by Rick Hautala
Leaning forward, Edward placed one hand gently on Dianne’s leg and tried to nudge her closer to him. She resisted, twisting away from him and focusing intently on the tumbler she was gripping tightly with both hands. It contained the remains of a greenish concoction of pureed vegetables, the bulk of her lunch.
“Did you have another confrontation with Brian or something this morning?” Edward asked.
Dianne shook her head. “No,” she said simply, and then fell silent, letting her gaze follow the drifting wisps of smoke up into the sky.
“Hey, com’on now, hon. Tell me what’s bugging you?”
Dianne stared blankly at him for a moment, her eyes watering as she forced a smile. She was horribly aware that what constituted her smile these days was skinning back her upper lip and exposing the network of wires that was strung inside her mouth. She quickly looked away.
“Was it … Does it have anything to do with your visit with that doctor this morning?”
Dianne shrugged and cleared her throat, trying her best to ignore the hot rush of discomfort that rippled through her stomach. She couldn’t get the right words to form in her brain, much less on her tongue.
“I know how tough—that is, I suspect I know how tough all of this is on you,” Edward went on, “but one thing you’ve got to understand is that you can talk to me—about anything! You got that?”
Dianne grunted softly as she nodded. She wanted more than anything to tell him about what had happened on the drive home, but something made her choke back the words, as if speaking them would somehow bring harm both to her and to Edward.
“It’s just … I dunno. Everything, I guess,” she said at last, if only to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them. Her breath caught in her throat, and she struggled hard to keep herself from crying. God, it seemed like all she did these days was cry.
“I—we talked a lot about things but nothing—you know, nothing really deep,” Dianne said in a soft, shattered voice. “I mentioned to her how I thought the medication I was on was messing me up.”
“What did she say?”
“She thought I should mention it to Dr. Collett. Maybe he’d prescribe something not quite as strong.”
Edward took a deep breath. “That’s understandable,” he said, “but after everything you’ve been through, don’t you think it’s also reasonable that your emotions would feel all—all tangled up?”
“I suppose so … Sure, but I—I just don’t like what I’ve been thinking and feeling lately. I don’t even feel like myself anymore, if that makes any sense. I’m so forgetful all the time, and I … I don’t know … I feel so … so agitated, like I want to—to …”
Her voice trailed away before she could finish the sentence—to slug somebody. The memory of that woman, punching the drunken man in the face this morning, rose up in her mind, leaving her feeling cold and hollow. A chill ran through her like electricity.
“That’s quite understandable, too,” Edward said softly, nudging her on the leg again. She thought he was signaling that he wanted to go back to the house for some afternoon sex, but she banished any such thoughts, wondering—How can he even stomach looking at me, much less wanting to kiss me? They hadn’t had sex since the night before her accident, and she didn’t think they would until this whole thing was all over.
If it will ever be all over!
That thought finally broke through the last of her resistance, and she could no longer hold back her tears. Burying her face in her hands, she leaned forward and sobbed in long, wrenching groans. She was only distantly aware of Edward’s arms twining around her and pulling her tightly against his chest.
“There … there,” he said, his voice soft and soothing.
But rather than making her feel comforted, his embrace sent a jab of alarm racing through her. The confinement—like the confinement of her jaw by those goddamned wires!—filled her with a sparkling panic. Before she could stop it, the memory arose again of that woman’s expression, her eyes gleaming with near ecstasy as she smashed her fist into the drunken man’s face. In a sizzling flash, the woman’s face became first her mother’s face, then her own. Her whole body tensed, filled with a wild impulse to haul back and slug Edward.
“She tried to kill him!” she whispered, aware of the ragged, strangled sound of her voice as she struggled to move her jaw even a fraction of an inch. She pushed away from him and sat back, blinking rapidly, trying to focus clearly on something—anything! But at the edges of her vision, there was a vibrating blackness, and that blackness seemed to be swelling, closing inward like a hungry mouth about to swallow both of them.
