My survey was cut short when a big woman with lank hair that hung to her waist raised her right hand, closed her eyes, and screamed. Or at least, that’s what I thought she was doing, but it seemed this was something expected of her, because I was the only one who jumped. Her scream ran on and on, swelling and vibrating against the plaster walls. The others chimed in, howling like a pack of coyotes, shrieking like banshees, until I feared the plaster might crack.
Banf! She slammed her hand against the eighteen-inch drum she held propped against her ample chest. Banf! Banf! She struck it again, and again. The rest of the women echoed the beat. Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! The small room rang with the beat, thundered with the beat, churned with the beat. The reek of incense filled my hair, curled downward through my nostrils, saturated my lungs. Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
As the sound swelled into monotonous pulsing, I grew irritable and decided to leave, rationalizing defensively that these women were too weird to tell me anything dependable, and besides, no one was going to talk to me about Janet while they were all getting ripped on drumbeats. But where my mind was unwilling, my soul found something in the company of these women comforting. How long had it been since I’d been with a group of women who were just being women together? I couldn’t remember if I ever had. They didn’t seem to have any particular expectation of me, which was kind of nice. For however long they wanted to play their tom-toms, I figured what the hell, I could be part of the gang. It was better than trading scowls with Frida.
Beat. I closed my eyes. In time, I became fascinated by it. It seemed simple at first, but by and by I realized that it had changed, shifting from a straight four-four time into patterns that swelled and ebbed with my breathing. Or perhaps I was breathing with the beat; I wasn’t sure. I watched the beat as one dropping pebbles into a well, watching the ripples spread through the dark liquid so deep below. Some time had passed when I noticed that I had begun to beat my drum, too, and that its warm resonance had found its way beyond my brain and into my heart. I followed it into a dream place where I could feel stronger and more whole. I wanted to cry over its warmth, and found, to my pleasure and relief, that I could. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, washing away a hurt that had no name.
The rhythm shifted, and my dream with it, and I was alone in the prairies of Wyoming under skies pregnant with rain. I was fleeing an enemy, running up the ramparts into the mountains, fast as the wind, leaping from one prominence to another like a bighorn sheep. All around and ahead of me the skies were opening. Great warm drops began to fall. The waters built up and engulfed me, carrying me away past the mountains to a place I found familiar. Father stood on the front porch waving, and I knew then that the waters were my tears.
Then the door opened, and Mother came out. She was young and strong and beautiful, and she was also crying. She was holding a small child, a boy, and he was dead. I wanted to die.
Leaping up from the floor, I began to scream. I screamed and screamed, and no one tried to stop me. They were all still drumming, their eyes closed, all except Suzanne Cousins. I found her eyes on me in the candlelight, watching me like a cat.
I couldn’t breathe. I wanted out of there. Stumbling over women and their drums, I found the door, opened it, and slammed it behind me.
Outside, it was dark as pitch. Heavy clouds blanketed the sky, soaking up the heavens and all street light. Sucking in great lungfuls of the cold night air to still my tears, I found my way to Frida’s truck, climbed in, and began to drive. I headed westward, taking the swiftest route past the last of the tract housing and into the farmlands, searching for the calm of open spaces.
Beyond the city limits, the roads dwindled, and I soon found myself on Occidental Road heading toward the Laguna. I thought of turning around, but rushed onward, drawn now by a perverse urge to be near the swelling waters of my dream.
A fog lay thick against the ground as I descended toward the Laguna lowlands. It became thicker yet and thickest as the great truck rolled over the causeway and across the bridge. I had a sudden urge to floor the accelerator, fearing that Matthew Karsh might find me there, or that my tears might sweep up behind me, carry me off the bridge, and drown me, but I crept nervously along through the cloying mists, finding my way along the line that marked the edge of the road. As I cleared the far end of the bridge and causeway, the grade began to rise and the line swung away abruptly to the right, opening out to Ferris Road. Unable to control myself any longer, I pressed down on the accelerator. The truck surged forward into a clear pocket within the fog.
