Round eyes, as black and hard as onyx, stared back at me from a bronzed face as old and puckered as a spoiled apple. I scanned her face again, risked staring, then realized there was no resemblance to Anna: the hair was different, as gray as steel but trimmed.
But I could be mistaken, so many years had passed. There was a shimmer of recognition in her eyes, for just a moment, and then a smile, white teeth, sharp and pointed. A wolf’s teeth. My heart began to pound. But then, just as quickly, she closed her lips, hiding what I’d seen.
“Doba? Is that you,” I asked her anyway. She didn’t move. “How did you find me? How did you know I was here?” I couldn’t hide the panic in my voice, the trembling underneath.
“Leave me alone!” Her voice was low, almost a whimper, not at all like Anna’s with its strong, mellow tone. But it had been years since Anna’s funeral, I couldn’t remember how Doba’s voice had sounded. I had only seen her once, and written her from time to time. I had to be wrong. Fearful, the woman drew back from the sink. I realized she was as afraid of me as I’d been of her.
“Leave me alone,” she said again, her eyes wide and frightened, not the hard ones I’d seen before. Had I reached the point where I was scaring strangers in a public restroom? I stepped back, not wanting to alarm her. She turned to the mirror, ignoring me now as she patted on more makeup, brushing blusher onto her cheeks until they were a bright garish red. She was a helpless old woman, homeless probably, not seeing reality as it was. My imagination had gotten the better of me.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
Her smile was fleeting, bashful yet not quick enough to hide the teeth that poked from behind her lips. I hadn’t imagined those. What had she done to herself? What craziness had made her file them sharp like that? I thought about my dying grandmother on my father’s side, the things she had done to herself near the end—the dresses worn inside out, the hair combed with honey, fingernails filed to a point, like this one had done to her teeth. She’d lived with us only briefly, but I was a child and in her own way so was she. We’d connected as children, what was her name? I’d forgotten, because it was rarely said. Mamie? Melanie?
Poor, sad thing.
Like this one.
As I turned to go, I glimpsed, or thought I did, something on her finger—a twist of gold and silver encircling turquoise found and set for a beloved daughter. The woman jerked her hand below the sink, hiding it from my view. Yet it had been so long ago that I’d seen that ring, that her response could have been one of fear, an attempt to hide a precious gem from someone who frightened her, someone she thought might steal it.
There was chatter outside the door. Loud laughter, louder voices, as two women entered: one tall with short red hair; the other older with streaked gray hair in a short natural. Mother and daughter, I assumed, with their similar looks and easy camaraderie. The woman’s eyes darted from me to the women. Was she scrutinizing them for strength? For weakness? Or was she simply curious? Had they made her remember a daughter lost or long gone? She shook her head as if shaking something out and sighed slowly as if puzzled. I left the room before the women could see me trembling.
The sun, blazing and hot, hit me as if forcing truth upon me as I fell against the building, angry at myself for being so suspicious and fearful, puzzled by my own response. Luna’s words last night and Mack’s death had left me unsure of myself, of reality.
Cade called on my cell phone, his voice relaxed and amused, to make sure he hadn’t missed me, and to say that Davey was having a good time. He’s fine, don’t worry about him so much, he said. It’s good for him to be around kids his own age. I detected a critical note in his tone. He’d hinted before that I was overly protective. How could I be anything else? Are you okay, Raine? he said. I could hear the concern in his voice. Fine, I assured him. There’s always lines in ladies’ rooms. What else could I say, that I’d scared a poor homeless woman because I thought she was somebody I’d seen years ago at a funeral?
The woman came out as I spoke to him, hobbling like she had when she came in, one heel higher than the other, and when she saw me, she stopped and stared, eyes filled with rancor, then disappeared into the crowd.
My cell phone rang again, and Luna’s name flashed on the screen.
“You okay?” I could hear anxiety in her voice.
“Fine, how come you asked like that?”
“No reason.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Something in your voice. Tell me what happened.” So I told her the truth about what I’d seen, my self-doubt and the way I’d frightened some poor, harmless woman.
“So who did you think she was?”
“Anna’s cousin. Doba.”
“Now, that’s strange,” Luna said, pausing between each word. “Right after you left, a woman rang my bell looking for you and Davey, said she’d come by because not many people have the last name Loving, and that was your name before you married. Said she was related to Davey, second cousin, and needed to tell you something.”
“Did you tell her where we were?” My heart rolled in my chest, beating fast like it had when the woman shuffled into the restroom, like it had when the dog nibbled at my hand outside of Starbucks.
“No. But she did wait in the back for a while, said she’d spotted that swing from the street and hadn’t swung in one since she was a girl, asked if she could sit in it for a spell. Struck me as a little odd, but I didn’t see any harm in it, since she said she was kin to the boy. Said she just needed to get off her feet and admire my garden. I went back inside, and heard the swing creaking when she sat down.”
“Did you let her in the house?”
“No, she went through the bushes in the back.”
“How did she look?”
