Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1)

by MC Webb

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not senile yet. It’s only for a few days. Go see your brother. I’ll not take no for an answer.”

  The battle was lost. I would do as he wished, not only because he wished it, but also because I was dying to get away from Jean-Paul controlling what I wore, what I said, what I ate. A few days of freedom sounded like heaven to me.

  Then Papaw told me in passing, “Roger is coming to visit, so I won’t be alone, and there’s no need to check on me. Go. Have a good time. Be young,” he said sternly. Then smiling, he added, “There ain’t nothing going to happen that me and the Lord can’t handle.”

  In spite of my mixed emotions about leaving him, I was excited to see someplace different. I hugged him twice and kissed his rough whiskered face. I rode the Greyhound bus through east Tennessee, across the state of Alabama, and finally reached New Orleans twelve and a half hours later.

  Nathan picked me up and took me to dinner. He looked bad, but was in high spirits. I would stay with him and Lana in her apartment. Getting to see my brother and best friend felt like someone had lifted a huge weight off of me.

  I was enjoying my stay and dreaded going back home. My only complaint was the constant partying. It just wasn’t for me, and I longed to see the beach before I went home.

  The sudden urge to see the sunrise led to a day full of passion and great sex with a stranger. I guess I’d done exactly as Jean-Paul thought I would if I were out of his sight, but I didn’t regret it in the least.

  Right now my head was buzzing from Ryan’s cologne. I knew in the darkness, walking back to Lana’s apartment, I was blushing and grinning like an idiot, thinking of his touch on me. His lips on mine, on my neck, all over me. I never knew making love could be this great. Matthew was kind and gentle. I loved him still, but we were kids, inexperienced at love-making.

  The near twenty-four hours with Ryan was almost animal-like behavior, and the word “ravish,” took on a whole new meaning. I laughed out loud as I began to climb the steps. I would do it again tonight, and then I would have to explain that I was actually Piper, and that I was married and only after the sex. My face split into a wide grin. I was totally unashamed of myself. This would be my secret.

  I began to worry a little. Would anyone notice a difference in my appearance? If Lana did, no big deal, but if Jean-Paul did then I was dead. Literally dead. Then who would take care of Papaw?

  As he had warned me hundreds of times, Jean-Paul would cut my face off or burn me beyond recognition. The image left me cold inside. Yes, I had done a very bad thing with Ryan. I spent my time making love to a gorgeous man on a beach, but damn it, I was alive inside for the first time in forever.

  And I made plans to do it again that evening! I was on fire inside. I had lived two years with a man who criticized my every move. Who had burned me with a poker on our honeymoon. I was slapped in the mouth for having a different opinion, shoved and punched for not responding quickly enough. And all I could think about was Ryan’s hands on me would be worth the death penalty.

  I crept up the stairs to the apartment, wondering why I had given Ryan my first name, and not my real name. I guess I’d wanted to be someone different, if only for a day. I hadn’t planned on anything happening with him, but he said the very thing I needed to hear, nearly identical to words Nana would say, and I couldn’t resist. Plus, he was gorgeous. His blue eyes, his shadow of scuff on his handsome God-like face and his toned long body. I shivered just thinking about it.

  I got to the landing of the apartment, and noticed the door was cracked open a couple of inches. I thought, odd, for a split second, and walked in, unprepared for what was inside. My brother was laying half in the hallway and half in the living room, as if he had crawled there.

  I walked into the dimly lit room and said, in a teasing voice I often used with him, “Nathan, what are you doing on the floor?” Then I noticed he was naked, and covered in blood.

  I screamed, loud and long. Falling to my knees beside him I began to shake him, screaming for a response.

  “Nathan!”

  I put my face to his nose and mouth. Soft, hot breath hit me.

  “Thank you, God! Hold on, Nathan.” I ran to the kitchen and jammed a bloody finger on 9-1-1. I have no idea what the operator said. I gave the operator the address and apartment number.

  “Please hurry!”

  Slamming the phone down, I turned down the hall, screaming for Lana, never considering someone was in the apartment still.

  “Lana!”

  No answer.

