The One I Left Behind (43 page)

“But you didn’t,” Reggie said. “I mean, wishes don’t have that kind of power.”

“How do you know?” Tara asked, staring at Reggie with intense, desperate eyes.

“
Because
. They don’t. We can’t change things by wishing. Only by doing. It’s our actions, Tara, not our thoughts.”

Tara smiled a cynical smile and pulled out her hourglass from inside her shirt. “The world we know is going to end in one minute. Tell me one true thing before we die. Then I’ll tell you one.”

“I’m not in the mood for a game.”

“It’s the last time, Reggie. The last time ever. So make it a good one.”

Reggie watched the pink sand fall through the hourglass.

“Part of me has always hated you,” Reggie said, looking down at the floorboards.

“Why?” Tara asked without a trace of surprise or anger in her voice.

“Because Charlie loves you. Because when I see him looking at you I know I’ll never see him look at me that way. Because me, I’m just me. But you . . . you’re like the sun and everything is revolving around you, wishing it could get just a little bit closer.”

Tara wrapped her fingers around the hourglass and yanked hard, breaking the chain. She held the broken necklace out to Reggie, who stared at it, unsure what to do. Finally, Tara grabbed Reggie’s hand, pried her fingers open, and placed the hourglass in her palm.

“And part of me has always loved you,” Tara said. “It’s kind of fucked up and ironic, isn’t it? Charlie loving me, you loving him. You hate me for being me, and me, all I’ve ever wanted was to be more like you. The normal girl who draws these totally amazing pictures and has this glamorous movie star mother and lives in this cool castle of a house.” Tara stood up and crossed the floor to the trapdoor. “It’s kind of a shame, isn’t it?” she asked. “That none of us ever got what we wanted.”

“Can I ask you something?” Reggie said.

Tara shrugged. “You’ve got the hourglass now. You get to make the rules.”

“Was it real? When Andrea McFerlin got inside you? When they told you stuff ? Did you really hear the voices of dead women?”

Tara picked at a tear in the sleeve of her shirt. She seemed so . . . so broken, to Reggie right then. A cut-up girl held together with safety pins and staples.

“I thought I did,” Tara said. “But now I’m thinking maybe it was just me. Maybe they’re all just me.”

She lifted the trapdoor and slid through it. Just like that, she was gone, leaving Reggie with the little hourglass, which she kept turning in her hand, watching time run out over and over.

Chapter 47

October 23, 2010

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

“B
ITCH,” HE GURGLED, PLACING
a hand over the gash on the side of his neck. Blood pumped out between the fingers he’d wrapped over the wound. With his right hand, he reached for the tools on the tray, grabbing what looked like a hacksaw—the tool Reggie knew he’d intended to use to cut off her hand. He lunged forward with it, sinking the teeth into Reggie’s neck. She screamed, twisted away, which made the blade bite harder into her skin. Using both hands, she grabbed the metal frame of the saw and pushed up, away from her neck, relieving the pressure, getting it off before it went too deep. He took his left hand off his neck, the blood coming out in spurts now, and tried to regain control of the saw, but his hands were slippery, and she jerked it away. Reggie threw the saw, hearing it clatter against the cement floor, but unable to see where it landed.

He came at her again, with bare hands this time, wrapping them around her neck, his fingers warm and sticky. She was amazed by their strength. She felt as if he’d completely crushed her windpipe. The blood on his hands mixed with the blood seeping from her own neck, half of their DNA matching. Father and daughter.

And she felt him inside her then; not the calm, rational man she’d known all her life, the one she went to with all her troubles, but the dark man, the killer, Neptune. She was Neptune’s daughter, and she knew, at that moment, that she, too, carried the power to kill.

Clawing at his wrists and arms, she tried to loosen his grip, but it only got tighter. She bucked her hips, swung her knees, trying to connect, knock him off of her or at least distract him. The blood from his neck dripped down onto her chest, soaking her silk blouse.

“You’re just like your mother,” he said, spitting the words out.

Reggie wanted to answer, to give some kind of witty response, famous last words, but without air and with a crushed throat, speaking was impossible. For the first time in years, she wanted to be just like her mother. She wanted to be the kind of person who loved someone so fiercely, she would do anything to protect her.

