by Megan Hart
The smell faded and disappeared.
Her fury was never sudden any more. It was always there, barely below the surface, ready to boil up and out of her for any reason. That ceaseless, simmering anger was the reason why she had a mess on her kitchen floor and why she flung open the back door now and took two thumping steps onto the back porch.
Everything had gone still. Dead silence. Not even the puff of a breeze. Marnie went out into the yard, her feet whispering in the grass, face tipped to the sky as she tried to find more of that delicious scent. Suddenly it was all she could think about.
It was gone. She concentrated, moving slowly because the great, vast bulk of her body wouldn’t let her move faster than that. She didn’t know what she was looking for, only that she had to find it…had to figure out what it was…
And then the storm came. First with the spang of hail clattering onto the house and barn roofs and clanging off Tony’s pickup truck. A few small hailstones hit her bare arms, stinging, and Marnie muttered another string of curses as she covered her head instinctively. Bigger hail followed a moment after that, and a pang of real fear shot through her. Hail that could dent metal would have no trouble also doing worse to her skull.
The wind came next, no soft breeze this time but the force of a pushing hand, so hard it made her stumble. She went to her hands and knees in the grass, her nightgown tangling around her legs. Her fingers fisted in the dirt for a moment. The skies opened, pouring rain. Lightning flared with thunder so close on the flash it was like they happened at the same time — shit, maybe it was simultaneous. The storm was so close over her the lightning might even be striking the rod settled on the barn roof.
She had to get inside. With nothing to grab to help herself up, the best she could do was roll herself onto her feet and push. Her belly was in the way. Her sodden nightgown clung to her and her hair had fallen in her face, making it even harder to see, much less move. Still, Marnie got to her feet with the roar of the wind in her ears so loud she couldn’t even hear herself scream.
Another crack of lightning connected the sky to the earth and lit the yard. It hit so close the metal fillings in her teeth twanged — for an instant she swore she heard the rise and fall of that preacher’s voice, the one who was set up in his tent a few miles from here, the one who did that radio program Tony found so fascinating. Then it was gone, replaced by a sound that wasn’t so much the noise of a chuffing train but more like a furious scream.
Another flash painted everything in a blue-white glare, and she saw the snake in the sky.
Somehow, she got herself moving. Not to the house, not to the barn, but toward the side yard where the metal doors lay snug against the ground with a few stakes tied with orange ribbons surrounding them to remind Tony not to run them over with the mower. Cyclone cellar, just like the one in the Wizard of Oz, the place she’d snuck into with her cousins and her boyfriends, the one she’d never needed before.
She needed it now, Marnie thought as she pushed her unwieldy body to run on rain-slippery grass and prayed to whatever God would have her that she wouldn’t fall. She’d never get back up. Her bare foot hit something sharp that sliced, the pain instant and huge. When she screamed, her mouth filled up with rain. She spat it out and refused to fall.
Her fingers scrabbled against the metal. She broke a nail. No time to curse now, though the pain of ruining her manicure was worse than the discomfort in her finger. She didn’t remember the doors being so heavy. She’d imagined flinging them open, but could barely lift even one. Bracing her feet against the concrete rim around the doors, Marnie pulled, hard. Harder. Her hands slipped, and for one endless moment she knew she was going to go flying onto her back. At the last second, another nail broke as her fingertips caught and the door eased open.
She was smart enough not to shove her fingers into the wedge of space between the doors, even as she wasn’t convinced she’d be able to keep it open. Another hard tug, this one wrenching her back. Then one more, and the door finally heaved open far enough that the weight of it started tipping it all the way open.
No, no, not that, she’d never be able to close it again. “C’mon, you bastard.” The words gritted out, unheard over the storm.
Somehow Marnie got herself inside the doorway and down the first few concrete steps, twisting as she did to keep the door from coming down and hitting her in the head. That wouldn’t just knock her down the stairs, it would probably kill her…and no matter how many times she’d thought anything would be better than the life she’d made for herself, she didn’t want to die.
