Ashes

by Haunted Computer Books

  Katie suddenly pictured one of those "dial-and-say" toys, where you pulled the string and the little arrow spun around. If Peter had made the toy, it would stop on a square and give one of his half-dozen patented lines: "You shouldn't be doing this to yourself" or "Just put it behind you and move on" or "We can always try again later, when you're over it."

  "I was reading an article today," she said. "It said SIDS could be caused by—"

  "I told you to stop with those damned parenting magazines."

  SIDS could be caused by several things. Linked to smoking, bottle feeding, stomach-sleeping, overheating. Or nothing at all. There were reports of mothers whose babies had simply stopped breathing while being held.

  Sometimes babies died for no apparent reason, through nobody's fault. The doctors had told her so a dozen times.

  Then why couldn't she put it behind her?

  Because Amanda had Katie's eyes. Even dead, even swaddled under six feet of dirt, even with eyelids butterfly-stitched in eternal slumber, those eyes stared through the earth and sky and walls to pierce Katie. They peeked in dreams and they blinked in those long black stretches of insomnia and they peered in from the windows of the house.

  Those begging, silent eyes.

  The eyes that, on dark nights when Peter was sound asleep, watched from the nursery.

  No, Katie, that's no way to think. Babies don't come back, not when they're gone. Just think of her as SLEEPING.

  Katie changed channels. Wheel of Fortune. Suitably vapid. Peter's fingers clicked over some keys, another fast-breaking deal.

  She glanced at him, his face bright from the glow of the computer screen. He didn't look like a millionaire. Neither did she. But they were, or soon would be. As soon as the insurance money came in.

  She almost hated Peter for that. Always insuring everything to the max. House, cars, people. They each had million-dollar life policies, and he'd insisted on taking one out for Amanda.

  "It's not morbid," he'd said. "Think of it as life's little lottery tickets."

  And even with the million due any day now, since the medical examiner had determined that the death was natural, Peter still had to toy with those stocks. As addicted as any slot-machine junkie. He'd scarcely had time for sorrow. He hadn't even cried since the funeral.

  But then, Peter knew how to get over it, how to put it behind him.

  "I'm going up," she said. "I'm tired."

  "Good, honey. You should get some rest." Not looking away from the screen.

  Katie went past him, not stooping for a kiss. He'd hardly even mentioned the million.

  She went up the stairs, looked at the door to the nursery. She shuddered, went into the bedroom, and turned off the radio. A faint hissing filled the sonic void, like air leaking from a tire. The monitor.

  She could have sworn she'd turned it off. Peter would be angry if he knew she'd been listening in on the nursery again. But Peter was downstairs. The silence from the empty room couldn't bother him.

  Only her. She sat on the bed and listened for the cries that didn't come, for the tiny coos that melted a mother's heart, for the squeals that could mean either delight or hunger. Amanda. A month old. So innocent.

  And Katie, so guilty. The doctors said it wasn't her fault, but what did they know? All they saw were blood tests, autopsy reports, charts, the evidence after the fact. They'd never held the living, breathing Amanda in their arms.

  The medical examiner had admitted that crib death was a "diagnosis of exclusion." A label they stuck on the corpse of a baby when no other cause was found. She tried not to think of the ME in the autopsy room, running his scalpel down the line of Amanda's tiny chest.

  Katie stood, her heart pounding. Had that been a cry? She strained to hear, but the monitor only vomited its soft static. Its accusing silence.

  She switched off the monitor, fingers trembling.

  If she started hearing sounds now, little baby squeaks, the rustle of small blankets, then she might start screaming and never stop. She might go utterly, beyond the reach of those brightly colored pills the doctors had prescribed. She got under the blankets and buried her head beneath the pillows.

  Peter came up after an hour or so. He undressed without speaking, slid in next to her, his body cold. He put an arm around her.

  "Honey?" he whispered. "You awake?"

  She nodded in the darkness.

  "SofTech closed with a gain." His breath reeked of alcohol, though his speech wasn't slurred.

  "Good for you, honey," she whispered.

