Crimson Rain

by Meg O'Brien

  “Are we? Are we really?” she whispered.

  He kissed her forehead. “Yes,” he said. “Or, if we’re not, we can be. We can do something about it, if we want to.”

  But Gina was silent, which left him unsure. Was it that she couldn’t forgive him for being AWOL from his marriage, so much of the time?

  Or had she just lost any feelings for him? Had she accepted what they had—or didn’t have—and no longer wanted anymore?

  He drew her closer and promised himself he would make things right. With that promise, he felt as if a burden had been lifted. He felt his muscles relax and his eyelids begin to grow heavy. He heard Gina mumble something, but he couldn’t make it out. “Hmm?” he said, just as an earsplitting scream came from Rachel’s room. He looked at Gina. Together they jumped out of bed and ran down the hall.

  “What is it?” Gina cried, certain she was going to see the same scene as the one by the Christmas tree, sixteen years ago. She knew that was crazy, but even so her mind insisted that she would find blood all over Rachel, and Angela standing there with a knife in her hand.

  There was no blood, but Rachel stood in the middle of her bed, screaming. Gina followed the direction of Rachel’s pointed finger. A mouse skittered across the floor and ran under a Queen Anne highboy dresser.

  “Oh, my God!” Gina said, patting her chest and heaving a deep sigh of relief. “Rach, it’s only—” But when the mouse stuck its head out, she screamed, too, climbing onto the bed next to Rachel and pulling her nightgown above her knees.

  Paul stood watching them, a fascinated expression on his face. Finally he burst out laughing. “He’s only a baby,” he said. “He’s harmless, the poor little thing.”

  Rachel and Gina both gave him scathing looks. “Oh, you think he’s a harmless little thing, do you?” Gina said. “Then get him!”

  “Get him?” He laughed. “How am I supposed to get him?”

  “I don’t know, just get him!” Gina shrieked.

  “Get your baseball bat, Dad!” Rachel cried. “Hurry! I don’t want him going under my bed again!”

  Paul couldn’t stop laughing. “You want me to whack him to death?”

  “Daaad! Please!”

  “Paul, she’s right! Get your bat. And stop laughing. This is serious.”

  “Serious, huh? I don’t think you’d say that if you could see the two of you standing on that bed.”

  But he managed to contain himself long enough to walk down the hall to his room and come back with the bat.

  “I really don’t see how I can ‘get’ him with this, but if it makes you feel better—”

  The mouse ran out and came straight for Paul. Gina and Rachel screamed, and Paul yelled, “Aaaiiiee!” in a poor imitation of Bruce Lee as he struck out with the bat and hopped up and down at the same time. The mouse ran past him into the hall, and Gina and Rachel looked at him, their mouths open.

  “You let him go!” Rachel cried.

  “And what the hell was that?” Gina said.

  “What?” Paul said.

  “Yeah, Dad. What was all that hopping about?”

  “I wasn’t hopping,” Paul said, taking a dignified stance. “I was chasing him out, and I didn’t want him running up my pants.”

  “Running up your pants?” Gina laughed. “Why on earth would he run up your pants?”

  “Well, now, I don’t know,” Paul said. “Anymore than I know why he’d run up your nightgown.”

  “Well, they do,” Gina said haughtily. “Everyone knows they do.”

  “Run up women’s nightgowns?”

  “Up any kind of skirt! Right, Rachel?” She turned to her daughter, who was laughing along with her father.

  “Sure, Mom. Anything you say.”

  There was no sleeping after that, so all three went to the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee and eating hash browns and eggs that Gina and Rachel cooked up together, while Paul made the coffee and toast.

  It was almost like old times, Gina thought, looking at the two of them. Except that there was still the specter of Angela hanging over them.

  And what about Paul’s and her marriage? She had heard him a while ago in bed, and had mumbled her agreement that they should try to make things better. But, wide-awake now, she wondered if it were really possible. Should she tell him about her affair with Julian? Would he ever be able to forgive her, if she did?

  No. Paul would never understand. She had never had a moment’s worry that he would be unfaithful. How could he possibly understand that his wife had come to a place in her life when she was so lonely she had looked elsewhere for love?

  At least, that’s the way it seemed to her now. Or was loneliness only a justification? In her heart, she knew she loved many things about Julian, and she knew he truly cared for her. She could never bring herself to be sorry that she’d met him.

  She could, however, be sorry for her unfaithfulness. Further, she knew she could never leave her family for Julian. And since that was so, she should end it immediately. It was the only thing to do.

  An hour later, Rachel stood in her shower, taking more time than usual. The night before, she had been so tired from the trip home, she’d fallen into bed without even brushing her teeth. Then there had been the mouse-capade—which had at least eased some of the tensions in the house.

  It seemed as if she’d been walking a tightrope for ages. First, Angela calling, then grabbing her off the street and taking her to that miserable cabin.

  She turned the cold water faucet on, hoping it would wake up her mind, help her to think straight about the thing she had to do. But aside from making her shiver and jump out of the shower, reaching blindly for a towel, it had little effect on her.

