Loreena's Gift

by Colleen M. Story

  “Gross!” Loreena laughed.

  “You’re telling me! All these people with bloody faces and no noses anymore, and meanwhile this disgusting rabbit is running around with nostrils hanging out of its mouth. I had nightmares for weeks.”

  Loreena absently touched the tip of her nose.

  “See? You had to be sure yours was still there!”

  She laughed again. “I never heard of a story like that.”

  “It’s true. I see a rabbit at a fair or something, my skin gets all pimply and I feel like I’m going to vomit.”

  “But they’re so cute!”

  “Right. Until you go to sleep.”

  Loreena couldn’t stop laughing. She didn’t know if he was making it up or not, but it was funny. Dominic laughed with her, and she wished she could see his face and his smile, see what his teeth looked like and his eyes.

  “Okay,” he said. “Your turn. Give it up.”

  “A secret?”

  “I did it. Now you.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

  “Would I make that up? A guy afraid of rabbits?”

  She shook her head, but gradually grew serious. A new family took their seats at a table nearby, but she barely noticed them. I take people to the afterlife was the first thing that came to mind. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that. My mother died when I was nine years old. No. Too depressing.

  “You look deep in thought.”

  “So many,” she said. “I have to choose one.”

  “How mysterious.” He tapped his fingers against his water glass.

  “Whatever I say ends up in your article, right?”

  “Not if you don’t want it to. I just like telling the good stuff, the stuff that shows the hero in all of us, you know?”

  Hero? Loreena dropped her head and her smile disappeared. Certainly there was nothing heroic about her story. “Oh!” She looked up. “I know. Today is only the third day I’ve ever worn lipstick.”

  “Really?”

  She heard the surprise in his voice and blushed. “My mother used to wear it all the time, but I was afraid to try.”

  “You saw her put on her lipstick?”

  “I could see until I was nine.”

  He shuffled for something, the chair creaking underneath him. “Just my notebook. Do you mind if I write this part down?”

  Marcie brought their food while Dominic checked his pockets for his pen. “Cheeseburger at nine, fries at three, pickle at six,” she said. “And your Coke.”

  “Thanks,” Loreena said.

  “You got it, hon.”

  Dominic’s bowl was next, coming to rest with a quiet thud on the tablecloth. “Sure that’s all you want, sweetie?”

  “Thank you,” Dominic said.

  Marcie stepped back. “Anything else I can get you?”

  Loreena shook her head.

  “Enjoy.” Marcie hurried away.

  Loreena had almost reached for the cheeseburger when she remembered to take off her gloves. He would think it strange if she ate while wearing them. She tucked them carefully in her lap and turned her attention to her food. The cheeseburger felt heavy in her hands. The meat melted on her tongue, salt and pepper and mustard sauce mixing with the hearty taste of beef and cheese.

  Dominic chuckled.

  “What?” she asked, chewing.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone enjoy a burger so much.”

  “I haven’t had one here for over three years.”

  “Here? This café?” He lifted his spoon from the plate.

  “My brother and I used to come after church. It was a weekly tradition.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Moved out three years ago.”

  “College? A job?”

  Loreena wiped the ketchup off her mouth with her napkin. “Not sure.” Dominic waited, but she didn’t know what else to say. Saul was a subject best left alone, so she didn’t offer any more information. To go into his story would mean revealing a part of hers she didn’t want known.

  “By the way,” Dominic said, “it looks great. The lipstick.”

  Loreena smiled, and then pulled back from the burger, worried she had just smudged the color off on the bun.

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like, to have been able to see, and then to have it taken away.” The ice rattled in his glass as Dominic took another drink. “But I guess you can never really know what it’s like for another person.”

  It had been a while since she’d thought about it. “I think at the time I was more traumatized by my mother’s death.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Car accident.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” He paused. “Is that also when…?”

  Loreena nodded. “Same accident. Car came at us from the side. I hit my head and damaged the optic nerve—at least, that’s what they told me.”

  “Ouch. Your brother was a big help to you?”

  Loreena swallowed. They were back to her brother again. “Do you see the ketchup?”

  “Here.” He reached across the table.

  She didn’t take it, but waited for him to set it down. No way would she risk touching him. When he had safely withdrawn, she grasped the bottle by its sticky neck. She tipped it on its side, tapped it a few times, and then let the ketchup bubble onto her plate. “When we moved here, to Uncle Don’s place, I relied on Saul for everything, pretty much.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “He was always there, like a part of me.”

  “No, I mean, how did you know when to stop pouring?”

  Her eyebrows shot up, and then she shrugged. “I don’t always get it right.”

  “It’s this perfect little dollop.”

  Smiling, she dipped a fry into the red puddle. “I can feel it coming out of the bottle. I can hear it, too.”

  “Really?” He took a spoonful of soup, the silver clacking against his bottom teeth. “How did the accident happen, if you don’t mind telling me?”

  The fry went down her throat warm and smooth. A couple passed behind her, making their way out, the woman whispering to the man in an argumentative tone.

