As if he can read my mind, he mumbles, looking at the floor, “I have a good friend in the city. Forensics, he works forensics. He says it’s your hair.” He covers his eyes with one palm, squeezes both his temples. “You told me and Ariana you didn’t step foot inside his room.”
Wow. So James is not the paragon of goodness you thought he was. I picture him in my bathroom with the door closed behind him, plucking a few of my hairs from my matted hairbrush and bagging them.
James and I, we’re done. And, I have his seminal fluid in my crisper. I’m insulated.
“James,” I say, attempting pragmatic, but my words betray me and come out rushing, like a flash-flooded river sweeping up cars and knocking down trees, “I swear I saw Ava Boone in his house. When he was at work, I had to check. Police wouldn’t tell me anything. No one would tell me why he was a suspect. I found a girl’s sock and a toy under his mattress and a big cage in his basement. It tore me apart. I couldn’t sleep. He had already given Chloe candy, and I needed to protect her. I don’t even remember how it happened. It’s like it was a dream. I woke up after garbage night and I was in the tub and my clothes were wet from the rain and my hammer was missing. I—”
“Your hammer was missing?” he says. “What are you talking about, Grace?”
“I thought Ethan Boone killed Leland, but the more I questioned Natalie and Ethan, I realized Ethan didn’t do it. And then I found a splinter of what I think was Leland’s bone under my jaw.” My words are still a torrent, wildly pulling everything in, topsoil and twigs and rotten leaves and plastic of all sorts, mixing everything up, making everything turbid.
His head trembles. As if it is going to come apart, he grabs it in his hands. “A splinter of Leland’s bone? What are you talking about? Oh my God, Grace. You questioned the Boones?”
I stop and take a moment to let regret fill me up. It appears I have read the situation wrong. James came here knowing only that I’d been in Leland’s room, nothing more. He hadn’t jumped to the conclusions I thought he had. Maybe James walked into my house stone-eyed and cold because he thought I’d fucked Leland or something.
The thing is, I’ve been aching to confess. I’ve been aching to share my thoughts, my theories.
I exhale, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice, trying to slow down. “I followed the son. He deals drugs in the Walmart parking lot. I talked to Ethan. I talked to Natalie. I don’t want to get them in trouble, they’ve suffered so much, but I’m pretty sure they accidentally killed their daughter.”
“Grace! You need to stop.”
My forehead is burning up as my words pour out, “Because if my daughter was missing, I would never stop looking for her. I would never say she was dead. And they kept saying, ‘Leave us alone. She’s dead.’ I think there’s a drug connection because Natalie is freaked out by drugs, and her sister works hospice and has access to drugs, and the son sells them in the Walmart parking lot. One of them killed the little girl—it was an accident, she overdosed by accident, I think—and then they had to cover it up because they are family. They are good people trying to protect one another. The sister, Sarah, she means well and her heart is big and she’s overwhelmed,” I say, pleading for them.
James squeezes and opens his fists. Squeeze. Open. “You should have given that information to the police. All of it. Oh my God. Leland? You broke into his house? Why didn’t you tell the police what you found? Why didn’t you tell me?” He drags his palm down his face, then shoves it into his eye and wipes his tears.
Even in the midst of this grotesquely surreal conversation, he is sensitive. It makes me want to keep him.
“Because I broke into his house, James. You know how the system works. It protects the wolves. It protects the wolves until they kill. I was trapped.” My abdomen seizes when I move, so I’m standing still, fingers splayed on the kitchen counter. If I felt stronger, I’d be touching him, trying to humanize myself. “You came into my life one day too late,” I say quietly, more to myself. “Had I known you, I would have asked you for help. I wouldn’t have killed him,” I whisper, and it feels so good to let those words out of me. Like a cold soapy shower over soiled, bug-bitten, itchy skin.
You shouldn’t have said that.
I know. I know. But it feels so good.
Confusion and disgust flare in his eyes.
