Stalking the Phoenix

by Karen Woods

  “Could we just sit and talk for a few minutes. I really don’t want to be alone, just now.”

  “You need to relax. I’m worried about you,” I confessed.

  Alicia sighed. “Can we sit and talk?”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Anything, nothing. I don’t care. I just don’t want to be alone right now. Please. I don’t think that I could face being alone in a small room right now.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Let’s go into the living room.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  I poured her a brandy. She had kicked off her shoes and was sitting on the sofa with her legs curled up beneath her.

  “Here.”

  “You aren’t having anything?”

  “No. I need to keep my wits about me.”

  “But you would like to see me witless?” Alicia asked, with a smile, as she took the snifter from me. She sat the glass down on the end table without sipping it.

  “Maybe. Maybe I would like to see a bit more of the real Al. She fascinates me. I can see now why Geoff was so taken with you. Now, drink up.”

  “No. I really shouldn’t.”

  “I know that you don’t drink, much, Al. But, make an exception.”

  “No. It isn’t good for the baby.”

  I did a double take. “Baby?”

  Alicia blushed brightly. “We weren’t going to say anything about that to anyone yet. It’s early days, yet. In fact, we just found out for sure before we went up to Chicago.”

  “You are sure that you are pregnant?”

  “I can tell you almost to the hour when this child was conceived. The pregnancy has been confirmed by both a serum pregnancy test and an ultrasound.”

  “How pregnant are you?”

  “Less than a month.”

  “Are you happy about it?”

  “Phil,” she said, “I’m thirty-seven-years-old. Do you think that I would be marrying at this stage of my life, if babies weren’t a primary concern? I may only have a couple of years, if that long, left to have a child. The biological clock is ticking away, and it’s ticking rather loudly. Yes, I am very happy about this baby. I am ecstatic about the baby.

  “What?” Al demanded breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen following her statement.

  “Is it Geoff’s?”

  I immediately regretted the question. My sister, Jan, had been a diabetic. Geoff had undergone a vasectomy, after Jan had agreed to marry him, because it would have been dangerous for her to ever have a child.

  Al looked at me for a long moment as she visibly fought her growing indignation. “That was out of line,” she said harshly. “What makes you think that it isn’t Geoff’s baby? Have I ever given you any indication that I wasn’t faithful to Geoff?”

  “You’re right. It was out of line. I’m sorry.”

  “You ought to be!”

  “I never apologize twice.”

  “Something’s bothering you, if you could even ask that question. What is it?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “How can I not worry about it? Something has shaken you. Don’t you think that I would be a good mother?” Al demanded of me.

  “Do you love Geoff, Alicia?”

  “He’s the man whom I am to marry. That should say everything.”

  “It should. Does it?”

  She looked away from me for a minute. “Geoff is a good man. He’s stable, well respected, good looking, and funny. He cares about me. He’s more than capable of giving our children a strong father figure.”

  “It sounds like you are trying to talk yourself into loving him.”

  She blanched. “You’re way out of line here, Philip.”

  “But, are you in love with him, Alicia?”

  I hadn’t thought that she could be any whiter than she had been a moment before, but I had been wrong. Al’s face resembled nothing more than a just bleached white cotton sheet. I thought that she was going to be sick, faint, or something equally drastic. There were only two times that I had ever seen a woman turn that particular shade of white. The first time, the woman had gone into cardiac arrest. The second time, the woman had picked up a knife and had attacked her husband. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from Al.

  Slowly, the color came back to her face.

  “Geoff is my best friend, Al. I love him as though he were my own brother. In fact, he was supposed to have been my brother-in-law. He would have been my brother-in-law, except that Jan died less than a week before their wedding. I would hate to see you and he walk into a marriage which would make both of you miserable.”

  Al sighed.

  I lightly touched her face. “I’m sorry, Al. You’ve been going through all this stress. You don’t need me giving you more problems to think about, especially now, in your condition.”