  "I know you've been putting off talking about it, but we really need to."

  Could she? Could she finally describe the dead hollow in her heart, the horror of a blue-skinned baby, the monstrous memory of watching emergency responders trying to resuscitate Amanda?

  "Do we have to?" she asked. She choked on tears that wouldn't seep from her eyes.

  "Nothing will bring her back." He paused, the wait made larger by the silence. "But we still need to do something about the money."

  Money. A million dollars against the life of her child.

  He hurried on before she could get mad or break down. "We really should invest it, you know. Tech stocks are a little uneven right now, but I think they're going to skyrocket in the next six months. We might be able to afford to move out of the city."

  She stiffened and turned away from him.

  "Christ, Katie. You really should put it behind you."

  "That article on SIDS," she said. "There's a link between smog levels and sudden infant death."

  "You're going to make yourself crazy if you keep reading that stuff," he said. "Sometimes, things just happen." He caressed her shoulder. "We can always try again later, you know."

  She responded with silence, a ten-ton nothingness that could crush even the strongest flutters of hope. Peter eventually gave up, his hand sliding from her shoulder, and was soon snoring.

  Katie awoke at three, in the dead stillness of night. A mother couldn't sleep through the crying of her baby. As she had so many nights after the birth, she dragged herself out of bed and went to the nursery. They should have put the crib in their bedroom, but Peter said they'd be okay with the monitor on.

  Katie's breasts had quit leaking over a week ago, but now they ached with longing. She closed her robe over them and went into the hall, quietly so that Peter could get his sleep. She opened the door and saw the eyes. The small eyes burned bright with hunger, need, love, loss. Questions.

  Katie went to them in the dark, and leaned over the crib. The small mouth opened, wanting air. The light flared on, stealing her own breath.

  "What are you doing in here?" Peter said.

  "I . . . couldn't sleep." She looked down at the empty carpet, at the small marks where the crib legs had rested.

  Maybe if she cried.

  "We should paint this room," Peter said.

  She went to him, sagged against his chest as he hugged her. After she was through sobbing, he led her to the bedroom. He fell asleep again, but she couldn't. Behind her eyelids lived that small, gasping mouth and those two silent, begging eyes.

  As she listened to the rhythm of Peter's breathing, she recalled the line from that movie, the cop thriller that they'd gone to see when she was seven months' pregnant. The tough plainclothes detective, who looked like a budget Gene Hackman, had said, "There's only two ways to get away with murder: kill yourself, or put a plastic bag over a baby's head."

  What a horrible thing to say, she'd thought at the time. Only a jerk Hollywood writer would come up with something like that, so callous and thoughtless. Peter had later apologized for suggesting the movie.

  "Is it really true?" she'd asked. "About the plastic bag?"

  "Who knows?" he'd said. "I guess they do research when they write those things. Just forget about it."

  Sure. She'd put that behind her, too. She wondered if Peter had been able to forget it.

  He had taken out the insurance policy for Amanda a week after her
birth. Peter had always wanted to be a millionaire. That's why he played the market. He wanted to hit one jackpot in his life.

  She turned on the lamp and studied Peter's face.

  Amanda had some of his features. The arch of the eyebrows, the fleshy earlobes, the small chin. But Amanda's eyes had been all Katie. When those silent eyes looked imploringly out from Katie's memory, it was like looking into a mirror.

  Katie shuddered and blinked away the vision of that small stare. She pressed her face against the pillow, mimicking a suffocation. No. She wouldn't be able to smother herself.

  She wrestled with the sheets. Peter was sweating, even though he wore only pajama bottoms. She pulled the blanket from him. He sleepily tugged back, oblivious.

  She must have fallen asleep, dreamed. Amanda at the window, brushing softly against the screen. Katie rising from the bed, pressing her face against the cold glass. Amanda floating in the night, eyes wide, flesh blue, lips moving in senseless baby talk. The sounds muffled by the plastic bag over her head.

