Fear Itself

by Jeff Gelb

  Mommy gave Aunt Beth the “mind your own business” look. Then she turned to Jessica Ann, and pointed to the kitchen. “Now, march in there, young lady …”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  “Your salad, too.”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  After dinner, Jessica Ann went to her room, a pink world of stuffed animals and Barbie dolls; she had a frilly four-poster bed that Mommy got in an antique shop. She flopped onto it and thought about Mrs. Withers. Thought about what a nice lady Mrs. Withers was….

  She was crying into her pillow when Aunt Beth came in.

  “There, there,” Aunt Beth said, sitting on the edge of the bed, patting the girl’s back. “Get it out of your system.”

  “Do … do you think Mrs. Withers had any children?”

  “Probably. Maybe even grandchildren.”

  “Do you … do you think I should write them a letter, about what a good teacher she was?”

  Aunt Beth’s eyes filled up with tears and she clutched Jessica Ann to her. This time Jessica Ann didn’t mind. She clutched back, crying into her aunt’s blouse.

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  “I’ll write it tonight, and add their names later, when I find them out.”

  “Fine. Jessy …” Aunt Beth was the only grown-up who ever called her that; Mommy didn’t like nicknames. “… you know, your mother… she’s kind of a … special person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well… it’s just that… she has some wonderful qualities.”

  “She’s very smart. And pretty.”

  “Yes.”

  “She does everything for me.”

  “She does a lot for you. But … she doesn’t always feel things like she should.”

  “What do you mean, Aunt Beth?”

  “It’s hard to explain. She was babied a lot … there were four of us, you know, and she was the youngest. Your grandparents, rest their souls, gave her everything. And why not? She was so pretty, so perfect—”

  “She always got her way, didn’t she?”

  “How did you know that, Jessica Ann?”

  “I just do. ‘Cause she still does, I guess.”

  “Jessy … I always kind of looked after your mother … protected her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just … as you grow older, try to understand … try to forgive her when she seems … if she seems …”

  “Cold?”

  Aunt Beth nodded. Smiled sadly. “Cold,” she said. “In her way, she loves you very much.”

  “I know.”

  “I have dessert downstairs. You too blue for chocolate cake?”

  “Is Mark here? I thought I heard his car.”

  “He’s here,” Aunt Beth said, smiling. “And he’s asking for you. Mark and chocolate cake—that’s quite a combo.”

  Jessica Ann grinned, took a tissue from the box on her nightstand, dried her eyes, took her aunt’s hand, and allowed herself to be led from her room down the half-stairs.

  Mommy’s new boyfriend, Mark Jeffries, was in the living room sitting in Mr. Sterling’s recliner, sipping an iced tea.

  “There’s my girl!” he said, as Jessica Ann came into the room; Aunt Beth was in the kitchen with Mommy.

  Mark sat forward in the chair, then stood—he was younger than either Mr. Sterling or Daddy, and really good looking, like a soap opera actor with his sandy hair and gray sideburns and deep tan. He wore a green sweater and new jeans and a big white smile. Also, a Rolex watch.

  She went quickly to him, and he bent down and hugged her. He smelled good—like lime.

  He pushed her gently away and looked at her with concern in his blue-gray eyes. “Are you okay, angel?”

  “Sure.”

  “Your mommy told me about today. Awful rough.” He took her by the hand and led her to the couch. He sat down and nodded for her to join him. She did.

  “Angel, if you need somebody to talk to …”

  “I’m fine, Mark. Really.”

  “You know … when I was ten, my Boy Scout leader died. He was killed in an automobile accident. I didn’t have a dad around … he and Mom were divorced … and my Scout leader was kind of a … surrogate father to me. You know what that is?”

  “Sure. He kind of took the place of a dad.”

  “Right. Anyway, when he died, I felt … empty. Then I started to get afraid.”

  “Afraid, Mark?”

  “I started to think about dying for the first time. I had trouble. I had nightmares. For the first time I realized nobody Uves forever …”

  Jessica Ann had known that for a long time. First Daddy, then Mr. Sterling….

  “I hope you don’t have trouble like that,” he said. “But if you do—I just want you to know … I’m here for you.”

  She didn’t say anything—just beamed at him.

  She was crazy about Mark. Jessica Ann hoped he and Mommy would get married. She thought she could even feel comfortable calling him Daddy. Maybe.

  Mommy had met Mark at a country club dance last month. He had his own business—some kind of mail-order thing that was making a lot of money, she heard Mommy say—and had moved to Femdale to get away from the urban blight where he used to live.

  Jessica Ann found she could talk to Mark better than to any grown-up she’d ever met. Even better than Aunt Beth. And as much as Jessica Ann loved her Mommy, they didn’t really talk—no shared secrets, or problems.

  But Mark put Jessica Ann at ease. She could talk to him about problems at school or even at home.

  “Who wants dessert?” Aunt Beth called.

  Soon Jessica Ann and Mark were sitting at the kitchen table while Mommy, in her perfect white apron (she never got anything on it, so why did she wear it?) was serving up big pieces of chocolate cake.

