Mother (37 page)

She couldn’t ask Jason for help with this.
He’ll think I’m nuts.
Given her recent emotional outbursts, she couldn’t blame him.
 

She withdrew Mr. Anton from the trash and toed the bear out of sight behind the bed skirt, then moved to the window and pushed the curtains halfway open. Morning Glory Circle was still lit up, but a canopy hid the bodies. There were fewer cops now. Two ambulances were just pulling away from the Collins house and Duane Pruitt and Jerry Park were talking with a couple of men in front of their house. She remembered Burke trying to break in, pounding and kicking at Duane’s door, shouting obscenities. She wondered what Duane had to do with the Collins family … and why Burke had lost his mind.
 

“It’s almost midnight,” Jerry Park said. “We both have to work tomorrow.”

“I can’t sleep.” Duane sat in his leather easy chair, as he had since the police left just after nine, staring into space at times, head in hands at others. Now he looked at his partner with bloodshot, teary eyes. “I really wish I could sleep.”

“Would you like warm milk with a shot of bourbon? A big shot?”

“I guess that might help. I’m willing to choke it down.”

“Coming right up.” Jerry went to the kitchen and took his time, heating the milk slowly in a saucepan because he was worn out and needed a few minutes to himself. He loved Duane dearly and understood - and shared - his grief, but he felt wrung out after the hours with the police, the hours talking and answering too-personal questions, the hours watching Duane try to control his pain. The knowledge that, if they’d been home, Duane - and Jerry himself - might be dead, too, weighed heavily.
 

He poured the milk into a mug and dug the bottle of bourbon from a low cabinet. Neither he nor Duane were drinkers, and this bottle had waited three years to be opened. He rinsed the dust off. It had been a Christmas gift from one of Duane’s employees and they’d nearly regifted it. Now, as he poured some into the steaming milk, he was glad they hadn’t.

He squeezed some honey into the drink, and added a cinnamon stick stirrer. Finally, he shook a little nutmeg on top, then considered adding lemon peel, but knew it was time to stop finding ways to kill time. He was Duane’s partner and he would help him through this grief.

Duane looked up when he entered and smiled as he took the drink. “Thank you, Jerry,” he said, stirring the stick, then taking a sip. “You managed to make this palatable.”

Jerry sat down on the edge of the couch and watched him. “I’m glad you told me everything when we first got serious.”

“Would’ve been quite a shock if I hadn’t.”

With a soft chuckle, Jerry nodded. “Indeed.”
 

Claire and Jason were asleep upstairs; Priscilla had looked in on them, enjoying the innocent, childlike expressions on their faces. Claire had been curled up against Jason and his arm was over her, protective, as a man should be. It was such a lovely sight that Prissy pulled her smartphone from her pocket and snapped a photo.

And had nearly woken them - she’d forgotten to turn the sound off and the flash lit the entire room. She saw Jason grimace and she quickly stepped out of the doorway and pulled the door shut. Jason might understand, but then again …
Well, there’s just no sense courting trouble, is there?

Priscilla checked on Frederick; he was sleeping like a baby. A snoring baby. With no desire to snap that photo, she closed the door, relocked it, then headed downstairs. After making herself a cup of chamomile tea -
Lord knows I need it
- and spiking it with a big dollop of whiskey, she took it to the living room, turned on the record player, and sat down in a rocker in the shadows by the picture window.

She had a good view of the street. The emergency vehicles were long gone, as were the bodies. The bloodstains remained - despite Aida and Stan spending half an hour trying to hose them away, she could still see them in the white glow of the streetlamps.
 

What a mess.

As the Andrews Sisters sang, Prissy stared out into the night. Duane Pruitt’s house was dark and shuttered up tight, as was every other house she could see except for a single light that shone in one of the Portendorfers’ second-floor windows. She wondered what Stan and Aida were talking about tonight - what kind of secrets they shared that they’d managed to keep from her. There was something, she was sure of it, something deeply hidden in the dusty recesses of their past. She wondered what the Portendorfers would think - what
all
of her neighbors would think - if they realized how much she knew about their little lives.
 

