by Karen Cimms
She put her hands around his neck and rose onto her toes. Then she kissed him—and this time, as if she meant it.
“I love you,” she said, pressing her hand against his chest before turning back toward the truck. She said it once more, as if he might not have believed her the first time. Then she climbed in the truck and backed down the steep driveway.
The red taillights were visible for some distance as she made her way along the winding road. He stood there long after they disappeared, debating whether to go after her. At least she’d taken his heart with her. It was always with her.
He just wished she believed that.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
According to The Weather Channel, Monday would be clear and in the high fifties. Tuesday would be a good day as well, which meant Monday at sunset would be perfect.
Kate flipped off the television, tossed the remote onto the coffee table, and snatched up her wine glass. There were some details yet to work out, but having a plan made her feel calm, in control. It was like finally figuring out the answer to a complicated math problem that had puzzled her for months. She tossed back the contents of her glass. God, she hated math.
There was a lot to do and less than twenty-four hours to do it in. She needed a list. Devin had always teased her about her list-making. What would he say if he knew about this list? The thought weighed heavy on her, but she pushed it away.
“I can’t think about the kids right now,” she told Charlie.
Damn. Charlie! If they didn’t find her right away, he would starve, and if she left enough food, he’d eat until he got sick. She scribbled his name on her list:
Charlie.
She would have to leave him tied up outside. Someone would hear him barking before too long.
She ruffled the furry head at her feet. “It will be for your own good.”
He lifted his tail, then dropped it with a heavy thud, as if he understood what she was planning.
The next items on the list: call the doctor to reschedule. She would cancel, but knowing Billy, he might have anticipated that, and told them to contact him if she tried. Next, she would have to call Rhiannon so she wouldn’t come over. She also needed to apologize for her outburst. And she’d call Devin. He had a class at four, but she should be able to reach him before then. She would leave them all notes, but not now. That she would save until last.
Write notes.
She drained her glass and refilled it.
Her will. Damn it. She couldn’t exactly ask Tom for an emergency update. She tapped the pen against her chin. Maybe if she just wrote out her wishes, they would follow them.
Will and other stuff.
Tom would have to take care of whatever Joey had left her. She couldn’t worry about it now.
Despite the comfortable numbness taking over, she felt an annoying wave of guilt. She’d promised Joey she would help Tom. She had tried, but after the shooting, she had nothing left to give. She’d leave him a note, too.
Apologize to Tom.
All of them, they would all have to do the right thing, because she couldn’t. She was done. It felt eerie and a little foreign to relinquish control, but she was ready. Relieved, for the most part.
She grabbed the pinot grigio off the counter and headed upstairs but realized once she’d gotten there she’d forgotten the glass.
“Fuck it.” She raised the bottle to her lips. She checked her list.
Pills.
She emptied the top drawer of her nightstand onto the bed and rooted around in the jumble until she found the stash of pills she’d been hoarding. Fifty-nine pills wouldn’t kill her, but they would make her groggy enough to take that final step, just in case she chickened out at the last minute. She tossed them on the bed next to her list.
Her head swam. She wanted to lie down, but there was too much to do. She still hadn’t decided what to be buried in. The white dress was too lightweight and summery. She wouldn’t want to be cold for the rest of eternity.
“Of course it could be hot where I’m going.” She laughed.
She tried to hook the hanger back on the rod but missed, and the dress puddled to the floor at the bottom of the closet.
Nothing appealed to her.
Grabbing the bottle of wine, she headed toward the music room. Standing in the doorway she stopped. The space was so pervasively Billy she expected him to look up at her from the futon, his Stratocaster in his lap. It was warmer in here than in the bedroom. She touched the amp, thinking it might still be on. Maybe it was the dark red walls, or maybe it was the memories associated with the room.
She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. If she could stay there, warm and safe, never have to leave, maybe she could survive. She dropped onto the futon. Heaven would be like this. Warm and safe. And she’d never be afraid. Oh yeah, she wanted to go to heaven.
The bottle of whiskey sat open on the table in front of her. She swirled it under her nose, and her eyes watered.
“Must be an acquired taste.” She dumped the melted ice from Billy’s glass into a half-dead potted fern, then measured three fingers’ worth. Just like in the movies.
She took a cautious sip. It burned, but it wasn’t as much of a surprise as it had been earlier. She swished it around in her mouth like mouthwash and swallowed. Warmth bloomed as it spread to her arms and legs. It was like getting hugged on the inside.
She carried the bottle back into the bedroom. First things first: she needed to find something to wear up the mountain.
Maybe her black leather pants. She would pair them with an oversized black turtleneck sweater. Black would be good, especially if there might be a lot of blood. Much less obvious. She tossed the clothes on the bed and crawled around the bottom of the closet, looking for her black Uggs. Might as well be warm and comfortable.
