Tears in a Bottle

by Sylvia Bambola

  There was stone silence on the other end of the line. Finally, Louie’s voice came clear, crisp but strained, over the phone. “You’d do this to a friend?”

  “We’re not friends, Louie. You don’t have any friends.”

  More silence, then finally, “In that case, it’s best we dissolve our business arrangement. You will understand if I call in your IOUs. I’m sorry if that will force you to liquidate a few of your clinics. Also, consider the Dorianna Gray Cosmetics account terminated.”

  “I don’t care if I lose half my clinics. I should’ve done this years ago. Maybe I’d still have Teresa. But I’m doing it now. I’m calling an end to it. I know it’ll cost, but at least I’ll be free.”

  “Free? No, my friend. All the days of your life a part of you will forever be looking over your shoulder. Just like the rest of us.”

  “You better hope nothing happens to me, because if it does, the police will be getting a nice fat dossier on you.”

  “You heap insult upon insult, to your harm, Thor. To your harm.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. It only matters that Teresa is released. Will you give me your word that she’ll be let go unharmed?”

  Louie chuckled softly. “In your bluster and fury, you have totally overlooked the obvious. And that is that I had nothing to do with this. You’ve been very foolish tonight, Thor. You’ve made an enemy for no reason.”

  Becky lounged on her bed, her schoolbooks scattered all around her. It was after eleven and she still hadn’t started her homework. She just couldn’t get her mind to work. She pushed some of the books out of the way and rolled over on her back. The ceiling needed painting. Maybe she’d paint it over the summer. Maybe she’d try blue or gray…or black. If she painted stars over the black then it would look like a night sky. She liked nighttimes the best. The day was too glaring, too bright. She closed her eyes to visualize what it would look like and heard a knock on the door.

  “I’m busy,” she yelled, but the door opened anyway. Becky let out an exasperated sigh when she saw her mother. “Why do I have a private room when nobody in this house respects my privacy? Didn’t you hear me say I was busy?”

  Nancy Taylor moved across the room as though she were negotiating a minefield.

  “Mo-om! How am I supposed to get my homework done when everyone keeps barging in?”

  “I’m not everyone, Becky, and as far as I know, this is the first time someone in this house has come to your room tonight.”

  Becky pulled herself up into a sitting position, fluffed her pillows a little too forcefully, then propped herself against them. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest and tried to indicate by her posture and her eyes—which scanned the books on her bed—that there was no room for anyone else to sit.

  Nancy sat anyway.

  Becky let out a big sigh and tried to look both bored and annoyed.

  “Becky, I don’t know all of what you’re going through right now. I can only guess. I do know it’s terrible and that you’re in a lot of pain. Your father and I…we are as sorry as sorry can be, but sorry doesn’t help, does it?”

  Becky sat on the bed glaring at her mother.

  “Parents don’t know all the answers, Becky. We’re human, we make mistakes. We try, we fail, then we try again. And we always hope that when we do make a mistake, it’s not a whopper. Your father and I…we failed you in this, and I know you hate us for it. And we know…we know it was a whopper. The only thing is, we don’t know what to do about it. If we’re going to make it through this, all of us, if we’re going to survive as a family, we’re going to need time and we’re going to need healing. I don’t know how that’s all going to happen, but I do know that truth is the key. Without it, we’re never going to get out of this mess. You need to understand why we made this mistake, Becky, why we suggested…why we forced you into an abortion—or rather why your dad did—and why I let him.”

  Becky turned away, her chin jutting out, her body rigid. A single shimmering tear dotted the corner of her eye.

