Darkness peering (10 page)

"Brigette?" Claire said. "What are you thinking?"

"This weekend I'm going swimming," she said in her high, childlike
voice.

"That's fine," Claire said, "but we were talking about the American
Revolution. Do you know what the American Revolution is, Brigette?"

Brigette stared at the blackboard, then finally admitted, "I don't
know."

Claire glanced helplessly over at Billy and threw up her hands. "Maybe
now's a good time," she said, "to practice our handwriting?"

"I think that's a great idea." Billy sounded more gung ho than he'd
intended, and Claire frowned at him. She was always frowning at him.
She found fault with Billy's leniency, his tendency to cut the students
too much slack. "If we don't push them," she said, "we'll never find
out what they're truly capable of."

"Do souls need eyes in order to see?" Brigette suddenly asked, and
Billy and Claire stared at her.

The other children fell silent.

"Excuse me, honey," Claire said, "but where did that come from?"

"My grandma died this weekend."

"Oh my God." Claire knelt down beside her and gave her a hug. "I'm so
sorry, sweetie."

"Do they?" Brigette asked, hugging Claire back.

"Do souls need eyes in order to see?" Claire glanced at Billy, her
beautiful almond-shaped eyes filling with tears. "No, you don't need
eyes in heaven."

"So when I go to heaven, will I be able to see like everybody else?"

"Yes," Claire said.

"No kidding?" Luke perked up. "Me, too?"

"Yes," Claire answered, and a fresh surge of desire rattled through
Billy, throat thickening with a strange blend of sorrow and yearning.
She wore stockings even on the hottest days. She wore sleeveless
blouses, sweat collecting in half-moons under

each armhole. Whenever she kicked off her shoes, the faint smell of
baby powder wafted toward him. She had narrow feet with bright red
nails showing through the cinnamon-colored nylon.

"Why did Grandma have to die?" Brigette asked.

"We don't know why people die." Claire held Brigette's pale, delicate
hand. "Not really. It makes life more precious, though, for those of
us who survive. Your grandma's spirit will live on. You'll never
forget her, will you?"

"No," came Brigette's soft reply.

"Is there anything special you remember about her?"

She thought for a moment, then said, "She liked cherry cough drops."

"See?" Claire smiled. "From now on, whenever you have a cherry cough
drop, you'll remember your grandma."

Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose as if it irritated him to be there.
His boom box was on the floor by his feet. "Am I going to die?" he
asked.

Claire glanced over at Billy, who tried to think of something wise to
say. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

"Am I?"

"We're all going to die eventually, Luke," Claire said. "But hopefully
we can all die like Brigette's grandmother ... of old age."

"She died in a car accident," Brigette announced to the room, and the
children shifted uneasily in their chairs.

"That does it," Luke said, his large, bony hands caressing his Braille
book. "I'm never getting into a car again."

"Luke," Billy said, "most cars don't have accidents."

"That one did."

"Yes, it did. But most cars don't."

"How d'you know?"

"Because. They just don't."

Claire grimaced. '

"I don't care, I'm not riding in a car ever again," Luke said with
finality.

"Look ... guys ..." Claire said. "It's like a leaf falling from a
tree. Just because one leaf falls today doesn't mean they all have to
fall today, does it? Some leaves drop off early, but then others hang
on until winter."

The children seemed puzzled by this analogy. They were probably the
most innocent teenagers who'd ever walked the face of the earth, or at
least America. They didn't smoke pot, get drunk, take drugs, or have
sex (as far as Billy knew). They didn't drive cars or go on dates
unchaperoned. They were rare adolescents, their innocence intact.

"Forget it," Gus said. "I'll walk." His face beneath its blond fringe
of hair looked squooshed-in, like a sat-on rubber doll's.

"Gus," Billy gently chided.

"What?" He blinked. He was wearing bright red Reeboks and a

T-shirt with the Simpson family stumbling across the front. "You can
die in a car crash."

"Yeah, and a safe could drop on your head," Billy said, but the irony
was lost on them.