  Al nodded negatively as she raised her hand to mine. “No. I only want honesty from people. Thank you for caring enough to share your fears with me. That means a good deal. Geoff and I will be very happy together. Thank you for loving him enough to speak your mind.”

  “I love you, too, Al. You are very special to me, not only because of how Geoff feels about you. I don’t want to see you making a mistake which will ruin your life.”

  Al sighed. “I don’t want to be making a mistake either. But, I don’t see this marriage as a mistake. In fact, it may be the best thing that I have ever done.”

  “You just relax a little. I’ll go make a pot of herb tea for you. You’ve probably given up caffeine, too, right.”

  “Not entirely. Coffee smells rank, these days, as I discovered recently.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Want some help?”

  “No. You just rest.”

  I stood in my kitchen. I rinsed the teapot with hot water, then filled it from the tap of “instant” hot water I had installed because I hated to wait for hot water to boil. I added two bags of a tea that Tommy Liguori down at the health food store had recommended as a mild sedative. Then I added a generous measure of very good vodka. She needed to unwind. Surely a little alcohol wouldn’t harm anything? Would it? Oh, I knew the talk about fetal alcohol syndrome. But surely one drink wouldn’t harm anything?

  “I can remember sneaking down the stairs on long winter nights when I was very young to spy on my parents. Daddy would always pour them each a brandy. Then they’d sit on the floor in front of the fireplace. Most of the time, Mom would sit and Daddy would lie with his head in her lap. She would stroke his blond hair and they would talk softly with one another. I never could hear the conversation, but I didn’t need to. It was enough that I could see how much they cared about each other,” she said as she brought the old image to her mind.

  I smiled at her. This side of Al was something that I had never seen. “Where did you grow up?”

  “Lake Forest, until I was six. Then here and there around the Chicago area. After my parents died.”

  “You lost your parents when you were six? That’s tough.”

  “It felt that way at the time. Looking back on it, I had a good series of foster homes. No one abused me. I was always clean, well fed, and cared for.” Then she added with a large measure of self-derision in her voice, “But I wouldn’t let too many people close to me. I guess that I was good at building walls even back then.”

  “How many foster homes?”

  “In the twelve years between my parent’s deaths and my eighteenth birthday, I was in seventeen foster homes.”

  “Seventeen?”

  “I was a bit of a terror, I’m afraid,” Al confessed with remembered pain and mischief in her eyes.

  “So what happened to Alicia the Imp?”

  “She grew up. The imp seldom appears these days. Because I’ve learned to suppress my rage, to channel it, to master it,” Al said starkly. “It doesn’t control me, any longer. There was a time when the rage did control me. But, I’ve grown past that.”

  “Rage?” She alw
ays picked her words carefully. Rage wasn’t a term that she would have used lightly. “I can’t even envision you enraged.”

  “Pray that you never do. I gather that it isn’t a pretty sight. But, it’s been years since I’ve lost control that thoroughly. It used to frighten me when I lost my temper. No, I worked hard for years to vanquish the Imp, to get a handle on my rage.”

  “You were enraged at the shelter when you killed Luis and Juan Hernandez.”

  “Yes. That was the last time that I’ve seen red.”

  “If the Hernandez brothers hadn’t come into your life, would you have stayed in your religious order?”

  “Probably. I was happy there. The work was hard, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I had already gone through my candidacy, postulancy, novitiate, and was ten months into my last set of annual vows before I would have been taking those final vows that would have bound me for life. The order had been my life since I had graduated from college. The order had put me through graduate school, getting me my Masters in Social Work. In two months time, I was to have made my vows again, this time for life. Religious life filled a big void in my life. I felt as though I was doing what God wanted me to be doing. I was happy. Before the attack, I couldn’t imagine ever leaving Religious Life. But, things don’t always go the way that we want them to.”

  “No, they don’t,” I agreed with feeling. “I had expected to have the rest of my life with Rachel. Neither of us expected that forever would be less than fifteen years after we took our marriage vows.”

