CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Scarborough Beach is known for its surf and tonight is no exception. Doug watches a pack of surfers seize the ocean breeze, their torsos impossibly lean. They lie down on sleek boards and paddle out to deep waters, to risk. The current drags them back easily until, arms extended like wings, they stand up and squat. Billowy waves pass beneath them before an enormous one rolls forward, gaining speed and astonishing height. They glide along the wave’s lip then drop amazingly into its wide open throat.
Miles behind them, a peaceful September sun sits low on the horizon. Feverishly pink, its rays fan out, splashing brilliant color onto a clear sky. Doug stares at the sunset, reflecting on the dichotomy between the sea up-close and beyond. They are blissfully ignorant, these surfers, and Doug envies them. He raises his chin and tips the last of his Miller Lite into his mouth before crushing the can into the sand. He cries some more.
“You think I’ll be able to do that someday, Dad?”
Josh loved watching the surfers. He’d sit beside Doug on a damp towel, his arms propped up on bent knees.
“I think you’ll be able to do anything you set your mind to, Josh.”
The comment was as sappy as a Hallmark card, he knew… but he had meant every word of it. He actually believed that his son was invincible, and that he’d be there to watch him soar through life’s highs and lows. Even after the abduction he had felt this way, as though he and Serena had been granted a second chance to do a better job as parents.
How had they failed so miserably?
The abduction was tragic, no doubt. Jaded by the incident, Serena was never quite right afterwards. Had her decision to hook up with Bari been part of a weird self-fulfilling prophecy? A curse?
“I thought you’d be here.”
Justine.
“You found me…”
“Yes… and I come bearing goods.” She kneels beside him, snaps off the cover of a small cooler, and brandishes a pint of Black Raspberry ice-cream.
“You’re too much,” he says, touching her wrist.
On the first day they’d met, she had been sitting alone in the teacher’s lounge, stripping the wrapper off of a granola bar. The rest of the staff—older and more miserable—had been complaining about unfair contracts. He casually made his way to the vending machine when her soft brown gaze lifted to meet his. She wore an off-white cashmere sweater, black leather skirt, and designer boots, perfectly fitted to her calves. Her smile was modest. A burning desire to take care of this girl had overcome him. What is it about certain women… that makes them impossible to resist?
Alyssa Galica’s face invades his mind. Josh, too, had been bit.
He stares at his girlfriend as though studying an exquisite sapphire, feeling buzzed by the four previous beers. A warm breeze blows strands of wavy brown hair across her cheek. She scoops a mound of ice-cream into a small plastic bowl. He sweeps the loose strand behind her ear. “You gonna be okay?” She hands him a spoon.
He gulps his beer and swallows. “I don’t think so.” His eyes drift to the horizon. At any moment, an asteroid could explode in the atmosphere and blow them to pieces. The sound of the gunshot invades his mind again, as it has for the last few weeks. He sees his son, lifeless on his lap, his eyes open and lucid. Regret charges in like a bull. If only the front door was locked, if only he had chosen to have the sex talk at his apartment, if only Serena had chosen someone else—
Her hand finds his. “I know this isn’t going to be easy, Doug.”
“I don’t think we’ve met.” It had been raining hard that day. The teacher’s lounge had smelled of musk and leftover coffee. The inevitable gossip burned through his thoughts. The divorce was so hard on him. He deserves to love again. She’s a bit young for him, though. He’s been through so much….
He turns to her. “Why do you think Bari would kill him? I mean, even if he thought he was avenging his daughter… he shot my son at the expense of his own life.” He scrunches his nose, holds back tears. “Bari turned himself in, you know. He didn’t even attempt to get away.”
It was true. Following the shooting, Bari had raised his hands in the air. “I do not expect you to understand why I had to do this.” He was wearing a white polo golf shirt and cargo shorts. He clutched the pistol tightly with his right hand as he said this, as though deciding whether or not to shoot Doug as well. In hindsight, Doug wishes he had.
“I couldn’t speak. My throat went dry and I became disoriented. At one point, I couldn’t see.”
Justine rubs his knee. “I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to make sense of what happened that night, Doug.”
“I felt like I was in one of those dreams… where you know you’re supposed to run, but your legs won’t move … only it was my voice that seemed to be paralyzed.”
She rubs his back, tickles his neck with her long fingernails. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you, baby.”
He lowers his head to her lap and lets her run her fingers through his hair. By now, the sun has dunked its fiery head under the sea’s surface, turning day into night. A few stars twinkle to life. The roar of the waves rolls through his mind, easing him, until, for a perfect moment in time, he forgets. Justine’s spiral curls tickle his neck like a soft paintbrush as she massages his shoulders. Instinctively, his arms float to the back of her head where he pulls her face down to meet his lips. They exchange a kiss that tastes of salt and beer and raspberries.
Cradling her lithe body in his arms, he draws her even closer until she’s on top of him, beside him, and both of their hands are sliding in and out of loose clothing. The surfers are hooting joyously in the dark, oblivious, and Doug feels as though, like them, he’s breaking a rule. He’s about to have sex on the beach with a perfect woman and a terrible tragedy has not taken place. It was only a dream.
His fingers glide along the skin beneath her sundress, surf along her curves. Justine works at the button of his fly. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ punctuates his thoughts. His new ring tone.
He sits up awkwardly, digs in his pocket for his phone, and checks the caller ID . Kim Murray, Serena’s best friend. “Jesus… I have to take this one, honey.”
He presses the ‘answer’ key. “Hello?”
“Doug—this is Kim. You’ve got to come home… I mean to Serena’s—and quick.”
“What’s going on?”
“I think she tried… I mean, I don’t know for sure, but—”
“Tried what? What are you talking about, Kim?” He levers himself up.
“Suicide, Doug.”
A sharp pain jabs at his stomach. His knees wobble as he struggles to stand.
“What’s this all about?” Justine asks, adjusting her dress.
“It’s—it’s Serena… she’s in trouble. Suicide, I-I gotta go.”
“Oh my God. I’ll drive.”
* * *
Saddled with beach bags, damp towels, and a single cooler, they stumble anxiously to Justine’s car. Doug is unable to drive. She fumbles in her pocketbook for her keys and pops open the trunk. They stuff their belongings inside and Doug slams it shut.
He rounds her Saab to the passenger’s side. Justine does not join him “All set?”—he calls out. “Oh gosh, Doug,” he hears her say.
“What’s going on?” He walks back towards her.
“We just locked my keys in the trunk.” She pats at her pockets, as though looking for another set.
“When you opened it, the doors don’t automatically unlock?” He yanks at a backseat door.
“Yeah, then they automatically lock when I shut it.” She bites her thumbnail. “My spare is at home.”
“We’ll take my car, then. I’ll drive you back here tomorrow with the spare set.”
“That’s fine. Give me your keys. I’ll drive your car.” She holds out her hand, palm side up.
The request, though appropriate in this situation, catches him off-guard. His dad, an automobile hobbyist, just handed him down a restored Corvette. It’s not that Justine is a bad driver. It’s just that he’d rather not take the risk of something happening, something he could have prevented.
“Oh, I’m fine now, hon. I can’t even feel the beer, seriously. I’ll drive.”
“It’s not worth taking a chance, Doug. Rhode Island is loaded with Stateys this time of the night. With everything you’re already dealing with, you don’t need a DUI.”
He stuffs his hands into his pockets and draws out a set of keys, trying to remain casual. “Totally true. I’ll go slow. Let’s go.”
Justine stands still, tilts her head slightly. “You don’t trust me to drive the ‘Vette, do you?”
“I just want to drive, that’s all… no big deal.”
She squints at him, as though perplexed. “The mother of your dead child is suffering and you’re actually thinking about your car.”
“Give me a break, Justine! Why are you doing this? It’s been hard enough for me, without having to argue!” The words are a throw-back of a marriage past. In his mind, he hears himself fighting the same cause with Serena. The umbrella.
“I promise I won’t break it, Doug… it’s just pouring buckets out and the large one is so much better than my cheap, busted one.”
“It’s my umbrella. Why don’t you buy your own?”
“Why don’t you share your things?”
He had held his own that day, and refused to let her use his gigantic green umbrella, a free gift given to him by the advertising firm he had previously worked for. Eventually, she had stopped asking and purchased her own umbrella, along with other things. It didn’t take long for their materials to multiply. By the time of their divorce, they had owned two iPods , two recliners, two television sets, and two coffee makers. Ironically, dividing their things had been easy—they hadn’t been sharing them anyways.
“Gee, Doug… I don’t know why I’d argue for the sober person to drive? Are you crazy? What’s more important here?—protecting your mint vehicle, or saving a life?”
It’s maddening, this moral reasoning, always making him fall short. The second time around, he decides, is no less forgiving. He looks at Justine: golden skin, full lips, perfect teeth. The sleeves of her hooded sweatshirt are too long. They shield her small hands, though he catches of glimpse of the ring he bought her for Christmas last year. He does not want to make the same mistake twice.
“I just want to drive my own car, Justine, alright?”
But he will.
“Fine, then count me out.” She turns away from him and approaches the parking lot steps leading back to the beach.
“Your keys are in your trunk, Justine. You can’t stay out here alone.”
“Watch me.”
She fades into the cool, salty night, though the sound of her footsteps remains palpable.
“Come on, Justine… don’t be like that!”
He’s about to chase after her, when his cell phone rings again.
This time, the caller ID reveals Serena’s name.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Chapter Twenty-Eight: In the Wake of his Death...
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
On an ordinary day, Alyssa Galica possesses a look that drives middle-aged women crazy. With sultry full lips and mischievous eyes, the young girl has the power to make a man’s mind wander to dangerous places.
“Serena…”
But this is no ordinary day.
“I don’t want to live.”
The young girl appears as pale as the moon.
“He never raped me.”
Smudged mascara rings the skin below her eyes, eyes diminished to slits. She stands hunched over, trembling, her arms wrapped around her waist as though she's about to vomit.
“I can’t discuss this right now… or here, Alyssa. Certainly, you understand this?” Her voice is as fragile and unreliable as pond ice in the spring. She does not trust it to hold the weight of her anger.
"I coaxed him to do it… I told my father a lie in order to—”
“Alyssa…” she says sharply. “Please. I will agree to allow you a moment with Josh, but you need to calm down. I’ll take you back to my house afterwards.”
Out of nowhere, the funeral director, a slight man who has spent the evening standing like a butler at the door’s entrance, interrupts them. “This decision is entirely up to you, Ms. Davis. It is not customary to keep the doors open after your guests have visited the deceased, but I’m willing to make an exception in this case.”
The deceased. The phrase burns her tongue. “She’ll just be a few minutes, Sir.” She turns to Alyssa and offers a stern nod. “Go ahead… I’ll wait here for you.”
“Thank you.” Her would-have-been stepdaughter takes a shallow, rattling breath and slowly moves towards the casket, as though one wrong move might awake the sleeper. She kneels down in prayer.
I was the one who coaxed him to do it.
Serena watches the girl tremble and sob over folded hands, guilty hands. . It was Josh who had said no that night. It was Josh who had been killed for the lie.
You have to know that I want to hurt the boy who hurt my Alyssa… even if it is Joshua.
It hadn’t been the first time Bari had raised an overprotective hand for his daughter. There was the time at the school dance when he drove to the parking lot to spy on Alyssa as she flirted with her boyfriend.
“You’re acting insane,” she had told him and, afterwards, they had joked about it over sundaes. Yes… She had known from the start of his issues with his daughter, issues stemming from his wife’s death, but she had understood. Parenting and worrying went hand-in-hand, and if this man seemed wrong in that department, so be it. There was enough that he did right and, besides, she was no one to talk.
But this threat—along with what followed—made no sense. Bari… Murder? Watching the Fox 25 news clip (the same one she had refused to comment on) had been surreal. Glenn Baker, a compassionate young reporter who had become somewhat of a Monday night companion, interrupted a baseball game with Breaking News. She had been seated at the edge of her bed.
“A disturbing murder involving the boyfriend of a forty-seven-year old Westboro mother, whom friends and neighbors describe to be genteel and loving, has shattered this suburban community.” Bari’s neighbor was interviewed. “I’ve watched him play ball with his son in this yard for over a decade now,” she had said, pointing out the location. “My husband and I are completely shocked.”
Betty. She had waved to her while pulling into Bari’s driveway last week. Into Bari’s driveway—the driveway of a man who brought his nan, Gjyshe, chocolates at her nursing home, rubbed foot lotion on her tired feet… and shot her child.
She feels dizzy. Her legs are suddenly heavy. They weigh her down. She feels as though she’s drowning. A sharp pain bites her elbow as she slips away…
“Ms. Davis!” The funeral director, his surprisingly sturdy arms beneath her elbows. “Ms. Davis… it’s been a long day… you need a break. I’m going to lock up now. Let’s go. I’ll walk the two of you to your car.”
“Oh gosh… I’m sorry, I was just thinking about something when a wave of nausea came over me and—”
“Are you okay?” Alyssa.
“I’m okay… and thank you, Sir.”
The director locks up and the three of them walk to her car, the night air cool and slightly humid. Teenage drivers zoom by, car radios turned up too loud. Familiar songs blare then fade away. She thinks of the endless nights spent awake in bed while waiting for Josh to arrive home. She’d answer on the second ring, so as not to appear overly concerned—Hey, Mom… I’m just at The Pizza Palace, running a few minutes late.
She’d thank him for calling and bookmark her novel.
“Thanks for your help tonight, Sir.” She turns on the ignition. “I think we’re all set now.”
“Have a safe trip home, Ms. Davis. I’m deeply sorry for your loss.”
Gently, he shuts the door and walks away, leaving her alone with the girl responsible for her son’s death.
* * *
Lori Hearns bookmarks her novel and reads the obituary again. Joshua Davis, 17, of Wilder Road, passed away from a gunshot wound on Saturday, August 18th in the UMass Memorial Healthcare, 119 Belmont St. She scans over the names of surviving relatives. Her watery eyes blink and settle on the last section. Joshua will be remembered as a happy child who always saw the good in people. He was an exceptional athlete and well liked by his teachers and peers. He was a member of the National Honor Society and participated in numerous community service efforts. The funeral will be held Wednesday, August 22nd from the HARRISON B. WILSON FUNERAL HOME, 220 Main Street, Westboro.
She grabs a second tissue and wipes the corners of her eyes. Serena and Doug Davis have been wronged again
The first time she had met Joshua, they were seated across from each other in the ambulance, the snowy New Hampshire highway rumbling beneath them. The EMT, a young girl whose face beamed with compassion, checked his vital signs and made small talk while Lori casually probed for answers. The closer she could get to his side of the story—while it was fresh—the easier it would be to move the case along.
“Mr. Roth lied to me because he said he needed my help with some special bandages for my Dad’s wrist but then he tied my mouth up.”
He had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.
“That must have been very frightening,” she had said, adjusting the volume of her tape recorder.
“Is Mr. Roth going to die?” Josh was lying on his back on a stretcher; his head at a right angle to speak to her, his bangs flopped to one side.
It would certainly make our lives a lot easier, she had thought, “Uh-no… I don’t think so,” she had said. “He’s being flown to the intensive care unit right now.”
“I don’t think he would have hurt me, you know.” He had folded his hands, studied the ambulance ceiling. “He was missing his own son, I think.”
Crying has never been easy for Lori. When her own father died, the endless tears her siblings shed must have made up for her own dry eyes. Once you learn how to shield yourself from hurt, the protective walls you’ve learned to build so well erect automatically. They become a part of you, just another layer.
“I don’t want Mr. Roth to die… I just hope he learned his lesson.”
The walls crumble like a sandcastle swept under the tide. She runs an index finger across his picture and weeps effortlessly, never hearing her bedroom door creak open.
“Mom?” .
She presses her fingers to her eyes to clean up, but it’s too late. She’s been caught. Her son sees his Mom cry for the first time.
“You okay, Mom?” He walks to the edge of the bed.
Taking a deep breath, she reaches out to hug him. “I’m fine, Scottie… something sad happened to a boy I once knew, that’s all.”
“Did he die or something?”
“No, he just got hurt, that’s all.” Your half-brother will feel no more pain.
“Come on downstairs. I have a few projects to finish.”
She will build her son’s sandcastle for him, using cement.
On an ordinary day, Alyssa Galica possesses a look that drives middle-aged women crazy. With sultry full lips and mischievous eyes, the young girl has the power to make a man’s mind wander to dangerous places.
“Serena…”
But this is no ordinary day.
“I don’t want to live.”
The young girl appears as pale as the moon.
“He never raped me.”
Smudged mascara rings the skin below her eyes, eyes diminished to slits. She stands hunched over, trembling, her arms wrapped around her waist as though she's about to vomit.
“I can’t discuss this right now… or here, Alyssa. Certainly, you understand this?” Her voice is as fragile and unreliable as pond ice in the spring. She does not trust it to hold the weight of her anger.
"I coaxed him to do it… I told my father a lie in order to—”
“Alyssa…” she says sharply. “Please. I will agree to allow you a moment with Josh, but you need to calm down. I’ll take you back to my house afterwards.”
Out of nowhere, the funeral director, a slight man who has spent the evening standing like a butler at the door’s entrance, interrupts them. “This decision is entirely up to you, Ms. Davis. It is not customary to keep the doors open after your guests have visited the deceased, but I’m willing to make an exception in this case.”
The deceased. The phrase burns her tongue. “She’ll just be a few minutes, Sir.” She turns to Alyssa and offers a stern nod. “Go ahead… I’ll wait here for you.”
“Thank you.” Her would-have-been stepdaughter takes a shallow, rattling breath and slowly moves towards the casket, as though one wrong move might awake the sleeper. She kneels down in prayer.
I was the one who coaxed him to do it.
Serena watches the girl tremble and sob over folded hands, guilty hands. . It was Josh who had said no that night. It was Josh who had been killed for the lie.
You have to know that I want to hurt the boy who hurt my Alyssa… even if it is Joshua.
It hadn’t been the first time Bari had raised an overprotective hand for his daughter. There was the time at the school dance when he drove to the parking lot to spy on Alyssa as she flirted with her boyfriend.
“You’re acting insane,” she had told him and, afterwards, they had joked about it over sundaes. Yes… She had known from the start of his issues with his daughter, issues stemming from his wife’s death, but she had understood. Parenting and worrying went hand-in-hand, and if this man seemed wrong in that department, so be it. There was enough that he did right and, besides, she was no one to talk.
But this threat—along with what followed—made no sense. Bari… Murder? Watching the Fox 25 news clip (the same one she had refused to comment on) had been surreal. Glenn Baker, a compassionate young reporter who had become somewhat of a Monday night companion, interrupted a baseball game with Breaking News. She had been seated at the edge of her bed.
“A disturbing murder involving the boyfriend of a forty-seven-year old Westboro mother, whom friends and neighbors describe to be genteel and loving, has shattered this suburban community.” Bari’s neighbor was interviewed. “I’ve watched him play ball with his son in this yard for over a decade now,” she had said, pointing out the location. “My husband and I are completely shocked.”
Betty. She had waved to her while pulling into Bari’s driveway last week. Into Bari’s driveway—the driveway of a man who brought his nan, Gjyshe, chocolates at her nursing home, rubbed foot lotion on her tired feet… and shot her child.
She feels dizzy. Her legs are suddenly heavy. They weigh her down. She feels as though she’s drowning. A sharp pain bites her elbow as she slips away…
“Ms. Davis!” The funeral director, his surprisingly sturdy arms beneath her elbows. “Ms. Davis… it’s been a long day… you need a break. I’m going to lock up now. Let’s go. I’ll walk the two of you to your car.”
“Oh gosh… I’m sorry, I was just thinking about something when a wave of nausea came over me and—”
“Are you okay?” Alyssa.
“I’m okay… and thank you, Sir.”
The director locks up and the three of them walk to her car, the night air cool and slightly humid. Teenage drivers zoom by, car radios turned up too loud. Familiar songs blare then fade away. She thinks of the endless nights spent awake in bed while waiting for Josh to arrive home. She’d answer on the second ring, so as not to appear overly concerned—Hey, Mom… I’m just at The Pizza Palace, running a few minutes late.
She’d thank him for calling and bookmark her novel.
“Thanks for your help tonight, Sir.” She turns on the ignition. “I think we’re all set now.”
“Have a safe trip home, Ms. Davis. I’m deeply sorry for your loss.”
Gently, he shuts the door and walks away, leaving her alone with the girl responsible for her son’s death.
