He smiles, hoping his unresponsive muscles will cooperate enough to put her at ease. “I’d like to see the flyers, if you don’t mind. I thought I could help.”
“That’s fine, of course. Joe took the first batch to the store today. I need to print out a copy.”
“If it’s easier, you can just email it to me.”
“Our Internet’s down,” she says quickly.
“I’m pretty good with computers. Want me to have a look?”
“No!” Emma steps back. “I mean no thank you. Joe is good with computers, too. I’m sure he can fix it.” She rocks on her heels, claps her hands. “Wait here.”
Five minutes later, she’s back. By that time, Cornelius has settled onto the couch, his good leg aching from dragging around the bad. When Emma holds the flyer out to him, he takes a long look at what she created. It’s on a 3x5 sheet of plain white paper, and she perfectly captured the essence of the soaps. Simple flowers, delicate scrollwork, the name “Ana’s Soaps” and a description on the bottom.
“You did a fine job,” Cornelius says. “Can I keep this? To show Regina.”
“Sure.” A buzzer goes off in the kitchen and Emma bolts toward the door. “I need to get that or the bread will burn.”
“Go, go.”
She’s back a few seconds later. Shifting from foot to foot, she seems uncomfortable. Finally she says, “I need to start lunch soon, Mr. Topper. Joe will be home at noon and he likes a hot lunch.”
“No problem, Emma.” Cornelius struggles to his feet. “I’m working on some new soaps. I brought one for you today.” He holds out a rose-scented bar. “What do you think?”
Emma takes a long inhale. “Nice, but not quite there.”
“That’s what Regina said.” Cornelius places the soap in the walker basket. “I’ll keep at it.”
Emma nods. “Joe says they sold well yesterday.”
“Oh, good.” Cornelius ambles toward the front door, self-conscious of his jerky gait. “I’ll bring some more.” He glances back at Emma before leaving. She’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her hands holding the frame as though it’s the only thing keeping her upright in the gloomy, over-heated house. “Emma, can I do anything for you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Would you like to come over for some tea this afternoon? Regina makes a mean chamomile.”
“I can’t. But thank you.”
“Emma, you know…” Cornelius is about to say, “we’re just a house away” but realizes how ridiculous it sounds. When you’re in the throes of drowning, even a rope won’t help you if you can’t see to reach it.
And so, Cornelius bids Emma Kramer farewell and heads home.
#
Joe arrives at 12:02 in a good mood. I set his lunch on the table—chicken pot pie, fresh bread with butter, steamed green beans—and pour him a glass of sweet tea. I make myself a small plate and wait for him to join me in the kitchen. But he’s occupied with something in the front entrance.
I call for him.
“Be right there, Emma.”
I wander into the hall, my stomach suddenly in knots. The food will be cold. Joe doesn’t care for cold food. But what I see makes me shudder—and not because of cold pot pie.
“What are you doing, Joe?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? Making us safer.”
He’s screwing a new lock into the top of the door. It’s bulky and tough-looking. But that’s not what I’m focused on. It has a keyhole. And presumably requires a key.
Finished, Joe steps back and admires his handiwork. “That should do it.”
“This is a safe neighborhood, Joe. I don’t think we need that level of protection.”
Joe spins around. I think I may have gone too far, but I see he’s smiling. “Can never be too careful, Emma.” He swings a silver key in the air in front of my face, then pockets it. “We’ll only keep it locked at night. But if you feel threatened during the day, I can add a programmable lock. One that’s foolproof and doesn’t require a key.”
I force a smile. I know very well what he’s saying—a veiled threat to keep me in as much as riffraff out. The thought of being trapped inside makes my head hurt. “I’ve been good, Joe.”
“I know you have, Emma. And I appreciate it. But last year, when I thought I’d lost you…it was too much. You mean so much to me. I want you to focus on how great things can be if we can learn to trust one another.”
“I understand.” And I do. I see the fear in his eyes. I know how kind he can be. I’ll focus on last night—his warmth, his strength. This is just a test of my love.
