by Lisa Unger
“What happened to him?”
She hands me the paper, and I read the feature about the fallen cop, the hooker, the heroin, the gambling addiction, the mysterious money in his account. Ray Harrison looks beaten, dazed in the mug shot pictured. I notice that the white hair over his ear is gone. Strange. Maybe it’s a trick of the light.
I glance over at Ella, and she is watching me. She wrinkles her brow when our eyes meet.
“Crazy, huh?” she says, and there’s an odd brightness to her gaze, as if she takes some pleasure in the sensational nature of the story.
“Yeah,” I say, folding the paper, closing my eyes, and leaning my head back. I feel the sun on my face. I feel a sudden anxiety, a sense that something is not right about what I’ve read. But I can’t afford to dwell on Ray Harrison right now or worry about his problems. “Crazy.”
43
I am never alone, I start to realize after I’ve been home another week or so. Either Gray or Ella or Brigit is always with me. I am not even left alone with Victory except when I take her to school in the mornings. It’s not that anyone’s hovering, but someone is always in the house or out with us as we run errands. With what they think of me, I suppose I can’t blame them. I’ll go along with it for a while, but eventually it’s going to start to wear on me. Right now I’m on my best behavior, doing what I must to be home with my family and not locked up in a rubber room somewhere.
“Mommy,” Victory says in the car on the way to school this morning.
“Yeah, Victory?”
“Are you better?” She is looking at me through the rearview mirror. She’s frowning slightly.
“Yes, I am,” I answer. “A lot better.”
I see her smile, then put my eyes back to the road.
Then, “I don’t want to go away with Grandma and Grandpa anymore.” It’s an odd thing to say, and I look back into the mirror to see that her frown has returned.
“Why, baby?”
“I just don’t want to. I want to stay with you and Daddy. You shouldn’t go away, and they shouldn’t take me anywhere.” I can see she has given this some thought. My heart aches a little.
I give her a smile and decide not to press right now. “I’m not going anywhere. And you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. Okay?”
“Okay,” she says, but her smile doesn’t return.
The rest of the ride I am watching her face, wondering if I should urge her to talk more. But by the time I get her to school, she’s back to her old self, bubbly and chirping about show-and-tell today. She has brought Claude and Isabel. I am sure they’ll be a smashing success.
After I drop Victory off, I don’t go straight home. I just can’t face the rest of the day tiptoeing around Brigit, who, by the way, is an even worse cook and housekeeper than I am. I’m starting to suspect that she’s an operative from my husband’s company, hired to keep an eye on me.
I find myself at the Internet café by the beach. I order myself a latte and grab a spot in a booth toward the back, start browsing the Web on one of the laptops. I have thought about trying to find some proof of the things that happened to me. But, it turns out, I don’t really need anyone to believe me. I know what happened. I know I’m not crazy. I know that I faced Marlowe Geary and removed him from the world. I am healed by this knowledge. That should be enough. Whatever Alan Parker and Grief Intervention Services did to cover everything up is not my problem. I have tried to reach my father to talk to him about that night, without luck. I’m starting to worry about him.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. I think about searching for a way to contact Alan Parker, to look for stories of other people who have been involved with Grief Intervention Services, or to try to reach my father again without Gray around. There’s a pay phone over by the bathrooms. But in the end I don’t do any of these things. I have the sense that I’m being watched. Everyone is so pleased with my “progress.” I don’t want to set off any alarms. I need to be home for my daughter.
“They don’t want you to be alone, do they?” I turn to see a young woman sitting at the table behind me. She has a baby who is blissfully asleep in a stroller. The woman’s ash-blond hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, her face pale to the point of looking almost gray. The dark smudges of fatigue rim her eyes. I don’t recognize her.
“I’m sorry?” I say.
“I’ve been trying to get you alone for days,” she says.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
“No, you don’t know me, Ms. Powers. My name is Sarah Harrison. I’m Ray Harrison’s wife.”
I look at her face and try to decide what she wants. Is this going to be another attempt at blackmail? A desperate woman looking for money? But no, there’s something about her face. Her eyes are wide and earnest. There’s a strength and a presence to her. She’s not the criminal type. She’s scared, looking over at the door and then down at her baby. The baby looks a lot like Ray Harrison; the only way I know she’s a girl is because she’s wrapped in pink. I remember when Victory was that small and fragile. I can’t help myself—I reach in and touch the downy crown of her head. She releases a sigh but doesn’t wake.
“I need to talk to you,” Sarah says.
I turn away from her. If anyone is watching, I want them to think I was just admiring her baby. I look at my computer screen. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Harrison?”
“You heard what happened to my husband?”
I nod. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. And I am sorry, for all of them, especially for his little girl.
“What happened to him happened because he was trying to help you.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. I’m aware that I sound distant and cold. But I can’t afford to be anything else at the moment. She seems undaunted as she begins to tell me about the recent events of her husband’s life, the version I read about in the paper plus everything he learned in his investigation.
“They think he had a nervous breakdown relating to his gambling addiction. No one believes him about Grief Intervention Services, about the Taser attack. They think he’s crazy.”
