Lonely Souls

by Rosemary Fifield

  Lonely Souls

  by Rosemary Fifield

  ©2011 Rosemary Fifield

  All characters and locations are a work of fiction. Any resemblance to individuals living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  August, 1983

  Rochester, NY

  Pauline Weaver poured a dollop of half and half into her daughter-in-law’s thermos, then filled it to the shoulder with steaming coffee from the glass carafe. She had already put sandwiches, fruit, and donuts in her canvas bag along with candy bars and a bag of Oreo cookies. The girl was eating for two, after all, and the trip back to New Hampshire would be long. Hopefully Kevin would start to feel better along the way, in which case he would need food, too.

  She watched Shelby emerge from the guest bedroom with the last of her things. Why Kevin had fallen for the girl was evident. She had the bright, fresh-faced appeal common to young redheads, with their creamy complexions and clear gray eyes. Even seven months pregnant and carrying the baby high, Shelby managed to appear slim and graceful, an athletic young woman in tune with her body. Her version of maternity fashions—an oversized sweatshirt over a pair of sweatpants—was hardly what Mrs. Weaver would have chosen, yet somehow it was suitable for Shelby, as though she planned on jogging to the delivery room, with long-legged Kevin loping alongside.

  Today, however, Kevin was in no shape to jog anywhere. His migraines were bothering him again, and he had barely managed to work his lanky frame into the passenger seat of their small car. Mrs. Weaver had tried to convince them to stay one more day, but Shelby was determined to leave. Now she was loading the last of their belongings in the backseat of the car and waiting to give her mother-in-law a good-bye hug.

  They were both tall women, and as they hugged, Mrs. Weaver thought for a moment of her own daughter. Born four years before Kevin, Susan would have been twenty-eight now and most likely a mother herself. No doubt she would have married someone local and stayed near her mother, for in their family the girls tended to be more conservative. But Susan was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia when she was a teenager and had died at the age of twenty. Now Mrs. Weaver’s only hope for being a traditional grandmother rested on Kevin’s return to upstate New York after he finished graduate school. But Shelby, with her headstrong ways, could very well keep that from happening. Mrs. Weaver stiffened at the thought and released the girl with an abrupt little squeeze. Shelby thanked her for her hospitality and turned toward the car.

  The August morning was magnificent—bright and sunny but not yet hot. Shelby did not relish the long drive home, but at least the traveling conditions would be good. Kevin’s medication would make him sleep most of the time they were heading into the sun, and hopefully by afternoon, he would be better. He had sprawled out as best he could in the front seat of the small car, his seat tilted back as far as it would go, his long legs crammed under the dashboard. She opened his door and slipped her L.L. Bean bag behind the seat, then pulled his seatbelt from its housing beside the door and tried to hook it for him. Her belly was in the way, however, and she could not reach across him. She kissed him lightly on the cheek instead, backed out of the car, and locked his door. She would catch his seatbelt from the other side.

  His mother was standing behind her as she locked the door, waiting to kiss her son good-bye one more time. Well, it was too late. He was asleep anyway. Shelby would have him call when they reached home.

  She walked around the front of the car and eased herself into the driver’s seat. Things were getting snug behind the steering wheel, and she still had six weeks to go. Thank God, she had long legs that enabled her to push the seat back and still reach the pedals.

  She waved good-bye to her mother-in-law, then concentrated on backing out of the driveway onto the city street. A native of Boston, Shelby was no stranger to city driving, but she hated it. She maneuvered the little car into the traffic and settled back with a sigh of resignation. Once they were on the New York State Thruway, she would enjoy the drive. Until then, she would have to make it tolerable. She considered turning on the radio, then thought better of it. Kevin needed peace and quiet. She glanced at him— eyes closed, long lashes resting on ruddy cheeks – then reached over and rested her hand on his denim-covered thigh. A rush of maternal love came over her. It was funny how many different forms her love for him could take. Right now, all she wanted was to take care of him, to ease his pain and keep him safe. Last night her passion for him had been purely carnal as they made love in his childhood bedroom.

  He smiled at her touch and wordlessly placed his hand over hers. It felt cool and dry and reassuring, and she smiled to herself. Taking him home was the right thing to do, in spite of his mother’s pleas for them to stay. He would be able to relax at home, and so would she. That was something they both found hard to do in Rochester. Mrs. Weaver meant well, but she was so overbearing most of the time. A widow whose only surviving child lived four hundred miles away was bound to have problems, but Shelby and Kevin could only take so much. They would both need an extra day to recover from this vacation before returning to work and to school.

  Shelby returned her hand to the steering wheel as they approached the turn toward the Thruway. She realized now that she had forgotten to hook Kevin’s seatbelt; she would try to catch it as soon as they reached a rest area. The Thruway turn appeared, and she pulled onto the ramp heading east. The traffic was relatively light, and she eased into the right-hand lane with a sigh of relief. At last she could relax.

