The Unforgiven

by MacDonald, Patricia

  I can’t bear it, a voice in the back of Maggie’s head whispered. “I was thinking that I might not want to go after all. I still have to pack, and I’d like to get a boat this morning.”

  The girl stared incredulously at her. “You said you’d go,” she said.

  “I said I’d think about it. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can manage it, with the day that lies ahead of me. I’m not feeling that strong, and I still have to travel, and find a place to stay…”

  Evy hurled the sweater at the bed, where it clung to the blanket and hung haphazardly over the side. “That’s just great.”

  “I’m sorry, Evy. You can still go. You don’t even need to drop me. I could get the island taxi.”

  “Don’t you have any feelings?” the girl cried out.

  Maggie looked up at her. “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t even care enough to go to say good-bye to him.”

  Maggie pressed her hand over her eyes. “I don’t think I can stand it.”

  “I don’t think I can stand it,” Evy mimicked.

  “Don’t be cruel,” Maggie said.

  “Cruel. What about Jess? He’s dead now. Do you think he’d be having this service if it wasn’t for you?”

  Maggie dropped her hand and stared up at her. “What do you mean?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Nothing,” said the girl, lowering her eyes to hood the alarm which surfaced there.

  “Yesterday you said you didn’t blame me for what happened to Jess. Now you’ve suddenly changed your tune. It was an accident. You know that. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Okay. Forget it. I’m sorry,” the girl mumbled.

  “Why would I hurt him? I loved him. Doesn’t anybody realize that?” Maggie argued shrilly.

  “Seems like if you loved him so much you’d take the time to attend his service,” Evy muttered.

  Maggie stared dully in front of her for a few moments. It was true, she thought. It was the last thing she could ever do for him. She had taken his love, even when she knew she shouldn’t. And she had lied to him. Even though she knew he had trusted her. She pictured again his gentle, honest eyes, shining for her. She had been a coward from the beginning. But she could not change what she had done. The least she could do was be there at the end.

  Slowly, she reached over and picked up the sweater. She pushed her hand into one sleeve, then the other, and pulled it on over her head, straightening it out over her blouse. She pinned the black, lacy veil to her red hair. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  Evy patted the seat of the wheelchair, and Maggie shuffled over to it and sat down.

  “We’ve probably missed most of the church service anyway,” Evy reassured her. “We can wait outside if you want and just follow them up to the cemetery.”

  Maggie nodded numbly. Evy grasped the handles of the chair behind her and began to push.

  Once, when he was very young, he had gone sledding with his cousin and some of the other older boys. He tramped along behind them, dragging his racing sled, proud to be included. But when the day’s fun was over and the blue winter twilight had started to descend, they scampered off and left him there, while he was taking one last run down the hill. He didn’t know how to get home. He stood at the foot of the hill in the growing darkness, calling out to them.

  “Come back,” he was crying. And then, when he knew there was no one to hear him, “Mama,” in a small voice. Then louder, his nose running, his face bitten with the cold, “Mama.”

  Like clear water breaking through a muddy dam, Jess’s consciousness returned. His eyes, already open, began to see again. He was lying on his side, his face ground into the dirt of the floor. He realized, to his surprise, that tears had trickled down his face, forming a tiny patch of mud which smeared his cheekbone. Jess lifted his aching head and looked around the cellar. Emmett’s pitiful corpse was gone. He remembered now.

  She had come down the stairs to collect it. He could not tell how long ago it had been. He had loosened his gag by constant chewing at it and was slurping up water from the washtub when he heard the door open. Quickly he had slid back down to the floor and feigned unconsciousness. She suspected he was awake and had kicked him in the side several times to see if he would respond. He had remained limp, eyelids closed. Suddenly he felt her fingers, like talons, in his hair. She jerked his head back, holding a fistful of his hair. His mouth fell open. He did not wince but kept his eyes closed. Then, muttering, she dropped him and had gone about her grisly business. With one eye open he watched her as, grunting and struggling, she had maneuvered Emmett’s body into some kind of large bag and begun dragging it to the steps, as if it were a sack of refuse. As she started up the stairs, clunking the bag along behind her, Jess felt his head start to spin and he lost consciousness.