  “I was pregnant when your father married me. He always believed he ruined my life. I had very much wanted to go to college, and he…well, naturally he blamed himself for how things turned out. Of course it wasn’t your father’s fault. It takes two. Your father just didn’t want the same thing to happen to you. That’s all, Becky. He thought he was doing the right thing by trying to give you a future. It all seems so…so wrong now. But please, file this away, and later, when you think about it, maybe you can try to understand and maybe…maybe you can find it in your heart to forgive us.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Becky could see her mother slowly rise from the bed. She could sense, more than see, her mother hesitate as though waiting for Becky to say something, but Becky just sat there, with her face to the wall, not moving a muscle, not even when that single tear ran down her cheek. It wasn’t until her mother got to the door that Becky spoke.

  “I’ll think about it, Mom. I’ll think about what you said.”

  She could hear her mother swallow a sob, then heard the door close.

  For a long time after her mother left, Becky lay on her back, motionless, hardly breathing. Finally, she rose and went to her dresser and pulled out her diary. It had been ages since she had written anything. She returned to the bed, propped herself against the pillows, and opened her diary. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, then began writing:

  Dear Diary,

  My mom dropped a bombshell today. I found out that she was already pregnant with me when she got married. All these years she’s been lying to me about her anniversary date. Shows you how untrustworthy parents can be. She must have been about my age. So, I guess she knows how scared I’ve been. Maybe she understands some of what I’ve been going through. But not all. Not nearly all. At least she got to have her baby. I’ll never know what mine looks like, what color hair or eyes…

  So, if she thinks this changes anything, she’s wrong. Dead wrong. I still hate her and my father. I hate them a lot…no…not a lot…some. I guess they have their own heartaches. I never understood that before. I guess they’ve had their problems. Still…they loved each other and me enough to go ahead and get married. I suppose that’s something. But it doesn’t change anything.

  My mom looked so sad when she told me. I thought she was going to cry. I’m sick of crying. I’m sick of seeing my mom cry. Dad cries too. I hear him in his bedroom at night. I guess they need as much help as I do. I guess. Maybe I should call and ask Maggie if Mom can come next time, to the meeting. What’s one more chair around the table? Still, this doesn’t change anything. I’m still so angry at my parents…still hate…still dislike them so much.

  Thor scraped the last of the menthol lather off his face with his razor, then splashed himself with water before towel drying. All night he had paced the floor, thinking about what he should do. He had run every possible scenario through his mind. Finally, just before dawn, he made the decision to go to the Brockston clinic, try his best to get through his routine, and wait for the call from Tooley. He couldn’t overplay his hand. If he acted too concerned people would start wondering, just as Louie had. But I am concerned. And not just about the dossier.

  It wasn’t until his third hour of pacing that he realized how concerned he was. You couldn’t be married to someone for fourteen years and not feel something. He had also realized something else last night—he realized he believed, had always believed, that he would win Teresa back.

  When he had finished thinking about Teresa, he started thinking about his former associate. What if he put all he knew on paper and sent this information, anonymously, to the three local papers? There were always young, hungry reporters willing to take risks and dig for a headline story. And if that happened, then Louie would be in the spotlight, in the hot seat. And Louie’s associates wouldn’t like that, would maybe be unhappy enough to give Louie trouble, make him scramble to defend himself. Thor pictured a series of fish swim
ming in a line of descending size—gobbling each other up.

  But would that be enough to keep Louie off his back? Or would Thor have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life as Louie had said? Thor had decided he had no other options, then sat down at his computer and composed a five-page expose on the wheelings and dealings of one Louie Pardino. Then he put all three copies in stamped envelopes.

  After he had viewed everything, run it back and forth in his mind, and looked at it from every angle, only then had he been able to sleep, and then only for an hour.

  He looked in the mirror at his bloodshot eyes and grabbed the Visine. He got only one drop in when the phone rang. He snatched it off the bathroom vanity where he had placed it for easy access.

  “Thor?”

  “Teresa! Thank God. Where are you?” He heard noise like the phone was being handled, then heard it drop. “Teresa, come on! Talk to me!”

  “Teresa’s fine. I ain’t plannin’ on hurtin’ her. She’ll be okay as long as you do exactly what I say. I got to finish the job. It ain’t finished, you know. I got to.”