“Well-dressed. Fresh-pressed white suit. You know what she did have, though, was a ring like those earrings you have. Held it up so I could take a look at it. Didn’t have a thumb, poor thing. Lost it in an accident, she said. You can’t do much in life without a thumb. That’s why I noticed the ring.”
“Is she still there?”
“No. Sat in the swing a minute or two, then left.”
“You get a sense of people, don’t you?”
She paused before she spoke. Luna could be as secretive about her gift as Davey was about his. “Sometimes.”
“What did you get from her?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Raine. I’ve got to touch a person, stand close before I can tell. And there was a screen door and a foot of space between us. She didn’t let me get that close. She just went around the back and sat on the back porch, like I said.”
If it was Doba, she had seen Davey at Mack’s that day, and in the church. But he was taller and stronger than he was then, and with a man and a bunch of kids she didn’t know. Or maybe I had the whole thing wrong. Maybe she had sought me out to give a warning, to tell me that whatever was after us was getting closer. To let me know that I had to leave and find another place to hide. Maybe she knew how to kill it. At Anna’s funeral there had been that uncle whose name nobody would speak. Was he the thing that stalked us?
Don’t trust nobody. Not family. Not friend.
I pasted on a carefree smile when I joined Cade by the Ferris wheel and closed my eyes as it creaked upward into the sky. Evening was coming, and the fair was lit with red and yellow lights that sparkled everywhere. I spotted Davey at one of the games, throwing a ball through a hoop as his newfound posse, as Cade called them, cheered him on. When we reached the top, Cade kissed me sweet and tenderly, and I snuggled close, enjoying his body squeezed next to mine, the softness of his lips.
We stopped at a diner on the way home, a typical Jersey one filled with the smell and sounds of hamburgers being fried and simmering chili. “This place reminds me of Mack,” Davey whispered in my ear when we went inside, and I knew that despite the fun of the day, nothing had changed.
Night still lay before us.
11
cade
Dennie was on Cade’s mind as he drove them home. He’d never been much good at reading women. It was one of the things Dennie had teased him about, hinting that like most men, he thought with his “small head” rather than the big one on top of his neck. Just thinking about her voice when she said it, the funny way she would shake her head followed with a quick eye roll, made him smile. He glanced at Raine now, studying her tight lips, fingers folded neatly in her lap with their bright red nails matching the color of her lipstick. She was coiled so tightly, he wondered what would happen if he touched her, so he did, lightly on her elbow.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” she said too quickly. She gazed out the window not with the casual demeanor of simply enjoying the ride but with a furtive uneasiness, as if searching for someone in the night. Davey, earphones in ears, gazed into the darkness, too, but there was a relaxed smile on his lips, as if reliving the day, and that quickened Cade’s heart, made him glad they’d come.
Raine worried him. Each time they were together—and it had been nearly every day in the past few weeks—he felt closer to her. It scared him how quickly he’d grown to care about her. He was as wary as he’d been those first few weeks of loving Dennie, falling so quickly, deeply, that he couldn’t catch his breath. Yet this was different, slower. The instant he met Dennie—in the cafeteria when he’d dropped his wallet and she had picked it up—she surprised him. It had shocked him—weird thing for a strange woman to do, he’d thought, until she smiled, and he, Mr. Badass, was caught in her grin.
Raine? He knew himself in love. This was close to it, but something had to change between them. He couldn’t take another heartbreak, even a little one. He knew that, too.
“Did you have a good time?” He didn’t think she heard him, she seemed so lost in thought. “Raine?”
She turned away from the window with a smile that wasn’t quite one and nodded. “Better than I’ve had in a long time.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of stuff on my mind, Cade. That’s all.”
“Davey seemed to have enjoyed himself.”
Her smile was full-blown now, no doubt how she felt about that. “Thanks, Cade.”
“For what?” He noticed her eyes were moist. Tears. Again.
“For everything. For being there for me, for my son.”
“Hey. You know how … Yeah, okay, thanks.” You know how I feel about you, he’d almost said, but he’d told her that already, he realized. In the car, coming over, with that talk about not playing games. She hadn’t said much then, hadn’t fallen over herself assuring him that she felt the same way about him, that she had the same feelings. Maybe she didn’t. But it had been bad timing to say anything with Davey sitting in the backseat.
That scared him, too, how close he’d gotten to Davey. Watching the boys talking and walking together, keeping an eye on them but not close enough to let them know, it was like being a father, the father he’d always dreamed of becoming, the one he’d never had. That was the best thing about today, seeing Davey in his own element, with friends. Like a normal kid.
“So are we still on for tonight?” For those secrets you promised to tell me, he almost said but didn’t, for something else he was afraid to admit to himself. Was that a sigh he heard, coming from her so softly? Was it that hard for her to be alone with him? This would be one of the few times they were completely alone. Not in a movie theater, restaurant, or sitting on Luna’s back stairs while he watched her draw. Alone with him in the house he used to share with Dennie. Maybe he wasn’t ready for that yet either. Even to talk. Only to talk.
“Yeah,” she said. “But I need to tuck Davey in first.”
“Tuck Davey in?” He raised his eyebrow so high, Raine laughed—at the thought of it, he was sure. As if anyone could tuck in a fast-growing eleven-year-old boy who had just recently discovered hip-hop and heavy metal.