  Now he looked up toward the slim band of light, gray and phosphorescent, which hung steadily in the darkness above his head. Occasionally a dark shadow would move across it, and then it would return. It was the bottom of the door. Jess imagined that if he could put his face to that band, he would drink in a stream of cool, fresh air. The putrid smell of the cellar had ceased to nauseate him. He wore it now, like a hood. But the prospect of one clean breath of air was painfully tantalizing.

  By now used to the darkness, Jess could see the many steps which led up to the door. It was the only way out, and it was not far away, yet it seemed as remote as another continent to him. But he knew that he had to try to get out. His extremities were numb, with only an occasional tingle evidencing the remaining life in his hands and feet. He had had no food since she left him down there. She was going to let him die in his dungeon. He wondered if Maggie was still alive. He had to try. He could not just lie there and accept the fact that he was buried alive.

  Jess’s eyes returned to the fillet of light. He could also see motes of light flickering through the door itself. Old wood, he thought. Rotten. A trace of hope stirred inside of him. It could be smashed, he reasoned, if it was battered with the hardest thing at hand. With a feeling of despair he realized that his head and shoulder were his only tools. Wearily, he slumped back to the earth, his head throbbing from the prospect. Then he lifted his aching head and looked again. He knew that he had to try it. It was better than dying.

  With agonizing slowness he summoned all his remaining strength and began to wriggle across the floor to the foot of the stairs. Using his knee and shoulder to propel himself, Jess inched his way over the cold, damp earth. With every few inches he gained he paused, gasping for breath, the clumps of earth sticking to his dry, cracked lips and clogging his nostrils. His shirt had bunched up almost to his armpits, leaving his torso bare and scraped. The gravel in the floor gouged holes in his bony knees. He sucked in what air he could, then continued on. Finally, after an interminable journey, he reached the foot of the stairs.

  Jess dropped his head heavily on the surface of the bottom step. The ragged, splintered surface of the wood snagged him like thorns. He dreaded the prospect of dragging his body across the wooden planks, exposing every inch of his skin to the sharp slivers which would insinuate themselves below the surface to throb there. But the shaft of light that penetrated the rotten door drew him on.

  For a few moments he rested, but he did not dare to rest too long, for fear that his consciousness would go again, and he would drift from his purpose like a rudderless boat on an empty sea. He had to concentrate on those steps and on the door at the top.

  Inhaling deeply and sending up a silent prayer, Jess hoisted his weight up with the aid of his elbow and threw his head higher. His rear end landed on the bottom stair with a crack, while his head smashed against the front of a higher stair. He balanced there, afraid to breathe for fear of losing his new seat. Slowly he twisted his body, curving his frame against the unyielding wooden planks, balancing off the rickety railings of two-by-fours and forcing himself upward.

  His tedious journey was unmarked by thoughts or doubts or worries. Every fibe
r of his being was concentrated on the simple progress from stair to stair. His feet and hands, so numb as to be useless, were weights he dragged with him. His body was pierced by splinters and ached in every part. A fog swirled dangerously close to his preciously guarded consciousness. Jess tried to count, to fight it off, but it was persistent and seductive. He lifted his head and stared at the needle-thin shafts of light which pierced the door. He was so close now that they fell on his sleeves. He forced himself to stay alert.

  With a last, anguished push, he reached the top. He put his face to the precious light and sucked in the air. It was not as cool as he had hoped, not as clean. But it revived him, all the same.

  For a few moments he laid his face there, tempted to forget about forcing the door. He would just breathe, and breathe, until someone came. But then the image of the shadow across the bar of light returned to his mind. Evy opening the door. No one would come. No rescue. He had to try.