He sniffs the air. “Flowers?”
“Mr. Topper. He wanted to see the flyers.”
“Ah, Cornelius. Next time you see him, let him know we’re almost sold out of the soaps. I could use some more.” Joe walks toward me, places his hands on my shoulders. He touches my sore spot and I flinch.
“Emma.” It’s a warning growl.
“Lunch, Joe? Before it gets cold.”
“Warm it up.” But the lightness of the moment is gone. I scoop up his meal, quick to obey.
#
Under the cover of night, Cornelius grabs the walker with his good arm. He draws it close and slides out of bed, making it out the door and down the hall before pausing by the last door on the left. As always, the door to that room is closed. He’s tempted to open it, but his hand lingers on the knob for a second too long and his courage evaporates.
He moves away slowing, a feeling of impotence creeping and crawling its way around his gut. He thought he’d made peace with this piece of their past long ago. He thought a lot of things, it seemed. He stops to look out the hall window, the one that overlooks the Kramers’ property. The lights are on upstairs. He thinks about Emma, about a crypt-like house and a hesitant smile and train-track bruises along a slim arm, only half hidden by a long-sleeve shirt.
He returns to his room to find Regina sitting up in bed, reading.
“Restless, Chevy?”
“I guess.” With some effort, he climbs back under the covers.
When he looks up, he sees Regina staring at him over horn-rimmed readers. “You know,” she says, “sometimes the way to solve a problem is to go around it. Not through it.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It’s something women have understood for centuries.”
#
I hate that I look forward to his visits. It gives me something to lose.
He stops by almost daily now, normally around two-thirty. He brings me new soaps to smell and we package them together with pretty bows and cards. At first, I felt like he was studying me, judging me, but gradually, I realized it was just the way his features have frozen on the left side of his face.
Today, I watch his house, waiting for him to arrive. He’s late. I feel warm when I finally see him making his way up our walk. He’s using a cane, not the walker. That surprises me. I’m worried that he’ll hurt himself if he falls. Cornelius doesn’t need a physical set-back. Not when he’s come so far.
“Who’s Ana?” I ask him later. We had just finished tying lavender string around a set of lavender-vanilla soaps and Cornelius is getting ready to leave. “Why did you name the soaps after her?”
“Ana was my daughter.” He picks up his cane. His hands are shaking, but I know it has nothing to do with his stroke. “She was thirteen when she died. Leukemia.”
“I’m so sorry, Cornelius.”
“Thank you.” He looks at me, holding my gaze with a ferocity that steals my breath. “She had no choice. God spoke, she succumbed. But not without a fight.” He studies my jaw, the spots on my upper chest that I hid with concealer this morning. Burn marks, tender but healing. “No one should go without a fight.”
I pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about. My hand trails to my face. Of their own accord, my eyes glance at the front door. At the heavy lock at the top. It’s open now but will be locked later. Part of Joe’s new ev
ening ritual.
His gaze follows mine, but if he thinks it’s odd for a lock inside to have a keyhole, he doesn’t let on.
#
Cornelius leaves the Kramer household in a slow boil. His patience is wearing thin. He stumbles over the curb of his driveway, cursing his condition. Papa Stone. More like Papa Paper.
Inside, he thinks about calling Drew and decides against it. Once upon a time, he would have handled this differently. But now he has one advantage—and it’s the very thing that makes him weak.
Being underestimated is a powerful tool. For him. And for Emma.
#
Cornelius’s visits are costing me. As I pull the pot roast from the oven, I see the basket of apples Joe brought home the day before. I’d promised him apple crisp tonight, but I’d been too busy chatting with Cornelius, listening to his army stories and his family tales, to attend to my chores.
I hope Joe will forget about the fruit.
After dinner, I place a bowl of cherry vanilla ice cream in front of my husband. He looks at it, then me. “Where’s the apple crisp?”
“I didn’t have time to make it.”
“Didn’t have time?” His voice is soft, which alarms me more. “What were you doing?”
If I lie, he’ll know, so I say, “Helping Cornelius.”