She thought of her mother, trapped in that little apartment all those years, playing the good and happy wife, chain-smoking, downing glass after glass of gin, having nothing but memories and the television to keep her company most of the time.

She felt light-headed, and things began to turn gray and fuzzy, as they had once upon a time when Tara had choked her. The strength seeped from her limbs.

She could see it so clearly now, Tara’s face above her own.
I’m Neptune. Why do I do what I do?

Then she felt herself floating up, leaving her body. She looked back down and saw herself on the floor, eyes frantic, mouth in a grimace of pain and fear as he strangled her with his delicate hands. Only it wasn’t just herself she saw, but all the women he’d killed, the faces changed, clicking through like images on a child’s viewfinder: Candy the waitress, Ann Stickney, Andrea McFerlin—all of them with that same wild-eyed look of terror.

And she understood it then. This was why he did what he did. It was the look on their faces in these last moments, the power he must have felt just then, their lives fading in his hands. At last, for a few brief minutes, he got Vera back for all the times she’d rejected him, laughed in his face.

As the grayness faded toward black, as the scene below her became more abstract, less personal, and the relief of just giving up began to take over—Reggie suddenly snapped back into her own body, and it was Tara’s face she saw rising above her. Not the Tara of her childhood, but the grown-up version, battered and bruised, chin covered in blood. She was standing behind Neptune, and she had something in her left hand, something narrow with a metallic tip. She raised it above her head, then slammed it down into Neptune’s back, let out a strangled grunt of effort. The screwdriver.

Reggie could hear George’s voice in her head—not the Neptune George, but the George who’d taught her to read a plan and to fix her bicycle:
There’s a right tool for every job
.

He released his grip on Reggie, and air rushed into her aching throat. He twisted, tried to rise, but staggered back down, weak from all the blood he’d lost. Reggie sucked in oxygen raggedly, her wits and strength coming back with each breath. Neptune was down on his knees, one hand on his leaking neck, the other reaching uselessly around to his back as he groped for the screwdriver lodged between his shoulder blades like the key of a broken wind-up toy. Tara stepped back out of his way, watching him with narrowed eyes and bared teeth, as if she would go for his throat with nothing but her fangs if necessary. Reggie struggled to a sitting position, looked him in the eyes. It wasn’t terror she saw there, but stunned disbelief. Then his body crumpled forward.

It was over.

Afterward

November 1, 2010

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

“D
ON’T YOU HAVE TO
get back to work?” Tara asked. They were in Vera’s room at Monique’s Wish, the dappled late afternoon sunlight hitting the floorboards, making them glow.

Len was beside Reggie, holding her hand. He seemed hesitant to leave her for even a minute since meeting her at the hospital last week. In the old days, this would have driven Reggie mad, but now she found it comforting. She gave his hand a squeeze.

Vera had just drifted off to sleep after a confused card game that was half crazy eights and half rummy, with a touch of five-card stud thrown in. Tara kept saying it was like living inside the beginning of a bad joke—
this couple sits down to a card game with two one-handed women . . .
Vera and Tara had to lay their cards out, trusting no one would peek.

“I can work from here just fine,” Reggie said, gathering up the cards. “And while I’m here, I can get some repairs under way.”

Len had settled right in at Monique’s Wish, too. He’d completely charmed Lorraine and put himself to work cleaning, cooking, and running household errands. He seemed in awe of the house, said it was like living inside a giant sculpture.

“Oh,” Len said. “I almost forgot. The guy at the home center gave me some names of roofers who do slate. But I still think it would be kind of fun to do it ourselves.” He gave her a wry smile.

“I think I’ve had enough adventure for a while,” Reggie said, cringing a little at the idea of their crawling around on the steep-pitched roof. “Let’s leave the high stuff to the experts.”

Her hand went to her throat, as it had done a thousand times a day since her escape from the warehouse, feeling the bruises and cuts, which ached and itched as they healed.

In her dreams and nightmares, she was back on that cold cement floor, feeling Neptune’s hands around her neck. She woke shivering, crying out, and Len would turn on the light and hold her, say, “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.” And she’d look around, see the solid stone walls of her grandfather’s castle, feel the soft weight of the Drunkard’s Path quilt covering them, and know he was right. She was safe. She was home.

