Ring of Years

by Grant Oliphant

  “She overdosed, right?”

  “Oh, there were pills all right, a ton of them. But that’s not what killed her.”

  “So, what did?”

  “Well, nothing’s official yet, but it looks like the bath.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re gonna love this, Cart Man. The lady took a bunch of pills, downed some gin, and then took a bath. Your basic no-no combo, supersized. Don’t drink and bathe, that’s always been my motto. She drowned, Carter. All that going on next door, and this dumb bitch goes and drowns herself. Tell me that isn’t too perfect.”

  Natalie hears herself gasp, a sharp intake of air that seems to freeze in her throat.

  “Oh,” Carter says slowly. “Fuck.”

  “What?” Joe asks, startled. “You know something?”

  “Not really, at least not yet. Thanks, Joe.” There’s another click as Carter disconnects his colleague. “Natalie?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Natalie?”

  She can’t imagine speaking right now. What if one of the others at the table heard her, and decided to start talking to her? What would their voices sound like after all this time? Like ice and rocks and slush, probably; a mouthful of dirt and resentment.

  “Are you saying she was part of it?” Carter’s voice sounds small and far away, like he’s speaking through a tube. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

  Sticky hair. Natalie thinks. Because it was still wet.

  And Alima’s letter. Wherever you find water . . . Apparently, a van in a lake isn’t the only way to Atlantis; exceptions can be made, personal gateways opened.

  If for Bret Hartlow, why not for someone else?

  The temperature in the kitchen seems to plummet. Little shivers scratch at the nape of Natalie’s neck, like cold lips brushing over her skin in silent whispers. The darkness shudders around her. She has the momentary sensation of spinning in starless space, and just to be safe rests her head on the table. An image fills her mind, of Abby in the tub when Phil found her, her face shrouded in a seaweed forest of floating hair. Panicked, Phil yanks the plug and pulls his wife’s body from the tepid water, which swirls slowly down the drain. Cradling Abby’s lifeless form, guilt blossoming inside him like an algae bloom, Phil is oblivious as her soul, its mission complete, spins down with the torrent and begins its journey through muck and sewage toward open seas and the promise of Atlantis.

  11

  Guess!

  The children are picking daffodils on the bluff. It’s one of those late summer days when baby clouds scud across the sky in a refreshing breeze and even the adults find time to smile just because. The children finished their chores early, so Father sent them out to have fun, their only task being to return for lunch with an armful of colorful flowers to decorate the house. “Enough to fill eight vases!” Father told them, and off they went, running like wild creatures freed from a cage.

  Natalie is fashioning a necklace from the yellow dandelions she and Stephanie picked on their way up the hill. Stephanie moves back and forth between Natalie and the others, alternately coveting the chain her sister is making for her and joining the games the others play among the flowers—tag and wrestling and running and silliness; swinging on the rope suspended from the tree that shades Natalie as she works; laughing out loud and screaming because no one cares and it’s allowed.

  When the necklace is done, Natalie beckons her sister over and grandly drapes it around her neck. “It’s beautiful,” Stephanie says as several of the other children gather around and admire her prize. And then it’s forgotten and they scamper off, tittering.

  Jason, hanging upside down from the rope, yells, “Hey! Everybody, let’s play a game!”

  Natalie smiles to herself. As though they aren’t already, she thinks.

  “What do you want to play, oh great game master?” she asks.

  “Guess!” Jason yells.

  “Oh, no,” she groans lightheartedly. “Something else.”

  But by then the damage is done, and the other children are gathering around and clamoring for her to play. “But it’s too nice a day,” she protests.

  “Come on, Natalie,” Jason insists. “You know we can’t play it inside. It’s an outdoor game, and this is an outdoor day.”

  He’s right about that. Guess isn’t a game they dare to play in the house, where the adults might catch them again. The last time they were caught they lost their playtime for a week and their desserts for a month, and there must have been at least a dozen lectures on respect. Somehow, though, the idea of getting caught again is part of what makes the game so fun, even though she doubts that’s how they would feel if it really happened.

