Melissa squirmed in her arms, but Eva continued to hold her tightly, her hand still covering Melissa's mouth. With her lips right against Melissa's ear, she whispered, "We mustn't make a sound. Something very bad is happening." Melissa nodded and relaxed somewhat, her body heavy against Eva's chest.
She could hear Ian's voice, could hear him talking to his son, felt his urgency as the minutes ticked past. Sweat trickled down her sides, her whole body sheltering Melissa. Then, distinctly, she heard the slam of the car door. The engine roared, the car reversed with screaming tires and went shooting off down the mountainside. She didn't move. Minute after minute went past as she crouched at the back of the closet, Melissa now asleep in her arms. She looked at the luminous face of her watch. Ten past ten. Where was he going? Was there a flight off the island at this time of night? What had he done to Deborah?
She waited another fifteen minutes, then, her muscles protesting, she stood up with Melissa, kicked the suitcases out of the way, and emerged from the closet. Her entire body was quaking, hips and thighs aching as she stepped back into the room. The door stood open. The overhead light was still on. Moths fluttered around the light fixture. Her arms ached to put Melissa down but she didn't dare. She moved to the doorway and looked out. The door to the master suite was wide open. Cupping the back of Melissa's head, she went along the walkway, barely able to breathe for fear of what she might see.
Approaching the threshold of the master suite she was so afraid she thought she might throw up. Her stomach heaved. She took a deep breath, another step, and looked into the room. One glance and she inched away, even more afraid. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she carried Melissa to the bedroom and laid her on the bed while she pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt, socks, and sneakers. Then she dressed the sleeping Melissa. Finally she got her purse from the closet, looped the strap over her shoulder, picked Melissa up from the bed and carried her on tiptoe through the house to the telephone. Ian had cut the line. Fear made her want to scream. She couldn't stay there.
She got the flashlight from the kitchen, then started down the long narrow road, Melissa unbelievably heavy in her arms as she kept to one side, certain Ian would return at any moment to complete what he'd begun. Her arms feeling as if they were being pulled from their sockets, she followed the beam of the flashlight the two miles down the plantation drive, praying the whole time that there would be a car going past on the main road.
She longed to put Melissa down but couldn't. Upon arriving at the intersection of the drive and the road, she stopped and looked in both directions, lips moving as she prayed for a car to come along. She stood, chilled now as the sweat on her body dried in the cool night air, looking first one way, then the other, waiting, straining to hear the sound of an approaching car, terrified that if one came it might be Ian, but what choice did she have? She couldn't carry Melissa any farther and the nearest house was better than a mile away.
Finally headlights appeared. She switched on the flashlight and waved it back and forth. And the car, containing two Montaverdean men, stopped. Sobbing now, she ran to the car, saying, "We've got to get the police. My friend's been killed."
Once in the back of the car, speeding toward the nearest telephone, she was able to let go of Melissa. Her tears abating, she held her trembling hands together in her lap, unable to respond to the men's questions, unable to speak at all, her eyes filled with the image of Deborah's lifeless, contorted body, the blood—so much of it—splattered over the wall, the floor, the bedclothes …
In tears, she sat on the side of the bed drying her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown. After a time, she got up and went downstairs to the kitchen. While the kettle was boiling, she sat at the table looking at the slightly open door to the apartment. Once again, she could smell cigarette smoke and knew Bobby, too, was awake. Why couldn't she bring herself to say or do something, to make some contact during these early morning sojourns?
Twenty-Five "I didn't thank you for the flowers." Eva delivered this as an apology.
"Oh, that's okay," Bobby said, with a little dismissing lift of her hand.
"The thing is, I didn't really notice them. Otherwise, of course, I'd have
said something earlier." "I understand," Bobby said, smiling. "I know you've got a lot on your mind."
"Why did you do it?" Eva asked, perpetually curious about this woman and seeking links between her and Deborah. So far, she'd found none. The two couldn't have been more different. All they had in common was that they'd both been married to abusive men.
"I wanted to thank you for the special day, for including us." Anxious to get off that topic, she said, "Your Melissa's a beautiful girl, really nice."
