The Night Always Comes

by Willy Vlautin

  Lynette collapsed on the couch. “I don’t even know what I say when I’m like that. I swear I don’t. I just know that I’m sorry afterward.” She couldn’t even look at him. She moved her face against the back of the couch. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but . . . I swear I’ll die if you leave me.”

  “I won’t leave you. Jesus, I’m not saying that.”

  “I’m serious,” she whispered, full of tears. “If you leave me, I’ll kill myself.”

  Jack grabbed her and hugged her. “Please don’t say that. Please don’t even think about that. I’m not gonna leave. I won’t ever leave you. We just need to be able to talk about it. I just need to know what to do.”

  A week later Lynette came home from work to find Jack’s mom, Tina, in their house, sitting at the kitchen table. A pot of coffee was brewing. She had taken the day off work and driven up from Seaside to talk to Lynette, but Lynette was so scared and embarrassed that she couldn’t stop crying. In broken sentences she told Tina she didn’t know what happened to her. She didn’t mean to get so mad. It just overtook her, consumed her. She laid her head on the kitchen table. “I try so hard to be what he wants. I try so hard to be good, but I get lost.”

  Tina held Lynette’s hands. “I think you need some help, hon,” she said. “You need to talk to somebody. You might need medication, but you’ll be alright. I’ll help you find a counselor.”

  “But I’ve ruined everything.”

  “You haven’t ruined everything,” said Tina. “Just tell Henry you’re sorry, make him a chocolate cake, and bring him a twelve-pack of beer. And look, it’s not the worst thing in the world for him to be a little scared of you. Anyway, I told him he should have moved out of your place two months ago. I’d have done the same thing and to tell you the truth I have.”

  “What about Jack?”

  “Jack’s different. He’s madly in love with you. But he’s sensitive and you’ve really scared him. Just give him time and get some help. If he knows you’re getting help, he’ll start to relax again. He’ll come back around.”

  Tina left her with the names of two different therapists, but Lynette called neither. She was too scared of the darkness to even think about it. She did, however, bring a cake and a twelve-pack of beer to Henry’s new apartment and apologized. At home she realized that Jack had become different. She could tell he didn’t love her the way he once had. He got home later from work. He didn’t initiate sex. Where in the past he couldn’t get enough of her, she now had to seduce him and because of that she was certain he would leave her. And that made her worse. One evening she locked him out of the house when he worked late and he was forced to sleep in his truck. She tried to start fights, and when they came home drunk from a concert one night, she threatened to kill herself by grabbing a bottle of Tylenol PM and attempting to swallow them in front of him. He stopped her and again broke down crying, begging her to tell him what was going on. But she couldn’t. She just woke up the next morning even more certain he would leave her and stopped taking the pill.

  Two months later she was pregnant. She waited another two months, until she was certain, and then told him. It was a Sunday morning. It was the only day they had off together. But when she woke up, he wasn’t in bed, he was in the kitchen, making sandwiches. He and a coworker were going fishing.

  “But we were going to spend the day together,” she said.

  “I know, but this is the last time I can go fishing this year.”

  “Please don’t leave,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Jack didn’t go fishing that day. He only sat on the couch in a daze. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask her how she was pregnant when she was on the pill. He didn’t call his parents and tell them the good news. They didn’t stop by his brother’s apartment to celebrate. He just sat there and then after a while he got up and left the house, and she went back to bed and sobbed. He didn’t come back for two days, and when he did it was with Henry, and all three of them sat at the kitchen table.

  “I know it’s weird that my brother’s here,” said Jack. He was pale and there were circles under his eyes, and she noticed for the first time that he’d lost weight. He looked sick. “But the truth is . . . Well . . . I’m scared of you. It kills me to say it because I loved you so much, but it’s true. I really am scared of you. . . . And I can’t marry someone or have a kid with someone I’m scared of. So now I’m . . .” He glanced at his brother and then his voice lowered and he looked at the table when he spoke. “If you want to have the kid that’s your right, but if you have it I’m gonna fight for custody. I talked to my folks and we’ll raise the baby in Seaside. I think it’s the best thing for the kid. I don’t mean to be cruel, I’m not saying this to be cruel, but I don’t think you’re fit to be a mother. You’re a good person a lot of the time, but you’re also a really mean person. You have mental problems that you don’t seem to want to fix. . . . I just don’t understand what happens to you and you don’t seem to want or be able to let me understand. You won’t even try getting help. No kid needs to get in the middle of that. No kid needs to get yelled at the way you yell. . . . I want you to know that I really did love you and I haven’t ever been in love before. But now, for the first time in my life, I feel depressed, depressed all the time. I just wake up every day feeling horrible.” He stopped and looked up at her. “Jesus, I wish you a lot of luck in life, I really do, and I’ll always miss you and care about you, but I’m moving out. I’m leaving when we get done talking. I’ll pay the rent for two months, but I can’t afford any more after that. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. I gotta find a new place to live and all that. . . . And let me know what you want to do about this place. I called the landlord and told him what’s happening. He’ll put the house in your name if you want. I don’t care about the deposit or the furniture or any of the stuff we bought together. It’s yours. . . . I guess that’s it. Henry and I are gonna move my stuff out now.” He paused. “And I’m just gonna say this, too, just to be clear. I’m not here to discuss any of it. It’s too late for that. I’m just leaving. I know we’ll need to stay in contact about the baby. I’d prefer it by text or email. I’ll help in any way I can if you decide to keep it. I’ll give you money, as much money as I can each month until you have it. But then I think it’s best if me and my family raise it and we’ll all fight with everything we have to make sure that happens.”

