After Nightfall

by A. J. Banner

  She turns halfway, peering in Anna’s direction. Maybe she saw a flash of light, a glint off the lens, or she heard a rustling in the trees. The rain has stopped. Was Arthur Nguyen already outside with Bert? The wind picks up, and the scene grows slightly lighter. Perhaps the moon is peeking through a break in the clouds.

  Then from the left a shadow enters the picture. The shape of someone rushing toward Lauren. The umbrella points in the assailant’s direction, the neon blue glowing in the night. The moon shines brightly now. Watch out! I want to scream. Someone’s coming. Look behind you. Run! But she doesn’t turn around. The shadow is right on her before she finally turns. A flurry of tussling follows, an altercation. A dog yaps in the background, a distant echo. Someone yells, Hello? Far away. A voice. Arthur’s? More barking.

  The umbrella falls, tumbling away into the darkness. No, Lauren, hold on. Keep your balance. Lauren stumbles backward, grabbing at branches, and the shadow seems to reach for her, but she is gone. Nothing but darkness. Not a sound. Her assailant turns and flies back toward the house. The motion sensor light floods the yard again, and in that fleeting moment every facial feature is visible, identifiable. There is no mistaking who it is.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Rianne shows her face to the camera, then she rushes out of the light, taking flight out of the camera frame. The video ends.

  Anna’s trembling.

  “Your mom’s face,” I say. “It’s clear. Did she see you?”

  Anna shakes her head, and we both look out the window. Rianne is still talking to Brynn, but Jensen has started his truck.

  “But why?” I say, my mind reeling.

  Anna’s eyes fill with tears.

  I scroll through the texts:

  Rianne: She’ll never be your mother. I’m your mother.

  Anna: I love you, Mom.

  Rianne: I don’t want you to call her Mom.

  Anna: I won’t. You’re my mom. She’s just Marissa.

  Rianne: She needs to go away.

  Go away . . .

  And earlier:

  Who is that woman your father is seeing? We need to be a family again . . . Don’t you want us to be a family? As I read through the conversations, a picture of Rianne emerges—a woman full of hate and fear. She despised me, but why push Lauren off a cliff? My blue umbrella, flipped upside down in the sand. The umbrella I carried to work through the rainy season, until Lauren borrowed it.

  “Anna,” I whisper in growing horror. “You thought . . . Did you think your mom pushed me off that cliff? Did she think that Brynn’s mom was me?”

  Anna nods vigorously. No wonder she hid in the tree house, told me to leave. Can a person be good and bad? Even me? Even you? Even—? When I interrupted her in the tree house, was she about to ask, Even my mom? No wonder the stuttering returned. No wonder Anna won’t talk.

  “The picture in your photo album from the fair,” I say. “Did your mom cut me out?”

  Anna nods, tears spilling from her eyes.

  “Don’t delete this video, Anna.”

  She nods, shivering all over.

  “I know it’s your mom,” I say, hugging her. “You’re worried she’ll get in trouble. That you’ll get in trouble.”

  Anna nods again.

  “Everything will be okay.”

  She cries softly. She loves her mother, wants to protect her, and yet.

  I try to unwind everything Rianne said to me, try to separate the truth from the lies. But the texts to her daughter. The video. Rianne is coming back. The kitchen doorknob rattles. Anna slips the cell phone into her sweater pocket and backs up into the living room.

  Rianne strides inside, the door slamming after her. She takes off her boots, looks at Anna. “You decided to come out of your room,” she says, then turns to me. “Any word from Nathan?”

  “He called back,” I lie. “He wants me to bring Anna to him.”

  Rianne frowns, rubbing her shoulders and shivering. “Bring Anna to his work? Is he crazy?”

  “He can be,” I say, hoping my smile looks real, hoping she can’t see the fast pulse in my neck. The words she sent to her daughter, the threats. The expression on her face in the video. Rage.

  “We should hit the road.” Will she let me take Anna? We need to escape. Rianne wouldn’t physically harm her own daughter, would she? The emotional damage she has wrought upon Anna—maybe she doesn’t even realize she’s inflicting such pain. Or maybe she does, and she doesn’t care.

