Don’t cry, she told herself. She’d lose it if she started to cry again. Hester slipped from the bed, knelt down, bowed her head, and whisper a Hail Mary. When she finished and looked up, she saw Al’s profile beyond Nina’s and…
Hester begged the Blessed Virgin to intercede, to stop her from doing something horrible to Al. Then a strange thought came into Hester’s head, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself from getting up, from sitting beside Nina again, taking her in her arms, and doing something she never should have done. It was as though it were all a dream. Hester felt she was floating somewhere above watching someone else do such an unthinkable thing.
After a while Hester left Nina on the bed next to Al, who was still unconscious. She went and got two jumbo plastic trash bags. She straddled Nina’s body to lift her legs into one bag. She pulled it up to the girl’s chest. Then before she put the other bag over Nina’s head, she tried to smooth Nina’s hair away from her face, but it wouldn’t stay. Hester was losing her nerve. Quickly, she pulled the bag down. It was done.
She rolled Al on his side, pulled the sheets out from under his dead weight, and shoved them into the top bag over Nina’s breasts and face. She got Al’s duct tape and wrapped it a dozen times around where the bags overlapped.
Out of the corner of her eye, Hester saw Al squirm. The sudden motion scared her, but when he didn’t open his eyes, she ignored him. She was on automatic pilot and started humming while she rolled Nina’s body off the bed and dragged it by the feet into the spare bedroom. She rolled it under the guest bed and pushed it as far back as she could.
“Alexander,” she shouted into the next room, “I’m going to call the ambulance now.”
He didn’t answer. She went in and shook him.
“What?” His voice was weak.
“I’m going to call the ambulance.”
He turned his head to look at the empty spot where Nina had been. “Where is she?”
“She’s fine.” The lie rolled off Hester’s tongue. Keeping the truth from Al made her feel like she had some control over him, and right now, as on several occasions in the past, she knew her whole future depended on that.
“Good.” He struggled to open his eyes. He was squinting in the sunlight. He lifted his head as high as he could to face Hester. “Hester, look, I…”
“Don’t waste your breath, Al.” She stood at the foot of the bed with her arms folded across her chest and her feet spread apart, a pathetic Colossus.
“It’s not what you think.” Al was so weak, he dropped his head back onto the mattress and closed his eyes. When he rallied, he enunciated each syllable of what he had to say. “I was not having sex with Nina. My God, Hester, I would nev—”
“Shut up, Al! Just shut the hell up!” Hester took a step toward him and dropped her hands into tight fists.
“Hester, I did not do anything wrong! For God’s sake, ask Nina, she’ll tell you the truth.”
Now what? Hester hadn’t figured out what she would say about where Nina was or what had happened to her. She turned away from Al, walked toward the foot of the bed, and said sarcastically, “Go ask Nina? Right, like she wouldn’t lie to me, too.”
“She doesn’t have to lie. I tell you, nothing happened between us.” Saying it took the last of his strength. Al shut his eyes and grimaced.
Hester was on the verge of screaming, but she didn’t. She wanted to hit Al, hurt him, but his mouth dropped open. He was out of it. She collapsed onto the floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and lowered her head.
Five
A long while passed before Hester pulled herself together and got on her feet again. She noticed the pink thong. Picked it up and, dirty as it was, shoved it in the back of her underwear drawer. She had to tend to Al. He was completely unconscious, like a rag doll. Putting his swim trunks on him made her sick to her stomach. She resisted the temptation to get a knife and cut his balls off. She called the ambulance.
Hester didn’t know Dee all that well yet, but she was exhausted and needed help to face the EMT’s so Hester called her on her cell. It was getting dark and the electricity was still out. Dee came over, lit all the candles Hester had in the house, set them on the coffee table, and insisted on clearing the debris in the hallway. The ambulance didn’t arrive for an hour—there were worse cases inland, and the bridge over the Intracoastal was closed. The squad leader questioned her about Al, and why she’d taken so long to call them. The storm swept through the park over eight hours ago. Hester lied, said her husband was wide awake the whole time and refused to let her call. She left him for a minute to go to the bathroom and was shocked when she came back and found him unconscious. She tried, honestly she did, but she couldn’t get him to wake up.