“Killed him,” he repeats quietly, introspectively. “Grace, you need to get help. You’re sick.” Anxiety flashes in his eyes, as if he’s worried I’m hiding a weapon.
“Fuck you and your arrogance. You people who don’t even know yourselves because you’ve never been put in a spot. You’ve never felt desperate.” You’ve never experienced a psychotic break. “You’ve never had to make a choice, a real choice, a dire choice. You can say you’re lawful and you’re moral, but that’s only because you’re coasting. If he lived next to you and he was after your child, you would do the same.”
He bites his lip and works the muscles in his jaw and cheeks. He’s fighting to keep his mouth shut tight. He gazes out my back screen at something. My grass, my kids, the watermelon on the table, I don’t know. “You live in a bubble,” he says.
I erupt into laughter. I wasn’t expecting the laughter and neither was my lower abdomen. Pain blacks out my vision for a split second. “Of course I live in a bubble. I have no time to step out of my bubble. This bubble is so demanding, I am sweating when I wake in the morning. I pee with the door open. I open new credit cards every month for the zero-interest period. I never—”
Sharp pain explodes brilliantly inside my lower left side. Appendix? Did my appendix burst? What side is my appendix on? I can never remember what’s where. I steady myself against the counter. My T-shirt’s short sleeve, damp, grazes my arm.
“I’m divorced too, you know,” he says. He’s staring at my counter, maybe at the hardened chunk of oatmeal cemented to the laminate or the tea-stained dish, the tea bag hanging off the edge, sad and limp like a used tampon. Seems like he hasn’t noticed my physical pain. Fine. I wouldn’t want him to think I’m playing him.
I don’t want to compete, I don’t want pity, but come on. Divorce isn’t a one-way ticket to madness. Every divorce is different. His is easier than mine; mine is easier than the one involving threatening texts that close with you cunt; and that divorce is easier than those entailing chronically busted lips and broken ribs.
Breathing through the pain, I say, viciously, “What was it that you said? Oh, that’s right. I remember. You wanted to thank the killer.”
He opens his mouth, closes it. He shakes his head and walks toward my front door.
The pain is gone. It was on like a faucet. Now it’s turned off. “Get back here,” I growl.
“You need help, Grace. Get yourself a lawyer while you’re at it.”
“I have your seminal fluid in a Ziploc.”
He turns slowly and stares at me. “That’s what was in it?”
“You heard me. And don’t pretend to be high and mighty because you fucking snuck my hair to your buddy in forensics.”
He stares at me, dumbfounded, then he looks up at the ceiling. He bobs his head as if he hears a rhythm. “Wow.” He shakes his head again. “Wow. You know, I think you actually love that you’re divorced.”
“I hate it.”
He turns away and speaks to the screen. “You love it because you get to be judge, jury, and executioner, and no one will tell you otherwise. Kids can be easily brainwashed and abused and they rarely question adults.” He is out the door, strolling through my grass toward his car.
Hating him, I linger at the screen. I am already over him. “You were never on my team. I was just someone you were fucking.”
He hears me, but doesn’t stop. He’s in the street, opening his car door.
Oh my God, the Boones! Why did you tell him about the Boones? You were supposed to protect the Boones. What have you done? Worry rolls in fast, smothering my anger. I imagine Ariana, wrath in her movie-star eyes, snappin
g cuffs on my wrists in front of my confused children. Snapping cuffs on Natalie and Ethan.
“Wait! James,” I say, my tone clipped and anxious.
I am running barefoot in the grass.
The clouds above are downy and moving too fast across the swirling blue sky. Sun shines too yellow-white, and my vision dims. The mailbox slides in and out and in of my field of vision, like I’m standing in the middle of an earthquake. Grass grazes and pokes my ankles. Does it need cutting again? How does it grow wild so fast? Pain splits my back and bursts in my skull so specifically. Did a vessel burst?
Vertigo. You are experiencing vertigo.
