TWENTY-ONE
Alex ate a grilled cheese sandwich, ran a bubble bath and submerged herself. And the whole time, her heart felt like it was going to burst with happiness. Seth, she thought. She had felt the attraction to him from that first night at Laney Thompson’s party, but it hadn’t seemed possible. He lived in Chicago and, for all she knew, was involved with someone else. He was six years older, and she told herself that he probably still saw her as one of the little kids from the neighborhood. And yet she had felt breathless each and every time she saw him. And now, to know that he felt the same way . . . That it was real! That he was coming back here to live. That they were going to start a relationship. It wasn’t a feeling you had that often in life. That glorious tipping sensation when you were first falling in love. Yes, she thought. Falling in love.
She dried off from her bath, put on her oversized T-shirt and bathrobe, and whirled in her bedroom, hugging herself. For maybe the first time since she had set foot in this house after the accident, she felt happy. Hopeful. Alive. And they knew it. She felt sure that they knew it. She could feel her parents’ love for her like a glow around her, and she almost felt, impossible though it was, that they had had a hand in it. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered to the silence in the house which now seemed not depressing, but benign. And even though she knew rationally that this could not have been the case, she still said, ‘Thank you for Seth.’
She went downstairs and tried to read, to calm herself down, but it was no use. For a little while she thought about Dory. She couldn’t help feeling vaguely guilty about Dory’s disappointment over Seth. She felt that Alex had deceived her. It would be difficult to convince Dory that there was nothing between her and Seth until this very night. But it wasn’t up to Alex to persuade Dory of that, she reminded herself. It wasn’t as if Seth had led Dory on. Alex knew better. He’d just been nice. Alex wasn’t sure that Dory knew the difference.
Alex thought about Elaine calling the police to come and interrupt the celebration of Dory being officially cleared in the case of her sister’s murder. It was almost as if she could not bear the idea that Dory wasn’t guilty. Why? Alex wondered. How could a mother feel that way? She should have been delighted that Dory was no longer a suspect. Instead it seemed as if her only aim was to remind Dory that she did not believe her, did not trust her. And all that Dory wanted, it seemed, was to be welcomed back into her mother’s affections.
Maybe, Alex thought, she wasn’t being fair to Elaine. After all, someone murdered her daughter, right there in her own home, and Dory had pleaded guilty. Could she really be blamed for believing in her guilt? And now there was no one to blame, but Lauren was still dead. That pain would never go away and Elaine would probably never be at peace until she knew who had killed her. So, who was Lauren’s killer? Alex wondered. Maybe the police were not looking far enough for the murderer. They seemed to be focusing on the people in Boston but Lauren had lived far away, in Branson, Missouri. Could it have been someone from her life in Branson who wanted her dead? Or maybe a crazy fan. Everybody had read about them. Maybe someone followed her to Boston from her other life.
Thinking about Lauren’s murder reminded her of that CD that Seth had bought for her at the second-hand bookstore. To be sure that Dory didn’t see her with it, Alex had slipped it into a drawer in the dining room that same day and not looked at it since. She went into the dining room, opened the drawer and pulled it out. Back in the living room she popped the CD into the sound system and sat down to listen. The first track was some coy number about a biker at a bar. Alex listened to a few bars and skipped over it. The second track was the title song, ‘Love You Only’ set to the wailing accompaniment of an electric fiddle. The plaintiveness in Lauren’s voice was unmistakable. Alex unfolded the liner notes and read along with the lyrics.
No one knows or understands me
No one thinks I’ve done enough
No one’s close, or ever can be.
No one wants to know it’s rough.
Mama tells me to do more
Or my moment will be lost
Says I’m gonna end up poor.
I say what’s it gonna cost?
Lost my passion and my youth,
All I’m left is tired and lonely,
And I’ve finally faced the truth.
I’m condemned to love you only.
As a rule, Alex hated country music. It always sounded whiny and sentimental to her ears. But once in a while a country song could capture her with its sincerity, and she found herself replaying ‘Love You Only’ several times.
Maybe it was because she knew something about this singer. She knew the mama in Lauren’s life, and wondered if the song was autobiographical, or if she had written the lyrics in the persona of a fictional character. It was tempting to read it as autobiographical, and she certainly felt a jolt of recognition when Lauren described her mother as demanding and difficult to satisfy.
Alex had assumed, from the start, that Lauren had been lavished with love and attention while Dory was neglected. But, when she thought about it, Elaine was the same person, even if she treated her daughters differently. Perhaps she had overlooked Dory, but maybe her great love for Lauren had taken the form of pushing her unmercifully, and never being satisfied with the results. No wonder Lauren was lonely.
Clearly she had suffered from a love affair gone bad. Was it someone from Branson? Alex wondered if the police had looked into Lauren’s personal life there at all. Probably not, since Dory presented them with the ideal suspect. Maybe I’ll mention that to Dory, Alex thought. Or to Elaine. The sooner someone else was arrested for Lauren’s murder, the sooner Dory might be truly forgiven by her mother.
