The Day She Died

by S. M. Freedman

  “Eve —”

  “Is that detective still harassing you?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “How many times has he been by?”

  “Just a few. It’s fine.”

  She pressed harder against her eyelids. “Stop answering the door. He has no right to keep after you like that.”

  Button was silent for a moment. “But we have nothing to hide.”

  “He’s digging. He doesn’t have anything on me, or he’d be showing up with a search warrant. Don’t let him upset you like this.”

  “I’ve dealt with much worse than that.”

  She let her hands drop to the table. Her gaze rolled downward, and she saw how jagged her fingernails had become, and how her hands trembled. “I guess you have.”

  Button sighed. “Oh, Eve. How did we get to this point? Donna’s gone, you’re in this horrible place, and everything is fercockt.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Maybe I’ve lived too long.” Button’s voice clogged with emotion.

  She managed to look up. “Please don’t say that. You’re all I have left in this world.”

  Tears and mascara ran a jagged course along her grandmother’s wrinkled cheeks, exposing the fault lines in her foundation. How much more could Button take before she broke into a million pieces?

  “And you’re all I have, my Frida. So, you have no choice but to get better.”

  “All right. I’ll try.”

  The tears dried as quickly as they’d come. Her grandmother gave her a look like flint against steel. “You’re going to participate in group therapy. And start eating.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “And let Dr. Jeffries help you.”

  “But she doesn’t want to help me. She’s trying to give me the rope to hang myself with.”

  “That’s simply not true.”

  Eve’s eyes rolled upward, and she forced them back down. “‘For you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.’ That one resonates, doesn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “That was the note on my pillow this morning. I’ve turned justice into poison. That’s no coincidence, is it?”

  “What are you saying?” Button said. “I don’t understand.”

  “And this new pill. The little green one.”

  “I don’t —”

  “Don’t you dare try to tell me you don’t know about this pill.”

  Shaking her head, Button balled the collar of her sweater tighter against her throat. “Please, dear. You’re not well.”

  Those words were the match to Eve’s fuel. Jumping up, she shouted, “What’s in that pill, Button? Tell me what’s in that pill!”

  “You’re scaring me. Please …”

  The orderlies descended, pulling her away from the table.

  “Tell me the truth! I want to know the truth!”

  They dragged her from the room. The last she saw of her grandmother, Button was huddled in her chair like a dog waiting to be kicked.

  They carried her past her room. She screamed and bellowed, her eyes rolling like marbles. As they passed schizos and weirdos and mopers and dopers, they all gawked at her like she was the crazy one.

  Through a set of double doors, down another long hall, and into the Quiet Room. They lifted her onto the bed and one nurse straddled her while the others strapped her down. A needle pricked her arm, and her blood rolled through her veins like lava.

  “Not so mundane now, am I?” Her voice warbled and slowed, like a record player with dying batteries.

  The room narrowed to a pinprick, and she was gone.

  SEVENTEEN

  “YOU’RE TWO YEARS LATE for your party, my darling.”

  Hector’s voice dragged her from the fog of quicksilver and into the high-gloss atrium of his art gallery. It was an assault on her senses, with needles of light stabbing her eyes and the crowd’s chatter like daggers in her eardrums. But she could smell the citrus and lavender of Hector’s aftershave, as familiar as her own home. A warm arm wrapped around her shoulders and held her steady.

  “But you know what they say, better late than never. Oh, you’ll have to forgive me; it seems all I’m capable of tonight are clichés.”

  She looked up and saw the sheen in his eyes. His hair was slicked back, his skin impeccably smooth, his eyes like fine chocolate. “And here’s another one. You really dodged a bullet there, my darling.”

  Her body was like a broken vase put back together with glue and steel rods. “I didn’t dodge anything.”

  The words tore at her throat, as though she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She coughed and tasted bile. A low-level tingle of nausea travelled from her stomach to her chest and up into her throat, where it sat like a lump, threatening to cause trouble at any moment. The white marble staircase at the far end of the gallery throbbed in time with her heartbeat, as though beckoning her to escape before it was too late.

  Hector turned to watch the crowd, a look of satisfaction on his face. The turnout was good. His arm tightened around her shoulders, and she knew he was deciding upon the right moment to step out of the shadows.

  “Are you ready to fly, my nightingale?”

  “I can barely walk,” she said.

  “No need.” Before she could protest, he dragged her forward. The crowd shifted and sighed around her. Their faces were moon masks of bloody lips and wolfish teeth. Frightened, Eve stepped back, dodged out of Hector’s grasp, and lost her balance. She would have fallen, if not for Leigh grabbing her by the elbow.

  “Hang tight, Mrs. Adler. You’ve worked too hard to turn chicken now.”

  Like warm clay, his body molded against hers and held all her fractured pieces together.

  “Oh my God. Do you see?”

  “See what?”

  His hand pushed firmly against the small of her back, steering her forward. She saw the back of Hector’s perfectly coiffed head bobbing through the crowd several feet ahead of them.

  “Why are they all so pale?”

  “Oh, Eve,” he said. “Not tonight, okay?”

