“I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ll call the doctor’s office as soon as they open.”
“Could I bring you this ginger tea with honey?”
“No thanks, Riannda.”
“Did you try that all-day cold medicine? It works wonders for me. I can even get things done. Last March I had the worst cold …”
“Thanks. You’re a real sweetie. But I don’t want pills. I drank grapefruit juice this morning and got nauseous again. I’ll have to wait it out.”
“You’re not pregnant, are you? Could it be morning sickness?”
“Oh, God, no!” Caryn bellowed her answer a little too loudly.
“Okay. Well, I hope you get better soon.”
Caryn hung up. Easy enough. She’d woken early to look for information about Ekhard, aka Nathaniel Johnson, online. So far, she’d discovered that he was an accountant and a single nerd who kept to himself. But Caryn had ways of learning about people’s private lives. And now she had a sick day.
Two hours and sixteen minutes later, she parked her car on Hyacinth Street in Lafayette, three houses from Eks’s place.
The thought troubled her that her brother lived in a house. He owns the home, she thought. And I live in a condo. I don’t care. It was never a competition.
Who was she kidding? It was always a competition.
She closed and locked the car, ducking behind it, and checked the street for signs of life. Past his house in the next yard, a tall elderly man stood with his back to her. His blue windbreaker flapped in the breeze. In one hand, he held a hose that was showering water on orange and red mums. In a month, winter weather would take those flowers, so Caryn wondered why he bothered.
The man stepped out of the shade into bright sunlight. Behind his back, she zigzagged into Eks’s yard as the man turned. In four long gazelle-like strides, Caryn made it between the houses and out of his line of sight.
She stopped to put her hands on her thighs, breathing hard. I’m not nervous, she told herself while her heart drummed a jazzy beat. She looked at the dark windows of the house next door. Dry grass crunched under her feet as she crept to the backyard. The sounds of children playing nearby forced her to a stop behind a bush before proceeding. Behind Ekhard’s yard and across the chain-link fence, two toddlers wearing bright-colored clothing sat in a sandbox, playing. One wore a ruffled hat to protect her face from the sun.
Where is the parent?
There. Ten or twelve feet from the sandbox, their mother sat in a folding lawn chair with a white cup in one hand and a magazine in the other. She faced Ekhard’s backyard, watching the children giggle and coo.
One scraggly crab apple tree grew in the center of Ekhard’s exposed backyard. The fruit from it covered the ground where several birds pecked at the fallen berries. Other than that, one small shed tucked into the farthest corner didn’t block the woman’s view. With no plantings or rail around the deck, Caryn remained behind a deciduous bush that had already lost half its leaves.
A phone rang. The plump woman in the lawn chair set her magazine on her lap and flipped open a cell phone. “Hi, Mom. Nothing. Letting Emily and Eric play outside in the sandbox. I don’t know how long this nice weather will hold.”
Caryn watched the breeze whip several leaves off the bush. They tumbled across the yard, beckoning the toddlers into a game of tag. With her back pressed against the dingy white aluminum siding, she hoped her black long-sleeve shirt and camouflage pants would hold up to their reputation.
“What? You’re kidding. I despise that woman. Hold on a minute.” The mother looked right at Caryn and then, with an effort, lifted herself out of the lawn chair. “I’ll go turn on the TV.”
Caryn breathed in relief as the neighbor waddled into her house. The kids, who appeared to be near the ages of two and four, remained playing outside while their mother watched them from a window. Caryn couldn’t risk an entry through Eks’s patio door.
She ducked back to the front of the house, keeping an eye out for the man watering flowers. As luck would have it, he was gone. Across the street, homes were quiet. It was 11:27. Quickly, she hopped up to Ekhard’s faded-green front door.
The solid door had no windows or sidelights. She pulled two straightened paperclips out of her pocket and got to work. As she was a little out of practice, it took her over a minute to jimmy the deadbolt because the knob was loose and wobbly. Once unlocked, the door opened and closed behind her without a sound. Her heart pounded loudly as if trying to send a message to the dead while Caryn stood in Ekhard’s darkened foyer.
