by Ania Ahlborn
8
* * *
LUCAS AND JEANIE spent their first night on an air mattress he had gotten out of the truck and tossed into the center of the living room. It had been easier than trying to single-handedly wrangle his king-sized mattress out of the truck in the midst of a downpour. But Lucas couldn’t help staring into the shadows while Jeanie slept beside him. He was waiting for something to shift in the darkness, remembering that strange figure he’d seen in the corner of the kitchen, waiting for something to move.
When it became clear that sleeping wasn’t going to happen, he spent the evening hooking up the Wi-Fi before perching on one of the stairs and basking in the pale blue glow of his laptop. He reread articles about Halcomb that he’d read a half-dozen times before, searching for details he may have missed. At first light he ducked into the room he had decided would be his office, closed the door as to not wake Jeanie, and called Lambert Correctional to set up a meeting between Halcomb and himself. “I’m on the list,” he told the woman on the line, assuring her that he wasn’t some weird fanatic wanting to chat up a cult leader for kicks. “Jeff Halcomb requested the visitation.” Thankfully, the receptionist had no trouble locating Lucas on the preapproved list of names.
“It says here you’re with the media?” she asked.
“I’m a writer,” he told her. It felt good to say that for the first time in years.
Before Jeanie woke up, Lucas had already emptied half the moving truck’s haul onto the damp driveway. A cross-country auto transport would deliver his Nissan Maxima to Seattle later that day, and that had come out cheaper than hiring someone to drive a moving van. He’d pick up the car while dropping off the U-Haul truck, and then both he and Jeanie would stop in at Mark and Selma’s for dinner—an invitation Lucas had accepted after calling Mark about their early arrival.
Lucas had met Mark Godin on their first day of high school. It had been one of those instantaneous friendships, the kind that felt like it had been fated from the start. Lucas and Mark shared the same sense of humor—dark; liked the same bands and movies—The Cult, Echo & the Bunnymen, Friday the 13th, and Hellraiser. They pined over the same girls—Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, sometimes girls at school that reminded them of Ally Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club. They smoked the same brand of cigarettes, oftentimes together behind the gym after school. Eventually, their interests had diverged. Mark drifted toward computers while Lucas stuck with writing. But their relationship had remained steadfast, strong enough, that, without Lucas asking, Mark offered to drive the seventy miles it took to get from Seattle to Pier Pointe to help Lucas and Jeanie move into their new home.
While struggling with a floor-model mattress he had scored at a going-out-of-business sale for forty bucks, Lucas watched Mark pull up in a blue Honda Fit.
“What the hell, dude?” Mark said, sliding out of the car with a wry smile. “I thought you said you were moving to Pier Pointe, not the goddamn enchanted forest.” Without so much as a proper hello, he crunched across the gravel driveway, caught the opposite end of the mattress, and helped Lucas wrestle it through the front door. Once inside, Mark inspected the interior of the house with slow-growing amusement. “Wow. This is hilarious. You know this is hilarious, right, Lou? It’s like I’ve walked into an episode of Mad Men.”
Lucas tensed at the mere mention of that show.
“What’s Mad Men about, anyway?” Jeanie descended the stairs two risers at a time. She gave their newcomer a faint smile but avoided her father’s gaze. She and Lucas hadn’t spoken since his outburst the night before. He had tried to apologize, but she’d given him the cold shoulder. Eventually, she’d rolled onto her side on the air mattress and gone to sleep.
“Hey, whoa.” Mark gave Jeanie a dubious glance. “What happened to you? You’ve got, like, this distinct Blondie vibe going on.”
“I wouldn’t say Blondie,” Lucas countered, trying to lighten Jeanie’s mood. “More like Siouxsie Sioux, but her mother won’t budge on the black hair dye.”
Mark raised an eyebrow. “Funny,” he said, “since I distinctly recall Caroline dying her hair black on a regular basis.”
