by E V Lind
She was right. His mom was very good at giving credit where credit was due, and at laying fault directly at the door of whomever was to blame. But in this case, the only person who was to blame for his decisions was himself. And wasn’t that the trouble all along? Weren’t his decisions the reason why his teammates had all died? Fuck.
“I’m fine. You can sleep easy in that bed of yours tonight knowing you did the right thing,” he all but snarled.
His words gave him the reaction he’d wanted. All care suddenly wiped clean from Beth’s face and concerned expression was replaced with a spark of anger.
The right thing. As if anything in this twisted life was as easy as that. Ryan yanked the door of the truck open and swung himself up onto the seat, muttering a blue streak under his breath as he jarred his leg. He slammed the door and started up then backed the truck out without hardly looking, which earned him a sharp blast of a horn from a passing car as he did so. He forced himself to take a calming breath, then another, and pulled out into the main street.
Even so, he couldn’t hold back on the urge to look back. In the rear-view mirror, he could still see Beth standing there on the sidewalk, watching him as he drove away and he wondered how the hell he’d let her crawl under his skin so bad.
TWENTY-TWO
Riverbend, OR, November 1941
Dear Diary,
Mamma came home today. I should be a dutiful daughter. I should be happy she has returned to us and that we are once more a family under one roof. But I cannot. Even now, as I write this by moonlight, I cannot stop the fall of tears down my cheeks or ease the pain of the cane marks she left on my back after dinner. The pain was so bad I threw up, right there in the kitchen. It made her even more angry at me.
And her words. So cruel. So false. I am NOT a slut or a whore. While my thoughts have strayed to the sins of the flesh, while I may have touched my own body, I am still a virgin. I am not what she says I am.
Poor Aggie, she cowered in fear in a corner by the stove. After mother went into the parlor to pray for my sinful soul, Aggie tried to help me clean up the mess I'd made. I told her to go upstairs and ready herself for bed. To leave me. That I'd be all right. But I don't think I'll ever be all right here under this roof anymore.
Mother believes that I have been luring Jonathon Jones to my bed. I only wish it was true. Then at least my beating would have been justified. Then I would feel as if the burning cuts she has laid into my skin were for something that at least was good. But of course, there is no truth in her accusations and I am left, lying on my stomach, my back open and exposed to the cold night air as I cannot bear even so much as my bedsheet across me.
Before I came upstairs to bed tonight I found the kitten Jonathon had given us out back by the privy. It was dead. Its neck broken. When I mentioned it to Mamma she said nothing but she gave me such a look, as if she was well-satisfied with something.
I think my heart is broken. The pain in my chest is far worse than anything Mamma can physically inflict on me.
TWENTY-THREE
It was a week later that Beth woke face down on the bed and her pillow soaked with tears. She could barely remember her dreams but even so, they’d still managed to leave an indelible aching sense of loss. And her back. It stung as if she’d actually received the whipping she’d dreamed of. She tried to move but cried out as she did so. The T-shirt she’d worn to bed last night felt as though it was plastered to her skin and the cotton fibers were pulling at open wounds.
Prrrp! The kitten jumped onto the bed and head-butted her. Relief flooded Beth from top to toe. The tension and sorrow inside her eased as she lifted a hand and stroked the thick, black fur. Snowball began to purr—pushing her head against Beth’s hand and begging for a scratch behind her ears.
Bit by bit, the stinging sensation on Beth’s back eased up and she managed to roll over and then rise from the bed. She went over to the mirror on her wall, Snowball following close behind, and lifted her T-shirt to examine her back. She wasn’t imagining it, there were red lines crisscrossed over her back. Lines that now faded before her very eyes. This was crazy. Dreams didn’t come true. She knew that better than anyone.
But nightmares did.
Fragments of the vivid picture show that had played to her subconscious reappeared in her mind. Of a young woman, of a beating, of a dead cat. Again, that overwhelming sense of pain and loss hit her and Beth gasped out loud. It was only a dream, she assured herself over and over. She lifted her shirt and looked again. Her skin was clear. The kitten wound around her legs, meowing.
