Lilies on Main

by J. Lynn Bailey

  “Why you stopped everything?”

  She nods. Looking out the window. “The last thing I remember is Charlotte’s service. Everything else after that is all a haze.” Her stare is piercing, but her tone is as soft as the clouds blowing in from the north.

  “The body does funny things when we’re in shock, Sarah. It does things to protect ourself. Keep our heads safe from the realities of the world. I think you feel a need to explain because of who you are when, really, all we need to know is that you’re okay today.” I pause. Look down at my empty coffee mug and then across the table to Sarah. “The important part is that you’re back.”

  Her eyes meet mine. “She is beautiful, Aaron. And you deserve everything that is good in life.”

  She is.

  “Do you mind? I’m going to go try Lydia one more time. I haven’t been able to get ahold of her. It’s just not like her not to pick up.”

  Sarah motions with her hand and shrugs. “Fine by me.”

  I push out of the booth and walk outside. Try Lydia again. Still, nothing.

  Don’t panic, Aaron, Christ. Don’t be some agro boyfriend. She’s fine. She’ll call you back when she gets a minute.

  Uneasiness settles in my gut, but I can’t tell if it’s me being irrational, overprotective, or if there’s something valid under the uneasiness.

  I walk back into Lifehouse, and Sarah and I talk for a few more hours. I give her milestone updates on what social media is. That we can do everything from our phones, our computers. That dial-up internet no longer exists. Order groceries to be delivered with a click of a button. That cash is virtually unneeded. That there’re hoverboards and cars that run on electricity. That email was a thing, and now, it’s not really a thing. Texting and instant messenger have replaced that. That terrorist attacks and school shootings have become part of our collective history. That Robin Williams died. He had been her favorite actor. We talk about sports and the world and the differences between centuries.

  Time passes.

  Knowing it’s getting late, I check my phone again and still have heard nothing from Lydia. “Listen, I need to get going, Sarah.” It’s after nine thirty p.m. “I’m sorry, but it’s not like Lydia not to call. I’m starting to get a little worried.”

  “She’s lucky to have you, Aaron.”

  Sarah slides out from the booth. I do the same.

  We walk out together, and I get the door for her.

  Outside, I ask if she needs a ride somewhere.

  She tells me no, that I need to go get Lydia. Sarah says it in a kind, sincere way.

  Night has fallen, and I debate with myself about asking her to text me when she makes it home. “Please let me give you a ride.”

  “Really, Aaron, it’s just down the block. I’m fine. Thank you.” Sarah nods and starts to walk in the path she knows.

  Standing at my truck, I let her walk away. From far away, Sarah turns and waves.

  I wave back, get in my truck, and head back to Granite Harbor.

  The drive is just under an hour, and when I take the highway, my phone rings. It’s my mom.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey, Aaron. So, listen, Lilly is here with me and texted her mom a while ago and I haven’t heard back. It’s not like her. Have you heard from her?”

  Fear ripples against my insides, and my stomach drops. “What? Why is Lilly with you?”

  Silence drips across the line, as if waiting for power. “Well, William collapsed in front of the bookstore, and Lydia went with him to the hospital. I-I thought you knew all this?”

  I think a, “No,” comes out, but I’m not sure. My heart slams against my chest cavity. I feel all the color drain from my face.

  You fucking idiot.

  You fucking idiot.

  There you were, having coffee with Sarah. Catching up. Taking your time.

  “Where is she?”

  “Last I heard, the hospital. But … it’s been a while, Aaron, and I have to say, I’m getting worried.”

  “Where’s Lilly?”

  “With Dad, doing a puzzle.”

  “Okay. Keep her safe. I’ll keep you updated.”

  “Aaron, something isn’t right.”

  “I know.” I hang up and slam on the gas pedal.

  Thirty-Two

  Lydia

  We’ve been driving for a half hour. The dull ache of my cheek hasn’t faded, but I guess it might feel worse if my adrenaline wasn’t coursing through my veins.

  “I should have killed you. All those times I had the opportunity, I should have killed you,” Brett says as he taps the barrel of his gun to his forehead, almost talking to himself but talking to me.

  I drive. My knuckles white from my grip. I take Brett as far away as I can from Lilly. I think about my favorite times with Lilly. Waking her up in the morning before school. The faces she makes amid her slumber as she slowly comes to life. Her hands taking my face while she tells me how much she loves me. The moment I saw Aaron sitting with Lilly at her lemonade stand. That’s the moment I knew Aaron was the one for us.

  “Stupid cunt,” Brett says.

  Drive, Lydia. Pay no mind.

  His truck. I have no idea if it’s a rental truck. If it’s stolen.

  “Lost my license to practice medicine.” He goes on, “Lived in a hellhole for-fucking-ever it felt like. Do you know what it’s like to be in prison?”

  I don’t answer, so he nudges me hard in the ribs with the gun.

  It hurts.

  My face hurts.

  If the gun goes off where he just pushed me, I know my life won’t last long.

  You need to fight, Lydia. You need to go home to your daughter. She needs you.

  The road is smooth. With the power I have under my fingertips, I think of all the ways I can take him out. But the problem is, I’d most likely go with him.