  “You’re not taking my daughter anywhere,” Rianne says. “I’ll call Nathan.”

  “We’re going,” I say, pulling on my shoes.

  “What did Anna show you on her phone? I see it sticking out.” She points to Anna’s pocket. Anna gasps, pushes the phone deeper into her pocket.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  “She needs to tell us why she buried her phone.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” I say. “Not right now.”

  “She does. She’s my daughter.”

  “She was showing me photographs,” I say.

  “I’d like to see them, too,” Rianne says, holding out her hand.

  I grab my purse, sling the strap over my shoulder. “Come on, Anna. Let’s go.”

  Rianne stands in the way, hands on her hips. “Nathan didn’t call you back.”

  “Yes, he did,” I say.

  “No, he didn’t. Anna, honey, hand over your phone.”

  “Don’t do it,” I say. “Anna, keep your phone.” I grip Anna’s hand, sidle toward the front door.

  “Who are you to give my daughter orders?” Rianne says, moving to stand in front of us again. There’s a stillness about her, like the air before a storm. “I know there is more on that phone. I suspected something was up when you said you’d dug up the jewelry box.”

  Anna appears to be barely breathing.

  “You’re her mother,” I say. “And you can’t see how troubled she is.”

  “Oh, I see. I see how a broken family has done a number on her. Let go of her. I don’t trust you with my daughter.”

  “You don’t trust me? Seriously?” I tighten my hold on Anna’s hand.

  “You disrupted her life. Who knows what else you’ve done? Everyone knows you hated Lauren. You were jealous of her.”

  I see Lauren’s face in the moonlight, my shoeprints in the dirt. Who knows what else you’ve done? I can’t let Rianne get under my skin. “Anna and I are leaving,” I say in a shaky voice.

  “Give her to me. How do you think it affects her when you carry on with Nathan?”

  “You don’t think your behavior has any effect on her?” Only ten feet to the door, but I have to get past Rianne. She’s bigger and stronger than me.

  “Don’t tell me how to raise my child.” Her lips tighten, her eyes black beneath the ceiling bulb.

  “You were never really concerned for her. This was all about you. You didn’t want Nathan to marry me.”

  “How dare you? My concern is always for Anna, for our family.”

  “Did you send me those flowers? Welcoming me back to my cottage?” I’m playing for time. I can’t make a call. My cell phone sits on the kitchen counter. If I backtrack, Rianne could grab Anna.

  “You don’t have much of an aesthetic sense,” Rianne says. “When I spoke to Anna that day, she told me you’d gone home. I was so relieved and happy for everyone. I called Vase of Flowers to order the bouquet right away. I tried to be nice to you.”

  “Nice? You call that nice? I call it manipulative. You broke into my house, didn’t you? Not Brynn.”

  “I wouldn’t call it breaking in if you leave a window open. I call it an invitation.”

  “You admit it! You stole my dress.”

  “It’s not a dress anymore.” She smooths down her sweater and gives me a smug smile, as if she is proud of herself.

  “What have you done with it?”

  “I’ve ripped it to shreds. It was nothing but a rag, anyway. Perfect fo
r mopping up the floor.”

  “We’re leaving, right now,” I say, still gripping Anna’s hand.

  “Anna,” Rianne says, stepping toward us. “You don’t want to go with Marissa. She could hurt you.”

  “I would never harm her,” I say, but a voice in my head whispers, What if she’s right?

  Rianne seems to sense my uncertainty. She smiles broadly. “When I move back into the house, Anna will be safe again. Everything will be fine.”

  “You’re delusional,” I say. “You don’t really believe you’ll move back in here, do you?”

  She’s still standing in our way. “Many couples have separated and then found each other again. Take Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. They were divorced a year before they remarried. Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner. They were married for three years, divorced for ten, and then married again for over eight years until she died. When two people truly care for each other, they find each other again. I know Nathan so well, better than anyone else knows him.”

  “I’m not arguing,” I say. She has lost her mind.

