Four
When I wake up, I'm strapped into the front seat of my car.
What the hell? It takes a moment for my head to catch up with the situation. First is the bodily inventory. Everything still attached, check. No bleeding wounds, check. Feeling like I got hit by a truck, double check.
I turn on the interior light to make absolutely sure, and catch a glimpse of my awesome neck. It's definitely a little red, and the marks looked a little like hickeys. I've seen enough of them on my best friend Tex to know what they look like. She was going to die when she saw these. She'd think that I'd been getting hot and heavy with some guy. Yeah, like that was going to happen. What had actually happened was more likely.
For some reason, I'm amazingly calm. Thoughts run through my head, but they're like water, flowing in a river. Is this shock? My distant thoughts remind me that it would probably be best if I got the hell out of here. Someone put my key in the ignition. The radio blares on, scaring the daylights out of me. I can't take much more of this. I'm cracked already and if anything more happens, I'm going to shatter. I bite my lip hard not to cry. No, I will not cry any more tonight. My goal is to get home. Just get home. Everything will be fine when I get home. I repeat it while I get my finicky car back in gear and on the road.
It's a good thing I'm in a rural area and it's the middle of the night. My shaky hands are having a difficult time steering and all I can really do is hold on and hope there aren't any deer out wandering. The heater does little to thaw my shivers, which even a raging fire can't cure. Why is it so hard to breathe?
Shut up and just get home.
Don't think about them. Don't think about the fact that one of them carried you to the car.
Don't. Think.
***
Ivan went for her, but I stopped him. Told him I did want her. He smiled and threw her limp body at me. It was all I could do not to sink my teeth into her neck. The fact that her eyes were closed stopped me, and a voice that sounded like my mother's. She reminded me of her.
My mother had dark hair, like this girl, and milky skin. She was originally from Japan, but her parents emigrated to New York when she was three. This girl was pure American, but something about her face reminded me of my mother. Something...
Ivan left, in search of other prey, leaving me with her.
I had no qualms about killing. I hadn't for years, but this night did it to me. I thought of it as my one human night a year when I didn't have to be a killer.
I carried her back to her car and put her in the driver's seat, snapping the seatbelt so she wouldn't fall when she woke up. Her eyes were still closed, but her breathing was steady. I took one last look and went back to the woods. No one was going to die tonight. Not me, not her.
***
The sky is fading from deep blue to gray when I creep through the front door, almost knocking over a vase of flowers on the table by the door. Yellow roses. Dad bought them for her a few days ago. In fact, he'd been buying her more flowers than usual. Now I know why. Quickly, I go around the house and make sure all the other entrances are locked. No one locks their doors in Maine, unless you live in the ghetto of Lewiston, or something.
My heart still beats as if there's a murderer chasing me, which is pretty close to the truth.
Down the hall I go, after slipping off my shoes. For the millionth time, I wish we had carpeting. Wood floors have a tendency to make noise when you're trying not to. There's a break in Dad's snoring; he must have rolled over. I stop moving, terrified any sound I make will wake him. I stand there, holding my breath. I'm still shaking, my hands jumping around. Dad's snoring resumes and I tiptoe upstairs.
Once I'm in my room, I close the door and finally feel like I can breathe. Just seeing all my things the way I left them before the night collapsed into a nightmare makes me feel a little better.
None of my furniture matches. Sometimes I wished I was one of those girls who had a matching bedroom set with a white painted bed, nightstand, dresser and desk. Instead, I have a iron daybed, a yellow dresser that has remnants from stickers I've tried to peel away when I grew out of my sticker phase. The night stand was a hand-me-down from my grandmother, dark polished wood that has seen better days. My desk once belonged to my mother. She'd gotten herself through college with it, crammed it in a crappy apartment with three roommates. So comforting, but there is only so much familiar furniture can do.
In one night I'd found out my mother was going to die, come across two strange guys in a mausoleum, one of whom had tried to kill me and the other who watched. My first instinct, drummed into me by my parents and kindergarten teachers, is to call the police. That's the logical thing to do, but my cell phone is gone. Just the cherry on top of a big crappy night sundae. It's possibly the crappiest night ever.
Don't. Think.
I should call 911. Give the location and then hang up before they could track me down. In the good old days, I could just use a payphone that couldn't be traced, but now I was out of luck. Too bad I didn't have one of those crappy disposable phones like a drug dealer. I've watched enough Law and Order marathons to know that nearly every phone is traceable. Then the police would find me and there would be questions and what would I say? Not to mention I'd have to tell my parents. What would that do to them? My mother is in a fragile state. No, I can't call the police.