  Lynette didn’t say anything. She put her head on the kitchen table and closed her eyes. Henry and Jack moved out his things. When his truck was loaded, Jack set his house key on the kitchen table, and they drove away and Lynette went to bed.

  She lost her job. She stayed in the house for a month and then abandoned it, taking only her clothes, and moved back to her mother’s basement completely broke. Two weeks after that she called JJ, who she hadn’t spoken to in five years, and he took her to an abortion clinic, paid for it, and let her recover at his house. A week after that she took the bus to Jack’s workplace and waited until he was on his lunch break. She was haggard and thin, and walked slowly to him while he sat, leaning against the building, eating a sack lunch.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me someday,” she whispered. “But I did it. . . . We don’t have a baby anymore. You don’t have to worry about it or me ever again. I just want you to know I’m sorry you met me. I really am sorry for that.”

  He looked at her and tears welled in his eyes, but he said nothing, and Lynette walked back to her house, blacked out the windows in the basement, and gave up. Days would pass when she would only get out of bed to use the toilet. She lost nearly fifteen pounds, and two separate times she had a box cutter in her hand to kill herself, but each time she couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the memory of before, the blood on the bed, that stopped her, it was only the thought of her mother’s screams and Kenny’s panic that kept her from doing it. She had caused so much wreckage in her sho
rt life that she knew she couldn’t cause even more.

  A month passed and her mother came home from work and sat in a foldout chair across from Lynette. “I’m gonna tell you the way it is and see what you want to do. Two months ago Cheryl cut my hours to thirty and I haven’t been able to pay our bills on that. When you moved in with Jack, I struggled to keep up with them, but I could do it if I used my credit card when I got short. But now with my hours cut I can’t. I just don’t have enough money. I didn’t tell you any of this ’cause you were in love and I was happy you had found someone. Happy that you were finally free to be you. . . . But now . . . Well, here it is, Lynette. I’m gonna lose the house if you don’t get a job. I’ve already used all my savings. I told Mr. Claremont our situation and he said he’d give us a free month to get back on our feet, but that was all he could do. I maxed out my credit card to pay the electric and gas bills. We have no grocery money. I called my aunt in Yakima and asked for a loan, but all she would give us is a hundred dollars. A lousy hundred dollars and I don’t know when she’s gonna mail it or if she really will. Your father won’t return any of my calls. I’ve tried a dozen times and not once has he picked up or called back even when I explained the situation. Marsha’s not charging me anything right now for taking care of Kenny, but that won’t last forever. I’ve run out of things to sell and I’ve almost asked Cheryl for a loan, and as you know that would be a really hard thing for me to do. So that’s where I am. I’m at the bottom and about ready to give up. So if you care about me at all or about what will happen to Kenny if I do fall apart, then you’ll get up and get your shit together. Ask for help and I’ll get you help. Ask to go to a doctor and I’ll get you to a doctor. If you want me to run over Jack, I will. I’ll find where he lives and I’ll beat him, I’ll kill the piece of shit for hurting you. I’ll do anything you want, but we have to do something. Because we’re tied to you, Lynette. Kenny and I are hooked on to you, and you’re like an anchor, and you just keep going down and we can’t go down any more without losing everything. So I’m on my knees. I really am begging. Ask for help and get better or destroy us. It’s your choice.”

  Lynette said nothing. She waited until her mother went upstairs and then for the first time in six days she showered. She washed her sheets and her pajamas. She was weak and tired, but she helped her mother cook dinner. It took her four days to get the strength to leave the house, but she did. She took a bus to Tulip Pastry Shop and begged for her job back.

  It was two years ago that she saw Henry at the St. Johns Parade. She and Kenny were standing in front of the movie theater, watching the makeshift floats and the old cars pass when Henry walked by with two other men. He saw her and stopped, and she couldn’t help herself and asked about Jack. Henry told her his brother left Portland two weeks after he’d heard the news about the baby. He went back to Seaside. “He was so messed up he moved in with our folks and saw a head doctor. He was there for a year or so. Then he got a job as a welder in Bend. He bought a house and got a puppy. He took the dog to get its shots and met his wife, who’s a vet. They got a kid now. He’s doing really good, he’s happy. But man, oh man, you fucked him up for a while. Never seen him so laid out . . . He’s good now though. . . . But I will say this. You know that easygoing thing he had? You know that way he was?”

  “Yeah,” Lynette said.

  “He doesn’t have that anymore.”