  Al finished her tea. “Life has a way of leaving scars on all of us, doesn’t it? Sometimes, I think that it is a wonder that any of us can be functional. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t fallen under the ‘walking wounded’ category at one time or other. Several of us live there.”

  I took the cup from her. After refilling the cup, I returned it to her.

  Al took the tea from me. “You really do know how to spoil a girl.”

  “I just want to see that you are able to rest tonight. Besides, you can’t spoil someone who is already completely rotten.”

  Al took another sip of the liquid. Then she sat it down, on a coaster, on the end table.

  “I am so frightened that some hot shot reporter is going to dig around enough that he’ll discover who the adoptive parents of the baby were. The last thing that I want is for the child to be exposed to the notoriety of having been fathered like that. Childhood peers can be terribly cruel. I hate to think how badly the little girl’s self image could be damaged by that sort of irresponsible journalism. There’s been enough pain. I fear innocents being dragged into this. I really fear that.”

  “Do you know who adopted the baby?”

  “Yes. It was an open adoption. I met them before the baby was born.”

  “That had to be hard.”

  “She was my child as much as she was a-a Hernandez . . . I loved her, in spite of everything. She deserved a home with two parents who would love her unconditionally.”

  “Do you ever regret the decision to give up the child?”

  “No. It was for the best,” Al replied. “I feared that there would come a day when I would look at the child and see only the Hernandez in her. That frightened me, terribly. I knew that I couldn’t live with the daily reminder of those few terrible hours. And I knew that I couldn’t take the risk of having the child realize that her mother dreaded looking at her. She deserved better.”

  “You never considered abortion?”

  Al was silent for a long moment. “Of course, I considered abortion. Well-meaning people kept urging me towards it. The temptation was there. Very few people would have condemned me for the action. But, I knew that I could never have lived with myself later, if I had killed an innocent person just because of who her father was, and what he had done.” Then she downed the rest of the spiked hot tea.

  “It couldn’t have been an easy few months for you.”

  “It wasn’t that hard. The pregnancy was easy. I didn’t have any problems. And she was so beautiful. Her parents still send me photos of her, and letters full of news of her, through my attorney. She has brought them so much joy.”

  “You are still in touch with them?”

  “Not directly. I don’t think that close contact would be good for any of us, especially not for Joanie. It’s better this way,” Al replied. “Would you like to see a picture of my daughter?”

  “Of course.”

  Al removed her wallet from her small purse. She flipped it open. “This was this year’s school picture. She’s eleven. But she’s a high school senior.”

  “She has her mother’s brains.”

  “She’s talking about medical school. She wants to be a trauma surgeon. Her grades are good enough. She shows real promise in science. In fact, she has already had three years of college chemistry, mathematics, and biology courses to supplement her high school curriculum. She’s an exceptional kid.”

  I took another look at the young girl in the photo. “She has your nose and chin.”

  “Yeah,” Al agreed. “Poor child.”

  “You really have a hard time taking a compliment, don’t you?”

  Al yawned.

  “Why don’t you go take your bath, now?”

  Al rose from the sofa. She wobbled a little in her weariness. I reached up to steady her. She smiled at me.

  “That tea was stronger than I thought, or I am more exhausted than I thought I was.” Al sank back down to the sofa.

  “I guess so.”

  Al yawned widely. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that I had been drinking.”

  “Come on, Alicia Marie. Time to put you to bed. You can worry about the bath in the morning.”

  I escorted her to her bedroom, my arm around her waist as we climbed the stairs. I threw open the door to the bedroom and turned on the light. “Here you are.”

  Al smiled at me. “Thanks, Phil.”

  “No problem.”

  Al swayed towards me.

  “Steady, Lady.”

  “Did your folks give you growth hormones while you were a baby?” Al asked as she tilted her head upwards slightly and smiled at me. She giggled slightly.

