Calls of ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Joyeux No?l’ faded into the cheerful night as the réveillon broke up. émilie waved to the last of her guests and closed the door.
It was two thirty on Christmas morning and she was exhausted. Putting a hand against a table to steady herself she walked slowly into the living room. Clara, Myrna and the others had cleaned up, quietly doing the dishes while she’d sat with a small glass of Scotch and spoken to Ruth on the sofa.
She’d always liked Ruth. Everyone had seemed stunned more than a decade ago by her first book of poetry, stunned that such an apparently brittle and bitter woman could contain such beauty. But Em knew. Had always known. That was one of the things she shared with Clara, and one of the many reasons Em had taken to Clara, from the first day she’d arrived, young and arrogant and full of piss and talent. Clara saw what others couldn’t. Like that little boy in The Sixth Sense, but instead of seeing ghosts, Clara saw good. Which was itself pretty scary. So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.
Though, as Em well knew, not everyone had good to see.
She walked to the stereo, opened a drawer and delicately lifted out a single woolen mitten. Beneath it she found a record. She put the record on, reaching out to touch the play button, her finger crooked and trembling like a feeble version of Michelangelo’s Creation. Then she walked back to the sofa, delicately holding the mitten as though it still contained a hand.
In the back bedrooms Mother and Kaye slept. For years now the three friends had stayed together on Christmas Eve and celebrated the day in their own quiet way. Em suspected this was her last Christmas. She suspected this was Kaye’s last too, and perhaps Mother’s. Two thirty.
The music began and émilie Longpré closed her eyes.
In the back bedroom Mother could hear the opening notes of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in D Major. Christmas Eve was the only time Mother ever heard it, though it had once been her favorite piece. It had once been special to them all. Em most of all, but that was natural. Now she only played it once a year, in the small hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It broke Mother’s heart to hear it and to think of her friend alone in the living room. But she respected and loved Em too much to deny her this time alone with her grief and her son.
And this night Mother had her own grief to keep her company. She repeated over and over, be calm, be calm. But the mantra which had comforted her for so many years was suddenly empty, its power to heal stolen by that horrible, twisted grotesque of a woman. Damn that CC de Poitiers.
Kaye creaked over in her bed. Even the act of rolling onto her side was unbearable. Her body was giving up. Giving up the ghost, it was called. But it was really the opposite. She was actually becoming a ghost. She opened her eyes and allowed them to adjust to the darkness. Way far away she heard Tchaikovsky. It was as though it entered her body not through her failing ears, but through her chest and straight into her heart, where the notes lodged. It was almost too much to bear. Kaye took a deep, rattling breath, and nearly cried out for émilie to stop. Stop that divine music. But she didn’t. She loved her friend too much to deny her this time with David.
The music made her think of another child. Crie. Who called their child Crie? Cry? Names mattered, Kaye knew. Words mattered. That child had sung like an angel tonight and she’d made them all divine, more than human, for a brief time. But with a few well chosen words her mother had made ugly what minutes before had been exquisite. CC was like an alchemist, with the unlikely gift of turning gold into lead.
What had Crie’s mother heard that could have provoked such a reaction? Surely she hadn’t heard the same voice. Or maybe she had and that was the problem. And maybe she heard other voices as well.
She wouldn’t be the first.
Kaye tried to shove that thought away, but it kept intruding. And another thought, another voice, appeared, lyrical and Irish and masculine and kind.
‘You should have helped that child. Why didn’t you do something?’
It was always the same question and always the same answer. She was afraid. Had been afraid all her life.
Here it is then, the dark thing,
the dark thing you have waited for so long.
And after all, it is nothing new.
The lines of Ruth Zardo’s poem floated into her mind. Tonight the dark thing had a name and a face and a pink dress.
The dark thing wasn’t CC, it was the accusation that was Crie.
Kaye shifted her gaze, her fists balled in the flannel sheet under her chin, trying to keep warm. She hadn’t really been warm in years. Her eyes caught the red numbers on her digital clock. Three o’clock. And here she was in her trench. Cold and trembling. She’d had a chance this night to redeem herself for all those moments of cowardice in her life. All she had to do was defend the child.
Kaye knew the signal would soon be given. And soon she’d have to crawl out of her trench and face what was coming. But she wasn’t ready yet. Not yet. Please.
Damn, damn that woman.