* * *
Lori Hearns bookmarks her novel and reads the obituary again. Joshua Davis, 17, of Wilder Road, passed away from a gunshot wound on Saturday, August 18th in the UMass Memorial Healthcare, 119 Belmont St. She scans over the names of surviving relatives. Her watery eyes blink and settle on the last section. Joshua will be remembered as a happy child who always saw the good in people. He was an exceptional athlete and well liked by his teachers and peers. He was a member of the National Honor Society and participated in numerous community service efforts. The funeral will be held Wednesday, August 22nd from the HARRISON B. WILSON FUNERAL HOME, 220 Main Street, Westboro.
She grabs a second tissue and wipes the corners of her eyes. Serena and Doug Davis have been wronged again
The first time she had met Joshua, they were seated across from each other in the ambulance, the snowy New Hampshire highway rumbling beneath them. The EMT, a young girl whose face beamed with compassion, checked his vital signs and made small talk while Lori casually probed for answers. The closer she could get to his side of the story—while it was fresh—the easier it would be to move the case along.
“Mr. Roth lied to me because he said he needed my help with some special bandages for my Dad’s wrist but then he tied my mouth up.”
He had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.
“That must have been very frightening,” she had said, adjusting the volume of her tape recorder.
“Is Mr. Roth going to die?” Josh was lying on his back on a stretcher; his head at a right angle to speak to her, his bangs flopped to one side.
It would certainly make our lives a lot easier, she had thought, “Uh-no… I don’t think so,” she had said. “He’s being flown to the intensive care unit right now.”
“I don’t think he would have hurt me, you know.” He had folded his hands, studied the ambulance ceiling. “He was missing his own son, I think.”
Crying has never been easy for Lori. When her own father died, the endless tears her siblings shed must have made up for her own dry eyes. Once you learn how to shield yourself from hurt, the protective walls you’ve learned to build so well erect automatically. They become a part of you, just another layer.
“I don’t want Mr. Roth to die… I just hope he learned his lesson.”
The walls crumble like a sandcastle swept under the tide. She runs an index finger across his picture and weeps effortlessly, never hearing her bedroom door creak open.
“Mom?” .
She presses her fingers to her eyes to clean up, but it’s too late. She’s been caught. Her son sees his Mom cry for the first time.
“You okay, Mom?” He walks to the edge of the bed.
Taking a deep breath, she reaches out to hug him. “I’m fine, Scottie… something sad happened to a boy I once knew, that’s all.”
“Did he die or something?”
“No, he just got hurt, that’s all.” Your half-brother will feel no more pain.
“Come on downstairs. I have a few projects to finish.”
She will build her son’s sandcastle for him, using cement.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
How to Live Quietly - Twenty-six and Twenty-seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Doug pulls into the driveway of the house he used to live in. The front shrubs are wide and overgrown, hovering beside the front steps like a pair of obese men. The lawn is dried out and patchy, overtaken in a few areas by dandelions and crab grass. He turns off his ignition and ponders the ghost of his past, the proud man who used to fertilize the lawn and yank out the weeds. There were so many of them.
“Daddy, look… a present for Mommy!” The dandelions were crumpled like dead spiders in Josh’s sweaty hands. It was sweltering hot and Doug had killed the tractor’s ignition to tend to the bouquet. “Let me get you a cup of water for those. Mom’s going to love them.” He had arranged the withered bouquet in a cup of water and Josh had carried them to the front door, stumbling along the way.
The door has been painted red, Cardinal Red, the same color they had bickered over when they were first married. “I don’t think it’s too loud at all. It’s a confident color and red doors are so welcoming.” Serena was pregnant at the time, one hand protectively spread over the unborn child that would be lost in a few weeks.
“It’s way too bold, Serena. We don’t want to scare people away… Let’s just keep the gray.” He had won the battle…
She opens the door wearing a long sundress, her tanned, freckled skin boasting of leisure, her hair twisted into one long braid that ropes down her shoulder.
…but he may have lost the war.
“I called you twice yesterday.” She wears the necklace from him, always.
“I got tied up at—”
“Justine’s?”
“Anyways…” He waves his hand in an effort to change the subject. “I got here as soon as I could. Did you want to catch up on vacation schedules?”
“Josh has been accused of rape, Doug.”
Rape. The word slaps him in the face. “Wh-what? What are you talking about?”
“Come on in.”
His old home feels like a recurring dream. Beach bags and towels litter the hallway floor. A glass pitcher—a wedding gift from his sister—sits atop the kitchen table, ice cubes and lemon wedges glinting in the sunlight. Beside the sink, pink roses droop over the rim of a Waterford Crystal vase—their seventh year anniversary present. Apparently, Serena was about to throw the flowers away.
“Who accused him of this?”
He sits down at the kitchen table and rubs his wrist. It has become a habit, an odd ritual to remind of him of the night he fell on the slopes—a night that somehow changed the direction of his life. If he hadn’t left Josh that night, he never would have met Lori. If he hadn’t met Lori, he wouldn’t have cheated. If he hadn’t cheated, he may still been married. If he was still married, perhaps Josh wouldn’t be in this situation. Perhaps.
She grabs a clean glass from the dishwasher.
“Alyssa accused me.”
The sound of the dishwasher door squeals shut and Josh is there, wearing a silky nylon tank top and athletic shorts. His hair is damp and he smells of cologne.
“Josh…” he stands to greet him, touches his shoulder. Bari’s daughter? Geez, what’s going on?”
“Help yourself to some ice tea.” She hands each of them a glass.
Josh sits down and rests his elbows on the table. A mild case of acne flecks his jaw line, but fails to spoil his good looks. Serena takes a seat opposite them.
“Mom, I know you wanted the three of us to talk, but if it’s okay with you… I’d sort of like to talk with Dad privately.”
She rests her chin on folded hands and squints, assessing the request.
“Actually, Josh, I think Mom should be here for this. She knows this girl better than I do and besides—”
“No, Doug. It’s fine.” She rises from her chair. “If Josh wants to discuss this, man-to-man, I completely understand. Josh and I have already reviewed what’s happened and, besides, I have a few errands to run. I’ll catch up with you guys in a little while.”
“Are you sure, Serena? This is important.”
“I know it is, Doug… and I trust the two of you to handle it.”
He watches her leave and finds himself in the dream again. Serena is out of character. She used to thrive in working through things together. He was always the rebellious one…
“Bye, Mom.”
“I’ll see you soon, Joshie.” She smiles warmly at her son. “Be truthful, honey… and don’t leave out any details. Your father can handle them.”
Your father can handle them. A dig? A compliment? He speculates, though he hasn’t’ the time to figure it out, to figure her out right now.
“I am telling the truth, Mom.” His eyes lighten in the summer. They are the color of a freshwater river reflected by the sunlight. They settle patiently on his mother’s gaze.
She comes to his side for a quick shoulder hug, “I know you are, honey,” then disappears, leaving behind the aloe scent of her lotion. The garage door rumbles below them, a familiar sound gone sour.
“Alright, Josh. What’s all this about?”
“It’s just been insane, Dad.” He rolls his eyes dramatically. “I was over this girl Emily’s house last week and—”
“Who is Emily?”
“She’s one of Alyssa’s friends.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“So Eric and I were in the pool with the girls… just having a good time shooting hoops. It was at night so the lights surrounding the pool were on. You could hear the crickets and a few bullfrogs from a nearby pond. It was, like, the perfect night, you know?”
“Sounds like a typical summer night in August. I remember nights like that when I was your age. What happened next?”
“So then Emily and Alyssa start giggling at the corner of the pool and we’re like, ‘What’s so funny?’ He jiggles the ice in his glass. “You know how girls do that? They act sort of... I don’t know, weird.”
Doug chuckles. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Girls can be weird, alright. So what was the secret?”
He puts his glass down and folds his hands. “Oh… that would be the decision to remove their bikini tops and chuck them onto the basketball net.”
Doug sighs and shakes his head. Having been a teenager himself, he can discern the direction of the night and he knows there’s nothing promising that’ll come out of it. “Okay…” he closes his eyes briefly. “I’ve got the picture. Two topless, giggling girls in the pool…”
Josh frames his face with his hands, as though using a scuba diving mask. “One of them, Dad, being Alyssa… Have you seen her recently?”
“N-no… not recently.”
“But you’ve seen her before… the green-eyed brunette that belongs on the cover of Sports Illustrated.”
“She’s a pretty girl, Josh. I realize that… but just remember,” he taps his chest, “real beauty comes from within.”
“Seriously, Dad?”
“The chick is hot. Alright. I get it,” he says with his hands. “Tell me the rest.”
Josh takes a sip of ice tea. “So one giggle leads to the next until we’re all playing strip basketball and we all, of course, end up naked, which is pretty much the whole point of the game.”
He rubs his lids, wishing he could, somehow, use psychic powers to erase the hormonal periods of Josh’s future. “Sex is a beautiful connection, Josh, meant to be shared with the one woman you love. You know that!”
An awkward pause simmers between them. Josh gazes through his half-empty glass, then into Doug’s eyes. “So, eight years ago, before you and Mom divorced, you slept with that detective… because you loved her?”
“For heaven’s sakes, Josh…” he snaps from his chair. “We’re not talking about me, here.”
“No, Dad… we’re not talking about you. But if you’re going to preach to me on sex and love—”
He paces around the kitchen table. “Then I damn well better practice what I preach. I gotcha, Josh. I’m flawed, too. We all are.” He sits back down. “Did you fool around in the pool or in the house?”
“In the house.”
“Did you have intercourse or oral sex?”
“Both.”
The front door opens. Quick errand, Doug thinks, eyeing his watch, listening to the pattering of Serena’s footsteps through the hallway.
“Did she protest at any point during sex?”
Josh is about to answer when his eyes widen in horror and he raises his arms instinctively to block his face while Doug—sensing the intruder before he actually sees him—launches himself from his chair, the sound of the gunshot owning the room, the details of his former kitchen spinning in and out of focus. He feels suddenly light-headed, deaf, and the world around him moves in slow motion. He cradles his son’s head on his lap. His light eyes have turned to stone. The agonizing howl that spills from him is thick and wrong, like the color of Josh’s blood-smeared yellow tank top.
His body lies limp when Doug, nearly paralyzed, faces the killer…
Bari, Serena’s boyfriend.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The dress was purchased three years ago. She runs her fingers along its laced sleeve, recalling the day she bought it at a boutique in Nantucket for the wake of her best friend’s grandfather. The small gesture is tiring, a work of sheer exhaustion, and she must lie down again. The dress drops onto the floor like spilled black coffee. She deserts it and collapses onto her bed.
Her body aches as her mind forces her to remember what happened… Is this real?
Her son’s eyes are lighter in the summer. Doug used to compare them to the greenish brown of a fresh water stream. She cocoons herself under the covers to be alone, to better picture his eyes in her mind. It is too dark. She throws back the covers and sits up. Her throat is dry. Water would be good. She reaches for the glass of water at the nightstand. Her hand fumbles with the straw. A straw? This is wrong. She doesn’t drink from a straw. Her mother, she knows, has placed it there to offer an easier means to drink; one less thing to worry about.
She plucks the straw from the glass and tosses it like a cigarette butt onto the floor. Then she curls back into a fetal position and prays for mercy. If only she could fall asleep. Sleep would be a blessing… but to never wake, she thinks, would be heavenly. She’s always wanted to die in her sleep. Why not now?
What is eternity? Who is God?
Joshua’s name means God Rescues. Fuck God and his glory and the angels. Who did this? She wraps her arms around her waist, as though to squeeze away the pain rippling through her.
“Serena, the limo is waiting outside, sweetheart. I’ll help you dress.”
Her mother, Evelyn Day, has driven in from the city. It takes four hours with no traffic. It takes four hours with no traffic. Her mind has become a mirror to her thoughts. It doubles them. On the express train it’s less. On the express train it’s less.
“I’ve got it, Mom.” Her legs are made of iron. Carefully, she lifts them off of the bed to stand.
“I’ll get your dress, honey.”
I’ll get your dress, honey.
“Okay… I need my black pantyhose… They’re in my top drawer.” The words come surprisingly easy. They fool her for a moment. Was there a time when everyday language was just that—everyday language? When each syllable uttered did not hurt?
“I’ll get your pantyhose, too.”
Evelyn is suited in pink, a tiny suit for a tiny woman. Her grey hair grazes her chin and she wears peach lipstick. She is a sophisticated grandmother. She is a sophisticated grandmother.
A yelp escapes her. She presses her fingers against her upper lip and the ruse is over. “I can’t do this, Mom. Please, just go for me. I want to stay home.”
Evelyn sits on the edge of the bed, the nylon tights spread across her lap. A carnation sits in her jacket pocket. Graduation Ceremony, Grade Six, fourth row. She and Doug had put their differences aside and sat next to each other, holding carnations.
“Stay home?” Evelyn touches her leg. “You think it’s acceptable for you to abandon your son right now? He is with you, Serena! If this was the end of a losing football game, and Josh fumbled, you’d be there to coach him during that quiet ride home.” The wrinkles surrounding her mouth seem to weep. “You’d know just what to say…” she wipes away her own tear, “Be there for him today.”
She rips a swath of tissues from a cardboard box on her nightstand and blows her nose. “Oh, come on, Mom… This is so different.”
“God wanted him, honey! He wanted him. And Josh is with Him right now, probably catching the winning pass!”
She stares at her mother. Evelyn Day is a pillar of strength, a survivor. “I’m trying, Mom… I really am.” But Serena cannot buy into her wisdom, not right now… Maybe not ever.
“Josh would do the same for you.” She slides her hand along Serena’s jaw. “He’s with you, my love… Don’t let him down.”
Don’t let him down. The words echo through her as she stands in her bedroom—her sudden living hell—dressed in a long cotton night shirt. The windows of her room are slightly ajar and she can hear the birds chirp and sing. They don’t mind being in Hell because they are oblivious. She rushes over to the windows and slams them shut. Then she kneels, forehead on folded hands, and feigns a prayer. There is nothing to pray about because there is no one to pray to.
She is a sinner—to trust Bari, the overprotective father, her ex-boyfriend. God punishes those who deserve to be punished and she has been chosen. It is the only thing she is sure of right now. That and the strange image that swirls through her head like the smoke of a deadly fire.
Josh’s limp body, the numb eyes, opened. The blood stains. One more kiss, one more hug. Just wake up. Please, just wake up and stop it… Stop it, Josh! Stop pretending. Stop making me worry sick about you!
She walks back into her closet. There, she picks up the black dress off the floor and begins to put it on.
* * *
The Harriet B. Wilson Funeral Home is exceptionally crowded. Magnificent floral arrangements surround the room where Josh lies still in a closed wooden casket draped with his football shirt, number eighty-six. The line of guests in attendance is an endless stream of sorrow, one that she and Doug have received in line (with their families) for two hours now.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Davis.”
Josh’s friends are the hardest to confront.
“I don’t know how to do this, you know…” Corey Simmons, number twelve on Josh’s football team, towers over her. He presses a row of sturdy fingers to his lips but fails to defend an outburst of tears. She outstretches her arms to hug him and he bends down slightly to meet her halfway. They embrace for a painful moment before she straightens to face him, their arms still connected. “I don’t know how to do this, either, honey.”
“He was such a good person, you know.” He wipes his nose. “We’ll all miss him.”
“Thanks for coming. It means a lot to us,” Doug says.
Doug is managing better now, she thinks. Prior to entering the funeral home, the two of them had spent a few minutes in her car, where he had seemed numb—his posture wooden, eyes cool. This, she understood; she, too, had taken a mild tranquilizer in order to cope.
It was the conversation that had worried her.
“You think the reporters are satisfied?” His gaze adrift, the question slipped from him listlessly.
“I think we did the right thing. We honored Josh by saying how blessed we feel to have known such an amazing boy, while asking for prayers and time alone to heal.”
“How blessed we feel...” He repeated the phrase and stared at her skeptically. “You feel blessed, Serena?”
A pause wedged its way between them. “I needed to get them off of our backs. It’s hard to crawl out of bed, let alone be followed, Doug.”
“How did Bari know Josh was home again?”
“Please, Doug… I can’t go through with this right now. It was his time.
“So his time, then, was determined by the psychotic that you—”
“Don’t you dare go there.”
The discussion had ended there.
“I’m Natalie, one of Josh’s friends.” The friend before her now is slender, wearing high heels and jasmine scented perfume. A fleck of diamond studs her perfect nose. Serena recalls seeing her at the football field with a huddle of friends, sipping hot chocolate and gossiping. Doing what kids her age ought to be doing. She hadn’t known her name then, just her face.
“We all loved him. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you for coming, Natalie.” She tents the girl’s small cold hands with her own and glances at Doug. Remember her? We used to see her at the football field when life was good. Married or divorced; life was good then. We just didn’t know it, or refused to see it.
“My great-grandson died fifteen years ago in a car accident.” An elderly man with a commanding voice punctuates the thought. Suited classically (vest and all), he squeezes her father’s hand. “When I heard about this tragedy, I had to stop by and say I’m sorry.” He palms his chest. “I know what this feels like.” His voice begins to crack.
“Thank you for coming, Sir.” Her father, a stoic man, chokes back tears. “I’m sorry about your grandson.”
The patriarch points a feeble index finger to the ceiling. “You’ll be with him again… when the good Lord is ready to have you...”
I’m ready now. Have me now, she thinks.
* * *
The pictures on display have been a hit. Friends and relatives peruse her son’s journey through a short life: Josh, as a toddler, sitting on Doug’s shoulders to watch a parade; Josh, as a preschooler, showing off a painting, his grin toothless; Josh, as a nine-year-old, at the top of Cannon Mountain, hours before he was abducted… his first tragedy… or was it hers alone?
Your son’s a pro… What is he, about nine?
She had won the battle. Roth is locked up for life, ironically, not due to the kidnapping charges, but for the murder of his own mother. Josh is safe now. Candlelight from the wall sconces casts a lavender glow over a room gone quiet. The guests have left. She has been granted a few more minutes to be alone with her son, to say good-bye. She lowers her head upon his casket.
“When you were born, there was a nurse named Rebecca who would help me to take care of you.” She uses the fleshy part of her hand to wipe away tears. “As if it were yesterday, I can remember her wheeling you away to the nursery… the room felt so quiet, so lonely and different without you, Josh.”
She struggles on. “I had only known you for a few hours then… but you were good from the start. Never gave me a hard time, one of those sweet kids who breaks your heart a little bit each day because you know that you can spend your whole life trying to protect him, trying to bottle his joy and happiness but you just can’t.”
She adjusts her wet hands. “I used to wish that I could fill a watering can with a lifetime of goodness and just rain all over you, you know… but things happen.” She wipes her eyes again. “I don’t know exactly how I’m going to live through this quietly, Josh, but I do know this…” She rests her forehead on folded hands, “Child of mine, you are with me. We will always be together. But you need to promise me that, in heaven… where you are now… you’ll be full of love every single day. Visit me every now and then so I know that you’re keeping your promise.” She lifts her chin to the ceiling.
“Show me a sign… I’ll know it’s you. And as far as my end of the bargain goes… in honor of you, my good child, I promise to live the rest of my days fully, just the way you’d want me to. I will continue to snowboard…” more tears escape, “and jog and teach. I will not give up on myself.”
She runs soft fingers over the top of the casket and whispers her want a second time. Show me a sign… I’ll know it’s you. Then she rises, approaches the entry way leading to the exit, and takes one last look at where she came from. “We will always be together, Josh. I love you, my child.” She kisses her palm and steadies it in the air, as though balancing a feather.
Then she leaves him.
The sound of her footsteps, right, then left again, right, then left again, take her to the back of the building, where she notices a narrow ray of light lining the bottom edge of the Ladies Room door. Someone is inside. She leans closer and can hear the muffled noises of the late visitor. Out of curiosity, and because she has to go, she knocks lightly.
“Hello?”
The toilet flushes and, within seconds, the door opens to reveal an unexpected visitor: Alyssa Galica.
Doug pulls into the driveway of the house he used to live in. The front shrubs are wide and overgrown, hovering beside the front steps like a pair of obese men. The lawn is dried out and patchy, overtaken in a few areas by dandelions and crab grass. He turns off his ignition and ponders the ghost of his past, the proud man who used to fertilize the lawn and yank out the weeds. There were so many of them.
“Daddy, look… a present for Mommy!” The dandelions were crumpled like dead spiders in Josh’s sweaty hands. It was sweltering hot and Doug had killed the tractor’s ignition to tend to the bouquet. “Let me get you a cup of water for those. Mom’s going to love them.” He had arranged the withered bouquet in a cup of water and Josh had carried them to the front door, stumbling along the way.
