Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  “Get upstairs and do your homework. Now.”

  Caleb made his way up the stairs, feet dragging all the way.

  “Hurry your ass up. And I swear—I better not catch you smoking again.”

  Eric was stuck, unable to pry his feet from the ground and move. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t see Caleb and Meredith in the same space together. It was all too real and unreal at the same time.

  After Caleb entered the apartment, Meredith’s full focus turned on Eric, hands on her slight hips. She looked so different from the fifteen-year-old blond girl he remembered. She was still bird-boned, small all over, but her look—clothing and hair—was now dark. He saw she had her nose pierced but wasn’t wearing jewelry, so the hole looked like a blemish.

  “What are you doing here, Eric?”

  He looked up at the apartment unit Caleb just entered. The boy stared out from the pushed down window blinds.

  “I think you know why.”

  “So now you suddenly care about him?”

  “Suddenly? You say that like I knew he existed.” Eric didn’t want to raise his voice, didn’t want Caleb to overhear them, but he couldn’t help it. “You lied. This whole time.”

  Meredith glanced up at the window, at Caleb’s sullen face. When she gazed back to Eric, her empty expression chilled him.

  “Yeah, I lied. I didn’t have a choice. Isaac made sure of that.”

  “What about Vickie?”

  “Well, you know how it was with my mom. Isaac’s word was gospel.”

  That was true, but Vickie was no pushover. She got what she wanted from people, one way or another. She would’ve known she could hold Caleb—the proof of Meredith’s rape—over his father, extort money for drugs, whatever she needed so long as she kept his secrets. His father didn’t know what went on in Meredith’s bedroom, Eric dealing with his grief as he cuddled close with her, the closeness quickly turning to something more one night. It only takes one time, though. If his father knew and thought Caleb was Eric’s kid, Vickie would’ve had nothing to keep the man she loved matted to her messy life.

  “Is Caleb my son?”

  Meredith’s face was blank.

  “I have no idea, and I don’t care to know.”

  “I care to know, and I would’ve cared before if you told me.”

  “I did what I needed to do, and that included staying the fuck away from you. I guess you did what you needed too. Can’t say I blame you.”

  Eric swallowed, his throat hurt-dry. It wasn’t that hot out, but it felt like a hundred degrees. Something tingled deep at the base of his spine, something telling him Meredith didn’t believe what she was implying. She had to know Eric didn’t kill his father, and he wondered if she knew who did.

  “My father—he came back to Anadarko, didn’t he? Your mom took him in, and then what? They fought like they always did, and he left?”

  Meredith’s eyes widened, briefly, and she shook her head.

  “You’re unbelievable, Eric. You really think she’d take him back after what happened?”

  “Yeah. I do, and for a lot less.”

  Meredith laughed, high and unnatural. “You’re probably right. Isaac could’ve killed me three times over and she would’ve taken him back, but he didn’t come to Anadarko. I’m sure he went to that Les guy’s place.”

  “What makes you say that? Is that what your mom told you to say?”

  “Like I listen to anything she says.”

  She was lying. Her body was still, her arms too stiff at her sides. She was nervous.

  “Listen, I need to know the truth. The police—it doesn’t look good for me, but I didn’t kill him.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  Meredith repositioned the large bag slung over her shoulder, and Eric touched her forearm. She jerked away like he had stung her.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “I’m sorry—look, I just need to know. Anything you can remember, anything at all about where he went after he left Blanchard.”

  Meredith’s face was grim as she stared at him. Her eyes darted up to her apartment window and back to Eric.

  “I told you everything I know.”

  Eric knew he wouldn’t get anything further from Meredith. Maybe she didn’t want the police looking too closely at her. Sam was right; Meredith had every reason to kill his father and he would’ve deserved it.

  “Meredith—I know it means nothing now, but I’m sorry for—for what happened. And I’d like to know Caleb, if you’ll let me.”

