by Joe McKinney
But then she’d gotten pregnant with Angela, and all that changed. It was the freakiest thing he’d ever seen. He knew lots of people who talked about going straight, even knew a few who’d managed it for a year or two, and were miserable the whole time. But he’d never seen anyone really do it for good.
Except Sarah.
And it happened practically overnight. She quit the club, moved to a new apartment, and changed her number. Totally turned her back on the life she’d been living, the people she’d known. Including him. She’d already been working part-time at that college, but after she got pregnant, she went to full-time.
Probably never gave him a second thought, either.
That was the part that really got under his skin. He hadn’t cared two licks that she’d gotten pregnant. Hell, that dumb ass college guy she was dating was welcome to get saddled with a kid if that’s what he wanted.
So that wasn’t it.
It was the idea of her just turning her back on him, leaving him at the curb like he was something nasty she’d stepped in.
That pissed him off.
But then, as luck would have it, she married that college guy and moved to Florida...not thirty miles from his Mama’s house.
The years since they’d dated had been good for Sarah. She and that college guy had even moved to some mansion in San Antonio. Huge place too, at least from the pictures his Mama’s private detectives had showed him.
For him, not so much though. Ten years of hard drinking and tons of dope had done their work on him. A little more each year, he’d put on weight, muscle turning to flab. His dad, never an assertive man, had been content to let Jay dip into the family’s money whenever he needed it, which was pretty much all the time. But then, four years ago, his father died, leaving Mama on her own.
And his Mama and his Daddy were definitely cut from different cloth. She was a force of nature, a worker, someone who believed handouts made people lazy and morally bankrupt. Earlier that summer she’d called him to the table. Her detectives had been following him around, tracking how he spent her money. She knew about the drinking and the drugs and the whores. She knew all of it, and Jay had thrown himself on her mercy.
Or pretended to at any rate.
He’d sworn up and down that he would come clean, get sober, whatever the hell she wanted. He’d go to treatment, he’d do it cold turkey, just as long as she didn’t cut him off.
But Mama Carroll was no fool. She knew his promises were little more than piss in the wind, and she told him as much. And, she added, she didn’t much care. She had washed her hands of what he did. He was welcome to booze himself to death if that’s what he wanted to do. But there was one thing she did want, and that was to have her granddaughter close to her.
And what his Mama wanted, she got.
“See,” she told him, “I’m dying.”
That made him listen.
“Oh, don’t get your hopes up yet. I have a few years still,” she said. “The doctors are telling me eight, maybe ten good years, with the medication they’ve got now. But I want to see my granddaughter before I go. I want to know her before the Alzheimer’s turns my brain to Swiss cheese. The idea of family may not mean all that much to you, but it does to me.”
If her words were meant to sting him, they hadn’t. All that really registered with Jay was the fact that he’d stay flush with cash if he brought Angela back into his Mama’s life.
And that meant getting custody.
And that meant dealing with Mr. Thomas Kraft, Mama’s lawyer.
Jay rallied and focused. To Kraft, he said: “Okay, if she doesn’t have to cooperate, how do we do it?”
“There are other ways around a refusal. We can demonstrate your emotional distress, for example. That’s a longer process, but in the end it’ll get us a blood test.” Kraft stopped there, took off his glasses, and polished them with a silk hanky. The two men watched each other for a long moment before Kraft spoke again. “May I ask you a personal question, Jay?”
“Sure, shoot.”
“Do you really want to get custody of this little girl?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“A necessary one, I think. One that you will have to answer to the mirror before you can answer it before a judge.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Jay said. “How about this? How about you do your job, the job my mom is paying you for, and I’ll do my part. Just get that kid back for me and everybody’ll be happy.”
“Perhaps,” Kraft said doubtfully. “But you see, my concern is this: I’m also a father. I’ve adopted three children, Jay. Did you know that? I know firsthand everything that’s involved in taking a child into your life. I know the joy, the heartbreak, the long nights with no sleep, the constant commitment to the child’s welfare. There’s no time off, no vacations from that responsibility. I know how much of a sacrifice it is, and I also know how glorious the love between a father and his children can be. And I wonder if you have any idea how much of a life change you’re taking on.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Kraft studied him for a long moment. “You’re sure about that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I told you I am.”
“It says in your file that you’re not currently employed.”
Jay stood up. “We’re done here, I think.”
Kraft looked like he wanted to say more, but then seemed to reconsider. “As you wish. I’ll continue efforts on my end and I’ll keep you informed.”
Jay walked out. Down in his truck, he lit a cigarette and blew smoke angrily at the windshield. That fucking prick, he thought. And Sarah, the little bitch was turning her back on him again.
Well, he knew how to fix that. Can’t compel her cooperation my ass.
On the seat next to him was a Fed Ex envelope. Jay tilted the envelope over and caught the VCR tape that slid out. It was a gift from a friend of his from back in his acting days in New York. The guy was doing porn now, and he had some contacts in the business. The tape, the friend had told him, was from a small independent studio that was out of business now. Had been for years. He was lucky to find it.