Grunting, her arms trembling, she managed to lower the door a few inches over her head before she ducked out of the way and let it close. The silence wasn’t deep, but it was immediate. The doors muffled the sounds outside, but the noise of her breathing and the pounding of her heart had become very loud in her ears. For the second time that night, she felt like she might pass out. Her legs wouldn’t hold her, and she sank onto the cold, damp stairs with her arms wrapped around her knees and her face pressed to the soaked cotton of her nightgown.
Inside her, the baby moved, kicking hard enough to force a groan from her throat. It shifted, tiny hands and feet finding something to grab and pound and hurt; Marnie arched her back and lifted her hips, palms flat on the steps, to ease the pain and give the kid some room. The baby quieted, but her breath had gone harsh and panting. She thought her heart might just beat right out of her chest. She swallowed the taste of metal.
She must’ve fainted then, at least for a minute or so. The world grayed out and disappeared. There was no pain, and she wasn’t angry. It was the best she’d felt in almost a year.
Then the door above her creaked open, letting in the wind and rain and noise. Letting in Tony. And Marnie didn’t think twice, she just pushed upward with both hands above her head, her injured foot protesting the sudden pressure. She pushed up and out. She pushed him. She pushed Tony out the door, into the storm, and then stopped pushing. The door slammed closed on the hand he’d shoved inside to keep the door from closing.
If he screamed, she didn’t hear him. If he bled, the spatter of it didn’t feel any different than the rain had. Marnie eased her foot down one step in the darkness. Then another, and a few more until she was at the bottom and remembered to feel along the wall at her right-hand side for the small alcove. In her grandparents’ day, there’d been a heavy duty flashlight along with candles and waterproof matches in that niche, but some time ago she’d replaced those things with glow-sticks. She fumbled for one now, cracked the slim plastic tube and held it up to light her way into the depths of the shelter. She made a spot for herself on one of the uncomfortable cots and pulled a blanket over herself.
Marnie went to sleep.
5
Tony’d lived through a tornado before. A bad one had devastated the trailer park he and his mother had been living in while his dad was chasing his dreams all around the country. He’d been just a little kid, six or seven years old, and he’d pissed himself when the trailer walls started shaking. His mom had dragged them both outside and shoved him underneath the trailer, past the lattice and beyond the tangle of pipes and wires. His mom had always said they lost everything that day, but all Tony remembered was the warm and embarrassing trickle of pee down his leg, and the smell beneath the trailer where things had died.
He didn’t remember the noise. He didn’t remember pain. Both were consuming him now.
His hand was broken, he knew it the way he’d known the time he broke his leg when he got a little drunk and jumped off the cliff into the river but hit the bank instead. The wind had taken the door out of his hands and slammed it closed on his fingers, but not before he’d caught a glimpse of Marnie inside. Thank Jesus, she was okay.
Tony sagged against the metal as the wind whipped at him. He pounded with his other hand and couldn’t even hear the sound of it over the storm. He wanted to shout Marnie’s name, tell her it was going to be okay, but the pain in his hand h
ad stolen his voice. If the metal door had simply severed his fingers he could have at least tried to stanch the blood and stop the pain, but stuck this way, each movement sent agony through the broken bones and shredded flesh. All he could do was crouch by the door and try not to pull too hard on his trapped hand.
And then…incredibly…the wind was lifting him.
The last time, the trailer had twisted and shattered, but the wind had left him and his mom alone. Now there was nothing to protect him. The storm took him. Tony floated and flew, connected to the storm cellar by the four fingers of his left hand. His shoes came off. His flesh tore further.
Three fingers.
Two.
The storm passed, and Tony fell.
6
It was the best night’s sleep Marnie’d had in as long as she could remember. Even so, she woke stiff, muscles creaking, her back a twisted spasm. Her foot ached, crusted with blood. Still, she was smiling when she stretched in the last faint light from the glow-stick.
