Eleven Hours

by Paullina Simons

  “Well, of course he’s not here,” barked Mr. Luft. “Doris told you he wasn’t.”

  “Lyle,” she wailed. “What are they talking about? Lylie didn’t kidnap anybody.”

  “You know that?” Scott said.

  “I know my son,” she said. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “No?” Scott said. “He would kill two human beings, though, in cold blood and kidnap a pregnant woman.”

  Rich noted that Doris’s expressionless face had clicked on. Murder and kidnapping didn’t impress Doris Luft. But when Scott said “pregnant woman,” her look suddenly changed.

  Scott said impatiently, “Your son is wanted for first-degree murder and kidnapping. If you know where he is and don’t tell us, you’ll be arrested and tried. You could get ten years if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be convicted of conspiracy to commit a felony, and for that you’ll get twenty-five. Now, where is your son?”

  Rich, placing a calming hand on Scott’s back, stepped forward to Mrs. Luft and said, “Is everything all right, Mrs. Luft? You looked a little—stricken just now when Agent Somerville said—”

  “Pregnant? Did you say pregnant?” Doris said in a squeaky voice.

  “Shut up, woman,” said Mr. Luft. “For God’s sake, stop your whining.”

  Turning back to Scott, he said, “We’re telling you he’s not here.”

  “That much we know,” Scott said. “Where is he?”

  “We don’t know. We haven’t heard from him for three weeks, and that’s the truth.”

  “But, Lyle, remember I said to you how strange it was that he hadn’t called?” Doris turned to Rich. “It was his birthday a few days ago, and we couldn’t get in touch with him.”

  “Shut up, Doris!” said Mr. Luft. “God, woman.”

  Rich and Scott exchanged glances. “Okay,” Scott said. “Let’s have it. Where is he?”

  “We don’t know. He lives in Dallas now.”

  “Yes, we know,” said Scott. “Have you heard from him today?”

  “No,” said Lyle.

  “Have you seen him today?” Scott persisted.

  “No, again,” said Mr. Luft.

  Scott came up to him, “Don’t get smart with me, sir,” he said. “I won’t put up with it.”

  Lyle Luft backed off. “Would that be all, officers?” he said. “Sorry we couldn’t help you.”

  Rich and Scott looked over at Doris, who was crying quietly in the corner. Rich asked, “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

  Lyle Luft said, “Oh, she just gets hysterical for no reason. Doris, what did I tell you?”

  Doris tried but couldn’t stop sobbing. “Hope my boy is okay,” she cried.

  Scott shook his head, and Rich looked down. Mothers, thought Rich.

  Rich said, “Mrs. Luft, is your son married? Is his wife pregnant?”

  Doris stammered. “My son is—my son was—”

  “Doris!” said Mr. Luft.

  “Mr. Luft!” said Scott. “Quiet.”

  Narrowing his eyes, first at Rich and then at Mrs. Luft, Scott asked, “Now, you say your son was married?”

  “Yes, yes,” Doris cried. “Such a tragedy, such an awful tragedy, oh dear God, oh God, keep my boy, oh, just awful—”

  “What happened?” Scott said. “She leave him?”

  “No, she died,” said Mrs. Luft. “Her baby was born too early and she hemorrhaged or something. She was in a real bad way.” Doris kneaded her fingers and didn’t look up at Rich or Scott. “They had a baby boy, and after Melanie died, all of Lyle’s hopes were for that baby. I think if he had lived, Lyle would be okay.”

  “He didn’t make it?” Rich asked, ashen-faced.

  Doris shook her head. “He was just too tiny. God took him to a place where his soul didn’t need lungs to breathe.” She sniffled.

  Rich bowed his head. He didn’t want to be looking at Doris any longer.

  She said, “Lyle was a very nice boy before this all happened—”

  “Oh, Doris, don’t be so naive!” said Mr. Luft. “He wasn’t a nice boy. Stop covering for him the way you always do.”

  “I’m not coverin’ for him,” she said firmly. “He was my son and he was a nice boy—”

  “Yeah? Then how come he never had a real job? How come about that? And how come he kept coming home all the time with black eyes, with broken teeth, with police on his back? How come our cars would get smashed and our windows broken? He brought nothing but trouble to our house ever since he was little.”