  “But —”

  He steered her into a cloud of perfume surrounding the women Hector called “shelfers.” Plastic-skinned and bedecked in jewels, they were the trophies high-end lawyers, politicians, and local celebrities mounted on their shelves. They perched precariously on their stilettos like skeletons in Chanel, and were the true bread and butter of the art world. She understood her job, so she plastered on a smile.

  “Darling!”

  Like a pet, Eve was passed from one bony embrace to the next. No heat to be found, only cold hearts and cold hands and cold smiles. She greeted them politely, kissed powdered cheeks.

  Leigh’s hand remained warm against her back, a guide through the onslaught. She was at a noticeable disadvantage in her flat shoes, speaking pleasantries into one set of expensive cleavage after another.

  She leaned forward, overwhelmed by the sudden desire to motorboat an enormous set of breasts on display in front of her. She giggled madly at the thought, and Leigh yanked her away, finding some free space beside the bar. A line had formed, but those people were more interested in alcohol than in an artist who was coming unhinged.

  He bent over her. “You’ve got to get it together.”

  She hiccupped into his face, and his lips twitched with momentary humour.

  “For heaven’s sake. You just laughed at that woman’s boob job.”

  “Guess the gallery’s lost a benefactor.” She giggled, tears squeezing from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks, likely taking her mascara with them.

  “What’s so funny?” Leigh sounded frustrated. Rummaging in his pocket, he came up with a crumpled tissue and handed it to her.

  “Nothing. Nothing’s funny.” It was the truth. She wasn’t really laughing; she was screaming upside down.

  “Did I paint something?”

  But he wasn’t listening. “There’s Hector.�
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  Once again, Leigh’s hand pressed the small of her back. “Come on, it looks like he’s ready to open the doors.”

  Hector stood by a red ribbon strung across a set of closed doors. He smiled with ease, laughing and nodding at those who crowded around him, but his gaze was also scanning the room. Searching for her, Eve supposed.

  “Is it like theatre? Do I say ‘break a leg’?” Leigh asked.

  “I’d rather not break anything tonight.”

  His hand slipped lower and squeezed. “Good luck, then.”

  As they moved toward Hector, the nausea churned inside her. She wondered what they would do if she vomited on her shoes. This thought loosed another brief fit of giggles.

  “Ready, my darling?” Hector asked, looking relieved to see her. He extended a hand, and she clutched it like a life preserver.

  “Let’s roll,” she said. “The suspense is killing me.”

  Patting her hand, he turned to the crowd. Hector was made for moments like this, where he could show off his wit in a charmingly self-deprecating way. It drew people to him, no matter their wealth or culture.

  She tuned him out, fixating on the scissors he held in his hand. She didn’t like scissors, she realized. They were vicious tools meant for cutting, severing, and untethering. And these ones were silver, a bad omen. Her smile grew stiff and forced.

  Hector was doing a good job of wooing the crowd. Holding up the scissors, he paused dramatically, letting the applause and laughter build.

  “What did he say?” she said to Leigh, feeling panicked.

  Leigh’s attention was on Hector’s show. “What?”

  “What’s the exhibit called?” But she didn’t need his answer. There was a banner above the door. It hung twelve feet across, was boldly lettered, and was impossible to miss. And yet she had missed it, until this moment.

  The Resurrection of Sin.

  “What happened to The Other Side?”

  That got Leigh’s attention. Turning to look down at her, he shook his head sadly. “Oh, Eve.”

  “What? Leigh … what?” She reached for him, frantic, and found his hands. They were so warm, and she was so cold she felt she could disappear.

  “Ready?” Hector whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Absolutely,” Leigh said with a bright smile, and then turned back to her. “The Other Side closed two years ago. While you were still in the hospital.”

  Hector raised the scissors to the ribbon.

  “Oh, of course.” Tears of confusion burned her eyes. “So, what show is this? What have I painted?”

  But her voice got lost in a cacophony of applause.

  The ribbon was cut. Hector smiled, but his eyelid twitched. He was nervous. Did he not believe in her show? Or was it because she’d become so unpredictable?

  “Ta-da,” Hector said, and the doors to the exhibit opened. The crowd surged around them as though they were rocks in a stream.

  “Want to come see?” Leigh asked.

  “It’s a powerful show,” Hector said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Come on, darling. They’ll want to pester you with questions, get their money’s worth.”

  “I don’t —”

  “Here we go,” Hector said with false cheeriness as they guided her through the doorway. It was the same tone a nurse used when wheeling a patient to the shock-treatment room; she’d heard it plenty, and her gorge rose in response.

  They led her to the opening wall of the exhibit. The painting was massive, eight feet across by ten feet high, and for a moment she was stunned silent by the logistics required to paint such a large canvas, especially in her small studio. But the painting itself …

  It was titled Persephone, the Pale Queen. An army of thick black feathers funnelled up to the top of the canvas, a cocoon from which a woman emerged, naked and bathed in moonlight. She reached heavenward, grasping with dirt-smeared hands at a tattered silver rope. But her gaze was turned to look below her, tears spilling down a vulpine face covered in purple bruises, her hair a cloud of blood-dipped curls. Her breasts were plump globes, engorged and blue-veined, nipples dripping blood rather than milk. The blood ran in rivulets over an abdomen swollen with pregnancy, and fat red drops fell from the black dagger of her pubis.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “Isn’t she magnificent?” Hector said.

