As Night Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  Ben tried to console her, but the effort clearly cost him. There was a gray, withered quality to his skin. Ben’s normally vivid eyes were dim with pain. Sandy imagined him on a trek or climb, fallen from some great height, lying there and hoping help was on its way.

  “My legs.” Ben gestured downward with his chin. “They’re pretty bad.”

  Sandy looked down, then away, her mind clouding with horror. She had been there when emergency units arrived at the hospital, but seeing her husband in similar straits made Sandy’s throat seal up, a clutching, choking grasp.

  She forced herself to look back. In a way, the binds Nick had applied were helping; the tape served as something of a splint along the ankles. But above each silvery wreath, Ben’s bones no longer lay smoothly, seamlessly beneath the skin. Two jagged-edged pieces didn’t line up; his jeans were tented with what had to be shards.

  Sandy got to her feet, beseeching Nick. “Cut the tape. So I can take a look at his legs.”

  Ben lay on the floor, blinking silently, depleted by his effort to communicate.

  “Still inflating your own abilities, huh?” Nick said.

  Sandy regarded Nick. He wanted to act as if he knew her—well, she knew him, too. And though he might not be about to let Ben go free, Nick had proven moveable in other respects. As had always been the case. As long as his aims and desires weren’t thwarted, her brother tended to be a rather affable sort. He had come here to use them, because he believed everything and everybody was put there for his own benefit. But Nick didn’t make people suffer.

  Until the day came when he did. But Sandy wouldn’t think about that right now.

  She was good at that, she chided herself, blade-sharp. Not thinking about things.

  One thing, though. Upon acknowledging the truth, the phantom itching in her hands had fled. Permanently, she sensed. Sandy glanced down at the tiny patches of scar tissue that remained, the crinkled texture of plastic wrap here and there among the healthy, healed skin.

  Ben had asked about those scars, of course. But he’d accepted her explanation of a childhood accident. She herself hadn’t thought further than that partial truth until now.

  Her gaze darted around, envisioning ways to make her husband more comfortable.

  “I need to get a blanket,” she told Nick. “There’s one in the laundry area. And water.”

  Nick squinted down at Ben. “Blanket, yes.” He jerked his chin toward the washing machine and dryer. “Water, no.”

  Like they were bargaining, playing Let’s Make a Deal. Everything and everyone had also always been a game to Nick.

  Sandy opened her mouth, but Nick warded her off with one arm. “If your husband takes anything down, he’s gonna choke when it comes back up.” Nick shook his head. “We found him alive, Cass—or I guess I should say Sandy. Conscious even. Not bad for the fall he took. Tough son of a bitch, ain’t he?”

  Sandy looked down at her shattered husband on the floor.

  “I think you should quit while you’re ahead.”

  —

  Sandy walked back to Ben with the softest quilt she could find, and one of his sleeping bags as well. The bag was rated to twenty below, and the two together should stave off shock.

  Sandy squatted, arranging the folds around Ben’s body, taking care not to touch him. He was shivering, but his core radiated a reassuring heat. He was her husband, and she longed for him to fold her up in his arms until this night had passed, taking the storm that had come along with it. Sandy settled for placing her hand on the floor beside Ben. Spasmodic jolts and jitters began to subside as the material settled down, camouflaging the heap Ben made on the floor.

  She was about to stand up when something in her husband’s eyes told her not to go.

  Sandy crouched down again. “What is it, honey?” she asked, softly, encouragingly.

  “Why?”

  “Why what, Ben?”

  He paused to muster breath. “Why does.” A sucked-in sip of air. “He keep. Calling you. Cass?” The last syllable, when it emerged, was strong and sure, the truest approximation of Ben’s real voice yet.

  “He doesn’t know,” Nick remarked blandly. “So that’s how you’ve pulled this off.” He extended one arm, taking in the whole of the basement.

  Ben’s gaze held Sandy’s.