Gus seemed alarmed. "It could?" ;

Brigette stood up, walked over to Billy and reached for a hug,

and Billy gladly obliged, something else Claire disapproved of.

we treat her like a little girl, she'll never grow up. She'll never
take on adult responsibilities. We should treat her like a young lady.
But

Billy secretly loved Brigette's hugs, which she generously offered to
anyone. Her girlish heart was pure.

"Brigette," Claire said, "is there anything else you'd like to tell
us?"

"Grandma's dead," she said, calmly removing the ruby ring her father
had given her for her sixteenth birthday, then sliding it back on her
tiny finger again.

HIS SISTER WAS WAITING FOR HIM AT ONE OF THE PICNIC

tables grouped on a long, undulating green behind Pelletier Hall. The
picnic area overlooked the ivy-covered, eighteen-acre campus with its
rambling footpaths and towering oak trees. Built in 1862, the Main
Building soared above the green with its stately white facade and bell
tower. Further south, slate-roofed brick cottages were arranged around
quadrangles with playgrounds in the middle. Migrating birds flecked
the sky, the leaves were beginning to turn, and a sense of timelessness
permeated the campus.

Rachel was golden-haired like their mother, whereas Billy was dark like
their father, yet they resembled each other more than they did either
parent. Sometimes when he looked at her he saw himself, her face his
mirror image. It was disturbing. She didn't seem to be as aware of
their similarities as he was. She didn't seem to fathom the depth of
his feelings for her. For Billy, the family was deeply rooted inside
of him. It was who he was. He could still hear his father's voice in
his head, belittling him.

"Hey, Sis."

"Hi, Billy." Her look made him nervous. "Thanks for meeting me."

"No problem."

She had bought a cranberry juice from the machine in the rec room and
was playing with the bendy straw. The smell of nasturtiums and freshly
mown grass wafted toward them. Daisy chains of kids filled the nearby
playgrounds with their shuffling gaits, their anonymity behind dark
glasses, their telescope canes. They groped for one another, shouted,
laughed, collided in a tangle of

waving arms and roving eyes, while the college students hired to look
after them patiently untangled and redirected, consoled with exhausted
competence.

Rachel got right to the point. "We're reopening the Melissa D'Agostino
case."

His gut churned, his brain a jangle of raw nerves. Something about his
posture didn't feel right; his shoulders slumped, and he tried to
straighten up, but a coil was unfurling deep inside him. "Okay," he
said cautiously.

"I just wanted you to know."

"Okay," he said, at a loss.

"Billy," she said, "I've read the case file. I know all about your
involvement. I'd like to ask you some questions."

He rubbed his eyes, trying not to look as upset as he actually was. "I
answered everybody's questions eighteen years ago," he said softly.
"It's all in the report."

"I'm sorry." She smiled encouragingly at him. "I know you didn't have
anything to do with Melissa D'Agostino's death. I just thought maybe I
could jar your memory ... squeeze out a few more details?"

A sudden swirl of cold air blew past them, and Billy folded his arms.
Blackbirds fluttered up whenever the children got too close. His toes
were cold. He tilted his face toward the sun, wanting to watch the
clouds fly by. She didn't remember how bad it could get sometimes,
with their mother crying and their father storming out of the house.
She didn't remember how little their father trusted him. The fights.
She didn't understand the craziness. She was too young, and her youth
had protected her from all hurts, big and small.

"I remember," he said, "a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Like discovering Dad's body."

She looked at him oddly and he got that misunderstood feeling again.
After he'd moved back home three years ago, after he'd

finally admitted defeat and come crawling back to this godforsaken
town, he'd lived briefly with Rachel and their mother and immediately
resented their relationship, hated the secrets that flowed between
them. There were watercolors on the walls, and girlish things and warm
touches, and he felt excluded from the insider ness of the house. The
exclusivity of its domesticity, the sense that it was somebody else's
place, not his, that he was a mere visitor. And the other stuff, the
old secrets, the bad things he didn't want to think about. After their
mother died, he rented a place of his own across town, far from all the
painful memories.

"You wouldn't talk to me about anything after Dad died," Rachel said,
an old hurt bruising the delicate skin around her ocean-colored eyes.

