Trouble Me

by Beck Anderson

  I stand still for a minute. Where is the gun? Where are the car keys?

  “Mari?” I call to the bathroom door.

  No response.

  I walk around the bed, looking for the car keys.

  “Mari?”

  I take one more step and side-swipe the comforter. It starts to slide off the bed, so I catch it. A notebook falls off and lands open on the floor.

  It’s one of Mari’s design books, her sketch book. I can see a long, lean figure of a woman with a soft flowing dress, lines blurred and smudged, on the open page.

  I pick it up off the floor. It’s got a leather cover, red, with a heart etched into it, a rendering of a real heart, its chambers with items flowing from them like blood: musical notes, small letters of the alphabet.

  I turn the page. There’s a pencil drawing of a young boy, in color, with pale blond hair, like Mari’s. His hair flows up around his head, soft and undulating. His lips are blue.

  He’s underwater, staring at me from the page. It must be a drawing of Mari’s brother. Drowned, still and staring with blue, cold eyes.

  I shiver, chilled by the image, and flip the page.

  There, staring back at me, are Andrew’s eyes. His face. She’s meticulously drawn his hair in his eyes, and his hand up, about to push it back, like he always does. The resemblance is unnerving.

  I flip to the next page. It’s another drawing of him. He’s floating in the pool, the black-and-white-tile pool from New York. He has his eyes open, floating with a woman, holding her hand.

  But it’s not me. It’s Mari holding his hand.

  I turn the page.

  It’s Andrew in another pool. The pool at our house in LA. He’s floating on an air mattress, and there are currents around him, indicating a slow twirl. And there’s a smudge of colored pencil, trailing out from the mattress. Blood.

  I look more closely and see that she’s drawn a bullet hole over his heart.

  Below this image she’s copied a line from Gatsby, about Nick finding Gatsby dead in the swimming pool, the holocaust being complete.

  It’s the last page of the sketch book.

  I go to the first pages, and all of them are filled with Andrew. Some have little clippings from magazines, and then she’s illustrated them, drawing out the news, capturing Andrew’s life.

  One is of Andrew and me leaving the doctor’s office. Except my figure has been shaded black. Pitch black.

  The water in the bathroom stops. She’s getting out of the shower.

  I am in the same house as a woman who wants Andrew dead, me erased. There can be no more waiting, no more caution.

  I find her hoodie, and the keys are in the pocket.

  The gun is gone.

  Suddenly every threat, every moment of fear since New York races through my head, but I force myself up and step as quietly and quickly as I can out of the guest bedroom. I creep down the hall to the front door. I will slip out, escape. The storm is safer than this.

  The front door flies open.

  It’s Tessa. She’s made it, and the wind whips and blows the door wide. It cracks against the siding of the house.

  “What the hell?” She stands on the step, lost.

  “Tessa, we’ve got to go.” I grab her fiercely, keeping my voice quiet.

  “Hello?” Mari’s voice, from the end of the hall, from the guest bedroom.

  I flip the hall lights off and grab the Mag Lite by the front door, which is there for when the power goes out, or for night trips out with the dog. “Tessa, go upstairs, hide. Hide and don’t come out.” I grab her arm again and squeeze, whispering roughly to her.

  I don’t think Tessa’s ever seen me like this. She’s never, ever quiet, and right now she does not speak. Her eyes widen, and confusion crosses her face for a moment, but she nods and puts her hand out for the flashlight.

  Tessa races up the landing with the Mag Lite in hand. I can see her in the patches of light from the outside porch that stream in through the windows.

  I go back to the door and shut and lock it, turning off the outside light. I can’t hear Tessa anymore. She’s at least made it upstairs.

  “Kelly? Where are you?”

  Mari’s voice sounds calm, flat.

  “I was just headed to the kitchen to get some Tums.”

  I can see her figure now, silhouetted by the light from the guest bedroom. She’s in a bathrobe. It has pockets.

  “What are you doing down by the front door, then? I heard a commotion.”

  “The door blew open. The wind’s screaming out there now.”

  “Oh.” She still sounds calm. I can’t tell if I sound normal or not.