  Love was a steel girder between them. You could walk across it, precariously high off the ground, yet be safe so long as you kept your balance.

  That balance was threatened now. They were going to fall.

  Nick spoke into the silence between them, soft as a caress. “Tell him, Cass.”

  Sandy didn’t take her eyes off her husband.

  “Tell him,” Nick repeated, and his voice was no longer gentle. “Or I will.”

  Sandy closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if her husband would understand or even register her words; she could no longer tell anything from his pain-dulled face. But the truth was a watery rush inside her now. “I changed my name when I went to college. Just before you and I met.”

  Ben blinked.

  “I used to be called Cassandra.”

  A solitary shake of the head, palpable confusion. “He—” Ben licked blood-encrusted lips, before starting again. “He knew you then?”

  Sandy stared down at her husband. After a moment, she nodded.

  “Like—” Again, Ben broke off, but after that, his voice became stronger. “A stalker? That’s why he came here?”

  Nick belted out a laugh. “I think you’ve got things a bit wrong down there. Care to correct him, Cass?” Nick paused. “I think it’s okay for me to call you by your real name again now, isn’t it? Since we’re all family?”

  Sandy slid her hands under the muffling blankets, searching for some part of Ben it might be safe to touch. “Nick isn’t a stalker, honey.” She fought to get the next words out. “He’s my brother.”

  Ben’s whole body jolted and the movement made him cry out.

  Sandy laid her hands against his side, trying to still him. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t allow herself to cry. She didn’t deserve the relief that would bring, for the two of them to cry together, for tears were now rolling out of Ben’s eyes. When Sandy tried to blot the wetness with the tips of her fingers, Ben jerked away, ignoring the agony it must’ve caused him to move.

  “You don’t have a brother,” he rasped. Then comprehension cleared the silt out of his vision. “You lied to me. The whole time we’ve been married? And then even after he came in—”

  Sandy shook her head, fast and hard. “I didn’t recognize him myself. I swear. It’s like—I put up a wall between that life and my real one. It took a while for it to come down.”

  Disbelief bathed Ben’s features, and Sandy tried again, though her first explanation had been the truer. “I haven’t seen him in more than twenty years. He looks completely different. His hair is short—” She broke off, shuttering her eyes against the recollection of Nick’s curls, which he used to keep groomed like a pet. How the girls had loved those curls. How their mother had.

  Ben’s face went stony, whether from pain or fury or both, and Sandy’s voice began to climb, reaching for ever less relevant justifications. “He used to be so skinny! He must’ve spent a lot of time lifting weights in—”

  Ben responded as if she’d said nothing. “You’re relay—” The word split, fragmented in his mouth, though Sandy understood it. Related.

  Nick spat a fat globule of saliva onto the concrete. “You got it.”

  Ben was himself once more now, betrayal and rage fueling him. He wrenched his shoulders back, throwing off the coverings.

  “Honey, stop,” Sandy cried. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  Panting, stomach muscles visibly straining, and sweat mixing with the remnants of tears on his face, Ben made it into a seated position.

  Nick took a step forward, though he seemed more to be observing the act than concerned by it.

  “No,” Ben growled. “You hurt me. And him—
” Ben’s wrists strained against their binds; he tossed his head back and forth like a dog, grunting with effort.

  A cry escaped Sandy. “Honey, please, stop! I would never hurt you!”

  Ben mustered all the force that resided in the top half of his body, angling his torso to try and lift it from the floor. But he only made it inches before dropping back down. There was a second’s lag time as Ben sat there, blinking. Then pain contorted his face, and a helpless howl emerged before he got control and bellowed, “Get out of here, Sandy, or whoever you are—”

  Nick’s head turned back and forth between them as if he were watching a show.

  He wanted them to keep battling; Sandy saw the desire lapping in her brother’s eyes. He had come here for help in his escape, but would a side benefit be to bring Sandy’s life down around her, enjoying the fireworks as it fell?