  Using the techniques she had learned in her childbirth preparation classes, she took a few deep breaths and slowly released the tension in her shoulders and back. Thirsty now, she glanced behind Kevin’s seat at the bag his mother had prepared. Shelby had told Pauline she did not drink coffee, but the woman insisted she would need the caffeine to stay alert. Now she would have to wait for the rest area to replace the coffee with water. Perhaps an apple would do in the meantime. Keeping her eyes on the road, Shelby twisted and reached until she felt the brown bag open up. Two candy bars and a package of cookies later, she found the fruit. She settled into her seat once more and bit into the apple. It was juicy and tart and did the trick. The open road, a sunny day, Kevin at her side, and a Granny Smith! What more could she want?

  As if to remind her, the baby within her kicked. Shelby grinned. And you, whoever you are, she thought. Six more weeks. It seemed an eternity and yet no time at all. Could it really only be six more weeks? Was she really ready for this? Did she have a choice? No. She rested her hand on the bulge beneath her breasts and waited for the baby to kick again. Ready or not, here I come, the baby answered with a poke of an elbow or a knee. Shelby pushed back, intrigued by this little unknown person. Boy or girl? Ugly or cute? All babies are ugly, Kevin had said, but he was more excited than she. Shelby would have waited another year, but Kevin loved kids and couldn’t bear to wait. And Shelby, for all her independence, rarely said “no” to Kevin.

  A long eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer roared past, causing the little car to shake, bringing Shelby back to the task at hand. Traffic was increasing as the morning progressed. They were in wine country now, with rows and rows of trellised grapevines fanning by in cool green cascades. The land rose and fell, gentle hills stretching to the horizon, dotted here and there with pristine white houses and big red barns. This was the part Shelby loved, almost as much as she loved the forests and hills of New Hampshire.

  Kevin slept the sleep of the drugged, never stirring even when Shelby stopped at a rest area to stretch her legs, use the facilities, and fill her thermos with water. She remembered to fasten his seatbelt this time, but left hers off, unsure whether it would be better or worse to have the strap suddenly tighten across her pregnant belly. She
pulled out onto the Thruway once more, and Kevin slept on.

  Another tractor-trailer thundered past on her left, and then another. Ahead on the right, just over the crest of a hill, an eighteen-wheeler had pulled onto the shoulder and was sitting there with its warning lights flashing. Shelby pulled into the passing lane to give the truck a wide berth and started down the other side of the hill.

  Something unusual was happening ahead: the big trucks that had passed her were putting on their brakes, but it made no sense. From her vantage point at the top of the hill she could see that no cars were in their way. The two trucks began to pull into the right lane simultaneously; apparently they were communicating by radio, and something was in the road ahead.

  And then she saw them—two huge truck tires traveling down the highway side-by-side; double wheels that had broken off the eighteen-wheeler at the top of the hill. They were rolling downhill still sharing an axle, picking up speed as they angled across the highway toward the grassy median strip that separated east- and west-bound traffic. Shelby laughed as she watched them; they looked ridiculous rolling along on their own like a pair of trick riders. They narrowly missed the end of a guard rail and traveled onto the grass. She expected them to lose momentum and settle into the valley in the center of the median, but instead, they navigated the incline with ease and raced up the other side of the grassy divide toward the oncoming traffic. At that moment she realized the speed they had acquired and the threat they posed to drivers in the westbound lanes.

  She watched with horrified fascination as the wheels sped unimpeded across the first lane, then slammed into the rear section of a moving tractor-trailer in the far lane. A puff of smoke appeared on impact, and cars behind the trailer began to swerve. She expected the wheels to stop at that point, but they did not. Instead, they ricocheted off the truck and sped back toward the median strip with newly acquired momentum. They had broken apart on impact with the truck and began to take slightly different paths as they raced back toward the eastbound lanes in which she was traveling. She stared at them in disbelief, frantically gauging the speed and direction of each one. Unless they were diverted by something in the median, they were going to bounce up onto the highway just ahead of her. She could speed up now to try to get ahead of them or stay her course and maneuver as necessary when their final trajectory was more evident. She chose to keep the wheels in front of her, in her line of sight.

  A glance in her rearview mirror showed a large truck bearing down on her. Had he not seen nor heard what was happening? A car was creeping up on her right. Keeping her eyes on the approaching wheels, she tapped her brake lightly, hoping to signal the truck behind her to slow down. The driver laid on his air horn, long and loud, and for the first time, she began to experience a sense of panic. The wheels had split far enough apart to require her constant attention now. Speeding up to outrun them was no longer an option; the little car did not have that kind of power. With a car to her right, the only space in which she could maneuver would be the left shoulder.

  The closest wheel bounced up onto the road ahead, and she swerved to the left. The terrible, whirling thing lumbered past her car, narrowly missing the passenger-side bumper, its huge rusty center spinning like a deadly sawblade as it crossed her path and disappeared to her right. She heard the squealing brakes of the car beside her, but dared not take her eyes off the second wheel which was fast approaching the pavement ahead of her. It appeared that it would also pass in front of her car without incident, and she began to murmur a prayer of thanks.