  I flipped the light on in her bedroom. Things were scattered everywhere, and blood covered the bed, but no Lana. I ran from room to room, checking on Nathan in between. I ran back to the bedroom and took in the room again, as I heard the ambulance approaching in the distance. I looked over the bed carefully. Willing myself to think, I followed with my eyes the trail of blood. I walked around the bed where there was a small gap between it and the wall.

  She was there on the floor. Her eyes stared wide. She, like Nathan, was naked. Blood covered her entire body. One of her hands was on her neck. I knew as I fell to the floor on my knees, she was dead.

  Under the hand holding her neck was a gaping hole. The congealed blood around it told me she’d been there a while. I shut her eyes, and brushed her jet-black hair from her beautiful face.

  An officer had to carry me screaming from the room. My best friend had lain there alone and died. I hoped she’d said a prayer. I hoped Jesus came and took her.

  Lana, who was so understanding of my screwed up life, in many ways saved me from myself. Never judging, never failing me. Always there to cheer me on regardless of her circumstances. She was dead. Dead like my baby. Dead like Nana. Was I as good a friend to her? How could I be? I left her, and while I was on a beach with a man, she was dying.

  Did she call for me, and I didn’t answer? The thought tore at my insides like claws. I heaved and sobbed until I was throwing up. Eventually I was sedated. I fought the paramedics and the police. I had to be restrained. Absently I noticed Sheldon was there. He tried to calm me. He promised he would follow in Nathan’s car. I clawed at my face and pulled my hair until the drugs took over. I was a zombie when a doctor talked to me about my brother’s condition.

  Sheldon was there, helping me, holding me up. Beatrice arrived not long after. I was told that Lana and Nathan were most likely part of a drug deal gone bad. Nathan was lucky to be alive, they said. I called Papaw, and argued with him for at least half an hour about his traveling to the hospital.

  Only after agreeing that Nathan was out of danger, and that I would drive us home as soon as he was released, did Papaw agree not to come. Papaw then told me he would tell Jean-Paul when he called that I left to go to Nathan, but he would lead him to believe it was after Nathan was shot. I didn’t disagree.

  “Piper, honey, I’m sorry about Lana. She was a sweet girl, in spite of where she came from. She don’t have to worry about nothing no more,” Papaw said in his all-knowing voice.

  Tears fell from me, and made puddles on my shirt. He was right, but I couldn’t think of that now. I slept in a chair while Nathan recovered. Lana was cremated. I disagreed with Nathan’s choice at first, but had to agree Lana would never want to be seen displayed in a casket.

  I cleaned her apartment and gave most of her clothes and personal things to a women’s shelter. I kept a blanket Nana had given her years ago. It only had small spots of blood on it, and I could get those out. I wouldn’t wash it though. Lana’s perfume was still on it. Yet, like Matthew’s jacket that I still kept in my old bedroom closet, time would carry away the scent of the person I loved. Lana’s scent would vanish as well, in time.

  When Jean-Paul arrived in Louisiana he was his usual presentable self. Nathan called him Pompous, but never criticized my choice to marry him. Nathan, of course, was oblivious to what Jean-Paul really was to me.

  When Nathan was safe to move, we made our way home. He only rememb
ered being shot. His last memory of that night was laying down with Lana, then the gunshot, then pain. He had no idea who did it.

  I brought Lana’s ashes home with me. When Jean-Paul left again for work, I climbed to the cliff where we would always go and sun ourselves, or skinny-dip. I dropped her ashes into the water below, making her a permanent resident of a place I loved.

  Lana had no relatives I knew of. Her grandmother was in a nursing home, long since lost to Alzheimer’s, or maybe she was dead now. Lana never knew her father’s family. The baby I had delivered years ago never knew her.

  I grieved, as did Nathan. We stayed quiet most days, as he sobered up from years of drug use and healed from the gunshot wound. He and Papaw would sit and have deep discussions about God and life. I would listen, mostly knowing the answers already from years of Papaw’s guidance.

  “I’ll tell you, and I ain’t ashamed of it, but it nearly killed me to bury your daddy,” Papaw said to Nathan. “I believe with all my heart God has blessed us with one another. When it’s said and done, I hope I’ve done some good in my life. I hope I’ve loved you kids enough.”