It was after eight by the time they were ready to transport Al to the hospital for a severe concussion, some broken ribs, maybe a slight heart attack. They’d know more once they examined him at the hospital.
Hester watched them strap him onto the gurney. She shoved his health insurance cards into her old passport holder, looped it over his head, and stepped back. No way was she going to the hospital with him. The men who were ready to hoist the stretcher into the rear of the ambulance hesitated, and one of them looked at her oddly. She forced herself to go to Al, lean over, and kiss him on the forehead.
“You’ll be alright, honey. I’ll see you later.” The words caught in her throat. She had no intention of going anywhere to see him. Not now, maybe never again; but despite her anger and disgust, she hadn’t wanted to raise suspicion. She was angry with Al, but her life, the one she wanted, depended on him. If anyone else had found Nina and Al like that…
Hester should’ve never invited Nina to Florida. She should’ve seen the whole thing coming, knowing how weak her husband was. But Hester believed she was like a mother to Nina, helping her was the right thing to do. So how did it turn into such a nightmare? Nina dead, Al to blame. Thank God, I got here first, the park’s half empty, no one gives a damn what’s going on at 23 Fish Tail Lane.
After the ambulance drove away, Hester almost said something to Dee about all that had gone wrong, but she didn’t. Instead she asked Dee to leave.
“I’m so sorry, honey.” Dee hugged her. Hester was touched by this gesture from someone she only recently met, and Dee had said the one thing Alexander Bruno Murphy, in his moments of lucidity, hadn’t.
Sorry…I’m so sorry.
Yes, the whole day and the whole night would go down now and forever for Hester as sorry. Everything Hester had counted on her entire adult life had almost been wiped out. Before, whenever Hester learned of one of Al’s mistakes, she forced herself to bury the knowledge of it in a dark corner of her brain. This worked for a while, but eventually each memory sought light and air, and popped up into her consciousness again like a real living thing. The memory of what Al had done had to be constantly weeded out before it could grow and choke her heart to death. Hester had to live in strict denial of many occurrences if she wanted to remain married to Al, and being married to Al Murphy was, since the first day she met him, all she ever wanted.
As much as it would give Hester some relief to unburden herself to someone like Dee, she knew she couldn’t. She could trust no one with this latest knowledge.
It was past nine o’clock when Dee went back to her trailer. The candles had burned so low, they sat in their pools of wax, watching her like a field of winking yellow eyes. Hester blew them out and decided to wait in the darkness to finish what was left to do. She sat on the sofa facing in the direction of the ocean. If she were to sit there during the day, through the slider beyond old Chet’s trailer, she could see one small square of the Atlantic. The sound of the pounding waves reached her. The sea was in a fury that had not yet subsided. Not since her freshman year in college had she felt this low or this scared. It was the only other time her life intersected so intimately with death. Dredging up that old nightmare might paralyze her, and she couldn’t stop now. The worst was left to do.
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br /> She thought instead of Edna Pontellier, the heroine of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. She’s on the beach alone in the moonlight. She takes off her “unpleasant” and “pricking” garments, throws them down, and walks out into the waves. The water feels colder on her naked body then she expected, colder still the farther out she goes. Though she’s so cold, she doesn’t stop. She keeps struggling until she knows she’s in too deep to turn back. She should try to save herself, but she doesn’t. She gives into the sea and lets it take her under, swallow her up.
Edna tried to make her marriage work, played the happy housewife, and it’d gotten her nowhere. Death was better than waiting for the love that would forever be denied her. Death was better than living a lie one moment longer. The hopelessness, the character’s utter despair tied Hester’s stomach in knots the first time she read the novel, and now again as she recollected it.
