The Crooked Heart of Mercy

by Billie Livingston

  A minute passes, an hour? Then Ben is sleeping in a meadow. Sunlight, warm earth. Sweet. Just like the man said. He turns his head and sees Frankie running in the grass. Squealing, laughing. He climbs onto Ben’s chest and takes his face in his hands.

  Ben inhales Frankie’s peanut butter breath. Kid says, “Don’t be pissed-off at me. I don’t even know how to shoot it.”

  Ben’s eyes open to the barrel of a Smith & Wesson, Frankie’s hands wrapped around the gun. The barrel jiggles when he laughs. “Ha-ha. Barbie’s Dream Car.”

  Ben brings his hands up. Frankie squeezes the trigger and the sky explodes.

  His eyes snap open. He’s alive. He’s on the couch.

  A naked man crouches on the coffee table, knees up like a gargoyle. The man smiles.

  Guess who. Face-to-face. “If you’re me, then who am I?”

  The other Ben giggles and shatters in the dark.

  Ben sits up. The TV is off, but he can hear kids’ music. Xylophones. He feels the weight of another body behind him. Hands on his shoulders, breath in his ear. Words vibrate through his bones: “You’re already nobody.”

  He throws an elbow back, hears the smash. Heart pounding, he looks at the lamp on the floor. The ceramic body is a doll’s now, blood leaking from its cracked skull. Eyes lit from within. He kneels and the breath is in his ear again: “Easy, Killer.” And the words pull him inside out until he is standing inside his own skull. Clothes melt against his skin. He pulls off his shirt and flesh peels with it. “Get out of my head!”

  And just like that, he is sucked back through his own eye sockets, the eyes of the planet, the eyes of God. Falling through the air in a rush of embryonic sludge, he lands with a squelch on his couch.

  TWELVE

  Maggie

  It’s my fault. I didn’t look where I was going.” I can’t tell if Cecily is bruised or just shaken up by her own vulnerability. “Do you want me to take you to the doctor?”

  Sitting on the seat of her walker, she’s crying at the floor. She won’t look at me.

  “Do you want me to take you home?”

  People are staring as their shopping carts roll past. God, I’m an asshole. I stopped showing up at Cecily’s place and she never knew why.

  She starts to catch her breath, to try to talk through tears. I think she said, “Did you tell the police?”

  Behind me a man asks, “Can I help? Do you need to call someone?” He offers his cell phone.

  I look at him, and at the little girl kicking her legs in the child’s seat of his shopping cart. “She gots hurt?” the little girl asks.

  “I think we just need some air.” I don’t know if Cecily has taken a turn for the worse since I last saw her.

  The man smiles sympathetically and moves on down the aisle.

  “She gots hurt?” the girl asks her father as they turn the corner.

  “Can you stand up?” Cecily nods and I get her onto her feet, abandon my cart, and move with her toward the store exit.

  The two of us come outside into the sunlight.

  “You want to catch your breath for a minute?”

  She snuffles and we sit down on a bench next to the store’s plant nursery. I root around in my purse until I find my scruffy travel pack of tissues and put one in Cecily’s hand.

  She blows her nose and turns her red, watery eyes to me. “You have to know how sorry I am,” she says. “I loved that little boy.”

  “You mean my little boy? Are you talking about Frankie?”

  She crushes the tissue to her mouth and nods.

  “He loved you too, Cecily.” I’m confused. Maybe she’s confused. “Is this why you’re upset? Did you just find out?”

  “He called,” she says.

  “Who called?”

  “He told me. The baby took my pills.”

  I look at her. “What do you mean, the baby took your pills?”

  “Did you tell the police?” she asks again.

  I look down at the pavement and try to make sense of her. “Frankie . . .” To say it—it feels like trying to roll a boulder from a tomb. “He fell out of a window.”

  “When he took the pills?”

  “No, Frankie didn’t take any pills.” She doesn’t need to know that it was me, I’m the one who swallowed the pill the night our world blew apart. “Frankie climbed up on the windowsill. He fell.”