  Meredith looked down at the gravel parking lot where they stood. She sighed, her lips curled slightly, not in a smile, not even close.

  “You’re right. It means nothing now.” She turned and started toward the metal stairs. Once she climbed to the second floor, she looked back at Eric. “Don’t come back here again.”

  Meredith entered the apartment and Caleb disappeared from the window.

  Eric stood there a few moments, wanting to leave but unable to draw his eyes away from the window. He felt gutted, completely empty.

  Finally, he got in his truck and sped off, not sure where the hell he was going and not caring what happened. He pulled onto the highway. Sixty, seventy, eighty miles per hour—he kept going, hoping his head would clear with the recklessness but it didn’t.

  He didn’t deserve to know Caleb, he knew it. He didn’t deserve anything good, not after what he let happen to Meredith, not after Sam. He should’ve killed his father—in Anadarko, he should’ve, but then Caleb wouldn’t be alive, and Eric never would’ve moved to Blanchard. He never would’ve met Sam and everything that happened, all the horrible things that happened to her…

  He should’ve jumped from the tree that night in the woods.

  Red and blue lights flashed behind him. Eric ignored them until a siren blared. The unmarked vehicle pulled him over on the left shoulder. He looked in his side mirror and saw the officer approaching his truck was a short redhead. Speeding—that’s it. He was just getting pulled over for speeding.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Eric said as soon as he rolled down his window, his ID and insurance ready to hand to the officer. “I was in a hurry for work, and—”

  “Eric Walker, I’m going to need you to step out of your vehicle.”

  He felt his driver’s license and insurance card in his hand go slick with sweat.

  “Why?”

  “Step out of your vehicle, nice and slow. I’m not going to ask you again.”

  He saw she had her hand hovering near her gun holster. Then he glanced at the police vehicle to see another officer, a male, on stand-by next to the passenger door. Eric shut off his engine, making sure the female cop saw his hands at all times, and exited his truck.

  “Turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”

  Eric did, and she pressed him into his truck as she placed handcuffs on him.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Isaac Walker. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

  Eric couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening. This had to be a nightmare; it wasn’t real. He expected it but it felt like he was watching it happen to someone else.

  The metal cuffs cut into his wrists as the officer thrust him toward the back of the Charger. She roughly pushed his head down and he fell into the backseat, smacking his head against the opposite passenger window. He searched the officer’s face for any sign of consideration while she quickly buckled his seatbelt, but her face was severe and all business. The male cop climbed into the front passenger seat and reported the “suspect is detained” to the station on a two-way radio, the static buzz in between responses surreal to Eric.

  This was happening. This was really fucking happening. They knew where he was and they waited, hunted him down fast and efficient, and he had no defense but the truth wrapped in layers upon layers of his own lies.

  Chapter 35: Sam
, 1994

  Three more days. Sam sat on the couch, watching some new TV sitcom about six stupid New Yorkers, all apparently in love with each other. Her mama giggled next to her and asked, “You think I should get my hair cut like her?”

  Sam watched her mama’s face light up with more laughter as Grandma Haylin smirked at the TV screen, answered a blunt “no,” and excused herself to her bedroom.

  Three more days until Saturday, and Sam and Arrow would be gone. The thought sent a sick chill down her back. She’d be away from Isaac, the baby safe, but she wouldn’t see her family.

  The show cut to commercial, and Sam touched her mama’s hand.

  “Mama?”

  Her mama turned toward her and took her hand.

  “Yeah, honey?”

  The expectation on her mama’s face felt like a force pulling her closer. It was as if her mama knew there was something itching to escape, a confession that would absolve Sam if she could only get it out. She just had to open her lips and tell the truth, tell everything.

  “Mama, I…”

  Her mama wrapped her other hand over Sam’s, gave her squeeze.

  “What is it, Sammy?”

