by Gail Lukasik
Lydia put down her wine glass. “Speaking of which, has Eva admitted to killing her husband and Joyce’s baby?”
“She’s not talking,” said Chet. “Maybe those docs at the psychiatric hospital can get somethin’ out of her.”
“But there’s no question Eva committed those murders?” Lydia looked at Chet, then me.
“She’s where she should be,” Chet answered.
Lydia was staring at me expectantly.
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to quell my sudden trembling. “I’m sure she killed them both,” I said, taking no pleasure in my certainty.
“I’m betting they find her incompetent to stand trial and lock her up for life in a county mental hospital.” Jake eyes met mine with reassurance.
Chet squeezed his empty beer can flat. “Makes me sick, thinkin’ what she did to that poor little baby. Do you think Joyce knew?”
It was a question I’d been wrestling with since that awful night at the South Heaven cave. “Joyce must have suspected something. After all, her attempts to find the child had turned up nothing. I imagine she went to Eva as a last resort.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to clear my thoughts. “She probably called Eva and made one last appeal, then when Eva refused, she . . .” The memory of Joyce’s blood on the carpet rose up before me.
Chet piped in. “We’re already tracking Eva’s phone logs. We’ll know if Joyce called Eva that night.”
“She . . . I mean Eva,” I struggled to make sense of the images flooding my head. “She insisted Joyce was already dead when she got there. And I believe her. I’m not saying she didn’t go there intending to dispose of Joyce once and for all. But by a twist of fate, Joyce had saved her the trouble.” Why was I feeling like the story had suddenly become mine? I hugged Salinger to me. It had become mine the minute I sat down in Eva’s carefully ordered living room.
“Joyce must have been in deep despair over knowing she’d never find her daughter. And that the one person she hoped might help her, wouldn’t,” Lydia said.
That’s what I had told Joe Stillwater this morning when I called him. He had been right; Joyce had had her reasons for taking her own life. But I wondered if knowing those reasons now gave him any comfort. I thought back to what Joyce had said to Lorraine Birch about feeling relief when it was over. I now knew she hadn’t been speaking of her hysterectomy or of Carl Peck’s death. She'd been speaking of the unburdening of her secret to the man who had fathered her child. Maybe seeing him dying brought that truth home.
A sudden picture of Eva’s face flashed across my brain—right before I had let the arrow go. She had no expression, her eyes glazed with madness. “Eva was completely insane.”
“Is completely insane,” said Lydia. “Though she was pretty methodical in her madness, right down to drugging you with the Antabuse. I mean she had the presence of mind to steal one of Porter’s scrip sheets and write a prescription in Carl name’s for a non-narcotic drug. Then drive all the way to Green Bay and have it filled there. That’s one smart, crazy cookie. Maybe you should have aimed for her heart and put her out of her misery.”
I stirred uncomfortably in my chair. There was sweat on the backs of my legs. “I had no intention of killing her.” I had been aiming at her shoulder, but I had missed. I shuddered thinking about how close I had come to actually hitting her heart.
Lydia’s face flushed. “Of course not.”
“Does anyone know where Rob was that day?” Jake asked, maybe wanting to change the subject.
“He was in Chicago meeting with a lawyer to represent Sarah if she was charged with murder,” Chet answered.
“Always the dutiful lover,” I said. The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I had said. I glanced over at Lydia, who was turning one her many rings nervously around on her index finger.
“Well, I’ve got the late shift at the hospital.” Lydia stood up to go. “I’d tell you to take it easy and rest, but I know I’d be wasting my breath.” She bent down and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Sorry about that killing crack. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”
As she pulled away she looked at the malachite necklace around my neck. “I wasn’t sure you liked it.”
“I do, very much,” I said, smiling up at her.
Lydia grabbed her coat and headed toward the door. Salinger followed her, sniffing at her heels.
“Hold up,” Chet called after her. “I’ll walk out with ya. Just let me say goodbye.”
Chet leaned toward me. He reeked of lime-scented aftershave. “As I told ya, there will be a court hearing before a judge, then. But don’t ya worry about it. What happened out at the caves is pretty open and shut. And with Sarah’s testimony, it’s clear as hair on a pig that it was self-defense. Now take care of yourself.” Chet patted my head as if I was his favorite tomboy.