  The second wheel hit the gravel shoulder a moment later, and its trajectory abruptly changed. Shelby swung the car to the right in an effort to move out of its path, but the wheel’s heading changed again as it hit the pavement’s edge. It was coming directly at the little car, and Shelby once again swerved to the left, but she was too late. The massive tire climbed the car’s low, sloping hood with ease. Shelby barely had time to scream Kevin’s name before the windshield exploded into a myriad of sunlit sparkles.

  Chapter One

  November, 1987

  Chatham, Vermont

  Dawson Penfield stood at the foot of the driveway and studied the darkened farmhouse for signs of life. There were none to be seen. Everyone appeared to be asleep. He moved as quietly as he could down the graveled drive beside the gable end of the house.

  The building was an early 1800s cape with an ell linking it directly to the barn. To reach the kitchen door, he would have to enter the ell. Dawson carefully turned the knob. It offered no resistance. They never locked up the old house, even when they left for the day.

  He cautiously pushed the door open and slid inside the musty darkness. To his distant left, beyond the hay mow and the milk room, he could hear the cows shifting their weight within the confines of their stanchions. One of them blew softly through her nostrils, and then all was quiet on that end. So far, so good.

  His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he turned to his right. He was in the old summer kitchen, which was piled high with boxes and miscellaneous junk that the old man kept saving for no reason other than it was easier to keep than to cart away. The door to the house was at the far end of the narrow path between the piles. Dawson pulled the ell door shut behind himself and paused. He must now negotiate this godforsaken path with its delicately balanced treacherous objects on either side. It was a feat not to be scoffed at even when one was sober which, unfortunately, he currently was not. He drew a deep breath and started slowly down the passage, aided only by faint moonlight strained through the dirty window at the opposite end.

  To his left, a wobbly stack of gray egg cartons teetered and fell into his path; he crunched one beneath his foot and swore, then froze. The blood was pounding in his ears so loudly, he couldn’t have heard a thing anyway, but there was nothing to hear. The house remained silent. He carefully traveled the remainder of the gauntlet, then paused outside the kitchen door to remove his boots. They came off hard, what with the three pairs of socks he was wearing against the November cold, and he was panting audibly with the effort. A dull ache now gripped the top of his head like a steel band that kept tightening. Very soon he would be sick. He closed his eyes and leaned against the door for a moment. Why did he do this to himself?

  Well, at least he had made it this far. Now all he had to do was cross the kitchen and get to the stairs without waking up the old man. He straightened up and took careful hold of the doorknob, turning it as slowly as he could. The door eased open, and he slid through the doorway into the darkened kitchen. He could hear the old man snoring now in the downstairs bedroom; it was a reassuring sound. He eased the door shut with a tiny click and drew a deep breath.

  The farmhouse kitchen was large and old-fashioned with cabinets, appliances, and a wood-burning cookstove around the periphery and a vast expanse of open floor space in the middle. The floor itself sloped downward from the center beam of the house toward the rotting sills on either side. Liquids spilled at any point on the kitchen floor always puddled in front of the painted cabinets on the outside wall, and over the years the floorboards there had rotted and the linoleum had cracked. Dawson gave that area a wide berth, but still managed to snag his sock on a raised edge of linoleum and almost lost his balance. He recovered rather gracefully, he thought, and with a minimum of noise, but now his head ached worse than ever and he was aware of the need to piss. A six pack of beer topped off by the fear of getting caught had his bladder threatening to burst.

  The bathroom was located at the far end of the kitchen, beside the downstairs bedroom. For a moment he considered going back outside, but his heart – and his head – weren’t in it. He’d come this far; he could do the rest. He hurried across the kitchen and into the room that had been another bedroom before indoor plumbing was introduced to the old cape.

  He glanced at the bathroom door on its creaky hinges and decided that closing it would make too much noise. Still, if he didn’t, the sound of him pissing like a racehorse would wake his pa for
sure. There was only one solution. He would have to go sitting down. He pulled down his pants and sat, closing his eyes while his bladder emptied. His headache was getting worse, and the room was beginning to reel in nauseating fashion. He opened his eyes to regain his equilibrium, and then he saw her.

  Miriam Penfield always woke up between one and two in the morning with the need to relieve herself. As was her habit, she folded the covers back and sat up slowly so as not to wake up too much. She then eased her considerable bulk off the edge of the bed and slipped her feet into the felt slippers that waited on the little braided rug. Careful not to disturb Nate, she waddled slowly and quietly out into the kitchen and around the corner to the bathroom with her eyes closed to maintain the drowsiness that would help her fall back to sleep when she was done. She never put on the bathroom light, but simply hoisted her flannel nightgown up over her hips and backed into position over the stool. A quick check for the toilet seat with the back of her leg (in a house full of men, it was often up), and then she would settle down without a sound. The flush she saved for morning.

  This particular night was no different. She waddled quietly into the bathroom with her eyes closed, secure in the familiarity of her nightly routine. Her nightgown came up over her hips as she crossed the threshold, and she drowsily turned and backed up to the toilet. It was then, as the white moon of her bare fanny was about to land in his lap, that Dawson reached out his hand to warn her.