And I saw someone—no, two people: kids!—in the road ahead of me. I skidded to a stop, hit the emergency flashers, lowered the window to yell at them.
The kids were cuffing each other around, a boy and a girl, brother and sister, dark hair and cheekbones struck from the same mold. The girl was greatly outmatched by her much larger brother, but she fought doggedly, returning blow for blow. In the heat of their battle, they did not appear to see me.
Intense feeling gripped my chest. I struggled to breathe, trying to pinpoint the nature of this overwhelming emotion. Was it fear? No, it was heavier than that: it was rage weighed down with guilt. I felt tiny, smaller than the little girl. My overheated mind struggled to understand, deciding first that I was feeling a ghostly echo of Matt and Sonja fighting thirty years ago. Then my heart said, No, it’s me. And my brother.
The thought made no sense. I shook myself, furious that the drum’s liquor still roamed my brain. I lowered the window, leaned out, and thumped my hand against the door panel, begging the’ kids to get out of the road. “Por favor, niños! Por favor!” Still they ignored me.
The fog shifted, now hiding them, now bringing them sharply into view, like the changing images of a dream. I thought of swinging to the left to pass them, but feared I might be hit head-on by an oncoming vehicle, or that worse, the next car going my way would run them over. I pressed the horn. They did not respond. Would I have to get out of the truck and physically remove them from the road?
No. A man was emerging from the mouth of Ferris Road.
Jaime Potrero Martinez. He strutted purposefully toward the kids, grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks, and started to bellow at them in Spanish. Then he struck each of them. Hard.
Incensed, I pounded the horn. Jaime dropped both kids and stormed toward the truck, shouting and waving his fists. As he reached the door panel, I slapped the lock down and pressed the button to raise the window. It closed too slowly. Jaime slammed at the window, catching the top edge of the glass before it met the gasket and shattering it.
My fear vanished like snow, melting in the heat of my anger. “You stupid son of a bitch!” I bellowed. “Now you can pay for this!”
Jaime’s eyes finally focused on me, popped wide in recognition. “Bruja del diablo!” he shrieked, his voice straining between rage and terror. He turned and ran into the fog.
I gunned after him down Ferris Road, my aunt’s window crumbling in against my shoulder. “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey! You! You’re breaking the law, chingaso! Hey, I know about you! You want to pay for this window, or you want me to turn you in?”
Jaime glanced back at me as he ran, his eyes bulging with terror. Suddenly he leapt off the road into the trees, vanishing from sight.
I began to tremble, my rage collapsing into fear. What had I just done? Was I tired of living?
Glancing quickly into the rearview mirror to make certain that Jaime’s children were not behind me, I slapped the truck into reverse and backed out onto Occidental Road. The children were gone, sprung into the same rabbit hole their father had used.
I punched the truck back into forward gear and floored it, asking all seven and a half liters of that truck’s engine to give me everything they had.
32
Frida was not happy with me. “You used to be a more cautious girl,” she muttered, as she picked at the remnants of the window on her brand-new truck. “Or at least you knew when to quit. Boy howdy, my partn
er ain’t a-gonna like this.”
All I could do was apologize. I’d pulled the truck into the barn to hide it, but morning follows night, and Frida had come early to make a call from her office, spotting the mess before I could get it downtown to a glass place and fix it up. “I can have it fixed by this afternoon,” I grumbled. “When’s your partner coming back?” Oh, how my face burned. The one person on earth I hated to have think so little of me just now was Frida.
“By noon. You get gone now, and just stay gone until you’ve redeemed yourself, you hear?”
“I hear.”
Her aging spine unstiffened then. “Your cousin Abe will be here by suppertime. That’s six o’clock, young lady. You make sure you’re on time.”
I promised.