“Yes, I know, breakfast time,” she said and bent to give Snowball another stroke, suddenly needing the reassurance that her kitten bore no resemblance to the animal whose cold, dead body she could still feel as if it continued to lie limp in her hands.
Beth took a quick shower and hurriedly dressed in her usual jeans and a sweatshirt. The button on her waistband was almost impossible to do up. She didn’t quite know how she felt about that. On the one hand the knowledge that she’d have someone of her own to love, to care for, brought her a sense of reassurance that she could possibly be a normal person—could live a normal life. And yet, the fact that she’d be responsible for another human being was terrifying in nearly overwhelming proportions. She had barely been able to keep herself alive, had lacked the judgment that would keep her safe—how could she expect to keep this baby safe and alive, too.
In the kitchen, Beth quickly fed the kitten and refreshed Snowball’s water then made herself a pot of tea. Once the brew had drawn, she poured a cup and went and stood by the kitchen window. While nothing remained of it now, she knew the outhouse had been right there, just past the collapsed shed. She stared at the tumbled down, weather-beaten, silvered timbers of what remained of the shed and the curl of twisted, corrugated iron—rusting into obscurity as nature clambered over it in a concerted effort to reassert its dominance. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and a cold finger of revulsion traced the length of her spine. A deep and chilling sense of loneliness bloomed inside.
Prrp! The soft butt of Snowball’s head against the back of her leg reminded her she was not alone. Beth looked at the old clock mounted above the stove and instantly her mind flew back to the nightmare. There, in the corner. There’d been a little girl. As each blow had rained down on her back, the younger child had whimpered and flinched, as if she’d felt each strike of the cane as if it was upon her. In her arms she’d clutched a rag doll with bright yellow hair and a white apron over a red gingham dress.
She rubbed her eyes. She’d seen that doll. Determined to remember exactly where, Beth went back upstairs and turned into the room that had belonged to Aggie MacDonald. It was in here, it had to be. She ripped open one of the boxes she’d packed with things from the small bookcase. On top lay a limp, threadbare and faded version of the doll that she remembered so vividly from last night’s dream. Beth reached for it and felt a tremor run through her as she tried to make sense of the memories that continued to linger like thick, sticky cobwebs in her mind. Had her subconscious created the stuff of her nightmares? Had it taken snippets of her day to day life and the things she’d seen and inserted them into her dreams?
She clung to the thoughts, turned them over in her mind until they made some kind of sense. That had to be it, she decided. She’d been exhausted when she’d gone to bed last night. Over-tired. No wonder she’d had that nightmare. She looked down at the worn doll in her hands and wondered if anyone had thought to ask Aggie MacDonald if she wanted it when they’d removed her from the house. In fact, Beth considered as she looked around at the boxes she’d packed and stacked in the room, there were probably a few of Aggie’s things that she’d like to have around her.
Beth had to be at the café soon but she could, at the very least, take the doll with her and maybe go to the care facility at the end of her shift. And who knew, maybe she could find out a little more about the people who had lived here.
*
“That’s a lovely idea, hon, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get any sense out of her. She’s always been a bit,” Mary-Ann waggled her finger in a circular motion beside her head. “But I guess you never know when something will get through. Do you want me to come along with you?”
The idea, which had seemed so reasonable back at the house was a whole lot more daunting now. She had ended up here in Riverbend by chance, and was supposed to be keeping a low profile. Did she really want to take the risk of making even more people aware of her existence here than absolutely necessary?
“Maybe you could go instead of me?” Beth said, suddenly inexplicably nervous. “She knows you, doesn’t she? Maybe having a stranger call will upset her?”
Mary-Ann’s eyes softened in understanding and she reached out to give Beth’s arm a gentle reassuring pat. “Whatever you want, hon. But, to be honest, if Aggie’s away with her fairies nothing and no one will upset her. I promise you that. How about we go together? I’ll come get you at the end of your shift, okay?”
