Skinner Luce

“How?”

  “I don’t know. Aaron said he was in the church.”

  Lucy swallows, sick, her stomach twisting up with grief. Julian, and now Ernesto. His flashy smile and olive skin, the thick black hair he liked to shape with product, as he called it. I got some new product, he’d say. He was vain, and funny, and the only real friend she ever had in that house. It was just a few days ago she saw him. He was so nice to her, even after all this time.

  He’d thought he could philosophize, as he’d called it. He’d assumed he was safe, tucked up inside Theo’s inner circle. But he never was. None of them were.

  You fucking bastard, Theo.

  Bedrosian hoists Joe Brynn’s middle off the floor a few inches, testing the weight, then sets him down. “When you’re ready,” he says.

  The splatter on the wall is thick. It has brain in it. Wallpaper can’t be cleaned. It’ll have to be replaced, and it’s such a job, removing the old, patching the plaster. It’ll cost, unless she does it. But she can’t live here. Eva won’t want her here anymore.

  “Lucy, pull yourself together.”

  The disturbance in her belly curdles upwards, and she claps a hand to her mouth, careens into the bathroom splurting droplets on the carpet, the lino floor. Then heaves a gush of liquid into the toilet. The tea she just had.

  “Jesus,” Bedrosian mutters behind her.

  She gulps and spits, dragging toilet paper over her streaming nose and mouth, aware of Bedrosian’s hulking shape filling the doorway, watching.

  “All done? Clean up,” he says.

  Her face in the mirror is hideous, her neck purpling, one side of her face puffed up and red from when Joe slapped her. Her mouth fills up with a rush of spit. She buckles, spews another stream of acid into the sink.

  Bedrosian leans over, twists the faucet on hard. She washes her face and rinses her mouth, elbows propped on the sink to hold herself up, she’s so shaky. Their eyes meet in the mirror. “I wish I’d just said no,” she says, her voice a dried-up crackle. “I wish I’d let them kill me. Then none of this would ever have happened.”

  “No use looking back. You’re doing the right thing now.”

  “The right thing,” she repeats. “You keep saying that.”

  “Lucy, we have to move,” he says, taking her arm. “It’s getting light soon.”

  She disengages stiffly from his grip. “Like what I did was so wrong. Like it was this terrible crime, and I have to make up for it.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “It’s not black and white the way you think! You just don’t understand. You have no idea.”

  “I think I have an idea.”

  Lucy suddenly pushes him hard, with both hands. He falls back a step, surprised. “No, you don’t!” she snaps. “They can’t hack it! They—they scream, they make noises. It happened the other night! The Nafikh can’t stand it, and no one could do a fucking thing!”

  “Lucy, settle down—”

  “Just quit telling me how he was just a kid and didn’t deserve it, like he’d have had some great life instead! That’s not what they get. That’s not what they ever get!”

  She steps abruptly backwards, rigid, hands in fists. A few feet of empty space between them. They stand there in the close, damp space, eyeing each other.

  Bedrosian says, “O.K. I hear you.”

  “I don’t care if you hear me. You’ll never understand.”

  “That is correct.”

  His capitulation disarms her. She slackens, leans against the sink.

  “Shall we?” He indicates the hallway.

  She takes a few breaths. Then she nods.

  HE SEIZES JOE BRYNN under the arms, and Lucy gets the legs over her shoulder. They inch their way down the stairs. The front door slams. They freeze. Boots tromp the hallway. Sean appears, dragging his baseball cap off his head. Eva must have called him while they were upstairs. He’s in his uniform; he tows cars for extra cash. Lucy imagines him barreling down Route 3, freaking out.

  He looks up, finds them on the stairs. He gapes, shaking his head, as in, What the fuck?

  “Wait with Ma,” Lucy says.

  “Are you kidding me?” he retorts, but his voice is high and thin, no real fight in it.

  “Go on,” Bedrosian says. “We got this.”

  BEDROSIAN UNLOCKS THE TRUNK of his car. He shoves aside stuff: a toolbox, a pair of boots, a pile of National Geographics tied with twine. They lower Joe Brynn into the space, and Bedrosian slams the lid. The plows heaped snow at the end of the driveway when they went by. He’ll have to dig out to leave. The houses on the street are still dark. It will be dawn in less than an hour.

