Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  Eric stared into the muddy water, the putty knives sunk to the bottom of the bucket. He inhaled, held it for a few seconds, and slowly released it when he looked back up at the man. Detective Eastman sank back into the chair again, ready for whatever story he thought he was about to hear. The detective’s self-assured expression was too much like his father. He imagined balling his fists and punching the smirk off the detective’s face.

  Eric stood and lifted the bucket, dumped the dirty water into the utility sink. He turned around to see the detective rocking a little in the chair. Eric leaned against the sink, arms crossed, putting his weight on his right leg.

  “Did some of the things he taught you involve your stepsister, Samantha Mayfair?” the detective said.

  Eric said nothing.

  He had been waiting for it, and Detective Eastman finally pulled out a small steno pad from his inner jacket pocket, the stubby pencil resting inside the metal coils. The detective jotted a few notes down before looking at Eric again.

  “Why do you think your father attacked you and your stepsister in December of 1994?”

  Eric turned to the sink and took another deep breath. He had answered this question from police too many times before. “He thought I was going to report him to the police—that we’d both report him for the things he tried to do.”

  The recliner resumed creaking back and forth. “The things involving Samantha Mayfair or Meredith Lang?”

  Eric’s heart sped up more at hearing Meredith’s name.

  “Sam, sir.”

  “But you reported about Meredith Lang’s rape to police, back in ‘93. That correct?”

  Eric ran fresh water into the bucket and faced the detective. “Yes, sir.”

  Detective Eastman smiled and Eric realized who the man reminded him of: the Cheshire Cat. That asshole, know-it-all cat.

  “Surely, you’re aware Miss Lang denied the accusations of rape against your father. Said she went to a high school party against her mother’s wishes, drank too much and was assaulted by some boys. But you have a different opinion?”

  That Meredith had lied to the police didn’t surprise Eric.

  He kept the bucket in the sink this time and ran the stiff brush over the putty knives again. “Meredith—she was scared to tell the truth.”

  “You sure she wasn’t scared of you? I read the report.”

  “No, sir.” Eric gave up on cleaning the tools and moved to the workbench, his left leg aching to rest on the La-Z-Boy. He saw the detective studying his limp. “I tried to protect her.”

  The detective leaned forward and fiddled with his short pencil, twirling it between his index finger and thumb like a tiny baton. “Like you tried to protect your stepsister?”

  “I already told the other detectives all of this.”

  “I’d like to hear it myself. Tell me about when your father attacked you and Miss Mayfair.”

  Eric’s leg was killing him now, pulsing pain as fast as his heart. He sat on the bucket, straightening his left leg as much as he could.

  “My father—he tried to hurt Sam, but she fought him off.”

  The lie was easier every time he said it.

  “My father heard us talk about turning him in and he went nuts. He came at us with a knife, cut Sam and sliced my leg up when I tried to get him off her.”

  “What kind of knife did he use?”

  “A pocketknife.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “I don’t recall. Just a regular pocketknife.”

  The more Eric told the story, the more it seemed real. Funny how memories distorted, became whatever he wanted them to be.

  Detective Eastman’s blue eyes lost all good humor. “So, when he left y’all in the woods, he was uninjured?”

  The Cheshire Cat grinned, willing Eric to slip up.

  “I reckon so.”

  “But you fired a gun at him in Anadarko, to protect Miss Lang? That correct?”

  “Yes, but it was to stop him from hurting her.”

  “But he wasn’t the one who hurt Miss Lang, is that correct?”

  Eric swallowed, the large bottle of water doing nothing for his parched throat. The sounds of that night, the screaming turned into choked crying…Meredith’s pink mouth fixed into a silent O. “They did hurt her.”

  “They as in those high school boys?”

  “No,” Eric said. “My father. He was hurting her.” He paused, pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long day.”The detective stood up from the chair and moved close enough to Eric that he could smell the man’s Stetson cologne. “Are you saying Miss Lang lied about what happened to her?”