“Thanks. I’m not worried. I’m just glad you got there when you did. You don’t know what the sight of you coming down that trail meant to me.”
“Too bad I couldn’t have gotten there sooner. But let this be lesson for ya. From now on, ya let the police do their job. And that’s an order.”
* * * * *
“You’d better ask her,” Jake said, standing inside the open door. No sooner had Chet left then the doorbell rang.
Before I could respond, Jake led Sarah into the room.
She stood before me looking as ashen and depleted as the November fields. The zipper on her black leather jacket had separated at the bottom. A large safety pin held the two ends in check. Her hair was ragged looking. The bruise on the side of her forehead from the rifle butt was starting to yellow.
“I’ve got to go by the paper,” Jake said, throwing on his coat. “I’ll be back in an hour.” I wasn’t sure if his gesture was one of consideration or cowardice. Regardless, I forgave him. It was just so damn good to see him.
After the door slammed, Sarah sat down. Salinger jumped up beside her and nudged her hand. I was glad to see Sarah get Salinger’s special attention. “Salinger, you’re shameless, get down and leave my guest alone.”
“It’s okay.” Sarah petted Salinger while she scanned the dusky room. She was avoiding eye contact. “Pretty gloomy.”
“It was cheap,” I conceded.
“How’s your arm? I would have come by the hospital, but you know. Do you mind if I smoke?” She reached into her duffel bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“My arm’s fine. The bullet went right through. And yeah, I do mind. You know, the cancer. Sorry.”
She stared at me a second too long, then shrugged and shoved the pack back into her bag. Her foot was nervously moving side to side. Then she took a deep breath, as if she were inhaling a cigarette. “I thought this was going to be easy” She stared to cry. “Damn, I can’t seem to get a grip.”
She ran her thumb over and over her right palm, as if there was something there she couldn’t remove. “She used to take me there, you know, when things got bad at home. To that cave, South Heaven. It was our safe place. Sometimes he’d be so drunk, we had to get away. But then for her to kill Joyce’s baby and bury it there . . .” She shook her head. “She used to be a teacher, you know, my mother. First grade. Do you believe that? But after they got married, he wouldn’t let her do it anymore.”
Sarah stared at the dusty light filtering through the windows. “And all that time, I thought she was weak, because she wouldn’t leave him.”
“Sarah, you can’t blame yourself. Your father pushed your mother over the edge. Not you,” I reasoned, wanting to mitigate her guilt and with it some of her pain.
Sarah pulled her gaze from the window and finally looked directly at me. “Yeah, but maybe, I could have done something, then this thing with Joyce wouldn’t have happened. She wouldn’t have . . . .” She took a deep breath, trying not to cry. “Killed anyone.”
“Sarah, your mother is insane. If anyone’s to blame it’s your father for his relentless years of physical
and emotional abuse. And then before him, that man who sexually abused her.”
I sensed my words were having little impact. We sat for a moment listening to the wind whipping the trees against the windows.
Finally Sarah broke our silence. “I brought you something. I left it outside the door. Sort of a peace offering, for running you off the road.” She said it quickly, with a trace of defiance.
“So it was you.” I almost wished it had been Rob.
She ran her hand through her ragged hair. “Not my smartest move. I only meant to scare you, but I got carried away. I’m really sorry.”
I had two choices: send her packing or let her give me her gift. I felt we both needed to turn a corner. “Let’s see it.”
Sarah went to the door and opened it, dragging in a large canvas. As soon as she turned it over, I recognized the painting: the dark colors of the deep woods and the halo of light at the foot of an oak that was no halo, but a circle of white mushrooms. Destroying Angels by S. Peck.
“Can’t stand having it around. Thought you might want it. If it wasn’t for you showing up that night, well, I know what she would have done to me.” Sarah paused. “You know, she had me convinced I wrote that suicide note in a blackout. I thought I was losing my mind.” Sarah rested the painting against the couch and sat down.
“It’s almost funny, when you think about it. I mean, in a way, she was the destroying angel. My mother actually believed God was guiding her. That’s why I can’t have this painting in my house. If you don’t want it, just chuck it out.”