With Christmas so close at hand, the glass shops were shorthanded, but I found a place that would have it by four-thirty. I whiled the time away loading a little Christmas shopping onto my newly resurrected credit card: a nice fleece sweater for Frida, and a book of cowboy poetry for Cousin Abe. That left me wondering what to get for Frida’s partner, who I’d begun to presume lived at the house with her. There were clues to this all over the place, like the interior decor, for instance—the fact that there was any. Frida wouldn’t have bothered.
As I squirmed through the Christmas rush at Coddingtown Mall, I got to ruminating on who or what this partner might be. Had Frida taken a new lover, or was he just a friend? He had to be one or the other, or she wouldn’t share lodgings with him. Had I seen any clues about this guy, any photographs or framed memorabilia with his name affixed? No, but I hadn’t gone into the bedrooms yet. He’d be there when I returned, so my speculation would be over. Well, I told myself, I’ll just get him a horse book of some sort, and if he doesn’t like it, he can exchange it.
I got to dawdling, putting off facing Frida’s contempt for me. I cut things as close as I dared, not going to pick the truck up from the repair shop until five. When I had finished paying the bill, the man handed me the keys and a sealed manila envelope. “This was on the floor,” he said. “We dug it out as we were cleaning up the broken glass.”
I turned the envelope over, examining it as I walked out to where the truck had been parked in the lot. I had assumed it belonged to Aunt Frida or went with the truck, but no, there in handwritten letters it said, “For Em Hansen. EYES ONLY.” Raindrops began to fall, pelting the envelope and making the ink run, so I hurried with it into the truck.
Inside the envelope was one thin sheet of paper and a second envelope. The note on the paper said:
To Em Hansen:
Suzanne said you were trying to work out who killed Janet. Well, I don’t know if what’s in this envelope will tell you anything about that, but I’m sure I don’t know what to do with it, and you seem an honest sort.
Janet gave it to me for safekeeping about a month ago. She said she found it while she was doing some sort of survey, going through boxes where fungicides were stored out in the barn at the old Ferris place. She figured Jaime Martinez’s wife Magdalena must have put it out there, as it was in there with some other junk mail and things that must have been lying around when she and Jaime moved in. Janet didn’t feel it was right to leave it there.
This is a letter from Suzanne to Sonja Karsh, who you may know ran away back when we all were in high school. I read it. Maybe that wasn’t right, but I had to know what to do with it. When Sonja left it really hurt Suzanne, and now I know why.
The note was simply signed Trudy. She must have gone out sometime during the drumming and slipped it through the open window of the white truck.
I opened the inner envelope. The letter was dated September 1973, the month after Sonja disappeared. The paper had yellowed, and the glue on the envelope had turned to dust. It read:
My Dearest Sonja,
You’ve been gone six weeks now so I hope you’ve found that place you were looking for all right. I remember when you said sometimes a person just has to let go and leave and I shouldn’t miss you if you ever just had to go but I’ve waited up night after night hoping you’d call me at least and say that you’re all right but I guess you think I’m the worst. I can only hope the post office forwards this letter to you.
Sonja I’m SORRY SORRY SORRY. Matt cornered me. How can you think I’d do anything like that on purpose? I didn’t want to do it you have to believe me, he just backed me into the barn where your car was and said he wouldn’t hurt me if I’d let him kiss me. It was gross his breath is like farting you have to believe me I hated it. Then I tried to get away and he pushed me into the car and pulled up my dress and that was when you came in. That was all, really you have to believe me. I shouldn’t have run away. I came back the next morning before work to tell you what happened but you were gone.
You’re my best friend and I need you. You were the only one I dared tell when my brother did it to me and you understood then so why can’t you understand now? Even if you don’t come back I’ll wear my friendship ring forever and hope you wear yours. Please come back Sonja I’m sorry.
Your best friend,
Suzanne
The paper was brittle in my hands, even with the dampness that hung in the air. I smoothed it, folded it carefully. Then I slipped it back into the envelope in which it had waited for all those years, as grief and longing decayed into bitterness.
I had seen no rings on Suzanne’s fingers.