Beth nodded. The day went unbelievably quickly. A packed tour bus had arrived toward the end of the lunch rush sending Norris into a major grump and leaving them all running off their feet until the last of the fumes from the bus had died away. Beth stripped off her apron and stretched out her back. She thought she’d known what exhausted felt like but it was nothing compared to this.
“You’ve been overdoing it,” Mary-Ann said from behind her. “Want me to give your back a rub?”
“N-no, I’m fine,” Beth said and moved slightly away.
Even though she trusted Mary-Ann, she was still wary about being touched.
“Well, shall we head on up to see Aggie, then?”
“It’s getting too late to be visiting, isn’t it?”
“You could be right,” Mary-Ann said. “It’s not exactly evening yet, but if she’s sundowning they’ll tell us when we get there.”
“Sundowning?”
“It’s a sad state of confusion that strikes Alzheimer sufferers at the end of the day. We had no idea she had these episodes. They think she must have been in the middle of one when she hurt herself. She’d been digging up the old shed’s dirt floor, of all things.” Mary-Ann sighed, heavily. “The structure had been unsound for donkey’s years. When it collapsed it trapped her there with a broken leg. It was only Ryan’s instincts and a dash of good luck that he found her when he did.”
“That sounds terrible,” Beth sympathized.
But even as she said the words she couldn’t help but feel a resurgence of that awful sensation that had passed over her when she’d stared at the collapsed shed this morning.
“It was. Ryan said she kept muttering something about finding her Daddy. Of course, he blamed himself. He’d been meaning to demolish the shed before his last deployment but she’d always been adamant her mamma said it should remain as it was.” Mary-Ann gathered her handbag and her car keys from the office. “Right then, let’s go. I’ll drive us—it looks like it’s going to rain.”
Without a valid reason not to accompany her, Beth fell in behind her boss as they went outside. The trip to the care facility took only five minutes and Beth tried not to fidget as they waited in the reception area for a nurse to take them through to the secure unit. When the nurse escorted them through Beth found it difficult seeing the various elderly men and women in a large communal lounge, lining the walls in their recliners, walking frames parked in front of them and with similarly vacant expressions on their faces, as if they were simply waiting to die.
“She’s in her room today,” the nurse said as they continued down a hallway. “Not one of her best days.”
“Perhaps we should just leave her doll and go,” Beth suggested.
It felt as if the walls were closing in on her and her instincts began to scream at her to get out.
“Oh no, she doesn’t get many visitors. I’m sure she’ll enjoy seeing you,” the nurse breezed and gave a perfunctory knock at a door.
The room beyond was small and utilitarian and the empty eyes of the frail, old woman seated on a recliner in the corner matched those of the people who’d been in the lounge. Beth looked around and felt her heart sink. Not a single splash of pink anywhere. She looked again at the woman across the room. She didn’t even know they were there. This had been a waste of time. Aggie MacDonald might be here in the physical realm but it was clear her mind was on another plane. A rush of emotion flooded her and a voice rippled through her mind. This isn’t where Aggie belongs. She belongs at home. Beth shook her head. Where the hell had that come from?
Suddenly Aggie looked up, her faded blue eyes clearing for a moment.
“Lizzie? Is that you?”
She struggled to her feet and lurched toward Beth.
“Whoah, there, Aggie!” the nurse remonstrated and calmly and gently guided her back into her chair. “You know you can’t go dancing about the room without your walker.”
“Lizzie’s come to take me home,” Aggie said in a quavering voice, staring straight at Beth.
That finger of unease that she’d felt this morning ran another line down her back making Beth shiver.
“Oh, Aggie, this is my new girl at the café, her name is Beth. She’s looking after your house for you,” Mary-Ann said, bustling forward and giving the older woman a peck on her cheek. “Beth, come and say hello to Aggie.”