  “Guess! Guess! Guess!” the children chant.

  “All right.” Natalie capitulates. “Guess it is.” The others cheer and arrange themselves in a semi-circle in front of her. She turns around, lets their anticipation build, then slowly spins back, her face arranged in a scowl that she likes to think of as menacing, a crooked finger pointing slowly at each one of them. “I saw that!” she snarls in a low voice.

  The children giggle. “Rumer!” they all shout together.

  Natalie nods. Rumer is one of their favorites for this game, and she always starts by imitating him.

  “Jason!” she screams in her Rumer voice. ‘“Get outside.”

  Jason jumps to his feet. “Yes, sir,” he answers tremulously. “What should I do there?”

  “Don’t question me, boy! Get outside and do what you’re supposed to do.”

  “I will, sir, I promise. But what is it I’m supposed to do?”

  Natalie gives a sidelong glance to the rest of the group. “You don’t know?” she demands.

  “No.”

  “Then,” Natalie cues the others with a wave of her hands, and they all shout in unison, “guess!”

  “The chickens? Did I forget to feed the chickens?” Jason deadpans to the obvious delight of the others.

  “We don’t have chickens!” Natalie roars. The children are hysterical. “Does the word gate ring a bell?”

  “Did I let the chickens escape out the gate?”

  Even Natalie loses it then and falls to the ground, hugging her belly.

  “Why are you laughing?” Jason adds with mock distress. “We’ve lost all our chickens! What are we going to do for eggs?”

  Which sends them all into fits of laughter. Jason collapses gleefully, and they all lie there for a while, sucking in the warm summer air, staring up at the clouds. Who can make sense of the world of adults?

  A single bird wafts by overhead, high and distant. Watching it go, the children have no idea that this is their last summer, their last game of Guess; that all too soon the men will find them, and the world of adults, playing its own game of Guess, will come literally crashing down upon them.

  * * *

  Whatever consciousness rules Natalie in her sleep shakes off the memory masquerading as a dream, and she awakes to the sound of her own retching.

  She is leaning over the kitchen sink, her finger down her throat, gagging. Her throat and eyes are on fire, and deep inside her abdomen, a sinewy knot of pain and nausea is clawing into the tender lining of her belly, attacking her like something angry and unwanted, a sharp-fanged animal fighting wildly against expulsion from its newly-poached burrow. Her stomach heaves upward, and she spits out the trickle of sour saliva that is all that gathers in her cottony mouth.

  Get out, she thinks. Get out of me!

  Obsessed, she jams her finger deeper down inside of herself, cutting off the air, and gags again. A violent spasm seizes her, but nothing comes but a trickle of bile. Through the blur of tears streaming from her burning eyes, she sees the blood on her fingernail as she pulls it away, the pale, washed-out redness of the spittle stringing out from her hand to her chin.

  Good, bleed. Surge out, burst out, trickle out, die if you want, just get out.

  The creature inside her twists again. Immediately, she c
hases it with her sharp nail, jabbing downward inside her throat, trying to stab it. Her body convulses so hard her knees give way, and she collapses loudly to the floor, choking on her own finger, her own thin knife of flesh and bone.

  “What in heaven’s name is going on here?” someone screams.

  She recognizes it as Emily’s voice, alert and awake, her morning voice. Somehow the woman is never hung over, and on good mornings she even manages to be borderline chipper, although today all Natalie detects is hysteria.

  Emily streaks across the room and yanks Natalie’s hand away from her mouth.

  “My God,” she shrieks, “What’s wrong? What are you trying to do?”

  “Get it out of me,” Natalie sobs, clutching at her stomach.

  “Get what out of you? What are you talking about?” Emily takes in the scene, including the bottle of vodka, its cap still off, and next to it, the spent lowball. “Oh, Natalie, how much did you have? You shouldn’t drink like that.” She says it tenderly, straight-faced, gently stroking the top of Natalie’s head. Don’t do as I do . . .