  “You want me to make you a cup of tea?” I ask. “I thought I might have one.”

  I have to get past her to get to the kitchen. I don’t know if I can keep my face calm and still walk by her.

  “Sure. I need to put my pajamas on.”

  “You go do that. I’ll get the kettle started.”

  I walk toward her. She hasn’t gone back in the bedroom yet. I hold my breath.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks as I’m about to pass her.

  “Nothing. It just spooked me.” As I walk by, a contraction tightens over my belly, and I can’t help it, I pause, stooped a little by the surprise of pain.

  “What? What is it?”

  “A contraction. No big deal.” I lean over for a second, breathing. I am just past her, and I can see into the guest bedroom. The sketchbook, the one with all the awful, terrible sketches inside of it, is sitting on the edge of the bed.

  But it’s not in the place I left it.

  “You want to sit down?” She swings the door wider.

  “Naw, I’ll just walk it off. Meet you in the kitchen in a minute.”

  I stand up, sucking in and pushing through the last of the contraction, and will myself down the hallway.

  Mari’s shadow disappears.

  I race down the hall as quietly as I can. I need my phone. It has to have a signal. It just has to.

  I search for it in the kitchen. As I race around the island, I grab the kettle and set it on the burner. I can’t find the phone.

  I hear footsteps in the hallway. Panicking, I grab two teacups and set them down by the stove. Where am I going to go? If she comes in, I’ll have to make a break for the back hall, the one that leads to the TV room.

  Mari walks in the kitchen, slowly. She holds up the sketchbook.

  “You were snooping while I was in the shower.”

  I don’t know what to do. I stand frozen, my mind racing, and all of a sudden, there’s a huge crack from outside, and the house is black. A transformer must have blown.

  I run. I run and fly to the back hallway, swing the back door open as noiselessly as I can. Out on the deck, I grab a poker from the fire pit. I slide back in the door and press myself flat against the hallway wall. I can’t hear anything except the wind howling.

  There’s a mad woman in my house. Tessa is hiding somewhere.

  I have no idea what I’m going to do.

  37: Hit Me with Your Best Shot

  I STAND ON THE WOOD FLOOR in my bare feet. I can hear the wind outside, still howling, building to freight-train shrieks as it tries to fight its way inside through the seams of windows, the dryer vent, the fireplace flue.

  But there’s a fight inside already. I have the poker in my hand. I like the heft of it. In the black, I can’t really see the whole of it, only if I swing it about a bit, brandish it. I try to do that a little, build up some confidence.

  I’m going to connect this piece of wrought iron to the soft of someone’s body. I am fully prepared to do it. I don’t want to feel the impact, but I will do it.

  Another contraction hits me, stabs across the top of my belly, wraps like a boa constrictor around to the base of my spine. I can’t help it, I suck in a breath. The air whistles between my teeth.

  If I just gave up my position to Mari, I’m going to be pissed. Damn contraction.

>   I pivot on my heels, make a turn in the black of the living room. Nothing moves.

  Somewhere in the house, Tessa hides. She wields a Mag Lite flashlight. It’s perfect. When the house is safe, it will show her the way to the car, to safety, hopefully. For now, it could clock someone in the head and render her senseless.

  I hear something, from the library, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

  The piano. Mari plays the piano. The melody makes me cringe. It’s something I’ve heard Andrew play before. I think he learned it for a movie.

  “Kelly! I’ll burn the house down,” she calls. “You know I will.”

  She doesn’t know Tessa made it. This is our advantage.

  But she’s playing the piano to announce her position. I guess this is it. We’re going to go toe to toe. She’s calling me out, and I have to answer. She’s too unstable to ignore. I don’t doubt the threat about burning the house down. When we first arrived, I wasn’t sure of her motives. But the sketchbook made everything clear. She is crazy, and she wants to hurt my family. Of course she’s threatening to burn down the house. She’ll do it.

  I walk softly toward the library. The wide, smooth wood floor creaks under my feet. She will hear me coming.

