“Even in death,” said Maria di Mariangela, “there is nothing to fear. Let me tell you something you may not understand. Most people are idiots when it comes to death. When I look at you, you know what I see right away?”
Lucy reached into her pocket and retrieved the alien.
“I do not permit food in this room!” shrieked the psychic.
“It’s not—” Ron attempted to explain.
“Please, young man.” Maria di Mariangela held up her hand. “You are not the husband—is that correct? You are not the father! You must please be quiet.”
Lucy extended the toy. Immediately, the psychic snatched it up—bringing the rubber humanoid to her nose and lips. She grumbled contentedly and then kissed the figure. “Edgar, yes?”
A small sob, like the coo of a pigeon, broke from Lucy’s mouth.
Ron handed her his handkerchief. “It’s okay, babe.”
“Shhh,” Maria di Mariangela reprimanded, before turning sharply toward the wall.
Lucy and Ron turned, too—squinting at the ill-lit wood paneling.
“You are welcome here,” Maria di Mariangela said to the paneling. She leaned closer to the wall and seemed about to fall from her chair when she pulled back with a gasp.
“What is it?” demanded Lucy, sickened by her own curiosity.
“So many.” Maria di Mariangela touched her head as if she, too, felt sick.
The little alien was locked in the woman’s fist. “All are welcome,” she proclaimed—her head turning in slow circles as she moaned in discomfort.
Lucy hoped it was arthritis and not some kind of funny business. She glared at Ron, while offering a gesture toward the head-roller (What the fuck?).
“Trance,” whispered Ron.
“I can hear you,” scolded M di M. She rolled her neck three more times and then stopped, mid-roll, leaving her head hanging oddly to the left. “One at a time, please,” she beseeched the wall.
Lucy looked again at the paneling—knotty pine planks that did seem to suggest a multitude of eyes.
An unwholesome sound was coming from the psychic’s mouth. She was grinding her teeth. After a few seconds she turned to Lucy with a dolorous smile. “They want me to touch you. May I touch you?”
Lucy shook her head. “No. Who wants you to—”
“Give me your hand.”
“Can’t you just tell me about Edgar? If he’s—”
“Edgar is not here.” Maria di Mariangela waggled her fingers in Lucy’s direction. “Please, my dear.”
“What do you mean, he’s not here?”
The woman huffed and grabbed Lucy’s hand. Her grip was formidable.
The room was unfathomably hot. Lucy could feel a line of ants trailing down from each armpit.
“Stop resisting,” ordered Maria di Mariangela. “They don’t always come this easily. Tell me—who is this woman I see? The fat woman.”
“That would be me,” snapped Lucy.
“Not you,” snapped back Maria. “The woman with the red hands.”
“I don’t—”
“The woman with the burned hands.”
“Ow,” cried Lucy. Maria di Mariangela’s hands were on fire.
“The old woman. Only recently passed.”
“Florence,” whispered the butcher.
“Shut up, Ron. Don’t help her.”
Once again, Maria di Mariangela kissed the alien. “She says she’s the boy’s mother.”
“I’m his mother,” declared Lucy.
“No, another boy.” The psychic spoke as if her mouth were filled with gravel. “This other boy is with us, too.”
“I’m only interested in Edgar!”
“Shhhh—what is this word she’s saying? She’s saying this to you. Lucille, she calls you.”
“What did I just say? I don’t want to talk to her.” Lucy tried to free her hand.
Maria tugged back. “If you want Edgar, you must speak with her.”
Lucy felt certain she was going to pass out.
“This word she’s saying is inside you. Even from your father, you know this word.”
Lucy pulled away. All she could hear now was her last argument with Florence. Condemnations from both sides—though Florence’s had been the harshest. Unfaithful. No respect for the dead. A drunk, a—
“Whore,” hissed Maria di Mariangela.
When Lucy’s hand moved quickly in the dim light, it seemed to Ron a pale bird. He gasped when the bird crashed into Maria di Mariangela’s cheek.
Oddly, the slap brought a smile to the psychic’s face, even as tears rolled down from under her black sunglasses. “Yes yes yes,” she cried.