Right, Lucas thought. Except all that black hair dye was nothing but a ruse. It was hard not to feel like a fool for trusting her. Sure, it was Kurt Murphy now, but how many beaux had Caroline had in the past? How many affairs had he not caught onto?
Mark squinted at the preteen before him. “So, you turning into a little goth freak, Miss Virginia?”
Jeanie shrugged.
“This isn’t goth,” Lucas said. “What do you call it, Jeanie? Emo?”
“Christ,” Mark muttered. “Did we look like this?”
“No,” Lucas said. “We looked way worse.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jeanie peered at them both. Lucas grimaced at his poor choice of words.
“Not that you look bad, kid,” Mark told her. “It’s just a blast from the past. See, when your dad and I were in high school, we looked like cafeteria gunmen before cafeteria gunmen were cool.”
“Not sure ‘cool’ is the right word,” Lucas murmured, but his oldest friend failed to reel it in.
“Combat boots and trench coats and Vampire: The Masquerade on Friday and Saturday nights.”
“Oh God.” He had all but forgotten about those late-night role-playing sessions in Mark’s parents’ basement. And yet, the moment Mark said it, Lucas recalled those times so vividly he could smell them: the scent of Doritos mingling with melted candle wax.
Jeanie shook her head, not getting it, and Mark gave Lucas a pained look. “Seriously, you haven’t informed this child about the legend of the Masquerade?”
Lucas didn’t need to respond. His expression said it all.
“Ah, well, you see, dear girl . . .” Mark continued. “Your daddy used to dress up like a vampire.” Jeanie’s expression wavered between amused and mortified. “He even had a cape, which he wore when he was feeling particularly mysterious.”
“I did not have a cape,” Lucas protested, continuing to move boxes away from the front door.
Unable to keep a straight face, Jeanie cracked a smile, as though Uncle Mark had let her in on a particularly dark secret. “Does Mom know?” she asked, giving her dad a look.
“Oh, I bet she does,” Mark said beneath his breath, but his trek to the kitchen cut his child-inappropriate thought off at the knees. “Holy Moses. Part the sea and show me free love.” He ogled the pumpkin-orange countertops and laughed. “All you need is a bearskin rug and some framed velvet artwork. Talk about a time warp.”
“Rent is cheap,” Lucas said.
“I bet. I mean, I guess it’s cool in a Jetsons sort of way. Now all you need is Rosie the Robot to wash your socks. Or an Alice. Oh my God, do you remember the mom’s name on The Brady Bunch?”
“Can’t say that I do,” Lucas said.
“Carol. Carol Brady?”
“So?”
“So, Caroline? Living here?”
“Oh. Yeah, great.” Lucas swept his hand across the countertop and inspected his palm for dirt, then looked to see if Jeanie had gone outside to collect another box. She had. “That would be funny if Carrie was planning on making it out here at all.”
Mark’s smile faltered, then faded completely. “What’re you talking about? I thought she was staying behind for work.”
Lucas cleared his throat and shook his head. We aren’t going to talk about this, it said. Not right now. Mark rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly uncomfortable. Both their eyes darted to Jeanie the moment the girl wobbled into the room with a box marked “KITCHEN.”
“Where should I put this?” she asked, peering over the box that was far too big for her to handle. “I picked it up and something made a noise. I don’t think you packed this very well, Dad.” Lucas pushed away from the kitchen counter and took it from her arms. The ti
nkle of broken glass sounded from inside. “I didn’t do it,” she protested, holding up her hands. Whatever had shattered inside during the cross-country trek, Lucas couldn’t bring himself to care.
The few things he had managed to talk Caroline out of were old, replaceable—stuff she would have gotten rid of whether she and Lucas had split up or not. But a handful of kitchen bric-a-brac hadn’t been nearly enough to cut it. Along with the floor-model mattress, he had bought Jeanie a scratch-and-dent bedroom set off Craigslist. He’d found a glass-top coffee table for fifteen bucks at a neighbor’s garage sale and had splurged on a discontinued sofa at a furniture place a few blocks from the house. The move would have been easier without the extra stuff, but he had decided to drag it across the country all in the name of saving time.