Her glass was empty, so she poured another three fingers of whiskey. Holding it in a shaky hand, she wandered back to the music room and thumbed through the dresses hanging in that closet. Maybe the dress she wore for Rhiannon’s wedding? She ran her fingers over the heavily beaded jacket and the soft sage crepe de chine skirt. No, it was too matronly. She’d felt old when she wore it, even though she’d only been thirty-nine. Who wanted to feel old for eternity?
How could she have nothing wear? She couldn’t go shopping. The mall had closed at seven. Besides, she was drunk—even she knew that.
“Now what?” she asked Charlie, who wandered in and curled up on the Oriental carpet in the center of the room. She raised the glass to her lips, but it was empty again. No longer able to line her fingers up with the glass, she just poured. Half went into the glass and half onto the table.
She settled back against the cushions of the futon, her insides nice and warm. Comfortably numb.
“I know!” She sprang to her feet, only to stagger and fall back down again. “My wedding dress.”
She got up, slower this time, and swung into the hall, narrowly missing the door frame. It took several tries to catch the cord to lower the attic stairs, and when she did, she yanked so hard they came crashing down and nearly knocked her off her feet. She surged forward and climbed the steep steps on shaky legs.
Still afraid to stand, she surveyed the small space from her knees. In twenty years, she’d never once come up here—and now twice in just a couple of days. It was still just as creepy. At least she knew the box she was looking for wasn’t with the holiday decorations, unless Billy had moved it.
Her eye fell on the box of canceled checks.
“Damn it.”
She should bring it down with her and toss them all over the bedroom so Billy would know she was on to him. She crawled toward the box. But if she did that, she would sentence him to feel guilty the rest of his life. And even as fucked up as she was, she couldn’t do that to him. Too many people had suffered already.
She pulled out one check, why she had no idea, and slipped it into her pocket. Then she pushed the shoebox aside, and after sorting throug
h containers of Rhiannon’s and Devin’s report cards and artwork, she found her dress packed and preserved in pale blue tissue paper from Bayonne Cleaners.
She crawled back to the opening.
“Now what?” How the hell was she supposed to get down? If climbing up had been difficult, getting down while holding a large box would be impossible.
There was only one way. She dropped the box through the hole into the hallway below. It landed on its side and split, spilling its contents onto the floor.
After several attempts to step out onto the ladder, Kate eventually lay on her belly and wiggled until she was partially out of the attic. Her feet flailed, scissor-kicking the air, until she was able to hook her right foot onto one of the rungs. She eased herself down slowly, but her foot missed the last three rungs.
Her chin smashed against the ladder. She flew backwards, biting her tongue and landing on her back, hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She lay on the floor, gaping at the ceiling and gasping like a fish, while cold air pooled around her.
When she could breathe, she rolled onto her side and laughed until tears ran from her eyes. What if she’d broken her neck? It would have been the best joke ever, yet no one would have understood the irony. The floor was uncomfortable, but she didn’t feel like moving. Only when it got too cold to stay there, did she finally ease herself up, bracing herself against the wall until the hall stopped spinning. When she was certain she wouldn’t fall right back down again, she struggled with the attic stairs.
“Fuck it,” she slurred, walking away when they wouldn’t close.
She gathered up her dress and kicked the empty box out of her way, scattering blue tissue paper half the length of the hall.
She placed the dress on the bed and untucked the rest of the tissue paper. It had been more than twenty years, but it was still the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen. Joey’s friend from F.I.T. had designed it for her with his input, and it was perfect. She held it in front of her and looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror.
“Thanks, Joey.”
A fat tear rolled down her cheek onto the front of the dress and disappeared into the lace. Through her watery gaze, she saw him, standing on the other side of the glass, watching her, waiting for her. She spread her fingers, reaching for him, but instead of Joey, all she felt was the cold, hard surface of the mirror.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “I’ll see you soon.”
Not satisfied just to look at her wedding gown, she wanted to try it on, so she could see herself in it one more time. She slipped out of her clothes and stepped into the dress. It was big on her. Of course, she’d been four months pregnant with Rhiannon when she’d worn it. Now it gaped in the bodice, and she could gather bunches of fabric on either side of her waist.
Even still, she loved it.
She carried the bottle of whiskey into the bathroom, where she stared into the mirror. Her skin was pasty. Dark smudges had taken up permanent residence beneath her dull green eyes. Several silver threads stood out in her hair, which was tangled and knotted. She watched her reflection tip the bottle. Whiskey rolled down her throat and over her chin, stinging the bloody scrape from the ladder and burning her tongue where she’d bitten it.
She stumbled back, then grabbed hold of the sink and brought her face close to the mirror. “You’re a mess. What the hell happened to you? You’re fuckin’ hideous. No wonder he found someone else.”
The words were her own, but they hurt as much as if Billy had said them to her himself.
She snatched the hairbrush off the counter and yanked it through her hair. One hundred strokes. She tried to count but lost track so many times she gave up. Her hair snapped with electricity, floating around her head. She smoothed it with the flat part of her palm, but it sprang back up again.