“Oh my God,” said Lucy. “I’m sorry, I—”
“No.” The old woman silenced her. “You must forgive me, Lucille.”
The voice was familiar. Lucy felt something break inside her chest.
“The door is open!” proclaimed the psychic.
As Lucy leaned forward, Maria did, too, until the two women were touching, forehead to forehead. Lucy was reeling. The flickering candles, the scent of Ben-Gay replaced by the scent of Florence’s perfume. If Lucy was crying, it was nothing compared to the sound coming from Maria di Mariangela’s mouth—a keening whine that condensed into a wolf-like howl. “There is a dog,” she shouted.
“No,” said Lucy. “We don’t—”
“His father,” spat Maria. “With his father.”
Lucy swallowed, unable to speak.
“And who is this Rosie?” demanded Maria, squeezing Lucy’s hand. “Tell me.”
“I don’t—”
“Rosie,” repeated Maria, dragging the word through the gravel inside her mouth. “Rosie—Rossie—Rossi. Ahhhh!” She detached her hands from Lucy’s. The alien fell onto the table.
“You must leave!” shrieked the psychic.
Ron glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, didn’t we—I think we booked a thirty-minute—”
“The boy is in danger. Go!”
“Where?” cried Lucy.
“Twenty-one,” croaked the psychic, before expiring in a crumpled heap on the yellow armchair.
“Oh my God,” said Lucy.
“Pete?” called the butcher. “Peter!”
When Maria di Mariangela’s son appeared, he brought the scent of chocolate and butter—his hands and T-shirt dusted with flour.
“She just—” Ron gestured toward the slumped psychic.
“Oh, don’t worry,” replied Pete, “that happens. She’ll be fine.”
“Should I pay you?” Ron fumbled for his wallet.
“Go!” shrieked Maria in a stunning, though brief, reanimation.
Lucy grabbed the rubber alien and ran from the room.
A moment later she was standing, confused, outside the house. It seemed as if Pete had been baking out here, too. The trees, the parked cars, the pavement—everything was covered in flour.
“It’s really coming down,” the butcher said, leading Lucy carefully across the white ground.
As they drove away, neither thought to call the police. Their only wish was to get to 21 Cressida Drive as quickly as possible. At the first turn in the road, the van slid, and Lucy’s heart lurched. “Be careful, Ron.”
“I think Tulaney Avenue will be quickest,” he said. “I can probably get to the house in ten minutes.”
The words seemed familiar to Lucy—some lie she’d told Florence once. The day she’d driven away with Frank and the baby. We’ll be back in ten minutes.
“Hurry,” she said, feeling frightened now as she looked at the snow. It was falling too slowly, as if it had all the time in the world.
50
Homecoming
Edgar was shivering so violently he could barely keep the blanket over his shoulders. The snow had stopped, but there were deep drifts on the ground. He proceeded slowly, every footfall a collapse, after which he could retrieve his leg only by force. Snow was getting into his shoes. Everything felt slippery. He hoped there w
ere no animals around that might smell the blood on his shirt.
In the distance, through the bare branches, he could see houses. On some of them were Christmas lights—the glow of the tiny bulbs magnified in the misty air. Edgar felt sick with excitement—so much so that he had to stop to vomit.
He picked himself up and trudged on. Soon he’d be able to see the Heftis’ house and then, just past the knife-carved oak (Frank loves Lucy 4-ever), he’d be in his own backyard. Every few steps he looked behind him, but no one was there—his relief marred by fury.
Conrad had not even said a proper goodbye.
For most of the drive to Ferryfield they’d barely spoken. At one point, Conrad had suggested Edgar take a nap, and Edgar had told Conrad to please not speak to him like he was a baby. Also, how was he supposed to take a nap with the Rossi in his hands? Once you picked up a gun, you couldn’t just put it down like you’d made a mistake.
He and Conrad were enemies now. It was awful.
When they’d finally pulled off the Parkway and the truck was moving through neighborhoods familiar to Edgar, the boy had felt an abrupt confusion. In the end, the man had parked in their old spot behind the supermarket, telling Edgar he’d have to get out and walk the rest of the way.