“There must be marks on his body from the Taser, if it’s true.”
“There were marks,” she says. “But no one believed that’s where they came from. They questioned your friend, Ella Singer, just to say they had.” She pauses and issues a harsh laugh. “She and her husband were outraged. She helped in every way possible with his investigation, and this is what she gets from him, she said. Apparently, her husband plays golf with the mayor.” Her words are heavy with bitterness.
I remember the glint in Ella’s eyes when she handed me the paper. She’d made no mention of these allegations Sarah is describing, of course. There was nothing of it in the paper. If I confronted her, I’m sure she’d say she was trying to spare me any upset, that I had my own problems. And maybe that’s the truth. It’s difficult to think of Ella wielding a Taser gun, and yet somehow it isn’t impossible to imagine.
“Let’s just pretend that I believe what you’re saying,” I tell Sarah Harrison. “What can I do about it?”
“You don’t understand,” she says. “I’m not asking for your help. I’m trying to help you. They want you to think you’re crazy. You’re not. My husband wronged you, he knows that now. He wants to make it right, and so do I.”
“Okay,” I say. “Maybe that’s true. But what do you think you can do for me, Sarah?”
The baby releases a little sigh. I can see the little pink bundle out of the corner of my eye.
“Maybe nothing. I just thought you needed to know that you’re living in a pit of vipers. Your husband, your best friend, and your in-laws are all lying to you. They’re basically holding you prisoner, in the nicest possible cage.”
I don’t say anything, just take a sip of my coffee and hope she can’t see that my hand is shaking.
“This is an interesting thing my husband found out, the thing that brought him to your house in the first place. He learne
d that Grief Intervention Services is a client of Powers and Powers, Inc.”
When I still don’t say anything, she goes on.
“A friend of Ray’s at the FBI forwarded him a client list. The federal government keeps very close tabs on those privatized military companies, for obvious reasons. Let me ask you this: What kind of services might a military company provide to an organization established to help people with their grief?”
It’s a good question. So good that I’m not sure I want the answer. I drain my coffee cup.
“If these things are true, you’re putting yourself at great risk by coming here, Sarah,” I tell her. “You should think of your daughter.”
“I am thinking of my daughter,” she says sharply. “I want her to know that there’s more to life than just playing it safe. That when you make mistakes, part of the way you move on is by correcting what you can. My husband has made a lot of mistakes, some of them concerning you. But he tried to make things right, and he’s paying a very high price—his career, his reputation. There’s not a lot we can do about that. But we both feel we owe you the truth. Here’s my advice: Take your daughter and get as far away from that family as possible. Run. Don’t walk.”
I stand up then. I don’t want to listen to anything else. I pick up my bag and put it over my shoulder.
“You have access at home to Gray’s computer, right? Find the client list for Powers and Powers, Inc. See if I’m telling you the truth.”
I put some money on the table, a tip for service I didn’t get. And move toward the door.
“If you won’t do it for yourself, Annie, do it for your daughter.”
I leave her there. I don’t look back.
In a karst topography, there’s a feature called a disappearing stream. At a certain point in the flow, the water slips through the delicate pores of the limestone bedrock and winds its way beneath the ground through an intricate system of caves and caverns. It travels like any moving body of water and may connect with the flow of yet other streams, traveling swift and steady but in darkness, far beneath the world. Then, as if from nowhere, the stream percolates and resurfaces, sometimes hundreds of miles away from its origin.
In this subterranean environment, creatures called stygobites, animals perfectly adapted to the wet darkness, proliferate—spiders and flies, millipedes and lizards. Through evolution they have lost their eyes, their skin has become translucent. Even the most minimal exposure to the light would be lethal.
Ophelia dropped beneath the surface of the earth and then appeared again as Annie. The streams of their lives merged, continuing on together, only to dip into the darkness again. I thought I’d come into the light once and for all. But perhaps it’s true that I don’t even know the difference between light and dark anymore. Perhaps I am perfectly adapted to my life as it is.
I drive around for a while, my heart thrumming, my throat dry and painful. My lungs have not recovered from the smoke inhalation, and I’m having trouble getting a full breath of air. I drive up the beach, turn around, and wind through the streets of our quaint little ocean town, watch the tourists with their terrible sunburns; the teenagers with their lithe, perfect bodies strutting about in bathing suits and bare feet; the retirees with their silver hair and walking canes. After a while I am calmer, but Sarah Harrison’s words are still loud in my head. I want to go home, pretend I never saw her. I try to convince myself that she was a product of my demented mind, yet another fantasy on my part. But I can’t do this. It’s what she said about her daughter that echoes: I want her to know that there’s more to life than just playing it safe. That when you make mistakes, part of the way you move on is by correcting what you can. The simple truth of this hurts. I realize that I am betraying myself again, this time for my daughter.
44
That night we have plans to go to dinner at Drew and Vivian’s. I’m nervous and edgy because of this. I have not been comfortable around Vivian since my return. And I have not spoken to Drew at all. Having dinner at their place is the last thing I want to do. But Gray has convinced me that it’s a much-needed return to normalcy, the point from which we all move forward as a family. I don’t hate him for it, but almost.