  “Mom was driving Saul and me to school,” she said. “There were papers on the console, in a red file. She was a teacher, and the papers belonged to her students.” Loreena picked up another fry and twirled it in the ketchup. “We were almost there—just a couple blocks away, by the veterinary office—when she must have remembered something, because she suddenly started shuffling through the file. When she looked up again she sucked in her breath.” Loreena remembered the sound, the thinness of that inhale. “A truck came from the left and smashed into us, right into her door. Mom was killed instantly. Saul had whiplash and some strained muscles, but otherwise he was all right.”

  “You remember it that well?”

  She was still twirling the fry, the end limp in the ketchup. “Flashes, here and there. The file on the seat. Saul in the front. He wore his navy-blue T-shirt, the one with Batman on it. And Mom’s hair. It was caught up in the back in a bun. I remember wishing I could touch it, because she had wrapped it so perfectly it almost didn’t look real.”

  “Do you remember what you were wearing?”

  Loreena paused, and then felt a smile crease her lips. “My diamond shoes.” How long since she’d thought of them! “Black ones with sparkles on the sides. They had three little diamonds—well, I called them diamonds—set in a row on the toe box, and they really sparkled because the rest of the shoes were shiny black, and they had about one-inch heels. My first heels. Mom got them for me for my birthday.” Her thoughts returned to that day, sitting in the backseat of her mother’s car, looking down at the shoes, turning them this way and that so the morning sunlight caught the cuts in the “diamonds” and created tiny rainbows. She remembered how, when the car turned so the sun was in front of them, she could no longer make the rainbows, and then everything inside seeme
d dull and colorless.

  Much like it was now.

  She placed the soggy fry in her mouth. He wanted to ask more, she could tell, about what else she remembered, but she hoped he wouldn’t. She didn’t want to think about that part again, the part where the ride came to an abrupt end and her mother wouldn’t respond to her cries from the backseat, and when she reached for her shoulder, to get her attention, all she felt was the hair that had unraveled from the bun, hanging in haphazard strands down her mother’s neck.

  “What was your first memory, after the crash?”

  He was skipping ahead. It didn’t take much to bring the memory up again—the terror she’d felt grabbing hold of her even now, draining the blood from her fingers. “Darkness and shadows. The light was nearly gone. There was only a dim glow, like what you’d see at dawn or dusk. At first I thought I had woken up at night, but the night never ended. Then it was like I was trapped in some dark box somewhere, and couldn’t get out. I clawed at my eyes until my uncle had to take my hands and hold them down because I was making myself bleed.”

  Dominic said nothing.

  “Sorry.” She took another bite of the cheeseburger. “Too many details?”

  “No, I’m just closing my eyes. Trying to imagine it.” His breathing sounded deep and steady. Loreena wished she could see him, the concentration on his features as he tried to catch just a glimpse of what her world was like.

  “You have to cover them,” she said, “your eyes, with your hands. When you have your sight, even with your eyes closed, the light comes in too strong. You have to cover them.”

  He did as she told him, squaring himself in his seat and placing his palms over his eyes, elbows on the table. She waited, no longer interested in eating. His breath was more audible now, the gentle in and out deeper as his other senses reacted to the loss of his vision. Loreena sat riveted, listening to every sound he made, waiting for clues as to how he would respond. It was several minutes before he lowered his hands again. His breath came faster, as if he’d been running.

  “That’s terrifying.”

  Loreena fingered her glass of water.

  “I can only imagine not being able to remove my hands.”

  Somewhere near the front door, the same couple was arguing with the cashier about the total of their check. Marcie brought the cherry pie. Loreena hadn’t finished her cheeseburger yet, so the waitress set the pie toward the back of the table and left without interrupting.

  “Your father?” Dominic asked. “Was he with you?”

  Loreena took a drink. “I don’t remember him. He wasn’t with us long. Until I was three or four.”

  “He left?”

  Loreena squirmed in her chair. It was all getting a little too personal.

  It wasn’t so much that her father had left as her mother had. The last memory Loreena had of him was of his thick hand pinching her arm as he yelled into her face. She couldn’t even re member what he was angry about. After that, her mother gathered them all together in the old Ford station wagon and drove away, in a trip that lasted through the night. Loreena had felt only relief.

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic said. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  Her appetite had waned. When Marcie returned, Loreena asked if she could take the pie to go and handed over her plate.

  “You can’t be finished already?” Dominic asked.

  “Have you eaten anything?” She’d yet to hear him take more than one sip of his soup.

  “I was just listening.” As if to prove something, he lifted three spoonfuls to his mouth, and then returned the spoon to his plate. “But I have so many more questions.”

  Loreena didn’t know what to say. Licking her teeth, she wondered if maybe they could take another walk, around town, perhaps. It all seemed easier when they were walking.

  “Loreena!” a voice called from the entrance.

  Loreena jumped and turned to the right.

  “Hey, Loreena!”

  Crystal. It was Crystal. Loreena thought of the girl’s last words to her. You’re mine, bitch. She shrank back in her chair.

  Not now. Not with Dominic here. But it was a public place. Crystal couldn’t do anything. Then she thought of Saul. Had something happened to Saul?

  “Who’s that?” Dominic said.

  “Crystal,” Loreena replied. “My brother’s…friend.”