Jay smiled and slid it back into the envelope. Yeah, lucky indeed.
What did Kraft say about there being other ways around a refusal?
Well, Kraft had his ways.
And Jay had his.
*
In the master bedroom of Crook House Sarah woke to morning sunlight on the foot of the bed. All the orange in here was beautiful, and the bed, this huge bed, was a joy. So soft, like swimming in covers. But it didn’t feel like her bed. None of this felt like hers. It was like waking in a hotel. She came up from sleep so suddenly that for a moment the bed, the room, the house, all of it, seemed alien and hostile, and it frightened her. This house felt wrong. She didn’t like it, even though she knew that Robert did.
Where was he anyway?
She pulled the covers up to her chin, feeling profoundly tired, exhausted to her bones. Odd as she felt in this house, in this bed, she thought she could stay asleep all –
A piercing shriek cut her thought off clean.
The shrieking came again, loud and echoing, angry-sounding.
Angela, she thought, and threw the sheets off as she jumped from the bed and ran toward the stairs. She called for her daughter as she ran, her shouts filling the house, even as the angry shrieks echoed back to her.
Angela’s door was closed.
Sarah tried the knob, and when it wouldn’t open, she began to beat on the door.
“Angela, it’s Mommy. Open the door!”
Inside, someone was screaming. It was an angry, blood-curdling sound, and not Angela. Someone was in there with her. The realization twisted her gut, and she shook the door with all her strength, screaming her daughter’s name, tears running down her face.
“Angela, please, open the door. Open this door now!”
She kicked it.
It didn’t budge.
<
br /> “Damn it.”
She backed away from it, her eyes wide with terror, her whole body trembling, her breaths coming in rapid, ragged pants.
Robert, she thought. He could break it down.
She ran down the main hall, calling his name, screaming for him.
She found him in his study. Robert had his head down on his desk, and as she entered, wild now with panic, he sat up and stared at her through bleary eyes. At first she thought he was drunk, or badly hung over. But that thought faded – even her fear for Angela faded, for a moment – when she how badly he’d scratched himself up. His shoulders were raw and crusted with dried blood.
“Oh, Robert.”
“What?” he said. He stood up, and she could see he was steady on his feet. Not drunk then, or hung over, but very tired.
Then her senses came back to her, and she focused again on what she needed to do.
“Come on,” she said. “You have to help me.”
“With what?” he said irritably.
“You can’t hear that? That’s Angela.”
“Hear what? I don’t hear anything but you yelling.”
“There’s someone in Angela’s room, Robert! Jesus, please help me!”
That got his attention, and the next moment, they were both running toward Angela’s room. Sarah couldn’t hear the shrieking any longer, and that scared her. That noise, that voice, had sounded so violent, so utterly deranged with anger, that it had caused her to go cold inside. Even now, with it gone, she could still feel it in her guts.
They both slowed as they reached the end of the hallway, and Sarah was about to tell Robert to break down the door when it clicked open and sighed inward a few inches.
They both stopped.
“Angela?” Sarah said.
Then the smell hit her. Raw sewage. So intense as to be almost palpable. Sarah coughed, gagged, her face twisted into a grimace.
“Oh God,” she said, turning to Robert.
“Smoke,” he said.
“What?” The raw sweet stink of it so powerful she could barely keep her eyes open to look at him.
“I smell smoke,” he said.
She started to speak, but a voice from inside Angela’s room cut her off.
You little bastards make so much noise you shake the house.
It was a woman’s voice, vicious and cruel. It almost sounded like she was hissing the words out.
Sarah ran for the door but Robert was already moving, throwing the door wide. He advanced a few steps into the room and then came to an abrupt halt. Sarah stepped around him, her gaze scanning the room. Angela sat at the foot of her bed, wearing one of Robert’s T-shirts as a nightgown, her dark hair looking limp and straw-like in the low light. The rest of the room was empty.
“Angela?” she said.
“Who else was in here?” Robert said.
Angela turned and faced them, and right away Sarah noticed the girl’s face was wet with tears. Her eyes were red and puffy, her little chest hitching. “Oh baby,” Sarah said. She went to her daughter and took her face in her hands. “Oh, baby,” she again. “What’s wrong?”
“Who else was in here?” Robert said again.
“Huh?” Angela said.
“Who else was in here?” he demanded, and this time there was a harshness in his voice that made even Sarah flinch.
“Nobody, Daddy. Just me.”
He huffed dismissively and went around the room, opening doors to her closets, her bathroom. He even looked under her bed.
“You said somebody was in here with her,” he said to Sarah.
Angela looked at him, and then at Sarah, a question hanging in her red and swollen eyes.
“Baby, I thought I heard somebody in here with you. A woman’s voice.”
Angela shook her head. “Mommy, nobody’s been in here.” Sarah could tell from the confusion on the girl’s face, her look of complete bewilderment, that she was telling the truth.