  17

  It was five fifty when she finished her third cup of coffee and left the truck stop. The car started on the seventh try and she drove to Columbia Boulevard and into the industrial section of town. At 42nd she turned north and a dead-end sign appeared and all the businesses on the street were closed. She passed a mechanic shop, a warehouse, and a paved lot filled with semi-trailers. At the street’s end, on the right was a sanitation company with rows of green Sani-Huts and on the left was a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence topped with razor wire encircling a two-acre lot with more than forty cars and trucks inside. The vehicles looked new: BMWs, Audis, Mercedeses, and Cadillacs as well as Ford, Chevy, and Dodge pickup trucks. Toward the back of the lot was a trailer home. The windows were lit, but curtains covered them. The chain-link front gate had a plastic sign attached to it that read HAWK’S AUTO SERVICE AND SALES.

  Lynette stopped and got out of the car. She opened the trunk and underneath the spare tire she set the money she had gotten from Cody and put it next to the money and the other things from the safe. A green plastic toolbox was in the back corner and she opened it. Inside was twenty dollars, two flares, a screwdriver, a crescent wrench, and a can of Mace. She took the Mace, put it in her right coat pocket, and set the Buck knife in her left. An old Burgerville bag was under the jumper cables, so she emptied it and put the cocaine inside. After that she set her purse in the trunk, locked it, and got back in the car and pulled up to the front gate. Two spotlights hung from a telephone pole and shone down. There was no intercom. She honked the car’s horn. A minute passed and then the gate opened and she drove in.

  The trailer had a large gravel parking lot in front of it and she turned the car around so that it faced the now-closed gate and shut off the engine. She carried the fast food bag and walked up the metal porch steps to the front door and knocked.

  The man who answered was in his late forties. He was short and bald and dressed in kelly-green pants with a white tank top tucked into them. He was as defined and muscle-bound as a bodybuilder.

  “Lynette?” he said in a friendly voice.

  She nodded.

  He smiled and backed away from the door. “I’m Rodney. Come on in.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable going inside,” she told him nervously. “Can we just do it out here?”

  The man shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I don’t know if any of my neighbors will be watching or showing up. It’s early, but still, you never know. It would look funny. So come on in. I swear nothing bad will happen. But if you can’t I see that you turned your car around already. To get out all you do is drive to the gate and it’ll open automatically.”

  Behind the man Lynette saw an ironing board with a shirt on it and a gray cat sitting on the kitchen table. A set of golf clubs was leaning against it. The TV was on. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear Rhonda Shelby giving the weather report. It was Rhonda’s voice and seeing the cat on the table that made her think it would be safe enough to go inside.

  “If you show me you have the money, then I’ll come in. But I won’t come in unless you do that.”

  “Give me a second to finish ironing then,” he said and shut the door. He didn’t open it again for five minutes. The rain soaked her face and hair. Her feet were numb. When he opened the door, he was wearing a pink golf shirt tucked into the green pants. He showed her a roll of money with a rubber band around it.

  “There’s more than three grand here,” he said. “I just have to count it out.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He opened the door wider and she went inside.

  The floor of the trailer was white-and-maroon-checkered linoleum. To the left of the door was an office area with a large wooden desk. Behind it was a leather chair and a long bookcase with stacks of papers, books, and old mechanics manuals. On the wood-paneled walls were posters of golfers and framed maps and aerial pictures of golf courses.

  To the right of the door was the kitchen. The appliances and counter were white and the cabinets were laminated pine. The living room had a yellow vinyl couch, a TV, a bench press, free weights, and a rack that held six different-weighted dumbbells. She turned back to the kitchen. The ironing board and iron were gone and the cat was no longer on the table. The trailer looked like it had just been cleaned. She could smell Pine-Sol and coffee. Rodney stood in front of a toaster and put in eight frozen French Toaster Sticks.

  “You want some breakfast?”

  “No, that’s okay,” said Lynette.

  “Don’t be so nervous,” he said. “And please take off your shoes.”
/>
  She shook her head and whispered, “I’m not gonna take off my shoes.”

  “Then don’t move and I’ll get a towel,” he said and briefly looked at her. It was then that she saw a flash of anger. She’d made a mistake coming inside. He went past the living room and down a hall. He came back with a turquoise bath towel and spread it out on the floor. “Stand on this. I spend a lot of time trying to keep this place clean. The least you could do is respect that.”

  She stepped on the towel.

  “I was just getting up when JJ texted. It was a strange call to get that early.”

  “How do you know JJ?” she asked.

  “When we were kids my brother was in a band that practiced at JJ’s house. I used to hang out there. You know the place?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  The toaster sticks popped up and he pushed them down again. A brown belt sat on the kitchen table and he put it on. He hooked a leather cell phone case and a pocketknife to it and drank a glass of water. The toaster sticks again popped up and he took them out and buttered them. He grabbed a plastic bottle of Log Cabin syrup from a cabinet, covered the toaster sticks with it, and put the bottle back. He opened a drawer, took out a fork, and sat at the table and began eating.

  “Is it snowing out?”

  “No,” she said. “Just raining.”