I have snapped at Gray twice while we get ready, and now he’s avoiding me. Victory is cranky and fussy, maybe because of my mood, which is always contagious where she is concerned. But maybe for reasons of her own. She doesn’t want to go, has said as much, keeps angling for pizza and a movie. I ask her about it as I help her into the new outfit I bought for her after my encounter with Sarah Harrison today. I used it as an excuse for Brigit as to why I didn’t come straight home after dropping Victory off.
“You always love to go to Grandma’s,” I say, fastening the heart-shaped buttons on the back of the pink gingham dress she wears over her pink leggings. She holds up her hair for me.
“No I don’t,” she says stubbornly. “I like pizza and a video better.”
I can see the sad downturn of the corners of her mouth in the mirror across from us. I turn her around gently so that we are face-to-face. There’s nothing of Marlowe in her; her face is a mirror of my own.
“What’s wrong, Victory?” I ask her, almost whispering.
She drops her eyes to the floor. “Nothing,” she says, then leans into me and wraps her tiny arms around my neck. I wrap my arms around her and am about to ask her again, but then Gray’s at the door.
“How does a guy get in on that hug?” he asks.
Victory runs to him, her face bright now, no trace of the sadness I saw a moment ago. He lofts her into the air and then squeezes her. We smile at each other over Victory’s head as she giggles with delight. He puts her back down.
“Everybody ready? Dad just called. Vivian has the steaks on the grill.”
If he notices that Victory and I both lose our smiles, he doesn’t say anything.
The farce of it all sickens me. Sarah Harrison might as well be seated across from me at the long glass table where we have gathered for dinner. A wide orange sun is dropping toward the blue-pink horizon line over the Gulf. We feast on filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes, fat ears of corn. Drew and Gray knock back Coronas while Vivian and I drink chardonnay. Victory sips her milk from a plastic cup adorned with images of Hello Kitty. Anyone looking at us might feel a twinge of envy, the rich and happy family sharing a meal at their luxury home with a view of the ocean.
“Annie,” says Drew, breaking an awkward silence that has settled over the table once vague pleasantries and chatty questions for Victory have been exhausted. “You seem well.”
He is smiling at me in a way he never has before. There’s a satisfied benevolence to him, the king surveying his subjects. I thank him because it seems like the right thing to do in this context.
“I’m glad to see it,” he says. “It’s a blessing to be here as a family. It’s been a long journey to happiness—for all of us.”
“Yes,” says Vivian, looking at her plate. “A blessing.” She lifts her eyes to me then and takes my hand. I have the urge to snatch it away but I don’t. I smile at her and then over to Victory, who is sitting beside me, watching me intently.
“I have to admit,” Drew goes on, voice a little too loud, a little too bright, “when you first came to us, I didn’t think you were right for my son. You weren’t well, and I was afraid Gray was trying to rescue you in a way he could never rescue his mother.”
The words land like a fist on the table, everyone pauses mid-action—Vivian’s glass at her lips, my fork hovering over a tomato—to look at Drew. I’ve never heard him say anything like that; his candor makes heat rise to my cheeks.
“Dad,” says Gray with a frown, sliding forward in his chair. He throws a meaningful glance in Victory’s direction, and I can see the tension in his shoulders and his biceps.
“Let me finish,” says Drew sharply, lifting a hand.
I see then that Drew is drunk. He’s had at least four bottles of beer since we sat down at the table, a
nd he has probably been drinking since before we arrived. There’s an unbecomingly loose, loquacious quality to him.
Gray casts me an uneasy look but leans back in his chair, still tense, still waiting. It’s not that he’s afraid to stand up to his father, just that even the smallest disagreement can turn into a battle. He prefers to bide his time.
“But you’re not like Gray’s mother,” says Drew. “There’s a mettle to you, Annie, that I never suspected. You make my son happy, and you’re a good mother to your daughter.”
A year ago I would have been weak with gratitude for this statement. Now I just want to put my fist through the rows of his perfect white teeth. My conversation with Sarah Harrison is bouncing around inside my head, and my heart rate is on the rise. It takes effort to keep the swelling tide of emotion off my face.
Vivian gets up from the table suddenly, pushing her chair back quickly, almost toppling it. She senses that the sky is about to open.
“Victory, let’s go upstairs and look at your dollhouse,” she says, moving toward the door leading inside. I expect Victory to bolt off after her, but she stays rooted.
“No,” says Victory sullenly. She takes hold of my hand. “I want to stay here.”
“Victory,” Vivian says so sternly that I’m startled by her tone, “let’s go.”
Something shifts inside me. “Don’t talk to her like that,” I find myself saying. “Ever.”
Then everyone turns to face me, as though I’m a marionette that has suddenly made a move of her own.
“I don’t want to play any of those games with you, Grandma,” says Victory. “I don’t like it.”
I turn to my daughter and think how much tougher, how much stronger, she already is than I have ever been.