“You been smoking in here?” Robert said. “Out in the hall I smelled smoke.”
“Daddy, gross. I don’t smoke. Honest, I don’t...I’ve never...”
“Shhh,” Sarah said. “It’s okay.” She pulled her daughter close and kissed her cheek, tasting the salty tears there. She was still sobbing a little. Sarah could hear it in her breathing. “Oh baby,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m here with you.”
Robert stepped around her with an angry sounding grunt. He was muttering something, but Sarah only caught the last of it: “...understand what the hell is going on around here.”
*
Robert went back to his study and tried to find the copy of Raymond Carver’s stories he’d seen that first day that Thom showed him the house. It was up here somewhere, he knew it, though now he couldn’t seem to locate it. Whatever that was down at Angela’s end of the hall was already growing dim in his mind, slipping into the background. He needed to focus on his class. He had three syllabi still to write, and though he’d been up here hours on end since moving in, he hadn’t gotten anything done.
It was just so frustrating. And Sarah, didn’t she get it? He’d finally gotten her to admit that she’d in fact spent not six hundred dollars, but closer to seven and that had really pissed him off. That was money they didn’t have. She knew that, and she was spending it anyway. How in the hell was he supposed to cover all that, much less get ahead? It felt like he was talking to the wall sometimes. Nobody listened.
Or, rather, they did. They just didn’t care.
No, that wasn’t right. He knew Sarah cared. They were in this together. But when he looked at the problem, he saw them headed for the edge of a cliff. Sarah, when she considered where they were going, she just saw another bump in the road. What would it take to make her realize how much trouble they were actually in? Did they have to crash before that happened? He hoped not, but at this point, he didn’t see many other outcomes available to them.
Without realizing he was doing it, he began pacing the narrow lane between his desk and the bookshelf. He stopped where he was, glancing over his desk for where he’d left his checkbook and the latest bank statements, and instead felt keenly aware of the soreness in his feet. He put his hands on the edge of the desk and closed his eyes, collecting himself. He opened his eyes with a sigh, and happened to glance at his phone at the edge of the desk.
Christ, was it really 1:30 in the afternoon? Had he really missed lunch? Had he really been up that long?
And why hadn’t Sarah come to get him?
Or sent Angela at least?
Well, the answer to that was easy. Probably still pissed at him, though for the life of him he had no idea what he’d done to earn that. If anything, he was the one who should be pissed at her. Seven hundred dollars! What kind of crap did you have to buy to rack up a tab like that? Just thinking about it got his face hot.
No, he thought. Don’t do that. You get started in on that again and you’ll be up here pacing all the way through dinner.
His fingers touched something wet. He was scratching again, and to his horror he saw that he had made himself bleed. Robert stared at the wound for a second, not really registering how badly he’d chewed himself up, seeing only the blood and the deep red lines down the side of his arm. There was a box of tissues on the corner of the desk and he snatched up a few to dab away the blood. It came away, but the skin underneath was torn up and raw, tender to the touch. There were scaly white circles all over him too. They itched something awful. Pushing the tissue against his skin relieved it momentarily, but only long enough for it to move to his shoulders, his wrists, his back, his belly. He itched all over.
Hard as it was to do, he wiped the blood from his fingertips and threw the tissue away. At this rate, he’d have to have his own roll of paper towels up here, maybe a bowl of water to dab it into.
Oh God, he itched.
But he was hungry too. It would do him good to get out of this office for a bit. He took his windbreaker down from the hook at the end of the bo
okshelf and slid it on as he walked downstairs.
Rounding the corner into the kitchen he heard Sarah on the phone, and she sounded angry. His first thought was that it was some creditor calling to harass them, or perhaps even Jay Carroll had tracked them down somehow. But when he stepped into the kitchen she got sight of him and, into the phone, said, “I said, No! Now stop asking.” Then she held the phone out to him and said, “Here, this is for you.”
He took the phone from her, wanting to ask her what the hell was going on, but she simply walked out without any further explanation.
It took him a moment to realize he was still holding the phone.
He put it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Robert, it’s Thom!”
“Uh, hi Thom. What’s going on? Sarah looked upset.”
“Yeah, that was my fault. Sorry about that. I think it was too soon. You said wait till you guys got settled and I’m afraid I jumped the gun. Just eager to see her working again. Listen, the other reason I called was to invite you guys to the faculty Christmas party on Sunday. It’s at Ron Anson’s house this year. Great place. Not as nice as yours, of course, but still pretty cool. I think it’d be a great opportunity for you and Sarah to meet some of your peers. Jean Bernall’s husband, Stephen Bourne, will be there. Have you read him? His latest book hitnumber 43 on the New YorkTimes Bestseller list last month.”
“Uh...” was all Robert managed.
“Will I see you guys there? If you need a babysitter, Jean should be able to recommend a few really good ones. Trust me, there’s always a few undergraduates running around here looking for some extra cash.”