by Ann Minnett
Zane turned, relieved to see Mason on the porch steps behind him. "You call her." He waved his friend in and closed the door.
“And who is this?” Rob pointed at Mason and stretched for his phone with the other hand. He toppled off the chair to his knees.
Pathetic.
Mason cleared his throat to answer Rob, but Zane touched his arm as a warning to stay quiet.
"Let's see if she answers." Rob punched in her number and eased into the rocker. "She hates me so hard, I bet she doesn’t answer. Wanna bet?"
Zane's back pocket buzzed. He smirked, extracting his mom's phone with two fingers and held it close to Rob's rheumy eyes to read the incoming number.
The drunk guy reared back to focus, thick black eyebrows curved in confusion.
Zane answered, "Hello, Dad."
* * *
Exhaustion, fear, and exposure took its toll on Lark. When Dee opened her door, Lark practically fell into the living room. "Is Zane here?"
Twisted tissues stuffed up both of Dee's nostrils. "No. What's the matter with you?"
"I screwed up." Lark kept her coat on although the heat stifled in Dee’s frilly living room. “Are you sick?”
“Not sick. More like at death’s door.” Dee jettisoned her sopping nose plugs into an overflowing waste basket. She covered her nose and mouth with a tissue.
Lark kicked her boots off and stabbed unresponsive fingers at wet socks plastered to her ankles. "Dammit!" She flopped back onto Dee's needlepoint pillows. Had she ever been this cold in her life? “Have tea or hot coffee?”
Dee’s house shoes shuffled away. In a moment, Dee shouted questions from the kitchen, interspersed with juicy sneezing "Why didn't you drive over? Why would Zane be here this time of night? Do you have frostbite? What the hell is going on?"
Lark concentrated on the damn socks stuck to her feet. She envisioned amputated toes. Dee finally hovered above her, a feverish ball of germs with tusks.
"I can't talk to you with those things sticking out your nose."
"My dose will rud like a faucet without them." Dee sat on her antique trunk that served as a coffee table, dead serious and ridiculous looking.
"My socks. For the love of God, peel them off for me."
Dee's long nails made the task more difficult, but she yanked off one, then the other. She wrapped a blanket around Lark's frozen feet.
A-choo!
The sneeze mist settled over Lark. She held her breath against contagion. It couldn't get any worse. "Did Zane come by?"
"No. Why?" Dee blew her chafed nose.
"It's such a mess. Rob came over and told this elaborate story about how he witnessed me being raped back in Columbia."
"What?" Dee sank to the trunk table again.
"Get this. He recognized my tattoo. Only the tattoo."
Dee lifted her fleece robe from her left leg, revealing her own tattoo. "He saw what happened?"
"He’s lying. He claims he wasn't able to stop it. Too drunk, he says." Both feet started to burn.
The coffee pot timer dinged. Dee got up and drifted into the kitchen.
Rob's story brought back the dead weight of humiliation and the burden of surviving. Would it be kind to share the grubby details with Dee—the actual victim? Lark struggled to sitting. She kept her jacket on.
Coffee sloshed out of a mug and onto the trunk when Dee set it down. She ignored the spill. "I don’t want to hear what he said."
Lark cradled her black coffee in both hands to warm her fingers. "Zane heard part of it."
“What do you mean? Which part?”
"He wanted to know about Rob, and I blurted out something about a rape. Zane put it all together and asked me if Rob raped me. If Rob is his father."
Dee sneezed and moaned miserably. Switching out fresh tissues up each nostril, she said, "We have to call Nora. Maybe he's at her house." She picked up her phone and punched in a number.
"I told him no way, but he didn't believe me."
"Nora, Lark's at my house." Dee held the phone at her mouth, speaking from behind the mustache of tissues. "We have a problem."
Nora's response, a mumble.
"I know I sound awful, but it's just a cold," Dee said. "Get over here. Now." She disconnected.
Lark's feet prickled in pain and her fingertips burned. "I think he's gone after Rob."
"Why didn’t you drive over? Why didn’t you call instead of wasting time walking?"
"Zane took the car. Along with my cellphone." Lark rested her head in her tingling right hand. She sipped hot coffee. "Maybe he's at Katie's."