Eva leaned against the counter and said, "She is beautiful, isn't she? Every time I look at her I see her father. She has his good nature and his sense of humor, his extraordinary ease with people. And," she added with a self-deprecating smile, "my stubbornness."
"Are you stubborn?" Bobby asked, finding Eva very accessible this morning.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed," Eva said playfully.
"I've noticed you get a lot of moods," Bobby said. "But I haven't seen you being stubborn."
"Stick around," Eva said, laughing. "We'll get to it." Sobering, she said, "I get up in the middle of the night and come down here, have some juice or a cup of tea and sit for a while until it's safe to go back to sleep."
"I know," Bobby said softly. "I hear your footsteps." "We should keep each other company," Eva said. "It seems ridiculous that we're both awake, sitting in separate places."
"I kind of thought that too," Bobby said, wanting to look down—at her hands or the floor—but keeping her eyes lifted to Eva's. "I usually have a cigarette," she said apologetically, as if her smoking were a breach of household etiquette.
"Next time, come up and have your cigarette with me," Eva invited. "Maybe we'll discuss our dreams." She kept her tone light, but she could-n't have been more serious. She wanted badly to get inside Bobby's experiences, to comprehend them in order that her book about Deborah would have more verisimilitude.
Bobby pictured the two of them sitting at the table in the dead of night and had to smile at the idea of their trading nightmare tales. It reminded her of how she and Lor used to discuss every last thing that happened at school. Invariably they'd ended up giggling over their speculations.
"Do you find the idea funny?" Eva asked, mildly dismayed.
"In a way," Bobby said. "But it'd be kind of a nice change, talking about the things I dream." She doubted she'd ever be able to tell anyone her dreams, because that would be telling about the things Joe had done to her. But maybe she could, and maybe it would make her feel better.
"Do you dream in color?" Eva asked.
"I guess so. I never really thought about it. Do you?"
"Not recently," Eva said, and stood away from the counter to get on with the preparation of Alma's breakfast. She wondered again, as she had dozens of times before, where Ian was now. As it turned out, there had been several flights off the island that night—one to St. Kitts and Nevis, one to Barbuda, and one to Antigua. From Antigua he might have gone anywhere. By the time the Montaverdean police got around to checking, he and Derek were long gone.
She invariably pictured the two of them in London. Perhaps Derek was a college student now, like Melissa; a young man with only the haziest memories of his mother; or possibly he was tormented by nightmares of his mother's death. But maybe Ian had killed him too, and somewhere hidden in the brush on the island was a small skeleton. She preferred to think Derek was alive. Since she still had difficulty dealing with the facts of Deborah's death, she simply refused to believe Derek might also be dead. Perhaps Ian had married another woman, who'd willingly played mother to the boy while Ian slowly, steadily beat her into mental shape. Or maybe he'd found someone who wouldn't be beaten, and he spent his evenings listening to her complain while he sat turning his silver Dunhill lighter over and over in his hands.
Bobby felt Eva drift away and respectfully left her to herself, returning downstairs with the cookie sheets she'd come up to borrow. As she plaited Penny's hair into a pair of French braids, she tried to recall if her dreams were in color. She had the impression that they were, but she couldn't be sure.
She imagined climbing the stairs to the kitchen, to have her cigarette and keep Eva company in the middle of the night. The idea appealed to her and she thought maybe she'd do it. Having someone to be with might make the nights less frightening. Somehow, at night, horrible things were more likely to happen. Fear seemed to be a nighttime emotion, something that lived in the deepest corners and fed on darkness.
* After Alma was settled in the living room with the Sunday papers and a Mozart violin concerto on the stereo, Bobby slipped away to help Penny make the chocolate chip cookies.
When they were done and sat cooling on the counter, she and Penny went back up to the living room. Penny went at once to lean on the arm of Alma's wheelchair, asking, "Granny, when's Melissa comin' back?"