Without taking her eyes from her reflection, she reached into a drawer in the cabinet. She dragged the other hand through her hair, then pulled up a thick, long handful and held it over her head. She began to cut, sawing back and forth, the scissors chewing through the thick strands, until they lay puddled around her on the floor. All of it. Gone. Long strands clung to her dress. Shorter pieces were trapped in the décolleté of her gown, where they poked and tickled.
The room spun, and she held on to the sink to keep from falling.
The person staring back at her was now as ugly on the outside as she was on the inside.
“Fuck you!” she screamed at the monster in her mirror. “Fuck! You!”
An antique glass Mason jar filled with cotton balls was the first thing she could reach. She hurled it at the mirror with such force that shards of glass ricocheted back and struck her face and arms. Flowers of red bloomed on the surface of her skin. She staggered into the bedroom with the whiskey, walking through the glass, too numb to feel it cutting her feet. Her nose dripped and she wiped it on her arm, smearing blood across her face.
She angled for the corner of the bed but missed, hitting the floor and dropping the nearly empty bottle of whiskey. She rescued it before it spilled, and raising it over her head triumphantly, she silently toasted the man watching from inside her mirror.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Before she knew it, Kate was standing in the clearing at the top of the mountain. The sun was warm, and the deepening blue sky was stained with neon threads of pink and orange. The setting sun glowed so bright it set the horizon on fire. Her hand dipped into the pocket of her slacks, fingering the slip of paper. It was still there. Her name and address. For them to find later.
She stepped toward the edge. She had forgotten the pills and the bottle of French wine, but she was no longer afraid. It was the right thing to do.
She took another step. The sky glowed. Music played—angelic voices singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, to be precise.
Goose bumps prickled her flesh. “I had no idea it would be this beautiful.”
“It is, isn’t it? God is quite the handy man.” The voice came from behind her. She spun around and almost fell.
“Is it over?”
“Oh, honey,” he said with a laugh. “It hasn’t even begun.”
He was dressed all in white.
“You look like Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island.”
He ran a hand over his jacket. “This old thing?” He shook his head, and his beautiful curls danced. “He wore a white linen suit and a black tie. I’m wearing a white tie. Plus”—he slid his thumbs behind the lapels of his jacket—“this is made of angels’ wings.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. Don’t be ridiculous.”
She stood unmoving as he walked toward her. “How are you?”
“I’m dead. How are you?”
She motioned toward the outcropping from which she had been about to step.
He frowned. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” His eyebrows rose in a high arch. “Whaddya think you’re doing?”
“I can’t take it anymore.”
“You can’t take it anymore? I wish I had the opportunity to decide whether or not I could take it anymore.” He called over his shoulder. “What do you think?”
A titter of discordant mumbles rustled above her head. Talking leaves?
“Don’t worry about that.” He waved dismissively.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry about what?”
“The leaves.” He pointed behind him.
“You can read my mind?”
“Oh, sweetie.” He smiled. “I could always read your mind. No hocus-pocus there. So, you were saying? You can’t take it anymore, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. What else?”
“What do you mean, ‘what else’? Isn’t that enough?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “Not really. That all you’ve got? You can’t take it anymore?”
Her mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out
.
“You look like a fish, Kate. What else? Hurry up. The sun’s going down. You don’t have much time.”
She turned toward the horizon. They had been talking for several minutes, yet the sun hadn’t moved. In fact, neither did anything else. White wisps of clouds sat motionless. Birds hung suspended in midair, their wings frozen in flight.
She turned back. “You can stop time?”
“Who me? No, but He can.” In case she didn’t know who He was, he pointed in the general direction of heaven.
“Where is He?”
“Everywhere.”
“Can I see Him?”
He gave her a sad smile. “No, sweetie. It isn’t time for you to see Him. That’s why I’m here.”
“It is, Joey. It is my time. It’s past my time.”
He sat on a boulder and tapped the spot beside him. “Why do you think that?”
“I was supposed to die in September. This man—”
“I know all about that, but you’re wrong. You weren’t supposed to die.”
“He was looking for me. He wanted to shoot me. Instead, he killed Eileen and all those other people. If he’d found me, all those people would still be alive.”
He shook his head. “No, honey, they wouldn’t. He would’ve killed eight people instead of seven.”
“It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. Blame the people who sold him the guns or the people who sold him that stockpile of ammunition. Or blame the people who threatened to take his land, or the neighbors who made the complaints. While you’re at it, blame his parents for doing such a crummy job of raising him in the first place. You could blame all those people just as much if not more than you can blame yourself—and you know what? You’d still be wrong.”
“Why?”
“Free will, Kate. God gave us free will, and Mr. Stevens used his free will to pick up a weapon and kill those innocent people.”
“When did you become such an expert on God and free will?”
“We have lectures every Friday night. There’s not a very active social season up here. It’s like New York in the summer.”
