I Mean You No Harm

by Beth Castrodale

  The last eyes my mother saw.

  He put his lips to her ear, whispered. “Sometimes, you encounter something beautiful, nearly perfect. And you find yourself drawn back to it, again and again, so you can study how it moves, see how it looks in different lights. But between you and this thing of near perfection, there’s a wall of glass, to protect it, and yourself.

  “Then one day, something unexpected happens, like a sudden change in the weather. And the glass just shatters. And at first you think that’s wonderful, a miracle. Then you see that the beautiful thing’s been shattered, too. And that’s a tragedy, an unforgettable tragedy. But it’s no one’s fault, really. It’s just—”

  He was at her chest, fumbling, pulling, until the smock ripped open. A charge rolled through her, driving her hand to her right pocket. She pulled the gun, jammed it to his gut, fired.

  The force of the shot, the warm soak of blood, the weight of him still on her. For a moment, she imagined that she’d shot herself, that even as she bled out, he wouldn’t let go. The moment passed, and she shoved him away.

  He dropped to the gravel, grasping the wound, his mouth forming words she couldn’t hear, his eyes showing disbelief, maybe even fear.

  As if pushed, he toppled to his side, curled into a C. Now, his breaths grew louder, raging forth like curse after curse after curse. Until they stopped.

  Layla stepped closer, found his eyes glassed, his body motionless. To be sure, she toed his back, and he remained still as a sack of meat. But the move enlivened her. She kicked him. Then she kicked him again, and again, and again, feeling no relief, just an outrush of rage and grief. His end had come all too late for her mother, and Alice, and Roy. Way too late.

  At some point, she saw herself—saw the whole scene—from a remove, and stopped. She saw that she was soaked with blood, a rock’s throw from two dead men, and still holding the gun that had killed one of them: that she’d used to kill one of them.

  Just how fucked was she?

  Maybe not at all.

  She could call 911 and tell the truth, then tell the same truth to the cops who would arrive on the scene: she’d acted out of self-defense. They’d take in her story and her torn, bloody clothes and have no reason to doubt her. Or would they? After what had happened with her mother, she couldn’t be sure about anything where cops were concerned. Still, what choice did she have?

  Then she thought of the money. What about her promise to Bette?

  Layla looked over her shoulder, toward the briefcases on the back seat of the car, as if they would spark some insight. They didn’t. But she already had her answers.

  Surely, Bette would understand if Layla left the money where it was, let the cops do what they would with it, and went home, back to her life. Bette never would have imagined that things would go this far. Surely, she’d be horrified.

  Layla dropped the gun and patted her left pocket. No phone. She must have left it in the truck.

  She headed back to the truck, and to Cross’s body in its pool of blood. She wasn’t afraid to look at it anymore. His face was frozen in a look of shock, his eyes as glassy as Wes’s.

  Layla thought of her mother’s drawing of Cross, how it had proved to be a distraction from a worse threat, a threat that Layla had sensed early on and should have taken more seriously.

  If Bette had survived to retrieve the money, Wes would have had no qualms about killing her too, even though she’d trusted this old friend of her father deeply. Even though she’d believed he wanted the best for her, and Jake.

  Jake. Layla remembered what Bette had told her: that she hadn’t saved much money to see him through.

  Stop it, she thought. Stop it and call the cops.

  She lifted her hand to the truck’s door and paused, as if interrupted. An unfamiliar feeling rolled through her, a soul-canceling sense of purpose she’d only later put a word to: cold-bloodedness. She opened the door and bypassed her phone, going instead for the SaniWipes tucked into the glove compartment.

  After retrieving the code from Wes’s back pocket, she transferred the briefcases to the truck bed and wiped down every surface of the car she might have touched.

  Not finding a way to stop the music from the hearse-car, she left it playing.

  Now, her gun. Hide it here or take it? Neither option sounded good.