“What—? Edward asked, his voice sounding far away. “Who tried to kill who?”
“My mother—” Dianne rasped. She couldn’t resist the sickening sensation that someone else was speaking through her, controlling her throat and tongue and mind!
“Hey, come on, now. Come on! You’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing.”
“I never told you about it,” Dianne said with a raw waver in her voice. Hot tears were streaming down her face. “I—I never even remembered it, not until not until today. But after I saw that therapist this morning … I don’t know, maybe it was something she said coupled with this … this couple I saw arguing in the street, but whatever it was, on the drive home today, I suddenly remembered it. For the first time in nearly thirty years, I remembered!”
This sudden burst of emotion had obviously caught Edward completely off guard. He looked at her blankly with his mouth hanging open. At last he cleared his throat and, in a trembling voice, whispered, “Why don’t you try to calm down and tell me about it?”
Two opposing impulses warred inside Dianne as she looked at her husband. She wanted to collapse into his arms, dissolve in his embrace and forget all about everyone and everything except the two of them and, at the same time, she wanted to get up and run away from him as fast as she could, never see him again—ever! Frozen by indecision, she could only sit there, withering under his gaze and trembling as though in the midst of a mild epileptic seizure.
“Seriously,” Edward said, his voice firmly in control. “Take a few deep breaths and relax, and then tell me all about it … That is, if you want to.”
Although her chest felt like it was constrained by tight, steel bands, she took a sip of air, let her shoulder drop, and closed her eyes.
“It was back when I was eight,” she began, leaning back. She thought her voice still sounded as if someone else was speaking through her, but she forced herself to continue. “My dad was an alcoholic. I told you that much, and that he left home when I was little. But I didn’t remember, not until today, how—how—”
The cold twisting in her guts made her want to open her eyes and scream, but she took another even breath and continued.
“He used to beat up on my mom—a lot, even when he wasn’t drunk. This was—God!” She brought her fist up to her mouth and pressed it hard against her lips. “It was right around Christmastime. I remember there were Christmas decorations all around the kitchen. It was night—sometime at night. I think my mother and I were making Christmas cookies or something when my father came home, drunk as usual. I think I remember him saying something about a Christmas party at the office, but I have no idea what kind of work he did. Anyway, he and mom started arguing, like they always did, and he hit her. I—I remember her falling back against the kitchen counter and knocking something onto the floor that broke. It might have been a bowl of cookie batter. I—I was sitting on the floor, in the corner, screaming. I—I—”
Dianne opened her eyes and stared long and hard at Edward. He was looking back at her with the warmest, gentlest expression she had even seen. Before she knew it, she lunged forward and threw her arms around him, clinging desperately to him
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he whispered in her ear as he stroked her hair.
But Dianne shook her head and said, “No, I thin
k it’s better if I do. If this is something I’ve been blocking all these years, it can only be good if I talk about it, right? If I work it out of my system?”
Edward nodded silently.
“So anyway, this night, when my father hit my mom, he knocked her back against the counter. I don’t know how she got it, where it was or anything, but the next thing I remember was she leaped at my father with a knife in her hand. God! The way I remember it now, it looked as big as a guillotine blade. She brought it up over her head and swung it at him. My father ducked to one side, but the only thing I can remember clearly is the look on my mother’s face—how she looked thrilled, almost happy that, after years of suffering this man’s abuse, she was finally doing something about it.”
“Did she—you know, did she kill him?” Edward asked.
Dianne could feel him shudder as he held her.
“No. He turned away in time, and she just cut him on the arm. I don’t think it was very bad.” She shook her head, trying to force the memory to get clearer. “I don’t remember any blood or anything:”
She shuddered as she closed her eyes again and took a steadying breath.
“I … I seem to remember that the … the blade went right through his arm and was sticking out the other side, but that—” She shook her head as though in fevered denial. “—That could just be something I imagined, don’t you think?”