I studied the painting’s eerie loveliness. I didn’t know if I wanted it either. It would be a reminder of how close I had come to death, how close I had come to killing Eva Peck. But I understood the courage it took for Sarah to bring it to me, and that was the real gift. We had both shared a horror and survived. “You care where I put it?”
“Long as I don’t have to see it when I come over.”
“That mean you’re staying?”
“I was going to take off. Maybe go back to Chicago. Lose myself in the big city, and forget it all happened. But I think this is where it ends. Yeah, I’m staying. At least for awhile.”
Her hair stood out thin and wiry from her head. For no logical reason, I sensed she was going to be all right.
“Well, you know where I live,” I said.
She stood up and swung her bag over her shoulder. "Likewise."
“Sarah, thanks.” I glanced down at my left arm.
When I looked up, a shy smile played across her lips.
32
“So what happens now?” I asked. Jake and I had been discussing Rob and Sarah over shrimp stir-fry. I had supervised while he chopped, diced and cooked. We were camped out in front of my fireplace, eating off recycled paper plates: the good kind, double reinforced with individual compartments.
“I don’t think they have a chance.” Jake wiped soy sauce off his chin.
“Too bad. I think she needs him.” I popped the last shrimp into my mouth.
“Too much history.” Jake piled my empty plate on top of his. He stretched out his long legs in front of the fire and leaned back on his elbows.
I nudged closer to the fire and stirred the embers. “I think she’s afraid. That Rob may not accept her as she is, in her mind, damaged.” I kept staring into the fire. Oddly, Sarah and her mother felt the same way about themselves, because of how men they trusted had treated them.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Jake replied.
“Really. Then what is it?”
“I think she’s afraid he will accept her. As she is, damaged and all.”
I knew we were no longer talking about Rob and Sarah.
We watched in silence as sparks flew up the chimney. There were so many ways I could begin what I wanted to say to Jake now, ways to ease into it. Ways all well thought out and logical. But with the moment here, none of them seemed right. I stared hard into the fire. “I don’t look like a normal woman.”
“I got the idea. Do you take that poster on every date?”
“Jake, I want you to understand what you’re getting into.” I turned and faced him. “I mean, the scar, it cuts across my left side from underarm to sternum.” I indicated the scar’s direction with my right hand. “It’s long, deep and red.”
“Leigh, I’ve seen scars before.”
“Not like this. And it’s not just the scar. It’s the shock of the emptiness, it redefines me . . . .” I stopped.
“What are we talking about here?” He sat up and crossed his long lean legs under him.
“I’m trying to explain why this isn’t going to work.”
“You mean why you don’t want it to work.” He leaned forward and touched my arm. “Look, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to take this risk with you.”
I wanted to explain how the cancer could come back. At any time, with no warning. Instead, I said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, but it’s your call.”
* * * * *
Every light in the house was off. Salinger kept a silent vigil beside the bed. The waning moon slit the window’s edge with a light as delicate and determined as a first snow.
I pulled away from Jake slowly. “I want to show you something.” I pointed to my left side between two ribs. “See it? It’s my heart.”
He looked closely, then put his hand in that place which no longer seemed so transparent, so thin and fragile.
“How are you going to write it?” he asked, kissing the flat place where my heart beat. He looked up at me.
I took a deep breath. I wanted to see the whole story on the page, but I didn’t see it yet. Instead I saw a flash of words, “South Heaven.” Then myself going in the front door of the Gazette, and Jake’s socked feet propped on his desk—a hole in one heel. I thought of the safety pin holding Sarah’s jacket together. And that yellowing photo of Sarah and Joyce in matching swimsuits—Joyce’s strap slipping down, her small hand held in a fist. I saw the green rhinestone pin, shaped like a heart, rise and fall on Eva’s chest.
About the Author
Gail Lukasik was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was a dancer with the Cleveland Civic Ballet Company. She has worked as a choreographer and a freelance writer. Lisel Mueller described her book of poems, Landscape Toward a Proper Silence, as a “splendid collection.” She also has been published in over fifty literary journals, including The Georgia Review, Carolina Quarterly, and Mississippi Valley Review. In 2002 she was awarded an Illinois Arts Council award for her work. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she taught writing and literature. She lives in Libertyville, Illinois with her husband and their Shetland sheepdog.