“You know what I mean,” she said, and he nodded like he did, but he didn’t. She was far too protective of her son, who struck him as more than able to take care of himself. When he’d first met Davey, he wasn’t sure exactly how old the boy was, somewhere between nine and ten, he’d guessed, but the boy had grown up both physically and emotionally in the past few months, as emotionally mature as any eleven-year-old going on fourteen could be.
Sometimes when he looked at Davey he saw himself at that age. The awkwardness and secretive longings. The sadness touched with bravado and vulnerability. Maybe that was why he liked teaching kids that age, trying to find that forgotten space between boyhood and adolescence that was within himself.
His father’s drinking hadn’t really gotten to him until then. He’d always been aware of it, but it wasn’t until he was eleven that he’d understood all the shit that came with it, what the word “drunk” really meant, even though he’d heard his mother hurl it at his old man a hundred times a day, out loud and under her breath, until the night she died.
Lousy drunk, useless drunk, lazy drunk, disgusting drunk, filthy drunk.
Maybe someday he’d be able to talk about his mother to Raine. He’d been married to Dennie a year before he could bring himself to share the depth of the wound his mother’s death had left. Davey talking about his “weirdness” had brought out memories of his own. He thought again about the boy at the street carnival today, and how after his initial discomfort when Ken had asked about his school, how quickly he’d fit in.
He’d ask her about the school again tonight, he decided. It was near the end of August, and she should have made some kind of decision by now. He glanced over at her again, her eyes focused so intently on the darkness, hands rigidly folded in her lap. Why hadn’t she bothered to tell him how she felt about him? Hadn’t he made it clear how important she was, they both were, to him?
“Maybe an hour or so, about eight? Will your baby be tucked in by then?” He grinned to let her know he was teasing, and she smiled back briefly, her face turning serious again.
“Maybe a little later. Something has … well, come up, and I need to talk about it with him tonight.”
“Something serious?”
“Yeah.”
Short and sweet and soft, the yeah. If he hadn’t been listening closely, he wouldn’t have heard it.
* * *
He hadn’t realized what a mess his place was until he saw it as he imagined Raine would. Dirty dishes piled high in the sink, dust clumped on the floor in tiny balls, grimy spots on the kitchen floor. Davey was used to it; Raine wouldn’t be. They stopped having tea here after their first date. He swept under furniture and soaked the dishes in the sink. After pulling out the vacuum cleaner, which hadn’t been used since Dennie’s death, he tried to turn it on, then realized he had no idea where the switch was. He found it tucked under a lever, cursed to himself about the craziness of putting it there, and made a swipe at the floors and the rug in the living room. When he finished, he realized with some disgust that it looked pretty much the same.
The woman is coming for … whatever, he reminded himself, but he knew it was more than that. Slowly, methodically, he began to clean all the places he thought she might go. He took the grimy glasses off the living room coffee table, slippers from under the couch, moved papers he had yet to file.
He glanced at Dennie’s office. The door was tightly closed. He checked it to make sure.
He thought about cleaning upstairs—the bedroom, bathroom—and then felt foolish that he would even consider taking Raine upstairs, then spent the next ten minutes guiltily wondering what it would be like to make love to her. He’d certainly thought about that more than once. Then, out of nowhere, he began to wonder why exactly he’d invited her over in the first place.
“To talk,” he’d told her, realizing how insistent he’d been about sharing whatever was on her mind. He’d asked for some kind of truth-telling—sharing of truths, he’d called it. But maybe it was none of his business. Maybe she didn’t want the relationship to
go any further; women were the ones to lead in this kind of thing, not men. He’d never been good at doing it, anyway.
He thought about taking a shower, then remembered he’d taken one that morning. He thought about dashing to the store to get something to serve—cookies, sandwiches, appetizers—then laughed out loud for his silly anticipation. He could almost hear Dennie laughing at him, too, then stopped to yell at himself about Dennie when he was considering being with another woman.
And what kind of a place was this to bring Raine, anyway, the house where your wife was murdered? But hadn’t she been here before with Davey?
Should he call it off, ask her to meet him somewhere else, anywhere else, but it was nearly nine and there was nowhere else for them to go. Just to talk. And wasn’t that what they were going to do?
We’ve known each other long enough to be honest. I know how I’m beginning to feel about you, how much I care about you. I’ve been through too much to do anything but play fair. I can’t play games anymore with anyone.
He’d blurted out the words before he knew he was saying them, but it was the damn truth, that he was tired of the life he had and the way he was living it, and for the first time since Dennie’s death, he had begun to see a light, and that light was Raine. She was here, and he had to know where they stood.
* * *
“Hard time getting Davey tucked in?” he joked when she stepped into the kitchen. She’d come in through the back door, like Davey always did. Hell, nobody came to the front door except the damn cops. The moment after the words left his mouth, he wished he hadn’t said them. He couldn’t ignore the wrinkles of distress on her forehead. “Come on in,” he quickly added. Something about Davey, no doubt. Preteen shit. She’d tell him later if she wanted him to know.
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