The door has been painted red, Cardinal Red, the same color they had bickered over when they were first married. “I don’t think it’s too loud at all. It’s a confident color and red doors are so welcoming.” Serena was pregnant at the time, one hand protectively spread over the unborn child that would be lost in a few weeks.
“It’s way too bold, Serena. We don’t want to scare people away… Let’s just keep the gray.” He had won the battle…
She opens the door wearing a long sundress, her tanned, freckled skin boasting of leisure, her hair twisted into one long braid that ropes down her shoulder.
…but he may have lost the war.
“I called you twice yesterday.” She wears the necklace from him, always.
“I got tied up at—”
“Justine’s?”
“Anyways…” He waves his hand in an effort to change the subject. “I got here as soon as I could. Did you want to catch up on vacation schedules?”
“Josh has been accused of rape, Doug.”
Rape. The word slaps him in the face. “Wh-what? What are you talking about?”
“Come on in.”
His old home feels like a recurring dream. Beach bags and towels litter the hallway floor. A glass pitcher—a wedding gift from his sister—sits atop the kitchen table, ice cubes and lemon wedges glinting in the sunlight. Beside the sink, pink roses droop over the rim of a Waterford Crystal vase—their seventh year anniversary present. Apparently, Serena was about to throw the flowers away.
“Who accused him of this?”
He sits down at the kitchen table and rubs his wrist. It has become a habit, an odd ritual to remind of him of the night he fell on the slopes—a night that somehow changed the direction of his life. If he hadn’t left Josh that night, he never would have met Lori. If he hadn’t met Lori, he wouldn’t have cheated. If he hadn’t cheated, he may still been married. If he was still married, perhaps Josh wouldn’t be in this situation. Perhaps.
She grabs a clean glass from the dishwasher.
“Alyssa accused me.”
The sound of the dishwasher door squeals shut and Josh is there, wearing a silky nylon tank top and athletic shorts. His hair is damp and he smells of cologne.
“Josh…” he stands to greet him, touches his shoulder. Bari’s daughter? Geez, what’s going on?”
“Help yourself to some ice tea.” She hands each of them a glass.
Josh sits down and rests his elbows on the table. A mild case of acne flecks his jaw line, but fails to spoil his good looks. Serena takes a seat opposite them.
“Mom, I know you wanted the three of us to talk, but if it’s okay with you… I’d sort of like to talk with Dad privately.”
She rests her chin on folded hands and squints, assessing the request.
“Actually, Josh, I think Mom should be here for this. She knows this girl better than I do and besides—”
“No, Doug. It’s fine.” She rises from her chair. “If Josh wants to discuss this, man-to-man, I completely understand. Josh and I have already reviewed what’s happened and, besides, I have a few errands to run. I’ll catch up with you guys in a little while.”
“Are you sure, Serena? This is important.”
“I know it is, Doug… and I trust the two of you to handle it.”
He watches her leave and finds himself in the dream again. Serena is out of character. She used to thrive in working through things together. He was always the rebellious one…
“Bye, Mom.”
“I’ll see you soon, Joshie.” She smiles warmly at her son. “Be truthful, honey… and don’t leave out any details. Your father can handle them.”
Your father can handle them. A dig? A compliment? He speculates, though he hasn’t’ the time to figure it out, to figure her out right now.
“I am telling the truth, Mom.” His eyes lighten in the summer. They are the color of a freshwater river reflected by the sunlight. They settle patiently on his mother’s gaze.
She comes to his side for a quick shoulder hug, “I know you are, honey,” then disappears, leaving behind the aloe scent of her lotion. The garage door rumbles below them, a familiar sound gone sour.
“Alright, Josh. What’s all this about?”
“It’s just been insane, Dad.” He rolls his eyes dramatically. “I was over this girl Emily’s house last week and—”
“Who is Emily?”
“She’s one of Alyssa’s friends.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“So Eric and I were in the pool with the girls… just having a good time shooting hoops. It was at night so the lights surrounding the pool were on. You could hear the crickets and a few bullfrogs from a nearby pond. It was, like, the perfect night, you know?”
“Sounds like a typical summer night in August. I remember nights like that when I was your age. What happened next?”
“So then Emily and Alyssa start giggling at the corner of the pool and we’re like, ‘What’s so funny?’ He jiggles the ice in his glass. “You know how girls do that? They act sort of... I don’t know, weird.”
Doug chuckles. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Girls can be weird, alright. So what was the secret?”
He puts his glass down and folds his hands. “Oh… that would be the decision to remove their bikini tops and chuck them onto the basketball net.”
Doug sighs and shakes his head. Having been a teenager himself, he can discern the direction of the night and he knows there’s nothing promising that’ll come out of it. “Okay…” he closes his eyes briefly. “I’ve got the picture. Two topless, giggling girls in the pool…”
Josh frames his face with his hands, as though using a scuba diving mask. “One of them, Dad, being Alyssa… Have you seen her recently?”
“N-no… not recently.”
“But you’ve seen her before… the green-eyed brunette that belongs on the cover of Sports Illustrated.”
“She’s a pretty girl, Josh. I realize that… but just remember,” he taps his chest, “real beauty comes from within.”
“Seriously, Dad?”
“The chick is hot. Alright. I get it,” he says with his hands. “Tell me the rest.”
Josh takes a sip of ice tea. “So one giggle leads to the next until we’re all playing strip basketball and we all, of course, end up naked, which is pretty much the whole point of the game.”
He rubs his lids, wishing he could, somehow, use psychic powers to erase the hormonal periods of Josh’s future. “Sex is a beautiful connection, Josh, meant to be shared with the one woman you love. You know that!”
An awkward pause simmers between them. Josh gazes through his half-empty glass, then into Doug’s eyes. “So, eight years ago, before you and Mom divorced, you slept with that detective… because you loved her?”
“For heaven’s sakes, Josh…” he snaps from his chair. “We’re not talking about me, here.”
“No, Dad… we’re not talking about you. But if you’re going to preach to me on sex and love—”
He paces around the kitchen table. “Then I damn well better practice what I preach. I gotcha, Josh. I’m flawed, too. We all are.” He sits back down. “Did you fool around in the pool or in the house?”
“In the house.”
“Did you have intercourse or oral sex?”
“Both.”
The front door opens. Quick errand, Doug thinks, eyeing his watch, listening to the pattering of Serena’s footsteps through the hallway.
“Did she protest at any point during sex?”
Josh is about to answer when his eyes widen in horror and he raises his arms instinctively to block his face while Doug—sensing the intruder before he actually sees him—launches himself from his chair, the sound of the gunshot owning the room, the details of his former kitchen spinning in and out of focus. He feels suddenly light-headed, deaf, and the world around him moves in slow motion. He cradles his son’s head on his lap. His light eyes have turned to stone. The agonizing howl that spills from him is thick and wrong, like the color of Josh’s blood-smeared yellow tank top.
His body lies limp when Doug, nearly paralyzed, faces the killer…
Bari, Serena’s boyfriend.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The dress was purchased three years ago. She runs her fingers along its laced sleeve, recalling the day she bought it at a boutique in Nantucket for the wake of her best friend’s grandfather. The small gesture is tiring, a work of sheer exhaustion, and she must lie down again. The dress drops onto the floor like spilled black coffee. She deserts it and collapses onto her bed.
Her body aches as her mind forces her to remember what happened… Is this real?
Her son’s eyes are lighter in the summer. Doug used to compare them to the greenish brown of a fresh water stream. She cocoons herself under the covers to be alone, to better picture his eyes in her mind. It is too dark. She throws back the covers and sits up. Her throat is dry. Water would be good. She reaches for the glass of water at the nightstand. Her hand fumbles with the straw. A straw? This is wrong. She doesn’t drink from a straw. Her mother, she knows, has placed it there to offer an easier means to drink; one less thing to worry about.
She plucks the straw from the glass and tosses it like a cigarette butt onto the floor. Then she curls back into a fetal position and prays for mercy. If only she could fall asleep. Sleep would be a blessing… but to never wake, she thinks, would be heavenly. She’s always wanted to die in her sleep. Why not now?
What is eternity? Who is God?
Joshua’s name means God Rescues. Fuck God and his glory and the angels. Who did this? She wraps her arms around her waist, as though to squeeze away the pain rippling through her.
“Serena, the limo is waiting outside, sweetheart. I’ll help you dress.”
Her mother, Evelyn Day, has driven in from the city. It takes four hours with no traffic. It takes four hours with no traffic. Her mind has become a mirror to her thoughts. It doubles them. On the express train it’s less. On the express train it’s less.
“I’ve got it, Mom.” Her legs are made of iron. Carefully, she lifts them off of the bed to stand.
“I’ll get your dress, honey.”
I’ll get your dress, honey.
“Okay… I need my black pantyhose… They’re in my top drawer.” The words come surprisingly easy. They fool her for a moment. Was there a time when everyday language was just that—everyday language? When each syllable uttered did not hurt?
“I’ll get your pantyhose, too.”
Evelyn is suited in pink, a tiny suit for a tiny woman. Her grey hair grazes her chin and she wears peach lipstick. She is a sophisticated grandmother. She is a sophisticated grandmother.
A yelp escapes her. She presses her fingers against her upper lip and the ruse is over. “I can’t do this, Mom. Please, just go for me. I want to stay home.”
Evelyn sits on the edge of the bed, the nylon tights spread across her lap. A carnation sits in her jacket pocket. Graduation Ceremony, Grade Six, fourth row. She and Doug had put their differences aside and sat next to each other, holding carnations.
“Stay home?” Evelyn touches her leg. “You think it’s acceptable for you to abandon your son right now? He is with you, Serena! If this was the end of a losing football game, and Josh fumbled, you’d be there to coach him during that quiet ride home.” The wrinkles surrounding her mouth seem to weep. “You’d know just what to say…” she wipes away her own tear, “Be there for him today.”
She rips a swath of tissues from a cardboard box on her nightstand and blows her nose. “Oh, come on, Mom… This is so different.”
“God wanted him, honey! He wanted him. And Josh is with Him right now, probably catching the winning pass!”
She stares at her mother. Evelyn Day is a pillar of strength, a survivor. “I’m trying, Mom… I really am.” But Serena cannot buy into her wisdom, not right now… Maybe not ever.
“Josh would do the same for you.” She slides her hand along Serena’s jaw. “He’s with you, my love… Don’t let him down.”
Don’t let him down. The words echo through her as she stands in her bedroom—her sudden living hell—dressed in a long cotton night shirt. The windows of her room are slightly ajar and she can hear the birds chirp and sing. They don’t mind being in Hell because they are oblivious. She rushes over to the windows and slams them shut. Then she kneels, forehead on folded hands, and feigns a prayer. There is nothing to pray about because there is no one to pray to.
She is a sinner—to trust Bari, the overprotective father, her ex-boyfriend. God punishes those who deserve to be punished and she has been chosen. It is the only thing she is sure of right now. That and the strange image that swirls through her head like the smoke of a deadly fire.
Josh’s limp body, the numb eyes, opened. The blood stains. One more kiss, one more hug. Just wake up. Please, just wake up and stop it… Stop it, Josh! Stop pretending. Stop making me worry sick about you!
She walks back into her closet. There, she picks up the black dress off the floor and begins to put it on.
* * *
The Harriet B. Wilson Funeral Home is exceptionally crowded. Magnificent floral arrangements surround the room where Josh lies still in a closed wooden casket draped with his football shirt, number eighty-six. The line of guests in attendance is an endless stream of sorrow, one that she and Doug have received in line (with their families) for two hours now.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Davis.”
Josh’s friends are the hardest to confront.
“I don’t know how to do this, you know…” Corey Simmons, number twelve on Josh’s football team, towers over her. He presses a row of sturdy fingers to his lips but fails to defend an outburst of tears. She outstretches her arms to hug him and he bends down slightly to meet her halfway. They embrace for a painful moment before she straightens to face him, their arms still connected. “I don’t know how to do this, either, honey.”
“He was such a good person, you know.” He wipes his nose. “We’ll all miss him.”
“Thanks for coming. It means a lot to us,” Doug says.
Doug is managing better now, she thinks. Prior to entering the funeral home, the two of them had spent a few minutes in her car, where he had seemed numb—his posture wooden, eyes cool. This, she understood; she, too, had taken a mild tranquilizer in order to cope.
It was the conversation that had worried her.
“You think the reporters are satisfied?” His gaze adrift, the question slipped from him listlessly.
“I think we did the right thing. We honored Josh by saying how blessed we feel to have known such an amazing boy, while asking for prayers and time alone to heal.”
“How blessed we feel...” He repeated the phrase and stared at her skeptically. “You feel blessed, Serena?”
A pause wedged its way between them. “I needed to get them off of our backs. It’s hard to crawl out of bed, let alone be followed, Doug.”
“How did Bari know Josh was home again?”
“Please, Doug… I can’t go through with this right now. It was his time.
“So his time, then, was determined by the psychotic that you—”
“Don’t you dare go there.”
The discussion had ended there.
“I’m Natalie, one of Josh’s friends.” The friend before her now is slender, wearing high heels and jasmine scented perfume. A fleck of diamond studs her perfect nose. Serena recalls seeing her at the football field with a huddle of friends, sipping hot chocolate and gossiping. Doing what kids her age ought to be doing. She hadn’t known her name then, just her face.
“We all loved him. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you for coming, Natalie.” She tents the girl’s small cold hands with her own and glances at Doug. Remember her? We used to see her at the football field when life was good. Married or divorced; life was good then. We just didn’t know it, or refused to see it.
“My great-grandson died fifteen years ago in a car accident.” An elderly man with a commanding voice punctuates the thought. Suited classically (vest and all), he squeezes her father’s hand. “When I heard about this tragedy, I had to stop by and say I’m sorry.” He palms his chest. “I know what this feels like.” His voice begins to crack.
“Thank you for coming, Sir.” Her father, a stoic man, chokes back tears. “I’m sorry about your grandson.”
The patriarch points a feeble index finger to the ceiling. “You’ll be with him again… when the good Lord is ready to have you...”
I’m ready now. Have me now, she thinks.
* * *
The pictures on display have been a hit. Friends and relatives peruse her son’s journey through a short life: Josh, as a toddler, sitting on Doug’s shoulders to watch a parade; Josh, as a preschooler, showing off a painting, his grin toothless; Josh, as a nine-year-old, at the top of Cannon Mountain, hours before he was abducted… his first tragedy… or was it hers alone?
Your son’s a pro… What is he, about nine?
She had won the battle. Roth is locked up for life, ironically, not due to the kidnapping charges, but for the murder of his own mother. Josh is safe now. Candlelight from the wall sconces casts a lavender glow over a room gone quiet. The guests have left. She has been granted a few more minutes to be alone with her son, to say good-bye. She lowers her head upon his casket.
“When you were born, there was a nurse named Rebecca who would help me to take care of you.” She uses the fleshy part of her hand to wipe away tears. “As if it were yesterday, I can remember her wheeling you away to the nursery… the room felt so quiet, so lonely and different without you, Josh.”
She struggles on. “I had only known you for a few hours then… but you were good from the start. Never gave me a hard time, one of those sweet kids who breaks your heart a little bit each day because you know that you can spend your whole life trying to protect him, trying to bottle his joy and happiness but you just can’t.”
She adjusts her wet hands. “I used to wish that I could fill a watering can with a lifetime of goodness and just rain all over you, you know… but things happen.” She wipes her eyes again. “I don’t know exactly how I’m going to live through this quietly, Josh, but I do know this…” She rests her forehead on folded hands, “Child of mine, you are with me. We will always be together. But you need to promise me that, in heaven… where you are now… you’ll be full of love every single day. Visit me every now and then so I know that you’re keeping your promise.” She lifts her chin to the ceiling.
“Show me a sign… I’ll know it’s you. And as far as my end of the bargain goes… in honor of you, my good child, I promise to live the rest of my days fully, just the way you’d want me to. I will continue to snowboard…” more tears escape, “and jog and teach. I will not give up on myself.”
She runs soft fingers over the top of the casket and whispers her want a second time. Show me a sign… I’ll know it’s you. Then she rises, approaches the entry way leading to the exit, and takes one last look at where she came from. “We will always be together, Josh. I love you, my child.” She kisses her palm and steadies it in the air, as though balancing a feather.
Then she leaves him.
The sound of her footsteps, right, then left again, right, then left again, take her to the back of the building, where she notices a narrow ray of light lining the bottom edge of the Ladies Room door. Someone is inside. She leans closer and can hear the muffled noises of the late visitor. Out of curiosity, and because she has to go, she knocks lightly.
“Hello?”
The toilet flushes and, within seconds, the door opens to reveal an unexpected visitor: Alyssa Galica.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Chapter Twenty-five: Eight Years Later...
Eight Years Later
Serena and Bari stand barefoot on the sand of Nausett Beach, a floral bed sheet rippling between them in the breeze. Together, they allow the wind to iron it and gently lower it to the ground. Bari uses a pair of moccasins and a cooler to secure one side of the blanket—Serena, a tote full of towels and stack of magazines. He drills the umbrella into the sand while she reclines in her beach chair, an embellished cotton caftan over her black bikini. She rubs a daub of sunscreen on her face, adjusts her sunglasses, and admires the view.
The August sun is kinder than July’s, casting a mellow heat that feels more peach than lemon, the sky a cottony blue. A salty breeze sweeps across her freckled nose. She has grown her blonde hair midway to her back, with streaks of grey carelessly falling from the roots. Gone are the trendy styles of her early forties: the prim bobs, platinum highlights and professional blunt cuts. The latter end of the decade came with attitude.
Bari perches on a striped twin recliner with his book, leans back until the chair’s angle matches hers, and begins to read. He is quieter than usual, and though she’s curious about what’s on his mind, she lets him be. She lifts her sunglasses atop her head, closes her eyes, and watches colors swirl and dance behind her lids. A vibrant red emerges while Bari speaks.
“Remember how I told you Alyssa came to my room a few nights ago… visibly upset.”
“M-hmm…” Her head drifts to his voice. A gull cries out in the distance.
“It had to do with more than the usual teenage girl stuff.” He puts his book down on his lap, clasps his fingers.
She sits upright, slides her sunglasses atop her head. “Such as?”
“She…” His dark brown eyes blink with uncertainty, even fear. “She told me Josh raped her, Serena.”
A vibration, like a rubber band plucked inside her chest, reverberates though her body. The sensation is rudely familiar, but this time it takes on a new dimension. This time, it feels as though Bari, her Albanian boyfriend—the same boyfriend whose gentle smile and endearing accent won her heart over five years ago—has spoken in his native tongue. The words don’t make sense.
“I-I don’t think Josh is capable of this, Bari.” She presses two delicate fingers against her chest, as though it is she who has been accused. “I’m sorry, but there must be a misunderstanding.” A nearby seagull pecks nervously at a deserted French-fry. A companion totters to his side.
“I was just as surprised as you when I heard.” He rests his forearms on his legs and leans forward, his muscles defined, tense. “I wanted to sort through it for a few days before telling you.”
She rubs beneath her eyes. “Tell me what she said to you.” Already, Serena is (unfairly) jaded by the extent to which Alyssa, her potential stepdaughter, has managed to manipulate her kind father. A perpetual victim, things always seem to happen to the dark haired beauty: the English teacher wrongly scores her essay; the umpire calls her out when she’s safe; the green left-turn arrow somehow fails to work while she’s driving. When it comes to Alyssa Galica, stuff happens.
“It happened the night you and I snuck away for the evening, last Friday. Remember how Alyssa told me she was sleeping over Emily’s that night?”
“You spoke with Emily’s mother and she said it was fine... Yes, I do remember.”
“Well… she ended up sleeping there, but stopped at your house first.”
“What for?”
“She said she had left a pair of shoes and a bathing suit there last week... from the day we went to the waterslides.”
“Okay. Go on…” She closes her eyes. Josh is seventeen now. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s a normal boy with raging hormones. Is it possible that he’s capable of date rape?
“Josh was home with a friend.”
“Right. Eric slept over. They were supposed to watch a movie.” While packing, she recalls suggesting Titanic to Josh earlier in the day, but he had opted for The Lord of the Rings instead, one of Eric’s favorites. Setting her clothes down in the suitcase, she had begun to regret the decision to leave the boys alone. After all, there would be other weekends for her and Bari to travel. Next year, Josh would be away at school. She shared her ambivalence with Josh, who respectfully disagreed.
“Geez, Mom… It’s not like you get out much,” he had said. “Go out and have fun. We’ll be fine. I’ll have my cell phone on me 24-7… and we can do something together when I get back. Sound good?”