“Umm … probably,” Edward said with a shrug. “A lot of times, I think we exaggerate the violence we see—especially as kids.”
“But do you know what stayed with me all these years, even though I didn’t know it consciously until today? That look—that terrible look I saw in my mother’s eyes. God!” She shivered again and hugged herself. “It was … it was scary as hell seeing how much she wanted to kill him!”
“I’ll bet it was,” Edward said simply as he rubbed his hand gently up and down her back.
“And do you want to know the scariest thing of all—?”
Dianne spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. Her eyelids fluttered, and the tightness in her chest made it almost impossible for her to catch her breath. Edward looked at her reassuringly, but before she could continue, a thought rang in her head as clearly as if she—or he—or someone had spoken it aloud:
It makes me worry and wonder if someday I might try to kill you!
“I—I,” she said but then faltered.
Edward drew her closer, squeezing her tightly, but as much as she wanted to let herself dissolve in his embrace, she felt equally repelled by him—almost threatened by the way he clung to her. The churning tension inside her turned to sudden, violent anger. She was coiling up, preparing to scream and push herself away from him when a loud blast of sound suddenly filled the air. She sat up straight and looked at her husband, her eyes wide with shock.
Edward smiled and said, “Hey, it’s nothing—just the town fire horn.”
The blaring noise kept sounding its short, coded blasts. Dianne watched as Edward flicked up a different finger, counting each toot.
“Two … two,” he said.
His smile froze, and a grim tightness squeezed his eyes.
“Four—”
He frowned as he held up four fingers. She could see that his hand was trembling as the horn started another series of blasts. With each one, Edward counted aloud, his expression dropping as the cold realization hit him.
“One … two … three … four! Four! Oh, shit!”
He gnawed the inside of his mouth as he waited for another blast to follow, but the echo faded after the fourth blast. Edward’s face was lined with worry as he looked at her, then rose unsteadily to his feet.
“Twenty-two forty-four,” he said in a tight, trembling voice. “That—that’s the code for our house!”
Dianne looked up at him, feeling his panic. “What do you think—?”
“It’s upper Pond Road!” he said, reaching out and helping her to her feet. His hand was clammy to the touch. He turned and looked in the general direction of the house, obviously debating whether it would be faster to get into the truck and drive home or take the path through the woods. Dianne’s legs felt weak, as if they weren’t going to support her much longer. Then the fire horn started its series of blasts again.
“Oh, my God! Look!” Edward suddenly shouted, pointing up at the sky above the trees to the north. A funnel-shaped column of black smoke tumbled like a flapping curtain against the hazy blue sky. Moving slowly, as though in a trace, he started toward the path in the woods. The fire horn continued to blast out its coded message.
“Come on! Follow me!” Edward shouted, turning back to Dianne and waving her on.
Dianne hesitated a moment, then she started after him. He waited only a second or two before he turned and ran down the narrow path. Fleeting, panicky thoughts filled Dianne’s mind as she picked up her pace to catch up with him as they ran along the path toward home.
Edward and Dianne got to the house a few seconds after the first two fire trucks showed up, pulling to a screaming halt and parking at an angle at the top of the driveway. Hand in hand, they stood back at a safe distance in the back yard, watching in shocked silence as several black-and-yellow-clad firefighters unspooled the hoses, ran up to the back of the house, and kicked the door open. With oxygen masks in place, they entered through the back door, crouching low and lunging shoulder-first into the tangled ribbons of black smoke that poured over them like liquid. They were soon lost from sight. The hoses they were carrying stuck out of the heavy smoke like thick tree branches. More firefighters stretched other hoses out from the second fire engine and entered the house through the front door.
Through the window, they could see flames flickering like wicked tongues inside the kitchen. A wide sheet of fire curled around the edge of the open window and slid up the outside of the house, scorching the siding all the way up to the bottom of the second-story window. The air was filled with a loud crackle as wood was consumed. The paint on the side of the house blistered up. Overhead, the rolling column of smoke was as thick as night.