"What's her number?" Dee jettisoned the sopping tissue torpedoes into a waste basket and crammed fresh ones into her nose.
"Hell if I know. Did you take anything for that cold?"
"Of course I took something. One of everything, but they haven’t kicked in yet." Dee held out her phone. "What's the number?"
"Her last name is Mathissen. On Denver Street. Call her parents."
Dee moaned her way to the desk in her dining room. A tiny lamp switched on, and Dee flipped pages in the Century Link directory. She tore out a page and returned to brighter light near Lark. She dialed and waited. "Hello, Mrs. Mathissen? I'm Zane Horne’s Aunt DeeDee. Is he at your house with Katie?" Nodding. Pinching her nose closed.
Lark whispered, "Tell him I haven't called the police yet."
"I see. May I speak with Katie? Okay, what's her number?" She waved at Lark, mouthed the word pen, and motioned as if writing.
"I don't have my purse." Lark searched an end table and finally walked like Frankenstein's monster to Dee's secretary. A tempera-painted vase decorated by five-year-old Zane held a few pens.
Dee yanked the pen from Lark's stiff fingers and wrote Katie's number on the bare chest of a Fabio lookalike on a paperback novel.
"Thank you so much. What's that?" Pause. "No, just a cold." Dee handed her phone to Lark and plunked herself into an overstuffed chair. She cradled a box of tissues like she would an infant, tucking her feet under her robe.
Katie's number went directly to voice mail. "Katie, hi. This is Lark. I've lost my phone. This is my friend's number." An automated message signed her off. "Shit!" She punched the number again. Waited. "Hi Katie. I-was-cut-off-is-Zane-with-you-if-he-is-have-him-call-me-at-this-number-it's-very-important-that—" Beep.
Lark said “Shit!” and threw the phone onto the carpet with more force than she intended. Dee’s glittery iPhone case split into two halves and the screen cracked at one corner.
The front door creaked open. Nora had used her key and let herself in. "What the hell is going on?"
Dee scooped up her phone and said, "Zane knows part of the story." She pushed some buttons. “It still works.” A-choo!
"What story?" Nora’s eyes darted from one to the other before it dawned on her. "Oh no. Now what?"
Lark said, "We have to explain it to him."
Nora lowered her voice like he might be in the kitchen eavesdropping. "Is he here?"
"He took the car. He thinks I was raped and that Rob Whalen is his father."
"What? How?"
Lark filled her in while Dee changed clothes. All three marched out to Kirk's truck in a daze. Nora fired the engine and cranked up the heater. "So where does he live? Rob?"
"Go up Star Meadow Road. I'll tell you where to turn."
Huddled in the back seat, Dee sneezed four times in succession. "Zane isn't answering his phone or yours. I just tried them both again."
"Here." Nora passed a small bottle of hand sanitizer to Lark before backing out of the driveway.
"What if Zane's there?" Dee blew her nose. "What if Zane isn't there? What will we tell him?"
"If that man tells Zane what happened, I swear I'll kill him." Lark rubbed the chipped bone grip of the puny pen knife in her pocket. The frog-stabber wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.
They drove in worried silence for several miles.
Lark braced against the dashboard and shoute
d, “Watch out!” Nora swerved to miss three elk crossing slick Farm to Market Road. Two bolted forward, but the third twisted, sideswiping Kirk's custom fender. The stunned elk staggered, then sauntered away in the direction of her two pals.
The animals appeared fine, but the three tense women inside the truck came undone. Nora slammed the gearshift into park and bailed out onto the gravel shoulder. Hands on knees she bent over and gulped air. "Give me a minute."
Lark's hands shook too violently to extract a cigarette from the pack she snagged from Dee's house. She jostled it upside down into her waiting hand until one fell free. Lighting it took several tries. She opened her door and placed both feet onto Kirk's running board but remained seated on the warmed leather. Dee boo-hooed. Her muffled, snotty sobs irritated Lark.
North along the Whitefish Range, toward Eureka and Canada beyond, the half-moon illuminated snow-covered fields, but not enough to hide the stars. In the low hills at the base of a plateaued ridge, Zane likely confronted a stranger he thought was his father. She had to save her son from himself. The unsmoked cigarette arced into a snow bank. "Let’s go."