She studies the sand. For miles, specks of rock glitter like diamonds along its surface. Tears well up in her eyes—because this effect is an illusion—like the twinkling star theory. Stars appear to twinkle due to the movement of air traveling in the atmosphere. The starlight is bent and refracted in the process. What the naked eye sees, is not what's actually happening.
“So what happened next?”
Sand doesn’t sparkle. Stars don’t twinkle. And her son doesn’t force himself on girls.
“Josh went upstairs to grab her things. After he came back down and handed them over, she decided to invite them over to Emily’s…”
“And they said yes?”
“And they said yes.” He pauses to collect his thought.
“Alright, so now we have two teenage boys and two teenage girls in the pool at night. Where was Mrs. Bromley?”
“I thought the same thing! I don’t know exactly why she was not outside… but things get more complicated from here.” His irritation seems to intensify his accent. He pronounces the word exactly, eggsactly. “They started playing some kind of a strip game in the pool with the basketball hoop.”
“Strip… basketball?”
“Yes. For every basket missed, someone has to remove a piece of clothing… something crazy like that. When I asked my daughter to explain the specifics…” he continues with his hands, “she became hysterical… but I know, at some point, they paired off and went inside, to the finished basement.” His eyes begin to pool with water. He pinches his nose, shakes his head. “They were fooling around… and Alyssa said no to him, Serena.” He looks up. “The word no is supposed to be enough.”
She rests her forehead in her hands, rubs her temples. “Alright, Bari. This doesn’t sound good… but let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“She was hysterical, Serena… and very frightened. You think I am jumping to conclusions?”
She takes a deep breath. “No, that’s not what I mean. I understand you’re upset. I’m shocked, too!—But we need to take this one step at a time. I’m going to discuss the situation in-depth with Joshua. We need to consider both sides; that’s all I’m trying to say.”
“I know that.” He averts his gaze. “My daughter is a beautiful young woman.”
Like a smooth stone melded by centuries of harsh waves, his voice claims the burden of his history. Bari has single-handedly raised Alyssa. When his wife fell ill during the birth of their daughter, Bari had to choose between saving her life or his daughter’s.
“I knew this day would come…”
She watches his eyes drift and settle on the seashore, where a spry little girl darts away from a charging wave; her father kneels in front of her, his arms opened wide for the rescue.
“And I knew I would not be prepared for it.”
The father scoops up his little girl and lavishes her with kisses.
The two of them dwell in the scene then lock eyes. Serena tugs at the silver medallion of her necklace, a gift from Bari. “I’m not convinced that what you think happened is what truly happened. I’m sorry, I’m just not.”
“I know that you are not convinced …” He stands up, stuffs his hands in his pocket, and stares at the sea. “You have to know that I want to hurt the boy who hurt my Alyssa…” he slides a glance back to her, “even if it is Joshua.”
His white shirt, half-tucked into his Docker shorts, puffs out as the wind gains speed. She blinks and sees him at his father’s restaurant on the day they first met, a plate of tomato-cucumber salad resting on his forearm. He had served her gracefully, with elegant hands and a half smile. Is there anything else I can get for you right now? His nose, narrow and flat at the end, seemed to fit his tanned face perfectly.
“You have to know, Bari, that my son is an honest young man...”
I think he wanted me to be his son, Mom.
Now tell me, Mark. Tell me what you said to my son, or so help me—
You want to know what happened? Ask him the next time you see him… And be sure to give him my regards.
“… so if I were you, I’d hold back any threats.”
He pauses to absorb the comment, then makes his way to the shoreline. Her eyes remain fixed on him as she pulls her cell phone out of the zipper pocket of her tote bag, flips it open, and scrolls down to the D’s of her contact list.
Doug is the last person she feels like speaking to about this.
But now, more than ever, Josh may need his father.
Serena and Bari stand barefoot on the sand of Nausett Beach, a floral bed sheet rippling between them in the breeze. Together, they allow the wind to iron it and gently lower it to the ground. Bari uses a pair of moccasins and a cooler to secure one side of the blanket—Serena, a tote full of towels and stack of magazines. He drills the umbrella into the sand while she reclines in her beach chair, an embellished cotton caftan over her black bikini. She rubs a daub of sunscreen on her face, adjusts her sunglasses, and admires the view.
The August sun is kinder than July’s, casting a mellow heat that feels more peach than lemon, the sky a cottony blue. A salty breeze sweeps across her freckled nose. She has grown her blonde hair midway to her back, with streaks of grey carelessly falling from the roots. Gone are the trendy styles of her early forties: the prim bobs, platinum highlights and professional blunt cuts. The latter end of the decade came with attitude.
Bari perches on a striped twin recliner with his book, leans back until the chair’s angle matches hers, and begins to read. He is quieter than usual, and though she’s curious about what’s on his mind, she lets him be. She lifts her sunglasses atop her head, closes her eyes, and watches colors swirl and dance behind her lids. A vibrant red emerges while Bari speaks.
“Remember how I told you Alyssa came to my room a few nights ago… visibly upset.”
“M-hmm…” Her head drifts to his voice. A gull cries out in the distance.
“It had to do with more than the usual teenage girl stuff.” He puts his book down on his lap, clasps his fingers.
She sits upright, slides her sunglasses atop her head. “Such as?”
“She…” His dark brown eyes blink with uncertainty, even fear. “She told me Josh raped her, Serena.”
A vibration, like a rubber band plucked inside her chest, reverberates though her body. The sensation is rudely familiar, but this time it takes on a new dimension. This time, it feels as though Bari, her Albanian boyfriend—the same boyfriend whose gentle smile and endearing accent won her heart over five years ago—has spoken in his native tongue. The words don’t make sense.
“I-I don’t think Josh is capable of this, Bari.” She presses two delicate fingers against her chest, as though it is she who has been accused. “I’m sorry, but there must be a misunderstanding.” A nearby seagull pecks nervously at a deserted French-fry. A companion totters to his side.
“I was just as surprised as you when I heard.” He rests his forearms on his legs and leans forward, his muscles defined, tense. “I wanted to sort through it for a few days before telling you.”
She rubs beneath her eyes. “Tell me what she said to you.” Already, Serena is (unfairly) jaded by the extent to which Alyssa, her potential stepdaughter, has managed to manipulate her kind father. A perpetual victim, things always seem to happen to the dark haired beauty: the English teacher wrongly scores her essay; the umpire calls her out when she’s safe; the green left-turn arrow somehow fails to work while she’s driving. When it comes to Alyssa Galica, stuff happens.
“It happened the night you and I snuck away for the evening, last Friday. Remember how Alyssa told me she was sleeping over Emily’s that night?”
“You spoke with Emily’s mother and she said it was fine... Yes, I do remember.”
“Well… she ended up sleeping there, but stopped at your house first.”
“What for?”
“She said she had left a pair of shoes and a bathing suit there last week... from the day we went to the waterslides.”
“Okay. Go on…” She closes her eyes. Josh is seventeen now. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s a normal boy with raging hormones. Is it possible that he’s capable of date rape?
“Josh was home with a friend.”
“Right. Eric slept over. They were supposed to watch a movie.” While packing, she recalls suggesting Titanic to Josh earlier in the day, but he had opted for The Lord of the Rings instead, one of Eric’s favorites. Setting her clothes down in the suitcase, she had begun to regret the decision to leave the boys alone. After all, there would be other weekends for her and Bari to travel. Next year, Josh would be away at school. She shared her ambivalence with Josh, who respectfully disagreed.
“Geez, Mom… It’s not like you get out much,” he had said. “Go out and have fun. We’ll be fine. I’ll have my cell phone on me 24-7… and we can do something together when I get back. Sound good?”
She studies the sand. For miles, specks of rock glitter like diamonds along its surface. Tears well up in her eyes—because this effect is an illusion—like the twinkling star theory. Stars appear to twinkle due to the movement of air traveling in the atmosphere. The starlight is bent and refracted in the process. What the naked eye sees, is not what's actually happening.
“So what happened next?”
Sand doesn’t sparkle. Stars don’t twinkle. And her son doesn’t force himself on girls.
“Josh went upstairs to grab her things. After he came back down and handed them over, she decided to invite them over to Emily’s…”
“And they said yes?”
“And they said yes.” He pauses to collect his thought.
“Alright, so now we have two teenage boys and two teenage girls in the pool at night. Where was Mrs. Bromley?”
“I thought the same thing! I don’t know exactly why she was not outside… but things get more complicated from here.” His irritation seems to intensify his accent. He pronounces the word exactly, eggsactly. “They started playing some kind of a strip game in the pool with the basketball hoop.”
“Strip… basketball?”
“Yes. For every basket missed, someone has to remove a piece of clothing… something crazy like that. When I asked my daughter to explain the specifics…” he continues with his hands, “she became hysterical… but I know, at some point, they paired off and went inside, to the finished basement.” His eyes begin to pool with water. He pinches his nose, shakes his head. “They were fooling around… and Alyssa said no to him, Serena.” He looks up. “The word no is supposed to be enough.”
She rests her forehead in her hands, rubs her temples. “Alright, Bari. This doesn’t sound good… but let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“She was hysterical, Serena… and very frightened. You think I am jumping to conclusions?”
She takes a deep breath. “No, that’s not what I mean. I understand you’re upset. I’m shocked, too!—But we need to take this one step at a time. I’m going to discuss the situation in-depth with Joshua. We need to consider both sides; that’s all I’m trying to say.”
“I know that.” He averts his gaze. “My daughter is a beautiful young woman.”
Like a smooth stone melded by centuries of harsh waves, his voice claims the burden of his history. Bari has single-handedly raised Alyssa. When his wife fell ill during the birth of their daughter, Bari had to choose between saving her life or his daughter’s.
“I knew this day would come…”
She watches his eyes drift and settle on the seashore, where a spry little girl darts away from a charging wave; her father kneels in front of her, his arms opened wide for the rescue.
“And I knew I would not be prepared for it.”
The father scoops up his little girl and lavishes her with kisses.
The two of them dwell in the scene then lock eyes. Serena tugs at the silver medallion of her necklace, a gift from Bari. “I’m not convinced that what you think happened is what truly happened. I’m sorry, I’m just not.”
“I know that you are not convinced …” He stands up, stuffs his hands in his pocket, and stares at the sea. “You have to know that I want to hurt the boy who hurt my Alyssa…” he slides a glance back to her, “even if it is Joshua.”
His white shirt, half-tucked into his Docker shorts, puffs out as the wind gains speed. She blinks and sees him at his father’s restaurant on the day they first met, a plate of tomato-cucumber salad resting on his forearm. He had served her gracefully, with elegant hands and a half smile. Is there anything else I can get for you right now? His nose, narrow and flat at the end, seemed to fit his tanned face perfectly.
“You have to know, Bari, that my son is an honest young man...”
I think he wanted me to be his son, Mom.
Now tell me, Mark. Tell me what you said to my son, or so help me—
You want to know what happened? Ask him the next time you see him… And be sure to give him my regards.
“… so if I were you, I’d hold back any threats.”
He pauses to absorb the comment, then makes his way to the shoreline. Her eyes remain fixed on him as she pulls her cell phone out of the zipper pocket of her tote bag, flips it open, and scrolls down to the D’s of her contact list.
Doug is the last person she feels like speaking to about this.
But now, more than ever, Josh may need his father.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Chapter Twenty Four - The Tango of Love, Lies, and, Self-respect...
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The gun, Doug knows, has become a part of Serena, an extension of her will to live, and possibly, to kill. It would be so easy to wrap her small trembling hands with his and shoot this man. Adrenaline takes over, a lethal dose fueled by the dark side of his fear. He is high on rage, teetering on the frayed edge of a single moment. Tormented, he struggles to focus. Everything happened so quickly, so perfectly, until an enraged and weaponless Mark charged his wife like a rabid animal.
It’s been a good run, Doug thinks, allowing his index finger to slide over Serena’s and graze the steel curve of the trigger. In his mind’s eye, he sees the first line of his life’s fallen story, the all-important hook. On the outside, Doug Davis had it all. The air is misted with dirt and malice. No one would have guessed him capable of killing, even in self-defense. Everything reeks of cheap whiskey, of this sick man’s breath. But the villain had plagued the English teacher for too long…
“Put your filthy hands up.”
Lori. Lori? She’s alive, here to rescue them. It’s what she does. The woman is amazing at what she does. His mind staggers to the realization.
“Don’t shoot him, Serena. He’s not worth it.”
Doug embraces his trembling wife.
“Besides… ” Lori goes on, gun arm extended, “he’s accrued enough charges to spend the rest of his sorry life behind bars.” The detective, sharp and beautiful, is bookended by Leon and John. The crime trio had, somehow, survived the bomb. Had Serena tipped-off Lori in the cottage? He swallows another round of guilt. What have you done? He had blamed her in the car, after Mark pulled off the wig. Despite being fooled by the Nathan-ruse, Serena had led all of them to safety. Doug should not have pointed a finger at her.
“She said put your hands up.” Leon uses his size to command compliance, lumbering closer to Mark.
The desire to finish this psycho off itches in Doug’s trembling hands. “I’m thinking our loony toons friend here will plead insanity if he lives, Detective Hearns.”
“He may, but it won’t fly in the courtroom.” She takes a step towards Mark. “The willful, premeditated, and deliberate murder of his mother sort of puts a damper on things.”
“Stop talking about me as though I’m not in the room,” Mark rants, raising his hands in cooperation. “I’ll have you know that it was Little Miss Serena who persuaded me to come here so she could show me what’s inside that worrisome head of hers.”
Leon snaps the handcuffs on Mark’s wrists, shoves him towards the Taurus, and pins him against the driver’s side. “How about you make your life easier, and start with the bomb, Mark. First things first.”
They’re trying to force a confession, Doug thinks. He tightens his coat around Serena, kisses her damp head.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Hearns,” Mark spats, “but aren’t you the one who has something to confess around here?”
Ignoring the question, Lori asks, “Did you map out the steps to kill your mother while in rehab?”
“Do you always choose to sleep with married men?”
Leon jerks Mark’s arm up. “Answer her question.”
“I’m going to go get our car, you guys,” the young officer says, darting off.
“Was this part of your original escape plan?” Lori repeats.
Mark’s constrained body impedes his ability to make eye contact. He cranes his neck in the direction of her voice. “I think I’ll exercise my right to remain silent.”
“If you were smart, you’d exercise your right to spit out your guilty-as-hell confession and cling to your one ray of hope,” she paces behind him like a caged animal, “A plea bargain. The penalty for premeditated murder tends to be rough.”
The night is veiled in fog. It stands still and listens to the hidden truths, and to the lies they gave life to. His failure to be there for his wife when she needed him is not the truth, nor is divorcing his son by being unfaithful.
He actually convinced himself, and Serena, that it was in his son’s best interest to work with Lori alone, in lieu of the crime team. Trapped in denial, he truly believed he was doing the right thing. Well, perhaps truly is a strong word, Doug tells himself; because lurking in the shadow of that truth was an attraction to Lori that he willingly chose to nurture.
Gently, he caresses Serena’s thumb and attempts to lower the gun. Why hasn’t he felt the same attraction for her? Regardless, things are back under control. There’s no need to be impulsive now. Lori is in charge.
Back under control.
Doug whispers the words and adjusts to a calmer mindset. His old life is still within reach. A knot of tension loosens in his shoulders, at the base of his neck. It’s time to pull himself—and his wife—back together.
Wrestling from his hold, Serena takes him by surprise. She stands up and points the gun at Mark. “What did you say to my son after you forced him into your car?”
Doug gently touches her shoulder. “Serena, we’ve got it under control. This guy hasn’t a prayer.”
“I have a few of my own prayers to tend to, Doug.” She moves closer to Mark, close enough to touch. Doug follows her. How can he not? His wife, a woman who barely tolerates squirt guns, is angry and holding a loaded .38.
“I asked you a question, you pathetic excuse for a human being.”
“Pathetic excuse for a human being?” Mark digests the words with a meditative blink followed by an uncomfortably long pause. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that, Mrs. Davis?”
Tears threaten, but Serena blinks them back. “Are you asking me to feel bad for you?” Her normally beautiful face curls in a snarl. “After everything you’ve done to us? To my family? You want me to feel bad for you?”
“I’m asking you to think about Doug beating the shit out of Josh every time he fails, and I don’t necessarily mean with his fist. Words are weapons, Serena… remember that.” Mark twists to face her, despite Leon’s grip on him. “I’m asking you to imagine Doug telling your son he’s a fuck-up every single time he makes a mistake and, just for good measure, abandoning him in the cold of the woods just to teach him a lesson.” He begins to cry. “I’m asking you to understand that it wasn’t me who took your child that night. It was the face of my fear, my hurt, and my desperate need to control what can’t be controlled.” He bangs his head on the car door. “I was supposed to be the cool snowboarding instructor offering a night lesson.”
“Tell me!” Serena screams.
Leon glances at the gun in Serena’s hands, then to Lori.
“Serena,” she says, “I want you to listen to me.” She holsters her weapon, holds her hands in the air.
“Shut up!” Stabbing the night air with the .38, Serena’s eyes narrow. “What you’ve done to my marriage… You’re almost as bad as he is, Detective Hearns. Maybe worse.” She squares her feet, swallows. “Now tell me, Mark. Tell me what you said to my son, or so help me—”
“That’s just it,” Mark says. “Don’t you get it? I don’t remember because it wasn’t me in that car with Josh.”
Serena retreats a step. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”
Mark grins. “It was Steven, Mrs. Davis.” His laughter is colder and darker than even the night itself. “It was Steven all along. You want to know what happened? Ask him the next time you see him… And be sure to give him my regards.”
“Get this lunatic outa’ my face, Leon,” Lori snaps. “Handcuffed or not, he’s dangerous. I’ve called in a crew, Stateys… Restrain him in the Mustang until they show.”
“What happened in that car before the accident?” Serena persists, the gun extended still.
Officer Wynan pulls up with the Mustang and Leon escorts the criminal to the vehicle.
“I can’t remember!” Mark shouts, laughing. “But he does, Mrs. Davis! He knows!”
Doug places a gentle hand on her shoulder and, together, they watch Leon force Mark into the backseat of the Mustang before a gigantic Leon slams the door shut, locks it and stands on guard outside of the car.
Tears streaking her face, Serena hands the gun to Lori. His coat hangs big on her.
“Thanks for all of your help,” Doug says. “We were a good team.” His wife nods pensively. “Hey, honey, cheer up. At least we got him.”
“You did a great job hanging tough during that miserable ride,” Lori adds. “Especially you, Serena. Most people would have cracked under the pressure. You thought of a way out. That’s something to be proud of.”
“It sure is,” Doug agrees.
Serena’s watery gray eyes settle on his. “When it comes to protecting our child, there’s always a way out, Doug.”
“I’m proud of you, Serena.”
“I know you are… and I appreciate the compliment. But your actions, Doug, do not support what you’re proud of and, for that reason, you’re going to have find another woman to be reckless with… Lori, perhaps you will be the lucky winner.”
“Serena, listen to me. Your husband and I don’t belong together. Don’t be fooled by one careless and stupid night. I’d like to say that I’m sorry to you but, somehow, I don’t think it will cut it. Choose your marriage. And for the sake of your child, choose love.”
“I’m not sure that you’re a credible source to preach on love, Lori, but I’ll tell you this. My choice to respect myself reflects my love for Josh more than you’ll ever know. The rest will just have to fall into place… or not. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I need to freshen up.”
His wife walks away.
The gun, Doug knows, has become a part of Serena, an extension of her will to live, and possibly, to kill. It would be so easy to wrap her small trembling hands with his and shoot this man. Adrenaline takes over, a lethal dose fueled by the dark side of his fear. He is high on rage, teetering on the frayed edge of a single moment. Tormented, he struggles to focus. Everything happened so quickly, so perfectly, until an enraged and weaponless Mark charged his wife like a rabid animal.
It’s been a good run, Doug thinks, allowing his index finger to slide over Serena’s and graze the steel curve of the trigger. In his mind’s eye, he sees the first line of his life’s fallen story, the all-important hook. On the outside, Doug Davis had it all. The air is misted with dirt and malice. No one would have guessed him capable of killing, even in self-defense. Everything reeks of cheap whiskey, of this sick man’s breath. But the villain had plagued the English teacher for too long…
“Put your filthy hands up.”
Lori. Lori? She’s alive, here to rescue them. It’s what she does. The woman is amazing at what she does. His mind staggers to the realization.
“Don’t shoot him, Serena. He’s not worth it.”
Doug embraces his trembling wife.