Beth reluctantly stepped closer. “Hello.” Her voice was stiff, unfriendly even to her ears and she earned a look of surprise from both Mary-Ann and the nurse. Beth tried to shake off the feeling of disquiet that rolled through in waves and forced herself to remember why she was here. “I—I brought something for you.”
She reached into the bag she’d shoved the doll into this morning and drew the ragged scrap out and passed it to Aggie. “I thought you might like this, it...it was in your room.”
Delight filled the old woman’s face.
“My Lizzie,” Aggie said in a voice that was thick with joyful emotion. “I love my Lizzie.”
Gnarled fingers traced the button eyes on the face of the doll and plucked at the stitched gingham ribbons in its matted, woolen hair. She pulled the doll to her shriveled breast and began to rock, crooning softly under her breath.
“Say thank you, Aggie,” the nurse coaxed, but Aggie simply continued to rock. “I’m sorry,” the woman said turning to Beth and Mary-Ann. “Like I said, it really isn’t one of her better days. Perhaps you can come again?”
Beth watched Aggie, saw the terrified child of her dreams imprinted in the old woman’s features. As much as she wanted to turn out the door and leave and never come back, she found herself saying, “Yes, I’ll do that. Tomorrow, maybe? Perhaps I can bring you your quilt? Would you like that Aggie?” she asked softly.
No answer.
“C’mon, hon. Let’s go. It’s no use talking to her when she’s like this,” Mary-Ann said brusquely. “Lord knows we’ve tried.”
They were at the door when the unsteady voice reached them.
“Lizzie wants her diaries.”
“Diaries? What diaries, Aggie?” the nurse asked.
“I hid them from Mamma. She’s angry. Always angry. Daddy once said she must have been born like that.” The rocking became more frantic and Aggie’s clutch on the doll tightened.
Beth moved back to the old woman’s side and crouched down beside her. She took one of Aggie’s fragile hands in hers. “Where did you hide them, Aggie?”
Aggie abruptly stopped rocking and stared straight at Beth. “Where you told me to, Lizzie. Under the floor board in my room. Mamma never found them all. Only the one. You remember, don’t you?”
“Would you like me to bring them here and read them to you?”
But Beth’s question fell on deaf ears as Aggie turned her face away and began the rhythmic rocking once more.
As they walked to the car Mary-Ann hesitated for a moment. “There probably aren’t any diaries—you know that, don’t you? She’s n
ever been all there and now she’s so much worse.”
Beth nodded but in the back of her mind something flickered to life. That day she’d cleaned in Aggie’s room and almost tripped as her foot had caught on an uneven floor board. Was that the floor board Aggie had been talking about? Did it rise because there was something beneath it? There was only one way to find out.
Beth refused Mary-Ann’s invitation to stay in town for dinner and all the way back to the old house she couldn’t get Aggie’s words out of her mind. Distracted by them, she didn’t notice the looming figure that appeared from the side of the house when she started to get out of the car, until it was almost too late.
Instantly her muscles bunched, coiled ready for flight. Her heart hammered in her throat as every instinct screamed at her to run. But she’d had enough of running. This time she’d fight. Her fingers threaded automatically through the keys she held in one hand.
“Beth?”
It was Ryan. The tension that had gripped her began to ease, swiftly replaced by anger.
“What are you doing here?”
“And welcome home to you, too,” he growled in response and waved a pair of shears in front of her. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been busy cleaning away these shrubs for you.”
Beth looked at the front of the house, shocked to realize that she hadn’t noticed the difference. He must have been here for hours. The shrubs at the front were all trimmed to below the level of the veranda railing, opening up the house and certainly destroying any potential hiding places this close to the building. She sagged as the last of the adrenaline left her.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see anyone here. I guess I should say thank you.”
“I guess you should,” he responded with a taciturn frown on his face.
Beth looked at him again, suddenly overwhelmed by a sweeping sensation of recognition. Her heart rate accelerated again. She felt a flush of heat bloom deep in her body. Don’t be stupid, she told herself. You met him a week ago, of course you know him—and not like that.