  “He said—”

  “Who said?”

  “A man called me. He said he was going to tell the police because of what I did. The pills.”

  “Frankie fell because . . . because his dad and I weren’t paying attention.” A tear pops and rolls down my cheek. “Not because of you, Cecily. I don’t know who—”

  She’s only giving me snatches and it’s like lightning in my head. Flashes of illumination and then nothing. Come on, Cecily, try to remember.

  Staring out into the parking lot, I watch people load groceries into trunks, children into backseats. It all looks so simple from a distance.

  “Cecily, I promise you’re not in trouble. Can you start from the beginning?”

  Breath shudders in her chest. “He never said his name. He phoned me at night. He said he was calling on your behalf. He said, Maggie’s baby swallowed Xanax with my name on it and he died.”

  Calling on my behalf? It had to be Ben. Angry Ben, sad Ben, Ben with a gun. Ben trying to make Frankie make sense. Make Frankie someone else’s fault.

  Someone else should hurt.

  “That’s not true,” I tell her.

  “I thought you hated me.” She puts her fingers against her eyes. “I was too scared to tell anyone. He phoned when I was sleeping. He phoned—” She starts to cry again. “The last time he called, he said they were going to kill him. He said that they were going to shoot him in the head. Someone. I couldn’t—I heard the shot. He was crying and pleading for help. I didn’t want anyone else to die. I called the police. They said if I gave them the number he called from—the call display—they could trace it. He had a gun. Someone had a gun. The police said they would investigate. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I’m so foolish.”

  THIRTEEN

  Ben

  Where’s here? Where’s real? Is this real? Is this alive? Awake? Hands on his face, he rubs and rubs and then punches his head. Wake up. But there’s Ben perched at the end of the couch, like a vulture. Like a goblin. “You’re not real!”

  “No, you’re not real.” A hand shoots out, takes him by the ankle, and yanks him down the hall to the woods. The hand on his ankle is a child’s now and the boy drags him like a stuffed bear up the side of a hill, his flesh snagging on rock and broken branches.

  At the top, Frankie stands at the edge of the cliff and looks out to the stars. “Now, you go,” he says and he unzips the sky and shows the sun on the other side—blinding, screaming light. “Go, Daddy, go.”

  “Like this!” Frankie climbs through the gash himself. “Come! Come here, Daddy.” So bright. So sweet.

  Ben’s too black for that bright. He’s a black hole; he’d suck the day into night.

  Yes or no? Yes or no, Father? Should he get in? Would they even let him in? The rip is getting smaller. Closing, closing. Choose. No?

  No! It’s always no! No bliss for the wicked. Jump then, just drop dead, falling and falling, scream and scream and no one hears!

  Every time he jumps, he lands on the couch crying. Hell is nowhere. Hell is nothing.

  Somebody help me. Wake me up. Who? Where’s the fucking phone? Where’s the pills? Where’s a number? Cecily G. Riley? Please, help me. Mrs. Riley. I can’t wake up, Mrs. Riley. Please wake me up.

  Everywhere you look, there’s Ben. There’s naked Ben reaching, sliding the gun closer.

  Look at that gun! The way the light shimmers. Beautiful. It’s bright as a gash in heaven.

  Put her there, Father, put the muzzle to his head. Are you listening? For chrissake, are you listening? Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?

  He�
�s got a gun, Mrs. Riley. He’s going to shoot me in the head.

  Boom! Flying through space, hunting for that gash of light. It’s just a keyhole now. Keyhole bright, a hole in the night.

  Frankie pulling and pulling, shredding me, dragging me to the other side. Please, Daddy, please, come, come home. Take me home.

  Can anybody hear me?

  “I hear you, Ben.” Francis. Francis is saying, “Listen to me, Ben.”

  It’s better without Ben, so much better.

  “No, Ben, it’s not. If the voice you’re hearing in your head says you’re no good, turn from it. That is not the voice of God. That’s not love. That is not how God speaks to us.”

  God, help me.

  “That’s right, just ask for help. Be here, Ben. Maggie needs you. Maggie loves you. You are loved.”