  “That’s not it,” Natalie says. The alcohol isn’t the issue—she can handle three drinks, even stiff ones inhaled on an empty stomach. It’s the discovery of last night that torments her. That is what she is trying to purge, what she wants expelled from her body, her mind.

  “She’s taking her revenge,” she whispers.

  “Who is?” Emily asks.

  “Why does she have to hurt an innocent girl?”

  “Who? What girl?”

  Through her own tears Natalie can make out the watery fear in her aunt’s eyes. Emily is terrified her niece might actually answer the questions she has posed. For a moment, Natalie considers sparing her, but then she can’t help herself and her words rush out. “Aunt Katie,” she cries. “She kidnapped a little girl and made me care about her, and now she’s going to make me watch her die.”

  Because that’s it, isn’t it? That is what she is supposed to guess—that she can look for Selena all she wants, but she will die anyway. That Selena is a reprise of Stephanie not by accident but by design. That once again a little girl’s going to lose her life because of Natalie.

  Emily turns away. “See what happens?” she says, her voice suddenly chilled. “I have tried to tell you, God knows. I’ve tried to tell you what comes from not letting go.”

  “And I’ve told you I can’t do that, “ Natalie replies angrily. “I’m not like you. I can’t just pretend none of it ever happened.”

  Using the counter for support, she pulls herself to her feet. Her legs are shaky. “Where are you going?” her aunt demands.

  “To talk to someone who understands.”

  “Oh, Natalie.” Emily’s voice breaks. The momentary hardness in her face fades, and in its place appears a sadness, almost a grief. “When are you going to learn?”

  “Learn what?”

  “To leave the past alone.”

  Natalie looks back at the table, where the ghosts joined her the night before. They have gone somewhere to hide, but she has no doubt they will be back. “When it learns to leave me alone,” she answers.

  With a groan that seems to last the length of the house, she pushes away from the counter and heads upstairs for a cold shower. The clock in the bathroom reads six fifteen. As she twists the old chrome faucet, she hears the television come alive downstairs, a jaunty jingle and a woman’s rehearsed laughter, the canned soundtrack of a new day dawning. Her mind skips and fills again with the image of children dashing through tall grass. They always enjoyed playing Guess, and she could never figure out why. It never turned out well for them, when they played. It never turned out well at all.

  * * *

  Selena’s head hurts. Worse than it ever has. Worse than being really sick and waking up knowing you can’t go to school even though it’s a field trip and all your friends are getting to go somewhere and have fun without you. Worse than that.

  She presses her face deeper into her blanket. She loves how soft it is, like a feather. People think it’s just an old, dirty rag, but what do they know? They don’t see what she sees. Holding it tight and closing her eyes, she can see home, smell her mother’s perfume, remember the touch of her pillow against her head and the sound of her mother’s voice in the morning coming to wake her.

  Her mother.

  “Mommy,” she whispers. “Come get me, Mommy.”

  There’s an ache inside her belly so huge it feels like it’s going to swallow her up. She almost wishes it would.

  Not almost. She does wish it would. She wishes it was a hole in the ground and she could just fall through it and keep on falling until forever, until God caught her.

  God has nets in heaven. He would catch her, wouldn’t he?

  Tears start to form in her eyes, stinging tears. It hurts to cry, so she tries not to, except that hurts, too. Everything hurts.

  Slowly, as she lies there, motionless, trying not to exert herself in any direction, the throbbing in her temples subsides. Selena opens her eyes, hoping it was all just a dream.

  But it wasn’t. And isn’t.

  Her father’s friends are lying on the floor all around her. They are nice people. When they are awake, they smile at her a lot and call her honey and ask if she needs anything. But they call themselves her new family, her real family, and she doesn’t really want them as her family, she wants her old family. She just wants to go home.

  Why can’t she just go home?