"In eighteen days," Alma told her, daily more taken with this child. She'd never have admitted it, but she was secretly delighted every time Penny called her Granny. For a few moments, here and there, she was able to reconstruct history, viewing herself as a woman who had shared her life and, as a result, would leave behind a living legacy. More and more of late she was coming to view the life she'd led as narrow and arid. Sundry lovers notwithstanding, she'd given nothing of herself in any significant fashion—except, of course, to Eva. She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn't help thinking that if she'd used her body for something other than pleasure it might not have betrayed her so terribly. "You could mark off the days on the calendar in the kitchen, if you like."
"I could do that," Penny said, as if rising to a challenge. "That way," Alma said, "you'll know exactly how many more days you have to wait." "I'm gonna do that," Penny said again, decisively. "We made the cookies. Mom says I can bring you some when they're cooled." "I'll look forward to it," Alma said, unable to suppress a chuckle. "Are you enjoying The Secret Garden?"
"I love it! It's the bestest book I ever read."
"It's the best book you've ever read," Alma corrected her.
Penny's brow furrowed slightly and she asked, "How come you always say over again what I just said?" "I'm trying to teach you good grammar." "What's grammar?" "It's the correct way of speaking and writing." "Oh! I thought that was for school." "No," Alma said. "It's for every day, in your life and at school. When you're
older and out in the world, you'll find that people have a tendency to judge you by the way you speak. If you speak correctly, you will be judged more favorably—particularly when you enter the working world."
"I'm gonna be a school bus driver when I grow up," Penny said, "and drive all the little children to school. I'll sit up front and tell everyone to sit down or they can't ride on the bus. And I won't let nobody fight on my bus or
throw trash on the floor." "Very admirable," Alma said. "I'm sure you'll have the finest bus in the fleet." "Yes, I will," Penny said, reaching to touch her finger to Alma's left hand, asking, "Can you feel this?"
"Not really."
Penny touched her finger next to the downturned side of Alma's face, asking, "Can you feel this?" "Pen, stop that," Bobby said quietly but firmly. "That's not nice." "Was that bad?" Penny asked, looking first at Alma, then at her mother. "Yes," said Bobby. "No," said Alma. "I'm not bothered," she told Bobby. It was true.
Somehow the openness with which Penny approached her disabilities robbed them of much of their horror. It had to do with the purity of the child's motives, with the lack of anything but simple curiosity in her questions. Penny accepted her as she was, which was more than she was capable of doing herself. She would live out the rest of her life in a state of denial because her memories and her image of herself were at war with her current reality. Only with Penny was she able, to some degree, to forget that she was no longer all of a piece. With everyone else she was like a misplaced steamer trunk that had to be shifted from one location to another, doomed never to arrive at its proper destination. And she was aware during every waking moment of just how cumbersome she'd become. Penny enabled her to forget for long minutes at a stretch, enabled her to live up to her old, outdated mental image of herself. With Penny she was still the Alma Ogilvie who went out for social occasions dressed in high heels and good-looking clothes, still the Alma who'd refused to be dictated to by her age, still a complete human being. And for that, as well as for all Penny's other attributes, she was coming to cherish the child. "I don't mind your asking," she told Penny. "I want you always to feel free to say whatever you're thinking." Tomorrow, she decided, she'd put in a call to her lawyer, arrange to make provision for Penny in her will. It was the least she could do in return for the valuable moments of brightness Penny brought into her life.
"See, Mom!" Penny said. "Granny says it's okay."
Bobby simply smiled.
Dennis arrived while Bobby was still upstairs getting Alma settled for her nap. On hearing the doorbell, Penny came racing up from the apartment and was right behind Eva as she opened the door.
Singing out, "Dennis!" Penny threw open her arms, and Dennis caught her up and held her, grinning.
"How're you doing, Pen?"
"Did you bring the movie machine?"
"I sure did," he said. "It's in the car." Leaning around Penny he greeted Eva, asking how she was.
"Fine, thank you. Bobby's still up with Alma. Come on into the kitchen. There's fresh coffee."
"I made your cookies," Penny said as he set her down to remove his jacket.