A boxy glass and gold-plated light fixture hung from overhead. On her left were dark-walnut closet doors, and next to them the door to the garage. She peeked inside to confirm that Ekhard was indeed gone for the day. Cool air and the smell of gasoline leaked into the house before she shut the door.
On her right, the once-white carpet had a brownish-gray path from the kitchen to a chair in the living room. His decrepit leather recliner faced a big-screen TV and reminded her of the one their dad had had. Given the age and wear of this chair, it might have been the very same one in which Theo had drunk himself to death.
Except for the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the house was quiet. Caryn took a step forward. Worn floorboards creaked under her feet. Ahead of her, she recognized a long, dark table in the dinette with four straight-backed chairs around it. Every morning before school she had eaten breakfast at that table.
Scratches on the corner took her back to a memory of the ten-year-old Ekhard when he had been making a model airplane and decided to saw the pieces apart with his Boy Scout camping knife. He was grounded for two weeks for cutting into the table. He also took a beating from their mother. His bare bottom had turned bright red and blue while Anna Clare paddled him.
Caryn ran her fingers over a dent in the surface, a perfect circle, about the size of a quarter. The edges of the dent had softened with age; now it was smooth where it had once been splintery. Near it was a mound of model glue about one centimeter in diameter. The dents and bumps connected her to a distant history hidden behind a heavy theater curtain.
Daylight poured in through the sliding door. Out past the deck, Caryn watched the neighbor woman rejoin her children in their yard. The smallest one had begun to cry. The drama unfolded like a silent movie. The mom picked up her child and patted the girl on the back while talking to her. The child calmed and wiped her eyes with a tiny fist.
Caryn couldn’t imagine what was being said. She didn’t remember Anna Clare ever holding her that way. The memory of her mother turned black-and-blue. She would rather forget.
In the kitchen, the old Formica counter was peeled and cracked as if harsh cleaners had regularly been used to scrub it. It struck her how clean it was. Spotless. There wasn’t a crumb of toast or a drip of coffee on it. The stovetop, too, sparkled and shined in the sunlight.
She wondered if Ekhard still cooked. After Anna Clare left, circumstances had forced him to do most of the cooking and cleaning. Not that Theo cared. He didn’t. But they had to eat. Instead of starving, Ekhard made the choice to take care of those things while Dad sucked down more bourbon.
What does Ekhard eat now? Caryn peeked into the fridge. Eggs, milk, and an unopened package of Colby cheese. A twelve-pack of beer opened on its side. Bread and a pot of leftovers that smelled like meat or spaghetti sauce. She closed the door.
Around the corner, a closed door led to the basement. She’d save that for last. She hated basements. A yellow phone hung on the wall with a spiral cord that, stretched to its limit, hit the floor. Next to it hung a whiteboard with “Gold’s Gym membership dues” written on it in blue dry-erase marker.
Pictures covered the wall in the darkened hallway past the dinette. Here, Caryn flipped on a light. Framed in plain wood was an old family photo. In a posed studio picture with fake trees in the background, Theo wasn’t smiling. Mom, with her long, straight hippy hair, looked more worried than happy. And, grinning and ignorant, Ekh
ard and Caryn sat on an orange pillow.
A rattling sound startled her. One picture hit the floor with a crash. Her chest felt tight as she bent to pick it up. At least the glass hadn’t broken. It was of Anna Clare, bronzed tan and smiling with her arms around Ekhard, who was about six. Next to them in a pink ruffled bathing suit, sun-bleached-blond Caryn pouted. She was maybe three years old.
Disgusted, Caryn moved to the bedrooms. A stale-stagnant smell hung in the air. No more pictures. Not even decorative paintings hung on the walls. Only one large full-length mirror stood against the wall beside her mother’s dresser. A king-size mattress lay on the floor, made to perfection just like Mom had taught them, the sheets and blue blanket pulled into perfect nurse’s corners.
Eks’s bathroom was white and pristine. The sink was clean, without a single hair or smudge. Two white towels folded neatly over the towel bar appeared unused.
When did my brother become such a neatnik?
