Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  He rubbed between her legs, over her jeans.

  “You want more?”

  No. Yes. Neither word would come out.

  Then he clasped his hand around her neck and squeezed hard, shocking her and cutting off any scream she might have attempted. She couldn’t breathe and he kissed her harder, leaning against her until she was flat on her back next to Maddie. He loosened his grip on her throat and she gasped for a breath before he tightened his grip again. She dug her fingernails deep into his hand and kicked her legs, but he held onto her. Every time she thought she would pass out, he let go enough for her to breathe. She closed her eyes, expecting him to take off her clothes or his own, but he didn’t. She kept her eyes closed, listening to the sound of her blood pounding, Isaac’s hand pressing and pressing, his heavy breath in her ear as he rubbed between her legs.

  Everything blurred to black, her body the most intense blank sheet of paper white before color burst through the center of her.

  He finally removed his hand from her throat, and she turned to her side, sucking in air and dirt from the ground and coughing.

  Isaac stood up. She followed his eyes over to Maddie next to her.

  “She’s gone.”

  Chapter 12: Arrow, 1994

  Arrow sat across from Sam at the dinner table, willing her to smile at him or at least look at him. The setting sun outside the kitchen window cast an otherworldly glow over her face that made it hard for him to catch his breath. Her back was straight and stiff, her chin lifted slightly as her eyes drilled into the uneaten food on her plate.

  Jeri looked over at Sam, who continued to eat nothing, and then over to Arrow’s father, who was nearly done with his meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

  “Sammy, you feeling okay?”

  Sam glanced up from her plate, but she didn’t look at her mom. She looked dead on at Arrow for a second before lowering her eyes again, and he knew. Something happened. Something bad.

  “Maddie died,” his father said from the head of the table. “We watched the poor thing pass.”

  “Oh, no,” Jeri said. “My poor baby girl.”

  Jeri got up from the table, her blue eyes wide as she circled over to Sam. Both Jeri and Grandma Haylin tried to comfort Sam, hugging her, but she failed to respond in any way. She sat there, hands in her lap.

  She loved that stupid goat like it was a Golden Retriever, but Arrow knew that wasn’t why she sat like a statue.

  He examined his dad’s hands shoveling more mashed potatoes—up and down like a machine—to his mouth. Then Arrow saw them—red half-moons perfectly spaced between his father’s thumb and index finger with one long, angry pink line on his forearm. He swallowed back the sudden hot spit in his mouth, his dinner threatening to come up.

  Grandma Haylin joined Arrow in looking at his dad, a deep V forming on her forehead. “Why didn’t you tell us before dinner?”

  Jeri, huddled next to Sam, grew the same deep V. “That goat’s not even five-years-old, honey. How’d she die?”

  “Laziness killed her,” his father said.

  Grandma Haylin and Jeri stared at his father, their blue eyes narrowing.

  “What do you mean, laziness killed her?” Grandma Haylin said.

  Fear and anger shivered down Arrow’s spine, but he risked a look at his father, who was staring him down.

  “Maddie escaped again and musta got into some hemlock.”

  “How’d she get through the fence?” Jeri asked, stroking Sam’s arm.

  “Broken.” His father set his fork down and turned to Arrow. “If the fence would’ve been fixed like I told you a week ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  As much as he wanted to, Arrow didn’t turn from his dad’s glare.

  His father’s breathing got heavy, his eyes unblinking. “Nothing to say for yourself?”

  “It wasn’t my fault. You were supposed to fix the—”

  The backhand shot stars through Arrow’s vision, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth.

  “Isaac, please!” Jeri yelled as his father lifted Arrow from his chair and slammed him against the wall.

  Arrow heard “I’m sorry sir” come out of his mouth. He knew better than to hit back.

  Jeri, frantic, begged his father to stop as Grandma Haylin hollered something about getting her shotgun. It all turned into a chorus of loud pleas blending with his own.