  He looked from Nathan to me with tired eyes.

  “More than enough Papaw,” I said, and hugged him. “You’re the greatest.”

  Papaw used a red bandana he kept in his back pocket to dry his eyes.

  “Nathan, I’m mighty pissed off about your condition. God gives you life, and this…”

  He gestured to Nathan’s bruised and scabbed arms. They were much better, but still the damage was visible.

  “This is what you do with it? This is how you repay Him for your God-given talent? Nathan, please don’t do this no more,” Papaw said, in a small helpless voice I’d never heard before.

  I looked at Nathan and was surprised to see he was crying now. Papaw squeezed my hand and let it go. He took Nathan in his arms, like he was holding a child. Nathan wept for the pain he caused us all, the loss of Lana, the years he spent doping and drinking that he couldn’t get back. He reached out for me, and we three wept together.

  I fought the coldness in my heart. I wanted to believe all was okay, but dread and despair consumed me. I went into a state of oblivion in my mind. I felt nothing. I heard nothing. I just walked aimlessly around.

  I did what I had to and nothing more. I often thought of Ryan, and whether he was looking for me. I decided he wasn’t. It was inconceivable that a man would want me around for anything other than to be used. I felt different with Ryan though, I felt wanted, desired. I would shake those thoughts off, knowing they were just my imagination.

  While Nathan recovered from his wounds, he recovered in his mind. Losing Lana, probably the only girl he ever loved, took its toll on him. He sobered up, determined to be healthy. It wasn’t long until he was ready to go back to Nashville.

  “For nothing else but to finish what I started,” he said.

  Nathan had started a soundtrack for a movie. The movie people told him they would wait for him to recover, since they were delayed in filming anyway, and should still make their timeline.

  My life with Jean-Paul did not change. He refrained from hitting me, while Nathan was there at least, and when I hugged my brother, who was now twenty pounds heavier than he had been, I thought to myself that at least I had a little peace, if only for a little while.

  Papaw’s mind was beginning to slip. I helped him the best I could, when he let me. We danced some nights after dinner, the way we did when Nana was alive. I know he longed to be with her again. Papaw never again saw the abuse I endured. Jean-Paul was very good at placing the blows on my body, and not my face or arms.

  Then, when Papaw moved to the small room off the grand room, giving us his and Nana’s room, he was too far away to hear the goings-on in the bedroom, where I got most of the beatings, and if I made any noise, I would be beaten worse.

  There were many times Jean-Paul would threaten to kill Papaw or Nathan, if I did not shut up or do as I was told. Sex with Jean-Paul was torture. When he was home from work, he insisted I take part in things I didn’t think anyone normal would do.

  He loved to choke me to the point of me passing out. Other times he would say horrible things in my ear, causing me to gag. He had a strange fixation with holding a knife to my throat while on top of me. It was horrible, and I did everything I could not to show just how sick he made me.

  I secretly began to plan my escape. I’d been assured of my death or my brother’s if I did anything wrong. Also, Jean-Paul was the financial thread that held my family together. When Nana died, her insurance would not pay once they found out she refused treatment. I was a midwife, but babies did not come every day. What money I made I tried to save.

  We closed Papaw’s veterinary office when he began forgetting things. Time, little by little, was taking him from me. With each passing day, he stayed on the porch a little longer, watching the sunset.

  Nana often told me her favorite time with Papaw was watching the sun rise or set from their bed. They would talk of things new, and things from years past. He was comfortable and peaceful. His body was not betraying him like Nana’s did, but his mind was unconcerned about the present.

  I found Papaw sleeping late one morning. I thought he was just tired, but when I returned to him an hour later, he was gone. Lying there, still sleeping, he had slipped away, gone from me to be with Nana. A part of me accepted that after Nana went, he no longer wanted to live.

  Selfishly, I would have kept him with me forever. I went to the funeral home to cut his hair and shave his face. I traced my fingers along his eyebrows, never wanting to forget how animated he could be. I imagined this would be how my dad would look at this age.

  Bitterness tried to enter my heart at the thought of not having my dad with me. I couldn’t keep the feeling; Papaw would hate me for it. Now father and son were together.