  Oh God. Help me. Father. Please! Maggie, Maggie, help me, please help me.

  On the floor, on my knees, Maggie’s brother catching me, Francis wrapped around me like a cloak, like a cradle, saying, “I’ve got you, Ben. I’ve got you, brother.”

  Maggie. Maggie.

  “I’m going to get her,” Father says. Francis says, “I’m going to get Maggie. Talk to Maggie, Ben. She needs you. I’m calling her now.”

  THIRTEEN

  Maggie

  Poor Cecily. How could I leave her dangling like I did?

  Her head buried in my neck, I’m holding her tight now, rocking her. “Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry this happened. I wish I’d phoned you. I wish I had. But I couldn’t bear to say it out loud.” I rest my cheek on her head and rock and cry with her. “I think I know who called. He was scared too. He was just scared and sad. It’s going to be okay.”

  Eventually Cecily wipes her eyes and gets her breath back. She sits up. “I thought you hated me.”

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. Jesus. You got some timing, Francis. “It’s my brother. I’ll just be a second, okay?”

  Cecily nods shakily.

  “Hello.”

  Just breathing on the other end. It sounds like tears. As if the whole world is crying right now.

  “Hello?” Clutching the phone to my ear, I can feel him there. I can feel him here. “Ben?”

  “Maggie?” He sounds afraid and alone—like a boy who’s woken suddenly in the dark. “Maggie? Please?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Maggie? Maggie. Oh Maggie, I love you. I love you so much.”

  Doubled over in my lap, I crouch and listen and cry and watch my tears hit the pavement one at a time.

  FOURTEEN

  Ben

  Wrapped around me like a cloak. Francis. He’s holding Maggie to my ear. My Maggie. Her voice in my head.

  “Ben,” she says. “Forgive me,” she says. “I love you too.”

  Say Ben. Say love. Say forgive.

  Maggie. She feels like home. I’m almost home.

  Feels like I had to crawl through ten thousand nightmares, wrestle ten thousand demons to find the girl from my own neighborhood.

  Eyes all around. Orderlies. No one comes near. Francis drives them off, like wolves. Like I am small and new. He’s got his cool hand on my forehead now. Like a mother in a fever, like a father in a fever.

  Don’t let go. Don’t let me go.

  “I’m here,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

  Maggie?

  “I won’t let you go,” she says. “We’ll be home soon. I promise.”

  Maggie. Maggie. Glorious Maggie.

  FOURTEEN

  Maggie

  Maggie?” My brother’s just phoned back.

  “What’s happening? Where’s Ben?”

  “He’s in his room. He’s quiet now.” Francis lets his breath go as if he’s been holding it too tight for too long. “I’ve never heard someone cry like that . . .”

  “Should I come down?”

  Cecily is beside me on the bench, holding my free hand and stroking it like a broken sparrow.

  “I think he’s okay,” Francis says. “They gave him a sedative. Why don’t we let him sleep. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. My guts twist and clench when the call ends. I put the phone in my pocket and look at Cecily. Her face is so filled with sympathy that I lean against her, rest my head on her shoulder, and sigh and murmur, “What’s to become of us?”

  “We’ll survive,” she says. “That’s what we do.”

  AFTER I TAKE Cecily home, I sit outside her building in Lucy’s Volvo and swallow and swallow, trying to decide what to do next. Feels like I should be down at the hospital with Ben, should be upstairs in Cecily’s apartment helping her do whatever it is she needs done, should be putting Lucy’s car back in her garage, should be picking up Francis, should be, should be, should be.

  I put the car in drive. I should at least get one thing over with.

  ONCE LUCY’S CAR is back in her garage, I take her keys and head up to the fourteenth floor. Just as I get off the elevator, my phone rings again.

  “Hi. It’s Lucy,” she says. “I just, ah, I wanted to see if you were okay.” Her voice sounds small and breakable.

  “I’m in your building. I’m coming down your hall right now.”