  I come around the corner, and I can see her. There’s a candle on the top of the piano, casting a soft, warm glow across the room. Books, the couches, the worn white coffee table shimmer in the orange light.

  She looks up at me. She rests one hand on top of the piano, dabbles the ivory keys with the other.

  I stare at her face. Her eyes are streaked with tears. The pupils are glowing in the candlelight; her blue eyes look ghostly.

  She waves me closer, and in her hand is the gun. It’s built from gray and golden amber streaks in the light. “Kelly. Glad I didn’t have to go any farther with the kerosene lantern idea.”

  “Don’t,” I tell her softly. “You need to take a deep breath and slow down. Nothing needs to be so extreme.”

  “You don’t know what I need. You have everything. You don’t need anything.”

  “What do you need?”

  “I need to know why someone like Andrew, so worldly, so young, so curious, would settle for you.” She points at the gun at me.

  “I thought you wanted him to be happy.”

  “Happy with me. Come on, Kelly. You’re a kind woman, but I don’t need a friend. I needed to be with my soul mate. I needed to feel his mouth on mine, his hand in mine.”

  “Andrew is your soul mate?”

  “Everything would’ve worked out. You corrupted it, polluted his mind. You ruined him.”

  I swallow, hard. Her thinking isn’t rooted in fact. And it sounds an awful lot like the letter I got at the shower.

  She laughs, brittle and tight. “At first, I thought he was just out of my reach. Then you got pregnant. You insinuated yourself into his world, like a parasite. I was so mad at him for falling for that shit.” She snorts. “If he can’t see that we’re meant to be together, what’s the point in him living? But I felt horrible. To see him in pain, it hurt so bad. I hoped he’d wake up from the trance you put on him. Just because you’re pregnant. What a manipulative move. Come on, Kelly! You should be a strong woman. You didn’t need to do the desperate thing.” She smacks the keys of the piano with the gun. I flinch. The gun could go off accidentally.

  “I can leave him,” I offer, willing my voice to remain steady. “You don’t have to hurt me. You don’t have to hurt Andrew.”

  “I’m just so sick of it all. I kept waiting, waiting for him to figure it out, realize you were wrong for him. Then I thought I could get you to leave him, but he fixed things between you each time—even after I made sure he missed the party in Boise. I tried to tempt him away from you, but his loyalty to you is blind. You’ve ruined him completely.”

  “The residue at the airport.”

  “It was me. But Amanda’s a good decoy. She does still seem to want him, and she slashed his tires. I didn’t have a thing to do with that. I saw her cry into her drink about him, but she couldn’t get him to join in. If she’d gotten him drunk, maybe she could’ve seduced him.”

  I try to breathe. I feel my hand cramping up around the fireplace poker. If she shoots me on the spot, I won’t get a chance to even swing. And if she shoots me in the torso, it could kill the baby, kill him straightaway. But this may be my chance. She’s spinning out all sorts of fantasies. If she keeps going, maybe I can edge closer and get a swing in.

  “I wouldn’t do that to him, you know. You know that, right, Kelly?”

  “What wouldn’t you do?” Stall, Kelly. Slow her down.

  “I’d never tempt his sobriety. He worked so hard to get clean. He’s noble, isn’t he? A hero, really.” She rubs her face with a shaking hand. The gun rests in her lap.

  “You love him. Why would you hurt him? Why’d you try to push him into traffic?” I inch a bit closer.

  “Because he wasn’t paying attention, and then I found out you were pregnant. He wasn’t ever going to leave you. He hadn’t noticed me. And I was so mad. If I couldn’t be with him, he shouldn’t be with anyone. I felt terrible afterward. But I thought if you were so angry and clingy, maybe he’d see the light and leave you. Then I could have my chance. Now, I just don’t know. I don’t know how we’re supposed to be together. You sunk your claws into him deep, and I don’t see how he’ll ever be the same.”

  I take another step. I pause for a moment. I hear something somewhere in the house.

  She jumps up, gun clasped in both hands. She swings it around, turns in a circle in the narrow ring of candlelight. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes.” I stay still.

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. Mari, I need to go home. The boys—Hunter and Beau need me. Please.”

