Eden's Eyes (15 page)

"This is one of my favorites," Albert said somberly, pointing to a faded print. The snap showed a very pregnant Elizabeth, seated on the edge of a stool on the back stoop, shucking corn.

Karen smiled.

Over the course of the next several hours they worked their way shot by shot through the remaining albums, alternating between quiet laughter and purging tears, but never tiring. When the photos including Karen began to overlap her memory, she joined in the story-telling too, adding her own anecdotes and pleasing her father immeasurably. By the time Albert shut the last of them Karen felt warm and fulfilled, her earlier fears of memory stirring sweetly dispelled.

They were quiet after that, but it was a comfortable quiet, counterpointed only by the lonesome moan of the wind. After a while Albert produced the scrapbook he'd been keeping, and they leafed through that. Newspaper clippings, magazine articles, cutouts from medical journals, dozens of photos—all of it concerning Karen's transplants. Albert read a few of the shorter articles aloud, plodding along in his slow, farsighted manner. In a way, it distressed Karen that so much publicity had arisen from all of this. Her name, address, and a short bio appeared in each of the articles, along with the same information, albeit more briefly presented, on the other two people who had received organs from the same donor. It made her uneasy, cheapened the whole thing somehow. She was about to comment on it—

And then realized that her father was crying.

"She was pretty as a picture the night she died," he said quietly.

And in the low light of the porch Karen felt it all flooding back. She had been away at the Brantford school for the blind that early fall, and had refused to believe her father when he drove down the following day to bring her the tragic news. She had never gotten the exact details—or if she did she'd blocked them out—only that her mother had died of a ruptured cerebral aneurysm.

"We was sittin' at the table in the summer kitchen,"' Albert said, "her finishin' up a new doll for you, and tellin' me the tale she'd dreamt up to go along with it. She surely was a wizard at the story-tellin', wan't she?"

Karen nodded. She was crying softly now, too.

Albert sighed and looked down at his boots. And like a long-buried confession, the words poured out of him.

"It was cool that night, and your mom asked me if I wouldn't mind puttin' in a fire. I said of course l wouldn't mind, and I was just gettin' up to do that. . . and do you know she was never sick a day in her life? I was just gettin' up to do that when I seen how pale she was. There was an awful blank look about her, too, as if she'd just. . . I dunno, switched off or something. 'Liz?' I says to her. 'Liz, what is it?'" His hands curled into a knot on top of the albums, and a shudder danced rudely through him. "She seemed to snap out of it then. Her color come back and she turned to look at me. 'I love you, Albert,' she said. 'And I love Karen, too.'" He scrubbed his eyes with his shift-sleeve." 'I dare say I love her more than I do God. Tell her that for me. . .'

"Then she died. Just dropped over dead on the tabletop. . ."

Karen got up and went to him. She curled on his knee and they rocked together until the pain drew back again.

Later, when Karen went inside to make tea, she was seized by one of those pleasantly numbing shocks that come with discovery. Stepping into the summer kitchen from the porch, it dawned on her that she had not yet seen the one place in the world with which she was most familiar. . . the house she'd grown up in.

In mute wonder she wandered the old farmhouse, zigzagging randomly through time, adding image after image to the remembered smells, textures, and sounds. The Franklin stove (which in its own cruel way had taught her that hot iron blisters small fingers), although black and bulking, was nothing like the leering monstrosity she had imagined it to be. And the pantry, where her mother had stored canned goods and homemade preserves, was not the airless coffin she had dreaded as a girl. . . just a pantry after all. In its place by the front window, the old Singer sewing machine her mother had crafted Karen's clothes on stood carefully dusted and oiled, its black ironwork and worn treadle faintly gleaming in the lamplight. Closing her eyes, Karen could almost hear the ratcheting bursts as her mother hemmed a skirt or plaited a blouse, humming all the while. The family portrait on the wall over the living-room sofa induced a fresh wave of tears.