  Surely, this site would be the first place police would look for the weapon that killed Wes, and if they found it, they might trace it to Bette. If they did, that would make trouble for Marla and, possibly, for Layla.

  But keeping the gun might be riskier, especially if the cops got on her trail early, before she could get rid of it, her bloody clothes, and anything else that might incriminate her.

  Then she thought of the trail of deception that had almost gotten her killed. Her doubts that she’d reached its end were a solid check in the keep-the-gun column, at least until she’d logged some miles.

  She took the gun to the truck, wiped it down, and tucked it into the compartment under the driver’s seat. Moments later, a convenience-store bag containing her bloody smock and all the wipes she’d used to clean the scene—and herself—joined the gun. Dressed in a fresh T-shirt, she started up the truck and stepped on the gas, putting the first bit of distance between herself and the mess that she and Wes had made.

  As she did, a familiar tune started up from the hearse-car: “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” from My Fair Lady: one other musical she’d actually liked, mainly because of Audrey Hepburn, her first crush.

  Within minutes, she was free of this maze and highway-bound, ignoring her ringing phone.

  Layla was well along 87 North, well into Tonto National Forest, when she realized she was no longer running on pure adrenaline, no longer compulsively checking her rear-view mirror. Now and then, an unfamiliar car surged up from behind, then passed her. But for long stretches—including this current one—she had the road to herself.

  In this relative calm, she remembered the phone call she’d ignored. She picked up her cell and, glancing between it and the road, saw that she had one voicemail. She hit play:

  Hi, Layla. This is Andi Patel at the Arts League, and I wanted to let you know that Sara, Staying has been chosen for exhibition in our show. You should be really proud, because there were so many great entries this year, more than usual. But your painting really spoke to the jurors.

  I’d like to chat with you about the reception and other good stuff. So, call me when you have a chance, okay? Big congrats.

  Layla signed off and tossed the phone onto the passenger’s seat.

  At another time in her life, even two hours ago, this message would have launched her into the kind of high she rarely experienced in connection with her art. It would have made her forget everything awful about her life, past and present, for at least a few minutes. Now, it did nothing. Now, she just felt numb, let her mind go blank.

  But it didn’t stay blank. At some point, “Memory” started up in her head and wouldn’t stop, feeling like an auditory curse: a bit of Wes she’d be doomed to bear for as long as she lived.

  It occurred to her now why he might have chosen this song, and sent the musical-related mailing. In an interview for some blog, she and a few other artists had been asked to respond to the same set of questions. One of them:

  What would you never do again as an artist, or an ordinary human?

  Her response: See Cats.

  Had Wes wanted to convince her that Cats, and “Memory,” and everything about musicals weren’t so bad? Or just weaken her will even more? His claim about wanting to “take the edge off” what she’d seen him do to Cross: pure bullshit. That edge was a weapon against her.

  By the time she reached I-40, her mind was free of music, and her thoughts returned to who might be on her trail: cops, or some vengeful associate of Wes, or Cross. Glancing to the rear-view mirror, and once again
spying no trouble there, a line of Vic’s came back to her, a small measure of comfort: People get away with murder more often than you think.

  Chapter 25

  Somewhere in the

  Texas Panhandle,

  off of I-40

  Ten or so hours later

  She drove through the backcountry darkness, her world down to what was lit by her headlights, and to the voices on the radio:

  “I … I dunno if I’m ready for that. I mean, the last time I went to one of those things, I ended up standin’ on the sidelines with my beer, just feelin’ worse about myself.”

  “Well, like I said, Ryan, nothing’s gonna change if you don’t push yourself off of those sidelines, even if it feels a little forced at first. Set a goal, like, ‘I’m gonna approach that woman by the chip bowl and ask her something.’ Anything to get a conversation started. Then, if things don’t get on a roll with her, set another goal and move on.”