“Oh, he’s Cornelius now?” One eyebrow arched, eyes narrowed to slits. “And what did Cornelius have you doing that was so important?”
“Packaging soaps.”
He slams a hand down on the table so hard ice cream slops over the edge of the dish. I watch it, fascinated by the way it drips and molds around the base of the bowl. “I’m sorry, Joe.”
But it’s too late. He stands, hand outstretched. He’s breathing hard through his nostrils and I’m reminded of an ox. “Come upstairs.” Voice cold. So cold.
I obey.
“You want to work with soap all day, Emma? Open up. Let’s wash out that mouth and see how you like it.”
When his anger is spent, he leaves me alone in the bedroom. After a few minutes, I hear boots on the steps, the door opening. He tosses me a bag of ice. “Use that.” It’s an order, but I hear the regret in his voice. Or I think I hear regret. I don’t even know anymore.
He stands in the room while he makes a call. He’s telling Cornelius not to come tomorrow—or any day. We don’t need more soap.
#
Cornelius prepares this new batch of soap carefully, using more dried flower petals than ever before. He’s in a hurry. Time is running short.
Regina doesn’t say much. She’s onboard, though. He knows his wife well enough to know she’ll support him in this. Especially in this.
Upstairs, Cornelius opens the door to the last bedroom on the left. Twenty-three years later and he can still smell her scent, full of adolescent sunshine and lost dreams. Or maybe he’s imaging it. He doesn’t know anymore.
He walks away, door open, barely able to breathe.
#
I hear pounding on the door. I will myself to ignore it, but the pounding is persistent. I put down the socks I’m matching and go downstairs. My arms ache, my face aches, my back is pummeled clay. “Go away,” I call. “Please, Cornelius, go away.”
“Emma, let me in. I won’t bother you, but I have something I need to give you.”
“Go away. Please.”
But he keeps knocking. And knocking. It’s 4:10. Joe will be home soon. “Cornelius, if you’re my friend, please just leave.”
I hate the weepy, whiny sound of my voice. For a moment, silence. But then the knocking starts again. “Emma, just open the door. I won’t come in.”
I unchain the door and open it a crack. Cornelius has his walker, and my first thought is that he’d hurt himself. Relieved, I see the basket—the reason for the walker—with a package inside. It’s a bag of freshly made soap bars, each block densely packed with petals. My stomach churns at the thought of soap.
I peek through the crack. “You can’t come in, Cornelius.”
“Why not?”
“Joe would prefer it that way.”
“And you? What would you prefer?”
My eyes water. I bite my swollen lip to hold back hot tears but it’s no use. I open the door wider, letting him see me. All of me. “I can’t.”
He stares at my face, and my arms, at the ring of fingerprints around my left wrist, but the expression in his eyes is not disgust or judgment or even surprise. Calmly, softly, he touches my cheek with one finger, gently tracing the tear that’s leaking from my swollen eye. “This is not what love looks like, Emma.” I catch a glimpse of red and purple and streaky tears in the mirrored lenses of his glasses before closing my eyes against the assault. “This is never what love looks like.”
“I can’t let you in. I don’t lie well. He’ll know.”
“Then don’t let me in. But take this package, Emma. It’s for you.” He holds the soaps out.
I accept the bag. It’s just soap after all. Memorabilia of Cornelius, of our friendship. The bag is heavy. Despite all of the dried petals, they’re not his loveliest soaps.
“Thank you.”
“When I can’t sleep, I take two pills. Three won’t hurt me, but they knock me out for hours. Hours, Emma. I could probably take four without any serious damage.” He takes off his sunglasses, peers at me. “And even when I wasn’t able to swallow, soon after the stroke, my wife would grind them into powder and put them in my food. I never noticed they were in there.”
Why is he telling me this? I watch his face, confused. Is it the stroke talking?
“When I’m out like that,” he continues, “Regina can be on the phone, she can make noise, she can find my keys and leave in my car and not return and I wouldn’t notice.” His eyes widen. He’s staring at the bag of soap. “After about twenty minutes, even police sirens can’t wake me, Emma.”