Lucas placed the box against the wall while his daughter sauntered to the fridge and pulled open the door. “Can we get pizza later?” At least she was speaking to him again.
“Sure, but we’re going to Mark and Selma’s for dinner.”
“Selma’s probably planning out what she’s going to feed you even as we speak,” Mark told her. “You tell her someone’s coming over and she goes all Martha Stewart militant.”
Lucas responded with a grin, but the memory of Caroline acting the same way twisted a thorn into the soft flesh of his heart.
God, Caroline had loved entertaining. The holiday season made her smile glow a few watts brighter. She would spend weeks planning elaborate dinners for friends and family. If her parents in Jersey insisted Thanksgiving should be at their place, she would orchestrate an alternate Thanksgiving meal for the weekend after. It didn’t matter how many leftovers were packed into the fridge. Christmas was a production with her annual party. At the height of Lucas’s career, it brought in over two hundred ho-ho-hoing guests sipping hot buttered rum and snacking on spice cake. But then finances got tight. They sold the house in Port Washington, and Caroline’s inner domestic goddess withered like a neglected houseplant. It was just another aspect of their lives Lucas was convinced he had single-handedly ruined.
He liked Mark’s girlfriend; Selma was great. But it would be difficult to watch her flit back and forth between the kitchen and dining room without feeling like he’d killed a piece of his own family’s happiness.
Leaning against the counter with her phone in her hand, Jeanie looked up from the glowing screen of her phone and peered out the kitchen window just above the sink. “What’s that?” She nodded toward the glass, and both Lucas and Mark sidled up next to her to see what she was looking at.
There was a generous swatch of open space just beyond the window, and while it wasn’t quite a lawn, it wasn’t anything a mower couldn’t fix. But Jeanie wasn’t focused on the grass that had grown wild across the backyard. She was directing her attention toward a copse of trees—a dozen straight rows running back an acre or two.
“Orchard,” Mark said. “A pretty big one, too.”
“A cherry orchard,” Lucas clarified. Jeanie turned to her dad. There are cherries? He nodded at her eager expression. “Go ahead, check it out.”
She slid her phone into the pocket of her pajama pants and gave them both a faint smile before slipping out the kitchen’s side door.
“Man,” Mark said after Jeanie was out of earshot. “She’s gotten big. You don’t see a kid for a year and it’s, like, you hardly recognize them.”
Mark’s statement stopped Lucas’s heart. Was that what he had to look forward to; hardly recognizing his own daughter after she returned to New York to go back to school? Even if he saw her every summer, that was nine months out of the year that he’d be without his kid. She’d grow up out of his line of sight.
“Yeah,” he said, watching Jeanie through the glass as she moved toward the trees.
He would lose her. If he didn’t make this work, if this project fell through, he would have nothing. The only thing he’d have left would be memories. Mere shadows of Jeanie’s former self. Of his former life. Of what he’d once had but would never have again.
9
* * *
Sunday, February 14, 1982
One Year, One Month Before the Sacrament
AUDRA WASN’T A fan of Valentine’s Day, but she baked heart-shaped sugar cookies anyway. She spent all morning decorating them with pink icing, as if doing so would give promise to something new, something she had always wanted but never had the chance to take for herself. Deacon’s talk of spirituality had given her pause. It had been a little creepy, but she couldn’t deny the pull she continued to feel. So they were reverent, spiritual; that didn’t mean she had to be. Turning away from Deacon and his friends just because they had alternative beliefs—whatever they were—would have been petty. Deacon was offering companionship, a sense of understanding that she hadn’t experienced before. Rejecting such a gift on account of him believing in spiritual awareness and self-enlightenment struck her as an unforgiveable sin. She gazed at the sugar cookie held in the palm of her left hand, the word LOVE scripted in pink across its face. She was afraid, but maybe her fear was a sign that this was just what she needed. Throw off the bowlines. Walk into the unknown. Be fearless. Open your eyes.