  Shaking her head, Doris whispered to Rich, “That’s not true. He had no criminal record. He was a confused boy, that’s all. Didn’t know what he wanted. But Mel set him straight, and the baby, he just wanted that baby so bad.”

  Mr. Luft turned away from his wife with a fed-up expression. “Is he still just confused, Doris? Kidnapping, murder? Is it still all just confusion?”

  She continued in a whisper, “The baby and the Mel thing just broke him up. He would have been okay if not for that baby dying.”

  “Aw, come on, Doris!” Mr. Luft yelled. “That baby dying just made him more of what he always was—a bum, a loser.”

  Raising her voice, Doris said, weeping, “He’s your son! How could you say that? He’s your son.”

  “He’s my only son,” said Mr. Luft quietly, collapsing into a chair. “He’s my only child.”

  Rich thought of the million people in Dallas and Lyle Luft finding his wife. He couldn’t speak. Everyone was silent.

  Finally Scott said, “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Luft. Where do the girl’s parents live? We’d like to talk to them.”

  “Oh, Bernie and Maureen Bleck. They don’t live here,” Doris said. “They’re all the way in Eden. That’s where Melanie was from.”

  “Eden, Eden,” said Scott. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Very small town, south of here—”

  Rich was pulling him by his sleeve out the door. “Thank you!” Scott called out to her.

  “Let’s go,” Rich said when they were out the door. “I bet you that’s where he parked his Honda. Eden.”

  9:00 P.M.

  In Eden cemetery, Didi lay silently on her side in great weakness. She wanted water.

  She thought, this is the only place I could possibly hide, so this is the only place he would come to look for me.

  She thought about her own mortality. Before today, Didi’s thoughts about her own death had never progressed beyond the theoretical. Did that poor police officer have any idea when he left for work in the morning it would be the last day of his life? No more than I. When I kissed Rich on the lips this morning as he left for work, I said, don’t forget to file those medical forms and please go to Tom Thumb and buy some bananas. In between the kisses, I got a couple of nags in, too. Had I thought this might be my last day, I would have left more explicit instructions. I would have written down a recipe for meat loaf somewhere.

  He’s coming for me, isn’t he? Any minute now, he’s going to be here. Didi closed her eyes and opened them again. She thought she saw the moon above the trees, and then quickly closed her eyes again. If she could see the moon, she could see him. She didn’t want to see him. Maybe if she closed her eyes he would go away and she would wake up and be back home.

  She wanted to cry but there was no water left in her body other than the protective water around the baby. She was surprised she hadn’t broken her water when she fell out of Lyle’s car.

  She clutched her hurting belly, moving her thin wrists up and down in the handcuffs. If only she could place her hands in soapy water. That’s all it would take. A little soapy liquid, a little twisting of the thumbs, and the cuffs would come right off.

  Of course, if she found some water, getting the cuffs off would not be the first thing she would do. She licked her caked lips with her dry tongue.

  Lyle’s coming for her filled Didi with a desperate anger and a desperate fear. I was a pretty good daughter to my mom and dad; I was a decent
sister to my two sisters. I graduated school, learned how to type, got a job at a small publishing company, and met Rich. I’m a good wife to him, and I’m a good mother. What I want to know is, when, in the middle of my life, did I fall from grace?

  * * *

  Didi smelled something familiar. It made her think of her teenage years, some remnant of adolescence. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, and didn’t want to, but yet …

  She knew what it was: she smelled an old fire.

  Oddly, it mattered, smelling old ashes. Why would there be a fire here?

  Her addled brain couldn’t focus. She heard faint footsteps, a voice. With her heart slamming into her chest, she focused on the fire. What? What? Closing her eyes, thinking about the fire.

  Kids—that’s what it was. It nearly amused her, the morbidity of kids coming to a cemetery to light a fire to prove they weren’t afraid of the darkest dark, to prove they weren’t afraid of ghosts. Teenagers came here and lit a fire.