“Besides… ” Lori goes on, gun arm extended, “he’s accrued enough charges to spend the rest of his sorry life behind bars.” The detective, sharp and beautiful, is bookended by Leon and John. The crime trio had, somehow, survived the bomb. Had Serena tipped-off Lori in the cottage? He swallows another round of guilt. What have you done? He had blamed her in the car, after Mark pulled off the wig. Despite being fooled by the Nathan-ruse, Serena had led all of them to safety. Doug should not have pointed a finger at her.
“She said put your hands up.” Leon uses his size to command compliance, lumbering closer to Mark.
The desire to finish this psycho off itches in Doug’s trembling hands. “I’m thinking our loony toons friend here will plead insanity if he lives, Detective Hearns.”
“He may, but it won’t fly in the courtroom.” She takes a step towards Mark. “The willful, premeditated, and deliberate murder of his mother sort of puts a damper on things.”
“Stop talking about me as though I’m not in the room,” Mark rants, raising his hands in cooperation. “I’ll have you know that it was Little Miss Serena who persuaded me to come here so she could show me what’s inside that worrisome head of hers.”
Leon snaps the handcuffs on Mark’s wrists, shoves him towards the Taurus, and pins him against the driver’s side. “How about you make your life easier, and start with the bomb, Mark. First things first.”
They’re trying to force a confession, Doug thinks. He tightens his coat around Serena, kisses her damp head.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Hearns,” Mark spats, “but aren’t you the one who has something to confess around here?”
Ignoring the question, Lori asks, “Did you map out the steps to kill your mother while in rehab?”
“Do you always choose to sleep with married men?”
Leon jerks Mark’s arm up. “Answer her question.”
“I’m going to go get our car, you guys,” the young officer says, darting off.
“Was this part of your original escape plan?” Lori repeats.
Mark’s constrained body impedes his ability to make eye contact. He cranes his neck in the direction of her voice. “I think I’ll exercise my right to remain silent.”
“If you were smart, you’d exercise your right to spit out your guilty-as-hell confession and cling to your one ray of hope,” she paces behind him like a caged animal, “A plea bargain. The penalty for premeditated murder tends to be rough.”
The night is veiled in fog. It stands still and listens to the hidden truths, and to the lies they gave life to. His failure to be there for his wife when she needed him is not the truth, nor is divorcing his son by being unfaithful.
He actually convinced himself, and Serena, that it was in his son’s best interest to work with Lori alone, in lieu of the crime team. Trapped in denial, he truly believed he was doing the right thing. Well, perhaps truly is a strong word, Doug tells himself; because lurking in the shadow of that truth was an attraction to Lori that he willingly chose to nurture.
Gently, he caresses Serena’s thumb and attempts to lower the gun. Why hasn’t he felt the same attraction for her? Regardless, things are back under control. There’s no need to be impulsive now. Lori is in charge.
Back under control.
Doug whispers the words and adjusts to a calmer mindset. His old life is still within reach. A knot of tension loosens in his shoulders, at the base of his neck. It’s time to pull himself—and his wife—back together.
Wrestling from his hold, Serena takes him by surprise. She stands up and points the gun at Mark. “What did you say to my son after you forced him into your car?”
Doug gently touches her shoulder. “Serena, we’ve got it under control. This guy hasn’t a prayer.”
“I have a few of my own prayers to tend to, Doug.” She moves closer to Mark, close enough to touch. Doug follows her. How can he not? His wife, a woman who barely tolerates squirt guns, is angry and holding a loaded .38.
“I asked you a question, you pathetic excuse for a human being.”
“Pathetic excuse for a human being?” Mark digests the words with a meditative blink followed by an uncomfortably long pause. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that, Mrs. Davis?”
Tears threaten, but Serena blinks them back. “Are you asking me to feel bad for you?” Her normally beautiful face curls in a snarl. “After everything you’ve done to us? To my family? You want me to feel bad for you?”
“I’m asking you to think about Doug beating the shit out of Josh every time he fails, and I don’t necessarily mean with his fist. Words are weapons, Serena… remember that.” Mark twists to face her, despite Leon’s grip on him. “I’m asking you to imagine Doug telling your son he’s a fuck-up every single time he makes a mistake and, just for good measure, abandoning him in the cold of the woods just to teach him a lesson.” He begins to cry. “I’m asking you to understand that it wasn’t me who took your child that night. It was the face of my fear, my hurt, and my desperate need to control what can’t be controlled.” He bangs his head on the car door. “I was supposed to be the cool snowboarding instructor offering a night lesson.”
“Tell me!” Serena screams.
Leon glances at the gun in Serena’s hands, then to Lori.
“Serena,” she says, “I want you to listen to me.” She holsters her weapon, holds her hands in the air.
“Shut up!” Stabbing the night air with the .38, Serena’s eyes narrow. “What you’ve done to my marriage… You’re almost as bad as he is, Detective Hearns. Maybe worse.” She squares her feet, swallows. “Now tell me, Mark. Tell me what you said to my son, or so help me—”
“That’s just it,” Mark says. “Don’t you get it? I don’t remember because it wasn’t me in that car with Josh.”
Serena retreats a step. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”
Mark grins. “It was Steven, Mrs. Davis.” His laughter is colder and darker than even the night itself. “It was Steven all along. You want to know what happened? Ask him the next time you see him… And be sure to give him my regards.”
“Get this lunatic outa’ my face, Leon,” Lori snaps. “Handcuffed or not, he’s dangerous. I’ve called in a crew, Stateys… Restrain him in the Mustang until they show.”
“What happened in that car before the accident?” Serena persists, the gun extended still.
Officer Wynan pulls up with the Mustang and Leon escorts the criminal to the vehicle.
“I can’t remember!” Mark shouts, laughing. “But he does, Mrs. Davis! He knows!”
Doug places a gentle hand on her shoulder and, together, they watch Leon force Mark into the backseat of the Mustang before a gigantic Leon slams the door shut, locks it and stands on guard outside of the car.
Tears streaking her face, Serena hands the gun to Lori. His coat hangs big on her.
“Thanks for all of your help,” Doug says. “We were a good team.” His wife nods pensively. “Hey, honey, cheer up. At least we got him.”
“You did a great job hanging tough during that miserable ride,” Lori adds. “Especially you, Serena. Most people would have cracked under the pressure. You thought of a way out. That’s something to be proud of.”
“It sure is,” Doug agrees.
Serena’s watery gray eyes settle on his. “When it comes to protecting our child, there’s always a way out, Doug.”
“I’m proud of you, Serena.”
“I know you are… and I appreciate the compliment. But your actions, Doug, do not support what you’re proud of and, for that reason, you’re going to have find another woman to be reckless with… Lori, perhaps you will be the lucky winner.”
“Serena, listen to me. Your husband and I don’t belong together. Don’t be fooled by one careless and stupid night. I’d like to say that I’m sorry to you but, somehow, I don’t think it will cut it. Choose your marriage. And for the sake of your child, choose love.”
“I’m not sure that you’re a credible source to preach on love, Lori, but I’ll tell you this. My choice to respect myself reflects my love for Josh more than you’ll ever know. The rest will just have to fall into place… or not. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I need to freshen up.”
His wife walks away.
Friday, May 13, 2011
WINNING BIG
For a small town, the baseball players of Sutton sure know how to win big.
The Sutton Youth Baseball League tournament teams, under the direction of President Joseph Charielle and Vice President Sandy Burke, have competed aggressively for the past three years. In 2009, the nine-year-old all star team won the Cal RipkenWestern Mass State Championship and went on to finish 3rd in the Regional Finals. In 2010, the same group (now 10 year old team) again won the Western Mass State Championship and advanced to the Regional tournament, placing 5th. Also in 2010, the 9-12 age groups all advanced to the final championship game in the Uxbridge tournament, with the 10's and 11's winning the tournament. Additionally in 2010, the 9 year olds placed 3rd in the state tournament and the 11 year olds 5th. Finally in 2010, the 11/12 year old teams won the Blackstone Memorial Day Tournament for the second year in a row.
So… what’s their secret?
As an involved parent and third-year scorekeeper for the league, I’ve seen a lot of baseball. Fusing my observations with a laid-back interview with the league’s President, I thought I’d spread some good news. After all, the Red Sox have been slow to deliver.
According to Charielle, the key to successful tournament play lies in priming pitchers at an early age. By signing on to tee-ball by age five, teaching the right way to throw during Farm League, and allowing developmentally-ready ball players to move up to Minors by age eight, young boys come to the field seasoned by the time they’ve lost a set of molars.
This sounds so simple, like placing your glove down to catch a grounder. But what about the bad bounce? Just when we think we have baseball all figured out, we’re thrown a curve ball. We forget to consider the whole picture.
That’s where the coaching staff and Board of Directors come in.
The Board of Directors (Joe Charielle, Sandy Burke, Julianne Genatossio, Mike Cotoia and Brian Hebert) work endless hours on field maintenance, rosters, team scheduling, parent questions, league insurance and national chartering to keep the league strong and focused on their first priority—the kids.
Under SYBL provisions, the tournament coaches are required to hold a Ripken certification—one prioritizing good sportsmanship. Furthermore, Sutton coaches tend to rise through the ranks with their own kids; thereby gaining valuable experience along the way. The League strives for consistency, along with happy coaches. A bigger challenge, according to Charielle, is to keep the kids playing. As early as age eleven, players often stray from the sport, pursuing interests that supersede a love for baseball.
A love for baseball.
How do coaches manage to keep that passion alive?
I’ve attended enough baseball games to be as pumped-up about these athletic leaders as an enhanced Manny. I’ve watched Coach Cotoia step up for the safe third-base runner on the opposing team, and listened to Coach Genatassio encourage his new pitcher, despite the pocketful of veterans who could have played the position more competitively. Thanks to Coach Girouard, our boys are still shaking off mistakes and they can count on Coach Burke to recognize a great play made, regardless of whose team they’re playing for.
SYBL coaches practice integrity, on and off the field, and though they’re not perfect (who is, really?) they’re passionate about the needs of their players. They lead by example. And so shouldn’t we, the parents.
Parent involvement accounts for an added strength of the league. Community events such as Earth Day Clean-up and Opening Day are centralized at Hough Field, where the smells and sounds of baseball float through the air like an infield fly. Here, the children of SYBL see parents and coaches working together.
The Concession stand is stacked higher than a Yankee’s payroll. The candy is plentiful. The drinks are varied. The grill is massive. When it comes to cooking a burger, Coach Hebert sizzles. In short, a spirit of team work and generosity dwells at Hough Field.
Friendships are built. Memories are made. And the Sutton Youth Baseball players, along with competing, are winning big.
That’s something to be proud of.
Amy LeClaire
amyleclaire@hotmail.com
The Sutton Youth Baseball League tournament teams, under the direction of President Joseph Charielle and Vice President Sandy Burke, have competed aggressively for the past three years. In 2009, the nine-year-old all star team won the Cal RipkenWestern Mass State Championship and went on to finish 3rd in the Regional Finals. In 2010, the same group (now 10 year old team) again won the Western Mass State Championship and advanced to the Regional tournament, placing 5th. Also in 2010, the 9-12 age groups all advanced to the final championship game in the Uxbridge tournament, with the 10's and 11's winning the tournament. Additionally in 2010, the 9 year olds placed 3rd in the state tournament and the 11 year olds 5th. Finally in 2010, the 11/12 year old teams won the Blackstone Memorial Day Tournament for the second year in a row.
So… what’s their secret?
As an involved parent and third-year scorekeeper for the league, I’ve seen a lot of baseball. Fusing my observations with a laid-back interview with the league’s President, I thought I’d spread some good news. After all, the Red Sox have been slow to deliver.
According to Charielle, the key to successful tournament play lies in priming pitchers at an early age. By signing on to tee-ball by age five, teaching the right way to throw during Farm League, and allowing developmentally-ready ball players to move up to Minors by age eight, young boys come to the field seasoned by the time they’ve lost a set of molars.
This sounds so simple, like placing your glove down to catch a grounder. But what about the bad bounce? Just when we think we have baseball all figured out, we’re thrown a curve ball. We forget to consider the whole picture.
That’s where the coaching staff and Board of Directors come in.
The Board of Directors (Joe Charielle, Sandy Burke, Julianne Genatossio, Mike Cotoia and Brian Hebert) work endless hours on field maintenance, rosters, team scheduling, parent questions, league insurance and national chartering to keep the league strong and focused on their first priority—the kids.
Under SYBL provisions, the tournament coaches are required to hold a Ripken certification—one prioritizing good sportsmanship. Furthermore, Sutton coaches tend to rise through the ranks with their own kids; thereby gaining valuable experience along the way. The League strives for consistency, along with happy coaches. A bigger challenge, according to Charielle, is to keep the kids playing. As early as age eleven, players often stray from the sport, pursuing interests that supersede a love for baseball.
A love for baseball.
How do coaches manage to keep that passion alive?
I’ve attended enough baseball games to be as pumped-up about these athletic leaders as an enhanced Manny. I’ve watched Coach Cotoia step up for the safe third-base runner on the opposing team, and listened to Coach Genatassio encourage his new pitcher, despite the pocketful of veterans who could have played the position more competitively. Thanks to Coach Girouard, our boys are still shaking off mistakes and they can count on Coach Burke to recognize a great play made, regardless of whose team they’re playing for.
SYBL coaches practice integrity, on and off the field, and though they’re not perfect (who is, really?) they’re passionate about the needs of their players. They lead by example. And so shouldn’t we, the parents.
Parent involvement accounts for an added strength of the league. Community events such as Earth Day Clean-up and Opening Day are centralized at Hough Field, where the smells and sounds of baseball float through the air like an infield fly. Here, the children of SYBL see parents and coaches working together.
The Concession stand is stacked higher than a Yankee’s payroll. The candy is plentiful. The drinks are varied. The grill is massive. When it comes to cooking a burger, Coach Hebert sizzles. In short, a spirit of team work and generosity dwells at Hough Field.
Friendships are built. Memories are made. And the Sutton Youth Baseball players, along with competing, are winning big.
That’s something to be proud of.
Amy LeClaire
amyleclaire@hotmail.com
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Hours of Change - Killer Query - Take Five
Serena Davis has already lost one child; she’s not about to lose another. A sociopathic kidnapper with family secrets of his own has taken her only son. But when Josh is rescued, it sends her already rocky marriage into a spiral from which Serena, and her family, might never recover.
Her husband, Doug Davis, is to blame.
At the blustery base of Canon Mountain’s expert snow trail, he leaves Joshua alone with the competitive riding instructor, Steven Roth, a mentally unstable con artist. While fleeing the scene during a snowstorm, the kidnapper crashes the getaway vehicle, and is flown to the ICU.
Joshua, the angelic boy whose Hebrew name means God Rescues, miraculously survives.
Serena should be happy.
The problem is, Roth—fettered by his multiple personalities and affection for Josh—is not dead yet. Disguised as a nurse, Serena confronts the kidnapper in his hospital room, and causes his stroke.
A secret is born.
When the case is assigned to Lori Hearns, the savvy and wildly attractive detective Doug has grown close to; Serena has more to worry about than her own, smaller crime.
She falls apart at the seams while the kidnapper mends.
Complication deepens: Roth escapes the law and demands cooperation from the broken couple on a strangely promising solution. They will help him assume his latest identity and flee the country.
Car-jacked; Serena is literally under the gun for a solution to protect her family. Her best option, it seems, is to sink into a sick man’s mind and play by his rules. When Detective Hearns comes to her rescue, she swallows the bitter taste of betrayal, never knowing that, in the process, she’s about to discover something new about herself, something that just may save her family—and her own dignity.
Her husband, Doug Davis, is to blame.
At the blustery base of Canon Mountain’s expert snow trail, he leaves Joshua alone with the competitive riding instructor, Steven Roth, a mentally unstable con artist. While fleeing the scene during a snowstorm, the kidnapper crashes the getaway vehicle, and is flown to the ICU.
Joshua, the angelic boy whose Hebrew name means God Rescues, miraculously survives.
Serena should be happy.
The problem is, Roth—fettered by his multiple personalities and affection for Josh—is not dead yet. Disguised as a nurse, Serena confronts the kidnapper in his hospital room, and causes his stroke.
A secret is born.
When the case is assigned to Lori Hearns, the savvy and wildly attractive detective Doug has grown close to; Serena has more to worry about than her own, smaller crime.
She falls apart at the seams while the kidnapper mends.
Complication deepens: Roth escapes the law and demands cooperation from the broken couple on a strangely promising solution. They will help him assume his latest identity and flee the country.
Car-jacked; Serena is literally under the gun for a solution to protect her family. Her best option, it seems, is to sink into a sick man’s mind and play by his rules. When Detective Hearns comes to her rescue, she swallows the bitter taste of betrayal, never knowing that, in the process, she’s about to discover something new about herself, something that just may save her family—and her own dignity.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Hours of Change - Query Letter
Serena Davis has already lost one child; she’s not about to lose another. A sociopathic kidnapper with family secrets of his own has taken her only child. But when her son is rescued, it sends her already rocky marriage into a spiral from which Serena, and her family, might never recover.
Her husband, Doug Davis, is to blame. At the blustery base of Canon Mountain’s expert snow trail, he leaves Joshua alone with the competitive riding instructor, Steven Roth, a mentally unstable con artist.
Fleeing the scene during a snowstorm, however, the kidnapper crashes the getaway vehicle, and Joshua miraculously survives. Roth is flown to the ICU.
Serena should be happy.
The problem is, Roth—fettered by his multiple personalities and affection for Josh—is not dead yet. Disguised as a nurse, she confronts him, and unwittingly causes his stroke.
A secret is born.
When the case is assigned to Lori Hearns, the savvy, wildly attractive detective Doug has grown suspiciously close to, Serena has more to worry about than her son alone. And while Roth mends remarkably quickly, Serena falls apart.
Roth escapes the law and demands cooperation from the Davis’s on a strangely promising solution: they will help him assume his latest identity and help him flee the country. Their lives and the future well-being of their son depend on it.
But when Detective Hearns comes to the rescue, Serena must swallow the bitter taste of betrayal and discover something that just may save her son’s life—along with her own.
Her husband, Doug Davis, is to blame. At the blustery base of Canon Mountain’s expert snow trail, he leaves Joshua alone with the competitive riding instructor, Steven Roth, a mentally unstable con artist.
Fleeing the scene during a snowstorm, however, the kidnapper crashes the getaway vehicle, and Joshua miraculously survives. Roth is flown to the ICU.
Serena should be happy.
The problem is, Roth—fettered by his multiple personalities and affection for Josh—is not dead yet. Disguised as a nurse, she confronts him, and unwittingly causes his stroke.
A secret is born.
When the case is assigned to Lori Hearns, the savvy, wildly attractive detective Doug has grown suspiciously close to, Serena has more to worry about than her son alone. And while Roth mends remarkably quickly, Serena falls apart.
Roth escapes the law and demands cooperation from the Davis’s on a strangely promising solution: they will help him assume his latest identity and help him flee the country. Their lives and the future well-being of their son depend on it.
But when Detective Hearns comes to the rescue, Serena must swallow the bitter taste of betrayal and discover something that just may save her son’s life—along with her own.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Two Mothers, Two Sons - Who's The Victim? Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
An unplowed driveway leads to Bethany Roth’s lake house. Perched on a hill, the cottage fronts a dense patch of woods coated in snow and, further down, a pond. The house is brown and weathered; the paint of its shutters flaking off like dry skin. Its single redeeming quality, an attractive wraparound porch, is patched with slush and ice.
Serena slams her door shut and takes a deep breath. Doug does the same, beside his own car. She had agreed to join him with the concession that they drive up separately. Coming to Millbury to meet Mrs. Roth was in Joshua’s best interest. Her disgust with Doug, the less volatile of a greater issue, will need to simmer on the back burner until the woman’s troubled son is handled properly.
A peach sun sits at the base of layered, dark clouds where the sky meets the water, electrifying the view. At the bottom of the stairs, she and Doug lock eyes.
“Will you and Daddy be friends again?”
“Remember what we talked about, Doug. Say whatever you need to if it’ll protect Josh.”
“You know how you and Tyler will always be friends but sometimes you don’t’ see eye-to-eye…”
“Definitely. I do love you, Serena.”
“We’ll only be gone for a few days. Grampy can’t wait to take you to the Go Cart park.”
“Are you afraid of this man?” She studies her husband. The lobes of his ears are pink.
“No.” The statement sounds convicted. “Our son is going to die an old man… and he’s going to be happy.”
“I do love the way you’re thinking.”
We barter lies for truths as parents, she thinks. And pray for fair trades.
“Let’s make things right,” Doug says. He reaches for her hand, squeezes it.