  A huge crash rang above the noise and quiet fell.

  Sam stood on the other side the kitchen table, a white Corningware dish smashed in front of her feet, leftover meatloaf scattered like body parts. His father’s fist hovered above him, frozen. Grandma Haylin and Jeri stood frozen too. Sam had stopped time. That was Arrow’s first thought until his father pushed himself up from the linoleum.

  His dad’s gaze burrowed long and deep into Sam before he rushed to the other side of the kitchen. “You deal with him,” he spat out as the screen door slammed behind him.

  Arrow knew his dad was going out to the barn to smoke the weed he hid from Jeri. “It calms me,” he used to tell Arrow. He had said the same words about so many things—alcohol, pain pills, the Xanax the VA loved to give out to vets—and none seemed to work.

  “Eric, honey, are you okay?”

  Grandma Haylin’s heavyset body crowded next to him. He was more stunned by her use of his name than his father whaling on him. She tried to help him up from the floor, clutching at her back with her other hand, and Jeri took over for her.

  “You shouldn’t have talked back, honey,” Jeri said, pushing hair away from his eyes. “He didn’t mean it, you know that, but you just shouldn’t have talked back.”

  He gave a little nod so Jeri would shut up. Yes, he knew not to talk back, but it wasn’t fair. His dad was supposed to fix the fence, not him, and he couldn’t let Sam believe he had something to do with Maddie dying.

  He couldn’t even look at Sam. She did what he couldn’t. She had stopped his dad. He hoped she had stopped him before dinner when Eric wasn’t around to watch out for her, but he knew the answer the moment she had glanced at him.

  His father always got what he wanted.

  Arrow made himself look at Sam, who was watching Jeri, disbelief on her face. He wasn’t sure if she expected her mom to help him, but it didn’t surprise Arrow when Jeri did nothing.

  He shook off Jeri and Grandma Haylin trying to examine his face and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. He wished he could smoke weed and try to calm himself like his dad, but he already knew he didn’t like it, how it made everything seem unreal and blurred.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, wanting so much to go to Sam’s room, crawl under her covers, and wait for her. He wanted to cry, but the anger at his father dried his eyes before any tears released. He tried to keep his eyes wide open, let the dry air burn them so the tears would form. He wanted to cry for Sam. He wanted to cry for himself. He wanted to be small again and for his mom to hold him.

  “He got you good.”

  Sam entered his room and closed the door behind her. She held a wet washcloth and sat next to him on the bed. Without asking, she pressed the cold cloth to the swollen side of his mouth, and he cringed from the pain.

  “He got you too,” he said.

  She kept her eyes on his mouth as she patted the blood. “Does it look like he got me?”

  No. She seemed normal now. Whenever she was upset about something, he could sense this force field around her, like the heavy ozone in the air before a storm. He didn’t feel it now, but he thought about the half-moon marks on his father’s hand.

  “You can tell me.”

  “What does it matter?” she said, removing the washcloth from his face. “You can’t even protect yourself.”

  Her words kicked him harder than his father ever had, and he could feel the tears breaking loose.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Sam stared at him for a long time, her expression blank. “I’
m mad at myself.”

  “Why?”

  He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away.

  When he looked at her face again, she closed her eyes and tears streamed down her cheeks. She twisted the washcloth in her hands, over and over.

  “Why, Sam?”

  She looked at him, her eyes dead, and smiled.

  Chapter 13: Sam, 2009

  Sam wasn’t going to think about Isaac Walker, that Vickie person, or anyone else. It had been four days since she and Eric drove to Sapulpa to see Les, and she needed a break to feel normal again. She was going to sit on the couch with her dog Zeus, drinking oolong tea and eating a red velvet cupcake she picked up from Cuppies and Joe. She was going to watch the Real Housewives of Orange County on TiVo and laugh at all the dumb crap those women worried about—botched Botox injections, who talked trash about whom, what tropical island they were going to vacay on. Whatever was going to happen with the police and finding Isaac had nothing to do with her. And Eric…she wouldn’t think about him either.