  Jess pulled himself up until his rear end rested on the top step. The upright position was dizzying, and he leaned his head against his prison door. After a few moments the vertigo subsided. He opened his eyes. He would have to hit the door with all his strength, and hope it gave. Up close, he examined the wood as best he could. As he suspected, it was old and rotted in spots. He looked up toward the area where the doorknob should be. He deduced that the door was latched from the outside. Worriedly, he contemplated the possibility of a bolt. Then he shook his head. He decided that a bolt was unlikely in an old house like this. He tried to remember the night he had come here to look at the “leak.” He searched his mind for the picture of Evy unlocking the door. As he did, another chilling thought occurred to him. What if she were home? What if he managed to break through the door and she were standing there on the other side, waiting for him? The thought made him shudder. He waited until the tremor passed. The house was quiet. She was probably gone. One way or the other, he had to strike.

  He arranged himself on the stair so that when he propelled himself forward he would hit the door with maximum force. Dispassionately he anticipated the pain that would come; it would be as if it were affecting some other man. His one concern was to break through. Jess remembered a TV show he had seen once about karate masters who chopped through blocks of wood. It was said that they imagined their hands on the far side, even as they struck. Jess tried to concentrate.

  He leaned his body back as far away from the door as he could get without falling from his precarious perch. He steeled himself for the pain. One, he counted to himself. Two, three. He hurled himself at the door.

  A few mourners were already trickling out of the oak doors of the church when Evy and Maggie pulled up in the car.

  Evy gave the misted windshield a flick of the wipers so that they could better observe the people as they filed out of the church. An elderly man and woman were being helped down the steps by Charley Cullum and another man whom Maggie did not know. “Jess’s parents?” she asked.

  Evy nodded, staring at the procession which was beginning to disperse as people got into their cars. “I think so,” she said. “But we came here just around the time they moved, so I never really knew them.”

  Maggie wondered fleetingly if Sharon would appear but let the thought go. What difference did it make now?

  The church bell tolled its sorrowful dirge amidst the sound of starting engines. Maggie could not take her eyes from the doors of the church, from where the grim-faced company emerged. The sight of them paralyzed her.

  Grace Cullum, clinging tightly to the hands of her restless young sons, passed in front of the car. Jack Schmale walked, head down, not far behind her. Maggie looked away from the church portals and saw Ned and Sadie Wilson climbing into Ned’s truck across the street. Ned looked uncomfortable in his dark suit, his white socks peeking out under the wide cuffs.

  “There’s the Wilsons,” Evy observed.

  The hostess at the Four Winds passed by the car, leaning against a handsome, bearded young man in an army fatigue jacket. The girl’s crown of braids bobbed up and down with her sobs. Maggie watched, dry-eyed, as the young man helped the waitress aboard the back of his motorcycle.

  “We’d better get going,” said Evy, turning the key in the ignition. “It’s a long drive to the cemetery. It’s out near your house.”

  They drove in silence; the only sounds were the occasional rush of wind and the steady squeak of the windshield wipers. The gloomy procession of cars wound steadily along the island roads, their headlights beaming through the fog. Maggie stared out the water-streaked window at the acres of dark trees, virtually denuded of leaves, which were whipping by. Every branch and rock and fallen leaf reminded her of Jess. The only reason that she did not close her eyes was because she did not want to see his face.

  “A lot of people turned out,” said Evy. “Especially for such a bad day.”

  “Yes,” Maggie replied unenthusiastically.

  “Everybody liked Jess,” said the girl.

  Maggie only nodded. “Do you think the boats will be running today?” she asked.

  Evy gave an exasperated sigh. “Of course. Why wouldn’t they?”

  “It’s wet and foggy.”

  “That’s nothing to them,” said the girl. “I’ll tell you what’s bad. These roads.” She squinted hard and leaned toward the windshield. “It’s hard to see anything.”

  “Be careful,” said Maggie.

  Evy shrugged. “It’s just over this rise.” Within a few moments she had brought the car to a halt just ahead of several others and they both sat, looking down at the valley of headstones, ghostly in the mist. Several of the mourners carried armfuls of flowers, incongruously bright, which they set around one of the headstones. Slowly the other mourners began to exit the warmth of their cars and plod down toward the flurry of somber activity in the stillness of the cemetery.

  “Well, let’s go,” said Evy.

  Maggie hung back. “I can’t.”