The Andrews Sisters sang on and on.

Copulating with Company

Tins of cookies, courtesy of Aida Portendorfer (homemade chocolate chip) and Phyllis Stine (Oreos in a repurposed Christmas tin) annoyed Claire as she sat up in bed. She was going to be as big as a house before she was off bed rest if people kept plying her with desserts. She settled in with the Dean Koontz hardback in her lap - an old favorite titled
Intensity.
Hidden inside was one of Timothy’s journals - a slender one she hoped would entertain her as much as the first four had. There’d been nothing shocking in any of them: some off-color poems and lots of drawings of dinosaurs (a sixth-grade journal), cars and more off-color poems (eighth grade), and then one nearly full of drawings and half-finished poems - not dirty, but romantic. They were about Stephanie Banks. She remembered liking Steffie and that she was always around - before she was his girlfriend, she’d been part of the gang of kids he’d hung out with. But until reading the journals, Claire’d had no idea how hard he’d fallen for her.
 

This new journal, a pale blue spiral-bound notebook, dated back to Tim’s junior year at SHS. There were no drawings, but page after page of cramped writing, the pressure of the pen embossing the backs of the pages, making it impossible to write on both sides.
 

Sept. 21. Coach Zellner said I should try out for track. He thinks I’d make Varsity. He gave me the permission forms and I should have faked them because Mother said no. Of course. She’s afraid I’m too “delicate” and will get hurt. God, I hate her sometimes. I told the coach today and he said he’d talk to her. I said don’t bother.

Tim had never struck Claire as delicate. Was she remembering wrong?
Maybe.
She’d been a little kid of six or seven at that time. Shrugging it off, she read on, rifling through pages until she came across an entry written in angry letters, so sharp there were holes in the paper.

Mother caught Steffie and me kissing at the Four-Plex. We were a couple rows from the back and she followed us. We didn’t know she was there until after the movie when the lights came up. And there she was, in the back row, just staring at us. It was so embarrassing! She yelled that we were “sneaking around” behind her back because I didn’t ask her permission. I didn’t ask because I knew she’d say no. I’m sixteen. I can go to the movies with my girlfriend if I want to! But Mother doesn’t think so.
 

So, she walks up to us in front of everyone and says, “I saw what you were doing.” Then she says to Steffie, “Do your parents know where you are? And do they know what you do with strange boys, like a little tawdry Audrey, when you’re not home?” Steffie said that yes, they knew, and that I wasn’t a “strange” boy, that we’d been going steady for months. Then Mother went red and slammed her fist down on one of the seats. People stared and Mother started yelling. She called Steffie a slut, a whore, and said she was corrupting me. A man with tattoos and a walrus mustache stopped to ask if everything was okay and Mother jabbed her finger in his chest and told him to stay out of it. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.

Mother dug her nails into my arm and dragged me out of the theater. She screamed at me the whole way home, and when we got there she gave me the “Bad Punishment.” The worst of them all. I still feel sick from it.
 

I feel dirty. I want to stop her from doing that and the other things, but I can’t. When she gets mad, she goes crazy, and I never dare argue with her. I grew six inches this summer. I’m taller than Mother, bigger and stronger, but I didn’t stop her.
 

Am I a coward?

Maybe I am. All I know is that as I write this, I am so angry I want to sneak into that bitch’s room and cut her throat!

The words shocked Claire. She’d never seen such raw hate in her brother, and wondered what on earth Mother did to punish him that had gotten him so upset. She wanted to put the journal down, to stop reading and let Tim retain the dignity and kindheartedness he possessed in her memories, but she couldn’t put it down, couldn’t stop reading.

I hate her. I wish she were dead. Maybe then she’d realize what a horrible mother she is. She never acts like this with Carlene. She just ignores her. Carlene’s a lot younger, but I remember Mother being a lot harder on me even when I was young.
 

Now I have to face Steffie tomorrow at school. Mother won’t let me call her and says if I ever speak to her again she’ll call her parents and tell them to “put their harlot of a daughter on a leash.” If that happens, I might as well just die.
 