  I’ve driven this highway a million times, and yet, now, it seems darker, more desolate, and somehow, less familiar. I try to look for landmarks, try to see through the darkness as Brett rambles on about God knows what.

  I realize the only way out of this alive is to take him out first.

  Survival of the fittest.

  Brett stares blankly out the windshield now. I wonder how I ever found a man who could do this to someone. Hurt another human being the way he hurt me.

  But, now, I start to think like him. All the ways I can hurt him. Get under his skin. Manipulate him.

  “Remember—” My voice starts out hoarse, as if I’d lost it between Granite Harbor and wherever we are. “Remember the first time Lilly said Dada? You were at the hospital, doing rounds, and we FaceTimed.”

  Brett listens. The words and the memory have reached him. He doesn’t say anything.

  “Remember how you started to cry?”

  Brett shakes his head, smiling, grimacing, then smiling again.

  I try to keep my eyes on the road. The darkness that surrounds us, the woods of Maine, what awaits us outside is less sinister than what waits for us inside the truck.

  The barrel of the gun is still on the seat next to me, his hand wrapped around the handle.

  He could end my life quickly, and I think he would if he knew where Lilly was.

  Before the pain really registers in his heart, I feed him another memory. “Remember when she took her first steps? I’d been at the store. I came home, and you were so proud of Lilly; you showed me the video.”

  What I don’t tell him is, she’d already taken her first steps the night before but that he didn’t remember because of his blind rage. Dinner wasn’t cooked to his liking.

  He twists uncomfortably in the bench-style seat. His grip on the gun loosens. He smiles and nods. Pushes his greasy hair back with his free hand.

  Keep talking, I tell myself. Play this out.

  Some people we have hope for, that they’ll, in the end, turn out to be all right people. But not Dr. Brett Lancaster. One day, he’ll eventually snap with Lilly like all the times he snapped wit
h me, even with a strong commitment to do better. It might not be when she’s young, but ultimately, it will happen.

  I can’t allow this to happen, so I feed him another memory, luring him to a happier place. “Remember when we took Lilly to the pumpkin patch? Remember the picture I took of the two of you as you kissed her on the cheek and held her?”

  It’s now that I realize my insides are shaking, that my reality on the outside is moving inward and gaining momentum.

  I cling to the steering wheel as my hands begin to shake, afraid to let go to show him any sign that I’m scared.

  He loved me once.

  I was his wife once.

  We brought Lilly into this world together.

  Surely, this should account for something, right?

  I change course. “Brett, I need you to drive. I don’t feel well.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Something changes in his tone. Perhaps he’s changing course, too.

  “I-I don’t know,” I lie. “I just don’t feel well.”

  “Pull over,” he tells me as the darkness slowly begins to drag behind us. The headlights providing just enough light for twenty feet ahead.

  It’s up on the bend that I notice the pull-off.

  I glide into the pull-off, and the truck comes to a stop. I put the truck in park and idle.

  “Get out,” he says.

  Releasing my hands from the wheel, I open the truck door. I’m greeted with the familiar East Coast humidity.

  From here, I could run into the woods.

  But he’d follow me.

  I might escape his wrath.

  But I might not.

  He could give up. Stop chasing me. But that means he might find Lilly first before I can find my way back to her.

  I shut the truck door as I hear his open with a loud creak. This creak tells me this isn’t a rental. The creak is old. Well worn. The truck could be borrowed. Stolen perhaps.

  Taking the humidity into my lungs, I realize what I need to do.

  I can’t run anymore.

  It’s either him or me.

  I put one foot in front of the other as I come around the bed of the truck. The odd thing is, Brett doesn’t have the gun pointed at me, as if he’s giving me free will to do with as I please—maybe knowing the gun has me at his mercy. In a sick and twisted way, I know it, too.

  “Get in the truck,” he says from the driver’s door, already there, ready to drive.

  I could run. I could. But that would only prolong the inevitable. Because Brett Lancaster always finds what he’s looking for, and I guess, deep down, I always knew he would. I knew this would all come down one day, and I’d have to make a decision between my life and my daughter.

  I will always choose her.

  Looking over to the woods, I watch freedom slip away, and I get in the truck.

  Brett pulls the truck out of park and sets the gun next to him, just out of my reach.

  We make our way down the winding road, and my phone begins to vibrate against my back pocket.

  Aaron has just figured out I’ve gone missing, or we’ve just gotten back into service. Thank God Brett can’t hear it.

  The smooth road underneath us, the darkness surrounds us still and provides just enough distraction where he can’t notice my phone.

  “How much longer?” Brett grumbles, though the jaunt down memory lane has calmed his soul.

  I don’t know. Because I have no idea where I’m taking us. I pretend to know. “About an hour and a half.”

  Brett sighs and leans on the driver’s door almost bored. As if we’re in a fight. As if we’ve taken the wrong turn somewhere and we’re trying to find our way back, whether in marriage or car route. His eyebrows furrow. I know he’s thinking. He taps his long, lean fingers on his leg. Brett’s nails are always so clean. His hands were always the most attractive part of him to me.