I run through my other options, none of them very good. I watch the light get brighter as my prospects get dimmer and more desperate. I can't tell anyone. I can't do anything, really, which just sucks.
Finally, I get up and brush my teeth. It's the only thing I can think to do. I look up at my face, and all I can see are my green eyes, huge in my face, framed by dark circles and thin lashes. My jeans have dirt on them, and my shirt stinks of sweat. I strip down, and try not to let what happened at Bolero, and the cemetery, consume me. I'd already had a good cry about it. There was no use for another episode.
I shower for a long time, using water so hot it scalds my skin, and makes me look like a cooked lobster. I use the loofa Tex got me last Christmas to scrub myself raw. As the hot water courses down my face and I try to scrub the horrible night away, tears start to leak from my eyes. Damn them. Most of the time I'm able to put a stopper in my tear ducts, to swallow them, keep them bottled up. There's something about the vulnerability of being naked, the water running down my face and the fact that the shower muffles any sound I might make.
I stop as soon as I'm able, clenching my muscles so they won't shake and seize. I wipe my eyes over and over again. As soon as I'm under control, I shut the water off. Before I slide myself under my sheets, I grab a bag of peas from the freezer downstairs. Maybe I can stop the redness on my neck from getting worse.
A few hours later, I come downstairs at a normal Saturday time, which means I've been stuck in my room for hours. I spent the time with my iPod earbuds jammed in my ears, volume turned up so it hurt my eardrums, re-folding my tshirts, dusting, arranging my books, feeding my goldfish, Tristan and Isolde, and even starting an outline for my essay on the symbolism of light and darkness in Wuthering Heights. All of which haven't done anything to stop me reliving every awful moment. I make sure to check my neck before I got downstairs. It's a little red, but not too noticeable. I throw on a hoodie to cover it up, just in case.
“What's new *cat?” My mother says as I emerge into the sunlight of the kitchen. This morning the cheery yellow colors burn my eyes as she grabs me and starts crooning in a horrible Tom Jones impression.
“Ugh, it's too early.” I pretend that I've just woken up. In reality, I'm so beyond tired it's like I'm only functioning with half my brain. The other part is either sleeping or abandoned me after last night. My stomach rolls once, remembering.
“Did you shower? Your hair's wet.” Me and my stupid thick hair that takes hours to dry. I'd gotten that from my mother. Her own hair had fallen out slowly, and she'd clung to every strand until it was gone, screaming and banging her fists against the mirror. She thought I couldn't hear her, but I could. My mother wasn't one of those women who shaved their heads without fear.
She's got her everyday wig on, which almost matches her real color.
“Yeah, I forgot to last night.” Can we please talk about something else?
“You want some pancakes, ma fleur?” Normally I would have smiled at the nickname, at her pride in her French Canadian heritage. She also has a thing for nicknames, and aprons. She's wearing the one that makes her look like she stepped out of a 1950s commercial about white bread. All starched white and frills without a spot on it, which defeats the purpose of an apron.
“Sure.” I'm not going to eat them, but I could push them around my plate and hope she doesn't notice. “Where's Dad?” It takes more effort than normal to haul myself onto one of the stools at the bar. She just keeps humming Tom Jones tune as she flips enough pancakes to feed several small African countries. Ever since Dad bought her that griddle pan that makes eight at once, she's been pancake crazy.
“He's been very mysterious. He got up really early and was banging around doing something. I have no idea.” She smiles to herself, sliding another pancake onto a plate already towering with them. The kitchen reeks of cinnamon. It makes my already unsettled stomach curl up. I wonder if she's going to bring up the dinner. I hope she doesn't. I seriously want to pretend it never happened.
As she cooks, I notice how the apron hangs on her, like a coat on a rack. It makes me want to hug her and hold her.
“Here you go,” she says, plunking a plate with five giant apple and cinnamon pancakes in front of me. They're made in the shape of Mickey Mouse, with the large round head and the two round ears on each side.
“Thanks.” I know she isn't going to eat with me. She doesn't eat much anymore, because she's too sick from the drugs. Dr. Chase also had her on this diet that means she can't have much of anything that she used to love. No cake or pie or butter. All the good things, she says.
“You look tired, baby.” She's got her chin in her hands, elbows on the table so her face is level with mine. Her forehead does that wrinkle-worried thing. I hate it when she looks like that.
“It was kind of a big night.” The ball's in her court. She can deflect if she wants.
“I know.” I think she's going to hug me, but she just wraps her hands around her coffee cup. Not quite a deflection. I decide to take the plunge.
“How long have you known?”
“A few weeks.” She takes a calm sip of coffee.
“A few weeks!” I stab a mouse ear with my fork.