She spent more money on groceries than she ever had before, buying enough food to feed what struck her as an army. The love army, she thought, and cracked a grin as she unloaded her shopping onto orange Formica. She roasted a couple of chickens, made a green bean casserole, tossed a salad, and followed the recipe for fresh baked bread out of an old copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The plate of heart-shaped cookies was the finishing touch—an unspoken love letter to Deacon and his friends. Okay, it relayed. I’m scared, but I’m willing to listen. I’m tired of being alone.
She made all the preparations without the slightest idea of whether they were still on the beach, avoiding the thought that maybe they had packed up and left. She refused to believe that her chance to change her life had come and gone. When she slipped through the trees and into the clearing, her heart leaped at the sight of those two red tents. They shivered in the unrelenting wind, their hue darker beneath clouds pregnant with rain. Deacon looked up from the fire, Lily and Sunnie flanking him. He didn’t get up to meet her this time, allowing Audra to approach on her own. When she reached the warmth of the bonfire, she pulled her shoulders up to her ears and gave the trio an unsure smile.
“I was hoping that you’d all join me for dinner,” she said, her eyes fixed on the flames that warmed her in the fading daylight. “If you all are hungry,” she added with a murmur. “I just thought it would be nice.”
She waited a beat, then dared to glance up at them, her stomach unknotting when Deacon gave her an unabashed grin. He leaped up from where he sat, coiled his arms around her, and gave her a spin. “You’re glorious,” he told her, his lips whispering the words against her cheek. “An angel. The most beautiful girl in the world.”
A tiny tremor shivered through the arteries of her heart. Beautiful. The word swirled through her head. The most beautiful. Her bottom lip trembled as a ribbon of emotion unspooled inside her chest. Rather than feeling flattered, she found herself wrapped in a band of grief. Deacon’s words made her weak. His sincerity made her desperate. His touch made her numb with years of self-imposed isolation.
“Bring everyone,” she said, trying to reel herself in. And just as she was sure all that emotion would go tumbling out of her and onto the shore, two extra pairs of arms circled her in a loving embrace. Lily and Sunnie beamed at her, bright-eyed. Their wind-whipped hair slid across her cheeks like a delicate kiss. Glorious, she thought. The most beautiful angels in all the world.
They walked up the shore as a group. Lily, Sunnie, and Robin all held hands. Noah watched Audra with his huge eyes and wide smile. Kenzie, still as kinetic as ever, kicked at the incoming tide. Deacon proceeded with his hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans. Gypsy, Clover, and Jeff were the thre
e that remained a mystery. “They’ll follow shortly,” Deacon explained. When Audra glanced over her shoulder a few minutes later, she saw the trio trailing a few hundred feet behind. From a distance, the two girls were unremarkable; one was blond, the other a brunette. Jeffrey, however, was impossible to miss. His leather jacket was out of place, silver zippers catching the light as if to dazzle the girl casting a backward look. His dark, shoulder-length hair blew in the wind, and for a moment the trio looked like something out of a fairy tale. Brown, black, and blond dancing on a gust, long skirts flapping like flags around Gypsy’s and Clover’s legs, Jeffrey barefoot on the beach despite the cold. A silver cross glinted like a beacon from around Gypsy’s throat.
“He’s even more gorgeous when you meet him,” Lily said softly, drawing Audra’s attention forward again.
“Be patient,” Robin told her. “Be open. Listen with your heart, not with your mind.”
“He’s perfect,” Sunnie added, her young face igniting with affection. “Jeffrey can fix anything.”
“Anything?” Audra asked, giving the girls a skeptical look.
“Anything,” the three said in unison.
Lily leaned in closer, her mouth brushing across the curve of Audra’s cheek. “Even your broken heart,” she whispered. “It’s the thing he wants to fix the most.”