Back in his bedroom, Caryn rummaged through the top drawer of her mother’s dresser. Oddly, it still contained things that she had coveted as a child: a small perfume bottle, a cheap gold locket with a picture of her grandmother in it, a black rosary that had belonged to a friend. She picked it up and remembered that person giving it to Anna Clare. She remembered her mother’s black, swollen eye.
A silver tube of lipstick lay next to the rosary. Though the sticker had fallen off, Caryn knew the color: Frosted Pink Rose. She twisted the tube open. About half remained. It wasn’t too dried out. The tube made its way into the cargo pocket of Caryn’s camouflage pants.
Caryn had seen enough. She rubbed her aching hands together. Psychosomatic, the pain always started when she thought of her mother. It went along with deep feelings of anger.
It was time to meet with Ekhard face to face. Time to face the past.
CHAPTER 23
CARYN: 27 Years Ago
It was a dog. The best one Caryn had ever drawn. It had brown-and-white fur, though the white crayon didn’t show up on the white paper very well. She drew small black dots for eyes, just like the dog that lived in the blue house down the street. The fuzzy white dog that barked all the time.
“That looks good,” Ekhard complimented her drawing. “Yours is better than mine,” he admitted. He was right. Across the kitchen table, he had drawn a dog too. But his looked like a horse with stick legs.
Ekhard crumpled his paper and threw it across the room. “I’m better at cars.” He reached for the box of crayons, but his hand hovered over them indecisively. “Should I make a yellow or a red Corvette?”
Caryn didn’t know what a Corvette was, but she liked red better. “Red,” she told him. She had a dark-green crayon called Pine Tree in her hand and worked on the grass under her dog.
Mom strode into the room wearing a plaid miniskirt and removing a jean jacket. Underneath, she wore a sheer chiffon blouse with ruffled short sleeves. “What would you like for lunch today?”
“Peanut butter and jelly,” Ekhard said. He had begun drawing a yellow car.
“Coloring?” Anna Clare slung the jacket over her left arm. The wadded-up piece of paper that Ekhard had thrown scooted across the floor as she kicked it. It landed under the table and stopped dead. “Who told you that you could color on the kitchen table?”
Caryn’s eyes remained on her paper. “We’re not coloring the table, Mom. We have paper.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Caryn. Is that your paper on the floor?” Their mother pointed at the crumpled-up paper under the table.
“No.” Caryn admired the grass around each of her dog’s feet. She put the green crayon away, then chose one called Pumpkin Orange and added a flower.
Mom waited. “If I have to pick the paper up, you will both get grounded. Understand?”
“It’s not mine. Ekhard did it,” Caryn said, focused on her drawing.
“Someone get that trash off the floor.” Mom’s voice rose.
Ekhard ignored the mounting tension and continued working on black wheels for his Corvette. Caryn felt it coming and crouched over her paper. Mom was having a bad day. An angry day. On days like this, Mom could hurt you. She would do it without regret and without saying she was sorry. Once, Caryn got in trouble for asking too many questions. Mom had taken her hands and hit them with the round part of a spoon till they were red and bruised. Caryn stopped asking questions.
“Pick it up,” Mom commanded. Her face had turned red.
“Eks?” Caryn pleaded.
Silent, her brother remained engrossed in his project.
Mom hovered over the table. She had hung her jacket over the back of one chair and placed her hands on the table. “That’s a nice dog, Caryn. Very nice.”
For a fleeting moment, Caryn appreciated the praise. But the grateful feeling didn’t take hold before her stomach went cold. Her mother paused, calm before the storm.
Ekhard looked up and met Caryn’s eye at the moment Anna struck. Their papers were torn from under their hands, and Mom raged, flinging torn little pieces like confetti across the table. On days like this Caryn knew to stay small and hidden. She would remain quiet. Watching. Invisible.
When she was through shredding Caryn’s drawing, their mother spilled the box of crayons and scattered them violently across the room. “I said, pick up the paper! Pick up the goddamn paper!”
Ekhard cowered.
Caryn shouted, “Do it, Eks!” Mom’s tantrums could last for a whole day, and no one could make her stop. Caryn slid off her chair and under the table, out of reach.
Ekhard yelled, “Stop it!” and pushed his chair back with a grating sound. “Why do you have to be like this?”
