“And I’ll never be yours?”
I shake my head, my eyes on her face.
“No. I’m afraid not. I’m already married, Zoe. That’s not going to change.”
“This is a mistake,” she tells me.
I don’t say anything.
“Fuck you,” she mutters.
She stalks away and roars out of the parking lot.
I feel lighter than I have in weeks.
41
Now
Jude
So many things go through my head.
The plaque that my wife thought she saw, that we thought was imaginary.
Was real.
My wife is in a psych ward, and I don’t know if she should be. When I’m in the car, I try to call, but the receptionist tells me that Dr. Phillips is in session with her currently.
“They’ll be out in an hour or so,” she tells me helpfully. “They just began.”
Then a text from Zoe comes in.
I need you, she says. Before I do something I regret.
My heart starts to pound, and the bad feeling in my gut spreads to my chest.
Why? I ask her.
There’s no answer.
Zoe?
Still no reply.
I have no way of knowing if she’s going to hurt herself, or if she’s planning on telling the world about us.
And even though I know I’m playing straight into her hands, there is only one way to find out.
I head for Vilma’s.
Vilma smiles at me when I walk through the door.
“Hey, Mr. Cabot.” She reaches up to hug me. She smells like cinnamon and something akin to lilacs. “How is your wife feeling?”
I pause. Does she know where Corinne is?
“She’s fine,” I tell her. Vilma smiles.
“Good. I have to tell you, I was uncomfortable letting Zoe medicate her for you, but I’d do anything for you and Dr. Cabot. You’re such good people.”
I almost don’t hear her, because I’m focused on looking for Zoe, but those last words slam into me, and I grasp them, and I’m still.
“What?” I ask slowly.
Vilma looks at me. “I was surprised to hear that a doctor was so adverse to taking medication that it needed to be dissolved in her soup. But I think you’re sweet for arranging it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I tell her slowly. “What medication? And what soup?”
My thoughts start to whirl, and Vilma starts to stammer.
“The chicken soup for Dr. Cabot. Zoe showed me a text from you, telling her that Dr. Cabot was pregnant and that the prenatal vitamins made her sick. You asked her to dissolve them into the soup. It’s unorthodox, but like I said, we love you both around here.”
I’m stunned and I stare at her, and she stares back. I see the thoughts moving in her head, and her lips move.
“You didn’t ask her to do anything of the sort, did you?”
I shake my head. “No. I would never do that. Is she here?”
“No. She’s not in today.”
“Can I have her address?”
Vilma hesitates. “I’m not supposed to give out that information.”
I start to argue but then remember Michel. He probably knows.
“It’s okay,” I tell her over my shoulder. “Thanks.”
I jump into my truck and call my brother as I head down the road. He doesn’t pick up, so I leave a voice mail.
“Bro, I need you to call me ASAP. I need Zoe’s address. Some fucked-up shit is going on. I don’t know even exactly what yet. Call me.”
He’s probably in confession or something. It’s frustrating because I haven’t been able to reach him since he left my house. I head toward Immaculate Conception anyway, determined to be there when he comes out.
Something isn’t right.
At all.
I feel on the edge of something terrible, and I’m afraid I’ll only make things worse.
But Michel will help me sort it out, he always does. He can come with me to Reflections, he can help figure out things with Zoe.
He always knows how to keep me grounded.
I pull into the church parking lot twenty minutes later and see his truck parked in front of the rectory. I park next to it and jump out. His front door is open, and so I walk on in to the little stone cottage.
The smell greets me first.
It’s acrid, thick and horrible. A heavy heavy feeling settles in my chest and my belly and my heart. Something is wrong.
Very wrong.
I don’t allow myself to think or feel as I move through the rectory toward Michel’s study.
“Michel?” I call out. There’s no answer.
I cover my nose with my shirt, and an odd noise enters my consciousness. It sounds almost like bees.
“Michel?” I call out again. The silence is thick, and he still doesn’t answer.
I take a step inside of his study, and I see his shoe.
His legs are sprawled on the floor, and he’s lying in a giant pool of black blood.
My heart pounds and my blood is ice, and I discover what the odd noise is.
Flies.
42
Halloween
Corinne
Someone is chasing me.
I race through the house, knocking photos off the walls, and slam a door behind me.
He’s there, though, pounding pounding pounding, his fists heavy and strong.
“Come out,” he sneers. “I know where you are.”
I’m silent, and my hands are clenched so tightly that my fingernails cut into my palms.
“Come out,” the man says again. “Or I’m coming in.”
I try to open a window, but I can’t. My fingers scratch at the pane, and the lock is painted closed.
“Please,” I beg God. But no one answers.
I’m alone.
“I’m here,” the voice says in my ear, and a hand clasps over my mouth.
I wake with a start, sitting straight up in bed, my hands curled in the blanket.