  She thought of when Isaac had exploded at dinner, beating Arrow into a corner. Her mama stood there and did nothing. If she said anything now, she couldn’t imagine what Isaac would do to Arrow, to her mama or grandma.

  “Mama…you should cut your hair however you want.” Sam smiled. “That hairstyle would look really pretty on you.”

  Her mama wrapped a throw blanket around them both and swayed Sam gently side-to-side with her on the couch. “I might just do it then. Not sure what Isaac would think of it, but then it’s my hair, right?”

  “Right.”

  She noticed her mama used Isaac’s name around her now, didn’t force daddy on her like before.

  They watched the rest of the show together and the show after that, waiting for Isaac and Arrow to come back from repairing a busted water pipe at the Woodland farm. It seemed like Isaac had been over at the Woodland farm a lot, helping the elderly couple with various chores when he wasn’t working side jobs. He rarely touched her since that time at the pond, and part of her wondered if he somehow knew about her pregnancy and no longer wanted her. She knew she should be happy about it, but she wasn’t. Yet another reason why she needed to leave. Arrow was right. She must be brainwashed or something.

  It was after nine-thirty when Isaac and Arrow banged their way through the kitchen door, waking her mama who had fallen asleep on Sam’s shoulder.

  The two entered the living room, and her mama, still groggy, stood up to greet Isaac with a peck on his cheek. They exchanged words she couldn’t hear as Arrow, covered in smears of mud, smiled at Sam from behind Isaac’s back.

  “Go clean up and getcher homework done,” Isaac said, and Arrow scurried up the stairs to his room.

  “I’m turning in. Been too long of a day.” Her mama kissed Isaac on the lips and turned to blow a kiss to Sam. “Don’t stay up too late, honey.”

  Isaac went to the kitchen and came back to the dark living room with a bottle of Miller High Life. Sam remembered a time when her mama refused to keep any alcohol in the house, but it wasn’t long after Isaac and Arrow moved in that beer became their third staple along with bread and cheese.

  Isaac sat next to Sam, stealing some of the blanket covering her legs. She watched him drink down the entire beer in two long pulls.

  “Whatcha watching?” he said.

  Sam had switched the station to MTV’s Real World once her mama fell asleep.

  “Just some dumb show.”

  “So dumb you like watching it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does that make you then?”

  He winked at her and she smiled a little.

  “You get the pipe fixed?”

  His grin withered and he appeared tired, more tired than she’d ever seen him, the lines around his eyes highlighted by the TV’s glowing screen.

  “Yeah, we got it fixed. A shame they don’t have any kids to help them.”

  “They did have a kid—Davey. He died from cancer.”

  Isaac shook his head. “Not right. People oughta have someone to take care of them when they can’t do for themselves.”

  “Yeah, it’s sad.”

  Sam absently caressed the bump under her shirt until she saw Isaac staring at her. She pulled the blanket up to her neck, making sure every part of her was covered.

  “You cold?” he said, almost a whisper.

  She nodded.

  He scooted closer to her, tucked his hands under the blanket. He reached under her shirt, found her breasts, grasped one and squeezed hard until she whimpered. The pain rushed hot and fluid to her head, between her legs.

  “Warmer?”

  She nodded again and he gave her a quick kiss.

  She needed to do something to stop him, she needed to get up and go to her room. She knew the look in his eyes—he wouldn’t stop himself and they were in the open, not her room, not the barn or out in the woods. Someone could see them.

  She wore loose pajama pants, which he ordered her to remove. She paused, frozen under the blanket.

  “You want the barn?” he said, lips against her ear.

  She slowly shook her head. Nothing good happened in the barn. No pleasure with pain there. At least on the couch, she knew he wouldn’t do anything to make her want to cry out too loud and wake her mama.

  She pulled down her pajama pants and his hand was on her. She didn’t know how long it went on—thirty minutes, an hour—but she couldn’t take it anymore. She struggled to get out of his grasp; she felt like she’d split open again at any second.

