Mother Dear

by Nova Lee Maier

  Ralf and Sara received a friendly welcome from an elderly man behind the reception desk. If he thought they didn’t belong here, he certainly didn’t show it. His arms and legs were short, Ralf noticed, and his hips were broad. It had probably taken him many decades to grow that impressive belly. Ralf had never met anybody before who physically resembled a spinning top. A huge, live spinning top.

  “We’re looking for Werner and Helen Möhring,” said Ralf.

  The man raised his hand. “I’m afraid that—”

  Sara stepped forward. “They’re my parents. It’s an emergency.”

  He looked at her, his head slightly cocked. “I see it now. You’re the spitting image of your mother. Your parents have just left.”

  “Do you know where they were going?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Sara’s phone began to buzz inside her bag. She unzipped it and retrieved the device. “My dad,” she said breathlessly. “A photo.”

  Ralf looked over her shoulder at the screen. Helen was standing with her thumbs up, smiling at the camera. She had a scarf wrapped around her head. It was obviously very windy.

  Your mother and I are ready to take on the Seven Sisters!

  “Seven Sisters?”

  Ralf took the phone from Sara’s hand and showed it to the man. “Do you know where this is?”

  He took a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket and placed them carefully on his nose. “Not precisely, but you can see Beachy Head quite clearly in the background.”

  “Does that have anything to do with ‘Seven Sisters’?” he asked.

  6

  “What are we doing here?” asked Helen.

  They were standing on a footpath up the coast from a place called Eastbourne, which looked chic and expensive. White Victorian houses, golf clubs, and a marina.

  “Do you see those cliffs up there?” Werner pointed to some chalky crags emerging from the gray North Sea. They were very imposing. Steep and vertical, almost perfectly white. Above them lay a green and undulating landscape. Pasture, by the looks of it. The transition between it and the sea—at least three hundred feet below—was abrupt: as if a mythical sea monster had bitten an enormous chunk out of the hills. On the ferry, Helen had already seen the coastline for which the south of England was famous—but the White Cliffs of Dover had nothing on these.

  “Impressive,” she said. The wind tugged at her hair. She tried in vain to smooth it down, and in the end simply wrapped it with a scarf.

  “That’s where we’re going,” said Werner.

  “Can you get up there, to the top?”

  “On foot, yes.”

  She squinted. “I can’t see anybody.”

  “I doubt there will be many people up there right now. The one you’re looking at is Beachy Head.” He pointed to the undulations in the rolling landscape. “There are more cliffs and hills behind it. They call that area the Seven Sisters because there are seven hills. It takes two hours to hike from the first sister to the seventh.”

  They gazed together at the chalk cliffs. The slopes didn’t look that steep, but it was difficult to tell from this distance. Her eye caught a minuscule black speck on the vast, green, undulating carpet. She held a hand over her eyes.

  It was a person.

  “Man, I feel dizzy already. It’s so high up there.”

  “Photo!” cried Werner with a smile. “It’ll make a great backdrop.” He told her where to stand. “Come forward a little. That’s it—perfect. Thumbs-up. Say ‘cheese.’” Werner cupped his hand over the screen and examined the results. “Fantastic. I’ll send it to the kids.”

  Helen observed his movements. The sudden strain in his voice hadn’t escaped her notice. What was making him so agitated? And why was he so obsessed with sending photos to the family? It was almost a compulsion. When they first arrived in the hotel room, on the beach in Brighton, at afternoon tea . . . Over dinner last night, he had even wanted to check exactly what she was writing to the kids. And now they were here, in Eastbourne, not even ten steps away from their parked car. The sole reason they had pulled over was for this view of the cliffs, to take a photo. With any other man, a photo op like this might make sense—but not with Werner.

  She had grown accustomed to how he could be cool and distant at times, only to suddenly become affectionate and take an interest in her once again. Nobody was perfect. But this was new.

  And a little unsettling.

  “What’s with all the photos?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re never interested in taking pictures.”

  His face fell. “All these years, you’ve been complaining that you never appear in any vacation photos because you’re always the one who has to take them. This time, I try to be considerate for once, and it still isn’t good enough.” Werner took her by the elbow and pulled her toward him. He threw his arms around her and kissed her forehead. Gave her a slight shake. “Come on, Helen. Lighten up a little. Today is a special day.”

  7

  “There! There it is.”

  Ralf spotted Werner’s Mercedes before Sara. It stood in a sandy parking lot next to a building that served as a visitor center.

  Anxiously, he drove his Polo into the lot and pulled up alongside an old Land Rover—the only other car there.

  He got out and walked up to the Mercedes. The visitor center looked closed. A stream gurgled somewhere nearby.

  “What now?” asked Sara, peering into her parents’ car.

  Ralf put his hand on the hood. It was still warm. He looked around and hurried over to an information board. “Seven Sisters Country Park” was written at the top. This part of the site was a large forest full of mountain-bike trails, while the cliffs were on the other side of the road and were accessible only on foot. The first route led through a valley and along a small stream, with a steep climb at the other end. The second was shorter and ran straight across the hills.