They climb the porch steps to a paneled glass door. Doug knocks hard. Rapid-fire footsteps resound inside and Steven’s mother swings open the door. Her grayish brown hair falls in loose tendrils down her back and the skin surrounding her mouth, wrinkled and leathery, reflects the telltale signs of a smoking addiction. Her eyes, golden as a fresh nicotine stain, betray as much. But despite the toll age and poor habits she had taken, Serena could still see, in another life, Bethany Roth turning heads.
“Thank you for coming.”
She waves them in and he is there in an instant, wearing khakis, a lavender cashmere sweater, and a ski hat; thinner and more deranged than she had imagined.
“Mr. and Mrs. Davis… have a seat.” He motions to the couch with his gun. The navy and plaid cushions reek of stale cigarette smoke.
Serena speaks first. “Mr. Roth, my husband and I want to thank you for meeting with us.” She swivels her wedding ring. “We’d like to have both our needs met.”
He rubs his forehead with a free hand, laughs fiendishly. “Is that right?” Without taking his eyes off of her, he cranes his head to this mother. “Mommy… how about you enlighten this charming couple on how well my needs have been met.”
Bethany Roth tightens the sash of her sweater, accentuating a barely there waist. She flicks on an antique lamp and takes a shaky sip from her coffee mug. “He wants you to know that… that I didn’t protect him the way I should have.” She looks her son in the eye. “Mark… Serena and Doug deserve to meet Steven. Can you please switch over? You’re safe. These people came here to get a better understanding of you.”
His eyes dart about the room like a frightened squirrel. He clutches his pistol tighter. “Bethany… tell them what I told you.”
She raises her hand calmly. “Settle down, Mark. I will.”
Doug crosses a leg over his knee. Serena folds and unfolds her hands.
Bethany’s eyes wander and settle, first, on Doug… “My deceased husband… abused my son,” and next, on Serena. “Physically. Emotionally… It wasn’t easy.” She moves toward a small wooden shelf at the far wall of the room and removes a framed picture. “This is the two of them.” She hands Doug the photo. Little and big Steven are brandishing twin fishes in the center of a dock overlooking a lake. “You wouldn’t know it by those smiles, how dysfunctional our home was. A picture doesn’t tell a thousand words—”
“It lies,” Mark fills them in.
Serena studies the photo, faces Mark. “I’m sorry that you were abused.”
Mark’s voice grows desperate, more childish, his gestures erratic. “Tell them more, Bethany.”
“Do you mind?” She pulls a cigarette from her sweater pocket.
“Go right ahead,” Doug says.
She draws the filter to her mouth and lights up. Her lips pucker as the tip of the cigarette crackles softly… Inhale. Exhale. Her voice, frosted in smoke, is raspy. “Steven’s father wore him down terribly, forcing him to live a life through his own broken dreams as a competitive skier.” She flicks an ash into her mug. “But that’s only the beginning.”
“That’s only the beginning,” Mark mimics.
“The stories are endless,” Bethany continues, “but the worst was during the winter of ‘84. Steven was ten at the time. They had been skiing at Wildcat Mountain, NH, until dark. After everyone had left,” she slides a glance at his pistol, “my husband abandoned my son.”
She coughs for a moment too long, and then paints her guests a picture.
***
“Daddy… Please don’t leave me here! I promise to try harder. I promise to keep my skis closer together!”
They had veered off of the trail and into the woods, in order to practice what it’s like to “Brave the elements.” A small stream ran like a blocked artery through the snow and trees. The temperature was about fifteen degrees and a hypothermic wind blew in.
“Daddy!” He used his poles to find a feasible path to ski through. In the quiet of the woods, fear exploded in his chest. He clutched it. It seemed as though his heartbeat was loud enough for coyotes to hear. His father was nowhere to be found.
If only he had listened. If only his skis hadn’t been so far apart. If only he had concentrated harder. If only he had used his arms properly. His rhythm was off. If only he had won the stupid race.
Hours passed. He shivered and cried and fought to find a way out, but the branches held him back with their frozen, spindly claws. He took off a ski and slammed it against a tree trunk, scratched it up good. It bruised terribly, but did not break. The moon cast a pale glow over the woods.
With fingers like cold rubber, he removed his wet clothes, recalling what his father had told him to do to avoid hypothermia, but it didn’t work. He stumbled and fell and finally made a pact with himself and God to die out there in the woods. The greatest danger to a person suffering from hypothermia is falling asleep. The greatest danger to me is not falling asleep, he thought.
Lying down, he closed his eyes when footsteps closed in on him. His father’s arms, with a blanket, embraced him.
“Lesson learned, Son?”
***
Steven lifts his chin and sniffles as though fighting to hold back tears; Serena’s own fall shamelessly down her cheeks. Bethany’s fingers shake. Doug clears his throat.
“Steven… You shouldn’t have been abandoned,” she whispers. “Your father was a sick man. But you can beat him.”
His head remains posed at an awkward angle, his pistol cocked. “Beat him?”
“She’s right,” Doug adds, “We can repeat the wrongs of what we lived or we can remedy them.”
“Now you sound like my shrink, doesn’t he, Mom?”
“They’re absolutely right, Mark,” Bethany says.
“Steven!” Mark admonishes and apparently the switch has been made.
She rubs her face. “Steven. Thank God! I was just saying… Doug is correct.”
“You…” He waves the gun at Bethany, “you left me with him! Left me to die! My skin was as cold as a corpse! You carried me once! How can you call yourself a mother!”
Bethany weeps into her hands. He moves closer to her, the gun still raised.
“Did you even care to look for me? Did you ever once stick up for me?”
He begins to sob.
His mother kneels on the floor, at the foot of her child.
Serena rises. “Steven… Your mother is walking through fire for you right now! Maybe she failed to protect you in the past, but she’s here for you today…” This man committed a major felony, she reminds herself. “Free yourself and forgive her.”
“I was so frightened back then,” Bethany cries. “You have no idea, Steven.” She faces her son. “I’m guilty of not protecting you. I’m guilty of your sins today! But I’m asking for you to put the gun down and forgive me. Forgive me or shoot me, Steven. I’ll love you either way.”
“I was left all alone for hours in the darkness, Mother! Twenty-five fucking years later… I’m still there.” His expression softens as he turns to Serena. “I thought I was saving Joshua because he looked like me… even when I drove away I knew it was wrong but Mark had already taken over… then when you came into the hospital, I was trying to tell you, but you threatened me—”
“Wait a minute…” his mother rises. “I didn’t know you were threatened, Steven.”
Doug stands. “Mrs. Roth. You and my wife have something in common: both of you will do anything and everything you can to protect your sons.”
Bethany’s eyes narrow. “Your son is going to be fine, Mr. Davis.” She points at Steven, “It’s mine who needs protection now.”
“But if we promise not to turn you in,” Serena says, “how can we trust that you won’t repeat the pattern, Steven? How can we be sure that you will turn yourself around?”
Steven rubs the neck of the pistol then pushes it into his back pocket.
“You can be sure, Mrs. Davis, because you’re going to help me flee the country.” He touches his mother’s chin with his thumb. “I forgive you, Mother.”
An unplowed driveway leads to Bethany Roth’s lake house. Perched on a hill, the cottage fronts a dense patch of woods coated in snow and, further down, a pond. The house is brown and weathered; the paint of its shutters flaking off like dry skin. Its single redeeming quality, an attractive wraparound porch, is patched with slush and ice.
Serena slams her door shut and takes a deep breath. Doug does the same, beside his own car. She had agreed to join him with the concession that they drive up separately. Coming to Millbury to meet Mrs. Roth was in Joshua’s best interest. Her disgust with Doug, the less volatile of a greater issue, will need to simmer on the back burner until the woman’s troubled son is handled properly.
A peach sun sits at the base of layered, dark clouds where the sky meets the water, electrifying the view. At the bottom of the stairs, she and Doug lock eyes.
“Will you and Daddy be friends again?”
“Remember what we talked about, Doug. Say whatever you need to if it’ll protect Josh.”
“You know how you and Tyler will always be friends but sometimes you don’t’ see eye-to-eye…”
“Definitely. I do love you, Serena.”
“We’ll only be gone for a few days. Grampy can’t wait to take you to the Go Cart park.”
“Are you afraid of this man?” She studies her husband. The lobes of his ears are pink.
“No.” The statement sounds convicted. “Our son is going to die an old man… and he’s going to be happy.”
“I do love the way you’re thinking.”
We barter lies for truths as parents, she thinks. And pray for fair trades.
“Let’s make things right,” Doug says. He reaches for her hand, squeezes it.
They climb the porch steps to a paneled glass door. Doug knocks hard. Rapid-fire footsteps resound inside and Steven’s mother swings open the door. Her grayish brown hair falls in loose tendrils down her back and the skin surrounding her mouth, wrinkled and leathery, reflects the telltale signs of a smoking addiction. Her eyes, golden as a fresh nicotine stain, betray as much. But despite the toll age and poor habits she had taken, Serena could still see, in another life, Bethany Roth turning heads.
“Thank you for coming.”
She waves them in and he is there in an instant, wearing khakis, a lavender cashmere sweater, and a ski hat; thinner and more deranged than she had imagined.
“Mr. and Mrs. Davis… have a seat.” He motions to the couch with his gun. The navy and plaid cushions reek of stale cigarette smoke.
Serena speaks first. “Mr. Roth, my husband and I want to thank you for meeting with us.” She swivels her wedding ring. “We’d like to have both our needs met.”
He rubs his forehead with a free hand, laughs fiendishly. “Is that right?” Without taking his eyes off of her, he cranes his head to this mother. “Mommy… how about you enlighten this charming couple on how well my needs have been met.”
Bethany Roth tightens the sash of her sweater, accentuating a barely there waist. She flicks on an antique lamp and takes a shaky sip from her coffee mug. “He wants you to know that… that I didn’t protect him the way I should have.” She looks her son in the eye. “Mark… Serena and Doug deserve to meet Steven. Can you please switch over? You’re safe. These people came here to get a better understanding of you.”
His eyes dart about the room like a frightened squirrel. He clutches his pistol tighter. “Bethany… tell them what I told you.”
She raises her hand calmly. “Settle down, Mark. I will.”
Doug crosses a leg over his knee. Serena folds and unfolds her hands.
Bethany’s eyes wander and settle, first, on Doug… “My deceased husband… abused my son,” and next, on Serena. “Physically. Emotionally… It wasn’t easy.” She moves toward a small wooden shelf at the far wall of the room and removes a framed picture. “This is the two of them.” She hands Doug the photo. Little and big Steven are brandishing twin fishes in the center of a dock overlooking a lake. “You wouldn’t know it by those smiles, how dysfunctional our home was. A picture doesn’t tell a thousand words—”
“It lies,” Mark fills them in.
Serena studies the photo, faces Mark. “I’m sorry that you were abused.”
Mark’s voice grows desperate, more childish, his gestures erratic. “Tell them more, Bethany.”
“Do you mind?” She pulls a cigarette from her sweater pocket.
“Go right ahead,” Doug says.
She draws the filter to her mouth and lights up. Her lips pucker as the tip of the cigarette crackles softly… Inhale. Exhale. Her voice, frosted in smoke, is raspy. “Steven’s father wore him down terribly, forcing him to live a life through his own broken dreams as a competitive skier.” She flicks an ash into her mug. “But that’s only the beginning.”
“That’s only the beginning,” Mark mimics.
“The stories are endless,” Bethany continues, “but the worst was during the winter of ‘84. Steven was ten at the time. They had been skiing at Wildcat Mountain, NH, until dark. After everyone had left,” she slides a glance at his pistol, “my husband abandoned my son.”
She coughs for a moment too long, and then paints her guests a picture.
***
“Daddy… Please don’t leave me here! I promise to try harder. I promise to keep my skis closer together!”
They had veered off of the trail and into the woods, in order to practice what it’s like to “Brave the elements.” A small stream ran like a blocked artery through the snow and trees. The temperature was about fifteen degrees and a hypothermic wind blew in.
“Daddy!” He used his poles to find a feasible path to ski through. In the quiet of the woods, fear exploded in his chest. He clutched it. It seemed as though his heartbeat was loud enough for coyotes to hear. His father was nowhere to be found.
If only he had listened. If only his skis hadn’t been so far apart. If only he had concentrated harder. If only he had used his arms properly. His rhythm was off. If only he had won the stupid race.
Hours passed. He shivered and cried and fought to find a way out, but the branches held him back with their frozen, spindly claws. He took off a ski and slammed it against a tree trunk, scratched it up good. It bruised terribly, but did not break. The moon cast a pale glow over the woods.
With fingers like cold rubber, he removed his wet clothes, recalling what his father had told him to do to avoid hypothermia, but it didn’t work. He stumbled and fell and finally made a pact with himself and God to die out there in the woods. The greatest danger to a person suffering from hypothermia is falling asleep. The greatest danger to me is not falling asleep, he thought.
Lying down, he closed his eyes when footsteps closed in on him. His father’s arms, with a blanket, embraced him.
“Lesson learned, Son?”
***
Steven lifts his chin and sniffles as though fighting to hold back tears; Serena’s own fall shamelessly down her cheeks. Bethany’s fingers shake. Doug clears his throat.
“Steven… You shouldn’t have been abandoned,” she whispers. “Your father was a sick man. But you can beat him.”
His head remains posed at an awkward angle, his pistol cocked. “Beat him?”
“She’s right,” Doug adds, “We can repeat the wrongs of what we lived or we can remedy them.”
“Now you sound like my shrink, doesn’t he, Mom?”
“They’re absolutely right, Mark,” Bethany says.
“Steven!” Mark admonishes and apparently the switch has been made.
She rubs her face. “Steven. Thank God! I was just saying… Doug is correct.”
“You…” He waves the gun at Bethany, “you left me with him! Left me to die! My skin was as cold as a corpse! You carried me once! How can you call yourself a mother!”
Bethany weeps into her hands. He moves closer to her, the gun still raised.
“Did you even care to look for me? Did you ever once stick up for me?”
He begins to sob.
His mother kneels on the floor, at the foot of her child.
Serena rises. “Steven… Your mother is walking through fire for you right now! Maybe she failed to protect you in the past, but she’s here for you today…” This man committed a major felony, she reminds herself. “Free yourself and forgive her.”
“I was so frightened back then,” Bethany cries. “You have no idea, Steven.” She faces her son. “I’m guilty of not protecting you. I’m guilty of your sins today! But I’m asking for you to put the gun down and forgive me. Forgive me or shoot me, Steven. I’ll love you either way.”
“I was left all alone for hours in the darkness, Mother! Twenty-five fucking years later… I’m still there.” His expression softens as he turns to Serena. “I thought I was saving Joshua because he looked like me… even when I drove away I knew it was wrong but Mark had already taken over… then when you came into the hospital, I was trying to tell you, but you threatened me—”
“Wait a minute…” his mother rises. “I didn’t know you were threatened, Steven.”
Doug stands. “Mrs. Roth. You and my wife have something in common: both of you will do anything and everything you can to protect your sons.”
Bethany’s eyes narrow. “Your son is going to be fine, Mr. Davis.” She points at Steven, “It’s mine who needs protection now.”
“But if we promise not to turn you in,” Serena says, “how can we trust that you won’t repeat the pattern, Steven? How can we be sure that you will turn yourself around?”
Steven rubs the neck of the pistol then pushes it into his back pocket.
“You can be sure, Mrs. Davis, because you’re going to help me flee the country.” He touches his mother’s chin with his thumb. “I forgive you, Mother.”
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
When Heartache Strikes...
Chapter Eighteen
Serena stands beside another man, presumably somebody else’s lover, in the greeting card aisle of a convenience store. Middle-aged and wearing a long, single breasted wool coat, his silver hair makes him appear distinguished in the same way a woman’s is thought to be haggish. His gold-banded finger reaches for a lace embalmed card entitled, To My Beautiful Wife.
She watches him out of the corner of her eye. He lip-reads, his expression pensive. Not sold on the message, he returns it for another. This man is generous and faithful, Serena decides. He deserves to find the right card for the love of his life.
She peruses the Son section, and finds herself holding a card from Mom and Dad. Son… From the day we brought you home, you have made us so proud and we hope you know that our love for you is infinite, spanning across each day like the endless tide of the ocean. A family of three is pictured at the shoreline of a beach at dusk, below an exquisite sunset.
“It’s not what you think. I’m not in love with her.”
A lump of coal smolders in her stomach. She reads on. On this Valentine’s Day, we’re hoping that you know how very grateful we are to have such a wonderful child.
We’re. We. The words are overwhelming. She and Doug are no longer a ‘we’ and they no longer walk along the shore to admire a sunset. Instead, they are parents who…
“How are you, Serena?”
who split.
It is Renee Sampson, head of the PTA, and mutual parent of her son’s classroom.
“I’m well, thanks, and you?” She chooses another card, flips it open.
“Busy, busy as usual. Are you signed up for goodies?”
“Actually…” she looks up, “I brought in Christmas cookies, so I’m good.”
“Ahh… you signed up for only one party. Smart lady. What was I thinking?”
Perhaps of brownie points?
“Signing up for two in a row is going to put me in the funny farm,” Renee goes on, combing her fingers through a trendy shag haircut.
“Well, the kids love school parties,” Serena says. “It will be worth it for them, right?”
“Totally. It’s all about the kids, Serena.” Her lips are chapped, disturbingly so. “How is Doug by the way? Is he still working with that detective? I, for one…” she palms her chest, “want to see that loser nailed for what he did to Josh.”
Serena’s eyes settle and unsettle. She manages a faded smile. “Yes. He’s still working with Detective Hearns and I’m confident that things will work out as they should.”
Renee studies the response, not quite satisfied. “You have such a great attitude, Serena.” She playfully pokes her shoulder and somebody-else’s-lover shoots Serena a quick glance, one easily discerned. Better you than me.
“Thanks, Renee… and good luck with the goodies!”
Renee disappears and the lover has made his choice. He secures a shiny, rose covered card beneath its envelope and offers Serena a curt nod, a silent tribute to the time shared in the card aisle. She smiles and begins to picture his wife opening the card, teary-eyed, her manicured fingers overlapping his larger hand.
Serena finally settles on a stack of cards for relatives, in addition to the perfect Son from Mother Valentine for Josh. On her way to the check-out counter, she grabs a few packages of red hearts and a bag of peanut M&Ms for Doug.
“You all set?” the cashier asks.
“Oh, yes.” She shakes off the breach in memory and hands back the M&M’s. “I’m going to pass on these.”
“Must be nice to have willpower. Good for you.”
“Some days are easier than others, I suppose,” she says, wishing the choice was driven by something as simple as calories.
“Here’s your receipt. Have a great day, now.”
“You too.”
The tree branches, freshly coated in snow, appear delicate and paper white, like laced doilies. She shifts the Highlander into four-wheel drive and pushes on the radio. George Harrison sings Something on the radio. Something in the way she moves… attracts me like no other lover. She turns the song up and tired tears slide down her cheek.
Something in the way… she woo-oos me…
It is the last song she should be listening to yet she loses herself in the lyrics, as though swimming in her own pain is the only choice available. Somewhere in her smile, she knows… that I don’t need no other lover. She slams the steering wheel with her wrist, inadvertently sending off an unwanted honk—one reciprocated by the middle finger of a female driver beside her. She cries some more and ignores the woman’s rage. Something in her smile that shows me…
Why hadn’t she spoken up sooner? Taken a stronger stance when he said he wanted to work with Lori alone?
I don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how…
There were no clues. The attraction—a twang in her husband's heart—must have snuck up on him like a crawling spider. At what moment, she wonders, did he decide that he wanted this woman--the detective hired in the best interest of their son. Was he driving? In her kitchen? How many times had he pictured her naked before actually seeing her fit body? Was he pleasantly surprised or disappointed?
The questions have no shame. They rape her. Where had he touched her first? Had he used his mouth? Had she?
She pulls into a Dunkin Donuts for an unnecessary coffee while the guitar solo is played. There is no one else in the drive-thru line and she pulls straight up to the intercom. You’re asking me will my love grow…
“Hello and welcome to Dunkin’ Donuts!”
I don’t know… I don’t know…
Parked beside the Dunkin’ Donuts intercom; Serena is forty, cheated-on, and unable to speak.
You stick around now it may show…
“Hello and welcome to Dunkin’ Donuts!”
Enough. She turns the song down. “Hi.” She coughs, blows her nose into a rough napkin from the glove compartment. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No problem. Welcome to Dunkin Donuts. What can I get for you?”
“I’d like a medium sized French Vanilla, cream only, please,” she croaks.