Caryn looked up at him. His gaze seemed to burn a hole in his mother’s head. What was he doing? They both knew she’d just get worse if you stood up to her. And it did. At the sound of skin on skin, Caryn shrank into a ball.
Once, twice, three times.
His chair fell over backward as Ekhard jumped to his feet. He shrieked, “I hate you! I hate you!” Then he bolted for the door. Caryn saw him trying to get past their mom, trying to go to his room, but she caught his arm and yanked him back.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Their mother gripped his thin arm with one hand as he struggled to get away.
Anna squeezed his smaller hand and made a white-knuckle fist. Ekhard screamed.
Over the sounds of his cries, Caryn carefully picked up every last crayon and tiny shred of paper, including the broken Pumpkin Orange crayon. While doing so, she decided never to be like her mother. Mom was crazy. If you didn’t do things her way, she got so angry. Just like today. She threw things and hit you.
Black-and-blue bruises peppered Caryn’s arms and bottom. Ekhard’s too. Once, she even broke his fingers. Caryn remembered waiting in the emergency room that night. When the doctor asked how it happened, Mom had lied and said Eks fell. She told us to keep it a secret. Caryn was surprised that Ekhard did. If anything, she would grow up to be tough like him. She would never be like her mother.
CHAPTER 24
MORGAN
Tiny snowflakes floated through the air, an early show of winter in October. Morgan zipped her red winter jacket up to the neck and peered through a smeared, dirty glass window, shading her eyes from the glare. The two-story, inner-city house was three miles from Monument Circle in central downtown.
“No one is home,” she said.
Donnie, out on the concrete sidewalk, craned his neck to see the upper windows. “Someone’s upstairs.”
Weathered sheets of plywood boarded over two windows on this house-turned-apartment. This area was inhabited mostly by druggies and poor folks, and most houses were aged beyond restoration. Residents didn’t have the opportunity or the know-how to rise above their conditions, nor the money for decent repairs.
Somewhere inside, a door shut. Morgan knocked again and pressed her forehead to the dirty glass, trying to see inside the house. A shadow emerged. A hunched-over person wearing
jeans and a dark-green hoodie approached the door.
“Someone’s coming.” She tapped the glass.
A woman opened the deadbolt first, then two sliding locks.
“Yeah?” A cloud of cigarette smoke accompanied her. A burning butt hung from bitterly thin lips.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.” Morgan’s breath clouded the cold air. “I’m looking for one of your residents, Becky Lewis. Is she in?”
“I’m Becky, and it’s not Lewis anymore. It’s Parks. What do you want?”
With Becky’s police record she had been easy to find. Nowhere did it mention her marriage. Around thirty-seven years old, Becky Parks had aged dramatically. She looked closer to fifty. Her gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head. It looked and smelled like she’d slept on it for days.
Both detectives flashed their badges. “Hi, Becky. I’m Detective Jewell, and this is my partner, Detective James. We just wanted to ask you some questions about someone you went to high school with.”
“If it’s Craig Flynn again, I don’t know anything. I told them a hundred times …”
“No, ma’am. It isn’t about him. We wanted to talk to you about Suzanne Aiken,” Morgan said.
In an instant, Becky’s body language changed from up on her toes and leaning in their faces to fallen, stricken from her perch.
Morgan offered a handshake.
“Oh.” Becky weakly shook Morgan’s hand with two fingers.
“Do you remember Suzanne?” Morgan asked.
Becky nodded.
“Would you mind talking to us about her?” Donnie asked. He remained on the sidewalk.
“That’s all right. Sure. Let me get my smokes. It’s cold out today, but we can sit on the porch if you don’t mind. My son is sleeping upstairs.”
“We’ll wait here,” Donnie said in his deep, soothing voice.
The weathered front porch was broken like the building. There was a rotten, ripped-up couch that smelled of mildew even in the cold wintry air. Morgan put her hands in her pockets and leaned on the porch rail, which needed more than a good coat of paint. Trash, a broken beer bottle, and fast-food wrappers littered the small front yard. A plastic grocery bag caught on a twiggy bush waved in the breeze.
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