  “She’s me!”

  Hector’s voice rose, speaking to the crowd that gathered around them. “Isn’t the desperation in her expression haunting? As the story goes, Persephone was forced into marriage by the god of the underworld, Hades, when she was no more than fourteen. Notice how the interplay of light and shadow highlights the juxtaposition between hope and despair?”

  “Remarkable,” someone said, and others murmured agreement.

  Hector took a step closer to the painting, clasping his hands behind his back and smiling beatifically. “Remarkable, yes. Persephone fought to regain her life among the living, but because she’d eaten some pomegranate seeds in the underworld, she couldn’t be completely freed. So she lived partly in the land of the living, and partly in the land of the dead.”

  “Tell me,” a woman said, nudging closer to Eve. Her face was powdered to a paper finish, her eyes shiny blue marbles. “Was your accident the inspiration for this painting?”

  Eve shook her head and tried to step away, but the crowd surrounded her from all sides.

  “Oh, look, it’s already sold!” Hector said, clapping his hands. Others joined in as a slender woman in a tight suit stepped forward. As she placed a red sticker on the plaque beside the painting, the applause grew.

  “Wonderful!” Hector said. “Shall we move on?”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” Eve’s stomach heaved as though proving the sincerity of her words.

  Hector didn’t hear her. He was bouncing, waving his arms to draw the crowd forward. He always said the first sale was the hardest, but if it happened early one could expect a deluge.

  “This way.” Leigh pulled her along.

  People turned, smiled, and pushed closer to her. They took up all the air in the room, and she couldn’t breathe.

  Everywhere she turned, she saw her own naked body. Her breasts were caked with blood, her midsection rounded with pregnancy, her eyes wide with terror and desperation. She’d never felt so humiliated, so exposed — so nauseated.

  In one painting, a metallic serpent coiled around her torso. The tip of the snake’s tail disappeared into the black curls between her legs. Vicious fangs pierced the flesh near her nipple.

  Around a corner, she saw another behemoth of a painting. In this one, the right side of her face was grotesquely purple and misshapen, as though someone had taken a shovel — or a thick tree branch — to her head. Her mouth was open in a silent scream, her teeth black with blood. The serpent had her pinned to the wood-planked seat of a chariot, its silver body coiled around her waist and neck.

  It looks like a chariot, but it’s actually a chairlift. And we know where it’s going, don’t we? Down and down and down.

  Deep within her abdomen, she felt a sharp stab of pain. The nausea crested, causing her to retch.

  Leigh grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  “She needs air!” Leigh shoved toward the emergency exit. Slowly, ever so slowly, the crowd parted before them. He pushed and pleaded, dragging her in his wake. She shut her eyes, focusing all her energy on not vomiting.

  An alarm sounded. Cool air hit her face. He closed the door behind them with just moments to spare. Everything came out of her with such force it knocked her to her knees.

  “Lord have mercy.” He laughed nervously and skittered out of her way.

  “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “Oh, damn, I’ve ruined my dress.”

  Rather than move away from her and the puddle of vomit, he lowered himself to the concrete. Leaning against the emergency exit door, he watched her with weary eyes.

>   “What the hell, Eve. This was supposed to be a big night for us.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “I’m making an appointment with Dr. Jeffries.”

  “Please don’t. I hate her.”

  “But this, whatever this is, is beyond my scope.”

  “I promise I’ll do better. Please, just give me another chance.”

  He shook his head. “You need medical help. A full workup.”

  “Not her. I need a different kind of doctor.”

  “What? Why?”

  Without warning, she spewed vomit on Leigh’s new shoes. He yelped and tried to get away from the onslaught, but to no avail.

  Once finished, she said, “Because I think I’m pregnant. Again.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Sara’s Fourteenth Birthday

  “I SAID I’M TAKING YOU,” Donna told her.

  “I promised I’d go. You don’t need to police me.”

  “Apparently I do.” Donna’s mouth was turned down in a surly grimace, as though she’d been sucking on lemons.

  “Fine. But why does it have to be today?”

  “I’ve already rearranged my schedule to take the day off work. I told my secretary I was planning a special mother-daughter day.” The irony twisted Donna’s mouth even more.

  “And Button? Do we tell her?”

  Donna shook her head. “It would kill her.”

  “I know,” Eve said softly.

  “She thinks I’m taking you to get your ears pierced — which I will. After.”

  “All right.” Her stomach rumbled a threat.

  “Can you eat some toast?”

  “Yes,” she said, although she wasn’t sure.

  “Then make yourself some. I’m going to take a shower.” She paused at the kitchen doorway and turned to look at her daughter. “Your grandmother will be back from her walk soon.”

  “I’ll act like nothing’s wrong.”

  Donna tipped her head to the side, considering. Her pillow had teased the hair above her right ear into something resembling a bird’s nest, and this visible imperfection eased the tension around Eve’s heart just a little.