Dead Voices (3 page)

“But not anymore ... “Elizabeth said aloud, feeling the words like hot coals in her throat. “Sure as
shit
, not anymore!”

The cemetery gate was open, and, as Elizabeth walked slowly past it. she couldn’t stop her eyes from traveling up the twin-rutted dirt road and over the crest of the hill to where everything dissolved into dimensionless gray. What was she expecting to see? She wondered. Or what horror might be out there, hidden behind that curtain of fog?

The knot in her stomach tightened when, as clearly as if someone had spoken the\ words beside her, she thought,
It all changes once someone you know — and love — is buried up there!

Flicking her eyes ahead, Elizabeth could see the octagonal shape of the stop sign at the intersection. She told herself, if she could just force herself to keep going, to get past the cemetery and head into town, everything would be all right. On her way back, she could take another route, maybe cut through old man Bishop’s yard, like she had as a kid. Or even if she came back this way, the sun would probably have burned off the fog by then, and she would see that she was just letting her fears and guilt and regret carry her away ... just like her nightmare had last night.

Elizabeth’s sneakers scuffed in the dirt by the roadside as she slowed her pace even more and looked over at the cemetery. Her eyes were transfixed by the eerie view, and her mind filled with a bottomless blackness as she tried to imagine the density of the darkness seen by the people she loved who were buried up there. It was infinitely deeper than the fog or night... and she knew that darkness would
never
end!

“ ... No,” she said, no more than a whimper.

She knew she wasn’t dreaming this; it was just as real and solid as those mist\ shrouded gravestones, just as cold and unyielding as that black iron fence.

All around her, the fog muffled the few morning sounds she could hear-a car, passing by on Route 22 ... a robin, singing in the woods behind the cemetery. She had the sudden, panicked thought that, even if she screamed for all she was worth, the sound of her voice would fall fiat and never carry beyond the radius of what she could see. And whatever horrors the fog hid would be unleashed!

All Elizabeth could focus on were the heavy iron bars of the cemetery fence, and the silent gray gravestones. The density and the claustrophobia pressed in on her mind, and, before she had made a conscious decision, she had wheeled around on one foot and started walking briskly back down the road toward her parents’ house. Even before the cemetery was out of sight behind her, she could feel the weight of some unseen presence at her back, closing the distance between them. With her fists knotted into tight balls and her legs pumping madly, she started running as fast as she could down the road. Mist speckled her face with moisture that mingled with cold sweat as she ran ... ran as if some ghoulish, sheet-draped figure from the cemetery was close at her heels.

3.

Elizabeth’s mother, Rebecca, a frail, white-haired woman of nearly sixty years, stood at the stove, surrounded by the sounds and smells of frying bacon and eggs. She glanced over when Elizabeth entered the kitchen and sat down heavily at the table in her accustomed seat. Rebecca’s clear blue eyes let show only a small amount of the concern she was feeling.

“So, did you sleep well last night?” she asked casually as she turned back to tend her cooking.

Fresh out of the shower, and feeling much better — as well as a bit foolish for letting her imagination get so hyped up on her walk — Elizabeth simply shrugged and grunted a response that could have been taken as either yes or no.

“Your old bed wasn’t too uncomfortable for you, was it?” Rebecca asked.

Elizabeth shrugged again. “It was good enough for me when I was a kid. It’s good enough for me now.”

Rebecca almost said something about Elizabeth using the double bed in her sister Pam’s room, but, remembering that that was where Elizabeth and Doug would sleep when they visited, she let it drop. Instead, she said, “You know, the aunts might have something they’re not using. You might want to give them a call. Better yet, why don’t you drop over for a visit? They’d be hurt if they found out you were back home and hadn’t come right over. “

“I was thinking I might swing by there later today or tomorrow,” Elizabeth replied. “I just want to get settled, first. They’ll understand. How have they both been, anyway?”

