by Joel Arnold
The realization that came to him as she stood empty in his arms is that - no, it's not right to make her change for me. Who am I fooling, thinking I can make her change?
That was the dilemma. Cathy was depression magnified beneath his eyes. She blamed herself for all the wrongs in the world. Andy feared her depression would infest itself in his brain like a tumor. He feared he wouldn't be able to extricate it once it took hold.
Grasping that granite, that solid rock headstone, he wondered if he'd left Cathy in time to avoid the malignancy of her depression. He wondered if the extrication process of leaving Cathy had only left a gigantic scab in the place of the tumor.
Andy moaned. His temples throbbed, the scar tissue of his mind pushing with dull fingers on the inside of his skull.
"Andy? Can you hear me?" Mae's voice brought him back from the distance, that haze of memory. She sounded concerned.
He tried opening his eyes, tried telling her he was okay, but his tear ducts kicked in, trying to eliminate the dizzy blur. Through his tears, he saw Mae stand up and walk over to him. He held out a hand and saw that it was bleeding -
no, no, the paint, Andy - just the paint -
And the paint remover filled his lungs as Mae squeezed his shoulder. He barely felt her strong grip, as if she touched him through a thousand layers of silk. His skin tingled.
The last thing he remembered before passing out was feeling his back hit the ground as if it landed on a cushion of air.
He'd been unconscious only a short period of time when the feeling of movement prodded him awake. He weaved in and out of awareness as dirt and leaves slid under his back. Occasionally a rock brought attention to itself under his spine. He winced, dimly aware of Mae mouthing the words, "Sorry, Andy. Sorry."
Mae dragged Andy over the trail towards her house. "Sorry, Andy," as another stone poked into his back.
He was surprised at how much strength Mae had. He was dead weight, but she kept a pretty good pace.
- oooh, sorry 'bout that one, Andy -
A pretty good pace. He tried to focus on the trees, on Mae's face, on anything. He waved his arm at her, trying to get her to stop.
"Mae - " he said, his voice heavy and grainy.
"Shhh, Andy. Save your strength."
The dirt. The leaves. The cold ground.
"Mae - stop."
- running beneath, numbing his back -
"We're almost there. Just rest yourself."
The bright sky erupted from the shade of the trees, sending his head spinning again. He squinted. Blinked. He felt the dirt of the trail give way to the grass of Mae's lawn.
He felt like a sack of potatoes. He felt like a piece of furniture. He felt like a -
- a doll -
- a doll. He felt like a doll, being dragged across the yard by a child.
A doll, dragged through the trail from the cemetery, over the grass, soon over the threshold of the house.
Are you gonna play school with me now, Mae? Are you gonna hold my hand over my chest and say the Pledge of Allegiance? When I cross that threshold, is my mother gonna be there, Mae? My mother, caked with mud, her smile shining with a disgusting, stinging brightness.
Is my mother gonna be there, Mae?
Is Big Ed going to be there?
THIRTY
Chicken soup. Running down his throat. Alone with Mae, just Mae, who spoons it into his mouth, catching the dribbles from the corners of his lips.
No mother. Just Mae.
Andy was thankful for the stiff green couch in Mae's living room. His entire body was weak and sore. He reached up to take hold of the spoon.
"Here, I can do that."
"No, let me," Mae said.
Andy sat up. "C'mon. Give me a break. I appreciate this. Really. But I'm okay now."
Mae placed the spoon in his hand. "Just promise me you'll finish the bowl. Okay?" Mae smiled at him.
He lifted the entire bowl to his mouth and drank as if from a glass. A belch erupted from his mouth, causing Mae to smile. "An army of demons couldn't have stopped me from finishing that bowl," Andy said, belching again.
Mae took the empty bowl from his hands and set it on the floor. She sighed. "Your car is finally here. Out front. The windshield looks good."
"So soon?"
"The garage brought it here on a tow truck. Dropped it off just an hour ago."
His car. His freedom was finally here.
"This must've been a strange week for you," Mae said. "Meeting me. Learning about your mother." She paused. "Seeing those graves desecrated."
"That was just vandals, Mae."
