that what you’re trying to do?”
“Anne Elise. I feared she’d been hurt, so I called 911. That was moments before you came.”
Feeling dizzy, I worry about dropping Anne Elise. My toes and feet and hands are numb, and I’m cold. My shoulder still aches from bashing myself into the bookcase, but that pain pales when compared to the knife wound’s sting. The trickle of blood from my throat becomes a small stream. There’s a tingling sensation in my temples. Slowly, cautiously, I bend down and lay Anne Elise in her rosewood cradle, and as I’m doing so, my blood drips upon her forehead. Feeling the blood, Anne Elise frowns, something I haven’t seen her do before. My movement or maybe my talking must have stretched the cut wider, deeper, causing this profusion of blood. Pressing my hand against it no longer keeps it from bleeding so much. I shiver. Weird memories—a youth soccer penalty kick I buried in the upper ninety to win an important tournament for my team, a lemon-raspberry birthday cake Trish made from scratch for me for my birthday just after we became engaged, the stench of Jack Riggs’s cigars.
The woman who’d been waiting in the hallway limps into this hideaway office. It’s Laurel. Pale and dressed in her flimsy hospital gown, she looks just as sick as when I drove her to the hospital hours earlier. She ought to return to the hospital immediately so she can finally recuperate, but I’m too tired and worn out to form the words in my mouth necessary to tell her this. I don’t know why she thinks the hospital is so unsafe. Even someone as young as her should realize that the temptations and desires in the unquarantined world outside the hospital walls are far more dangerous.
Laurel, seeing the blood puddling over the floor from my neck, stutters. She turns to Tully. Her eyes grow large at the sight of his switchblade. “Wha-wha-wha—”
“Girl, leave us alone.”
“You killed him.”
“I did not. You didn’t see anything. Anyways, what did you think was going to happen when you gave me his address and sent me on my way? You think I was coming here for a picnic? Maybe a tea party?” Tully says, flicking back the knife’s blade to retract it into its hilt. The siren seems loud, the light around me getting dimmer. “Laurel, we better run. Quick.”
I tumble to the floor. Anne Elise wails. She’s so loud. The siren is so loud. Everything is so loud.
“What about the baby?”
“Leave it. We got to run.”
“But—”
Tully runs out of the hideaway office, his feet rumbling on the floor. I hear him scramble downstairs. He calls for Laurel to join him but then leaves without her, slamming shut Savory Mew’s front door, and I know he’s gone from my life forever. Laurel’s gripped in horror, her mouth hanging open. She stutters, cries, sobs, tells me she’s sorry. Everything becomes still. I close my eyes. I want to comfort Laurel, tell her everything will be all right. Be bold, I want to tell her. Embrace the child we have created. The moments that follow stretch out forever. A soft hand presses against my cheek. Laurel, having lifted Anne Elise out of the cradle, kneels beside me. The hand on my cheek is Anne Elise’s, and it feels so warm, so wonderful. I inhale her milky breath, feel her smooth hand on my face and the wisps of blonde hair around her ears. She’s all I ever wanted: a baby of my own.
PART FOUR
Chapter Thirty-Nine
LAUREL
Seven Months Later
Out here in Oyster’s Edge, you can hear the surf at any hour, the squawk of seagulls swooping down on the beach, pecking meat from the crab shells that wash ashore. You smell the salt water and the rotting algae and feel the grit of sand in your clothes whenever you step outside. Weathered skipjacks and oyster dredgers set sail from the piers before dawn, and if they’re lucky, the watermen return by nightfall. After my lease ran out on the apartment Jimmy rented for me, Belinda packed my belongings and brought Anne Elise and me to live with her. The baby stuff Jimmy bought—the crib, the changing table, the stroller, the rocking chair, and the playpen—takes up most of the living room in her trailer. If she hadn’t taken us in, I would’ve had to go into homeless shelters.
Situated about a two-hour drive from DC, Oyster’s Edge is a declining fishing village on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, one of many that have fallen on hard times. Though the town’s name sounds like the kind of place where richy Washingtonians build summer homes, there’s nothing fashionable about the place. Last month, the local McDonald’s franchise shut down. Still, rumors persist that developers are about to buy this trailer park and tear everything down to make room for beachside McMansions or a yacht club, accoutrements that’ll make summering Washingtonians happy but leave residents like Belinda and me with no place for our trailers.
In the early morning or in the early evening, or whenever the sun isn’t too bright, I slather Anne Elise with SPF 50 and take her to the beach. Sand fascinates her. She loves the water, loves the driftwood, and will put smooth frosted sea glass into her mouth if I’m not watching. She’s a happy baby, which, under the circumstances, makes me feel I’m doing something right. The locals claim to remember me, but what they really mean is they’ve read about my father in the newspapers or remember drinking Natty Boh and rolling dice with him after hours on someone’s stoop. Sometimes they offer condolences—whether for Jimmy’s death or for Tully’s incarceration, I’ve never asked. After they spiel salty stories about the things Tully’s said or done, they lean into me and say, “Your mother must be a saint, staying with him after all these years.”
“Thank you,” I say, for how else should one respond when someone accuses one’s mother of sainthood?
But people continue to stare at me long after I thank them. They’ve heard the stories, gossiped among themselves, swapped speculations and insinuations, and as they stare into my face, assessing me, I know they’re really trying to figure out if I, too, am a saint. Or am I a monster, someone coldhearted enough to be complicit in her lover’s murder?