  She wrapped herself in the towel and sat on the edge of the tub, replaying in her mind how quickly things had gone bad. And how much worse they were going to get.

  When Angela had forced her to get out of the Mustang on the outskirts of Spokane, she had never been so afraid in her life. She had made her way to the convenience store as quickly as possible. But the phone booth had been vandalized, and the manager wouldn’t let her call from the phone inside.

  Damn Angela, for taking her cell phone and her tote bag with her money in it, as well as her car! She could have left her with something. Anything. How did she expect her to—

  But Angela had wanted her to thumb a ride; her story would be more believable that way.

  “Or, you could get your beloved daddy to come for you,” she had said. “He’ll love it, Rach. By now, he must believe that you’re in a ditch somewhere, dead. He’ll be thrilled to hear from you.”

  Rachel could have told her that her parents were almost never home, but she didn’t. And she couldn’t call her grandmother. Roberta had something going on, something she didn’t talk about. She had her own life. All Rachel knew was that the one person she’d always turned to was her grandmother—and for that very reason, asking her to go out at night to wire money for bus fare would be asking too much. Rachel just couldn’t do it. She was a big girl, and she had gotten herself into this. She had to stand on her own two feet.

  She had begun stopping people as they left the convenience store. “Are you going to Seattle?” she had asked, over and over, like some of the homeless kids she’d seen on the streets of Seattle. Remembering the kinds of warnings she’d grown up with, she approached only couples and women for rides. Given her luck lately, getting into a car with a strange man would probably only make things worse.

  As if they could possibly get worse.

  No one was headed west, however, and after she’d stood outside the convenience store for a couple of hours, shivering and squeezing up tight against the window to escape the driving rain, she was ready to give up and call her grandmother after all. The weather in Seattle had been mild the day she left to meet Angela, and she’d worn only a thin jacket with a sweater beneath. The jacket barely kept the wind out here in Spokane, and her hope faded each time someone
shook their head. “Sorry, I’m heading east.”

  Then, suddenly, a police car had swooped down on her. Two cops jumped out and came toward her. For an eternal minute, Rachel stood frozen in space, her hands half-raised and her blood so cold she thought there must be icicles hanging from her arms.

  What could they possibly want from her? She hadn’t done anything. Not yet. There was no way they could know—

  But the cops had only smiled, asked for her ID, which she didn’t have, and told her this was no night to be out on the streets.

  Besides, they said, her mom and dad were worried about her. There was an APB out on her, in fact. That was how they’d recognized her.

  A wave of relief swept over Rachel. They were here to help, not arrest her. Thank God. The cops put her in the squad car and turned the heater up high so she could get warm. One of them went into the store and got her a cup of coffee and a hot dog.

  “Here, this should help,” he said. He was friendly and cute, and she thought how bizarre things were now; at one time, she might have flirted a little with him. Now she just had to be careful not to let anything slip about Angela.

  The cop, Officer Pete Lopez, told her that the Seattle police had put the APB out on her. Her parents were terrified that something had happened to her. They wanted her found and brought home.

  His partner wasn’t quite so easygoing. He kept asking her questions, and she was certain he was suspicious of her vague answers.

  So she told him the story she and Angela had practiced—that she’d been visiting a friend in Spokane and was on her way home when her car, her money and her cell phone were stolen.

  The “good cop,” as she came to think of him, said that since she was twenty-one, of course, she’d broken no law in leaving home without word. Would she please come to the station with them, though, until her parents were notified? He’d like to make sure she stayed safe.

  Rachel almost refused. Being around cops now was the last thing she needed. But she had to be realistic. This might be her only chance to get home tonight—and it had started to snow.

  So she’d gone with the cops and stayed dry, at least, while they tried to reach her parents at the home number she’d given them. The answering machine, however, was the only response they got. Maybe she should have told them, “Don’t expect too much. They really don’t care. They just have to pretend to.” But that sounded self-pitying, even to her. In the end, the police had simply called the Seattle police.

  Finally, after several hours, during which they put her in a holding cell at her request, so she could lie down on a cot and rest, Al Duarte had arrived to pick her up.

  At the beginning of the drive home, Al tried to tell her that her parents were in bad shape. Sick from worry. As if he felt he needed to make excuses for them. “If you’re planning on disappearing again, I want to be able to warn them,” he had said. “Nobody should go through the kind of hell you’ve just put them through.”

  Rachel had stolen a sideways look. Duarte’s face, in the light of the dash, seemed cold and angry. There were tight lines around his mouth and something about his eyes was all wrong. He wasn’t at all like the nice, friendly cop she’d met at the precinct in Seattle.

  They were barely into the long drive over the Cascades to Seattle when the snow turned to a freezing rain, making the partially cleared off highway a thin, dangerous sheet of ice. Duarte had gripped the wheel and cussed every time they began to swerve to the side of the road, but that didn’t seem to slow him down. The only good thing about that hair-raising drive was that he was so focused on the road, he stopped asking questions after the first few minutes.

  Sitting beside him, Rachel had experienced moments of real fear. Why had she ever agreed to let Detective Duarte take her home, anyway? After all, she didn’t know much about him, just that he was a cop. And that her parents liked him.