Mae looked him in the eye, reached over and squeezed his knee. "Goddamn it, Andy - that wasn't a bunch of kids, and you know it."
"Of course it was kids. Probably drunk."
"How would kids know which graves to vandalize?"
"Maybe they don't like the name Stone. Maybe they were just lucky - "
"But they got all the relatives. There are graves that are so faded, so worn down, that I'm one of the only ones who stills know who they belong to. They got graves that don't even look like graves anymore, just deteriorated stumps of rock. But I know whose they are. On the periphery, we even had some of our dogs and cats buried, and they got those, too. It was deliberate. They knew what they were doing."
"And what was that? What do they want? To piss you off? To scare you? You're getting paranoid. Anyone so stupid as to spray-paint a graveyard, no matter how meticulous and careful they are, is not worth getting paranoid over. If anything, that's what they want.
"Besides," he continued, "how do you know it's not me doing this? You didn't have this sort of problem before I showed up. Why aren't you accusing me of any of this?"
"Don't be silly." Mae got up, taking the empty soup bowl into the kitchen. "You wouldn't do anything like that. You're family."
"Yeah, but from what you've been telling me, this is a pretty fucked up family."
"Oh, come on, now." Mae's voice drifted through the swinging kitchen doors. "There's only a few people who know that graveyard as well as me, and you're not one of them."
"So you know who did it?"
Mae came back to the living room and sat next to him. "It doesn't take a whole lot of brains to figure it out. Aren't you even the least bit suspicious? Or is your mind too full of lust?"
Andy's gaze drifted down to the floor. Of course he had to suspect Natalie. He wanted this all to be her father's doing. That would make things so much easier. The father. Hector. So enraged. So full of hate at finding out that Andy was related to Mae. To Edna. If it was Hector behind all of this, it would have been acceptable. A neat, tidy package of acceptance. Andy could have tossed it aside with a shrug of condolence to Mae, leaving the whole thing behind with an It Figures.
But of course it wasn't Hector.
Hector in his wheelchair, in his - senility - couldn't have done all that.
"Why, Mae?" he asked. "What's the deal here?"
Mae started to drift.
"You know, Andy - when I was telling you about your mother? And the games she liked to play - "
THIRTY-ONE
1948
Evelyn waits forever, waits for days, waits for the ground to thaw. The metal of her drum gleams in the moonlight. Father is gone again - gone forever, Evelyn thinks. And he missed the birth. Missed the twins being born.
Evelyn saw it, watched it through the living room window of the house across the field, watched it through a crack in the drapes the size of a pencil.
Mae and Edna were with her, fighting for turns to watch, hushing each other so they wouldn't get caught.
Evelyn wishes Mae and Edna didn't know, didn't catch her peeking into the Plants' house.
"We'll tell Dad what you're doing," Edna threatened, so Evelyn had to tell, had to protect herself.
They all took turns watching, seeing Mrs. Plant leaking sweat, veins protruding from her neck and forehead, straining, pushing.
"She's co
nstipated!" Edna joked, laughing, until her jaw suddenly dropped. An involuntary half laugh, half gagging noise came from the back of her throat.
"What?" Mae asked, trying to push aside Edna. "What?"
Evelyn cast her eyes guiltily to the ground. "She's having a baby," she said. She didn't want to see the expression on Edna's face, the familiar gleam of joy and wonder that always marked the beginning of some plan, of some new game to play.
Evelyn thought it was the look of a demon.
"She's having a baby," Edna said.
Mae fought for space, fitting her head in below Edna's chin, both watching, seeing Mr. Plant cut the dark blue umbilical cord with a piece of twine.
Evelyn started to walk away. Every time she had an idea, it was stolen by Edna, and Edna always blew that idea up into something lurking and dreadful.
Evelyn started to walk away when she heard Edna suck in a deep mouthful of air.
"Ohmigod! Another one! There's another one!"
Mrs. Plant gave birth to twins, blue and shriveled, heads covered with slime.
And now Evelyn wishes she hadn't done that, hadn't got caught by Big Ed watching, wishes she had checked over her shoulder more often as she had stood watching Mr. Plant panic, looking dumbfounded between the wide open legs of Mrs. Plant on the blue velvet living room couch.