  Eric understood why Meredith told a different story, how she turned on him as quickly as a storm cloud into a tornado. She had been terrified. Eric had spent six months in juvenile hall for her lie, but he didn’t hate her for it. She had hated him, though. Probably still did.

  He rubbed his face with both hands. “Yes. She lied, but she was afraid.”

  The exhale Detective Eastman released sounded halfway between a grunt and a resolution. “We found your father, Mr. Walker.”

  Eric was sure the other man heard the air punched out of him.

  “Well…I should say we found most of him.”

  Chapter 11: Sam, 1994

  Sam waited for Arrow outside of the high school. She watched the kids scurrying to waiting cars and the school’s one bus. After what Arrow told her about Isaac the week before, she couldn’t look at other kids the same way. They all seemed too young, too ignorant of danger that could be right around the corner, down the street from where they lived, next door, in their own bedrooms, under the tent of their sheets.

  Everything Arrow had told Sam about his father raised the hair on her arms, his words eliciting a low, horrifying thrill throughout her body. He told her about living with his father’s friend and Meredith in Anadarko after his mom died, of Isaac trying to find farm labor work there. He told her about seeing his father doing sick things, sexual things where he hurt Meredith, and the next thing he knew his father moved them to Blanchard.

  As much as she wanted to believe he was telling her the truth she couldn’t. It didn’t help that his story for why he had spent time in juvenile hall—truancy—was an obvious lie. Arrow never missed a day of school, was never late, not once. He hated being even a minute late.

  Besides, Isaac had never tried to hurt her when they were alone, and they had been alone several times before when he let her draw him. He had never removed his clothes or tried to touch her, even though she fantasized about him doing both. They only talked while she sketched. Even now, after she stopped asking Isaac to model for her, she didn’t feel afraid of him.

  Then she thought about the time in the barn, his hand on her chin, squeezing hard and asking if she liked it. In the moment, she had wanted him to hurt her, and she tried to think of what signal she had given him to make him do it. She didn’t want to think about Arrow’s face watching his father with her, the fear shooting from him straight into her chest. Maybe Arrow was jealous of Isaac. Or maybe he was confused by what he saw between Isaac and her and with what happened with Meredith. Maybe Isaac had accidentally hurt Meredith when he was trying to help her like he was helping Sam understand how she was different.

  Sam watched Arrow wave goodbye to a classmate, some pretty blond girl, before he sauntered over to her. They walked side-by-side, not touching until they were deep into the wooded area near their house.

  Arrow entwined his fingers with hers, forcing her to slow down to his easier pace.

  “You look pretty.”

  Sam laughed, thinking about how Arrow looked at the blond girl’s chest, her small breasts showing through her tank top. She looked down at her baggy black No Fear T-shirt, the one Arrow had given to her to hide her curves from his dad. She didn’t know why she went along with his dumb suggestion.

  “I look like a boy.”r />
  “You could never look like a boy.”

  She let go of his hand and motioned to her clothes. “Dressing stupid isn’t going to do anything.”

  “You don’t look stupid,” he said. “You just look…”

  “Ugly? That’s what you want, right?” She removed her T-shirt, exposing her white bra, and ran until she was several yards ahead of him. “At least I have tits, unlike your little girlfriend.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “What girl?”

  She kept walking straight ahead, the stupid, stupid thoughts spinning in her mind, thoughts of wanting to hurt Arrow but she didn’t know why. She didn’t really care about that blond girl. It was something with how Arrow looked at the girl, so normal, so unlike how he looked at Sam when others were around, like he couldn’t look at her for too long or others would notice.

  “What girl?” Arrow yelled this time.

  “You know what girl.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “You’re right, it is nuts, all this lying and sneaking around and your dad gets to have a normal life. Hell no, not anymore. I’m telling my mama everything you told me.”

  “What?”

  “If it’s true, people should know, especially my mama.”