  When Katie awoke, Peter was in the bathroom, getting ready for work. He was humming. He was an ace at putting things behind him. You'd scarcely have known that he'd lost a daughter.

  Why couldn't she show an equally brave face?

  She made her morning trek into the nursery. No crib, no Amanda. The books were dead on the shelves, words for nobody. The toys were dusty.

  "I'm going to stop by on my way home and pick up a couple of gallons of paint," Peter said from the doorway. He put his toothbrush back in his mouth.

  "Was she ever real?" Katie asked.

  "Shhh," Peter mumbled around the toothbrush. "It's okay, honey. It wasn't your fault."

  Even Peter believed it. She looked at his hands. No. They would never have been able to slip a bag over a baby's head, hold it loosely until the squirming stopped.

  She was surprised she still had tears left to cry. Maybe she would run out of them in a week or two, when she was beyond utterly. When she had put it behind her.

  "Peach," she said. "I think peach walls would look good."

  "It's only for a little while. Until we have enough money to move. The sooner we get you away from this house, the better."

  The million wouldn't buy Amanda back. But at least it would help bury her, confine her to a distant place in Katie's memory. Maybe one day, Katie really would be able to forget. One morning, she would awaken without guilt.

  She made coffee, some eggs for Peter. He rushed through breakfast, checking over the NASDAQ in the newspaper. She kissed him at the door.

  "I promise to try harder," she said to him.

  He put a hand to the back of her neck, rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "She had eyes just like yours," he said, then he looked away. "Sorry. I'm not supposed to talk about it."

  "We'll be away from here soon."

  "It wasn't your fault."

  She couldn't answer. She had a lump in her throat. So she nodded, watched him walk to his car, then closed the door. After he'd driven away, headed for the Battery in Manhattan, she went up the stairs.

  She reached under the bed and pulled out the keepsake box. She untied the pink ribbon and opened it. Amanda Lee Forrester, born 7-12-00. Seven pounds, nine ounces. Tiny footprints on the birth certificate.

  Katie shuffled through the photographs, the birth announcement clipped from the newspaper, the hospital bracelet, the two white booties, the small silver spoon Peter's mom had given them. Soon Katie would be able to put these things behind her and move on. But not too soon.

  She could cry at will. She could pretend to be utterlyif she needed to, if Peter ever suspected. She could hide her guilt in that perfect hiding place, her disguise of perpetual self-blame.

  Katie put all the items of Amanda's life into the plastic bag, then tied the box closed with the ribbon. She returned the box to its place under the bed. Peter would never understand, not a trade such as the one she'd made.

  A million dollars to forever carry the weight of silence.

  She clicked on the nursery monitor, sat on the bed, and listened.

  ###

  THE HOUNDS OF LOVE

  Dexter licked his lips. His stomach was shivery. October was brown and yellow and crackly and tasted like candy corn. He knelt by the hutch that Dad had built back before the restraining order was filed.

  He touched the welt under his eye. The wound felt like a busted plum and stung where the flesh had split open. Mom had accidentally left her thumb sticking out of her fist when she hit him. She hadn't meant to do it. Usually, she was careful when she punched him.

  But one good thing about Mom, she didn't hold a grudge for long. She'd turned on the television and opened a beer, and after the next commercial break had forgotten all about him. It was easy to sneak out the back door.

  Dexter poked some fresh blades of grass through the silver squares of wire. The rabbit flashed its buck teeth and wrinkled its nose before clamping down on the grass and hopping to the back of the hutch. It crouched in the shadows and chewed with a sideways gnashing of its jaws. The black eyes stared straight ahead. They looked like doll's eyes, dead and cold and stupid.

  Dexter's stomach was still puke-shivery. He opened the cage and snaked his hand inside. The rabbit hopped away and kept chewing. Dexter stroked the soft fur between the rabbit's eyes.

  Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em.

  He snatched the leathery ears and pulled the rabbit forward into the light. He held it that way for a moment, like a magician dangling a trick above a hat, as it spasmed and kicked its four white legs. This was October, after all, the month when anything could happen. Even stupid old magic, if you dressed like a dork in a wizard’s cape for Halloween.