“A medium sized French Vanilla with cream only. Would you like to try our new Valentine Danish to go with that?”
“All set, thanks.” She blows her nose one last time, visits the first window, pays, and drives up to the second. The employee, a young man with multiple piercings and a mouthful of braces, prepares her order.
“You alright, Miss?” Holding the coffee in offering, his expression is fraught with concern.
Is it that obvious? Serena thinks.
“I’m sorry,” she cries to him, accepting the coffee.
“Hey, no problem. I can’t figure life out either.” He dashes off for a moment before returning with a dessert. The Valentine Danish. “No charge.”
She accepts the gift. “That’s very sweet of you.”
“Be well.” He offers her the peace sign.
She drives home and the young man with multiple piercings, her valentine, rests in her thoughts for a little while.
“What’s not said is far worse than what is.”
She pulls into the driveway and Doug’s car, parked in its usual spot, hordes her view like a two-faced friend. It is dirty and familiar and it lies. Her heart skips a beat then turns cold. She keys herself in and heads to the kitchen.
She sees his backside first. He is wearing a green cashmere sweater and boxy corduroy’s, two Christmas presents. His forehead is resting on bridged hands, his phone lying suspiciously by his elbows. A quick survey of the downstairs tells her Josh is still at the birthday party. She does not wait for her husband to acknowledge her because the connection no longer matters. She stands at the closet, removes her coat.
“I just received a phone-call on the land-line.” His voice is tremulous enough to frighten her.
“Josh still at Ryan’s party?” Her hand waits on the coat hanger.
“Yeah. He’s there.”
A familiar tension chews at her brow.
“Bethany Roth just called. She wanted to talk to you but agreed to leave a message with me.”
She inches closer to him. “Bethany?”
“Steven Roth’s mother. He escaped from the rehab facility.”
She uses the counter stool to hold herself up. “What?”
“Just listen to me a second.” He closes in on her space. “Please, Serena… just stay with me on this. I know I screwed up but you’ve gotta hear me out.”
“I…” she looks around the room, “I have to call Josh.” She rummages through her pocketbook when Doug rushes to her side and holds her arms down. “I just spoke with Josh, Serena! He’s fine. Bethany wants to talk with us. She’s willing to unload every last piece of information on her son—including his plans—if we promise not to involve the police.”
She sorts through the words. “If we promise not to involve the police?
That’s ridiculous, Doug.”
“If Steven’s alter learns that the police are involved, he’ll become dangerous, and that puts others—including Joshua—in danger. If we agree to meet with her, she’ll be able to convince him that no one’s after him and keep him calm.”
“Keep him calm? Why does his opinion count? The police will know what do! It’s their job!” Her heart lurches. “Surely, you know something about playing both sides of the fence, Doug.”
His expression is a throbbing toothache. “Because after we spoke for awhile,” he sighs painfully, “she put her deranged son on the phone, Serena…”
A gasp escapes her. She covers her mouth.
“Steven’s holding his mother at gunpoint. If we don’t cooperate, he’ll kill her and… we both know where that can lead.”
She feels Doug lifting her body up. “We can do this, Serena. You and me, that’s it. No McKenzie. No Sara. No Detective Hearns. Just you and me—the way it’s always been. The way it should have been all along.” He sweeps a strand of loose hair off of her forehead. “What do you say?”
She presses her fingers against her cheekbones. “I say I don’t trust you.”
They are the only words available.
Serena stands beside another man, presumably somebody else’s lover, in the greeting card aisle of a convenience store. Middle-aged and wearing a long, single breasted wool coat, his silver hair makes him appear distinguished in the same way a woman’s is thought to be haggish. His gold-banded finger reaches for a lace embalmed card entitled, To My Beautiful Wife.
She watches him out of the corner of her eye. He lip-reads, his expression pensive. Not sold on the message, he returns it for another. This man is generous and faithful, Serena decides. He deserves to find the right card for the love of his life.
She peruses the Son section, and finds herself holding a card from Mom and Dad. Son… From the day we brought you home, you have made us so proud and we hope you know that our love for you is infinite, spanning across each day like the endless tide of the ocean. A family of three is pictured at the shoreline of a beach at dusk, below an exquisite sunset.
“It’s not what you think. I’m not in love with her.”
A lump of coal smolders in her stomach. She reads on. On this Valentine’s Day, we’re hoping that you know how very grateful we are to have such a wonderful child.
We’re. We. The words are overwhelming. She and Doug are no longer a ‘we’ and they no longer walk along the shore to admire a sunset. Instead, they are parents who…
“How are you, Serena?”
who split.
It is Renee Sampson, head of the PTA, and mutual parent of her son’s classroom.
“I’m well, thanks, and you?” She chooses another card, flips it open.
“Busy, busy as usual. Are you signed up for goodies?”
“Actually…” she looks up, “I brought in Christmas cookies, so I’m good.”
“Ahh… you signed up for only one party. Smart lady. What was I thinking?”
Perhaps of brownie points?
“Signing up for two in a row is going to put me in the funny farm,” Renee goes on, combing her fingers through a trendy shag haircut.
“Well, the kids love school parties,” Serena says. “It will be worth it for them, right?”
“Totally. It’s all about the kids, Serena.” Her lips are chapped, disturbingly so. “How is Doug by the way? Is he still working with that detective? I, for one…” she palms her chest, “want to see that loser nailed for what he did to Josh.”
Serena’s eyes settle and unsettle. She manages a faded smile. “Yes. He’s still working with Detective Hearns and I’m confident that things will work out as they should.”
Renee studies the response, not quite satisfied. “You have such a great attitude, Serena.” She playfully pokes her shoulder and somebody-else’s-lover shoots Serena a quick glance, one easily discerned. Better you than me.
“Thanks, Renee… and good luck with the goodies!”
Renee disappears and the lover has made his choice. He secures a shiny, rose covered card beneath its envelope and offers Serena a curt nod, a silent tribute to the time shared in the card aisle. She smiles and begins to picture his wife opening the card, teary-eyed, her manicured fingers overlapping his larger hand.
Serena finally settles on a stack of cards for relatives, in addition to the perfect Son from Mother Valentine for Josh. On her way to the check-out counter, she grabs a few packages of red hearts and a bag of peanut M&Ms for Doug.
“You all set?” the cashier asks.
“Oh, yes.” She shakes off the breach in memory and hands back the M&M’s. “I’m going to pass on these.”
“Must be nice to have willpower. Good for you.”
“Some days are easier than others, I suppose,” she says, wishing the choice was driven by something as simple as calories.
“Here’s your receipt. Have a great day, now.”
“You too.”
The tree branches, freshly coated in snow, appear delicate and paper white, like laced doilies. She shifts the Highlander into four-wheel drive and pushes on the radio. George Harrison sings Something on the radio. Something in the way she moves… attracts me like no other lover. She turns the song up and tired tears slide down her cheek.
Something in the way… she woo-oos me…
It is the last song she should be listening to yet she loses herself in the lyrics, as though swimming in her own pain is the only choice available. Somewhere in her smile, she knows… that I don’t need no other lover. She slams the steering wheel with her wrist, inadvertently sending off an unwanted honk—one reciprocated by the middle finger of a female driver beside her. She cries some more and ignores the woman’s rage. Something in her smile that shows me…
Why hadn’t she spoken up sooner? Taken a stronger stance when he said he wanted to work with Lori alone?
I don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how…
There were no clues. The attraction—a twang in her husband's heart—must have snuck up on him like a crawling spider. At what moment, she wonders, did he decide that he wanted this woman--the detective hired in the best interest of their son. Was he driving? In her kitchen? How many times had he pictured her naked before actually seeing her fit body? Was he pleasantly surprised or disappointed?
The questions have no shame. They rape her. Where had he touched her first? Had he used his mouth? Had she?
She pulls into a Dunkin Donuts for an unnecessary coffee while the guitar solo is played. There is no one else in the drive-thru line and she pulls straight up to the intercom. You’re asking me will my love grow…
“Hello and welcome to Dunkin’ Donuts!”
I don’t know… I don’t know…
Parked beside the Dunkin’ Donuts intercom; Serena is forty, cheated-on, and unable to speak.
You stick around now it may show…
“Hello and welcome to Dunkin’ Donuts!”
Enough. She turns the song down. “Hi.” She coughs, blows her nose into a rough napkin from the glove compartment. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No problem. Welcome to Dunkin Donuts. What can I get for you?”
“I’d like a medium sized French Vanilla, cream only, please,” she croaks.
“A medium sized French Vanilla with cream only. Would you like to try our new Valentine Danish to go with that?”
“All set, thanks.” She blows her nose one last time, visits the first window, pays, and drives up to the second. The employee, a young man with multiple piercings and a mouthful of braces, prepares her order.
“You alright, Miss?” Holding the coffee in offering, his expression is fraught with concern.
Is it that obvious? Serena thinks.
“I’m sorry,” she cries to him, accepting the coffee.
“Hey, no problem. I can’t figure life out either.” He dashes off for a moment before returning with a dessert. The Valentine Danish. “No charge.”
She accepts the gift. “That’s very sweet of you.”
“Be well.” He offers her the peace sign.
She drives home and the young man with multiple piercings, her valentine, rests in her thoughts for a little while.
“What’s not said is far worse than what is.”
She pulls into the driveway and Doug’s car, parked in its usual spot, hordes her view like a two-faced friend. It is dirty and familiar and it lies. Her heart skips a beat then turns cold. She keys herself in and heads to the kitchen.
She sees his backside first. He is wearing a green cashmere sweater and boxy corduroy’s, two Christmas presents. His forehead is resting on bridged hands, his phone lying suspiciously by his elbows. A quick survey of the downstairs tells her Josh is still at the birthday party. She does not wait for her husband to acknowledge her because the connection no longer matters. She stands at the closet, removes her coat.
“I just received a phone-call on the land-line.” His voice is tremulous enough to frighten her.
“Josh still at Ryan’s party?” Her hand waits on the coat hanger.
“Yeah. He’s there.”
A familiar tension chews at her brow.
“Bethany Roth just called. She wanted to talk to you but agreed to leave a message with me.”
She inches closer to him. “Bethany?”
“Steven Roth’s mother. He escaped from the rehab facility.”
She uses the counter stool to hold herself up. “What?”
“Just listen to me a second.” He closes in on her space. “Please, Serena… just stay with me on this. I know I screwed up but you’ve gotta hear me out.”
“I…” she looks around the room, “I have to call Josh.” She rummages through her pocketbook when Doug rushes to her side and holds her arms down. “I just spoke with Josh, Serena! He’s fine. Bethany wants to talk with us. She’s willing to unload every last piece of information on her son—including his plans—if we promise not to involve the police.”
She sorts through the words. “If we promise not to involve the police?
That’s ridiculous, Doug.”
“If Steven’s alter learns that the police are involved, he’ll become dangerous, and that puts others—including Joshua—in danger. If we agree to meet with her, she’ll be able to convince him that no one’s after him and keep him calm.”
“Keep him calm? Why does his opinion count? The police will know what do! It’s their job!” Her heart lurches. “Surely, you know something about playing both sides of the fence, Doug.”
His expression is a throbbing toothache. “Because after we spoke for awhile,” he sighs painfully, “she put her deranged son on the phone, Serena…”
A gasp escapes her. She covers her mouth.
“Steven’s holding his mother at gunpoint. If we don’t cooperate, he’ll kill her and… we both know where that can lead.”
She feels Doug lifting her body up. “We can do this, Serena. You and me, that’s it. No McKenzie. No Sara. No Detective Hearns. Just you and me—the way it’s always been. The way it should have been all along.” He sweeps a strand of loose hair off of her forehead. “What do you say?”
She presses her fingers against her cheekbones. “I say I don’t trust you.”
They are the only words available.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
A One Night Stand, A Criminal on the Loose - Sixteen and Seventeen
Chapter Sixteen
Steven Roth is nine and drinking milk at the kitchen table. He uses a straw to blow a crowd of bubbles up his glass. His younger brother, an infant named Nate, crawls across the linoleum floor, his face and hands sticky. He reaches for things, accidently tipping over a full bag of trash that sends Dad’s empties whirling across the floor.
Caught off guard, the sudden mess fascinates him.
Orange peels smothered in cigarette ashes stick to his hands. He lifts a dirty fist to his mouth because he doesn’t know any better. Steven squeezes his nose.
“Didn’t I tell you to empty the fucking trash?” Dad pulls the bag out of its basket and yanks the cord, suffocating the rancid odor. Nate screams. Like the garbage, his father’s taste is bad. Mom scoops his brother up, saddles him on her hip, and crouches down to clean up with her free hand.
“I was just about to get to it when the phone rang.” She grabs a dustpan and brush. “Honestly.”
Steven covers his ears. The first part was fine. The last, he knows, will break his dad. He is not wearing his ski cap today. His head, bald and mottled with dark spots in the back, reminds him of raw hamburger.
“You think I’m working sixty fuckin’ hours a week to live in this shithole.” He kicks a can ruthlessly, the same way troublemakers at school do. Shot across the floor like a comet, the can captivates Nate and he stops screaming for a moment.
Don’t talk back, don’t talk back, just clean up the mess, Mom, Steven thinks.
Mom grabs a dishtowel and blots up the rest of the mess without complaining. Relief pours through him. He jumps up, removes one of Nate’s pacifiers from the junk drawer, and rushes over to plug his brother’s tired face.
“Go get your stuff on,” his dad says. “We’re heading to the slopes.”
The man’s eyes are disturbing. Later, Steven will learn a better word for them, a word like deranged. Mom nods to him. I’m okay. Go. Mom’s looks are exceptional, as are his. She has a heart-shaped face, hair the color of straw, and luminous eyes peppered with gold. People say he is a darker version of her.
One time Dad told his mom to stop acting like a spoiled princess and Steven contended that princesses smile more and wear pink dresses. It was supposed to be honest, but Dad took it the wrong way. After that, Steven stopped telling the truth.
He dashes to the cellar and finds his snow-pants hanging on the drying rack. They smell musty, like the grey of his life, a life stuck in the middle of too many highs and lows. Later, when Dad’s throwing logs into the fire, he’ll draw more pictures of the boys who eat supper with their parents and tell stories and laugh like movie stars. He’ll give each boy a name, a name like Mark or John and Joshua, a church name.
He pushes his hands into damp gloves, zips up, and listens to the rumble of his dad’s feet across the floor above him. He’s ready to go.
Steven puts his glass of milk down, takes the straw out, and shakes off the memory. The therapist on duty for the night is all of twenty-two. She is stunning, the kind of woman who belongs in a magazine, not here. Her dark hair falls in waves around her doll face and her perfume smells like trust. The Lord works miracles when we put our faith in Him.
“How are you doing, Mr. Roth?” She unzips a large pouch of medical goodies. “Just a few reps and I’ll be out of your way.”
They all want to be out of his way, it seems. “I’m doing good, thanks.”
Criminals need love, too.
“Wow. Your speech is a hundred times better since our last visit.”
That’s not the only improvement, pretty lady.
“I’ve been blessed with life. I’m not about to take a single moment of it for granted.” He extends a leg to her. She will massage it vigorously, rub cream on his sores, and run through a stack of flashcards. He’ll only fake his impediment a tad today. Cindy’s a believer. She’ll introduce the best part of therapy—shoulders and arms—with a professional smile and, most likely, a wink. All the girls wink here.
Then Cindy will detach his handcuffs.
* * *
The fact that Doug is thinking about fucking Lori Hearns—if he hasn’t already—isn’t the worst of Serena’s problems. Finding a way to co-exist with him is. A picture may tell a thousand words, but a live expression, she knows, tells more.
He had been on the phone with the detective the other night when Serena noticed the look, the smitten glimmer in his eyes as he clung to the conversation, the careful manner by which his fingers moved, gentle as a piano player’s, and the off-beat tempo of his voice.
She dumps a load of clean clothes onto her bed. One of Doug’s shirts, a cotton tee, clings insultingly to her bra. She detangles the pair and cries again. The depth of ugly consuming her family is unbearable. She feels trapped, buried alive, covered in dirt. When does he plan on coming clean?
She picks up a pair of his white briefs and resists the urge to inspect the crotch and look for a stain, a sign. Her mind races through bedroom scenes, the first of which includes her own failure to surrender to Doug’s advances. I will love and honor you, for better or worse.
The wedding vow hovers about her thoughts like a shard of newspaper over a windy fire; then it curls up, burns, and turns to ash. Lori’s face ignites in her mind.
The floor vibrates and the stairs creak. Doug is on his way up. As though it matters, she grabs a towel from the clean pile and wipes her face. One step at a time, she listens to Doug ascend. One step at a time, her sorrow turns to anger. I will love and honor you until death do us part. She pictures them making love rapaciously. Lori is on top.
She gasps and scuttles into the bathroom, flushing the toilet as she blows her nose to block the sound of her grief. Wet tissues orbit the bowl, then spin away. On the way out, she steals a glance of herself in the vanity mirror. She is blotchy and pink and shattered.
Their bodies do not collide because Doug is already collecting his wallet and keys from the end table and has already made it to the walk-in closet. He darts about the room on a mission, as though late for an appointment with the president. Meanwhile, she removes unwanted clothes from their hangers.
“When were you going to tell me?” Skirts and blouses remain on the floor. “Having sex with another woman is worthy of conversation, no?”
She will not.
Like a tired kite, he comes to a halt at the edge of their bed. He gazes through her, his eyes glazed with distance. “I-I’m no good, Serena,” he says.
She takes a deep breath. Her heartbeat skitters through her chest like a family of mice. “When were you going to tell me?” Tears fall.
“It’s not what you think. We’re…” he rubs the back of his head, “We’re not in love or anything.” He speaks to the floor. “It just happened.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” She moves closer to him. The scent of his cologne violates her. It is strangely familiar.
“Of course I was going to tell you, Serena. It’s just... ” he lifts his hand, points to the doorway, “It’s hard to talk when Josh is around and I’m still trying to figure all this out myself. The last thing I want is for you to be hurt.”
“You slept with her two weeks ago… on Saturday night, correct?”
His nod is so slight, it is barely there.
“You don’t want me to hurt, yet you have allowed days to pass us this way. Dark days. Numb days. Fucking painful days, Doug.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You never know what to say. And you should know by now that what isn’t said is far more lethal than what is.” The pitch of her voice remains even. It neutralizes the terror she feels inside.
The pattering of footsteps up the staircase alerts them to their son.
She dodges into the bathroom and turns on the shower.
“Dad? What’s going on? I heard Mom yelling.”
From the other side of the door, she hears Doug say, “Nothing, honey. Your Mom will be alright, ‘kay?”
“Mom… You alright?”
“We just had a disagreement, Josh. I’m fine. We’ll talk more later, sweetie. I’m gonna jump in the shower, then how about a game of Uno?”
What isn’t said is far more lethal. Her son will not feel the bullet.
Later, she will tell him what he needs to know.
Chapter Seventeen
The roads, along with Lori’s state of affairs, are a mess this morning. Her Jeep tears through a slushy main road, the tires spitting dirt like cake batter mixed on high speed. Having sex with Doug is the least of her problems. It was stupid and lustful and weak. What was she thinking?
She makes a mental note to change the batteries of her vibrator sometime before Valentine’s Day and lights up.
He’s a great guy, she’ll give him that. She knew it from the start, sensed something special about him the day she visited him in that damn classroom of his. Sensed something special. The words dangle at the tip of her tongue like a dripping icicle. Lori doesn’t sense anything about men. She grew up with four brothers, works with men daily, and owns a male cat. She knows them. She can taste their deceit without having to fuck them.
Speaking of deceit, she’s not hugely surprised that Steven Roth has escaped from Fairmont Rehab. The past that defines a criminal is the same one that wrecks his future. For the Davis family, the man’s escape is either a win or loss: the former, if he’s found in time; the latter, if he gets what he wants first.
Fortunately, Lori likes being on top. She’ll beat him to the punch and get what she wants. Her Jeep bucks and fishtails as she takes an impulsive turn into the station, parking as though trying to hit someone.
McKenzie notified her for to participate in the ‘initial profile’ about an hour ago. Apparently, a young therapist had left Roth unattended, without his handcuffs on, after he feigned having severe chest pains. Under-qualified to administer treatment, she dashed off to get help while Steven Roth walked out the front door, presumably in disguise.
The police station awakens to the news. Coffee and half-eaten doughnuts speckle the area. Printers spit out reports. Telecommunicators answer calls and organize facts. Deeply focused, they barely notice Lori as she breezes by, though Veto, the station’s bull dog, perks up. His drooling smile spans his head, as though drawn in by a child. His desire to move is greater than his ability to do so. He manages to wiggle his sausage self to her side.