Evelyn wishes the ground was still hard, wishes the shovels couldn't yet dig and move dirt.
Evelyn wishes she had looked over her shoulder.
"C'mon, Ev, c'mon."
Standing with her metal field drum shining in the moonlight.
"C'mon, Ev!" Big Ed's voice growing more urgent.
Too old, too old, too old, Evelyn thinks. Too, too old.
"I mean it!"
Wishes the ground was still hard. Wishes Ed could play with her other dolls. But not this, not this new doll. She's too old for dolls.
Edna clutches the one-week-old baby in her arms.
"See my baby?" she asks. "See my darling baby?" She laughs. Mae looks blankly into the baby's eyes.
The baby starts to cry.
"Why, she's just like you, Evvy," Edna says. "Waaaahhhh!" Edna laughs.
They emerge from the woods and walk across the lawn.
"House or school, Mae?" Edna asks. "House or school?"
"House," Mae murmurs.
"School it is!" Edna shouts.
The baby is crying.
"Follow me." Edna leads them inside the house, down the stairs into the basement.
Daddy's always gone, Evelyn thinks, her drum still hooked on, the weight of the harness gently numbing her shoulders. She wonders if Mr. and Mrs. Plant have noticed that one of their babies is gone.
"I've got my baby, my new baby doll," Edna says, rocking the baby too hard.
The baby cries, lungs filling with air, pushing it out in a scream.
"I'm the teacher," Edna says. "You're my class," she tells Mae and Evelyn.
The baby still cries. "Will you please shut up!" Edna says.
"The first thing we'll learn today is - will you please shut up! - is English. Here, catch."
Oh no, oh god. Evelyn watches the baby fly through the air. Edna's action takes Mae by surprise, but she catches the baby. Mae looks at Edna, her eyes wide, so wide.
"What?" Edna asks.
Wide.
"Our English lesson today will be poetry," Edna says. "Hickory dickery dock, the mouse ate up his cock."
Evelyn shuts her eyes, tries to shut her ears.
Baby crying, screaming, filling and refilling its lungs, passing more air over its vocal cords.
Evelyn tries shutting her ears.
"Old mother Hubbard," Edna says, "went to the cupboard, to get her poor husband a match - shut her up, Mae - and when she got there, her husband was bare, and - " laughing so hard, she can hardly finish, " - and, and - " Her laughter suddenly stops. "Shut her the fuck up, Mae!"
never swear, she hardly ever swear, unless she's really mad, and 'fuck' - 'fuck' - that means business.
Mae's looking at the baby, her eyes wide, looking at the drool, at the gaping, shrieking mouth spitting drool.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Edna screams.
- tries to shut her ears when she finally notices the numbness in her shoulders, the weight, the comforting weight in her hands, and she lifts a stick in the air, Evelyn lifts a stick in the air, and brings it down - WHAP! - on the field drum. Edna and Mae both look up. The baby is still crying.
WHAP! - another hit.
- shutting my ears, just shutting my ears, Evelyn thinks -
"I told you - you better not," Edna says.
WHAP! - her arms rise far above her head, bringing lethal blows to the skin of the drum.
"Stop it," Edna says. "Stop it right now!"
WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! pounding, biting, hitting the drum, drowning out the noise, the screaming, drowning out Ed.
The baby cries, screams, as Edna screams, "Stop it, stop it, stop it, you better stop it right the fuck now!" Edna puts her hands over her ears and closes her eyes, taking in deep breaths, her face so red, a glowing coal in the dark, damp basement.
WHAP!
Shutting my ears, I'm just shutting my ears, Evelyn thinks.
WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! Her eyes closed, her shoulders, her hands numb from the pounding.
WHAP! WHAP! WHA-CRACK! A stick breaks, sending a giant splinter into Evelyn's hand. Half the stick flies off toward Mae. She catches that in one hand while holding the baby with the other.
The baby still cries, still screams murder.
Evelyn's hand bleeds, but she still hits the drum with her other hand, with the remaining stick.