After this, I’m going to write to Steffie and say I’m sorry and I hope she still wants to be my girlfriend. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t, though.

I don’t know what to do. There’s no way out. I want to leave, but where would I go? And what would happen to Carlene?

Claire turned down the corner on the journal page and closed it. She was stunned. Sure, Mother was a nosy pain in the ass and always had been, but what could Tim be talking about when he spoke of a punishment that made him feel dirty? Maybe he’d say later in the journal, or maybe Paul would know. Or, more likely, Steffie Banks. Claire pulled the journal out of the book, stood on her good leg, grabbed one crutch, and balanced so she could hide the notebook under the mattress. It was overkill; she could probably leave it in the novel right on the nightstand, but she couldn’t risk Mother finding this one.
 

Claire maneuvered to the writing desk and sat down. She really wanted to read more of the journal, but refused because she could practically feel it raising her blood pressure. She opened her laptop and began working on one of her client’s web designs. Not wanting interruptions, she turned her phone to silent.

It was a web page for a farmer’s market in Santo Verde, California and she became engrossed in designing the colorful logo, weaving squash and corn and tomatoes with peaches and berries and herbs around the company name. She took one bathroom break about an hour in, then got back on the job. She was in the zone and when Mother rapped on the door it startled her. The sun was lower in the sky - she must have been at it for at least another hour, but it felt like only minutes. She loved being in the zone. Sometimes she wished she never had to leave it.

“Claire? Are you still awake?”

“Yes, come in, Mother.” She was pleased that her mother had stopped opening the door without permission.
And she’s calling me Claire.

Mother appeared, holding a big glass of tomato juice and a few packets of Saltines. “I thought I’d give you some crackers, too.”

“What?”

“Crackers.” Mother held them up. “To go with the V8. You used to hate it! Is it a craving?”

“It’s not a craving. I still hate it. Why did you bring this?”

Mother hesitated. “You asked me to.”

“What? When?”

Mother blinked at her, then a little smile crept to her lips. “Less than an hour ago, Claire. Are you toying with me?” She paused. “I’m sorry it took so long to get it to you. I was on the phone with Barbara and you know how that is.”
 

Mother’s sincerity confused Claire. Was it possible the woman was losing her wits? “I didn’t ask for that, Mother. Like you said, I hate tomato juice. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Mother’s brow creased, concern in her eyes. She reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone. She held it out to Claire. “So, you mean to tell me you didn’t send this?”

Reading the message, Claire’s stomach dropped, and her throat tightened. Right there, right in front of her, was a text to “Priscilla Martin” from “Claire Holbrook:”
Will you bring me some V8, please?”
 

Speechless, Claire gaped at her mother, then cleared a spot on the desk for the glass. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course. I was working so hard I guess I forgot about it.”

Mother stared a moment, but didn’t say anything, just set the glass down.
 

“The doctor says I should drink it,” explained Claire. “It’s good for the baby.” She offered a smile but it twitched and didn’t feel real.

“Well, if you don’t like it, I’m sure we can find another flavor. Maybe some nice Clamato.” She looked at Claire another endless moment, then smiled, turned, and left the room.

As soon as the door
snicked
closed, Claire bustled on her crutches to the nightstand and found her phone. She checked the sent texts and felt the blood drain from her face. She froze, cold to her bones as she stared at the irrefutable truth: fifty-three minutes ago, Claire had texted asking for V8.

And she had no memory of it.

Claire’s fingers played over the toy soldiers in her pocket as she thought about the V8 incident. She wanted to tell Jason, but was afraid to, for the same reason she wouldn’t mention the toy soldiers.
 

Am I losing my mind?
 

She’d thought she could talk to the young priest, Father Andy, but the look he’d given her when she’d denied having defaced the teddy bear made it obvious he didn’t believe her.
 

Maybe Paul …
She wanted to ask him about Steffie Banks anyway.
And he’s known me since I was a child. Maybe he’d listen … But would he agree not to tell Jason?
 

She glanced at the clock; Jason would be home in half an hour. Claire grabbed her cell and pushed Paul’s number.