  “‘For less experienced walkers,’” read Sara, who had appeared next to him. She looked at Ralf. “I don’t think my parents do much hiking.”

  “The second route, then?” Ralf didn’t wait for her to respond, quickly walking back to his car. He opened the trunk, unzipped his bag, and rummaged through his things. He turned his body slightly to conceal his actions from Sara and placed the gun under his waistband.

  8

  The wind whipped around them. The gray clouds constantly changed shape and hue. A pale sun cast its diffuse light over the hills. The shifting illumination produced a threatening atmosphere, as if the scenery had been filmed through a dark lens. And yet there was also something romantic, Helen thought, about being swept up in this immense landscape. From a distance, she and Werner would look like slowly moving dots on an endless green stage. There was nobody else here, as far as the eye could see.

  Helen was in decent shape, but she was still panting a little. There was almost no level ground; each step took them higher and higher. Sometimes Werner walked ahead of her, sometimes alongside her, avoiding rocks, his hands in his jacket pockets. He was wearing a scarf, and his hair was tucked underneath a knitted gray hat.

  “Werner?”

  He looked at her.

  “Maybe we should move,” she said.

  “Where to?”

  “Closer to downtown. I drove past those new condo developments the other day. The more expensive ones look like they’re a decent size—big enough for the five of us. And they have video surveillance.”

  “You’ll have to convince the kids first. They won’t want to give up their swimming pool.”

  “I think they’d rather live close to school and downtown. Thom and Emma complain every day about how far they have to bike.”

  “Thom will be riding a scooter soon enough.” Werner bent over to pick up a stick. “Honestly, it’s no safer downtown than where we live now. I think the reverse might even be true.” He weighed the stick, tried to bend it, and leaned on it briefly. Snapped of
f various twigs. “The idea that you would be safe in any particular place is wishful thinking. Nowhere is truly safe.”

  Helen stood still. “Maybe it’s more of a feeling. Our house is out in the farthest corner of the neighborhood; the yard is so big. And then those woods all around it. That gloomy embankment.”

  “You used to think all those things were advantages.”

  “I know. Now I’ve realized they also make us vulnerable.”

  “We were just unlucky,” he said, and continued walking.

  Unlucky. So that was his view of the matter. Werner wasn’t very sensitive to atmosphere. Never had been. In the immediate aftermath of the robbery, he had found it hard to spend time in the bedroom—perhaps more than anything because of the feeling of powerlessness he had experienced in there. But that had only been a brief phase. For her, though, the house was tainted forever. The walls of the bedroom, the kitchen, and the basement were stained with ghastly memories. Quite literally. Even if she redecorated the entire house, she would still know what was hidden underneath. It would remain there for all eternity, like a bricked-up corpse.

  They had approached a flock of sheep on the hillside. Yellowy white, with long tails and swiveling ears perched on top of their heads. Some of them interrupted their grazing and watched them, still chewing, their ears pricked up like rabbits.

  “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” she asked.

  “Of course we are—take a look for yourself.” He pointed to a section higher up, where a wooden signpost was standing in the grass. The trail up to and along the Seven Sisters was marked out with these signposts, but the path itself was almost invisible. It was nothing more than a tendril winding across the landscape, scarcely a hand’s width across, on which the grass looked slightly shorter—or maybe it was just growing at a different angle.

  Werner stopped for a moment and turned to face her, leaning on his stick. “Listen, Helen—if it would make you feel better, then maybe we should give some serious thought to selling the house.”

  She could scarcely conceal her surprise. “Do you mean it?”

  He looked at her blankly. “Absolutely. Let’s talk about it with the kids at some point.” Then he turned around and continued walking uphill.

  The higher they got, the harder the wind blew. It tore at their clothes. Werner didn’t look back once, and Helen did her utmost not to fall behind. She had to place her feet carefully. There were rocks, potholes, and patches of uneven ground hidden beneath the grass and weeds. One false step and she would sprain her ankle, or worse. Every now and then, she looked up at Werner’s back—his stooped posture, his fist clenched around the stick, the knuckles white.

  There was something strange about this hike—it felt more like a military drill. She caught occasional glimpses of Werner’s face. Grim, determined. Werner looked as though he were in pain, as if they weren’t doing this for fun but were undertaking this harsh exercise out of necessity. His temperamental behavior unsettled her. One moment, he was the Werner who cracked jokes and treated her kindly, and the next, it felt like he was looking right through her.

  Werner stopped abruptly. He lifted his chin and looked into the distance. Strands of hair poking out from under his hat flapped back and forth, then pressed flat against his temples.

  Helen followed Werner’s gaze out to sea. The curve of the hill seemed to fade into nothingness. As if the land suddenly vanished into the now iron-gray sky. She recalled the signs at the visitor center warning hikers that the cliff edges crumbled more and more each year. That was how they remained so beautifully white. She looked at her feet. Then straight ahead. She felt a shudder that seemed to emanate from deep in her belly.

  “Werner?” Her scarf whipped against her shoulder.