  “I only came over to explain this to you. I’m a reasonable person. I saw your umbrella glowing in the dark, and I called your name, but you didn’t even reply.”

  “I wasn’t out there. That was Lauren!”

  “How was I supposed know?”

  “You pushed her off a cliff!”

  Rianne grimaces. “She slipped. She lost her balance. She stumbled. It wasn’t my fault. If you weren’t so—hardheaded. Insistent on pushing your charade with Nathan . . .” Her voice trails off.

  “It wasn’t a charade,” I say softly.

  “It was shocking when I realized she wasn’t you,” she goes on, as if I haven’t spoken. “I made a terrible mistake. From a distance, you and Lauren, you look so much alike. Same height, similar hair.”

  “The scarf was yours, wasn’t it?” I’m shaking.

  “I didn’t realize she had pulled it off until I was already gone. And then you came into the shop . . . I had to think fast.”

  “You told me Hedra bought the scarf. You forged that receipt?”

  She flips her hand through the air. “Piece of cake. The wool item was a different wool item, not the scarf. Big deal.”

  “You tried to implicate Hedra.”

  “Well, she is crazy to stay with Keith. Nathan is right. He’s psychotic. I’ve seen the way he talks to her. But you weren’t with Nathan long enough to know. Now you’re back here again. You should have stayed away.”

  “When you brought Anna for speech therapy, were you checking up on me? To see if I was with Nathan anymore?”

  “The question did pop into my mind, so I asked.”

  “Unbelievable,” I say, shaking my head. “What about Arthur Nguyen? Did you do something to him?”

  She makes a clucking sound. “He talks too much. I had no idea he’d seen me that night until his friend came into my shop and told me only this morning. I had to find out what Arthur knew. I found him wading around in that stupid pond. We had a conversation.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Me? Nothing at all! As I was leaving, he fell.”

  A likely story. “You didn’t even try to help him.”

  “What could I do? The poor man had a weak heart.”

  Anna starts to cry. No wonder she and her mother arrived so quickly. When Rianne argued with Arthur, was Anna waiting in the car? “He was a possible witness,” I say. “He’s still alive.”

  “It’s unlikely he’ll remember what happened to him.”

  “Did you push him, too? The way you pushed Lauren?”

  “How dare you accuse me!”

  “You threw her off a cliff! You killed her.”

  “I told you, she slipped. I didn’t kill her!” Rianne lunges at me so fast, I don’t have time to react. I barely see her coming. There is no warning, no escalation of anger. She throws me down hard with a guttural shriek. Pain shoots through my head, stabs me behind the eyes. Rianne presses her thumbs into my throat. I try to pry off her fingers, but her steel grip won’t budge. I’m gasping. I have to fight. But I can’t breathe. Rianne’s face swims above me, her eyes wide, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth. Do you believe in heaven and hell? What if you’re good and bad? Anna’s scream echoes in my mind before my vision blurs, images wavering above me, as if I’m underwater.

  A voice pierces my brain. Anna shouting “NOOO!” I hear a great cracking sound, and Rianne slumps to the floor. I gasp, grabbing at my throat, and I scramble out from beneath her. Droplets of blood trickle down her forehead. Anna’s standing over her, shaking, gripping the neck of the vase she broke against her mother’s head. “Mom!” she wails. “Nooooooo!!!”

  I feel Rianne’s neck—she’s got a pulse. “She’s alive, Anna,” I say, staggering to the kitchen counter for my phone. I dial 911. “We need to go, okay?”

  Anna stands there in shock. “No no no no,” she says, shaking all over.

  The 911 operator comes on the line, asks me where my emergency is. This is the third time I’ve called emergency in several days. Hedra, Arthur, and now . . . Rianne.

  Anna races down the hall to her room. “I need an ambulance,” I say. The operator keeps me on the line, asking me more questions about what happened, about Rianne. “She attacked me. It’s a long story. Yes. She seems to be breathing. No, she’s not conscious. Look, I need to go. I have a child here. I need to check on her.” I hang up, hit speed dial for Nathan’s number as I rush down the hall to Anna’s room. Her window is open, the screen popped out again. Anna is gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “I’m on my way,” Nathan says on the phone. “Get out of there. Go next door!”