  The woman’s heels hammered across the wooden floor. “Thank God.” She descended on them in a whirlwind of cigarette smoke and floral fragrance. “I didn’t think you ever left the church!” Her thighs hit the table, spilling the drinks. “Hey, can we get another chair here?”

  The whole café had to be watching. The staff didn’t react quickly enough for her, so Crystal grabbed a chair from a nearby table and sat, straddled, her arms crossed over the back. She scooted it up twice, closing the space between herself and Loreena. “Saul told me you guys used to come here.”

  Loreena frowned. Her brother had shared that?

  “I just thought of it as I was leaving the church.”

  “You went to the church?” Loreena said.

  Marcie approached with quick steps. “Can I get you something, hon?”

  “You have beer?”

  “We have Coke, iced tea.”

  “Whatever. Coke.”

  Marcie left. Then, at the same time, Loreena and Crystal both said: “Do you know where Saul is?”

  “Shit,” Crystal said. “I was afraid of that.”

  Loreena clutched her knees under the table. Crystal had said they would send someone else after Saul, when Dirk failed, and now the girl didn’t know where he was. “When did you last see him?”

  “That night. After we dropped you off. We had this fight, and… well, never mind.” She shifted in the chair, reached down and adjusted something near her ankle. “He took off. His stuff is still at the apartment, but he’s not. I figured he’d gone to do the deal, right? But then he didn’t come back.” She sat up again and ran her hands over the table, brushing off crumbs. “I thought he’d skipped town, you know, but his motorcycle was still parked by the street. He loves that bike. He wouldn’t leave it behind. So I figured he’d gone to take the Mustang back, you know, get his money. Pay Frank. I waited a few days, but he didn’t show up.”

  Dominic was there, listening, but Loreena had to know. “You haven’t seen him since that night?”

  “No.”

  “And you waited until now to say something?” “You haven’t seen him either. Didn’t see you making any announcements.”

  “He was supposed to be with you!”

  “Who says?”

  “You’re his…friend.”

  “You’re his sister! He was more worried about you that night than me! Loreena this and Loreena that and didn’t give a shit what could happen to me.”

  Loreena felt her face redden. As if you gave a shit what happened to him. “I think we should go.” She put on her gloves.

  Crystal ignored her. “He took the Mustang, but his bike was there. He loves that bike…” Her voice trailed off, and then she grabbed Loreena’s Coke. “They’re so slow here.”

  Gloves on, purse slung over her shoulder, Loreena waited while the girl gulped the rest of the soda down. She remembered her brother’s words, something about “laying low.” But he’d have to have transportation, and the Mustang would be too visible, like a beacon drawing Frank’s men to his location. Surely he would have preferred to take the bike?

  “This could be very bad,” Crystal said.

  “Either way, we don’t know where he is,” Dominic said.

  Loreena’s turned toward him. “This can’t go in the article.”

  “Of course not.”

  Crystal drained the glass with a series of slurps. “Who are you?” Turning to Loreena, she barked the question again. “Who the hell is he?”

  “My name is Dominic. We don’t know where Saul is, so is there anything else you want?”

  Marcie brought the Coke.
Crystal took it up and drank it straight out of the glass, the ice rattling against the sides. “I came to talk to Loreena,” she said.

  “Maybe you want to lower your voice, then,” Dominic said, “and tell us why you’re so upset.”

  Crystal laughed. “He’s a swift one, isn’t he?”

  “What do you want from Loreena?”

  His voice had changed to a deeper tone, his words more enunciated than before. The effect seemed wasted on Crystal, but Loreena noticed the difference. It helped her relax a little. At least at the moment, he was an ally.

  Crystal sniffed and then leaned in closer to Loreena. “Look, sis. We’ve had our differences, right? But he’s gone. He’s gone and he’s been gone for two weeks and he didn’t say anything. Not to me. Not to you. He’s never just left like that, especially without his bike.”

  Yet you waited until now to tell me, Loreena wanted to say. Her mind raced. Was Crystal telling the truth, or was this something else, the girl’s way of getting back at her? The café had quieted down, the lunch hour coming to a close. The burger churned in her stomach as she heard again the dull thump of Dirk’s blows against Saul’s body. If that was happening again, or had already happened, it could be even worse than before.

  “Frank’s gang won’t let it go.” Crystal slurped her soda, talking in between gulps. “Saul owed them money. I thought he’d do the deal, pay it, but he’s just disappeared. It’s weird.” She set the glass down. “His boss lives up north, in Kelley. Of all people, he would know where Saul is.”

  “You mean Frank?” Loreena said.

  “He’s got a bar up there. Sort of their headquarters.”

  “Kelley’s about two hundred miles from here.”

  “Fine. We get there before nightfall.”

  Was she saying they should ask Frank where Saul was? “What if he knows?”

  “Knows what?”

  Loreena shifted her weight from one hip to the other and lowered her voice. “The other night. Dirk.”

  “You want to know where your brother is?”

  “You said Frank’s the one who sent Dirk. If he knows what happened…” Loreena stopped. Dominic was sitting right there.

  “I got something to bargain with,” Crystal said.