She heard nothing from outside. No wind. No pelt of rain. No shouts from Tony.
Oh, God. Oh, God. The night before came back to her like a giant hand, shoving her back onto the cot.
She’d left him out there. No. She’d forced him to stay out there. She’d kept him out of the shelter and left him to the mercies of nature.
Marnie got to her feet with more grace and speed than she’d managed in a long time. She pushed her way up the steps. Opening the door was easier from below than it had been from above. She shoved it with her shoulder, earning a few more bruises, and it clattered open.
“Babe.” Tony lifted a limp, bloody hand. “You’re okay.”
She gasped out loud, a hand going to her mouth to cover the sound. Her stomach lurched. The smell was back, that sweet and somehow lilting smell that made her want to sing.
She saw the source of it now. A patch of blue and purple flowers, green viney leaves and stringy red roots. Tony’d crushed a bunch of them, his white t-shirt stained with the juice from the petals. Some of the flowers had covered him.
Some of them had grown…into…him.
Something settled over him, a cloud of small dark things that came up and out of the flowers. Gnats or flies? No. Just seeds from the flowers themselves. Tony breathed them in. He coughed them out.
“You’re alive,” Marnie said.
His smile had been the first thing that had attracted her to him. White, even teeth, full lips. His teeth were lined with dirt now. Maybe it was blood. Marnie recoiled from that smile, though there was nothing threatening in it. Nothing meant to scare her.
Tony pushed himself up on one elbow with a grunt. He cradled his left arm, the hand a mangled mess in his lap. He’d gone pale, brow creased. He looked at her with those same damned puppy eyes he always gave her. The look always made her want to punch him in the face.
“Thank God you made it into the shelter, babe,” he said, and his gaze rolled around the yard she hadn’t yet looked over. “Thank God you’re okay. And Junior…he’s okay?”
The baby. Both of her hands went to her belly. The thing swimming inside her that Tony was so convinced was a son, not a daughter, hadn’t moved since she’d woken. “Fine. The baby’s fine. I’m fine. But you, Tony…you’re…”
“I’m hurt, yeah. Hurt pretty bad.” He grimaced and shifted in the patch of flowers.
Every time he moved, another waft of that gorgeous smell sifted over her. Filled her up. She staggered with it, drunk on it. She laughed. Oh, how she laughed, on and on and on and on…
She laughed when she saw the wreck that had once been the barn. Tony’s Mustang, that fucking car, flipped onto its roof, three of the tires gone. The big dogwood tree had been stripped of all its leaves, the rope swing tangled in its branches, the tree itself still standing. The house looked fine.
All at once, everything looked mighty fine.
“Babe, you’re gonna have to call the hospital,” Tony told her.
Marnie looked at him. Inside her belly, the child turned. Not kicking, not this time. Twisting and pushing and pressing against her insides. Maybe it was…dancing.
In addition to the leaves, the big tree was also missing a limb. A big one, thick and heavy, yet with that delicious smell running all over and through her Marnie had no trouble lifting it. It felt good in her hands. Solid.
Tony rolled onto his side like he was trying to push himself upright.
She hit him in the back of the head.
The limb broke. So did his skull. There was blood, but not as much as she’d expected. Tony sagged and hit the ground, arms splayed. She’d thought he might grunt or cry out, but he fell in silence.
Well…silence except for Marnie’s constant, sobbing laughter.
She swiped her face with the back of her hand. Bark from the limb scratched her forehead, caught in her hair. Surely one hit wasn’t enough to keep him down. So she hit him again. Then another time, and once more, while the tree limb in her hand got smaller and smaller until it was nothing but scraps of bark.
He didn’t move again.