  “You have a real problem on your hands,” he tells her.

  “Which one?” she says.

  He smiles a little. She looks back at the house. Kicks at the snow, arms folded. “I’ll think of something. What will happen now?”

  He rubs his jaw in that gesture that is all too familiar. He’s badly in need of a shave, and his eyes are ringed with dark, making them look bigger and sadder than ever. He’s leaving in a minute, and she doesn’t want him to go. She doesn’t want to walk back inside, face them on her own.

  “The question is,” he says, “why’s Elander doing all this. He’s got ample means to just take off, disappear.”

  Lucy’s been wondering that herself. “He’s a neat-freak. It could just be that.”

  “A lot of risk,” Bedrosian shakes his head. “Doesn’t sit right. And he’ll know soon enough this here was a fail, and then what?”

  “But they’ll find him,” Lucy says, his questions touching her with dread. “They’re sentries. It’s the Gate. They have to be able to find him.”

  “You’d think,” Bedrosian agrees.

  There is a pause. Lucy doesn’t want to go back in. She wants to climb into the car, go with him.

  “You should get inside. Even you must be getting cold,” he says, nodding at her pajamas.

  She folds her arms tighter, suddenly aware of her nipples. He clears his throat, looks away, having embarrassed himself. It’s a ludicrous moment, but she can’t bring herself to laugh. She turns around and hurries back up the path, her boots sinking into the piled-up snow. At the door, she looks back. He hasn’t gotten in the car yet. He’s just standing there, phone to his ear, and he lifts a hand in farewell.

  SHE PAUSES IN THE doorway to the parlor. They both look up. The silence goes on too long, and her Source starts spitting anxious hurt, tingling fire through her limbs. She says, “I’ll clean upstairs.”

  Eva’s shoulders sink. Distress seeps from her, tears in her eyes, hands clutching the cup of tea that must have gone cold by now. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  Lucy takes a step into the room. “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Sean told me,” Eva says.

  Told—? Lucy looks from one to the other.

  Then she understands. Eva’s stern, whitened face, the sorrow in her eyes as bad as it’s ever been. Sean’s tight-lipped, angry stance, like he’s daring her to deny it.

  Jesus. He’s told her I’m a prostitute. My mother thinks I’m a prostitute.

  “I should go,” Lucy says helplessly. “I’ll clean up, Ma, O.K.? I’ll do the best I can. Then I’ll go. You don’t have to worry. I swear.”

  Eva clenches the cup. She stares without seeing, her whole body stiffened at Lucy’s words, lips tucked in so her mouth is a line. Then she hurls the cup, shattering it on the floor. Both Lucy and Sean start in shock, and one of the cats snarls and darts away, belly to the floor.

  “You do not get to just go!” Eva shouts. She pounds the chair arm, beating out her words. “You stay here, young lady, and you explain just how the hell you could do this to me!”

  Hell, Lucy registers. She can only recall one time Eva’s ever used that word, and it was when she was excoriating Uncle Seamus.

  The effect is almost immediate: Lucy topples forward, makes her way to the chair on the other si
de of the round table with the doily. She leans into the lamp light. “Ma,” she says. “Ma, I just can’t—I swear, I didn’t mean for any of this.”

  “Well, I hardly think you did!” Eva snaps. Then her anger suddenly deflates, turns to disappointment and sorrow. “Why, baby? Why? How could you?”

  Lucy bends her head. There is a silence. The story of what she is, all she’s done for so many years, is a wild jumble about to burst from her, because she can’t bear what they’re thinking, she can’t. But she can’t give them the truth. Eva’s known Phyllis for forty years. Sean’s leaning up against a bar every night. They will talk. They won’t be able to help it.

  But this? They’ll never breathe a word. The shame of it.

  “I needed the money,” she whispers, head bent in humiliation. “I am so sorry, Ma. But I was trying to make things right.”

  “Lucy,” Bedrosian says from the doorway. They all turn to him. He holds up his phone. “You need to get dressed.”

  “WHAT’S HAPPENING?” SHE WHISPERS in the hallway.