Then, he’d said, “Wait,” just as Edgar was reaching for the door. “Take this.”
He’d unbuttoned his flannel shirt and strained himself out of it. Edgar was horrified to see that the bandage on Conrad’s chest had soaked through and was beginning to leak. “There’s a blanket in the back of the truck,” Conrad mumbled. “Take that, too.”
When Edgar put down the gun, he placed the barrel on the floor, next to his feet.
“No—that’s yours now,” insisted Conrad.
“I don’t want it,” said Edgar. The gun had belonged to Kevin. “You can’t just give it to everyone.”
Conrad grimaced. When he asked what he should do with it, Edgar said he didn’t care. “Why don’t you just—”
The boy stopped. He could hear something funny in his voice—something he didn’t like. Something mean.
In the dark, with the snow rushing silently under the beams of the streetlights, Edgar was too tired to pretend to be someone else. Someone brave. A man. What did it matter if he made a fool of himself now? He leaned across the seat and kissed Conrad on the cheek.
Conrad stiffened, and said nothing.
When Edgar slammed the door, a black bewilderment kept his tears at bay.
* * *
Now he stood behind 21 Cressida Drive. It seemed to be moving—swaying on a sea of blue snow. Florence’s garden was covered—her metal bench upholstered with delicate pillows of ice. Above the backyard, huge swaths of the sky were clear, exposing huddles of stars. The red one was there. Someone—Edgar couldn’t remember who, maybe Mr. Levinson—had taught him about that star, which had a funny name, like a monster. Supposedly it was going to die one day, and people on Earth would be able to see the explosion for weeks, like a second sun.
Supernova was the word.
Edgar thought about the stars because it was better than thinking about the house, which was very dark and very quiet. It was too early for his mother to be sleeping. Unless she’d been drinking. On the ground, by the back door, was a coffee can filled with cigarette butts—not his mother’s, though; there was no lipstick on them. Still, he reached for the doorknob.
It was locked—and since Edgar couldn’t bring himself to knock, he turned and headed toward the garden bench. He knelt before it and stuck a bare hand into the snow; mushed around until he felt the stone under which his grandmother kept the spare key.
The panic he’d felt outside only increased when he was standing in the kitchen, beside the yellow Formica table. There were crumbs on the surface, crumbs on the floor. In the sink was a small tower of food-crusted pans. Tiny insects like particles of dust floated over a cluster of overripe bananas.
Edgar’s anxiety accompanied him into the living room, where at the end of December there was no Christmas tree, no lights. On the coffee table, beer cans and road maps. A dirty hairbrush. He called out to her and ran up the stairs. On the floor of his mother’s room, and all over the bed, were clothes—including a pair of black boxer shorts the size of a television.
“Ma,” he called out again.
In Florence’s room he clicked on the light. Not only was no one there, but the room itself seemed to have gone away. The eggshell walls and pale blue carpet had switched places. The walls were now blue, and the carpet cream. The night-light of the angel on the bridge was gone. The body of the Virgin, the Chanel Nº 5, the wedding portrait—gone, too. Not a candle was lit.
He ran to his own room, but there was no safety there. As in Florence’s bedroom, important things were missing. The little cup filled with fortunes; his figurines; the stuffed puppy from when he was a baby. How could she have thrown these things out? He’d been gone only a few months.
Sometimes you think people are waiting for you, but then you find out that nobody’s there.
That’s what Conrad had said. Maybe he hadn’t been lying about the letters.
Edgar felt sick. He put his hand in his pocket to touch Florence’s ring. When he stuck his other hand in his other pocket, he began to utter a peculiar panting sound. He dug his fingers deeper, even as he knew. He’d left the diamond at the cabin—in the little hole where the floorboards were rotted. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
In the hallway, he stood at the top of the stairs, paralyzed by the sight of the piano below—the framed photographs drifting like sailboats across the black lacquer. As Edgar descended, he heard a noise—and then he saw her, standing by the back door, letting in the cold air. She was shivering in purple pajama bottoms and a white cardigan adorned with holly leaves.