  “Who is this?” But Thor had recognized the voice and was holding onto the bathroom wall in shock. “What do you want?”

  “You. Nobody’s got to get hurt. I wanna swap. Theresa for you. Your life for hers.”

  “How do I know you’ll keep your word? How do I know that if I come you’ll let Teresa go?”

  “Because I ain’t no liar. And because she’s not the baby killer, you are.”

  “Baby killer? Is that what this is about?”

  “You take innocent life. You know what you’re doin’ but you do it anyway, and then you lie about it.”

  “I provide a service. I don’t make these women come to my clinics.”

  “Liar! Liar…liar. And you lie to them too, to all them women who come to you. You tell them it’s safe and then you maim them and they die too.”

  “Listen, maybe we can work something out. Maybe—”

  “You listen! This is what you gotta do. Come up 45 to Hunter Mountain. Go about half a mile past the bridge, then leave your car and start walkin’ east toward the lake. I’ll find you.”

  “When…do you want me to come?”

  “You got two hours to get here. Otherwise I kill her.”

  “What if—” The phone went dead. Thor sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi, trying to collect his thoughts. Think, think. He ran to his armoire, pulled out Tooley’s card, and began punching in numbers. He didn’t know who he was talking to, but it wasn’t Tooley. In rapid-fire succession, Thor recounted the conversation he had just had and asked to be patched through to the lieutenant.

  “Tell me what you’ve got, Thor,” came Tooley’s rough voice a few minutes later. “And don’t leave anything out.”

  Thor tried to recreate the conversation verbatim.

  “Baby killer? That’s what he called you?”

  “Yes, that was the phrase.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yes. Canon Edwards.”

  “Never figured he’d stay so close. Thought he’d be out of state by now. On the other hand, that was smart of him. No one knows these woods like he does. He must be in one of those empty cabins around the lake. We’re only about two miles from there. Been following the trail, and it’s leading in that direction. I’ll call for backup and then check it out.”

  “You’ve got to be careful. If he sees you…I don’t know what he’ll do. He said he’d kill Teresa.”

  “We’ll be careful. Jake here’s a sharpshooter, has the medals to prove it. Maybe he’ll be able to get a clean shot.”

  “And if you can’t…then what?”

  “Hostage situations are risky at best. You just—”

  “I’m coming. I’m leaving now and should be there around the same time as your backup. Maybe when he sees me, I can distract him and give Jake his window.”

  “You’d do that for Teresa?”

  “She was my wife…for fourteen years.”

  “Sorry. Just didn’t think there was that much left between you…rumors…you know. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, rumors. Shows you that you can’t believe everything you hear,” Thor said, then hung up.

  Teresa sat huddled in a corner of the one-room cabin watching her abductor. Her hands and feet were bound. Otherwise I kill her. Otherwise I kill her. She couldn’t get those words out of her mind.

  She watched Canon move nervously around the cabin, fingering his gun, which he kept pulling out of his back pocket then replacing. When he turned to her she thought she was going to pass out from fright.

  “I don’t wanna do this. You can see that, can’t you? But I ain’t got no choice. I got to finish the job. They tell me I got to finish the job. My voices. They said it’s gotta be done.”

  Teresa bit her lip, trying to fight back the tears. She didn’t want to upset him by crying.

  “But I won’t hurt you, even if your husband doesn’t come. I won’t hurt you. But if he doesn’t come, I gotta keep you tied up when I leave. I gotta do that, you understand?”

  Teresa nodded her head and closed her eyes. She suddenly thought of church with Maggie. She could almost hear the music. She wished she knew more Scriptures. She only knew two and began to recite them in her mind. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

  Did God love her? Maggie said He did. But Teresa didn’t know Him well. She had accepted Jesus as her Savior and Maggie had called her “born again.” Teresa found that a fitting expression. In her faith, she was like a newborn infant, barely able to lift her head.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let nothin’ happen to you. You just stay back where you are and you’ll be safe,” Canon said, fingering his gun again and staring wide-eyed out the window.