  “I need to find Anna.” I run through the house, calling for her, peering into the guest room. No sign of her.

  “You don’t have her? You don’t have Anna?”

  “I’m looking. I think she ran outside again.”

  “Damn it, Marissa.”

  I’m pulling on my boots and coat, dashing outside in Nathan’s baggy clothes. “Get here as fast as you can.” I hang up, sweeping the flashlight beam around the yard. I run to the tree house, climb the ladder. She’s not here. I climb down, calling for her. I look to the north, trudge into the wind. A bigger storm creeps in across the sea, blackening the horizon. I jog north, holding up Nathan’s pants, which I have secured with a belt, but it’s still difficult to move quickly. At the beach stairs, I yell down for Anna, but I can’t see her. On a hunch, I keep going toward the trail leading into the wildlife refuge. She’s not allowed to come this way on her own. But she did. I’m sure of it. As the meadow gives way to a tunnel of trees, Anna’s voice plays in my head. Go away. Leave me alone. Her words trembled with fear. She feared her mother. She was scared for me.

  “Anna! Anna!” My voice echoes strangely in the forest. I’m trying to run, but Nathan’s pant cuffs keep unraveling. I hold the belt with one hand, stop now and then to roll up the cuffs again. She can’t have gone far.

  Ahead of me, the trail splits into two. The ground is scuffed to the left. A footprint. I take the left branch leading toward the sea. If she’s here, does she even know where she’s going? The trail abruptly opens and leads to a bluff. I see her, a silhouette bobbing ahead of me. “Anna!” I call out. “Wait!”

  She glances over her shoulder, breaks into a run, her backpack bouncing on her back. The wooden railing is gone—it should be there, but now there is only a dangerous bluff. I pick up my pace, my lungs screaming for air. “Don’t go near that edge. Anna!” I’m catching up, her knit hat coming into view. She turns to look at me, eyes wide.

  She flips the backpack off her back, drops it to the ground.

  I stop and hold up my hands. “Anna. What are you doing? Step away. You don’t want to—come over here.”

  She breaks into sobs.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “We can talk about this. It’s not the end of the world.”

&nbs
p; She takes a step back toward the cliff, swaying, pebbles falling behind her, crashing down along the rocks to the ocean below.

  “Anna, step away! Right now. Honey, right now. Your dad is coming. Everything will be okay. Your mom will be okay. An ambulance will take her to the hospital.”

  Anna wipes at her eyes. Time slows to the distant ebb and flow of the surf below the cliff. An eternity passes as droplets of rain fall in slow motion.

  Nobody’s coming. It’s up to me. I can do this. I could try to charge after her, wrestle her to the ground, but she could slip, or jump. I could try to talk her down. I think of all the students who repeat their speech exercises, over and over, until one tiny breakthrough occurs. Anna, withdrawing into herself, the words swallowed by her fear, her pain.

  “I’m going to sit down,” I say. I sit in the grass, in the rain. “Sit with me, Anna. I’m not going to leave you.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest.

  “Let’s take a rest.” The rain soaks my hair now. I zip my phone into my jacket pocket to keep it dry. I stay seated, resisting every urge to go after her.

  She sits slowly next to her backpack. Still too close to the edge.

  “I know you don’t want to go home; you want to live out here forever.”

  She nods, looking out to sea. Don’t slip.

  “I don’t blame you,” I say. “You feel you can’t go back. This is so hard.”

  She nods again.

  “All right. I get it. We need to stay warm, then. We could make a fire. I learned how when I was younger, at camp. We’ll need food.”

  She looks at the ground, her face glistening with rain and tears.

  “We could pick berries,” I say. “Slim pickings this time of year.”

  She stops crying, sniffs.

  “We could find huckleberries,” I say. I want to scream at her, Come away from the edge! But I sit still, letting the rain soak through me. I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting here, the storm between us. I inch toward her across the wet grass, so slowly I barely notice I’m moving. Nathan shouts in the distance, calling for us.