  “You’re back?” Just ahead of me, her apartment door swings open and she holds up her phone with a fragile smile. “Isn’t that funny,” she says, but her voice is melancholy.

  “I just wanted to drop off your keys.” I hold them out and when I reach her put them in her hand.

  “Oh. You’re coming in, aren’t you?” As I hesitate, she says, “Yes. Come in. I owe you for your time today.”

  “No, no. Of course you don’t.”

  Inside, Lucy closes the door and rests her hands on her walker. The two of us stare at one another.

  “Are you mad at me?” she says. “I’m sorry. I really am very sorry.”

  “It’s not that, it’s—Oh maybe it is. I am upset with you. I can’t do this, Lucy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Things are really upside down for me right now. I hope it’s going to get better soon, but I’m not in a state of mind to—”

  “Oh no.” Lucy’s eyes open in fear. “Maggie, please. Don’t say that. I was wrong. I won’t do it again. I just thought that it would be nice, that you—”

  “It’s not nice. It’s private. It’s my life. And how can this be nice for you? Throwing good money after bad, lining their pockets, these charlatans and phonies—”

  “No!” Her face is a sudden storm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I never told her that—Oh forget it.” She wipes her cheek and, losing her balance, grabs hold of her walker, turns it around, and shoves it toward her balcony. “A goddamn walker. I can’t even walk anymore. You don’t know! You’re not alone. You’re not scared that—”

  “Not scared? For God’s sake, Lucy! I have no one! I lost my child. He’s gone because of me. My husband’s gone because of me. And my brother’s going and everyone’s gone. Just like that. I hate these idiots and their phony spook talk!”

  She stares out the sliding glass door for a moment and then shouts, “You have your whole life in front of you!” She turns her walker back. “I’ve got one foot in the grave. Every day I look at the trees and I see less and less, but I try to fill my eyes and my head and really see them because I don’t have much time left. And I’m afraid. I’m afraid of lying in the cold ground.” She looks down and her curved back starts to heave. “I’m afraid every time I go to sleep that I might not wake up.” Tears slide off her jaw.

  I look at the floor. Ben’s voice sifts into my head: Don’t let go. Don’t let me go.

  And then, like a canyon echo, Lucy says, “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

  Don’t go. It’s true: I can’t keep leaving.

  “Okay.” I touch her sleeve. “I won’t. We’ll figure it out.”

  Lucy fumbles for my hand. She grabs hold and I grab back. We stand in her living room a few moments, holding hands. Holding tight.

&nb
sp; WHEN FRANCIS COMES home, he brings Chinese takeout with him, but neither of us can stomach food right now. We are leaning against the counter of my tiny kitchen. Probably because it’s the smallest room in the place, one where we can stay close without acknowledging the need to do so.

  Francis turns on the cold-water tap and fills the kettle. “By the end he sounded more like himself. When I first got there, it was—it was like he was somewhere else eavesdropping on his own life.”

  “So he did shoot himself, but he wasn’t trying to kill himself?”

  “That’s what I understood.” Francis puts the kettle on the stove and turns on the burner. “He, ah—well, he did give me permission to talk about this with you, so—”

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  “Basically, in the days or weeks leading up to that night, he hadn’t slept and he took some drugs to put himself out. He fell asleep and then he couldn’t escape his own nightmare. He thought he was dreaming. He shot himself in the head to wake up.” Francis shudders and stares at the creaking kettle.

  “Jesus Christ.” I turn to the sink and hold on to the counter’s edge. “Where would he get a gun?”

  “Cola. Cola was in trouble and he got himself a gun. Then he stole drugs from a veterinary clinic. Ben was holding the drugs for him.”

  “What? Why? That kid is such a jackass.”

  “Kid. What is he, thirty?”

  “So, now what? How long will he have to—”

  “I’m guessing that once it’s established that he’s not a danger to himself, they’ll probably let him go. I told Ben’s doctor what happened today. What about you? How do you feel? Are you ready to . . . ?”

  “If he’s really there, I want him here.” Cecily’s strong old face slides to mind. “We’ll survive. That’s what we do.”