Inevitably, Karen ended up in her bedroom, which her father had left mostly unchanged in the three years since Karen had moved out. Standing in the doorway, she remembered the day Albert told her she could have Aunt Rita's place if she wanted it, and how delighted she had been. Rita, the last of Albert's three elder sisters, had died of a stroke at a Saint Mike's Church social, and had willed the house, in which the entire Lockhart clan had been born, to Albert. Karen knew he had intended renting it out; God knew he could have used the extra money. But he had sensed her growing unease over living at home when by her age most normal people had long since fled the nest. After much argument, she had persuaded him to accept a small rent payment, which she skimmed from her growing book royalties, and had moved in right away. A half mile up the road from her dad's, the converted farmhouse allowed her a feeling of independence without the attendant fear of being left completely alone if something went badly wrong. Her father was just a phone call away.

Karen stepped into the room. She lay on the bed and gazed at the ceiling, wishing a fierce, little-girl's wish that her mother was still alive. After a while, she got up and went to the cedar chest by the south wall. She sat on her haunches before it, lifted the lid, and reached inside.

Her dolls were in here, entombed in plastic and stacked four high. The dolls her mother had made her. Karen knew each of them by feel.

Here was Puffball, the brown-faced mushroom who blew baby powder out the top of his head when you squeezed him. And Baggy-Anny, the Arnprior wino, with a witch's warty nose and matching toothless grin. And Gobbling Gerty, the magic turkey who grew back its head every Thanksgiving after the farmer cut it off. And Sam and Frodo and Pippin, characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, portions of which her mother had recited to her so many times Karen could still quote them by heart. And here was Cerin Songweaver, with his harp of barn wood and wool.

And there were others.

But the last of them was the hardest for Karen, so hard that she nearly left it in its dark back corner. It was the doll her mother had been working on the night she had died.

Its name was Daylight, the fairy princess with the sparkly wand who came to sleeping blind girls and made them see. But you've got to have faith," her mother would tell her.

"Because if you do, Daylight really will come to you someday."

Karen slipped the doll out of its protective sheath and laid it down in her lap. Its faintly musty odor drenched her in a warm flood of memory. Clad in scarlet and crowned in a tiara of gold, Daylight would have been her mother's most perfect creation, had she completed it. She'd been adding the finishing touches to the doll's face the night she had died, Karen realized.

But she had never gotten round to the eyes.

One by one, Karen re-bagged the dolls and carefully put them away. Then she went back downstairs.

When they finally came in off the porch it was near dawn, and Karen decided to sleep over. A lot of long-buried emotion had been dredged up between her and her father, and both came away feeling drained but relieved. Before bedding down, Karen returned to the cedar chest and pulled out Daylight again.

Now she lay asleep, one arm wrapped tightly around the unfinished doll. Despite her fatigue it was a restless sleep, shallow and riddled with dreams. . .

She was on the porch with her father, looking at albums. But now she was twelve, and her folded hands looked brown in the lap of her new summer dress, the fuchsia print with the puffy sleeves her mother had only just finished. It was daylight now, and the doll's eyes were finished—silver-blue, like shiny new coins in a bright noon sun.

Her dad flipped the page. . .

And there was the old Buick ragtop pulling slowly away. Her mother was waving and holding her hat, and something was shining in her eyes. Karen leaned closer to see what it was. . . and her mother's smile widened with pleased recognition. Of course it couldn't be, it was only a picture—

But the car was pulling away and her mother was waving to the crowd, most of them tipsy and all of them smelling of beer and over-rich food. Karen stood waving cheerily back, an unseen hand laid firm on her shoulder, and watched as the newlyweds rolled happily away. On her mother's moving silk glove sunlight caught sequins and launched diamond tipped darts, some of which stung Karen's eyes. Dust rose from the Buick's whitewall tires. Albert smiled proudly, both hands clasped to the wheel.

As the car reached the gap a hundred feet away, Elizabeth's eyes met Karen's. . . and the smile fled her face like a bird taken wing. She drew her hands up under her chin and began moving her lips. She was saying something, Karen realized, speaking to her. But the Buick continued to roll.

Desperate to know what her mother was saying, Karen shrugged the hand from her shoulder and started to run. The car was speeding up now, creating more dust, and when her mother's lips moved again Karen could scarcely see them.

