by Gian Sardar
He’s sure Eva got the message, and all is fine. But what had Wednesday done to her? Thursday she probably went home, but Wednesday, Wednesday she wouldn’t have known he was sick—she would’ve waited. Curled toward the window, her lake-blue eyes staring at nothing.
17
Now
THEY’VE GONE OVER IT a few times. What Abby heard, where she heard it, the dream that wove the sound into a fiction.
“We should’ve called the station’s number,” Dorothy says for the third time. “Let you sleep.”
“Promise, I slept. It’s all good.”
He’s done a preliminary look outside, but now needs to look a bit closer. Already the sky has lifted a few shades, the night losing its grip to early morning.
The lamp above the patio casts a weak arc of brightness over the concrete and does nothing to illuminate the rest of the yard, so with his Maglite he slowly traces the perimeter. Abby follows behind, and soon the ends of her pajama bottoms dampen from the grass’s dew. “You should get inside, get warm,” he says, but she just shakes her head and shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her sweatshirt, trailing him as he aims his smile to the shadows.
Now and then he looks back to the kitchen window, to where Abby’s mother makes coffee. The house is easy to look into. No curtains in the kitchen, and it doesn’t seem that she uses the ones in her bedroom. And that front door, all glass. Put as many locks on it as you want, breaking in would be simple. Again he thinks of Lila McCale and the first victim in Marshall, both with hair like Abby’s, and again Aidan has the feeling that that one commonality set the guy off—though Harris was right, he tells himself, the real anger came out later. His worry over this is personal, not objective.
When Aidan gets to the side gate, he remembers where Brittany found the cigarette butts just yesterday—a hidden spot with a clear view to Abby’s room. But none of the women reported smelling smoke. If the guy had been smoking, it would still be on him. Unless the women themselves smoked and therefore didn’t notice. Quickly he texts Harris. Any victims smoke? Cigarette butts from vantage points? Not just night of. Brittany, he needs to call her later and see what her sister said, if she owned up to smoking.
The gate swings open when he pushes it, not latched. When he turns, Abby’s right there, right behind him, mere inches away, and the fact that they’re in this corner of darkness without one witness unleashes the need to hook his arms under hers and hoist her up, her back against the wall as he follows the line of her neck with his mouth—an urge that must somehow play on his face as she blushes, even in this darkness he can see it, and looks down at the grass. He turns back to the gate.
“Was this latched?”
“Maybe?”
He can barely look at her, the urge is that strong. Her lead—that’s what he’s taking. And she has to be sure, it can’t just be the result of a few too many drinks or a current of rebellion.
“Maybe it wasn’t,” she says. “Maybe the wind blew it open.”
“Could be,” he says, though there’s no breeze, nothing to make the gate move on its own. He’ll put in a request that a patrol make stops here the rest of the week. DeVinck, he decides, he’ll write off his debt, a clean slate for the next poker game—just make pit stops and keep an eye out, show your presence.
Back inside, her mother has gone back to bed, a full pot of coffee and a carton of half-and-half on the counter. They sit at the kitchen table as he fills out the report.
“Do you close your curtains?” he asks.
“Trying to decide what you’re doing later?”
He smiles. “First, we have plans later. Second, you should. Your window’s clear from the street.”
“I hate the dark. The streetlights remind me there’s a world outside.”
The dark. That room, the newspaper undone on the window, a brightness the boy must have dreamt of seeing for so long, yet never saw. “I understand about the streetlight. But right now the world outside is something you need to keep out.”
“Will do. Thank you for your concern, Detective.”
And with her smile, the room with black walls and floor disappears.
18
Then
NO PHONE CALLS, no messages. Eva knows it’s over. At work she feels her arms moving, her legs moving, her entirety existing and functioning without her mind. She pours coffee. Slides plates from her tray. Smiles half-smiles and pockets meager tips.
“They had girls in Europe,” a voice says. “But none like you. And I even met Marlene Dietrich.”
Eva looks up. Eddie Parks. A scar like a hook on his neck. Sitting there as if it were just another Tuesday morning. She breaks into a smile. “Where’d you come from?”
“A hospital in Belgium mostly.”
“You met Marlene Dietrich?”
“Well, I was out when she visited. Sound asleep, or something like it. But she knew I’d wake up and she wrote me a note. Thought that was kind of her. I brought it home, too, if you want to see. Her name’s all one word—she never lifted the pen, not once.”
Behind her she hears Gerry ringing the bell and glances back at the kitchen, to the plates that are waiting. I brought it home, too, if you want to see. The sudden image of Eddie’s hand in her own makes her feel as though she’s sinking.
She’s not given up on William.
As if having seen her thoughts play before him, Eddie says, “You got a guy?”
She can’t help but laugh. “Right to the point now, aren’t we, Mr. Parks?”
“You’re not answering my question.” His smile is challenging.
“Someone sure came back with confidence.”
“Not confidence. Just figure if I’m alive, I might as well really live.”
She rises to the game in a reflex. “I’m not sure how I figure into that.”