“We weren't absolutely sure, so we waited until all the test results were in. You were so busy with school and work and everything, we wanted to wait to tell you.” The excuses fall from her lips like rain.
“So you've known for weeks that this was going to happen and you didn't tell me?” I keep repeating it, hoping she'll deny it.
“I didn't want to disrupt your life. I wanted things to be as normal as they could be.” Something hits me in the gut. I want to roll up in a ball and hold onto myself so I don't fly apart in a million pieces. She won't look at me and I know why.
“You weren't going to tell me, were you?”
“It was your father's idea to tell you.” She glances down at her wedding band.
“You weren't going to tell me.” I push my plate away. I'm not going to pretend anymore.
“What difference would it make, knowing?” Her gaze rises to meet mine.
“It makes all the difference.” How could she not know that?
She shrugs. “I'm still going to die. I don't want to go with the memory of you being worried all the time, and thinking of it. I want to remember you happy and free.” Her hands flutter around her coffee cup.
“So lying to me seemed the way to go.” I feel like a horrible bitch for talking to her this way, but I can't help it.
“I didn't think–” She's interrupted by Dad's car in the driveway. She looks up, a smile stretching her face. One hand goes to make sure her wig is secure.
“Surprise!” He comes in, brandishing a bouquet of tulips in yellow and red. Her favorite. They're still damp with water the supermarket sprayed on them to keep them fresh. He also pulls out a box of chocolate caramels. I wanted to slap him in the face, because she'll never be able to eat them. They'll make her sick. He should know that.
“Oh, Sam, they're beautiful.” She melts and hugs him, the flowers getting water in her hair.
“You're welcome, Taylor.” She smiles and ducks her head into his chest at the nickname. Taylor is her maiden name. I feel like the oldest person in the room. She leans into him, her body folding like a piece of paper.
He looks exactly like you would think a loan officer should look. Tall and pressed and straight and dry. I inherited his bony limbs, and looking at his face is like looking at my own, except his features are softened by my mom's in my face. Thank God.
I try to slip away, but Dad catches me. I find him looking at me over her shoulder. There's something hard in his face, something I've seen only a few times when he lets his guard down. He puts it away as quickly as he can, and I look away as if I haven't seen it.
“Where are you going?” She turns in his arms, her eyes searching for me.
“Just out for a drive.” It's not that uncommon a thing for me to do. She puts the tulips on the counter and smooths her apron with both hands.
“You didn't eat your pancakes.” We all look at the full plate. The feeling that all the air is being sucked out of the room intensifies. I gotta get out of here.
“I'm not hungry,” I say, even though her face falls. “I'll have them when I get back, okay?” I flash a quick smile and go to grab my shoes and keys.
“I'll put them in the fridge for you.” Dad rests his chin on the top of her head and puts both hands around her tiny waist. She gazes down at the tulips, fingering one of the delicate petals. So perfect.
At one time, they'd been so valuable they'd caused a mania in Holland so intense people were trading houses for one bulb. She'd told me all about it, and I'd even done a history project on it once. Actually, she did most of the research. I got the best grade I've ever gotten in my life on that paper. My teacher had read bits of it out loud to my class, much to my humiliation.
Her tulips hadn't bloomed yet, but they would soon. She had so many that our yard would be covered in their bulbous flowers, rising with the sun and drooping at the end of the day, their blooms lasting for such a fleeting time. That's what makes them so special, she says. They are only around for a short time, so you have to cherish them. To value them.
I crank my car into action, trying to decide where to go. A few minutes of my car idling and lip chewing decide it for me.
I try to prepare myself mentally for what I might find. I've swiped my mother's cell phone, just in case. I also have a Swiss Army knife in my glovebox as part of an emergency kit. I pull it out, just in case. The fact that I think that I'm going into a situation where I might need a knife should give me an indication that this is not a good idea.
My feeble wipers have to work overtime to try and cut through the fog that clings to everything and blocks out the sun. My jeans stick to my skin, bogged down with moisture, and my hair's curling more than usual. I have to keep brushing wispies out of my face. The fog is appropriate for what I'm about to do. I pause for a second when I get out of the car, considering. I grab the knife, weighing it in my hand. That and the cell phone are my only protection.
It seems like it takes hours to find the mausoleum. I have to look a little to find the right one. Things look so different in the daylight, such as it is. I keep tripping over dips and rises in the ground. A squirrel scares the daylights out of me when it leaps out of a tree onto the ground right in front of me. It takes a few seconds to get my heart to stop freaking out. All signs point to home. Do not go to the cemetery, do not collect $200, but I keep walking toward the mausoleums.
Finally, I find the right one with the broken angels outside. One of them is missing an arm, the other a wing They look sinister in the fog.