And now I understand.
He backs down the stoop with his walker. “Ana left us when she was thirteen. She fought like a Navy Seal. We couldn’t save her, though God knows we tried. We never used her room, Emma. For twenty-three years, her room has been a homage to my daughter. It’s empty now.” He turns on the bottom step. “Empty and safe.”
I watch him leave, not sure whether what I’m feeling inside is despair—or hope.
#
Cornelius watches from his perch in the kitchen.
“I’m not sure what you expect to see,” Regina says. “She’s probably not ready, Chevy. She needs to want to get help. You can’t protect her.”
“No, I can’t.”
Regina places warm lips on his cool forehead. He likes the feel of his wife’s lips, of her warm body. He reaches out a gnarled hand, the same one he used to trace Emma’s tear. “I love you.”
“I know, Chevy,” she says. She glances outside. “Well, if this works, we’re ready.”
“It’ll work. I have faith in her desire to live.”
#
The first soap cuts easily. I’m careful to wedge the knife in gently. With all the flower petals, it simply falls apart. Inside is a baggy with six pills. Enough to knock him out for hours. Enough to kill him, perhaps. Or even myself.
The next bar contains a small cell phone sheathed in a waterproof case. A burner, I think they’re called.
The third block contains a wad of cash rolled neatly in a Saran Wrap. I count it quickly. Two thousand dollars. Enough for a plane ticket. Enough for a hotel. Enough to get me killed if Joe finds it.
Enough.
I hide everything in the bottom of the onion drawer, a place Joe would never deign to look. The soap is another story. I slice it up and put it in the garbage, welcoming its mixed-up, heady scent.
I’m ready when Joe gets home.
#
“Smells good, Emma.” Joe watches me place his tuna noodle casserole in front of him. It’s his favorite comfort dish and I give him a tidy portion. I want him to finish his plate.
My back is bruised and twisted,
and I fight hard not to show the pain when I walk back and forth between the table and the stove. He hates reminders of what he’s done. Even my face is carefully made up, the swollen lip masked beneath Maybelline Glossy Coral lipstick.
“You look pretty.” He turns his head, eyes scrunched. “Special occasion? Did I miss our anniversary?”
“No, Joe.” I sit across from him and dig into my own casserole. “Just feeling good today.”
He nods, takes a bite. I try not to watch him eat, afraid he’ll pick up on my anxiety the way an animal smells fear. I swear I hear my own heart beating, feel the pressure of my blood coursing through my veins.
“I’ll have some more.” He pushes his plate across the table. “What did you do today anyway?”
I stand to dish more casserole onto his plate, relieved my back is to him. “I finished the laundry. Made you dinner and dessert. Apple crisp.” I arrange my face into something neutral and benign and say, “And I threw the remainders of Cornelius’s soaps away.”
“Why’d you do that? We could have sold them.”
“I wanted a fresh start. For us.” I glance over my shoulder. “Don’t you want that, Joe?”
But Joe is onto his salad, his teeth gnashing into lettuce as though he hasn’t eaten in a week. I place the plate of seconds in front of him and sit back down.
When he’s done, he throws his napkin on his plate and leans backward. I hear the clock in the living room, the hum of the refrigerator.
He looks at my wrist as I pick up the plate. His jaw clenches. “You shouldn’t provoke me like that, Emma. I guess maybe you learned your lesson.”
“I think so, Joe.” I manage a tight smile. “I’m trying.”
“Try harder.” He stands. His eyes close, then open. He slaps a hand on the table and leans over me. “I’m tired, Emma. I’m going to lay down for a spell, and then I’ll eat that apple crisp.”
“Okay, Joe. I’ll heat it up when you’re ready.”
I watch him ascend the stairs and exhale.
#
Cornelius sits in the chair in Ana’s old room, waiting. He drifts off. When he awakens, he finds a blanket over him, his feet propped up on a stool. Drew is sitting on the bed.
Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors Page 5