Edna's eyes pop open. They bulge. She puts her hands to her temples.
"Give me that stick, Mae," she says, motioning violently for the broken half of the drumstick. Mae holds onto it.
"Give me the goddamn stick, Mae!"
It's Ed, it's Big Ed.
WHAP! WHAP! Evelyn's other hand, pounding the good stick into the drum. WHAP! WHAP! Blisters form and burst between her thumb and forefinger, the skin scraping off, red and raw, blood trickles and splats on the drum, on Evelyn's drum.
WHAP!
"Give me that goddamn stick, Mae!"
The baby. Crying, forever crying.
Mae seems catatonic. Doesn't seem to know where she is. She's ignorant of the baby she holds, of the stick that Edna, Big Ed, tries to pry loose from her hand.
"Let go!" Edna says, and with one quick yank, pulls it free from Mae's deathly grip.
The skin between Evelyn's forefinger and thumb no longer exists. It is splattered on the drum like paint, it is floating as molecules in the air, it is embedded in the wood grains of the drumstick she continues to bring crashing down - WHAP! - on the weakening skin of the field drum.
Her eyes are still closed, tightly closed. Her good stick breaks, and her hand waves blindly in the air, waiting to strike something. No more sound coming from the drum.
And then she notices - no more sound coming from the baby.
Oh god, oh god, oh god, Evelyn thinks - shoulda looked over my shoulder, shoulda watched just a little more carefully -
Evelyn's eyes sting as she opens them, looking through the blur of tears that had flown unnoticed.
The red half of the drumstick comes swinging at her face.
Evelyn loses an eye. It pops out like a champagne cork, followed by a squirt of blood.
- too big, too big, she thinks, as the wooden splinter swings at her again in a pendulum arc, this time burying itself in the ribcage just below the heart, buried all the way up to Big Ed's fist.
The baby slips from Mae's arm and drops to the ground.
Evelyn drops to the ground, clutching onto the stick embedded in her chest.
Mae's eyes cloud over as if her pupils have turned to smoke.
THIRTY-TWO
"My mother?" Andy stared at the dull blue carpet beneath his feet. He couldn't believe it, couldn't accept it.
&nb
sp; "I tried to talk her into telling you herself, but she wasn't ready."
"How could she? How could she tell me something like that?" Andy's voice was a whisper, aimed at the floor. "How could she have even looked at me the way she did, the way a mother looks at a child, with all of that - that hate - running behind those eyes?"
"Andy." Mae touched his shoulder, running her fingers over the collar bone and stopped at his neck, squeezing gently. "Why be angry now? She spent her time in the hospital, just like I did. She's had all those years of treatment."
"But still - it's so evil."
"Was, Andy. Was evil. Or mad. Or sick. But she's had that under control for years, now. She's changed so much. You have to accept her for who she is now."
Accept her? Knowing what she did? Then remembering the nights she came into his room, thinking he was asleep, the countless nights, his mother - "You're my baby doll, Andy, my baby doll" - he suddenly felt sick.
"I just can't believe my mother could - "
"I know, I know. It's still hard for me to believe. Hard to believe I went along with any of it - with all of it. But I did, Andy. I did. Your mother pulled me along by the strings, but I went willingly. We were children - "
"Jesus - "
" - and you have to remember our parents were never home. We just had each other. Even when our parents were home, we just had each other."
Andy felt the lining of his stomach pulsate. "That's no excuse."
"No. Not for doing what we did. You're right about that." Mae sighed. "But that's the past. The long buried past."
"Is it? Is it buried, Mae?"
- my doll, my baby doll -
"Long buried."
He thought of Natalie. The cat. The graves. Has she been using me? Has Natalie been using me all this time, the seduction just a way to get me off balance? A way to get at Mae?
"But it's not buried," he said. "Not any more. Natalie has dug it up again. She's brought it to life again. She's trying to get you to lose it, to think you're losing your mind." He tried to piece it together in his head. "I can understand why she hates you so much - hates us, hates everything to do with us. And her father - especially why her father hates us." Andy shook his head. "This is so hard for me to believe. I can't believe it - can't accept that my mom, my mother, could do something like that."