I’m running to his car but can’t get my voice to call his name. Beyond a circle of stones showcasing hostas, the chrome passenger door handle of his car reflects the sunlight, blinding me. The engine hums. Old car exhaust is thick in my throat. My surroundings sway and skate and, because I am still ambling forward, my fall is inevitable. I extend my hands to break it.
Don’t hit your head on a stone.
They need you.
The bright sky is darkening.
Call me what you want, I adore my children. Everything I do is for them. I love my children with a hardness like iron and bone. I love them so much I want to crush them and consume them and meld with them. Die for them.
59
DO. NOT. FALL. ASLEEP.
Citrus perfume fills my nose. The blurry shape of a woman in a loose blue shirt hovers over me. You’re not wearing contacts. Her blond ponytail swings as she busies herself with something.
Behind my head, something mechanical beeps three times.
Hospital!
I’m lying in a hospital bed. This woman in blue is a nurse. I lift my arm. An IV traps my wrist. Anxiety blooms in my chest like octopus ink in seawater.
Hospitals are sex warehouses of orgies and lawlessness. Teeming with antibiotic-resistant microbes. Mazes of corridors and closets and nooks where employees without boundaries lurk, whispering, giggling, and conspiring. If someone turns on a black light, this room is gonna light up. Spooge everywhere.
I can’t suck in a good breath, a real breath.
This is the place, these are the people, who steam-rolled my marriage and family and stole our peaceful, normal life.
I know my fears aren’t logical. This hospital is a place where people are healed and saved. Doesn’t matter, my heart rate monitor is ringing, and I can’t breathe.
Where are Chloe and Wyatt? I try to ask, but my throat is like baked, cracked clay.
The nurse rubs my arm, “It’s OK. Try to relax.” But her cold hand on my skin makes it worse. Another nurse comes in, this one in pink, and she messes with my IV.
My chest loosens. My body lightens. It’s floating away from me.
They drugged you. They are going to take off all my clothes and make fun of me and rub their genitals all over me. Stay Awake. Do. Not. Fall. Asleep.
60
HER VERTEBRAE WERE YANKED BY A HOOK
My throat is dry, my eyes are dry. As if someone blew sawdust at my face.
You fell asleep.
Do I feel violated?
Actually, dear God, yes! My lower abdomen is tender. I am sore inside.
Tears well and my bottom lip quivers, but I stomp out emotion.
Stay calm or they will knock you out again.
Fuzzy bursts of yellow and pink blot out the corner of the room. Flowers. Pink balloons sway above. Someone sits in the corner, smiling. His lips are red. Maybe it’s a woman; everything is still blurry.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
“Who are you?” I say. “I can’t see well. I don’t have my contacts or glasses.”
He says nothing.
I try to draw out details from the blur. His body is flesh-colored; he’s wearing no clothes. Like I said, hospitals. Maybe he’s wearing a tan shirt and tan pants.
“Go away, please.”
He sits, tree-trunk still.
I worry I’m not in any old hospital. Maybe they know I’m a criminal and they’ve put me in a prison hospital. This is my guard, who has been instructed not to speak to me. Maybe the bats that attacked me were carriers of a barely known virus, and I’m in a secret research hospital. The gravity of both scenarios sends me over the threshold of panic and anger.
“I said go away!”
On the table beside me is a teddy bear. I throw the furry bear at the man across the room, and pain tears through my abdomen. The bear strikes him square in the nose, and the man slides down the chair and onto the ground, smoothly and quietly, emitting the slightest squeak.
Oh. Blow-up doll. My co-workers probably brought him. There’s no way a prison hospital would allow me to have a blow-up doll.
Still, I worry. How long have I been here? Who has Chloe and Wyatt? Has James turned me in?
James didn’t tell them. If everyone knew you killed Leland, they wouldn’t send you flowers and a blow-up doll.
A woman wearing patterned scrubs walks in. “Ah, you’re awake,” she says, thrilled. “Welcome back. You are doing fine. I’m Kathy.”
“How long have I been here?” My voice is raspy, and I force a painful swallow. “Where are my kids?”