“Parts of the house are in such ragged shape,” Tara said, “wouldn’t it be better to tear it all down?”

Tara wore jeans and a sweatshirt, white bandages covering the place where her right hand had been. She was already starting to talk about a prosthetic hand and had an appointment to be measured and fitted. She didn’t want just one new hand, though. She said she wanted a hand for every occasion: a hand with sequins and glitter for nights on the town; a hand covered in tattoos; a hand with a poem written across it.

“Tear it down? No way!” Reggie protested. “Not with all the work that went into building it. This place was a labor of love. My grandfather must have wanted to quit a thousand times over, but he didn’t because he’d promised his wife a castle.”

Tara smiled in her familiar, teasing way. “Romantic.”

“The idea is,” Reggie said. “But building it must have been hard as hell. Hauling all these rocks. Laying the walls up by hand.”

“It’s an amazing accomplishment,” Tara agreed. “And quite a legacy to leave behind.”

“It’s a work of art,” Len said.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Reggie said. “My whole professional focus has been on sustainable design, and really, what’s more sustainable than people staying right where they are? Just fixing up the houses they already have—making them more green, more energy friendly. I was thinking I might do some new projects along those lines, starting right here, with Monique’s Wish. I was up late last night sketching some ideas—a new roof with a rain catchment system and solar water heaters. Replace the windows, add a few more on the south side. Maybe radiant floor heat. I was thinking I could renovate the attic, make it a workspace for while I’m here. Add some dormers and skylights, maybe.”

“Ambitious,” said Tara.

“That’s me,” Reggie said, smiling.

“What about the project you’ve been working on,” Tara asked, “. . . the little snail house?”

“The Nautilus is on the back burner for now,” Reggie said. She was less sure now about her idea that people were better off as nomads, wandering from place to place with their homes on their backs. Maybe Len had been right all along: home was a solid place where you put down roots; where the walls held memories and your family gathered around you.

“I want to put all my energy into Monique’s Wish. I’m even thinking about teaching some renovation workshops here in the suburbs.”

“I think it’s great that you’re going to stick around. It’ll make a big difference with your mother. And even if she doesn’t say so, it’ll mean a lot to Lorraine.”

Reggie nodded. Lorraine had said little about George. Reggie hadn’t pushed her—her aunt had never been one to process her feelings out loud. Reggie had also decided not to tell Lorraine about George’s being her father or about a lot of the details of George’s psychosis she’d uncovered. There was only so much a person could take. The most important thing was that they were all safe. It was over at last. They had the rest of their lives to try to make sense of it, to put the missing pieces into place. But right now, there were more pressing things. Like card games and chocolate pudding with Vera.

The doctors didn’t know how long Vera had—weeks, months at the most. But whatever time they had left, Reggie was determined to make the most of it.

Reggie stood up and walked to the dresser to put the cards away. There, on top, next to the box of medicines, was a framed picture of the old Aphrodite Cold Cream ad. Her mother, young and radiant, strangely immortal, smiled out at them, her perfect right hand holding the jar of cream.
Treat Yourself Like a Goddess
.

Reggie turned back to see that the real Vera had opened her eyes and was giving Reggie a slightly puzzled look.

“It’s you,” Vera said, surprised, as though Reggie hadn’t been there playing cards all afternoon.

“Yeah, Mom. It’s me.” Reggie walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling down at her mother.

“You’re here,” Vera said.

Reggie took her left hand, gave it a squeeze. “Where else would I be?”

Acknowledgments

Huge thanks go out to the usual suspects: my agent, Dan Lazar who tells it like it is and always finds a way to make me a better writer; my editor, Jeanette Perez, who can take something rough and help me polish it until it shines; and to everyone at William Morrow—all your energy and input has been invaluable.

I’d also like to thank all the wonderfully wild misfit kids with whom I spent the mid-1980s—Lynn, Betsy, Debbie, Becky, Charlie, Billy, and all the rest—cruising the backstreets of suburban Connecticut in my Camaro with warm beers, blasting Stevie Nicks, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes, looking for trouble and sometimes finding it. May all our secrets stay safe.