  She sprinted now, but she heard Arrow running behind her. He quickly caught up to her, wrapped his arms around her chest and swung her around to face him.

  “Listen—you can’t tell your mom anything.” He shook her hard. “You can’t.”

  “Let go of me!” She shoved him away from her. “I can do whatever the hell I want. If he really did those things to that girl—he needs to pay for it, and you should want him to pay for it.”

  Arrow mumbled something, looking at the fallen dead limbs of an old elm tree next to them.

  “What?”

  He looked up. “If you tell, I won’t ever see you again. They’ll take me away.”

  Sam hadn’t thought of that, and the desperation on Arrow’s face pierced her heart. He was right. Isaac would go to jail and Arrow would be sent away, probably foster care if he didn’t have family to take him.

  She once had a good friend, Nicole, who was in foster care after police arrested her mom for drugs. Nicole had told their group of friends horror stories of her foster father touching her in the middle of the night. Now, no one talked to Nicole, not even Sam, like what happened to her would rub off onto them. She heard Nicole smoked and drank whatever she could find now, even tried to give her thirteen-year-old foster brother a blowjob.

  She swallowed the sudden sickness from thinking about Nicole, how she had followed her friends in shunning her, as she watched Arrow stare at her, tears about to flow from his eyes.

  “Please, Sam. I don’t have anyone else.”

  “Okay. I won’t tell.” She knew in her gut it was the wrong decision, but the relief on Arrow’s face was what she wanted to see.

  They continued on to the house, skipping their usual messing around in the woods. Arrow appeared disappointed, but Sam wasn’t in the mood. He tried to follow her into the house, but she told him to go check on the chickens. She put on her T-shirt, went to the kitchen where Grandma Haylin was peeling potatoes, and sat at the mint-green Formica table. For a minute, she sat watching her grandma’s sturdy body gently sway with the peeling, wishing she could peel away the bad things Arrow said about Isaac.

  “What’s the matter, Biscuit?” Her grandma moved next to her, peeler in hand.

  “Nothing.”

  “Is it about Eric?”

  Sam looked up at her. Grandma Haylin rarely called Arrow by his name.

  Grandma Haylin turned back to the potatoes. “You know, if your mama expects me to continue living here, she best move me downstairs. Too many stairs to climb…and you kids are louder than cats in heat.”

  Oh, sweet Mother of Jesus. Sam never thought about her grandma’s room being next to her own since Grandma Haylin usually fell asleep in her recliner downstairs, and she could only imagine the things her grandma had heard with Arrow sneaking in every other night.

  “Grandma? Does Mama—”

  “No. She doesn’t know a thing. Neither of them do, and I suggest you two keep it that way.”

  If her mama or Isaac found out, Sam didn’t know what would happen but she knew it wouldn’t be good.

  Grandma Haylin finished the potatoes and sat next to her. “Biscuit, you sure like walking through needles, dontcha?”

  Her grandma often said things like this to her. She usually laughed off her grandma’s sayings, but she wasn’t laughing now.

  “Well, I hope you’re at least using rubbers,” Grandma Haylin said in a lowered voice.

  Rubbers? She had to mean condoms, something Sam didn’t know the first thing about using and Arrow never mentioned them. She didn’t want to have this conversation with her grandma, so she told her, “Yeah, we are.”

  “Good girl.”

  Grandma Haylin patted her arm, but the air was too thick with embarrassment to breathe right. She watched Grandma Haylin get up and fill a large pot with water for the potatoes, her eyes not looking back at the table.

  “Your mama will be home soon. Go and do your chores.”

  Sam couldn’t wait to get out of the kitchen. She was strangely glad her grandma knew about her having sex, that she didn’t seem as mad or disappointed as Sam expected, but she thought her face would burst from mortification.