  Nick had never given Sandy his time or attention. He’d ignored her, dismissed her, except on the rare occasions Sandy was forced into his consciousness. But that had been because Nick didn’t just get the best of everything—he got everything, period. While Sandy now had so much. A house, a family, a life. At some point, especially if his escape was delayed much longer, would these penetrate Nick’s self-absorption, become worthy of his notice?

  Ben fought to subdue himself, an almost physical feat. His breathing leveled out and the expression on his face smoothed as if a roller had passed over it. A thin thread of blood unraveled from beneath the blanket as he lay back down. Something must have broken through.

  Sandy remained on her hands and knees, unable to stem her tears.

  “Enough,” Nick said irritably.

  He flashed out a hand, but Sandy ignored it. She crawled forward, stopping only when Ben twisted sideways, scaly pain covering his face.

  Sandy sat back, and cold air filled the space between them. Ben lay with his legs as heavy and motionless as pipes. Only his back moved, curling in on itself.

  Nick’s shoulders hitched, and he took a restless look around. “Come on. It’s freezing. And we’ve been down here long enough.”

  “Take care of Ivy.” Ben spoke into the blanket pooled beneath him. “Can you do that? Can you keep her safe now?”

  The question struck Sandy with the force of a slap. Ben was asking many things. Not only whether she could protect Ivy from Nick and Harlan, but whether she could do better by their daughter than she had for Ivy’s first fifteen years, teach her honesty and bravery and truth.

  She nodded once, then again.

  Ben let his eyes close.

  Sandy didn’t see anger or even betrayal any longer in the dusky pools before they fell shut. Instead, Ben looked terrified. As if for the first time in his life, something was coming for him, and he was helpless to get away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ivy trudged up the stairs, hearing Harlan breathe behind her. Harlan. What a stupid, hick name. She hadn’t thought much about it until her mom had said it out loud. Nobody called Harlan belonged in their lives.

  Ivy couldn’t believe how he and Nick had so thoroughly laid waste to her life. What was she supposed to do at school now when she saw Cory?

  Something squeezed deep below the place her furious thoughts resided. Something sickly scared that anger couldn’t touch. Would she even go to school again? What was going to happen tonight?

  She stooped and snatched up the hoodie she’d abandoned. How dumb she had been to take it off. What she’d done to Cory was a million times worse than wearing something lame.

  They made it down the hall to her bedroom. Harlan pushed the door open—a panel of wood so heavy Ivy herself had to apply muscle to budge it—and it flew backward, striking the wall with a thud.

  Inside, Ivy flopped facedown on her bed as she’d done so many times when she’d been angry at her mother or father or both. All the fights they’d had seemed so stupid now, bits of dust and vapor that blew away as soon as you focused on them.

  “You did good down there,” Harlan told her.

  Ivy lifted her face from her pillow. That disgusting tuft of fake fur sat beside it. She rolled in the opposite direction. Harlan was sitting on her wheelie desk chair. You couldn’t even see the seat beneath him.

  “I bet Nick is glad,” he said.

  “What do I care if that bastard is glad?” Ivy muttered.

  Harlan’s brows drew down. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Like what?” Ivy said, just as angry.

  “Like that,” he replied helplessly. “So ugly. You’re a girl. Girls don’t talk like that.” A faint smile took hold of his mouth, lifting it like a hot air balloon.

  “What kind of paternalistic crap is that?” Ivy said into her mattress. “Free to Be You and Me much? Girls Can Be Anything?”

  “Patern…” His voice trailed off.

  Suddenly Ivy hated herself. Playing mental games with someone whose mind she knew was…compromised. Ivy only knew these things because back in better days, her mom used to talk to her about the seventies and women’s liberation. And now Ivy was no better than Darcy, darting like a butterfly around the special kids who were mainstreamed into their classes.

  She got out of her sulky plunge, and sat with her legs crossed on her bed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a—” She stopped before she cursed again. Hanging out with convicts was having an effect on her mouth. “Do you really think girls talk nicely?”