"Well, I'm talking to you now."

"You never cried. I remember you'd sit for hours without moving. You'd
stare at the TV ..."

"I know."

"Daddy was gone. He just disappeared from my life, and it felt like
suddenly you were gone, too."

"I know," he said softly. "It was an effort to think."

"I remember crying a lot. But you. Not one tear."

"Whenever I started to feel something," he said, "I'd just focus on
whatever I was doing at the time. Like homework or sports."

Her eyes held him with their intensity. "I lost you both."

He exhaled sharply. "After Dad died, I had nothing but contempt for
other people. I'm not proud of the fact that I distanced myself from
you. I guess I was punishing myself. Sometimes in the dead of winter,
I'd walk around without a coat just to prove how tough I was. I was
contemptuous because it sealed away the hurt. You can understand that,
right?"

She gave a reluctant nod.

"I remember that night ... Dad's car was in the driveway, but he wasn't
inside the house."

She winced as if she didn't want him going in that direction, but it
was too late.

"You were watching TV. Mom called the station, but they said he'd left
hours ago. I'll never forget the look on her face ... as if she had a
premonition or something. She said we had to find him."

"I don't remember any of this."

"She wanted to protect you. You were nine years old, for crying out
loud. We went outside, and I sort of wandered down to the back field
down by the swamp, remember? Dad and I would go down there sometimes
and look at the stars. He'd try to talk to me. I don't know why he
bothered." Billy swallowed hard. "And there he was."

Her gaze was like a tug, urging him to continue.

"I could see, like ... everything. The blood and ..."

"Okay." She looked away, but he wouldn't stop.

"The back of his head was blown off, and there was blood dripping from
his ears, and I couldn't catch my breath. I kept thinking, holy shit"
He rubbed his face, but the itchiness stayed on his skin. "I had
nightmares for years. I still have nightmares."

"Billy, that's enough." Her eyes welled with tears. Even though she
was seven years younger, she seemed older. Wiser. Billy had always
been a late bloomer, that was his problem. He was ten years behind
everybody else. Billy wasn't even a man's name. It was a boy's
name.

"Sorry," he said, "but you asked."

"Not about that!" Her anger was palpable. She wiped her nose with her
sleeve, and he knew that she loved him very much, but that over the
years he'd lost some of his luster in her eyes. He remembered a time
when he'd been her favorite person in the whole wide world, but now she
could see the cracks in the armor.

"The worst of it was, I didn't feel anything ... here." He smacked his
chest. "At the funeral, it was like I was standing fifty feet away. I
didn't know these people. Who were they? Some guy

would come up and put his arm around me and I didn't know who the hell
he was. In church, during the service, Mom grabbed my hand. She was
sobbing and I could feel her shoulder sort of jerking against mine, and
it... repulsed me. All that emotion. I remember looking down at her
hand as if it were an object. And there was nobody to turn to. I felt
so alone."

"I'm sorry, Billy," she said, her face finally opening up to him, her
heart embracing him with pity.

"I remember exactly where he died. I could go down there and point it
out to you. His blood was like paint on the grass. For the longest
time, I'd go down there and stand in that exact spot and expect to find
something ... an answer, maybe." His own words buzzed in his ears.
"You know how I've been nagging you to sell the house?" he said, and
she smiled the way only his little sister could. "I'm glad you didn't
listen to me. I mean, I really think you should sell it, it's a
fucking museum. But part of me doesn't want to lose touch with the
past, you know? Isn't that dumb?"

"No." She made a move to comfort him, but he wasn't crying.

"Remember the look he'd get in his eyes?"

"Like nobody was home."

"He'd go down to the basement and you couldn't disturb him."

"Not for hours."

She was shivering now, drawing her coat around her. Billy was so proud
of her. She didn't have to do anything, he'd still be outrageously
proud of her. He'd taken care of her, growing up. He'd been her best
bud and they'd played silly games, hiding in the woods, pretending to
be Indians. Her face was beautiful in the noontime sun, strong and
fiercely determined.