Brian’s bedroom, Edward thought with a sick twisting in his stomach as he looked up at the second floor of the house. Then another thought hit him. Where is Brian! Oh, shit! A singing rush of panic went up his spine like a high-speed drill. Where is he? Could he have caused the fire? Could he still be inside the house?
“Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!” Edward suddenly shouted, lunging toward the house. “Is Brian in there? Is my son in there?”
None of the firefighters seemed to hear him, or if they did, they ignored him as they went about their business. Halfway to the house, someone intercepted him by snatching his arm and bringing him to an abrupt halt.
“Now hold on there, Ed,” a gruff voice said. “You can’t be going in there.”
Edward turned and saw Andy Jones, the town’s fire chief. His expression was grim, almost emotionless as he held Edward lightly by the forearm.
“My boy!—” Edward said, shouting to be heard above the hissing spray of water and the wailing siren as another fire truck approached the scene. “—I don’t know if Brian’s in there!”
Andy shook his head grimly. “I don’t know either, but it looks to me as though the fire’s just in the back of the house here. Likely as not, he’d a’ been able to get out the front door pretty easily.”
“Who called this in?” Edward shouted. His body felt all weak and tingly with shock.
“Someone passing by in a car called in on one of them car phones,” Andy replied. He seemed to be forcing himself to keep his voice steady. “Didn’t say who he was. Pretty nifty invention, them car phones. Probably saved you most of your house.”
Another fire truck arrived along with a heavy rescue truck, and soon there was a tangle of hoses, swollen with water pressure, crisscrossing the lawn like bulging arteries. Several policemen stood down in the road to reroute any traffic.
“I have to find out if he’s still in there,” Edward said. He was only co
ntrolling his panic with effort; his mind was filled with the horrifying image of Brian, lying on the floor, writhing in agony as his clothes and flesh were consumed by flames.
“We got men in there now,” Andy said patiently. “Trained men. No sense you risking your own life at this point.”
“Edward! Hey, Edward!” a voice shouted from behind him. “Here he is!”
Edward was so pumped up with adrenaline he didn’t recognize his wife’s voice.
“Hey, Dad! What happened?”
Edward turned and in a staggering instant was swept with relief that almost unbuckled his legs when he saw Brian coming toward him from the fringe of woods behind the house. The boy’s face was pale with shock and confusion as he slowed his pace and stared up at the burning house. The flashing red lights reflected like summer lightning in his eyes. He stumbled as he walked past Dianne, not even bothering to glance at her, and joined his father and Andy on the lawn. The heat from the blaze hammered their faces, making their skin prickle, but Edward hardly noticed it as he clasped his son in his arms.
“Christ-all-mighty, you had me worried!”
“What happened?” Brian repeated, still staring wide-eyed up at the burning house.
“I’d say we got to this one in plenty of time,” Andy said, letting his guard down and smiling for the first time. “It ain’t gonna be too bad, considering. We should have it under control in a couple of minutes.”
Stunned speechless, Edward nodded and then, holding Brian by the arm, directed him back to where Dianne was waiting. He stood between Dianne and Brian, with one arm holding each of them tightly, as though he needed them for support. Tears rose in his eyes, but he choked back his emotions as he watched his house burn, unable to believe what he was seeing. He couldn’t stop shaking his head in amazement and puffing out his breath every time he exhaled.
More firemen charged into the house, and more hoses were stretched out across the lawn and turned on. The ripping sound of spraying water filled the air, interspersed with curt commands shouted back and forth and the crackling sounds of cooling timbers as water saturated everything inside the house. A wide spray of water shot out into the yard through the kitchen window. Before long, the heavy, black smoke had turned into a thick, gray steam that hissed like a waterfall. A few men emerged from the house. Their faces were streaked with soot and grime, and their heavy rubber coats looked as slick as sealskin, dripping with water.