  Their slow rhythmic breathing reminds her of something. Of how her daddy sounded when they went camping and she woke up next to him in their tent, excited about fishing and eager to get started. The sound of his breathing was so soothing it lulled her back to sleep, her head floating on the up-down motion of his chest.

  Floating . . .

  She remembers, then, where her father is now. Without thinking, she sits bolt upright and the pain in her head turns white in its intensity.

  “Daddy!” she screams.

  A long, hideous wail. The ache inside her belly comes screeching out, and she can feel it wrap itself around her again and again, encircling her waist, her chest, her throat, the slow constricting, the suffocating pressure.

  “Daddy!”

  And again and again, each scream making it that much harder to breathe, that much more necessary to scream again. Heads pop up out of sleeping bags, stern voices order her to shush, and finally the lady, the one Selena doesn’t like very much, the one they call Sara, storms into the room, her face in a rage, shouting at her to stop.

  And behind her, Peter, clutching something in his right hand—a cup. The little red cup he’s been using to give her drinks, tiny sips of something sweet to soothe her almost constant thirst. Selena’s eyes widen. Not the cup, no more of the cup.

  “No!”

  * * *

  Natalie arrives at Stephanie’s grave in time to watch the cemetery come alive in the muted early morning light. It’s a good place to be, she figures, as good a place as any to find her bearings. A lot can get lost over time. Life keeps going, the world keeps spinning, even when you find its persistence incomprehensible. Day slides into day and you force yourself through each one and pretty soon—who knows how it happens?—thirteen years slip by. But here, all that wash of time, the relentless progression of it, is reduced to six feet of wormy soil. No matter how much time slips past that is still the measure of Natalie’s life, and she wants to remember it, needs to remember it.

  On the roadway, a station wagon drifts to a stop near St. Francis and an ungainly woman, a ganglion of tendril-like arms and legs, emerges from its dark interior. She pulls her gray hair up into a bun and then slips on a pair of gardening gloves. They fit her easily, like she has worn them often, and she seems to savor the act of tugging the worn fabric snugly over her impossibly thin fingers one by one. Fully gloved, she leans inside the wagon and emerges with a couple of digging tools and a diminutive green plant with a tiny pink flower on it, then plods off downhi
ll, into the cemetery grove that lies below the roadway. Only a few yards in, she carefully lays down her things, spreading them neatly to one side, picks up one of the tools and, with great deliberation, begins jabbing at a narrow plot of earth.

  The old lady—that’s how she strikes Natalie, as old—doesn’t even glance up when another car sweeps by and brakes to an abrupt stop behind her own.

  Natalie recognizes the sporty sedan instantly, and she manages a tiny wave when Maureen steps out. “Your aunt told me you’d gone out already,” her erstwhile employer shouts as she heads up the hill. “I took a stab at finding you here.”

  “Lucky guess,” Natalie answers, her throat raspy from its encounter with her finger. She isn’t in the mood for company, but she politely offers Maureen a seat in the wet grass next to her.

  “Actually, I was kind of afraid you would be out somewhere looking for that Selena kid.”

  “Why bother? it’s pointless.”

  “So it appears,” Maureen sighs. A cigarette appears in her hand and she cups a lighter flame to its tip. “You think your sister would mind?” she asks on the exhale.

  “My sister’s dead,” Natalie replies, filching the smoke from her friend’s fingers. She is about to toss it away when she decides instead to balance it between her own lips and inhales.

  “Ah,” Maureen observes.

  They sit quietly for a while, Natalie smoking Maureen’s cigarette and Maureen trying to position her jacket to keep her rear end from getting too wet. A car with its lights on pulls up next to the station wagon. The man driving it leaves the motor running and the door open while he runs up the hillside and drops a small bouquet of flowers on a grave nearby. He mouths a prayer, then hurries back down to his car and drives off.

  “I spoke with Rhonda Scopes this morning.” Maureen says in the silence that follows. “She’s a friend. We go back a ways.”

  Natalie doesn’t react. “How long do you suppose it took for him to get to that point?” she asks.