Hester was so god-awful sick of lies, believing them, telling them. It didn’t matter which. She was sick of going along to get along. She didn’t know anymore what exactly would make her happy, what she wanted from life, why she was even on this earth.
The night before, Hester had gone into the guest room after Nina was asleep. The air was cool, and she wanted to make sure Nina was warm enough. She pulled the blanket up over the girl’s bare shoulder. Nina stirred and turned her head enough for Hester to notice the gentle curves in the topography of her perfectly shaped ear. Hester thought, delicate, like a child’s, like my child’s would’ve been.
What made sense a few hours ago to Hester, now seemed insane. But it was already too late to do what she should’ve done, call for help, turn everything over to the authorities. What would she say now? “Oh, by the way, I forgot to report that there is a young dead woman in my trailer, I found her naked in my bed next to my naked husband, I think her neck was broken, and I stuffed her in plastic bags and hid her body.”
If she did call them now, with their advanced technology it would be no problem for the police to figure out exactly what happened. Hester had watched enough CSI shows to know they would find Al’s DNA, and her DNA, all over Nina. They’d probably find his sperm too.
Sperm? Hester couldn’t bear the thought of anyone finding out Al had sex with Nina. She wouldn’t be able to bear the humiliation if anyone ever knew. Damn it, she should not have stuffed the filthy sheets in the bag with Nina’s body. She should’ve waited and, when they’d dried, burned them. That would’ve been the only way to get rid of all of the evidence, for good. Too late now. She couldn’t fathom opening up those bags, reaching in, pulling them out. Maybe seeing Nina’s dead face again. No, it wasn’t a good idea, but the lapse in her thinking gave her a sharp stab of doubt and made her more anxious than she already was. And then there was that pink thong…they’d put us both in jail. She shivered at the possibility, but try as she did, she couldn’t remember what she’d done with the pink thong?
Then she thought, what if Al wasn’t lying? What if he didn’t do anything to Nina? What if nothing was his fault?
Hester sat up straight. There was a thread of hope, and that made her feel slightly better, slightly less hateful toward Al.
Better I act like nothing happened, she told herself, because I may never know what really happened.
Hester got up from the sofa, walked to the hall closet, grabbed Al’s shovel, and slouched toward the spare bedroom.
Six
Hester had done all she could do to put an end to the “accident,” as she was now trying to think of the tragedy that had occurred at 23 Fish Tail Lane. She stood on the patio and watched as the full moon rose up behind the palms transforming their tops into giant black spiders. She listened to the rush of the surf and the distant hum of traffic on Route 95. Her sweaty body, covered in a scrim of dirt and bugs, ached. She leaned the shovel against the side of the trailer and went in.
After showering in the tepid water that was left in the tank, she put on a thin nightgown, lay on the couch, and prayed for sleep. It didn’t come. Sick of struggling to reach the oblivion she so desperately needed and without bothering to get dressed, she headed to the beach. No one was around, and if they were, she didn’t care if they thought she was crazy. She was, wasn’t she?
From their trailer all the way to the beach, the street was littered with trash. Garbage cans, clothing, flowerpots, broken gutters, beach umbrellas were a few of the things strewn about that Hester could identify in the gloom. She saw a cat tearing into what looked like a package of hot dogs, and there were other small creatures like lizards and rats scurrying about. Hester passed the clubhouse and cut through a patch of sea oats.
The beach too had been ravaged by the hurricane. Hester had to navigate piles of seaweed matted with trash and large pieces of timber. There was a deep drop-off where the pounding surf had eroded the shoreline. Hester jumped down it to get to the water. She walked for what seemed an hour along the edge watching the luminous foam of the waves until she was about to collapse. She climbed back up the ridge and found a spot above what she thought was the high tide line and lay on her back. The moon was far to the west, and the stars looked so close she reached her hand up and pretended to touch them. She wished she could fly up in the sky and be one of them, be light years away from the fact that Nina was dead, that Al might have had sex with her, might have choked her until her neck broke, might have had rough sex with her and accidentally broke her neck. He might have….