“Your children are perfect and eating all their vegetables and brushing their teeth. I was instructed by your husband to tell you that.” Ex-husband, but I’m not going to correct her. I want her to think I have people on my team. I want her to worry about making a medical mistake. “You have been our guest for two days. From the looks of your room, I would say you have a lot of people who care about you.”
My bottom lip quivers. Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you dare let this charlatan manipulate your emotions.
“What happened? Do I have rabies?”
“I haven’t heard anything about rabies. Did you get bit by a dog?” she says, her tone hinting that her brow is knitted.
“Bats. Scratched by bats.”
“Really? Sounds like quite a story.” The worry is gone from her voice, replaced by disinterest. “Dr. Birnbaum will be by soon enough. You can talk to her about bats. You’re here because you had to have emergency surgery. Your IUD got lodged where it had no business and you were bleeding internally. You are very lucky you got here in time. Let’s sit you up so you can drink. Your throat is sore, I bet.” She presses the remote, and the top of my bed lifts.
So it was the IUD.
I worried my guilt was eating me from the inside, like acid corroding my soft organs and pulling me apart painfully, cell by cell. Psychosomatic Abdominal Torture.
The hormone-emitting chicken bone springing free from my uterus and planting itself elsewhere was responsible for my pain, but it probably couldn’t explain away my sleepwalking, my hallucinations, my violence.
An awful memory hits me so hard, I flinch.
You sold out the Boone family. How could you be so reckless?
Like a spoon, shame scrapes me out, leaving me hollow as a clinging cicada husk. I picture Ethan Boone, alone in some remote location, digging. It had to be him who buried the body because while, yes, it’s the mother who flits and pecks like a bird—constantly busy fetching strings and wet grass and newspaper to make the nest—and it’s the mother who is tirelessly feeding her babies, grooming them, comforting them, when something this monstrous happens and it rips the backbone right out of the mother as if her vertebrae were yanked by a hook on a line, and she can’t move, she just can’t move, just can’t, it’s the father who is left to do the foul, immeasurable task of burying.
I picture him in the forest on that rainy night, his body shuddering, tears racing down his cheeks. I picture Ava’s red shoes on the forest floor. These shoes, Dorothy’s shoes, are her trademark, so my mind incorporates them. There’s no place like home.
“There you go,” the nurse says. “Now you’re up. Look at your beautiful flowers.”
“I couldn’t see a million dollars if it were on my lap,” I say, my voice sounding rough, like crin
kled newspaper. “Do you see my contacts or glasses lying around?”
“Let me check the bathroom, hon.”
She comes out quickly and hands me my glasses case.
“Thank you. I hate being blind.” As the words leave my mouth, I want them back. She probably has patients who are literally blind. I can’t think of anything to say that will fix my tactlessness.
Cheery, she says, “Now you can see your beautiful flowers. You want to know who they’re from?”
“Sure.”
She plucks four tiny envelopes from four bouquets, lays them in my palm, and closes my fingers around them. Thoughtful. Her skin is cold and smooth. “I’m going to get you water. I’ll be back in a minute.”
My name is written on the front of all four. One is from my mom; her fat loopy cursive gives her away. Liz’s tight, tidy cursive marks the next envelope. The third is from Nate. He can’t write in cursive, claims he missed that month of school. On the last envelope, my name is printed in an unfamiliar style, lean and broken.
My stomach flutters as I open it and pull out the small card.
I hope you get better.
-James
I’m not sure how to interpret his words. Is his statement simple and sincere or is it a jab? Like, You’re fucking mental, pathetic, and repulsive. I hope you get better.
61
A TWISTED SCAVENGER HUNT
Wyatt. It was Wyatt who borrowed my dad’s hammer. I found it in the back of his closet while I was panic-hunting for money to pay the pizza guy. Wyatt came across the hammer in our junk drawer and made off with it, as kids do. He used it to hammer a few nails into the wall in his closet. From the nails, he hung soccer ribbons and rubber band bracelets. If only I’d asked him earlier.
She Lies Close Page 27