I try to slow my breathing, try not to need Xanax.
It was a dream. A horrible dream.
It wasn’t real.
“Artie!” I call. I hear her nails clicking on the floor, and she comes to me. “Come up here, girl,” I tell her, patting the bed. She looks at me questioningly, because normally it isn’t allowed.
But I need comfort today.
I need to feel safe.
Obligingly, she hefts herself onto the bed and stretches out next to me. I bury my face into her fur, and before I know it, Artie’s warmth is lulling me to sleep.
I don’t know how long I nap, but I sleep heavily, until at some point, the doorbell wakes me.
Lucy waits on the porch, her hands full of bags.
I answer the door groggily, still half asleep.
“Hey, Luce,” I greet her. “What’s up?”
“You haven’t answered your phone, that’s what,” she says grumpily, stalking past me. “I’ve been trying to call you for days.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy puking my guts up.” I close the door and then follow her. “Come on in. Make yourself at home.”
She gives me the side-eye.
“I finally asked Jude what was happening. He told me you were just sick and resting and asked me to bring you some lunch.”
“He loves me,” I tell her, my belly tingly with warmth.
“I know.” She hands me a disposable container. “Eat up. I’m going to do your nails when you’re finished.”
“I don’t really need my—”
But she interrupts. “Pish-posh. Pregnant women need to look good, too.”
I head to the kitchen and she f
ollows. “Should I take the dog out?”
I glance at Artie. “Sure. She hasn’t been out in a while. Thank you.”
I sit in a chair and grab a spoon, digging into the soup, and Lucy lets Artie out onto the patio. I hear her nails clicking as she trots off.
“If you really want to be helpful,” I tell her, “you could do Artie’s nails.”
She rolls her eyes. “Um, no.”
I laugh and take a bite.
“Jude said he brought you dinner last night,” she mentions. “Did you eat?”
I shake my head. “No. We got...er...distracted. I told him about the baby.”
“You did?” Lucy grins. “And I assume he was...happy?”
I nod. “Ecstatic.” I take another bite, then another.
“You’re sickening,” she says. “You had it all, and now you get a baby, too.”
It’s weird, but her tone is a little off.
“Pardon me?” I ask, rolling my eyes. “I’ve worked myself into the ground for this. It wasn’t just handed to me.” I smile like I’m joking, but I’m kind of not. “Seriously.”
She nods. “Oh, yes. Little Corinne Friess. She had to work for everything, didn’t she?”
Her tone is acerbic now, and how did she know my maiden name?
The air between us has changed, somehow. I feel it. It’s tangible.
I swallow my bite and stare at her. “Luce? Is something wrong?”
Her eyes seem black as night, and somehow familiar, and when her mouth finally moves, it says the ugliest things.
“You’re a fucking cunt, just like my father said.”
She moves, lightning fast, and there’s a sharp pain in the back of my head.
43
Now
Jude
I’m frozen.
Because Michel.
He’s still.
He’s bloody.
He’s silent.
I know it’s him.
It’s him.
And my heart.
My heart.
Stutters and stops.
And I kneel next to my brother’s body and I pick up his hand, his hand that is so identical to my own, and his eyes are lifeless and his head is bloody.
I check.
I check I check I check.
My fingers at his neck.
And his blood is cold.
And my brother cannot cannot cannot be dead.
But he is.
He’s dead.
I’m numb.
I can’t feel.
I can’t think.
I can’t be without Michel.
We’re one half of a whole.
That’s how it’s always been.
He’s not breathing and he’s cold.
He’s cold.
He hates to be cold.
And then I’m yelling and everything is unfocused and blurry and fragmented, coming together and then pulling apart.
I sprawl on top of him, covering him up because he hates to be cold.
My brother is cold.
His blood covers me, and it’s cold, and he’s cold.
I dial 911 with a bloody hand, and I can’t understand what she’s saying because my brain is shutting down.
I hold my brother’s hand, and nothing matters anymore but this.
I lie down with my brother, and his blood soaks into my clothes, and together, we wait for the ambulance.
There will be no need for the sirens.
I close my eyes.
44
Halloween
Corinne
I’m dreaming again. Damn, but pregnancy gives a person vivid dreams.
Even though I know it’s a dream, it’s so amazing that I don’t want to wake up.
I’m in a nursery, and the morning sunlight is flooding the room, and it’s so bright, so airy, so cheerful. I’m rocking a swaddled baby dressed in pink and white, and her face is just as pink. She smiles up at me, and then she suckles, nursing from me, and I gave her life. She’s mine, and the warm feelings flood me as I rock her and sing, rock her and sing.
She grasps my skin with a tiny hand, and when her eyes open, I see that they’re the exact color of Jude’s. I smile into them and hold her close, and I’ve never felt so warm and good before in my life.