CHAPTER 19
Lark pointed at Rob’s crossed timber gate. “Turn here.”
Nora drove over fresh tire tracks leading to Rob's home. Like klieg lights on a stage, the truck's high beams lit up the old Subaru parked close to the cabin’s front steps and the cabin beyond.
Lark bailed out of the car and ran toward the peaceful scene. Frantic barking from inside the cabin punctured the silence. Imagining the worst, Lark barged through the heavy timbered door. Rob sat in a rocking chair near the corner wood stove. His frightened eyes implored her for help. Zane stood four feet in front of Rob, pointing a cocked revolver at Rob's belly. Behind her on the porch, Dee screamed and Nora shouted, "No!"
"Call 'im off," Rob said, slurring the words.
Lark ran across the room toward Zane. "What have you done to—" Her knee bumped the corner of the coffee table, spinning her into Rob’s legs.
"Back off, Mom."
Raven barked incessantly and scratched at a closed door off the kitchen. Her friends had followed her in, to a point, and Mason had circled behind them. He slammed the front door shut on the cold, jarring everyone. Lark shuddered but focused on Rob's writhing shoulders. His hands were tied behind the chair back. Still, he attempted to stand in the confusion.
"Sit." Zane's deep shout stopped everyone except Raven. She hurled herself against the mudroom door with a sickening thud.
"Get back." Zane waved his mother toward the others huddled at the far edge of the room’s oval rag rug.
Lark’s hand slowly reached for the gun. "You can't do this."
He flinched away. "But it's working, Mom."
"Working?"
"He's talking." Zane inched toward the wood stove, away from Lark, but lowered the pistol.
Lark loomed over Rob. "Don't say another word." To Zane, she said, "Look at him. He's drunk. He doesn't know anything."
"Oh, yes I do." Rob's demeanor shifted from passive to combustible. He growled. "Untie me and I'll 'splain so you all will get the hell outta my home and leave me alone." A buttonhole in his work shirt ripped open with his struggle. A forelock fell into his eyes.
Mason shouted, "Whatcha gonna do about it, motherfucker?" The usually unassuming Mason brandished a large pair of scissors. His accompanying smile seemed far more threatening than the loaded gun Zane possessed. Under other circumstances, Mason would have scared Lark to death.
Zane stepped forward. "Yeah, what are you going to do, Dad? Report your victim to the cops?" Zane's cocky gesture with the gun terrified Lark. Nora and Dee faded from her peripheral view. Mason paced noisily between the living room and a dining table where an open laptop and papers lay. Mason closed the laptop, picked it up and dropped it onto the floor from about shoulder height. He grinned at Rob.
Lark’s shrill voice caught in her throat. "Mason, what the hell?”
Mason shrugged and resumed pacing.
She finger-combed her hair and said to Zane, “He is not your father." She moved to block him from Rob.
"You sure 'bout dat? I know a secret." Rob's slurry voice contrasted sharply with the tension in the crowded room.
Suddenly emboldened, Nora slapped both hands on the back of the couch. "How could you unless you were there?"
"See what I mean?" Zane shoved his mom to the side and pointed the gun at the prisoner. "Talk."
Raven's hoarse barking slowed, too late for Lark’s building headache. Afraid Zane would shoot her or himself, she backed off until her calves bumped against a footstool. She sat down hard. Nora and Dee jostled together, landing on the couch in unison. They looked scared. Mason bounced back and forth behind them, energized by the commotion as much as the barking dog.
Lark shouted, “Nora,” and repeatedly bobbed her hands in a gesture to calm down. Calm this situation down.
Nora glanced back at Mason’s quickening pace. “Take it easy,” she said. “We’re just talking here.”
Mason slowed and glared at her.
Dee blew her nose. "Honey, put the gun down. Let him talk." She coughed and dabbed watery eyes. “There are five of us. Put the gun away." Lark stayed seated, hoping to defuse the boys’ dangerous enthusiasm.