“Hey Vete.” She reaches down for a quick pet, collects her thoughts, and approaches the conference room.
Informants have been decreed to track the fugitive through wire taps, hidden cameras, and surveillance in the Central Mass area. The media has not been notified yet, nor have the Davis family, for that matter. The longer they can put them off, the better. No need to cause mass mayhem prematurely. She enters the Chief’s office.
The criminologists surround the tax-payer’s wooden table like a team of animated ants cast in a Disney film. Chief McKenzie sits at the hub—FBI Special Agent Gene Reiser to his left and Sara Nadeau, the criminal psychologist, to his right. John Wynan, a rooky officer, sits opposite Leon Friend, a bounty hunter.
As usual, Lori has arrived late.
“Miss me?” She pulls over a stool and squeezes into the nucleus. Wynan’s chair screeches offensively to create more space for her.
“Haven’t added the felt circles to the budget yet, Chief?” She reaches for a glazed doughnut, takes a chomp.
“Welcome, Lori.” McKenzie’s weary wave says he hasn’t the energy for crime today. “We were just discussing roles for the new… and unsettling developments on the Roth case.” He coughs into his sleeve. “Time is not on our side, so I want to speed things up.” He faces the bounty hunter. “Leon, we need to get you out and about first thing, so let’s start with you.”
The bounty hunter meets both requirements of his scarce job description. He is licensed in the state of Massachusetts. He is intensely fit. The bulk of his arms consume an entire corner of the table, making him appear out of place, like a wrestler in a daycare center. He wears a faded jean jacket with a wool collar that’s flapped open to expose a conflicted crucifix, the chain of which he wears as a choker around his thick neck.
“I want to know every last detail about this jerk… from where he pisses to what he’s popping,” he says.
Sara is more eloquent. “Yes. The behavior of this individual before he was wanted is crucial in order to find him… and, folks, we need to keep this on the hush. If Steven’s alter suspects that’ he’s being chased, it’s likely that he’ll become dangerous to the public.”
“Good call, Sara,” McKenzie says.
“I think we ought to start with an educated guess as to where he may be going…” John chimes in, “and also, what his motivation is.” The rest of the group—partially due to John’s place in the pecking order, partially due to the green nature of his comment—dismisses him.
FBI Agent Gene takes a sip of coffee, the melee chip of his wedding band winking at the group. “We need to figure out who he’ll contact and what cash sources he has access to.” He raises an index finger, holding the ceiling at gunpoint. “I guarantee you this guy will talk to someone. They all do.”
McKenzie listens, arranges his fingers like a church, the steeple pressed against his lips.
Lori speaks up. “Criminals are creatures of habit. They go back to what they know.” Mockingly, she raises her right hand. “I motion that the existing team continue to brainstorm while Mr. Friend and I find the fugitive.”
McKenzie rubs his forehead, looks at his watch. “John, your resume needs work. Head out with Ms. Hearns and Mr. Friend, please.”
“Chief, you’ll need to surrender jurisdiction here and I’ll need debriefing every step of the way,” Gene says.
McKenzie squeezes his chin. “We need to tie this up quickly, Gene. If that’s the best way to expedite things, so be it.”
John nearly spills his coffee as he gets up and Lori silently curses McKenzie. She hasn’t the patience for a rookie today but how can she possibly say no. The man’s been like a father to her and, when it comes down to raw truth, he’s the only one she has. “We’ll be in touch, guys.”
The Bounty Hunter gets up and pushes in his chair. “This guy seen what you drive?” He whispers the question as though it’s sacred.
“Yes,” she whispers back.
“We’ll take my Mustang, then.” He unhitches his keys from a ridiculous assortment dangling at his waist. “You guys ready for some action?” His smile is positively vulpine.
She tightens her scarf and takes a brisk walk beside the unlikely pair. “You don’t know me very well, Mr. Friend. I live for action.” Veto follows. “No drooling and you can come, Vete.” She grabs his leash off of its hitch on the wall and signals to the receptionist that she’s taking the dog. Veto is wild with excitement. He tap dances and stomps all over his leash.
The doors of the Mustang slam shut, a waft of frigid air cooling the vehicle’s interior until Leon blasts on the heat. John sits in the back like a kid on his way to a carnival beside Veto, a smiling fool. Lori pulls out a cigarette and places it to her lips. Leon leans into her shoulder, flicks on a lighter. “You really want to die young?”
She draws in a desperate drag. “I like to play the odds. You mind if I crack the window,” she yells back to John.
“Not at all. You guys want to make an educated guess as to where this fugitive is?”
“Which one?” Lori asks, angling her neck back to him.
“There’s more than one fugitive?”
“You gotta get your nose out of that training manual and into the head of this criminal pal. Mr. Roth suffers from DID.” She faces Leon. “Take a left here.”
“He has multiple personalities?” John cranes his neck between the headrests.
“Yep. We’re not tracking down Steven, we’re tracking down Mark.” She flicks her cigarette out the window.
Leon speeds up at the intersection’s yellow light, makes it through just in time. “So tell me, Detective… Where’s the first place Mark would go to after escaping, knowing he’s going to get creamed once he’s caught?”
She rummages through her briefcase, pulls out the Roth file. “Mark is the one who does the dirty work for Steven. He’s the one who abducted Joshua Davis in the first place. But the decision was rather impulsive and the accident kind of put a damper on things.”
“You think he went to the Davis home, to try and take him again?” John asks.
“He’s not that stupid,” she says. “Too obvious. Mark knows he’d get caught there. Tell me fellas: Who’s the one person a boy will go to when life’s not fair? When he’s buried in trauma and conflict and charges and he can barely think straight?”
In unison, Leon and John say, “To his Mom’s.”
“You guys are perceptive. Get on this highway and head south.” She activates the Navigation app on her phone, plugs in the address. “Bethany Roth lives just ten miles from here.”
Veto leans to the left to counteract a turn to the right. The Bounty Hunter accelerates.
Steven Roth is nine and drinking milk at the kitchen table. He uses a straw to blow a crowd of bubbles up his glass. His younger brother, an infant named Nate, crawls across the linoleum floor, his face and hands sticky. He reaches for things, accidently tipping over a full bag of trash that sends Dad’s empties whirling across the floor.
Caught off guard, the sudden mess fascinates him.
Orange peels smothered in cigarette ashes stick to his hands. He lifts a dirty fist to his mouth because he doesn’t know any better. Steven squeezes his nose.
“Didn’t I tell you to empty the fucking trash?” Dad pulls the bag out of its basket and yanks the cord, suffocating the rancid odor. Nate screams. Like the garbage, his father’s taste is bad. Mom scoops his brother up, saddles him on her hip, and crouches down to clean up with her free hand.
“I was just about to get to it when the phone rang.” She grabs a dustpan and brush. “Honestly.”
Steven covers his ears. The first part was fine. The last, he knows, will break his dad. He is not wearing his ski cap today. His head, bald and mottled with dark spots in the back, reminds him of raw hamburger.
“You think I’m working sixty fuckin’ hours a week to live in this shithole.” He kicks a can ruthlessly, the same way troublemakers at school do. Shot across the floor like a comet, the can captivates Nate and he stops screaming for a moment.
Don’t talk back, don’t talk back, just clean up the mess, Mom, Steven thinks.
Mom grabs a dishtowel and blots up the rest of the mess without complaining. Relief pours through him. He jumps up, removes one of Nate’s pacifiers from the junk drawer, and rushes over to plug his brother’s tired face.
“Go get your stuff on,” his dad says. “We’re heading to the slopes.”
The man’s eyes are disturbing. Later, Steven will learn a better word for them, a word like deranged. Mom nods to him. I’m okay. Go. Mom’s looks are exceptional, as are his. She has a heart-shaped face, hair the color of straw, and luminous eyes peppered with gold. People say he is a darker version of her.
One time Dad told his mom to stop acting like a spoiled princess and Steven contended that princesses smile more and wear pink dresses. It was supposed to be honest, but Dad took it the wrong way. After that, Steven stopped telling the truth.
He dashes to the cellar and finds his snow-pants hanging on the drying rack. They smell musty, like the grey of his life, a life stuck in the middle of too many highs and lows. Later, when Dad’s throwing logs into the fire, he’ll draw more pictures of the boys who eat supper with their parents and tell stories and laugh like movie stars. He’ll give each boy a name, a name like Mark or John and Joshua, a church name.
He pushes his hands into damp gloves, zips up, and listens to the rumble of his dad’s feet across the floor above him. He’s ready to go.
Steven puts his glass of milk down, takes the straw out, and shakes off the memory. The therapist on duty for the night is all of twenty-two. She is stunning, the kind of woman who belongs in a magazine, not here. Her dark hair falls in waves around her doll face and her perfume smells like trust. The Lord works miracles when we put our faith in Him.
“How are you doing, Mr. Roth?” She unzips a large pouch of medical goodies. “Just a few reps and I’ll be out of your way.”
They all want to be out of his way, it seems. “I’m doing good, thanks.”
Criminals need love, too.
“Wow. Your speech is a hundred times better since our last visit.”
That’s not the only improvement, pretty lady.
“I’ve been blessed with life. I’m not about to take a single moment of it for granted.” He extends a leg to her. She will massage it vigorously, rub cream on his sores, and run through a stack of flashcards. He’ll only fake his impediment a tad today. Cindy’s a believer. She’ll introduce the best part of therapy—shoulders and arms—with a professional smile and, most likely, a wink. All the girls wink here.
Then Cindy will detach his handcuffs.
* * *
The fact that Doug is thinking about fucking Lori Hearns—if he hasn’t already—isn’t the worst of Serena’s problems. Finding a way to co-exist with him is. A picture may tell a thousand words, but a live expression, she knows, tells more.
He had been on the phone with the detective the other night when Serena noticed the look, the smitten glimmer in his eyes as he clung to the conversation, the careful manner by which his fingers moved, gentle as a piano player’s, and the off-beat tempo of his voice.
She dumps a load of clean clothes onto her bed. One of Doug’s shirts, a cotton tee, clings insultingly to her bra. She detangles the pair and cries again. The depth of ugly consuming her family is unbearable. She feels trapped, buried alive, covered in dirt. When does he plan on coming clean?
She picks up a pair of his white briefs and resists the urge to inspect the crotch and look for a stain, a sign. Her mind races through bedroom scenes, the first of which includes her own failure to surrender to Doug’s advances. I will love and honor you, for better or worse.
The wedding vow hovers about her thoughts like a shard of newspaper over a windy fire; then it curls up, burns, and turns to ash. Lori’s face ignites in her mind.
The floor vibrates and the stairs creak. Doug is on his way up. As though it matters, she grabs a towel from the clean pile and wipes her face. One step at a time, she listens to Doug ascend. One step at a time, her sorrow turns to anger. I will love and honor you until death do us part. She pictures them making love rapaciously. Lori is on top.
She gasps and scuttles into the bathroom, flushing the toilet as she blows her nose to block the sound of her grief. Wet tissues orbit the bowl, then spin away. On the way out, she steals a glance of herself in the vanity mirror. She is blotchy and pink and shattered.
Their bodies do not collide because Doug is already collecting his wallet and keys from the end table and has already made it to the walk-in closet. He darts about the room on a mission, as though late for an appointment with the president. Meanwhile, she removes unwanted clothes from their hangers.
“When were you going to tell me?” Skirts and blouses remain on the floor. “Having sex with another woman is worthy of conversation, no?”
She will not.
Like a tired kite, he comes to a halt at the edge of their bed. He gazes through her, his eyes glazed with distance. “I-I’m no good, Serena,” he says.
She takes a deep breath. Her heartbeat skitters through her chest like a family of mice. “When were you going to tell me?” Tears fall.
“It’s not what you think. We’re…” he rubs the back of his head, “We’re not in love or anything.” He speaks to the floor. “It just happened.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” She moves closer to him. The scent of his cologne violates her. It is strangely familiar.
“Of course I was going to tell you, Serena. It’s just... ” he lifts his hand, points to the doorway, “It’s hard to talk when Josh is around and I’m still trying to figure all this out myself. The last thing I want is for you to be hurt.”
“You slept with her two weeks ago… on Saturday night, correct?”
His nod is so slight, it is barely there.
“You don’t want me to hurt, yet you have allowed days to pass us this way. Dark days. Numb days. Fucking painful days, Doug.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You never know what to say. And you should know by now that what isn’t said is far more lethal than what is.” The pitch of her voice remains even. It neutralizes the terror she feels inside.
The pattering of footsteps up the staircase alerts them to their son.
She dodges into the bathroom and turns on the shower.
“Dad? What’s going on? I heard Mom yelling.”
From the other side of the door, she hears Doug say, “Nothing, honey. Your Mom will be alright, ‘kay?”
“Mom… You alright?”
“We just had a disagreement, Josh. I’m fine. We’ll talk more later, sweetie. I’m gonna jump in the shower, then how about a game of Uno?”
What isn’t said is far more lethal. Her son will not feel the bullet.
Later, she will tell him what he needs to know.
Chapter Seventeen
The roads, along with Lori’s state of affairs, are a mess this morning. Her Jeep tears through a slushy main road, the tires spitting dirt like cake batter mixed on high speed. Having sex with Doug is the least of her problems. It was stupid and lustful and weak. What was she thinking?
She makes a mental note to change the batteries of her vibrator sometime before Valentine’s Day and lights up.
He’s a great guy, she’ll give him that. She knew it from the start, sensed something special about him the day she visited him in that damn classroom of his. Sensed something special. The words dangle at the tip of her tongue like a dripping icicle. Lori doesn’t sense anything about men. She grew up with four brothers, works with men daily, and owns a male cat. She knows them. She can taste their deceit without having to fuck them.
Speaking of deceit, she’s not hugely surprised that Steven Roth has escaped from Fairmont Rehab. The past that defines a criminal is the same one that wrecks his future. For the Davis family, the man’s escape is either a win or loss: the former, if he’s found in time; the latter, if he gets what he wants first.
Fortunately, Lori likes being on top. She’ll beat him to the punch and get what she wants. Her Jeep bucks and fishtails as she takes an impulsive turn into the station, parking as though trying to hit someone.
McKenzie notified her for to participate in the ‘initial profile’ about an hour ago. Apparently, a young therapist had left Roth unattended, without his handcuffs on, after he feigned having severe chest pains. Under-qualified to administer treatment, she dashed off to get help while Steven Roth walked out the front door, presumably in disguise.
The police station awakens to the news. Coffee and half-eaten doughnuts speckle the area. Printers spit out reports. Telecommunicators answer calls and organize facts. Deeply focused, they barely notice Lori as she breezes by, though Veto, the station’s bull dog, perks up. His drooling smile spans his head, as though drawn in by a child. His desire to move is greater than his ability to do so. He manages to wiggle his sausage self to her side.
“Hey Vete.” She reaches down for a quick pet, collects her thoughts, and approaches the conference room.
Informants have been decreed to track the fugitive through wire taps, hidden cameras, and surveillance in the Central Mass area. The media has not been notified yet, nor have the Davis family, for that matter. The longer they can put them off, the better. No need to cause mass mayhem prematurely. She enters the Chief’s office.
The criminologists surround the tax-payer’s wooden table like a team of animated ants cast in a Disney film. Chief McKenzie sits at the hub—FBI Special Agent Gene Reiser to his left and Sara Nadeau, the criminal psychologist, to his right. John Wynan, a rooky officer, sits opposite Leon Friend, a bounty hunter.
As usual, Lori has arrived late.
“Miss me?” She pulls over a stool and squeezes into the nucleus. Wynan’s chair screeches offensively to create more space for her.
“Haven’t added the felt circles to the budget yet, Chief?” She reaches for a glazed doughnut, takes a chomp.
“Welcome, Lori.” McKenzie’s weary wave says he hasn’t the energy for crime today. “We were just discussing roles for the new… and unsettling developments on the Roth case.” He coughs into his sleeve. “Time is not on our side, so I want to speed things up.” He faces the bounty hunter. “Leon, we need to get you out and about first thing, so let’s start with you.”
The bounty hunter meets both requirements of his scarce job description. He is licensed in the state of Massachusetts. He is intensely fit. The bulk of his arms consume an entire corner of the table, making him appear out of place, like a wrestler in a daycare center. He wears a faded jean jacket with a wool collar that’s flapped open to expose a conflicted crucifix, the chain of which he wears as a choker around his thick neck.
“I want to know every last detail about this jerk… from where he pisses to what he’s popping,” he says.
Sara is more eloquent. “Yes. The behavior of this individual before he was wanted is crucial in order to find him… and, folks, we need to keep this on the hush. If Steven’s alter suspects that’ he’s being chased, it’s likely that he’ll become dangerous to the public.”
“Good call, Sara,” McKenzie says.
“I think we ought to start with an educated guess as to where he may be going…” John chimes in, “and also, what his motivation is.” The rest of the group—partially due to John’s place in the pecking order, partially due to the green nature of his comment—dismisses him.
FBI Agent Gene takes a sip of coffee, the melee chip of his wedding band winking at the group. “We need to figure out who he’ll contact and what cash sources he has access to.” He raises an index finger, holding the ceiling at gunpoint. “I guarantee you this guy will talk to someone. They all do.”
McKenzie listens, arranges his fingers like a church, the steeple pressed against his lips.
Lori speaks up. “Criminals are creatures of habit. They go back to what they know.” Mockingly, she raises her right hand. “I motion that the existing team continue to brainstorm while Mr. Friend and I find the fugitive.”
McKenzie rubs his forehead, looks at his watch. “John, your resume needs work. Head out with Ms. Hearns and Mr. Friend, please.”
“Chief, you’ll need to surrender jurisdiction here and I’ll need debriefing every step of the way,” Gene says.
McKenzie squeezes his chin. “We need to tie this up quickly, Gene. If that’s the best way to expedite things, so be it.”
John nearly spills his coffee as he gets up and Lori silently curses McKenzie. She hasn’t the patience for a rookie today but how can she possibly say no. The man’s been like a father to her and, when it comes down to raw truth, he’s the only one she has. “We’ll be in touch, guys.”
The Bounty Hunter gets up and pushes in his chair. “This guy seen what you drive?” He whispers the question as though it’s sacred.
“Yes,” she whispers back.
“We’ll take my Mustang, then.” He unhitches his keys from a ridiculous assortment dangling at his waist. “You guys ready for some action?” His smile is positively vulpine.
She tightens her scarf and takes a brisk walk beside the unlikely pair. “You don’t know me very well, Mr. Friend. I live for action.” Veto follows. “No drooling and you can come, Vete.” She grabs his leash off of its hitch on the wall and signals to the receptionist that she’s taking the dog. Veto is wild with excitement. He tap dances and stomps all over his leash.
The doors of the Mustang slam shut, a waft of frigid air cooling the vehicle’s interior until Leon blasts on the heat. John sits in the back like a kid on his way to a carnival beside Veto, a smiling fool. Lori pulls out a cigarette and places it to her lips. Leon leans into her shoulder, flicks on a lighter. “You really want to die young?”
She draws in a desperate drag. “I like to play the odds. You mind if I crack the window,” she yells back to John.
“Not at all. You guys want to make an educated guess as to where this fugitive is?”
“Which one?” Lori asks, angling her neck back to him.
“There’s more than one fugitive?”
“You gotta get your nose out of that training manual and into the head of this criminal pal. Mr. Roth suffers from DID.” She faces Leon. “Take a left here.”
“He has multiple personalities?” John cranes his neck between the headrests.
“Yep. We’re not tracking down Steven, we’re tracking down Mark.” She flicks her cigarette out the window.
Leon speeds up at the intersection’s yellow light, makes it through just in time. “So tell me, Detective… Where’s the first place Mark would go to after escaping, knowing he’s going to get creamed once he’s caught?”
She rummages through her briefcase, pulls out the Roth file. “Mark is the one who does the dirty work for Steven. He’s the one who abducted Joshua Davis in the first place. But the decision was rather impulsive and the accident kind of put a damper on things.”
“You think he went to the Davis home, to try and take him again?” John asks.
“He’s not that stupid,” she says. “Too obvious. Mark knows he’d get caught there. Tell me fellas: Who’s the one person a boy will go to when life’s not fair? When he’s buried in trauma and conflict and charges and he can barely think straight?”
In unison, Leon and John say, “To his Mom’s.”
“You guys are perceptive. Get on this highway and head south.” She activates the Navigation app on her phone, plugs in the address. “Bethany Roth lives just ten miles from here.”
Veto leans to the left to counteract a turn to the right. The Bounty Hunter accelerates.
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