  He pulls her a little farther along, out of sight of the parlor. He keeps hold of her arm as he speaks. “Don’t go into a panic. Aaron said you’re wanted at the Gate. They were sending a pair to pick you up, in fact. I said there are civilians here, I’ll bring you in myself.”

  Lucy’s knees are melting to nothing. He keeps her standing, looking in her eyes, nodding with grim encouragement. “I bought you out, Lucy. Don’t you forget that.”

  “You don’t come back from the Gate,” she says. She muffles a sob with her hand. This isn’t real. “Is it Theo? Why do they want me? I told you everything,” her words tumble over one another. “You have to call him back, explain I’m useless. I’ve got nothing.”

  He just grips her arm tighter, conveying in his stare that no, she has to obey, there’s nothing to be done about it, and she must pull herself together.

  She nods, wiping her nose. Then, she calls out, “Sean.”

  He appears in the doorway, steps forward, full of worry.

  “Come up with me,” she says. “We need to talk.”

  “Not a good idea,” Bedrosian warns.

  “Not your business,” Lucy retorts.

  SEAN SITS ON THE edge of her bed as she changes into jeans and a tee shirt. She doesn’t ask him to leave, or to look away. In her mind, she sees herself in his eyes, thin, white, bony. “Listen,” she says, “you need to stay with Ma. I’m going to have to go.”

  “What the fuck,” he says, hard and low. “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you. It’s part of the investigation.”

  “That guy tonight, was he the one that hurt you?” Sean demands.

  “No,” Lucy says.

  He looks defeated, his theory blown. He bends over his knees, fingers gripping the back of his head, cursing to himself. Then his long arm sweeps out, his fingers gather something up off the floor. He holds out his hand. It is Joe Brynn’s knife.

  “What’s this?” he demands.

  “That was his weapon.”

  “Jesus,” he mutters, and looks about, then sets it on the bed. “So who the hell was he? Oh, wait,” he says bitterly, “let me guess, you can’t tell me.”

  The Source spits hurt, and her hand moves reflexively to her chest. She can’t bear how he sees her, especially after the talk they had earlier in the night. Sean: her cousin in the dim dawn light filtering through the curtains, all tall and gangly and grown up. In a blink of an eye, they might be kneeling together under the bedspread tent.

  “Remember the spaceship we wanted to build?” she says.

  He goes still, then he nods.

  “It’s just that—I—”

  There’s a gentle rap on the door. Bedrosian leans in, giving Lucy a warning look. “We should get a move on.”

  “You get out of here,” Sean warns.

  He’s ready to leap across the room, pummel Bedrosian to a pulp, if she just says the word. Family sticks together, he always growls, like it’s some fundamental cosmic law.

  She says gently, “Sean, he’s right. I have to go.”

  “Jesus, Lucy.” He’s up and across the room in two strides. He wraps her tight to him. “No way,” he says. “No way you have to go.”

  She presses into him, breathing in the smells of engine oil and cigarettes. She pushes her face into his chest. “You’ll need to change the wallpaper,” she says.

  “The hell with the wallpaper.”

  “And make sure you stay on top of the cleaners. I have an account. I’ll get the money out on the way. Detective Bedrosian can bring it. And he’s supposed to take care of Ma’s loan, too. He said he would.”

  “You’re talking like you’re not coming back!”

  “She is coming back,” Bedrosian interrupts from the doorway. “But right now, we have to go. Now, Lucy.”

  She shifts against Sean’s tight embrace, and his arms loosen, fall to his sides. She gives him a tight little smile, trying to convey a promise she doesn’t herself believe. He follows them down, his treads heavy on the wooden stairs. In the parlor, Lucy bends to hug Eva in her chair, holding her as close as possible without hurting her.

  “I love you, Ma,” she whispers.

  It’s not something Lucy’s said in years. It causes a depth of sorrow in Eva’s eyes that Lucy wishes she could draw out and destroy.

  “You come back home when you’re done, you hear?” Eva says.

  “Sure, Ma. As soon as I can.”