  “This is the first ‘sister,’” he shouted over the wind. He slowly turned to face her. “The highest of the seven.”

  When her eyes met his, it was like she was looking at a stranger.

  9

  “I can’t go on.”

  Ralf pretended not to hear Sara. Stabs of pain shot through his side and his lungs were on fire, but he refused to give in. He felt his fury toward Brian and Werner mount with each step. If everything had gone according to plan that Friday evening, then Sara would have had to bury her mother last week. For Möhring, it had been about the money—but also about Emily. It wouldn’t have been long before she was introduced to the family as “Dad’s new girlfriend.” And, of course, Emily would have come with Brian in tow. The new stepbrother. And their mother’s murderer. How fucked up was that? How cold, sick, and heartless did you even have to be to come up with something like that, let alone carry it out?

  It was impossible to imagine a greater betrayal.

  10

  “We’re going to do something exciting.” Werner had to yell to make himself heard. The wind threatened to carry them away.

  Helen recalled what he had said to her last night: that they were going to do something that wasn’t allowed. They were alone up here—not even the sheep would come this far—but Werner didn’t seem to be talking about sex. Quite the opposite. He looked at her tensely. His jaws were clenched, his eyes narrowed. He tapped his stick on the ground.

  “What?” she shouted back.

  He gestured at the precipice with his chin. “We’re going to lie down on the edge.”

  “What?”

  “The edge,” he yelled. “We’re going to lie down on the edge.”

  Instinctively, she took a step backward. Shook her head.

  He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her against him. “The fear is something to savor, Helen. Looking into the abyss—it’s an incredible kick, by all accounts.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. Nothing will happen. You just stick your head over the edge. Only a very little bit.”

  “Werner, you’re scaring me.” She tried to free herself, but he held her with a firm grip.

  He grinned. “Scaring you? Don’t you think experiences like this make life more interesting? Doing something every now and then that you’ve never done before? Sometimes you just need a little push in the right direction.”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke? I don’t think it’s funny.” She gasped for air and kept shaking her head. “Not funny at all.”

  They were standing just a dozen steps from the edge. No grass grew this close to the precipice. The hills rolled onward into the distance: the second, third, and fourth sisters, with cliffs as far as the eye could see, and pale sunlight reflecting off the waves of the English Channel at their feet.

  “If you’re so desperate to do it,” she shouted, “then go ahead. But I’m not coming with you. I’m terrified enough as it is.” Her whole body was trembling.

  He gave her a piercing look. “I want you to do it, Helen. Go and lie down over there. I’ll hold on to your ankles.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Her voice cracked. “I said no.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  A sinister gleam appeared in his eyes. “That’s exactly the point, for Christ’s sake. You’ve spent your entire life coloring inside the lines. You’re such a fucking Goody Two-Shoes, it makes me sick, did you know that? Even when we have sex, it always has to be by the book.” His voice suddenly went high and shrill. “No, Werner, I don’t want to; that hurts. It’s too weird.” He pinched her arm and shook her. “All the constant bullshit about your work, like you’re Mother fucking Teresa herself. Monopolizing the children, as if I don’t count for anything—” He resumed his mocking tone. “No, Werner, they didn’t mean it that way. Don’t interfere.” His face was red with fury.

  “What are you talking about? Werner, you’re not yourself.”

  Fragments of chalk crunched under their feet.

  “Oh really, I’m not myself? What about you, then? The wild child who turned into the most uptight bitch I know.”

  “Will you—”

 
“I found your book, Helen. I read all those pathetic little letters you wrote to your mother. Does that shock you? I thought you meant for me to read them, since you weren’t exactly discreet about it. Very enlightening to learn that you’ve been through with me for years now, but that you still keep up appearances”—that mocking tone again—“because it’s better for the children.”

  She looked at him in horror, unable to move. All she could see was his contorted face, the revulsion and contempt. The seething hatred in his eyes. She suddenly understood that he wouldn’t let her leave this place. He had planned all this.

  She wouldn’t get out of here alive.

  The realization spread over her body like an ice-cold shiver, seeped through her veins, chilled her to her bones and beyond, to the depths of her heart.

  “You disgust me, Helen. I’ve spent far too long trapped in this fucking sham of a marriage. I want to move on, for Christ’s sake. I want to live.”

  “Werner, no!” She tore herself from his grasp and tried to run. A sudden, sharp pain exploded through her lower back. She pitched forward and fell face-first onto the ground.

  “I’m sick to death of you,” he panted, gripping the stick in his hands.

  11

  Ralf plowed uphill through the grass. He saw Werner Möhring standing by the edge of the cliff. First his head, then his shoulders. There was nobody with him. He was alone.

  Ralf’s eyes widened; he gasped.

  I’m too late.

  Too late.

  Too—

  Werner raised a stick and brought it down onto a figure sprawled on the ground in front of him.

  “No!” bellowed Ralf, drawing his pistol.

  Werner looked up. His eyes were bloodshot; his lips thin, pale and retracted; his teeth clenched in a horrible grimace. He no longer resembled a human, but a rabid animal.