A Certain Slant of Light (44 page)

  
"Mr. Brown never touched me," I told them. "Why don't you
call my friend?"

  
"I did." Dan sighed, pretending it pained him to have to tell
me. "Billy Blake says he doesn't have a girlfriend."

  
I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. "Maybe he was
afraid to admit it."

  
"I talked to his older brother," Dan said. "He told me the only
girl he's seen Billy with lately is named something like Helen."

  
"That's me," I said, as if this would explain everything.

  
Cathy made a sound as if she were frustrated to the point of
emitting steam. "Why would he call you Helen?"

  
I knew that if I tried to tell them the real reason again, they'd
have me committed to a sanitarium. I felt the defeat tighten
around my ribs.

  
"Kneel," said Dan.

  
It was so unexpected, the syllable didn't even seem like a
word.

  
"On your knees, young lady," Dan commanded.

  
I obeyed, kneeling in the small circle of chairs.

  
"Pray for forgiveness and guidance," he ordered.

  
Now Cathy sat in her chair and folded her hands.

  
"Leave her," Dan snapped. Then to me he added, "I'll come
to release you."

  
I watched Cathy slowly stand back up. She looked at me for
one tortured moment. I had asked her for help, and she had sent
me to the lions. I knew that she was trying to save her little girl,
but sometimes mothers with the best intentions kill their daughters all the same.

  
She covered her mouth as she followed Dan out of the room,
and I was left kneeling in the harsh light.

  
The room was so still, like a museum housed with the dead—
boxes of puzzles unsolved and games that brought no joy, a stereo
no one danced to, windows that looked out onto a garden in
which no one had ever written a poem. But there was one beauti
ful thing in the room. The phone. The one that had interrupted the Scrabble game—the one Cathy had used to call Dan back
and confront him. He had lied about why he was late to the
church picnic, and Cathy had held this phone in one hand and
the gasoline receipt in the other. The same phone I had used once
to talk to James. I didn't know what would happen if they came
back in and caught me, but I took the chance. I lifted the receiver
silently and dialed, but the line was busy at the Amelia Street
house.

  
I went back to the Prayer Corner and knelt, closing my eyes
and pressing my hands together with a passion. "Please, God," I
prayed. "Keep James safe and let us be together."

  
I wanted to imagine James in every detail, remember every
second from the theater loft. I wanted to go back over everything
he had ever said to me, one sentence at a time, but my mind
would not help me. I kept seeing strange images appear and dis
appear like clouds passing over a field and revealing one place
and then another in the wandering light. I saw a patchwork quilt as I shook it on a bare wooden porch. A line blowing with shirts
and trousers as if they were coming alive. A one-legged sparrow
flitting from the water pump as I approached. I opened my eyes, sure that this would stop the images, but now I could hear things
that were not in Jenny's house. The soft bump of my rocking
chair as it rolled on and off the edge of the hearth rug. The high whine of sap in a log on the fire. Crickets through the open bed
room window. The creak of a man's step on the wooden staircase.

  
These things unnerved me, but it was the smells that truly
frightened me. As I looked around this dim and lifeless room in
Dan and Cathy's house, I could smell the familiar mix of wet hay
and warm milk, the lavender sachet pillow tucked into the linen
cupboard, and the painfully sweet breath of an infant, like vanilla cream. I would not close my eyes but prayed over the sound of a
rising wind with my eyes wide open. I didn't even want to blink. I
prayed for help—I couldn't think past this simple need. I didn't
remember collapsing, but I was on the floor, lying on my side
when I heard the door. It might've been an hour or several. I was
dizzy and my legs were numb when he came in. I sat up and
looked at him, not knowing whether to expect sympathy or anger.
His expression was unreadable.

 
 
"Go to bed now," said Dan. "The motion sensors are on out back," he added, as if to save me the embarrassment of being
caught halfway across the yard.

  
No one came in to kiss me goodnight. I waited until the house
was dark before I sneaked out into the hall. I tiptoed to the
kitchen, wanting some distance between myself and the master
bedroom.

  
Benny, Mitch's friend, answered the phone. It sounded as if
there were several people over, laughing and talking, music in the background. When Benny called for Billy and he answered, I said
only one word.

  
"James?"

  
"Who?" The voice was unfamiliar and sounded confused.
There was a heartbeat pause and then Billy Blake told me,
"Sorry. There's no James here." The line went dead.

Sixteen

"You'll have TO GO BACK," said Cathy. She thought I was trem
bling because I was cold. "Get your black sweater."

  
I didn't even remember putting on clothes that morning, but I
was wearing a sleeveless dress. I got out and left Cathy in the
driveway, the car idling. When I came into the house, I suppose
that Dan didn't hear me. He spoke on the phone without his
usual hush.

  
"What kind of emergency?" he was saying. He was in the
study with the door open, looking through his desk drawer, with the receiver tucked into his neck. "How long?" He listened, lift
ing a key and inspecting it. "I'll meet you there." He dropped the key into his pocket. This was the first I'd seen of him that morn
ing. There had been no Prayer Corner.

  
"I will as soon as she gets back," he said. Then he gave a little
laugh. "She's a big girl." I thought he was talking about me until
he added, "And Jenny, too. They'll be fine." I was standing in the
hall staring in at him. "I have it under control," he sighed. "I
know what I'm doing." He swung toward me with an ease that let
me know he thought he was alone. "There's no reason to feel—"

  
Dan stopped and blinked at me. "Hey, Puppy," he said. "Forget something?"

  
I knew I had disconcerted him—he forgot to be cross with
me. I remembered with revulsion the oppressive weight of his
hands on me while he asked God to make me obedient.

  
"Don't ever touch me again," I heard myself say.

  
"What?"

  
I turned my back on him and walked into my room without
a word.

"What took you so long?" Cathy asked as I slammed the door.

  
I buckled my seat belt and thought of saying, "I couldn't get the bedroom window open," but I didn't.

  
When we arrived in the church office, the secretary offered
me a mint from her heart-shaped jar as if I were five years old.

  
"Pastor Bob had an emergency," she said. "But one of the lay
counselors is taking his sessions this morning, if that's all right.
Judy Morgan."

  
"Of course," said Cathy. "Judy's wonderful."

  
The room hung stiff with the smell of dead lilies and candle
wax.

 
 
"You can come back for her in an hour," said the secretary.

  
"No." Cathy sat down on the couch against the wall with her
purse in her lap. "I'll wait."

  
Before I even had the chance to take a seat beside her, anj
elderly woman came down the hall toward us. She dabbed her
eyes with a tissue and looked embarrassed to have Cathy and me
witness her tears.

  
"Go right in," the secretary said to me.

  
Apparently I was going in for counseling alone, for Cathy did
n't move. I walked down the corridor and pushed open the door
marked PASTOR. Just as I stepped in, the scent hit me. The woman
behind the desk spoke to a red button on the phone. "Did you say
Jenny
Thompson?"
She looked up at me as if I had caught her
taking money from the collection plate. She pressed the red light
and it went off.

  
"Hi, Jenny." She smiled, but her face was white. I took the
chair across from the desk, breathing in the scent of gardenias. By
the time my back hit the chair, she had regained her composure.
She eyed me with cool wisdom.

  
"Pastor Bob had to go on a hospital call," she explained,
smoothing down her short black hair.

  
What did the secretary say her name was? Jenny would've
known. And Cathy must know her very well. She was the ballerina woman from the night before.

 
 
"Are you feeling better?" she asked. "Last night you seemed
upset."

  
"Better."

  
"What's troubling you?"

  
I thought of several other answers, but said, "My parents think
a teacher at my school took advantage of me, but it's not true."