  Dexter looked over his shoulder at the house. Mom was most likely passed out by now. After all, it was four o'clock in the afternoon. But Dexter had learned from his dad that it never hurt to be paranoid.

  He tucked the rabbit under his windbreaker and crossed the backyard into the woods. When he reached the safety of the trees, he took the leash from his pocket. This was the tricky part. With his tongue hanging out from concentration, he squeezed the rabbit between his knees.

  He pressed harder until he heard something snap and the rabbit's back legs hung limp. He almost puked then, almost wept, but his first tear rolled across the split skin beneath his eye and he got angry again. "I'll teach you better than to love me," he whispered, his breath ragged.

  It was the rabbit's fault. The dumb creature shouldn't have tried to love him. The rabbit was trying to get him, to play the trick on him, to make him care. Well, he wasn't going to belong to nothing or nobody.

  Dexter used both hands to attach the leather collar. The collar had belonged to his little redbone hound. Uncle Clem let Dexter have the pick of the litter. Dexter had chosen the one with the belly taut from milk that wagged its thin rope of a tail whenever Dexter patted its head. Dexter had named it Turd Factory. Well, stupid old Turd Factory didn't need the collar anymore.

  Dexter fastened the collar and let the rabbit drop to the ground. It rolled on its side and twitched its front legs. Sometimes they died too fast, sometimes before he even started. Dexter headed deeper into the woods, dragging the rabbit behind him by the leash. It was a hundred feet to the clearing where he liked to play. There, the sun broke through the tree-limbs and a shallow creek spilled over the rocks. Dexter squinted at the scraps of the sky, his eye almost swollen shut now. The clearing smelled like autumn mud and rot, the magic odors of buried secrets.

  Dexter tightened the leash around the rabbit's neck until its veins bulged. He put one hand under the soft white chest and felt the trip-hammering heart that was trying to pump blood through the tourniquet. The rabbit began kicking its front legs again, throwing leaves and dark forest dirt into the air.

  This was the part Dexter hated. The fear that came to the animals sooner or later as he tortured them, that little frantic spark in the eyes. The desperation and submission as they gave all that they
had. Stupid things, they made him sick, they made him want to throw up. It was all their fault.

  Dexter opened the pocketknife and went to work. This one was a relief. The rabbit had started out scared and stayed scared, paid for loving him without a whimper. Dexter was blind from tears by the time he finished.

  He buried the carcass between the roots of a big oak tree. Right next to old Turd Factory. Dexter washed his hands in the creek. It was almost dinnertime. He turned and walked back through the clearing, past the depressions of soil where he had buried the other animals.

  His own little pet cemetery. He had seen that movie. It had given him the creeps, but not badly enough to make him give up his hobby. Plus, by the time he was finished with them, no chunk was big enough to stand up by itself, much less walk.

  Three cats were underground here, two of them compliments of dear old Grandma. She'd given him the rabbit as an Easter present. He'd swiped a rooster from a caved-in coop up the road, but he didn't think he'd be pulling any more of those jobs. The rooster had spurred him, plus the dumb bird had squawked and clucked loud enough to wake the dead. There was a box turtle buried somewhere around. But that had mostly been a mercy killing. Mom kept pouring beer into its water.

  Same with the goldfish. He told her he'd flushed them down the toilet. Goldfish were boring, though. They didn't scream or whimper. They didn't make him want to throw up while they bled. They were too dumb to love.

  Dexter giggled at the thought of a goldfish coming back from the dead and haunting him. He'd like to see that in a movie someday. The Revenge of the Zombie Fish. He wiped his eyes dry and headed down the trail to the house.

  Mom was boiling some macaroni when he came in the back door. She wiped at her nose as she opened a can of cheese sauce. The sight of her moist fingers on the can opener killed Dexter's appetite. He sat down at the table and toyed with an empty milk carton.

  She must have passed out in her clothes again. They were wrinkled and smelled like rancid lard. "Where you been, honey?" she asked.

  "Out playing."