  Layla had chosen this show over music, because it reminded her of all those nights during junior high when she and Grandma Alice listened to Alice’s favorite radio program, another call-in advice show. Coffee with Kitty it was called, even though it started long after sundown. Stretched out in the living room with all the lights extinguished, Layla on the couch, Alice on the recliner, they’d found comfort in the voices of strangers in darkness. Strangers with problems that weren’t theirs, just something interesting to listen to. Now, Layla was the stranger, to herself and the world as she’d known it.

  She pictured herself by the singles-mixer chip bowl, Ryan approaching her with whatever question he’d cooked up.

  I’m not normal, she’d want to warn him. I killed someone.

  I killed someone.

  Knowing that that fucker had to die offered no solace, and no protection from the fear that killing another human, without regret, had changed her. Changed her down to the level of her cells and her soul, making that seam of cold-bloodedness not a momentary salvation but an ever-present part of her, just waiting to be pressed back into service.

  The host had moved on to the next caller, a young woman who was at the hub of a dysfunctional family, and “sick of being the peacemaker.”

  Layla tuned out of the conversation, let her mind run to the inked-out landscape all around. She’d been lucky for the moonless night, for the remoteness of this place and this two-lane road, where the last set of headlights had approached and passed her miles ago.

  She’d left I-40 for this road about an hour before, pulling over once the last signs of civilization seemed to have petered out. She grabbed a flashlight and an ice scraper from the glove compartment, and a bag stuffed with the torn and bloodied smock, the soiled wipes, the gun, the smashed-up burner phone, and the scrap of paper with Leos’s number. Then she walked as far into the distance as felt comfortable, and somewhere between a scattering of rocks and some scrub, she dug a hole as deep as the scraper would allow and threw in all the evidence. All the while, she thought only of the smock.

  As she covered the bag with dirt and then rocks, she felt she was obliterating something more than a perfect gift from her imperfect, barely known sister. She felt like an accomplice in Bette’s end, and in the end of what the two of them might have become, together, had things gone another way.

  Sobbing from the radio pulled her back to the present, back to the woman with the dysfunctional family.

  “My mom’s telling me I shouldn’t move in the middle of all this. But I’m tired of being the family problem-solver. I just wanna … I just wanna get away.”

  “Listen, honey. Most therapists’ll tell you that you should never run from your problems. But I’m not a therapist. I’m cum laude graduate of the school of hard knocks. And I’m hearing that you need to move to Dallas and make a new start. And cut some family ties, maybe for good. So I say, Do it. Do it with a free and joyous conscience, and I’m betting it’ll make all the difference. And I’m bet—”

  Layla shut off the radio. Anyone who’d experienced guilt, doubt, or regret knew there was no such thing as a free and joyous conscience. Or if there was, it wasn’t built to last.

  Still, a bit of the advice stayed with her. You need to make a new start. It’ll make all the difference.

  More bullshit, but she couldn’t quite dismiss it. As she drove on, the words seemed to gain power.

  A new start.

  That old electricity rolled through her, like the charge she’d felt as a teenager, when she’d pocketed that gum and lipstick at the drugstore—another time she’d felt like a stranger to herself. Now, she was hauling two million-plus. With all that money, she could be that stranger anywhere.

  Then she thought of Jake.

  She wasn’t a stranger to him, or to Marla. They seemed eager for her to arrive at their place, and they didn’t even know about the money. “We’ll have a nice dinner ready when you get here,” Marla had said, when Layla had called before sundown to share her ETA. “But if you wanna crawl right into the sack, no one’s gonna stop you. Though Jake might try.”

  Right now, they were the only family Layla had. She couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing Jake, as Vic had done to her for so many years. She remembered the last card from him, the one sitting on top of all that money.

  I realize what’s in this box doesn’t come close to making up for all you lost and all the things I never did for you.

  He was right. No amount of money could ever come close to making up for the absence of a father, or the loss of a mother, Jake’s or her own. Nothing ever could. But Vic had understood that money could make a difference, maybe a big one. And she was grateful for that, especially for Jake and Marla’s sake.