But he loses his smile. His eyes go to the table, to his folded hands, and Eva notices another scar that stretches the length of his wrist, disappearing into the cuff of his shirt. When he looks up, he sees the direction of her gaze and puts his hands beneath the table. “I thought of you. When I was there.”
Sadness caves within her, because this moment, in the past, would’ve been exactly what she needed to slough away William’s touch, to wear away the memory—but now she understands that her old rules no longer apply and in no way is this a game to the man who sits before her, whose skin maps a journey she can’t fathom.
She glances back at Gerry, who stares angrily until he realizes she’s talking to Eddie—Eddie the new hometown hero.
“Tell you what,” Eddie says. “Maybe I’ll stop in next week. Maybe I’ll even be here this same time next week.”
On her way to the kitchen she looks back once more at Eddie, whose eyes trace her every move.
Wednesday morning they have breakfast in bed, yet all William wants to do is leave, despite the return of his appetite. The desire to act, to make a choice, to move forward, is so strong he feels it as a momentum, a gathering in his muscles that’s hard to ignore. Eva. He’ll try to cut his day at work short—though with so much piled up, that could be a challenge—and arrive at the house the second he thinks she’s there. And if she’s not, if she’s decided to stay in Luven, he’ll find her.
Finally breakfast is over. Just as he’s unfolding the bedsheets Claire stands before him and drops the strap of her nightgown from her shoulder. The pain of this act, of this simple, desperate act, shoots through him. That she feels she has to do this. It’s been a couple of months since they’ve been together, and then a while before that, something he’d thought she’d not minded. That she clearly has fills him with more regret. This gesture, the silk strap now looped down and brushing her elbow, is heartbreak. Pure, horrendous heartbreak.
He looks up into her eyes, and he sees that she’s glimpsed this.
“I’m sorry,” he says quick
ly.
But her back is already turned, the strap lifted once again onto her pale shoulder.
Eva’s goal is to not feel. To not think. But rather to simply go. Just go to Rochester. Don’t think about the fact that each mile is one closer to the answer, don’t look to the horizon and see it as the sky above the conclusion. Just go.
When finally she’s there, early evening has just begun to settle, the world like an aged painting. Even from the mouth of the drive she can tell he’s not in the house. The windows are dark, his car nowhere to be seen. The one thing she knows for certain is she can’t handle another night like last Wednesday. Maybe she should write a note. Find me and I’ll come back. But how could she get back to Luven? The last bus left an hour ago. She thinks of the bottles of brandy and whiskey. If he’s not here in a couple of hours, she’ll drink just enough to sleep.
The porch steps creak and the door squeals. The place feels haunted, abandoned, even though the flip of the switch brightens the floral wallpaper. This is it, she thinks, and then takes a seat, staring at the windows until they fill with the reflection of her own eyes watching her, worried.
She must’ve fallen asleep, but the second she feels something on her shoulder, she’s up in a flash, and in one swift move has her arms wrapped around William’s neck, her check against his chest.
“William,” she says, caught so off guard she’s unable to hold back any emotion. “What happened? Why didn’t you call?”
“I was sick,” he says. “And I did call. Thursday. I left you a message the ‘doctor’ was sick. At your house, with a man. I even called again a few times, but no one answered.”
“A man answered?” The only man who answers their phone, who should know better than to answer but does, is her uncle Lucas. He doesn’t even say Marten residence or Margaret’s phone, he simply grunts a hello—heavy on the hell. Uncle Lucas must have made a midweek visit.
“I couldn’t talk without getting sick. Every time my head moved, it was like I came loose. And everyone was watching me, chasing after me with bowls and—” He stops. “It was hard to be alone, to make a call. Can I put my bag down?”
Claire never said anything to him. What does that mean? That she doesn’t suspect? It must. I know who this is—she meant something else. And Dr. Adams must not have reported back, must not have read into what he’d seen. All this worry for nothing. And while there’s something profoundly comforting about that, that they’ve not been discovered, at the same time there’s a pull of disappointment. What now, they go back to how they’d been? The needle’s at the start of the record?
“Were you very mad at me?” he asks, shrugging off his jacket.
“No.” She doesn’t move. “I was devastated.”
He studies her from across the room, and then, with what seems like only a couple of steps, he’s lifting her off her feet and carrying her upstairs.
19
Now
THERE ARE LINES ABBY’S DRAWN. Some sensible. Some arbitrary. These lines are the rail she clutches when she feels she might misstep. As long as they exist, as long as she continually checks them, everything is fine. And she does check them—though mostly to evaluate, smudge out, and move just a little. We can talk on the phone, but we cannot laugh. We can plan to see each other, but not after the sun’s down. Then the border expands, territory within grown wilder. We can go to dinner, we can laugh, the sun can be down—but there can be no candlelight.
Dinner Tuesday night. A gathering long after sundown. Tables so small that legs are forced into each other, limbs threaded. Candlelight urging people to lean in—the line moved once more—an atmosphere unbearable if the person you’re with is not the person you should be with. The final line, drawn in black Sharpie, thick and permanent and unmoving: I can desperately want, but I cannot act.