  She was going to scream, she had to scream, and her mama would see, and she’d know. Everyone would know what Sam let him do.

  Isaac kissed her, so hard his teeth clinked her own, his hand more forceful on her until her release ruptured from her in waves she thought would splinter her body. She buried her face in his shoulder to muffle her cries.

  She heard a floorboard creak and her heart stopped. She searched for the sound’s source. Arrow stood just outside of the living room. She wasn’t sure how long he had been there, watching them, but his face was a death mask, drained of any emotion, good or bad. Isaac didn’t seem to notice her distraction and moved her hand on him under the blanket until he groaned with that suppressed animal sound telling her he was through. Slowly, Arrow turned and went back upstairs.

  Done with her, Isaac left for the downstairs bathroom and then, Sam guessed, to his bedroom to sleep next to her mama. He didn’t come back to the living room. Just left her alone, like always.

  She went to her bedroom first, changed into new pajama bottoms since Isaac had soiled the other pair. Arrow’s bedroom light was off, but she doubted he was asleep, so she entered his room.

  He was lying on his side, away from her.

  “This whole time,” he said, his lowered voice cracking with anger, “I really thought you hated it.”

  She didn’t know what to say to Arrow. She did hate it, but then a part of her sometimes liked it. She liked that she didn’t have to think with Isaac because he forced pain into her, made her want it as much as the pleasure. She hated herself for liking it with him, but she hated Isaac more for taking what he knew she liked and turning it against her.

  “I do hate it,” she said, pushing back tears.

  “That’s not what it looked like.”

  She sat on Arrow’s bed and tried to touch his arm, but he shot up from the bed so fast it made her flinch out of fear he’d hit her.

  “I hope you do leave,” he said, “but it won’t be with my money and it won’t be with me.”

  He had worked so hard, she knew it—so hard earning money for them to leave, for her to be safe.

  “What about our baby?”

  “Have it, get rid of it—I don’t care. Probably his anyway.”


  Get rid of it? The words repeated in her head, boiling hotter and hotter.

  “Fuck you!”

  She didn’t care if anyone heard her scream at him. She ran to her room, placed the latch on her hook lock. She sat on the edge of her bed, rocking the rage out of her body.

  She had a little money but not enough to get to her Aunt Shelley in Dallas. She’d get there, though, and Arrow could die by Isaac’s hands for all she cared.

  Chapter 36: Arrow, 1994

  All throughout the night, Arrow fought with his nightmares, ones filled with blood and knives, hateful laughter and red hair…a gun fired but missing its target. He awoke to the Thursday morning in a daze until he remembered the night before. That wasn’t a nightmare. It had been real, witnessing Sam and his father together, seeing how much she enjoyed it with him.

  Maybe Meredith enjoyed it too—until she didn’t anymore, until his father took too much from her and left her with nothing. Just abandoned her in Anadarko with her mother, the one person Meredith probably hated more than Arrow for not helping her. He couldn’t imagine his dad leaving Sam alone, though, even with the baby growing inside her. People could get rid of babies. He had told Sam he didn’t care if she got rid of it, but he didn’t mean it.

  He finished dressing for school and slipped on his tennis shoes. He didn’t hear Sam getting ready next door, though. No loud music playing like usual as she put on a little makeup, no drumming down the hallway to get to the bathroom before him.

  He went to her bedroom, opened her door. She wasn’t there.

  He followed the scent of frying bacon to the kitchen. His father sat at the table, reading the local paper and waiting for Jeri to serve him breakfast.

  Jeri eyed Arrow and said, “Go tell Sammy to hurry up and get down here.”

  A sinking dread settled in his stomach. He went back upstairs, passing Sam’s room and going directly to his room, to his sock drawer. He didn’t have to dig for the tube sock at the back of the drawer. It lay on top, a flat, curvy snake, empty of the lump of rolled money he’d saved.