“Ed-guh?”
“Toni-Ann?”
To each, the sight of the other was incomprehensible.
Toni-Ann, though, took action. She rushed forward.
Edgar stepped back and leaned dizzily against the table.
“Oh my gah—what they do to you?” She touched the dried blood on Conrad’s shirt.
Edgar immediately started to cry. “Where’s my mother?”
“Oh,” Toni-Ann exclaimed. “Oh my gah!”
“What?”
“She’s going to have a baby!”
Edgar felt a sickening heat as Toni-Ann breathed into his face: “And they have to get married now, my mom say, or the baby have problems.”
Edgar’s legs turned to jelly. “Why are you lying, Toni-Ann?”
“I’m not.”
“Does he live here?” asked Edgar. “Mr. Salvatore?”
“Sometimes. They on vacation now.”
Edgar was trembling as he picked up the army blanket that had slipped to the floor.
“I go call them,” said Toni-Ann.
As she moved toward the phone, Edgar grabbed a dirty glass from the counter and threw it down.
Toni-Ann turned.
“Kiss me,” she said implausibly.
Edgar looked up from the glittering shards.
“Like we’re married.” Toni-Ann’s eyes glowed like a panther’s.
Edgar was speechless as the girl tiptoed toward him around the shards.
“It’s just our lips,” she said.
When Edgar asked again about his mother, Toni-Ann said the same awful things, even when he asked her to swear to God.
“Kiss me,” she persisted.
“No.”
“Please, Ed-guh.”
Since she had tears in her eyes now, Edgar said: “Only if you promise.”
“What I promise?”
“That you won’t call them.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning in with her purple lips.
When it was over, both were blushing. Both were crying.
“We’re just dreaming,” said Toni-Ann, looking down, chastened.
Edgar, too, stared at the broken glass.
“I call
them now, okay?”
“No.”
“It’s my job, Ed-guh.”
“No. If you tell them, Toni-Ann, I won’t love you anymore.”
The girl scrunched up her face, confused.
Edgar’s face changed, too. He turned away and began to move like he was dancing.
But Toni-Ann knew he wasn’t dancing. He was doing that thing he did when he was upset. She’d seen him do it before. He was making funny sounds, too, like a bird.
“Don’t cry. I promise, Ed-guh. Look.” She made an X over her heart. “You my husband now. I promise, okay?” Gently she petted the boy’s arm. “Okay?”
Edgar nodded as Toni-Ann wiped his cheek.
It was too terrible to stay here.
When the boy slipped out the door, Toni-Ann wondered if somehow she’d been tricked.
“You coming back?” she called, pulling anxiously at her lips. It was so dark she couldn’t see him. “Ed-guh?”
The cold air smelled like smoke.
“Mess,” said Toni-Ann.
She knelt down to gather the broken glass—but when a car squealed into the driveway, she panicked and ran into the yard.
51
The Shell
He’d walk to the clearing, he decided, and then turn around. He wasn’t as cold now. Over Conrad’s yellow shirt was a jacket he’d found hanging by the back door—an enormous fleece-lined windbreaker, no doubt belonging to the butcher.
Edgar wondered if they already had a name for the baby.
And were they planning to put it in his room? Use the same cradle he’d slept in—the wicker one covered with lace from Florence’s wedding dress?
He was tired and wanted to lie down. But falling asleep in the snow wasn’t a good idea. In the spring, Conrad had said, there’d be lots of flowers. He’d said the Pinelands would be like a fairyland.
Spring was far away, though. Winter lasted a long time. Especially in the woods.
Of course, Edgar knew things now. How to build fires, how to forage. A lot of plants people called weeds were actually food.
Still, how long could a person survive without other people? Probably not forever.
Edgar’s thoughts unraveled, taking him past the clearing. He didn’t realize that he’d been following his own footprints until he saw the torn-up fence at the edge of the woods. He saw the dark lot and the green truck still parked there. He kept walking in the only direction he could understand.
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