“Oh, they’re the same as always, I suppose,” Rebecca replied. “Older — like the rest of us. I think Elspeth’s getting noticeably weaker. She’s not on top of things the way she used to be, and she seems to sleep an awful lot of the time. But then, what can you expect at eighty-two? And Junia — well, Junia is Junia. She’s still as bright and chipper as the morning, even at her age, but I —”

“What?” Elizabeth asked, when her mother seemed unwilling to continue.

“Well . . I dunno,” Rebecca went on. “I just think she’s been getting sort of ... weird lately. Too wrapped up in all that astrology stuff she reads all the time.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “She was always interested in astrology, doing charts for people in the family and all. It’s just a harmless pastime.”

“Oh, I know,” Rebecca said. “It’s just that ... I just think too much of anything like that isn’t healthy.”

“Well, anyway — I plan to stop by soon,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe I will ask them if they have a better mattress.”

“I didn’t think you slept very well last night,” Rebecca said. “I thought I heard you talking in your sleep.” After blotting the bacon with a paper towel, she flipped the eggs onto a plate and brought them over to the table and placed them in front of Elizabeth. Just as the plate touched the table, two slices of toast popped up. Rebecca went back to the counter to get them. “This was gonna be your father’s, but I can make him some more. There’s coffee in the pot and orange juice in the fridge. “

“Umm ... thanks,” Elizabeth said, not making a move to get either for herself or to start eating.

While her mother busied herself at the stove, preparing another breakfast, Elizabeth let her gaze drift out the picture window at the expanse of backyard. The sun had, indeed, burned the fog off while she was in the shower. Warm, yellow May sunlight lit up the silvery grass and the thin line of trees that bordered the field, and, in the distance through the trees, she could just catch a glimpse of the Nonesuch River, which was the southern border of the town of Bristol Mills as well as of her parents’ property. On the tall maple tree beside the bam, where a grayed and fraying length of rope from Elizabeth’s and Pam’s childhood swing still hung, the leaf buds swelled as big as ripe, Bing cherries.

Up close to the house, off to the left at an angle, she could see the opened double doorway of the cow bam. Every now and then, the dark silhouette of her father would shift past. She knew that he had most likely already put in two or three hours of work before breakfast, just as he always had. Age wasn’t going to slow him down, by Jesus! As much as Elizabeth had hated all the hours she had been required to work in that bam when she was growing up — hours she would much rather have been off, playing with her friends — she couldn’t help but remember with fondness the barn’s shadowed coolness permeated by the sweet smell of cow manure and hay chaff.

“I hope you weren’t ... “ her mother started to say, but then she let the rest of her comment drop as her eyes slid uneasily back and forth from the stove to her daughter. “What I mean is ... well, I wonder if everything’s all right?”

Elizabeth wanted to say
Everything’s just peachy-keen
, but that wasn’t what came out.

“No, I — uh, I just had a bad dream. That’s all. Probably I was just burned out after such a long drive.”

She wondered how her mother was viewing her. Did she see her for what she really was, a woman of thirty-eight years who was married and had had a daughter? Or did she see her as a ten year-old girl who had cried out in the night, terrified by some childish nightmare? Straightening her shoulders, she looked squarely at her mother and added, “Of course everything’s all right ... I mean — given the circumstances.”

Rebecca cleared her throat and, folding her arms across her chest, rubbed her forearms vigorously with her hands before she continued. “Well ... Doug called while you were out for your walk this morning.”

Instantly, Elizabeth’s neck and back felt doused with cold water.

“What did he ... have to say?” she said, once she was finally able to force the words out.

Rebecca began flipping over the strips of bacon with a fork, as though keeping busy could spare her from going any further with this conversation.

“What did he say?” Elizabeth repeated, more insistently.

“Your father picked up the phone in the bam and talked to him,” Rebecca said. Her voice was nervous and hushed. “Doug said he was concerned for you. He said he was worried about your mental health and that he was afraid —”

“Afraid I might do something stupid?”

“No,” Rebecca said mildly. “He said he was afraid you were going to follow through on your threat to divorce him.”

“
Me
divorce
him
?” Elizabeth shouted. She exploded with laughter as she brought her fist down hard onto the table, making the plate of food and silverware jump. “
I’m
not the one who wants a divorce!”

