Eleven
The bread comes out great, even though we make enough to feed a small country.
“You have to make it until you can do it without the recipe,” she says. So we do, sending Dad out on another banana run until we have loaves lining the kitchen counter, wrapped and ready to go. Most of it will be disposed when Dad takes her on a visit to the elementary school.
I bring some of it to school and get a kick out of Tex and Jamie's faces as they bite into a slice.
“This is heaven. Are you sure you didn't put crack in here?” She doesn't even bother to swallow before she talks. Attractive.
“Only the best Colombian. How did you know?” She rolls her eyes at me and takes another bite. Jamie is kinda quiet, but he is eating it, so I know it isn't the bread. I tried calling him last night, but he never picked up and I didn't know what to say on the message so I gave up.
“How are you James?” He shrugs. Uh oh. Bad sign. Tex is too busy mowing down on the bread to notice the look I give him. He shakes his head. He hasn't told Tex. I give him another look. He shrugs again. I kick his foot under the lunch table.
He just glares at me. Fantastic.
I don't get a chance to talk to him until just after school when I snag him on the way to track practice. He tries to get away, but I hold on tight. He's not enough of an ass to drag me, thankfully.
“You didn't tell Tex about Cassie? What is wrong with you?” He tries to pull away, but I'm not letting go. I do stumble a bit, but I keep holding on.
“I don't know. I just... I didn't want to tell anyone.” He tugs his ear and sighs. I let go.
“You told me. I'm someone,” I point out.
“You're different.” He won't look at me.
“Why?”
“Because you know,” he says, like it's obvious. Not to me.
“Know what?”
“What it's like to have a parent that isn't...” He shifts his bag to the other shoulder, glancing at the gym. A parent that isn't what? Isn't going to be around? His dad's and alcoholic. My mother is a cancer patient. Those are two different things.
“I'm not getting it.” I wave my hands for him to elaborate. He just keeps looking at the gym, as if it's the last lifeboat and he's standing on the Titanic.
“I can't talk to you now, but we can talk later. I have to go.” I try once more to get him to turn around, but I see his face. He can't do this right now. I do know what that's like.
“Okay, fine.” I let go of his arm and watch him jog so he isn't late. It's almost a relief to think about something else other than how my mother is going to slip through my fingers and there's nothing I can do to hold onto her. How I still want to see this guy I meet in a cemetery who threatens to kill me, and almost did. Thinking about anything else is a relief.
***
There are piles of bags on the kitchen counter when I get home. Work was harder than usual with Tex pestering me about Jamie, Toby shushing us every five seconds and giving us useless chores like dusting the shelves or alphabetizing the frequent-buyer membership cards. I'd barely made it out of there without having a major blow-up.
“What's this?” I motion to the bags.
“I got you new jeans and a bunch of fabric so you can learn how to sew. It's about time you learned.” I try to look excited. I should be happy that she's doing these things with me, but really, I'm just tired. One look at her eager face and I shove the tiredness aside.
“Awesome,” I say with a smile that takes a bit of effort.
She tries to teach me the rudiments of the finicky machine she'd inherited and painstakingly restored. “Nothing is better than an old Singer. Nothing,” she says. She makes the machine hum and purr like a contented tiger. Her straight lines are perfect. Every time I try to make a straight stitch, the machine makes a horrible grinding noise.
“Whoa, stop, stop, stop.” She reaches in to adjust something, explaining what the issue was. I'm trying to commit it to memory, and thanking my stars that there is such a thing as Google. I yawn, but keep trying.
I nearly sew my fingers together three times, but I manage to sew two of the pieces of cloth together in a straight line, with no wrinkles. It's a miracle.
“Good job. See? It isn't as bad as you think it's going to be. I got you some patterns too.” Strewn across her bed are piles of fabric, all in colors in textures I love. It startles me that I would have chosen the exact same colors and patterns, if I'd gone with her. There are patterns for dresses, pants, jackets. They are thin as tissue paper, but extremely intimidating. There are words I don't understand about basting, and seam allowance on each package. I'll have her explain them to me when my head doesn't hurt so much.
“I got out the manual so if you have an issue, it's there.” For after she's gone. “There's also the number of the guy in Lewiston who fixes them. He's really nice, don't be afraid to call him.” She's talking like she's going on a trip or something, just giving me care instructions for while she is gone. So calm. So rational. My strong mother.
“I'll take good care of it,” I say, trying to stay as calm as she is. If she can do it, so can I.
My insomnia gets worse as the days go by and we tick off more items from the list. I take whatever chance I get to run into my room and write everything down I can remember. My body is beyond exhausted, but I can't sleep. Somehow I still manage to function, even though I spend most of each night staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. I can't stop seeing Peter whenever I close my eyes, but I also don't do anything to stop it. I relive the moment when he turned on me. It doesn't seem so scary now. Further proof I'm coming unhinged from lack of sleep.
Four nights later, I have to get out. The walls keep closing in on me, the house sucking all the air out of my lungs. Even with the open window, it's too much. The snoring from below finally decides it for me. The bruises on my neck are gone. I stare out the window, into the woods just beyond the house. I long for the darkness and cool stones. The names and the whispers of the dead you can almost hear. I miss my sanctuary. It's time to poke the tiger.
My fingers dig into the windowsill and I turn away. I'm going, even if it hurts me.