The warmth spreads from my belly into my chest, spreading through my body, into my fingers and toes, into my legs and arms.
I’m consumed with it.
And then I wake up from it, and when I do, I realize that it isn’t warmth, it’s pain.
It’s in the back of my head, in my belly, and spreads around to my spine.
I open my eyes. It’s four thirty, and I’m not alone.
Lucy waits, perched on the couch, and I’m sprawled on the floor.
How did I get in here from the kitchen?
“You’re heavier than you look,” Lucy points out, and the expression on her face is ugly.
“I... What is happening?”
I feel like I’m on my period, and I stagger to the bathroom. Yanking down my pants, I find drops of blood, red and bright. I feel sick instantly and reach for my phone.
My fingers come up empty.
The room spins.
“Looking for this?” Lucy has my phone in her hands. I reach for it. She laughs. “Uh, no.”
The room spins again.
I put a hand to my head. “What the hell is happening?”
“Don’t you know?” Lucy asks. “Can’t you tell? You are a doctor, after all. A big, important doctor. I’m just a little nurse.”
She’s derisive, and I’m confused. I see two of her, then they merge into one.
“You’re losing the baby,” she tells me. “Any idiot could see that.”
“What did you give me?” I ask, trying to stay calm. Blood is gushing down my legs.
“What do you think?” she spits. “Mifepristone and misoprostol.”
My stomach contracts. “The abortion pill.”
She smiles. “Now you’re getting it.”
I think about the soup. I didn’t finish it. I don’t know how much I imbibed. Maybe there’s still time.
I try to reach the door.
“But of course, that’s not all,” Lucy tells me, and her outline wavers in and out. “You didn’t think that was all, did you?”
I stare at her. Or try to stare at her. The dizziness is overwhelming. Lucy laughs.
“It’s a roofie, Corinne. Not all medicine is prescribed.”
I take a breath. “Why?”
“Because I need you compliant, you whore.”
I feel my uterus contract, pulling and pushing at itself, the muscles surrounding it contracting and contracting.
Dear Lord.
This can’t be happening.
I feel more warmth between my legs, and I squeeze my eyes closed, waiting waiting waiting.
My eyelids are too heavy to open now, and I’m pushed and pulled, my legs moving like rubber. I feel the room spinning, but I can’t look. It’s all too much. Even the pain fades away. I can’t feel it even though I know it’s there.
I’m pushed, and I think I’m on the ground. Yes, I’m on the ground. The bathroom floor? I feel the cool tile under my legs, and I feel the moisture, and I know it’s blood. My cheek is wet. Am I crying?
“Please,” I whisper.
“It’s too late for that,” she tells me, and her mouth is so close to my ear. “You fucking cunt.”
The room spins again, and something about her mouth, her voice. How did I not see it before?
I whirl and freeze, and her face is contorted grotesquely, her mouth a slant.
She grins. “You recognize me, don’t you, Corinne?”
&nbs
p; Her mouth.
Her eyes.
Her nose.
Her face.
They all flash in the streetlight, one by one by one, and in that moment, I...
Do.
I’m back on All Hallows Lane, and the night is dark, flickering with jack-o’-lanterns.
Lucy was there, but she was different. She was younger.
“You’re Jessica,” I whisper, and she nods, and in my head, she’s the little girl she used to be, with long pigtails and pink sneakers, and how did I not recognize her before?
She was playing with teacups in her room, pouring tea with a pot, as her father was raping me in the bedroom.
“I heard the screams,” she tells me now. “Only, I didn’t come. Because it was better you than me, Corinne.”
Everything flashes, the memories the memories the memories, and they all come together in a picture, then break apart, then fit together again.
I focus.
And it hurts.
I squeeze my eyes closed tighter, remembering what it had been like...his meaty hands all over me. He’d held me down, and I struggled so hard that I bit through my lip, but he had raped me anyway. He was stronger, bigger, more determined.
He’d entered me violently, taking my virginity in one terrible thrust. His onion breath was in my face, warm and hot. His fingers pinched my nipple hard, so hard. I screamed, but no one cared.
You cunt, he’d whispered in my ear as he raped me. You fucking cunt. You fucking cunt.
He’d kept repeating it, as though he was angry at me, as though I was getting what I deserved.
“He kept us at home so that he could ‘play’ with us whenever he wanted,” Lucy says. “You had to ruin everything. If you’d just shut up and played with him, he would’ve left you alone.”
“It wasn’t playing,” I say, and my words are slurred now. “It was raping.”
“Whatever you’d like to call it.” She shrugs.
“I didn’t do anything,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” she hisses. “You didn’t do anything. Until you killed him. And my mother came home with your father, and...well, you know what happened next.”
“I don’t,” I whisper. “I can’t remember.” I hold my hand to my head, and everything hurts.
Such Dark Things Page 21