  “I love those guys. I could take care of them, you know.”

  “They need me. They already lost their dad.”

  “Then maybe the original family should stay together.”

  “Where? Where would we go, just me and the boys?”

  “You could be with Peter.”

  “You wouldn’t kill the boys. They’re innocent. Just like how you were, before Cameron’s accident.”

  “Don’t you bring that up. You don’t even know. How do you know how it feels? My dad couldn’t even look at me in the eye. It was my fault. Everyone hated me. I loved Cameron so much.”

  “It was horrible, Mari. You needed someone to love you and take care of you. Your dad should’ve helped you. It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

  She starts to shake. Her shoulders shudder. She’s sobbing. Now is my chance. I should hit her with the poker.

  I don’t think I can. Her cries are so young. She’s such a little girl. “Mari, come here. Let me help you. Please.”

  She shakes her head. “No. No, no, no, no! It’s not right. It wasn’t right. I was happy. Everything was taken from me. In one stupid, horrible moment.” She covers her face with one hand, and the hand with the gun drops to her side.

  The shattering of glass comes from somewhere in the house. Is it Tessa? Is she all right?

  “What was that, Kelly? What shit are you trying to pull?”

  I take a step to her. “Please. It’s just the storm. Please. Mari, let me help you. I’m so sorry.”

  She looks up at me. Her face is stone cold. “You know, I really don’t want your pity.” She points the gun and fires.

  Sharp pain bites me in the arm, and almost immediately it stings and tears through, registers in my ribs like an electric shock. Black, seething fury floods my body. I want to hurt her, badly. I swing the poker at her, my anger forceful and raging. The shaft hits her across the arms and body. She reels backward, and I swing it again, catch her on the elbow, and see the gun fly behind her, out of her hands. It clatters across the piano keys, and I duck, waiting for it to fire.

  She comes at me, but I swing the poker at her knees. She howls in pain and dr
ops to the floor. I jump on top of her. I have her by the hair on the back of her head, and I yank, hard.

  “Stop! You are done! You are done, Mari. Do you hear me! Stop it now! No more, no more, no more!” I shriek. I bellow. All my rage pours out of my lungs.

  She’s still. She doesn’t fight me. Now I’m not sure what to do. “Mari, you lie still. If you struggle, I’ll beat you senseless with this poker. Do you understand me?”

  I feel her head nod, pulling slightly against the death grip I have on her ponytail.

  “Tessa!” I call. I hope she can hear me, because another contraction is coming on, and I’m terrified that Mari will try something. “Tessa! Come out!”

  “Kelly! Kelly, where are you?” It’s not Tessa. It’s Andrew.

  “Andrew? Andrew! By the piano! Andrew!” I cry.

  Shafts of flashlight beams swing wildly down the hallway.

  Mari yanks at my grip, jerks her head down, and bites me, hard, on the ankle. I feel her claw at my hands, yanking and pulling on my fingers. I grab her head tighter and smack it against the wooden floor. “Stop now! Stop it now!”

  A contraction tears through my lower half, and I feel a strange searing pain as it intensifies and meets with a different pain under my ribs. That pain in my arm, the one under my ribs. That was a bullet. I feel it now.

  I hear shouts, and I can’t hold on to Mari anymore. The pain under my ribs seizes me, stabbing across my tightening belly and shooting down my legs and up to the base of my neck. I yell from the pain. Mari pushes me off of her, but there are legs and beams of light. I roll onto the smooth wooden floor, and someone catches my head. I feel something wet. I wonder if it’s my blood or if my water’s broken. There’s a lot of noise, commotion I can’t sort out.

  “Kelly? Kelly? Answer me. Oh my God, please answer me.” It’s Andrew.

  I can’t do this anymore. I feel bile rising in my throat, and heat sweeps through my body. The pain closes over me like a wave.

  38: Panic Song

  “KELLY? KELLY? ANSWER ME. Oh my God, please answer me.” Kelly’s body goes limp, and she slumps over. Tucker catches her before her head cracks on the floor. Mari pushes out from under her and scrambles behind the piano.