What? she cried out despairingly, running even harder. Mommy, what are you saying?

But her dad kept on driving, steadily widening the distance. Karen could see her mother speaking again, turning her head now to Albert, whose tanned face beamed in profile. She pointed at Karen and said something to Albert, but he only smiled, half-deaf even then.

What is it, Mommy?

It seemed critical now—she had to know what her mother was saying because her mother was going to die and it should have been said before she died but it never was. She'd been away at school, not at home where she should have been. . .

I'm sorry I wasn't there with you Mommy I should have been there with you—

Plucked away by invisible talons, the lacy hat rose from her mother's head and soared in widening spirals. Elizabeth pointed. . . but not at the hat. She was pointing at Karen—no, behind Karen—and her face was changing in the dust swirls, distorting with distance and something else, something ugly and stark—

(terror?)

She was pointing and shouting and now Karen could hear her voice, frantic and far away—

Karen!

Look out!

And when Karen swung round to where her mother was pointing, the wedding party had vanished and the woods were there, behind her, all around her. . .

And something was crashing through the trees, rending and splintering, maddening the boughs like a fierce winter wind.

Karen!

It was coming through the woods for her—

"Karen!"

She opened her eyes to a teetering blur. Her stomach clenched and her heart skidded madly. . .

Then her father was there, hunched over the bed, his seamed face pinched with concern. "What is it, child?" he said, one hand firm on her shoulder.

Karen sat up. Blinked her new eyes. Swallowed dryly.

"A. . . dream," she rasped uncertainly. "Only a dream."

But she peered warily around the bedroom of her childhood, half-expecting the walls to fade, the woods to appear, and the thing in the trees to reach out for her—

"Land's sake, you gave me an awful fright just then." He sat on the edge of the bed, the smell of straw hanging thickly around him. He smiled, but it wavered with residual alarm. The look of her face just then. . . "Better now?"

Karen nodded. Her skin was slippery with sweat, but she was feeling more awake.

What was she trying to tell me?

"Well, then. . . you've got a visitor."

Albert looked smugly secretive, a look Karen immediately understood.

"Who?" she asked, excitement replacing her fear.

Mercifully, the content of the dream was quickly blurring. "Who's here?"

But then she heard the unmistakable croon of Ricky Nelson, coming from downstairs.

Chapter 15

Leaving off her sewing for a moment, Eve Crowell angled her chair to face the den wall behind her, unaware in her transported state that night had fled and dew-specked morning had taken its place. Her naked buttocks squeaked rudely against the vinyl seat cover. She grinned, quotes and misquotes spilling in a nonstop flood from her lips.

She had papered the entire back wall with fold-outs from Life magazines. All were the same—full-page photos of a blue-eyed Karen Lockhart, better than a hundred of them. Eve had gone to nearly every magazine stand and cigar shop in town, buying up all of their stock.

From each of the photos, the eyes had been meticulously snipped out.

"Vengeance is mine!" Eve sang out suddenly, casting a conspirator's eye on the wood-carved crucifix. "I will repay!" Then, in a pious whisper, she added: "So saith the Lord."

She turned back to her project, which was nearly complete, and lifted it up to the lamplight. Smiling, she examined its seams, its lovingly hemmed edges. Much of the work she had done by hand, thumbing a heavy needle through the thick rawhide, joining the pattern-cut segments, which she'd had to enlarge to a much, bigger scale, with a special nylon thread as stout as fishing line.

A fine piece of work, Eve thought as she folded it carefully and tucked it away. She could hardly wait to strap it on.

Quivering with ecstasy, she quit the den and strode into the kitchen. Still naked, she descended the basement steps, the Bible pressed to her joggling bosom. On her way down, she remembered the satisfying snap of her husband's neck as it broke on the bottom step.

Chapter 16

Throwing caution to the wind, Karen dashed through the doorway and lit into the stairwell, dropping to the middle landing with a jaw-cracking thud. Through the first-flight railing she could see a wedge of living room, at the edge of which a dyed-blond head be-bopped to "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It."