  Teenagers came here and lit a fire. The thought pumped through her head like electric current. Omigod. Yes. Of course. It was exactly what she needed.

  Didi weighed the consequences. If she got up, Lyle could easily see her moving. Here in the ditch she was as good as dead. It was a no-brainer.

  On all fours, she pushed off the ground and heaved herself up with tremendous effort. She may have groaned. She thought she felt another contraction and fought it because she had to keep moving. Gritting her teeth, she walked a few feet and then realized she couldn’t smell the fire when she was standing. She fell to her knees and crawled, her face to the earth. She smelled the fire again, but slowed to a stop. Tears of frustration clouded her eyes. Goddammit, help me just a little, just a little.

  And then she heard him. “Desdemonaaaa, where are you, my lovely?”

  She stifled a despairing cry. Keeping her hands in front of her, she used her elbows to help propel her forward. She moved, smelling the ground for the fire.

  “Desdemonaaaa, my Sharonaaaa, my bolognaaaa, where are you?”

  Her elbows were getting scraped to raw flesh, but she didn’t care. Her face against the ground, she slowly moved in the dark. She could barely hear him through her heart’s pounding, but she heard him. He wasn’t getting any closer, just more persistent. If only I could find that fire, I know I’ll find what I’m looking for—

  “Desdemonaaaa, come out come out wherever you are.…”

  And then, “I’m gonna find you, my Desdemonaaaa, I’m gonna find you. I’m gonna find you.” The laugh echoed through the gravestones.

  The fear made Didi’s belly feel hollow. The loathsome, vast emptiness shattered against her ribs, shattered her from the inside. Outwardly Didi barely moved. Her own slowness revolted her. She only wished she were limber and thin, running instead of crawling away with her belly dragging on the ground. Still, she smelled the fire close by.

  She threw herself down on the ground and frantically searched for a beer bottle. She heard Lyle’s shattering laugh. Before she could get up or turn around, she felt him fall on top of her.

  * * *

  “Didi! I’m surprised at you. Why would you run away from me?” Lyle said.

  She was breathing hard into the ground. He was lying on top of her and wouldn’t let her turn over. It was too much for her belly, Lyle squeezing her baby into the earth. She tried to raise herself to lift his weight off her and failed.

  “You’re hurting me,” Didi whispered. “Get off.” She had wanted to shout it, but he had knocked the breath out of her.

  Lyle didn’t move. “Get off, huh? Get off? I don’t think I should be getting off you. You’re not to be trusted, Didi. At any moment, you lash out against me when I least expect it.”

  “Get off me,” she said again, louder. “You’re hurting the baby.”

  He didn’t hear her or he ignored her, because he continued to grind against her. “Tell me why you hit me, why, why, why?” he asked.

  Not letting her answer, he pressed her face into the ground and said, “You’re still trying to get away. You’re just so damn stubborn. Don’t you realize it’s impossible? Don’t you realize this is your fate?” He spoke into her knotted hair. “Jesus Christ died for our sins, Didi. Are you willing to die?”

  Her mouth pressed against the dirt, she said, “Get off me, goddammit.” And Christ didn’t have a baby inside Him when He died, Didi wanted to shout. “God will curse you, Lyle. He’ll curse you. Now be a man and get off me.”

  He nuzzled in her neck, moving his pelvis slightly off her back. She breathed easier.

  “You sound upset. I’m sorry,” he said sarcastically. “I didn’t mean to upset you with what I said. Let’s start fresh, okay? You’re not going to be running away from me, are you? Or do you want me to put you in leg irons? There are some in the trunk. I didn’t know if I should bring them with me. They’re kind of heavy. Certainly would be hard to run away with them on.”

  She stopped paying attention to him. Something was cutting her on the side of her cheek. It could have been a stick, or coal, or wood.

  It could have been a piece of glass.

  Didi felt it gnawing at her cheek as Lyle lay on top of her and whispered—almost lovingly—into her hair.

  “Desdemona,” he whispered: “Desdemona … I don’t want to hurt you. But I don’t want you to fight me either. Now what will it be? Will it be the hard way for you? It doesn’t have to be, you know. It can all be so easy. And painless. Tell me how you want it to be.”