  Teresa could almost hear the praise and worship music from Maggie’s church, and wondered at her vivid imagination. And it seemed to be getting louder too. Funny how she didn’t feel so frightened anymore.

  Thor spotted the cabin, nestled among towering maples and lacy white birch. Intermingled were full red spruce and everywhere was a thick underbrush. It looked like something out of a travel magazine. Periodically they had lost sight of the muddy tracks and had to use the lake for direction. “Just head for the water,” Lieutenant Tooley kept telling his men. But now Thor could clearly see the tracks, a mud-and-mulch mix pocking the ground. He followed closely behind Tooley and the others, and cursed under his breath whenever his feet got sucked into the mud. Why did I wear these stupid loafers? He hated the way the lieutenant kept looking at him, at his shoes, as if to say that someone better keep an eye on this civilian so he didn’t foul things up and get them all shot.

  He watched the lieutenant signal for the group to stop, then watched as he instructed his men, through gestures and a few words, to take cover by the trees as they crept closer to the cabin. There was a large woodpile not ten yards from the front of the house and that was the designated convergence point. From there, Jake and his rifle would have a clear line to the front door and one window. Thor wondered what the odds were of Canon surrendering without a shot. Slim to none was his guess.

  “Canon Edwards, this is the police. Come out with your hands up!” Tooley shouted after everyone was in position.

  From behind the woodpile, Thor could see a man dart to the opened window, then disappear. He felt nauseous and began sucking in air. He clamped his hands over his ears to muffle the noise of the gunshots he was sure would come. If Teresa came out of this alive, he’d make it up to her. Somehow he’d make things right. If she wanted, he’d even consider giving up his clinics. Move to another state. Go into something else. Maybe a small family practice, or maybe a small medical walk-in clinic, or maybe a string of walk-in clinics.

  Canon Edwards ran to the corner where Teresa sat huddled and pu
lled her to her feet. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. Nobody’s gonna hurt you. But they gotta see that you’re here. I gotta show them.”

  She pleaded with him to stop, but he half-dragged, half-carried her until they were standing by the window. He shoved her in front of him. “Don’t shoot! I got a woman here. Don’t shoot.”

  “Hold your fire,” Tooley said.

  “I don’t want to hurt none of you,” Canon shouted through the window. “You just back off, now. Give me some space. Let me clear out with the woman. Give me twelve hours’ head start, and I’ll leave her on the trail for you to find, alive. Twelve hours, that’s all I’m askin’.”

  When he saw Teresa at the window, Thor covered his mouth to keep from crying out. Even so he heard himself screaming, “Teresa! Teresa!” He grabbed for the logs in the woodpile and began pulling himself up. Why hadn’t he just surrendered to Canon? Why had he called the police? Teresa was in there, alone with a madman. Why had he left her to take his punishment? He had never been a coward. He had been many things, but never a coward. He was almost to his feet. How did this happen? How did things get so badly out of hand?

  “Stay down!” Tooley snapped. “Don’t make my job any harder!”

  Thor stood up, his head and shoulders towering over the woodpile. “Don’t hurt her! It’s me you want. Take me as your hostage, only let my wife go.”

  “Is that you, Emerson?” Canon shouted. “Step out where I can see you.”

  Lieutenant Tooley grabbed for Thor’s shoulder and pulled him down. “Are you crazy? You’re going to get us all shot!”

  “Come out where I can see you,” Canon repeated.

  “This is the police—no one’s coming out except you. Lay down your weapon and surrender.” Tooley positioned his rifle on the edge of the woodpile.

  “I ain’t got nothin’ against this here woman. I don’t wanna hurt her. See, I’m lettin’ her go back where it’s safe so we can talk, man to man.”