  She successfully maintained that sentiment about fifteen minutes through the show before she admitted she was a bigger liar than the rich bitches on the TV screen. The truth was she couldn’t stop thinking about the drive back from Sapulpa and seeing the look on Eric’s face when he talked about Vickie. There was a pain there she recognized, and she wanted to take it from him to see how he’d look without it. As if it were so easy, like Windexing a smudged mirror.

  She switched the TV over to a music station and grabbed a thin book from her bookcase. Electra, the Euripides version—her favorite. It seemed somehow appropriate to read. Only, Sam didn’t want to avenge a father. She wanted to avenge the missing piece of her.

  She wouldn’t let herself think about it.

  She took a few deep breaths and she was calm again, the tears never leaving her eyes.

  Zeus shot up from the couch, dashing to the door and yapping his head off before the doorbell rang. Who the hell? It was after nine on a Wednesday. Sam got up, tugging on her blue cardigan. She peered out the window blinds. Jesus fucking Christ.

  When she cracked the door, Eric pushed his way past her to rush inside.

  “Uh, hello. What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Zeus yelped and growled at his feet, but Eric ignored the white dog and went to the front window. He lifted one of the blinds, stared out into the dark for a few seconds. He looked relieved. This didn’t make Sam feel any more comfortable about him being inside her home with her wearing nothing but a camisole top, underwear, and a cardigan barely covering her ass.

  “What’s going on, Eric?”

  “Detective Eastman came to my house.”

  Eric remained standing by her window, and she noticed he was carrying himself the same way he did as a teenager, slightly stooped and wary, but his eyes stared blankly. It scared her.

  “They found him.”

  Sam’s legs went boneless. She sat on her green couch, Zeus hopping up next to her and keeping his eyes on the tall intruder.

  Eric moved over to the couch, but he remained standing, his eyes unfocused until he turned to the TV and looked back at Sam.

  He finally seemed to notice her undressed state because he kept averting his eyes back to the TV screen. Then Sam realized the Cocteau Twins’ “Cherry Coloured Funk” was playing on the music station. It had been his favorite song from an album they’d played too many times when they messed around. “Play it again,” he would say before kissing her stomach. From the look on Eric’s face, he remembered all too well, and she pulled her cardigan tighter over her chest, crossing her arms.

  “Are you scared about seeing him?” she said, and Eric looked away from her.

  Sam tried but she couldn’t imagine actually seeing Isaac again, of saying what she’d wanted to say to him for so many years: You didn’t break me.

  “Do you have anything to drink?” Eric asked.

  “Drink?” The sudden change in subject caught her off guard. “I have some Jameson and a little vodka.”

  “Jameson’s good.”

  She went to her kitchen and came back with the two-thirds full bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Eric left the glass on her coffee table and took the bottle, drinking down a few pulls and coughing afterward. She took the bottle from him before he could drink more. The nervous energy rolling off him made every muscle in her tense.

  “So, where did they find him?”

  A brief look of illness flitted across Eric’s face.

  “The woods…by the old farm.”

  “The farm? In Blanchard?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sam was confused as hell. Why would Isaac be by the old farm? There was nothing but the woods in the area, the closest neighbor a half-mile away.

  “How long has he been out there?”

  “They’re not sure exactly but at least ten years.” Eric swallowed and cleared his throat before he said, “The bones. They can tell by his bones he was stabbed. The gouges on his ribs. And his skull was fractured. Police dogs found the grave.”

  She felt her head go light, her face numb.

  She looked at the bottle of Jameson in her hands and chugged. It blazed down her throat, but she didn’t cough.