***
He's not there. Part of me breathes a sigh of relief, and part of me is disappointed. I want to show him. To make a stand that I'm not scared. No matter what he does. Instead I walk between the stones, saying hello. Making conversation with these people that I've never seen. Whispering their names and listening to the rustle of the leaves.
Something flashes in the corner of my eye. I look, but there is nothing. Most likely, it's a deer. In fact, your chances are better of being attacked by a deer than mugged in Maine. Maybe not my chances. I search the edge of the trees, looking for whatever it was. My feminine intuition sends up flares. Totally sexist, but true. Women have a sixth sense about things.
Hesitantly, I step closer to the woods that ring the cemetery. With my luck it'll be a moose and it will charge me and I'll be eviscerated under its hooves. Did moose have hooves, like horses? I shake my head. I'm losing it. I peer closer, trying to make out anything in the darkness between the trees. They're old and thick here, like interlocked fingers, stretching to the sky.
“I'm not scared of you,” I call out. A rustle answers, but this time it comes from behind me. That damn mausoleum again. He must be here. “Peter?” I've never known him to make a lot of noise, but I really shouldn't make any assumptions about him. It hadn't ended well last time.
“Peter, are you here?”
I squint down the stairs, remembering only now that I've left the flashlight in my car, but I did bring the pepperspray. I hope it works on animals as well as people. I haven't bothered with the whistle. There was no one around to hear it. The mausoleum doors are still wide open. This is my chance to see what the inside looks like.
One step at a time, I creep down the stairs, my muscles tensed and waiting for something to jump out and get me. I'm crouched, ready to run, reaching with the hand that doesn't have the pepperspray. I really should have brought the flashlight. I try to slow my breathing so I can listen.
“Hello?” The only thing that answers me is the echo of my own voice and silence. I have a crazy impulse and let out a scream. Nada. I relax and turn to go back up the stairs when a shadow catches my eye.
Propped in a corner, almost hidden, is something rectangular-shaped. I hesitate before going over to see what it is. I can't believe I saw it; it's pretty small. I reach out and pick up the slim leather volume with gold lettering stamped on the front. It's too dark to read the title.
I open it, marveling at how thin the paper is. How old is it? Who left it here?
I take it out into the moonlight to read the title. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Huh. It's old, but the pages are intact, the gold leaf glowing.
I've heard the story. Everyone has at least seen an adaptation, but I've never read the original text.
I flip through the book again. My eyes spot a bookplate in the back. This book belongs to Ellen Mackintire. The writing is thin and the letters curl and dance around one another. I wonder who Ellen Mackintire was, and who left her book here, but I think I know.
I fold the book carefully in my shirt and walk back to my car, the leather cover soft against my skin. I've seen what I needed to see.
***
Part of me wondered at my own boredom. Why I was doing this, with her. Why I hadn't gone back to my life of always running, staying where I wanted to, feeding when I could. Always moving, never stopping. I had no home, no place. I didn't need one and don't belong to one. I was a nomad as are many of my kind.
We do not get along with each other. Predators of the same species that would rip each other apart in a second, if they could. Our species doesn't have the power to maim each other physically. The only one I could do physical damage to was myself. There was only one way for us to kill each other, and it was not by physical force.
In those four days I ran to her house, just once. Houses had always fascinated me. Groups of humans all huddled together, stepping over one another, breathing each other's air. I didn't get claustrophobic, but the idea of being inside a space like that with more of my kind made me uncomfortable.
Her mother was sick. I could smell it in her blood. Like acid, eating away at her cells. She didn't have long. Still, they smiled and laughed and ate and shared with each other. As natural for them as breathing.
She looked more like her father. I studied all of their faces, the changing expressions. None of them suspected I was there. I watched until they went to bed. I knew she would go to the cemetery. She was predictable, at least in that respect.
I ran alongside the road, watching the car headlights poking through the dark. I liked running parallel to the road. Never directly on it. Not because I was wary of being caught. The shark doesn't worry about being spotted by the fish. I simply liked the feel of earth beneath my feet, but I liked the order of the road as well. The white and yellow lines that flowed along the black pavement.
Ivan and Di came and left me again. She touched my cheek and made me repeat my promise before she went. One last twist of the dagger. Ivan looked at me, smelling Ava, but didn't ask. Di didn't have to say anything. She knew as well as I did that it would end soon, and we would be the way we had always been. Forever. I'd had my one day to fight it, which had passed for another year. It was time for me to bury it for another year, to keep it safe. It was all that I had.
I left the book for her. My mother's book. It would be safer with her than in the trunk, instinct told me that. My instincts were the only things I trusted. She took it gingerly, as if it would fall apart in her hands. She looked for me, but I stayed hidden in the shadows. Always watching.
I scared her, the other night. The shadows of the bruises I left on her neck were still visible to my heightened vision. It didn't take much to bruise human skin. It was like soft fruit.
I considered taking her right then, but waited. The seconds dripped away like raindrops. I didn't move. Instead, I watched the moonlight on her hair. It felt like the beginning, when every hunt was exciting, setting fire to my blood and making me want to run and tear things apart in the sheer madness of it all. I'd slaughtered entire towns in one night and seen the streets run with blood that I cupped my hands in and drank, like water.
Those things would scare her. She wouldn't come back if she knew. So, I left the book for her instead. So she would come back.