* * *
I WAS LATE for dinner.
I decided to take an aggressive tack on things, burst in on the meal in progress with buckets of Christmas cheer, and hope the excitement thereof and the joy of two cousins seeing each other for the first time in who knew how long would bridge the chasm of Frida’s irritation with me. So in I came, hurrying through the kitchen smiling and whooping, ready to gather Abe up in a good hug.
I stopped short, all sound gone from my lungs.
Frida’s partner was home, all right, full in the process of trying to smooth my oh yes, very irritated aunt. Yes, soothing: holding Frida closely in big muscly arms, squeezing her, calming her with words, tenderly kissing her—
I had never seen two women kiss before. Not on the lips.
Abe saw the look of shock on my face, put his head down on the table, and groaned.
Frida quit moving, like she was in a different dimension from the rest of us, one in which time moved so slowly it appeared to have no dimension at all.
I just stood there, fool that I was, staring, thinking: Oh, that kind of partner.
Abe finally lifted his head and sighed like he’d just woken up from a long sleep.
Frida’s partner broke the silence. “Abe, honey, aren’t you gonna introduce me?”
Abe smiled faintly. “Kitty, this is Em. Em, Kitty.”
“Well, isn’t this nice?” said Kitty, in a loud, throaty growl. Hers was a voice that came from the gut and spoke of Marlboro cigarettes, years and years of them. She was over fifty, her big-bosomed, well-muscled body spread with the menopause, putting the rivets on her jeans to the test. Her steel-gray hair fell in a cascade of curls past her shoulders, framing a wide, lively face that did not lack for beauty.
I’m no homophobe, or at least I hadn’t thought myself one until that moment, but it is a shock of titanic proportions to have an aunt you’ve known all your life—or at least thought you’ve known, all married up to your uncle and shucking out cousins like peas from a pod—suddenly turn up gay. Or lesbian, or whatever the hell they like to be called.
Kitty shook her head. “You look pretty dumb, standing there with your mouth open like that. Why’n’t you apologize to your aunt for being late and scaring the piss out of her and sit down, for crap’s sake, so we all can eat? I’m starved, for one, and this shit smells great.”
I muttered an apology and we ate and we all got through it somehow. I wish to hell I could tell you I showed enough mettle to straighten up and apologize for the insult my lapse into silence leveled at my aunt, but I didn’t. My courage runs thi
n near matters emotional.
It wasn’t until I was walking out to the barn afterward with Abe that I found my voice at all. “I feel real dumb,” was all I could say.
Abe was shuffling along with his shoulders up, but otherwise ignoring the rain. He’s a lanky guy, none too graceful, but nice-looking in a hayseed kind of way. He said, “It was a shock for me, too, the first time.”
I was glad it was dark out, so he couldn’t see the embarrassment that was heating my face. “But you’re okay about it now?”
Abe shrugged.
“Abe, is this why she didn’t go to my dad’s funeral?” I asked, glad to focus on my father’s intolerance rather than my own. “I mean, he didn’t hold by alternative lifestyles and such, and—”
“Yup.” Forcefully changing the subject, he said, “This letter came for you.” He pulled a much-traveled envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me as he wrestled open the door to the staircase that led up to the spare bedrooms above the office.
“Thanks. But really, Abe, don’t you find it, well…”
Abe stopped and stared into space, the rain falling through the glow around the overhead spotlight and soaking into his bad haircut. “Oh, Em, she’s just who she always was. It ain’t like she’s turned into someone else.”
“But—”
“No buts about it. The more things stay the same, the more things never were what you thought they were in the first place.”
33
Sleep would not come.
Abe’s words had hit their mark, setting off a cascade of anxieties. If things were not what they had always appeared, then what were they?
Opening the letter didn’t help. It proved to be from Frank, forwarded through good old efficient Elyria:
Dear Em,
Guess you know I got married. She’s not much like you, doesn’t have your fury or sense of adventure, but she’s a fine and good woman and loves me well.
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