Would she ever sleep again with these thoughts looping through her mind?
And then there were the damn bloodstains on the carpet, her trail of blood leading to the bedroom. In the morning she’d phone Stanley Steemers, get them over early, and get rid of at least one mess.
But the bigger mess? The one in the bedroom.
She closed her eyes. The stars she’d been staring at zoomed around inside her head like bullets ricocheting off metal.
There was no cleaning that up. Ever.
She was damned for good now, and she knew it. That stupid hurricane had blasted through Pleasant Palms, destroying many things, including—she had to accept it—the life she formerly lived, the one she’d worked long and hard to have.
Why me? Why now? Why….
The next thing Hester knew she opened her eyes and saw a thin line of light on the horizon. She sat up and looked behind her at the part of the sky that was still dark in time to see the last star disappear.
She had a long walk back to the park. When she arrived at the trailer, the day was sunny and bright. The brilliant clouds had grown into a chorus line of giant round-shouldered trolls. The power was still out so Hester filled a pot with water and headed out to the gas grill. She watched a tongue of fire leap from the burner when she turned it on. She boiled the water, stirred in instant coffee, and added powdered creamer. It made her think of Carly Simon singing about clouds in her coffee. The words came back to her: “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you…don’t you?”
It reminded her of Al, of how everything always had to be about him.
Seven
Years and years ago, during her interview at Sourland High School, Hester wanted to be the shining star, but it was Vice Principal Alexander Bruno Murphy in his navy suit, crisp white shirt, and thin red tie who stole her thunder. He was gorgeous, and the cock-sure smile on his face made Hester think he knew it.
When he stood to introduce himself, Hester blushed. Her hand turned sweaty. She wiped it on her skirt before she shook his. “So plea-sed to m-meet you,” she stammered. What kind of temporary insanity was gripping her? She needed this teaching position. She was broke and owed a fortune in college loans. She took a breath and focused on Mr. Heck, the principal, instead of on the handsome, young VP whose eyes seemed riveted on her breasts.
Shockingly, she was enjoying the attention. It had been a long time since she wanted a man to look at her, desire her…since she was seventeen years old, her freshman year in college, when her heart was broken, and her spirit crushed.
In order to survive, Hester adopted a strict routine—Sundays go to Mass, weekdays work the cafeteria line, go to class, go to the library, Saturdays volunteer work with the amputees at Walter Reed Hospital, call home twice a week, even though no one answers. No time to get in trouble, no time to make another mistake. And she stayed away from her friends too. They were burning their bras, fighting for equal rights, fighting for birth control. Birth control? The only real birth control was to not want a man. Love was a hot stove that burnt you when you touched it. She swore that she’d never go near it again, not with a ten foot pole. From that time on, Hester stifled all romantic notions and lived a life of strict chastity.
Now, at age twenty-two, she was stunned, and, yes, petrified, by the way she was reacting to Vice Principal Murphy.
She was so distracted by his strong profile when he turned to look at Mr. Heck that Hester almost missed hearing the principal say, “Miss Randal, I think we can conclude this interview by offering you a position in the English department.”
Mr. Murphy stood up and extended his hand and said, “Congratulations, Miss Randal, glad to have you on the team.” Hester was faint with gratitude. She put her hand in Al’s, and it fit like a glove. He squeezed it gently, and her body hummed with longing.
As time passed, Hester’s yearning only grew more intense. Many times she tried to talk herself out of falling for Alexander Murphy, but he had so much going for him: beauty, brains, a strong work ethic. Hester liked that he took his position seriously. And he had a sense of humor. He made her laugh, and he flirted with her. She began to let her guard down.
On the Edge of Dangerous Things (Dangerous Things Trilogy Book 1) Page 3