  What kind of a reference was that?

  Not that Rachel herself was known for making the best decisions. She was the one who’d agreed to meet Angela without telling anyone, after all.

  It occurred to her suddenly that Al Duarte might somehow be working with Angela. Had he found her? Been taken in by her?

  Angela was beautiful. And when she wasn’t threatening to kill someone, she could probably turn on the charm. Wrap any man around her little finger.

  Eventually Rachel had fallen asleep in the car, and the next thing she knew they were at her home. Her parents were at the door, looking as if they’d been run over by a truck.

  Rachel felt sorry for the trouble she’d caused. But that didn’t change anything. She’d have to keep herself on track, not let herself be overcome by emotion. Because chances were, her parents could be feeling worse before this thing was over.

  A lot worse.

  17

  Gina sipped her morning coffee at the desk in the living room. As hard as she tried, it was impossible to keep her mind on the work before her. Rachel was upstairs taking a shower, and Paul had gone to Soleil to take care of problems that required his attention. He wanted to finish up and get home, so he could spend some time with Rachel. On the surface, things seemed to be returning to normal—whatever “normal” was. For one thing, they hadn’t even talked about when Rachel would leave to return to school. It seemed as if, without discussing it, she might have decided to stay home.

  Gina hoped that was the case. She would love it if Rachel stayed here and transferred to U-Dub. They could spend time together and perhaps heal some of the old wounds. The fact that Rachel had needed to leave home like that, and her anger at being brought back, told Gina that her daughter still needed help. It would be good if she continued to see Vicky and had the opportunity to work through whatever it was that troubled her.

  The thing that bothered Gina, however, was why Rachel was still “acting out,” as Vicky had called it when Rachel was younger. Shouldn’t her pain over losing Angela have diminished by now? Enough so, at least, that she could live a more normal life?

  She heard Rachel’s footsteps on the stairs—taking them slowly, not running as she once might have done. As Rachel entered the living room, her energy took over, filling up the room from corner to corner. Gina sighed quietly, setting her coffee cup down and pushing her work aside. Rachel slumped into the chair next to the Christmas tree and began fingering the tinsel, all the while staring at her mother.

  “What are you looking at?” Gina asked when she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Nothing. I just wondered what you were doing today.”

  “Well, honey, I was going to ask you what you wanted to do.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yes. Why? Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know anything about you anymore.”

  Gina took a moment to calm herself before speaking back. “I guess I could say the same about you, Rachel.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I still don’t know why you drove all the way over to Spokane, especially with the weather the way it’s been.”

  “I told you, I went to see a friend from school.”

  “You mean, a friend from Berkeley?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why didn’t you tell your father or I you were going?”

  “I just thought I could get back the next morning, and it wouldn’t make any difference because you thought I was spending the night at Ellen’s. And I was going to do that, but then I changed my mind. And when I was in Spokane it snowed and the roads were closed, then I got robbed—”

  Gina was remembering an old adage about lying—that it was best to keep the explanations short. When a person explained too much, it was almost certain to be a lie.

  “Rachel, why didn’t you just call from your friend’s house when you first got there?”

  “Why, were you worried?”

  “For God’s sake, of course we were! Honey, I’m trying so hard to understand. Why did you do this?”

  Rachel jumped to her fee
t, strode over to the bay window and folded her arms, looking out. “Maybe because I got sick and tired of the two of you and your games!”

  “Who? What games?”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “Rachel, I don’t! Spit it out!”

  “You and Dad! I’ve been trying to tell you ever since I came home. Do you think I don’t know what’s going on?”

  “Well, if you do, you’re way ahead of me,” Gina said. But she was beginning to feel queasy. Had Rachel somehow found out about her affair with Julian?

  “I’m talking about the way you aren’t even acting like you’re married anymore. And you, Mom. You haven’t even been around much. You’ve been up in your office most of the time since I got home. Either that, or off to Camano Island.”

  “Rachel, honey, we went shopping together! We cut down a Christmas tree, we went out to dinner and to the tearoom. We’ve spent a lot of time together! I even asked you to go to Camano with me once.”

  “Why would I bother?” Rachel said. “You wouldn’t really have been with me. Your mind would be somewhere else.”

  Gina bit her lip to keep from snapping back. She knew that what Rachel said was true this time, but it hadn’t always been this way. Since she was small, however, Rachel had always been so hard to please, like a bottomless well that could never be filled. She needed reassurance all the time, and even when Gina and Paul gave it to her, she wasn’t happy. She had always needed more than anyone could possibly give.

  That was one of the reasons they’d let her continue on with Victoria even as she grew older. There were times when they couldn’t put money into their businesses because of the cost of psychotherapy, but they paid for it gladly, even when they weren’t sure she really needed it. After all, Rachel was easygoing in most ways, certainly not trouble in the way Angela had been.

  But Vicky hadn’t been so sure. There were times when she had wondered if the same RAD syndrome that had left Angela without a conscience, not caring for anyone, had done the same to Rachel. Perhaps, she said, it just took a while to show itself. There was a similar syndrome, for instance, that appeared only in the teenage years. Gina forgot what she had called it.