  Isaac dead. Stabbed. She watched Eric, that blank, empty expression on his face. He was paranoid and afraid, before when he came in. Afraid of the police following him, most likely. He was going to confess to her, bring her into his mess and ruin the normalcy she’d fought to create. Seeing him at her work that day, and Isaac’s truck found at the same time. No. It wasn’t coincidence. It couldn’t be.

  She stood up and moved away from him. “What did you do, Eric?”

  He straightened to his full height, his jaw tightened. Those toffee eyes stared through her until she imagined Isaac standing there, his large hands flexing, ready. She pictured those hands around her throat, squeezing until every part of her body yielded to him. And now Isaac was gone.

  “Say it, Sam. Tell me you think I killed him.”

  “You need to leave. I can’t get involved in this. I have a good job, a house, a fucking normal life now.”

  “And I don’t?”

  He grabbed her hand, turning it palm up as Zeus barked at their feet. Eric jabbed his finger into the center of her hand right above her lifeline and the silvery scar marring it.

  “You carved those initials in the barn. You did, with this hand. We both did, and now you say you can’t get involved? You were always involved.”

  The muscles in her right wrist twitched as if in memory of using Eric’s pocketknife to engrave their initials inside the heart he’d carved. He ran his thumb over her palm, sending a chill throughout her body.

  “Did you do it?” she asked.

  Eric released her hand and seemed to age ten years in the time it took him to sit on her couch, his face drawn and drained of color.

  She saw the trouble in his eyes, but she thought she saw grief there too.

  “No, I didn’t do it,” he said. “But I’m not stupid. I know the police are looking at me.”

  She didn’t know what to think. He sounded broken, like he could cry at any second, not like a person who killed his father.

  She sat on the other end of the small couch. Zeus squeezed into the space between them. Eric absently pet him, which Zeus allowed to Sam’s surprise. She ran her hand over Zeus’s fur and Eric grazed her hand with his own.

  “Then who?” she asked. “Who would kill him?”

  And why bury Isaac near the Blanchard farm? For a second, she imagined Grandma Haylin, her limping figure digging a grave, but it was too ridiculous to consider. Then she thought of the woman who had experienced the worst of Isaac.

  “Meredith Lang,” she guessed.

  Eric’s eyes widened.

  “She had a reason to kill him.”

  “No,” he said, so resolute. “She didn’t
do it.”

  “How can you be so sure? Didn’t she hate him? Everything you said he did to her?”

  “Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t have been strong enough to hurt him. She was tiny.”

  Sam had always wondered how much Eric cared about Meredith, and she heard regret in his voice.

  Eric pet the same spot on Zeus’s back, over and over, until the dog got irritated and jumped off the couch.

  “She trusted him,” he said, barely audible. “And…”

  She took his hand and felt the tremor in him.

  “That was the biggest mistake she ever made.” He gave her hand a half-squeeze.

  Like you. She knew that’s what he was thinking.

  He took the bottle of Jameson from the coffee table and downed what was probably three generous shots before passing it to Sam. The whiskey wasn’t settling well with her tea and cupcake from earlier, but she lifted the bottle to her mouth anyway. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to drink herself into oblivion or cry until she couldn’t breathe. Drowsiness tugged at her, but she forced herself back into alertness. She had too many questions.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me about Meredith.”

  Eric closed his eyes and she thought he might be drifting off until he opened them, slowly. He hit the bottle again.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Everything.

  Chapter 14: Sam, 1994

  Sam had too many emotions battling inside her chest as she watched Arrow staring at her, his mouth bleeding from where Isaac had struck him during dinner. She knew seeing Isaac’s rage should’ve scared her, but it didn’t. She had wanted to do the same thing to Arrow for allowing Maddie to eat whatever poisonous thing that killed her. She could still feel it simmering, that rage, alongside worry and confusion, but she didn’t want to cry again in front of Arrow.

  Arrow touched her hand. “What did he do to you?”

  He kept asking that same question, but she knew he really didn’t want to know the answer. He wanted to blame her.