  Harlan shrugged huge shoulders, and the gesture looked shy. “My sister did.” He paused, then let loose with the longest burst of words Ivy had heard yet. “She used to always ask me first if she needed something, and she’d say please and thank you. I was pretty happy to have my kid sister around.”

  “Really?” Ivy said. “I like being an only.”

  He looked at her, a crevasse appearing on his brow.

  “Child,” she supplied, noting his confusion. “It gives my mom a lot of time to spend with me. We come from a long line of just one girl,” Ivy added. “My mom’s an only child, too.”

  Now Harlan looked even more confused.

  “Anyway…” Ivy twisted the fringe on one of her decorative pillows. “How old is your sister?”

  Harlan didn’t answer.

  Ivy set the pillow aside, and scooted forward. “I guess she’s a grown-up. Unless she’s a lot younger.” She realized she wasn’t really sure of Harlan’s age. It could’ve been almost anything.

  Harlan lifted his head slowly. It looked like it took effort to do it.

  “Is something wrong?” Ivy asked.

  “I just don’t get…”

  “Get what?” Ivy asked. She felt like when she was babysitting and the game had gone on too long.

  “How your mom can be an only—” He broke off. “I like that word.”

  Ivy nodded.

  After another moment or two, when Ivy was back to fiddling with the fringe, and almost back to lying facedown, contemplating the mess of her life, Harlan finally finished his question. “—when she has a brother?”

  “My mom doesn’t have a brother,” Ivy said.

  Harlan nodded. That huge head jogging no less effortfully. “Sure she does.”

  Ivy looked down at her finger. It’d gotten cocooned in a length of fringe, and the skin was purpled and pulsing. “No,” she said. “She doesn’t.”

  “Then who’s Nick?”

  —

  All the jagged edges, the pieces of her life that had never entirely added up, speared Ivy. She brought her head down into her hands, clenching her skull as if she could drive out this new knowledge. Even though it made everything suddenly make sense.

  How her mother never talked about where she grew up, although from her dad Ivy knew it was a town just a little north of here. So why had they never visited? Ivy’s mom didn’t refer to her family either, even though Ivy had started to ask about them. As far as Ivy knew, she had no grandparents on her mother’s side, but how was that even possible? It was like her mom had been dropped from the mother ship. Yet s
he knew this place, Wedeskyull, so well, and sometimes certain people in town seemed to know her. Ivy lifted her face out of her palms, and looked at Harlan sitting in her desk chair, and she knew he had told her the truth.

  And hadn’t Ivy sensed it for a while beneath the watery surface of their lives? The realization had finally broken through tonight, when Ivy hurled her accusation. Her mom had been lying all right. In a million years, though, Ivy wouldn’t have guessed it’d be about this.

  Harlan was making a weird noise, almost like he was holding back laughter. As Ivy stared at him, the laugh broke free, throaty and wild.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s not nice to laugh. It’s just…I never…never…” He began to wind down, perhaps realizing that Ivy wasn’t laughing, or even smiling. “You didn’t know Nick was your uncle? Why did you think we came here tonight?”

  Ivy shook her head. She was stuck on the uncle part. No wonder something about Nick had seemed familiar to her. They were related.

  She shuddered.

  She’d never had many relatives to speak of, just a grandfather she barely knew—he’d been sick for a long time before he died. And now the one she did have was a psychopathic convict. Who knew what he’d gone to prison for? Maybe for taking families hostage. Or worse.

  Ivy’s skin went crawly and angry hairs stood up along it. It wasn’t just her uncle who had done that; it was her mother’s brother. What made Ivy suspect that her mom was keeping a secret? She still couldn’t say what had given it away. Little kids accepted whatever they had or didn’t have, but as soon as Ivy had begun asking her mom questions about the past, there were holes that never got filled in.

  She’d fallen into one of those holes, her and Cory.