  Lucy stands back up. Sean kisses her forehead, hard, gripping her shoulder. Bedrosian turns to follow her when she passes. Maybe she will come back, like she told Eva. I got bought out, she insists to herself, but the concept is already drifting out of her reach, unreal, a dream. Through her daze she sees the kitchen, the tidy sink and folded towel draped over the side. The piled-up secretary desk, the Amazon card, the laptop. She meant to get Eva a new one, as a surprise. She ought to feel sad, but weirdly, she doesn’t feel anything. It’s as if she’s been transformed into a void, floating along in silence through the familiar spaces, her home.

  But it’s not her home, not anymore. That’s why she’s so numb. Her life here was never meant to be, after all.

  Ain’t no serv ever had a home, she thinks, and closes the door behind her.

  IT’S A LITTLE AFTER six a.m. when Bedrosian suggests they pull off 93 for a pause before continuing on to the Gate, and Lucy doesn’t argue. The turn signal ticks loudly in the silence as he eases the car down the ramp towards the gas station. He drives with his wrist on the wheel, without hurry. He pulls into a parking spot. It’s still dark, and they’re the only ones there. She pulls down the passenger visor to inspect her face: a blotched mess, her cheek dark and puffy.

  “I can’t go inside like this.”

  He indicates the shrubbery and trees with his chin.

  She creeps past the picnic bench, finds a spot behind a bush. The pee generates hot steam all around. She almost falls-face first into the dirt patched with snow and cigarette butts. The engine shuts off, and Bedrosian makes his way to the small, brightly lit shop with its buzzing neon signs. He disappears inside. She pulls her jeans back on. At the picnic table, she sits down, digs through her parka for her cigarettes. Just put them in the same pocket every time, Julian would say, impatient with her frantic searches. She stares at the sky, seeing Joe Brynn’s whitened face and the slump of his dead body. There is a weird opacity to it all, a dream that was fierce in the night, now fading away. But it happened: the feel of it whips back up, again and again, a shock every time.

  That she’s on her way to the Gate is not something she is able to dwell on: it races at her, glances off the dull closed surface of her brain.

  She waits for him, smoking, taking in the shabby picnic table carved up by lovers, the sickly trees, the detritus of countless others who paused here, their moment of rest so infinitesimally unimportant they will never recall it again. Not for the first time in her life, Lucy wishes she were one of them. She wish
es she were resting on some mundane trip, about to carry on towards the next thing, and the next, on and on. Another car pulls in, the headlights blinding her for a moment. The car is yellow, smart and compact. A lady in a fur coat tumbles out. She laughs, waving off whatever her boyfriend’s saying. They sway into the shop, their staccato merriment pricking the still night air. Bedrosian exits on the same door swing, tromps towards her carrying two cups.

  “Here,” he says gruffly. “Well, do you want it or not?”

  She puts her hands around the cup, warming them. He’s put milk in when she always takes it black. She drinks. Her throat hurts when she swallows.

  “Better?”

  She nods. She takes a deep drag off her cigarette, exhales a plume of smoke. Her breath, after, clouds before her, visible in the light cast from the shop.

  He says, “You want to know how I ended up banging around in your world?”

  She shrugs assent, watching him through the steam rising from her cup.

  “I’d just become a cop,” he says, “and we had this family friend, he was like an uncle to me. A Russian Jew, Amo Iakov, married to an Armenian. That’s one hell of a combo.”

  He pauses to chuckle. It beats her, why. She says, “O.K. Go on.”

  “So one day we’re drinking and Amo Iakov, that means uncle, he says I think I’m a big know-it-all, now that I’m police. It’s true I was a little puffed up in those days. Why shouldn’t I be? It was a big deal. But he was a hard old man, he didn’t brook any sort of pride, so he says let me show you the truth of the world. That’s what he called it, the truth of the world. He wasn’t someone you argued with, so I went. We end up in the basement of a house somewhere in Dorchester. There’s a guy there, tied up with duct tape. I start freaking out. Amo, you can’t do this, what the hell are you doing, who is this guy? And he leans into my face with all that crazy gray hair on end and those googly eyes, and he says, He is not human!”

  “Great,” Lucy says drily.

  “Yeah. So I argue, and protest, and even try to untie the victim, but Amo kicks me out of the way. He says, watch this, and before I could say a word, he’s pulled out a knife and hauled off and stabbed the poor guy in the heart. It was instantaneous. I’d never had such a shock. I thought I was in some nightmare, for sure, and now I’d wake up.