“That’s not what he told your father,” Rebecca replied. Turning her back to the stove and the food sizzling there, she came over to the table and placed her hands lovingly on Elizabeth’s shoulders. “So tell me, honey,” she said, staring intently into her daughter’s eyes. “What exactly happened between you and Doug?”

Elizabeth felt her gaze harden as she looked up at her mother. If
this
was how it was going to be, having to defend herself at every turn for what had happened and for what she had — and
hadn’t
— done, then coming back home hadn’t been such a great idea. Maybe she should have just taken off for someplace else. Biting her lower lip, she found it impossible to maintain eye contact with her mother, so she let her gaze drift back out the window.

“What happened between me and Doug ... ?” she echoed hollowly as she shook her head. “You know damned right well what happened between me and Doug! We’re separated, and
he’s
the one who’s filed for a divorce because — because of everything that’s happened.”

Rebecca smiled warmly and tilted her head to one side. “Yes,” she said, her voice almost a whisper as her eyes glazed over. “I know
what happened
, if that’s what you’re talking about. I know, and maybe I can even begin to accept the bare
fact
that Caroline is dead; but you’ve never told me how you
feel
, Elizabeth ... how you feel
inside
.” She patted her daughter lightly on the chest.

With a shuddering breath, Elizabeth shifted away from her mother, who took a few steps back. Sitting forward with her elbows on the table, Elizabeth pressed her hands over her face and shook her head. “How I feel about my daughter ... about Caroline dying? How I feel
inside
?” she said, between pain-wracked sobs. Uncovering her face, she looked up at the tormented expression on her mother’s face. “I have no
idea
how I feel inside! I suppose that’s why I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist. Don’t you think so?”

She saw and appreciated her mother’s surprise at this revelation. Reaching into her bathrobe pocket, she pulled out a small, brown prescription bottle and placed it squarely on the table in front of herself before she continued. “And I suppose that’s why I’m taking
these
. Because after everything that’s happened, after everything I’ve been through, I’m so ... so buried under it all that I don’t know how I feel. I’m not even sure I
can
feel anymore!”

... Or even
want
to feel, she added mentally.

With that, the stinging in her eyes intensified, and before she could try to stop them, hot tears were flooding down her cheeks. In an instant, she felt reduced in size until she truly felt as small as the freckle-faced, ten-year-old girl her mother probably saw her as. Thin, weak, and shaking, she again covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders shook as her tears poured out.

Rebecca moved quickly to her side and hugged her tightly. For just a second, Elizabeth resisted; then, looking up, she buried her face into her mother’s neck and let the pain out in one long, tortured wail. Within seconds, the collar of Rebecca’s dress was saturated with tears.

“There, there,” Rebecca said as she gently stroked her daughter’s hair, pausing with each stroke to cup the back of her head. “You just let it out. Let it all out. Tears water the soul, you know.”

A storm of emotions raged within Elizabeth, and she wished desperately that she could tell all of it to her mother; but she searched her mind and feelings, and found that she didn’t have a clue where to start. It was all so tangled and complicated.

“You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” Rebecca said soothingly as Elizabeth continued to cry into her shoulder. “You’re home now, and you know your father and I want you to stay here as long as you want to, until you’re back on your feet.” For several seconds, they stayed that way, mother and daughter embracing, each feeling comforted just knowing the other was there.

And maybe this is all I need
, Elizabeth thought, through the turmoil of her emotions. Or, at least, maybe this is enough.

Suddenly, Rebecca stiffened and pulled back. Looking over her shoulder toward the stove, she hissed with frustration. Gently backing away from Elizabeth, she quick stepped over to the stove, where curls of thin blue smoke were rising from the frying pan.

“Oww — now I’ve gone and burned the bacon,” Rebecca said as she snatched the frying pan from the stove and then, grabbing a fork, hastily flipped the charred strips of meat onto the counter. Elizabeth took a napkin from the holder on the table and started wiping her watering eyes; then she roughly blew her nose. The sudden interruption of their embrace left her feeling embarrassed and disoriented. While her mother took care of the kitchen emergency, she just sat there.