  Sam walked to the barn to change out the hay for the goats, Hades barking at her heels until she reached down to pet him. When she entered Maddie’s stall, Hades stopped short and ran off. Isaac was in the stall, his shirt off and wrapped around the back of Maddie’s head, cradling her. Her goat’s eyes bulged, white foam leaked out of her gaping mouth. Isaac looked up at Sam.

  “What’s wrong with her?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

  “Damn animal probably got into some hemlock when she snuck out again.”

  Sam gasped—hemlock was poisonous to most livestock. She crouched down next to him and touched Maddie’s side, felt how hard it was for her to breathe. “Will she be okay?”

  “I don’t think so. I tried to get her to throw up, but I think she’s too far gone.”

  Sam’s cry caught in her throat, a sudden lump thick and hard.

  Isaac frowned, stroking Maddie between her ears where she liked it. “If my goddamn son would’ve fixed the fence like I told him, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Arrow was supposed to fix the fence? First, he lied about why he spent time in juvenile hall, and now he let Maddie escape and eat something poisonous. Anger erupted into tears she couldn’t stop.

  Isaac touched her cheek, brushed away her tears with his thumb. “I’m real sorry, honey.”

  Sam remembered how small Maddie was when she wrapped her in a blanket and rocked her as a newborn. “I don’t want her to die.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Isaac said, looking down at Maddie. “We can’t stop death once it’s started. All we can do is try to make her comfortable.”

  Sam looked into Isaac’s eyes and she didn’t see a monster who molested some poor girl. She saw a man trying to help her Maddie, a Maddie sick and dying because Arrow didn’t do what he was supposed to do.

  She and Isaac sat side-by-side for a long time, petting the goat and saying calming words to her, words that calmed Sam some too. She avoided staring at Isaac’s bare chest, the golden smattering of hair on the tan skin. She watched how gentle he was with Maddie, and she couldn’t imagine him raping that Meredith girl. She wanted to ask him, watch his face to see if he was lying.

  “I wish I could trade places with her so she wouldn’t feel any pain,” she said instead. “Did you want to trade places with Arrow’s mom?”

  Isaac looked away from her. “Of course, I did. But what good does it do to think of it? Doesn’t change anything.”

  Sam wish
ed she’d kept her mouth shut.

  They pet Maddie more, Sam too aware of their hands overlapping at times. Her heart jumped a little every time their fingers touched.

  “I’ve seen you with Arrow,” he said, breaking the silence.

  Fear struck her hard in the chest, but she kept her face calm.

  “I know he likes you. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”

  Sam continued to stroke Maddie, keeping her eyes on that brown fur until Isaac took her hand and held it.

  “I want you to be careful around him. After he lost his mom, he hasn’t been right in his head. He lashes out a lot. He could hurt someone without meaning to try. That’s why I gotta be hard on him sometimes.”

  She glanced at Isaac to see if he was serious. She’d never seen Arrow so much as raise his voice to an adult.

  “Just be a good sister to him. That’s what he needs.”

  She could never be his sister, but she nodded.

  “I know he wants to do things with you, and maybe you want him to do things too, but he won’t understand how you are.” Isaac placed his hand on her leg, his fingers curling around the inner part of her thigh. “He’ll think something’s wrong with you. Other people will think that too. But I don’t.”

  Her breath came out rushed and ragged like Maddie’s. Isaac pulled closer to her and gently kissed her on the lips.

  Cloves. That was the scent. He smelled like cloves, like her grandma’s gingerbread cookies.

  She kissed him back, just to see what it felt like to kiss a grown man. The coarse hairs on his chin scratched her face, but the way he kissed her made her want to liquefy and bond with that earthy scent coming from his skin. She kept kissing him, and he pressed his thumb against the zipper of her jeans. She couldn’t focus on anything else but the growing ache between her legs.

  He moved his hand and pinched her inner thigh. He seemed to like the sound she made when he pinched her, and he did it again, harder.

  “You like that?” he said.

  She didn’t know what to say. Her mind was too full of confusion mixed with need.