"I was counting on that. You promised, after all."
Taking him by the hand, Penny led him to the kitchen, saying, "Granny's lettin' me mark off the days on the calendar 'til Melissa comes home. I'll show you." She let go of his hand to run across the kitchen and indicate the big X she'd put through that day's date.
"How many more days to go?" he asked her, sitting as Eva indicated he should, at the table.
"Seventeen, after today." Penny came over and indicated she wanted to be lifted onto his lap.
Watching, taken by his naturalness with Penny, Eva wondered what he hoped for from Bobby. He seemed very relaxed, and she took a good long look at him, deciding he was an attractive man. In jeans and a brown Shetland crew-neck over a white shirt, with heavy white socks and boating shoes, he appeared very young and very alert, with healthy color riding his high, freckled cheekbones. In many ways, she thought he was quite perfect for Bobby: a gentle, well-bred young man, uncomplicated and undemanding. "Coffee?" she asked, deciding in one moment that she approved of him, and in the next wondering why she was, in however abstract a fashion, involving herself in Bobby's life. It was none of her business.
"That'd be great," he said. "How's the writing going?"
Why did people always ask that? It was one of two questions she was asked constantly. The other was: Still writing? The question seemed to imply her writing was a frivolity, something she did instead of real work. But she answered politely, as always, saying, "I'm getting ready to start a new book," and busied herself pouring his coffee. She was placing it on the table when Bobby came in, and she was intrigued to see Bobby brighten, smiling at the sight of him with Penny on his knee.
Eva felt a sudden leap of protectiveness toward her, and found herself thinking, If you hurt her, I'll kill you. Surprised at the intensity of these feelings, she poured coffee for Bobby while Penny slipped away to bring the cookies up from downstairs.
Almost every day Eva read in the newspapers some story about a demented husband going after his estranged wife with a gun, killing her— often in front of witnesses—then turning the gun on himself. The psychology of these men bewildered her, just as Ian, even after all these years, continued to defy her comprehension. The Joe Salton that Bobby talked about didn't seem quite real to her. Her eyes on Bobby, she wondered why that was. Obviously the m
an was real. Bobby had turned up at the door bearing the physical evidence of his reality.
"Have you seen E.T., Eva?" Dennis was asking, and she said she had, thinking she really should spend a couple of hours in the office working on a story outline. But she didn't feel like it; the need wasn't there. She'd probably walk around preoccupied with Deborah and Ian and Derek for a week or two or three, then one morning the story would start pouring out in such a rush that she'd spend up to ten hours a day attempting to keep up with the flow. It was exciting when that happened. She could sit by and follow, fascinated, the evolution of the tale, using her skills to give it shape and momentum, but as intrigued to know the ending as any reader would be.
"Why don't you watch it with us?" Dennis said.
"Perhaps I will," Eva said, looking to see if Bobby harbored any objections. She obviously didn't. She smiled encouragingly, and Eva said, "Why not use the VCR in the den?"
"Okay, we'll do that," Dennis said as Penny offered around the cookies. "It'll save me the hassle of hooking mine up."
"We have to keep some for Granny," Penny warned everyone.
Bobby stole surreptitious glances at Dennis, thinking that he, like Charlie at Thanksgiving, didn't seem to mind being surrounded by females. He acted as if he felt right at home, and took Penny back on his lap after she finished passing around the cookies, holding her as if it was something he did every day, something that made him feel good.
She got a little shock whenever she stole another look at him, wondering anew why he was interested in her. He could've had all kinds of women, but he kept on coming back to her. It made her feel honored in a way, even though she expected he'd be disappointed in her and give up soon. And yet he seemed glad to go along with things, unlike Joe, who was always insisting everything had to be different from what it was. The entire eight years with Joe, he'd been at her to be different, to be someone other than the person she was. He wanted her hair blond, wanted her to walk around naked when the very idea made her cringe with mortification; he wanted her to be exactly the opposite of what she was. Dennis hadn't once acted as if he expected anything at all; he behaved as if he was satisfied with her the way she was. But he couldn't be. Could he?
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