  “I always liked your hands.” Not when they hit my body, but when they lay against the covers after we made love or like now, as they rest on his jeans as he taps.

  I need a different angle.

  “I told you I’d do better, Delana. I told you. But you still went to the police. You still put me in prison.” I hear the anger in his voice. The craze.

  My cheek, because of the swelling, is taking up more space than I’m used to, pulling on my lips, my eye as it grows. This used to be familiar, though the face was always off-limits. He’d never hit there because of his stature, his rank. He had an image to protect.

  But, now, what has he become? A doctor without a license. A label of woman-beater. I wonder how this sat with the other prisoners.

  Did they hurt him the way he hurt me?

  “I didn’t put you in prison, Brett. You put yourself there.” I watch as his anger builds, as he firmly pushes his lips together, plays with something in his mouth, most likely his rage. “You made a lot of promises, Brett. A lot of fucking promises you didn’t keep, and you continued to hurt me.” This pours from my mouth without remorse or control. Words I’ve never breathed to anyone else. “You hurt me in ways that were sneaky and underhanded. Threatened me that, if I didn’t lie to the police, you’d do worse.”

  “If you hadn’t done things that upset me, it wouldn’t have come down to that.” His voice is somehow calmer now.

  Aaron has taught me how a real woman should be treated.

  “You’re sick, Brett.”

  And these three words set his anger on fire.

  With one swift move, he takes the barrel of the gun and cracks it hard against the same spot he already hit earlier.

  I feel the warm trickle of blood begin to run down my cheek, and the pain begins to flow. I want to fold into myself. Curl into a ball to protect what I have left. I cover my face as he grabs a small thing of tissues from the glove box and throws them at me.

  “Clean your shit up. And that guy you’ve been seeing, who the fuck is he?”

  “A better man than you’ll ever be,” I choke out as I hold back the tears. I won’t allow him to see me cry.

  I open up the package of tissues as the warm ooze squeezes between my fingers, droplets falling on my pants. The red stains hit and explode, expand, long legs of blood crawling away from the spot, as if trying to escape.

  “All I want is my fucking kid, Delana.”

  “You’ll never find her. I win, Brett. I win!” Because the rage takes over me as I quickly lean back against the door, I take my shoe and kick him in the face as hard as I can.

  The truck swerves.

  Tires squeal.

  We tip to two wheels.

  I’ve surrendered to the idea that we might have to die together. That I might not make it back for Lilly. I suppose my mom will follow the will in the freezer I drafted at Mr. Baker’s office, the one my mother convinced me was a good idea. My mom knows.

  Lilly, I’m fighting for you.

  Thirty-Three

  Aaron

  I walk upstairs. The door to Lydia’s apartment is unlocked. My stomach grows uneasy, uncomfortable, as I think that, if I’d only been here when I said I would be here, this wouldn’t have been the situation.

  I search the apartment for clues, anything that will lead me to her.

  It has to be him. This is unlikely behavior for Lydia. She’d never leave Lilly. Ever.

  But knowing her as well as I do also means that, whatever Lydia had to decide, it was to protect Lilly.

  That means, they probably left town.

  He took her and left town.

  I call my mom and start to speak before she can, “Take Lilly to Boston. I have a friend at the Boston Park Plaza. Take her now, Mom. As fast as you can. Do you hear me?”

  “But, Aaron—”

  “Mom, don’t ask questions. I’ll call you with further instructions as soon as I know what the hell is going on.”

  “Okay.”

  I hang up. Slam my fist through the wall. “Fuck!” I call out, looking at the wall. “How could you have been so stupid, Aaron, so
selfish?”

  Still, I search for anything. Panic setting in. Making itself comfortable.

  Was he waiting here for her?

  Did he come in after her?

  I tried to convince her she’d be okay and not to worry, that maybe he’d changed himself.

  But she knew. She fucking knew.

  You idiot, Aaron.

  After I can’t find a fucking thing to track, to see which way they went, I remember that we turned on her Find My iPhone feature on her phone when we found out Brett had been released, just in case.

  “Bingo. They’re headed south,” I say.

  Scowling, I watch the red light flash, moving across my phone screen. I know what she’s doing. She’s dragging Brett as far away from Lilly as she can.

  I put in a call to Hodges at the troopers’ office, explain the situation, and try to keep calm. Hodges looks up Lancaster in their system. He says he’ll call Robert Black, his parole officer.

  Before I leave the apartment, I lock the door behind me, just in case I’ve missed something and I don’t want anyone destroying evidence on purpose or on accident.

  I have a sickening feeling that Brett doesn’t give a shit about his future. I have a sickening feeling that he’s probably operating in some sort of a manic state because he doesn’t give a shit anymore. Not thinking correctly. Why else would he have done something so stupid like kidnap Lydia? Rational thinking isn’t where he’s at.

  That gives the good guys a leg up.

  I’m in my truck now, and it’s dark on Main, except for the lampposts that provide light. I make a call to Ryan, our superior warden, and explain what’s going on. The CliffsNotes.

  Within minutes, I’m at my brother’s house.

  “I’m driving,” he says and makes me get out of the truck and get in the passenger seat. “How far ahead are they from us?” he asks as he slides into the driver’s side.