For a moment Alex felt her sister’s sadness and lamented it. She looked over at Remus, who was resting quietly on the bed which Dory had bought for him. ‘We can’t abandon her, Remus,’ she said. ‘We have to try to help her.’ Surprisingly she realized that she actually meant it. She and Dory were not done with one another. They were still sisters and Alex was not going to give up on her, even if she had installed the worst dog ever in Alex’s home. ‘I mean you,’ Alex said to the dog who was curled up on the bed, snoring.
In the midst of a dream, Remus snorted and covered his eyes with one of his sinewy forelegs.
Alex smiled. Everything seemed endearing to her right now. Even the Pit Bull. She flicked on the television, watched it without really seeing it and finally turned it off. She wondered how far Seth had gotten. She didn’t even know the route he was taking. He was probably on the Mass Pike, heading west. She thought of calling him, and then decided against it. He didn’t need to be distracted while he was driving. They had all the time in the world to talk when he returned.
Alex looked at the time on the cable box. She still had work tomorrow, even though today seemed to have changed her life forever. She had woken up this morning feeling lonely and disgruntled and now everything had changed. She didn’t even feel like the same person. But, she reminded herself, she had the same new job. And she needed to at least try to get some sleep. Finally she got up, turned out the lights and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She set the alarm, tossed her bathrobe over the foot of the bedstead and crawled under the covers. She thought she would lie awake, stimulated by the all the unexpected events of the day, but in no time she was fast asleep.
The barking woke her.
Alex struggled up on one elbow and looked at the illuminated numbers on her clock. It was after three. What is he barking about? she thought.
She didn’t hear any noise in the house, but something was making Remus go crazy. Well, she thought, it wasn’t as if it took a great deal to make this dog start barking. He was so damn skittish. Maybe a car backfired on the street, or the wind snapped a tree branch against the window. Whatever it was, he sounded like he was in it for the long haul. Alex hated getting out of the warmth of her bed. She wished she could just yell down the stairs at him and make him stop, but there was no way that would work.
She took a deep breath. It’s nothing, she told herself. It’s probably nothing. But she knew she wasn’t going to get back to sleep if he kept that up. She got out of bed, put on her bathrobe and slippers and went out to the stairs. The house was as dark as she had left it when she went to bed. She turned on the stairwell light, yelling, ‘Remus. Remus!’
The dog continued to bark. It was a high, strangled bark that grated on her nerves. Dammit, she thought. What was his problem? She went down into the living room and turned on a lamp by the door. His bed was empty. He was somewhere else on the first floor. Probably by the back door, she thought. There might be a raccoon traversing the backyard, and Remus heard it with those super-sensitive ears that dogs had.
‘Remus, what is it?’ she demanded.
She shuffled through the house, glancing into her father’s office and the dining room, turning on a lamp on each one. He wasn’t in either room. She went to the end of the hall toward the kitchen. Even in the dark, she could see him. His shiny, muscular black frame was straining forward and the barking was incessant. She called his name and he turned to look at her.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What are you barking about?’
She walked into the kitchen and flipped the switch beside the door which illuminated the track lights over the counters. Remus looked at her and then continued to bark, all his attention riveted to the closed door of the pantry.
Did I close that? she wondered. She couldn’t remember. She often left it open, but this time she may have shut it. Perhaps there was a mouse in there, Alex thought. It wouldn’t be the first time. There hadn’t been a cat living in this house since her parents died. Laney Thomspson across the street had adopted Castro after the accident. So now that the coast was clear, the mice could definitely have returned. That was probably it, Alex told herself. Mice. Nonetheless, she felt her heart beating hard in her chest at the sight of the dog, snarling and barking implacably at the door.
Murmuring soothing words to him, she reached out to the pantry doorknob, getting ready to open it, when suddenly her eye fell on something on the floor beyond the pantry door. Her heart thudded with anxiety. It was too big to be a mouse. A rat? she thought. In the half-light of the track lighting, she could not make out what it was. She held her breath, waiting for it to skitter off in some direction. But the object lay still, and did not move.
‘What is that thing?’ she demanded aloud, although there was no one to answer her question. She went over and crouched down, reluctantly reaching for the small, dark form, her heart pounding. She touched it and immediately cried out as a shudder ran up her spine. The thing on the ground was cold and slimy. ‘What the hell?’ Alex cried. Grimacing and wanting to flee from it, she forced herself to hold her ground instead. She reached out with two fingers and gingerly picked it up.
Even in the dim light she could see that it was the size of a small envelope and purplish in color. Repulsed, Alex wanted to drop it, but she kept a hold on it, and dangled the object in front of her eyes to examine it. It was some kind of organ meat. A piece of liver.
What the f*ck? she thought, struggling to get to her feet without throwing the hunk of liver away from her. The dog began to bark like a lunatic. Over the barking Alex heard a door squeak, tried to turn and saw a shadow on the wall. Before she could register what was happening or cry out, she felt a thudding against her back, and then a searing pain which took her breath away. She crumpled to the floor, landing on top of the piece of liver which she had dropped, as her knees and all the strength in her arms gave way and let her fall.