  “I’ll just have the ice cream,” Aunt Beth told Mommy.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Mommy said. “You’re allergic to chocolate! How thoughtless of me.”

  “Don’t be silly …”

  “How about some strawberry compote on that ice cream?”

  “That does sound good.”

  “There’s a jar in the fridge,” Mommy said.

  Aunt Beth found the jar, but was having trouble opening it.

  “Let me have a crack at that,” Mark said, and took it, but he must not have been as strong as he looked; he couldn’t budge the lid.

  “Here,” Mommy said, impatiently, and took the jar, and with a quick thrust, opened the lid with a loud pop. Aunt Beth thanked her and spooned on the strawberry compote herself.

  Mommy sure was strong, Jessica Ann thought. She’d seen her do the same thing with catsup bottles and pickle jars.

  “Pretty powerful for a little girl,” Mark said teasingly, patting Mommy’s rear end when he thought Jessica Ann couldn’t see. “Remind me not to cross you.”

  “Don’t cross me,” Mommy said, and smiled her beautiful smile.

  At school the next day, Jessica Ann was called to the principal’s office.

  But the principal wasn’t there—waiting for her was the pudgy policeman, the one with the mustache. He had on a different wrinkled suit today. He didn’t seem so grouchy now; he was all smiles.

  “Jessica Ann?” he said, bending down. “Remember me? I’m Lieutenant March. Could we talk for a while?”

  “Okay.”

  “I have permission for us to use Mr. Davis’ office.”

  Mr. Davis was the principal.

  “All right.”

  Lieutenant March didn’t sit at Mr. Davis’ desk; he put two chairs facing each other and sat right across from Jessica Ann.

  “Jessica Ann, why did your mother want to see Mrs. Withers yesterday?”

  “They had a conference.”

  “Parent/teacher conference.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You don’t have to call me sir, Jessica Ann. I want us to befriends.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  He
seemed to be trying to think of what to say next; then finally he said, “Do you know how your teacher died?”

  “She fell off a ladder.”

  “She did fall off a ladder. But Jessica Ann—your teacher’s neck was broken …”

  “When she fell off the ladder.”

  “We have a man called the Medical Examiner who says that it didn’t happen that way. He says it’s very likely a pair of hands did that.”

  Suddenly Jessica Ann remembered the jar of strawberry compote, and the other bottles and jars Mommy had twisted caps off, so easily.

  “Jessica Ann … something was missing from Mrs. Withers’ desk.”

  Jessica Ann’s tummy started jumping.

  “A plaque, Jessica Ann. A plaque for Outstanding Student of the Year.’ You won last year, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mrs. Withers told several friends that your mother called her, complaining about you not winning this year.”

  Jessica Ann said nothing.

  “Jessica Ann … the mother of the boy who won the plaque, Eduardo’s mother, Mrs. Melindez, would like to have that plaque. Means a lot to her. If you should happen to find it, would you tell me?”

  “Why would I find it?”

  “You just might. Could your mother have picked it up when she went into the classroom?”

  “If she did,” Jessica Ann said, “that doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Who said anything about proving anything, Jessica Ann?”

  She stood. “I think if you have any more questions for me, Lieutenant March, you should talk to my mother.”

  “Jessica Ann …”

  But the little girl hear didn’t hear anything else; not anything the policeman said, or what any of her friends said the rest of the day, or even the substitute teacher.

  All she could hear was the sound of the lid on the strawberry compote jar popping open.

  When Jessica Ann got home, she found the house empty. A note from Mommy said she had gone grocery shopping. The girl got herself some milk and cookies but neither drank nor ate. She sat at the kitchen table staring at nothing. Then she got up and began searching her mother’s room.

  In the middle drawer of a dresser, amid slips and panties, she found the plaque.

  Her fingers flew off the object as if it were a burner on a hot stove. Then she saw her own fingerprints glowing on the brass and rubbed them off with a slick pair of panties, and put the shining plaque back, buried it in Mommy’s underthings.

  She went to her room and found the largest stuffed animal she could and hugged it close; the animal—a bear—had wide button eyes. So did she.

  Her thoughts raced; awful possibilities presented themselves, possibilities that she may have already considered, in some corner of her mind, but had banished.

  Why did Mr. Sterling die of that heart attack?

  What really happened that afternoon Mommy and Daddy went boating?

  She was too frightened to cry. Instead she hugged the bear and shivered as if freezing and put pieces together that fit too well. If she was right, then someone else she thought the world of was in danger….

  Mark Jeffries knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t be sure what.

  He and Jessica Ann had hit it off from the very start, but for the last week, whenever he’d come over to see her mother, the little girl had avoided and even snubbed him.

  It had been a week since the death of Mrs. Withers—he had accompanied both Jessica Ann and her mother to the funeral—and the child had been uncharacteristically brooding ever since.

  Not that Jessica Ann was ever talkative: she was a quiet child, intelligent, contemplative even, but when she opened up (as she did for Mark so often) she was warm and funny and fun.

  Maybe it was because he had started to stay over at the house, on occasion … maybe she was threatened because he had started to share her mother’s bedroom.