The restaurant is the original Makade firehouse and the bay door is now a wall of glass held in dark wood, the high ceiling lined in gold tin tiles that swirl to fleurs-de-lis. Only minutes after they’re seated Aidan’s forced to take a call, so Abby waits, looking back into the lounge area, a garnet-red Victorian sofa and richly patterned wallpaper, dark wood paneling and a door to the kitchen that’s topped in etched glass. Beautiful. She had no idea. This building was vacant, boarded off and abandoned when she lived here, and as she wonders when this happened she notices one of the reporters from Alan Breining’s house. Two tables over. Blond hair still perfectly in place, the heavy smear of makeup fit only for a camera. She’s sitting with a man clearly on the other side of things, jeans and a navy blue fleece, a producer maybe. Discreetly a waiter lifts the black bill presenter from the corner of their table, and Abby prays they’ll be gone by the time Aidan returns.
What is she doing? Even a month ago this would be unfathomable. At some point, though, Aidan had said, you just want it and put the list away. If you want it. Does she? For years it’s been all about whether or not Robert was ready, whether he wanted to take that next step, her own feelings a given. Now she wonders. Certainty’s undone. The realization is like the first step onto new ice, tentative and worried: though the final line has not been crossed—an innocence in thoughts alone—things may have already gone too far simply because a question exists where before there was none.
“You okay?”
He’s pulling out the chair, sitting, watching her. The faint scruff on his face is darker in this light, and his cheekbones are flanked in shadow. Abby catches the flame of the candle lurch and dive, a reaction to the movement, the air between them rearranged as he draws closer. Then she sees the reporter, also watching, having seen him enter the room. Perhaps she saw him leave in the first place and has been waiting for his return.
As if on cue the reporter and her friend stand. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” she says, “but maybe a question outside after.”
Aidan doesn’t look surprised. “I’m not authorized.”
“Okay. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Have a good dinner.”
Abby watches as they leave the restaurant. “That was easy.”
“It won’t be.”
And sure enough, not ten minutes later Abby catches sight of a news van through the glass bay door, parked on the other side of the street.
“They didn’t have their camera,” Aidan explains. “Now they do. But there’s also a back door and I know the owner. I’ll have someone bring my car around. Let’s just pretend they’re not there.”
Dinner continues and it’s surprisingly easy to forget everything outside these walls, to feel only the heat of their own observation. The files of their lives are splayed open in a great fill-in of information, and gradually Aidan tells her what happened in St. Paul—a boy, a room. The entire time he speaks he looks only at the flame of the candle.
“I don’t tell people that,” he says at last, looking up. Dark green eyes that appear black.
“Because of what happened to the boy, or what happened to you after?”
A small smile. “Both. It’s something with me, the fear of not making it in time. And I didn’t make it in time.”
“You couldn’t have gotten there earlier. You didn’t know.”
“I was on that street at least a dozen times that month.”
“That’s guilt, toying with you. The newspaper was up. There was no way to know.”
“That’s what I tell myself. But I close my eyes and I see it down.”
Behind Abby is the jangle of silverware as the waiter clears a table. Tray held high, he maneuvers to the kitchen right as a man stands directly in his path. A near collision. The energy, the slight chaos—a shadow of what this building has seen in its original life.
“Guilt is tricky,” she says. “I know. My mom tutored this boy, mostly at the house. He was completely starved for attention—I mean, devastated when my mom sewed a button back on his shirt. And he liked me. Would bring me little gifts. Rocks, a tin angel.
One day my mom told him he couldn’t come anymore, said it was a liability and she had to tutor him only at the school. And it was fine till she saw us talking. That night she told me the truth. This poem he’d written. Something about his sister and his mom, and what he’d done or what he wanted to do. And she told me to stay away from him.”
The waiter reappears and Abby pauses. A swirling rush of water, cracks of ice, a pour of more wine into Abby’s glass. Then on to the next table.
She takes a sip. “One day some girls accused me of being with him. His girlfriend. It was a joke. Mean, you know, just one of those things to get a rise, but I fell for it and said no, that he was a freak and it wasn’t me he wanted, that my mom had proof, it was his sister.” She pauses. “It was a poem. None of it might’ve been true.”
He sits back and looks at her evenly. “We say things without thinking. You were young.”
“I broke their trust. My mom and his. She thought she was protecting me by telling me, but I used that information to hurt. I took her away from him.”
“He found out?”
“He stopped tutoring. It could’ve had to do with me, or maybe not. I remember him, though, around the corner when I stormed off. Over the years the memory’s changed. Now I think of it and he stares right at me. But sometimes I wonder if he was there at all.”
“Guilt can rewrite history.”
“That it does.”
Again Abby thinks of Robert, his decision not to join her in Minnesota. He made a choice, and he didn’t choose her. She knows there was more to it, but with every thought of Aidan, the facts of Robert settle, lost in cracks of conversations, spread too thin in the stretch between the states. Is it that she’s choosing to consider only certain aspects of his choices to appease her own guilt, to form the toeholds that lift her past the next line she shouldn’t cross? Or is it simply that being this happy has cast a light with which he can’t compete?