  We buried Papaw beside Nana. That was the lowest I’d been in a while. I’d resisted drugs, trying to remain clean, as I had been since Nana’s death, but I began cutting again. When Jean-Paul saw the marks, he beat me and said I was evil and going to hell. He said I must have a demon in me. I believed this to be true. I was always fighting it, but the demon always won.

  I was alone in the house after burying Papaw. Nathan had gone again after the funeral. I lay in the birthing tub, feeling sorry for myself, adding up all I had lost. I thought of Ryan, and wondered if he thought of me as well. He also was lost to me. I had Papaw’s straight razor I used to shave him with. He preferred this to a more modern disposable.

  I’m not sure what led me to that moment, but as I added up my losses and thought of the stacks and stacks of unhappy things, I began to cut my arm, knowing I’d pay for it later. Jean-Paul would most likely kill me this time.

  Instead of the nicks I carved in my flesh for relief, this time I took the straight razor, and slit at least a ten-inch opening in my forearm. The blood gushed from the wound, quickly turning the water bright red.

  I thought, “Well, that was easy,” as I watched the flow.

  I was accepting of my decision. I hated to leave Nathan, but he had a life and would go on. I wished I could see Ryan again. Nana always said I’d know love when I saw it, and I swear it was one day on a beach, and I saw it. I mourned the life I would never have with him. I was to the point of giving over to death, when someone burst through the kitchen door.

  “Piper!”

  I jumped up, wrapping my arm in a shirt, and throwing on a robe, all in quick succession.

  “I’m here,” I called back, running through the birthing room, and nearly colliding with a frantic Elisabeth Hatchet.

  She was breathing fast and holding her swollen belly.

  “It’s coming!” she screamed.

  I helped her to the table and barely got her on it.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming!” she said again.

  Two pushes and he was there, Elisabeth’s fourth child with her high-school sweetheart, Cooper. I cleaned him up and gave him to
her.

  “Matthew,” she breathed the name.

  I sucked in a breath when I heard it. Elisabeth looked at me, smiling. I returned the smile through tears. I stood in a robe, touching my forearm. Was it a coincidence my death was interrupted by Matthew? No. It was exactly something he would do. He saw me, and sent an angel my way, as if to say, “Something better awaits you. Just hold on.”

  I cried myself to sleep after sewing up my arm that night.

  The next day, I explained to Jean-Paul that I fell as Elisabeth was calling to me, causing the cut. He didn’t question me. I had become an Oscar-worthy actress. It would be another three weeks before I thought of my missing periods.

  Sure enough, Jean-Paul and I would be celebrating our miracle baby, who we thought would never come. Daniel had not won. He had not destroyed all of me. I inwardly said, “Take that, you bastard.”

  chapter twenty-three

  Jean-Paul was kind to me during my pregnancy, returning to his gentlemanly ways. I actually thought a baby might help us. He brought a middle-aged woman, Maria, home to help with the housework when I reached my sixth month, afraid I would harm the baby if I did too much. I was grateful, but a little perturbed that the woman only understood Spanish and did not speak at all.

  Maria went about her cleaning and lived in the room Papaw had slept in before he died. Late winter we welcomed our baby girl into the world. Jean-Paul allowed me to name her Ellie Grace, Grace after Nana.

  Maria was a huge help to me. I had to have the baby in a hospital. I was considered high risk, and at one point, Ellie tried to come too early. I was scheduled for a C-section, and ended up having a full hysterectomy. My uterus had given me all it could and had to go. Daniel had done more damage than anyone knew.

  Maria and I bonded quickly over the baby. She was learning to understand English, but still would not speak. I wondered at times if she couldn’t speak, or whether she could and just refused to.

  Nathan came and went, healthy and happy. He won an Oscar. He also carried tremendous debt, but he refused to file for bankruptcy. He worked tirelessly to try and make up for his drug-riddled past. It pleased me that Roger was trying to help him. As for me, I knew I was being abused, but I had no idea what that actually meant until Ellie was four. I looked at her beautiful pale skin, full pink lips and thought she must look like Nana when she was little. The thought of anyone hurting her made me crazy.