  “Come on,” said the girl impatiently. “Here, you can use this.”

  The girl held out a handkerchief toward her, trimmed in a delicate pattern of knotted cotton lace. Maggie hesitated, then reached for it. She held it near her nose, breathing in the dense, flowery scent. Then she rubbed her fingers together, noting the powdery substance.

  “Talcum,” said Evy.

  “It smells good,” said Maggie.

  Evy was already out of the car and making her way down the hill. Maggie caught up with her.

  “Did you bring an umbrella?” she asked.

  “I can’t remember everything,” Evy snapped.

  Maggie followed behind her, clutching the handkerchief tightly in her hand. She could distinguish the faces of the others as they neared the grave site. She imagined that she could hear a murmur snaking through the gathered mourners as they approached. Maggie forced herself to look only at the headstone, which read Herlie, Michael, 1948–1967. She wondered if Jess’s name would be added to the stone, even though his body was still in the sea.

  Father Kincaid, the slight, gray-haired parish priest, stepped toward the headstone. His black cassock billowed in the wind. An altar boy in a white robe held an umbrella over the priest’s head. “My dear friends,” began the priest in a reedy voice. “We gather here, at the grave of Michael Herlie, to bid farewell now to his brother, Jesse. Two young men, loving brothers in life, who were struck down in their prime. Now united in death…”

  The winds whipped his words up and away, like cinders. Maggie could hardly hear him. What did he know about Jess? she thought. Perhaps he had baptized him, ministered to him for years, even married him. And now he was eulogizing him. Everyone there had known Jess longer than she. But she had loved him. His every movement, every word. She had loved to watch him, to touch him, to hear his voice. She should have been content with that. She might have learned to be content, loving him from afar.

  This is not your fault, she reminded herself. But you could have let him be, nagged another voice insid
e of her. But he wouldn’t let me, she thought. He would never have been satisfied with “no.” The memory of his urgency stabbed through her.

  “Ashes to ashes…” intoned the priest.

  No. Not Jess.

  “Dust to dust…”

  Good-bye. Oh, good-bye.

  The finality of the ceremony battered down the wall of her defiant composure. Tears, which she had forced back repeatedly, began to come. They squeezed out, one by one, like drops of blood. Her body shook, only partly from the chill. She raised the handkerchief to her eyes and wiped away the tears with an angry swipe.

  “And may the angels welcome him to his home in paradise.” The mourners stared sadly at the flower-bedecked gravestone.

  Suddenly, an unearthly howl of pain pierced the graveyard. The priest stopped short in his blessing and stared at Maggie who was screaming now, her hands clapped to her eyes. The other mourners stared as Maggie emitted cries like that of a wounded animal. A loud murmur raced through the shocked throng.

  “Stop that,” Evy pleaded, tugging at Maggie’s arm. Looking worriedly around at the other mourners, she began dragging Maggie away from the grave site.

  Maggie stumbled blindly along, one hand clutching her eyes, the other grasping Evy’s jacket as the girl pulled her up the hill. “Oh, my God!” Maggie shrieked.

  “We’re almost to the car,” Evy said. “Hang on.” She guided the wailing woman to the car door and held on to her with one hand as she opened it. The eyes of all the mourners were riveted on the progress of the two women. Evy shoved Maggie gently down into the seat, then slammed the door shut behind her. She quickly ran around to the other side and slipped into the driver’s seat.

  “My eyes,” Maggie moaned. “Oh, God, they’re on fire.” A thousand burning needles seemed to be stabbing her eyeballs. Her head felt swollen to the point where it could burst, and her temples throbbed. “Help me,” she screamed out in anguish.

  Evy wrested the balled-up hanky from Maggie’s ringers and examined it. The hanky still smelled of the perfume she had sprayed on it last night. But the scouring powder was now in streaky tracks along the hanky’s surface. The rain had come in handy. It had dampened it just enough so that it didn’t matter how many tears Maggie cried. Evy rolled the hanky up again and stuffed it in her purse beside her on the seat. I’d better remember not to use it, she thought, and gave a silent, mirthless laugh.