There was no way for her to move him — Tony was at least six inches taller than her and, before this pregnancy had packed on the pounds, at least forty pounds heavier. She couldn’t even drag him. Fortunately, she didn’t have to. All she had to do was lift several of the boards and broken pieces of concrete from the mess that had once been the barn. Lift them and drop them.
When she was done her back ached and her belly rippled with contractions. She stank of sweat, and her hands were bloody, the rest of the nails torn. Tony’s head had been covered in rubble.
Marnie went inside to make herself a cup of herbal tea.
7
The heart wants what the heart wants.
Sometimes, so do other parts. Marnie doesn’t want Tony with her heart, not if she’s honest with herself. Her heart’s all tangled up with Cal and has been for years, since the first time she saw him from across the room at Patty Winber’s engagement party. Probably always will be. No, the part that wants Tony is between her legs. She never believed so much in the power of lust before, but it’s struck her hard now, so hard she can’t stop thinking about him.
That smile, those white teeth all aligned so straight. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the shadow of his beard and the hair on his forearms. God, those forearms, and the way he wears his shirts rolled up to the elbow to show them off. Tony’s tall, at least three inches taller than Cal, and Marnie wants to know what it will be like when he kisses her. Will he bend to reach her mouth, or will she have to push up on her toes? How will he feel against her? How will he taste?
She spends her days at the pharmacy waiting for him to come in…and knowing he probably won’t. It’s not like he can stop by every day, right? How many bottles of cough syrup and new toothbrushes can a guy need in a week? Sometimes he surprises her by coming in two days in a row, and she knows it’s never because he really needs that candy bar or the magazine. He comes in to talk to her. Then other times he goes a week without so much as a saunter past on the sidewalk outside, and no matter how many times she tells herself not to wait, not to think about it…no matter how many fucking times she tells herself not to want him…
She always does.
Tony’s dick wants something from her, she’s sure of it. The trouble is, his heart is also involved. Most of the time when he leans across the counter to talk to her, his gaze takes in her eyes, her breasts, sometimes her butt if she bends over to pick something up. But sometimes, Tony’s eyes linger on her wedding ring. Those are the days he usually leaves early and doesn’t come back for a while.
He always does come back, though. He buys sundries and fills his prescription for allergy meds and talks to her about her day. He pays attention to her clothes and her perfume. How she wears her hair. But he doesn’t ask her out, not for coffee or dinner or to the movies, and certainly not to the Sentinel Motel in the next town. He won’t take her in the back seat of his car or eve
n in the alley behind the drugstore. His eyes light up when he looks at her, and he leans too close, lingers a little too long…but Tony doesn’t cross that line.
There’ve been too many nights of Cal staying out late and coming home smelling of alcohol — though never perfume and no matter how closely she looks, never lipstick on his collar. Nothing so mundane and obvious as that. When Cal says he’s working late, he usually means it. Stopping off at the bar after work is part of his job, checking things out, making sure the town’s unruly drunks and low-rent criminals see him as a presence there. He’s not cheating on her with a woman, but she sometimes thinks if he could fuck his gun he would.
There’ve been too many times when she turns to him in their bed, reaching, and finds only his back. He never tells her to let go of him when she cuddles up to him, but she can feel all of his muscles tense until she lets him go. When she whispers his name, he’ll turn to her in the dark and take her in his arms. He’ll kiss her mouth and every other part of her. He’ll fuck her long and slow until she’s melting, liquid, floating. He’ll even say he loves her, in the dark and in the light, but something in the way the words trip off his lips never convinces her he means it.
Marnie doesn’t believe her husband’s lying when he says it. She thinks Cal loves her the best he can, which ought to be enough for any woman. It’s just not enough for her.
In the end, it’s Marnie who asks Tony to go out with her for coffee at the diner. Coffee turns into dinner. Dinner becomes dessert. And in the parking lot, standing between both their cars as he shuffles his feet and looks at anything but her, it’s Marnie who pushes up on her tiptoes to find his mouth with hers.