  In the middle of another contraction, Didi said nothing as she scratched at the ground. When the pain was over, she whispered, “I want it to be easy.”

  Her handcuffed hands were in front of her. She pulled them down to her face and tightly grabbed a broken bottle neck.

  Thank God, thank God.

  When she opened her mouth to speak, dirt had got in. She didn’t care; she found what she came looking for. Oh, but to wipe the dirt away from my lips. To wipe all of this away. Were her eyes closed? She couldn’t tell. She blinked. Nothing. Darkness. I have to stay sharp, she thought. I have to stay conscious. I can’t lose focus.

  But she was losing focus. She was catching only the end of his sentences. Or the beginnings. And then drifting out. In

  and out.

  In and

  out.

  * * *

  Suddenly Lyle got off her.

  She turned over on her side, panting, clutching her belly, clutching, too, the broken neck of the beer bottle. The—

  Another contraction.

  That was fast. That was so fast.

  Oh, God.

  She clenched her fingers around the bottle neck and moaned. He said nothing. He must have thought she was panting, getting her breath back.

  When it was over, Didi said, “I want a drink. I want my husband.” A drink first, she thought. Then my husband.

  She could swear Lyle was smiling at her in the dark. He extended his hand, but she didn’t want to give him her hands lest he feel the bottle. She raised her elbow instead, and he took it to help her up. “Come on now, go easy on me,” Lyle said. “I can’t have you beating at me and trying to escape every two seconds. It makes me tense. Now, then,” he said, fumbling with her dress in the dark, adjusting it, straightening it out. “You okay? I almost forgot I was lying on the baby.”

  “I’m fine, Lyle,” she said, moving away from him.

  She saw the whites of his teeth. “I know you, Desdemona. I know what you’re thinking. We’re not done yet, me and you. We haven’t had a chance to sit and talk. You were making your way to this fire? Did you want to light a fire, Didi? Would that make you happy?”

  Make me happy? thought Didi. Lighting a fire here with you, in a cemetery, in the woods, while I’m in labor?

  “Yeah, sure,” she said.

  “Then come,” he said. “But I don’t want to stay here. We’re not safe here. Too exposed,” he said cryptically. “We’ll go to the place where I proposed to my
wife. Where she first told me she was pregnant.”

  She didn’t want to go anywhere. “What’s wrong with here?”

  “Cemeteries creep me out,” he said. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome. What if God decides we’re so close to Him that there’s no reason for leaving?”

  Didi swayed a little, almost fell. There was pressure and aching between her legs, overwhelming all other throbbing in her body. “I thought you said there was no God, Lyle?”

  “I didn’t say there was no God,” he said, and his voice sounded harsh in the darkness. “I said there was a God, but He wasn’t looking my way.” Pausing, he added, “Wasn’t looking your way either.”

  “You’re lucky, Lyle,” said Didi menacingly, “that He isn’t looking my way.”

  Lyle brought his face close. She saw him in the moonlight. His eyes feverish, his mouth ajar, he said right into her lips, “Not even God can help you now, Desdemona.”

  Where were the keys to her handcuffs? Who knows? she thought. Who cares?

  Lyle was here. The keys would do her no good.

  Not even God can help you now. It rang in Didi’s ears. She wasn’t so far from God now, standing here amid His angels and sinners, standing next to Lyle under the Texas sky.

  She didn’t want to stand any longer. The day had been too long, she had been too long without water, without hope. She wanted to lie down. Her girls, her husband, her young life, they all felt behind her now. She rocked from side to side in front of Lyle, holding the broken bottle between her hands.

  This is as bad as things get, she thought.

  Is this what dying is? Didi wondered, swaying, weakening. Every labored breath I take, I think this is my last, and death is standing in front of me, looking at me with his shiny eyes, wondering how best to take my life from me. How best to take my heart from me.

  “Where are we going, Lyle?” Didi said wearily. “Because I’m very tired. I need to sit down.”

  “Yeah, this isn’t NorthPark, is it, Didi?”