  He’d been lying awake in the mother’s bed, thinking these thoughts as the woman slept soundly beside him, when nature called him, and he arose, slipped on a robe and answered the call. In the hallway, he noticed the little girl’s light on in her room. He stopped at the child’s room and knocked, gently.

  “Yes?” came her voice, softly.

  “Are you awake, angel?”

  “Yes.”

  He cracked the door. She was under the covers, wide awake, the ruffly pink shade of her nightstand lamp glowing; a stuffed bear was under there with her, hugged to her.

  “What’s wrong, angel?” he asked, and shut the door behind him, and sat on the edge of her bed.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve barely spoken to me for days.”

  She said nothing.

  “You know you’re number one on my personal chart, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you not like my sleeping over?”

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t you … don’t you think I’d make a good daddy?”

  Tears were welling in her eyes.

  “Angel.”

  She burst into tears, clutching him, bawling like the baby she had been, not so long ago.

  “I … I wanted to chase you away …”

  “Chase me away! Why on earth?”

  “Because … because you would make a good daddy, and I don’t want you to die …”

  And she poured it all out, her fears that her mother was a murderer, that Mommy had killed her teacher and her daddy and even Mr. Sterling.

  He glanced behind him at the closed door. He gently pushed the girl away and, a hand on her shoulder, looked at her hard.

  “How grown-up can you be?” he asked.

  “Real grown-up, if I have to.”

  “Good. Because I want to level with you about something. You might be mad at me …”

  “Why, Mark?”

  “Because I haven’t been honest with you. In fact… I’ve lied.”

  “Lied?”

  And he told her. Told her about being an investigator for the insurance company that was looking into the latest suspicious death linked to her mother, that of her stepfather, Phillip Sterling (at least, the latest one before Mrs. Withers).

  Calmly, quietly, he told the little girl that he had come to believe, like her, that her mother was a murderer.

  “But you … you slept with her …”

  “It’s not very nice. I know. I had to get close to her, to get the truth. With your help, if you can think back and tell me about things you’ve seen, we might be …”

  But that was all he got out.

  The door flew open, slapping the wall like a spurned suitor, and there she was, the beautiful little blond in the babydoll nightie, a woman with a sweet body that he hadn’t been able to resist even though he knew what she most likely was.

  There she was with the .38 in her hand and firing it at him, again and again; he felt the bullets hitting his body, punching him, burning into him like lasers, he thought, then one entered his right eye and put an end to all thought, and to him.

  Jessica Ann was screaming, the bloody body of Mark Jeffries sprawled on the bed before her, scorched bleeding holes on the front of his robe, one of his eyes an awful black hole leaking red.

  Mommy sat beside her daughter and hugged her little girl to her, slipping a hand over her mouth, stifling Jessica Ann’s screams.

  “Hush, dear. Hush.”

  Jessica Ann started to choke, and that stopped the screaming, and Mommy took her hand away. The girl looked at her mother and was startled to see tears in Mommy’s eyes. She couldn’t ever remember Mommy crying, not even at the funerals of Daddy and Mr. Sterling, although she had seemed to cry. Jessica Ann had always thought Mommy was faking … that Mommy couldn’t cry … but now…

  “We have to call the police, dear,” Mommy said, “and when they come, we have to tell them things that fit together. Like a puzzle fits together. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mommy.” Jessica, trembling, wanted to pull
away from her mother, but somehow couldn’t.

  “Otherwise, Mommy will be in trouble. We don’t want that, do we?”

  “No, Mommy.”

  “Mark did bad things to Mommy. Bedroom things. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  “When I heard him in here, I thought he might be doing the same kind of things to you. Or trying to.”

  “But he didn’t—”

  “That doesn’t matter. And you don’t have to say he did. I don’t want you to lie. But those things he told you … about being an investigator … forget them. He never said them.”

  “Oh … okay, Mommy.”

  “If you tell, Mommy would be in trouble. We don’t want that.”

  “No, Mommy.”

  “Now. Who’s your best friend?”

  “You … you are, Mommy.”

  “Who loves you more than anything on God’s green earth?”

  “You do, Mommy.”

  “Good girl.”

  There were a lot of men and women in the house, throughout the night, some of them police, in uniform, some of them in white, some in regular clothes, some using cameras, others carrying out Mark in a big black zippered bag.

  Lieutenant March questioned Mommy for a long time; when all the others had left, he was still there, taking notes. Mommy sat on a couch in the living room, wearing a robe, her arms folded tight to her, her expression as blank as a doll’s. Just behind her was the Christmas tree, in the front window, which Mommy had so beautifully trimmed.

  Aunt Beth had been called and sat with Jessica Ann in the kitchen, but there was no doorway, just an archway separating the rooms, so Jessica could see Mommy as Lieutenant March questioned her. Jessica Ann couldn’t hear what they were saying, most of the time.

  Then she saw Mommy smile at Lieutenant March, a funny, making-fun sort of smile, and that seemed to make Lieutenant March angry. He stood and almost shouted.

  “No, you’re not under arrest,” he said, “and yes, you should contact your attorney.”

  He tromped out to the kitchen, to bring the empty coffee cup (Aunt Beth had given him some coffee) and he looked very grouchy.