  “In you go,” I said.

  “Don’t condescend, Philip,” she replied, gathering her dignity about her.

  “Of course not. Sleep well, Al.”

  Al reached up, grasped my collar, and pulled my face down to her level.

  “Thank you for being such a good friend, Phil.” She kissed me.

  But the friendly kiss she meant to give me all too quickly metamorphosed into something far more passionate.

  I’m sure that neither of us knew who was kissing whom.

  Kissing Alicia with both of us standing isn’t likely to be a prolonged experience. There is too much disparity in our heights. My arms wrapped tightly around her. I straightened and lifted her up to a far more comfortable level. I couldn’t remember the last time that I wanted anything the way that I wanted the woman whom I was kissing. There hadn’t been a serious woman in my life in almost three years. I had almost forgotten how good it felt to have a woman’s hands in my hair.

  Regaining some measure of sanity, I lowered her to a standing position, while stepping back slightly. I shook my head negatively.

  Al couldn’t look at me. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “Look, you’ve been under a strain lately. It’s understandable. We’re both adults, Al. It’s called chemistry. But, it doesn’t mean anything. Neither of us would ever do anything to hurt Geoff.”

  “I don’t make a habit out of throwing myself at men,” Al said.

  Gently, with one hand, I urged her head up so that she was looking at me. “You get some rest now. Okay? We’ll just forget that this ever happened.”

  “Good night, Philip. Sleep well.”

  “You too.”

  But, we both knew that we were both far more disturbed by the kiss than either of us was willing to let on.
But, maybe I’m being presumptuous in speaking for her.

  The sound of Al screaming woke me, with a start, at two-thirty. I didn’t bother with a robe. Instead, I grabbed my gun from the night table and went to her room. What I found was far different than anything that I had feared, and far more frightening.

  Al was alone. She was still asleep. But, she was lying on her side, curled into a fetal position, with tears running down her face. And she was shaking.

  I tucked the .38 Special into the back of the elastic waistband of my pajama trousers. Then I sank down on my knees beside the bed. “Al!”

  I watched her eyes open. Somehow, I had never really noticed her remarkable eyes until about a month ago. Now, every time that I looked at her, I was struck by the beauty and strength behind them.

  “Nightmare,” Al said in a voice very different from her normal tone.

  “Al? Want to talk about it?”

  “Go back to bed. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “Are you well?”

  “No, I’m not. But, I am in no danger at the moment. It was just a nightmare.”

  “Have them frequently?”

  “More than I care to admit.”

  “Always?”

  “Recently.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really, no,” she answered. “Thank you. Please go back to bed.”

  I nodded negatively, as I rose from my kneeling position. I sat down on the bed, facing her.

  “Phil, please,” she practically begged, “go back to your own room.”

  “Not until you talk to me about the dream.”

  Al sat up, and pulled the sheet up over her. She hugged her knees. Her less than neat nighttime braid fell forward.

  I thought that she looked much younger than her years.

  Al bit her lip. “It was your standard nonsense nightmare.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m not sure that I can. It’s pretty disjointed.”

  “Nightmares often are.”

  “I was being chased through a series of darkened halls and rotting stairways. There were holes in the floors I couldn’t see, but which were large enough for me to drop through to the lower levels of the building. The ceilings were huge, twelve or fourteen feet. I knew that if I fell, I would die. Hernandez was calling out taunts as he chased me. He had a flashlight. It was pointed just ahead of his feet, so that he could see where he was going. That was almost the only light available until I got down to the ground floor. Just when I thought that I had gotten away, I was at a door that led outside, I could see the sunlight streaming through the window on the door, I noticed that the door was fastened with two deadbolt locks. The glass was thick, and wire reinforced. The only way out was to go back into the darkness where he was waiting for me. Geoff was on the other side of the door. He was holding keys, frantically trying to find one that opened the door. And Hernandez was getting closer. I could hear his footsteps . . .”