  She stepped on the gas, and within a half hour she was back on I-40 and heading east, closing the distance to Reedstown.

  Chapter 26

  A Meal, A Revelation,

  A Plan

  Reedstown, Ohio

  Layla finished her second bowl of lentil chili, the first real meal she’d had for days. “That was delicious, Marla.”

  “All I did was follow the recipe from the Internet. But I’m glad you liked it.”

  Apparently, near her end, Bette had asked Marla to make “something vegetarian” for Layla’s welcome-home meal. This made the chili, as tasty as it was, a reminder of Bette’s absence. Other reminders: Bette’s unoccupied spot at the dining room table, and the hutch along the wall. Once the home of Bette’s Security shirts and her walkie-talkie, it was now empty of those possessions, and topped with some of the smaller sympathy bouquets. But just before dinner, Marla moved one of them, an especially aromatic assortment of lilies, to the screened-in porch.

  “I’ve never liked the smell of those things,” she’d said. “It takes away my appetite.

  Layla had never liked the smell of lilies either, their perfume so heavy it bordered on an act of aggression. Now, it reminded her of Vic’s wake, and of her first sighting of Wes.

  She looked to Jake, who seemed his old self mostly, though he was still less talkative than he’d been before Bette’s death. No embracer of vegetarianism, he was finishing his third bowl of cheddar cheese-laden chili, and his disenchantment with the ArtTech tools seemed far behind him. Not long after he and Layla had started playing around with them, he said, “I like regular drawing better,” no surprise to Layla. Since then, he’d finished five new crayon drawings of Bette.

  “Hey, Em?”

  “Yes, Jake.” Marla folded her napkin and set it aside.

  “At art camp? Me and Layla are gonna go huge with Mom.”

  Looking confused, Marla glanced to Layla, then back to Jake. “What do you mean, go huge?”

  “I mean, we’re gonna make a painting of Mom so big it’ll take up that whole wall.” He pointed to the one across from him.

  Layla cut in. “Probably not that big, Jake. But we’ll do the best we can.”
>
  Back home, the makeshift studio she’d set up in the den could barely accommodate her regular-sized canvases, let alone large-scale work. During the art-camp sessions, they’d have to spread out and improvise.

  Marla rose up and started consolidating the dirty dishes, and Layla joined her. “You need to get ready for bed, young man. We’re gettin’ off to an early start tomorrow.”

  At eight a.m., all of them were going to meet with the funeral director to make the final preparations for Bette’s service the following day. Layla was planning to stay with Marla and Jake until the end of the post-service reception.

  Now, she couldn’t wait to crawl into bed herself. Maybe this owed to the fact of her full belly. Maybe it owed to the presence of Marla and Jake, an even greater comfort than she’d expected. Whatever the reason, the adrenaline that had fueled much of her drive home seemed to have been replaced by a sleeping potion.

  But there would be no sleeping until she explained the “luggage” to Marla: code for the three briefcases that Layla had hauled from the truck to the attic, shortly after her arrival. She’d called them that in Jake’s presence, making them sound like a gift to Marla, and in some sense they were. But Layla had whispered to Marla that the “luggage” was something that the two of them needed to discuss in private. Something connected to Bette.

  As soon as they finished the dishes and got Jake settled in for the night, they headed to the attic to do just that.

  “Have a seat,” Layla said, nodding to her former spot, the ottoman. In front of it were the briefcases.

  She herself took the beanbag chair, which called to mind her most lasting picture of Bette. She’d occupied this awkwardness-inducing sac like no one else could, like she could run the world from it. Like she could never have been as broken as she said she was—as broken as Layla felt now that she was staring at the briefcases. The sight of them brought a fresh surge of adrenaline, and flashes of Wes: Wes closing in on her, then tearing at her smock.