"I'm not untying him." Zane pointed the weapon at the floor and released the hammer. He paced from the wood stove, behind the rocking chair, and back again. The constant motion of the adult sized boys, plus the constant barking, made Lark frantic.
“Boys,” she shrieked. “You have to stop! I can’t think.”
Mason and Zane collided. Mason said, “Bro, I’ll hold the gun for you.”
Before Lark could scream NO! Zane shook him off, saying, “Chill, man. Get a grip.”
Mason shrugged and wandered away toward the dining table. “Whatever,” he said.
Lark could hear his heavy breathing from across the room. She took a deep breath, too. "Zane, Rob's lying. You don't want to hear his story."
"Are you kidding me?" Zane’s long legs virtually hopped from agitation. "I always knew I wasn't conceived in love." He hurled the words at her, his mouth grimacing in an ugly, threatening smile.
Her heart broke. "I've always loved you."
"We have always loved you, no matter what." Dee's voice had devolved into a harsh rasp, but the medication had cleared her runny nose.
The drunkenness in Rob's voice vanished. "How old are you?"
"That's none of your—" Lark knew what was coming.
"Fifteen." Zane's lip curled with hatred. "Sixteen on February 12th."
"Let's count back nine months. February, January, December…" Rob named each month going backward, arriving at May. Rob held up nine fingers. "May came nine months earlier, about the time college semesters ended."
“So what?”
Leering at Lark, Rob said, “Your mama got pregnant before she left Missouri. Hey Lark, tell him how it happened.”
Zane turned a hateful glare toward his mother. "You lied to me." He sagged against the far wall to separate himself, pinching his eyelids with one hand to keep from crying.
"Please don't." Lark started toward him.
"Stay away from me."
She wanted to spare him this truth, but there were too many secrets to keep. She willed herself to absorb his anger and the sadness permeating the room, like she had done her whole life. After all, she had been the strong one. Independent. Steady. She could take almost anything.
"You got pregnant that night." Rob's voice menaced the room, skidding down her spine. To Zane he said, "I'll tell you what I know."
If Lark held the gun, she would have shot him then. "Ha! You know shit." Tied up, Rob still scared the hell out of Lark. Her tension headache built, folding in on itself. She couldn't remember when Raven's barking turned to whimpers. Maybe the dog stopped the racket to listen to Rob speak.
"You tell me when to stop." Rob appeared lucid and sobered. He straightened, making the chair r
ock. His denim shirt gaped to show a white t-shirt beneath.
"I was a senior at Mizzou,” he said without shifting his gaze from Zane. “The end of a hard week of finals. A beer bust got out of hand. I'd broken up with my girlfriend earlier in the semester and hadn't been able to concentrate on my studies."
His story delivered in monotone sounded practiced, she thought. Weren't these the exact words he used before? She looked at her two friends for any sign they recognized him. Nora glared, but Dee's face remained hidden behind tissues.
Zane waved the gun again, getting antsy. "What does that have to do with anything?" He and Mason began pacing again.
"I bombed the Marketing final and wandered over to a friend's house with the sole intention of getting drunk."
"That's when you raped my mom."
"No way." Rob's eyes glared at her son.
She extended her arm as if to protect the man-child from Rob's menacing expression.
Rob's teeth gritted. "I got good and drunk—I do that now and again—and puked in the bushes. Passed out. When I came to, you could hear the party in full swing. I tried to get back to it but tripped over someone in the shadows.
"When? What time?" Dee's voice muffled behind the tissues.
"I don't know," Rob snapped at the interruption. "Night." His head lolled. "Anyway, I thought, What the hell? and crawled after him to see for myself." Rob shifted. The rocking chair creaked. No one else made a sound. "One dude was smoking, sitting on his butt, and another on hands and knees peering right into your face, Lark." This he said to Lark. "Lying on the ground." He paused to let the scene settle in their minds. “Helpless.”
Lark silently, imperceptibly shook her head. She broke away from the others. "Stop. You will only ruin lives." Tears stung her eyes. "No more."
"I was too drunk to stop them. Three against one." His voice trailed off.
Rob's pathetic, pleading eyes made her want to slap him.
His bearded chin dropped to his chest. " I still feel like shit for not doing more."