She lay awake for a long time, listening. Finally, with her arm curved protectively around her daughter, Olivia at last fell into an uneasy asleep.
A long time after they were gone, after listening to them go to the bathroom, then enter the room next door and settle down for the night, he took one last peek to make sure the coast was clear and slid out from under the bed.
That had been a close call. He was rusty. It had been a long time. Too long.
Good thing mommies never thought to look in closets or under beds.
That thought made him smile. He felt good. Surprisingly good, really. Alive, and sharp, and ready for more.
His plan might have been foiled tonight, but his appetite had been whetted.
He would be seeing little Miss Sara again.
Very soon.
CHAPTER 21
Grand Isle, Louisiana—July 17, 1974
DADDY, COULD YOU STAY IN JUST TILL I go to sleep, please? If I’m already asleep when you go out I won’t be scared.’’ Maggie Monroe’s voice was softly pleading. Dressed in purple baby doll pajamas with little pink flowers all over them, her legs as skinny as a crane’s below the ruffled panties she wore, and her hair as yellow and frizzy as a dandelion’s, she was standing in the doorway of their rented vacation cottage two blocks from the beach. Her father, Vince, was already halfway across the shabby screened porch. He was going out, he’d said, and she should go on to bed. Ordinarily she would never dream of arguing with him. She was half afraid of him at the best of times. But she was more afraid of being left by herself in this tumbledown shack after dark.
‘‘Gawd-damn, Maggie, you’re nine years old. Plenty old enough to stay by yourself whilst I go out for a while.’’ Her dad was irritated, but not yet mad, and he actually paused to look back over his shoulder at her.
Prodded by the shadows that were creeping over the scruffy patch of grass in front of the cottage and her dread of being left alone as twilight deepened into full dark, Maggie swallowed and tried again.
‘‘Please, Daddy? It won’t take me long to go to sleep, I promise. I’m real sleepy already.’’
‘‘If I’da known you was gonna need a baby-sitter, I wouldn’t’ve taken you on no vacation.’’ He scowled at her, and Maggie shrank inside herself. He was starting to get mad, she could tell. ‘‘You go on to bed now, and I’ll be back directly, you hear?’’
With that he pushed on out the screen door, which banged shut behind him. Maggie stood watching forlornly as he climbed into his bright blue Chevy Impala and roared off. Knowing her daddy like she did, Maggie figured he probably wouldn’t be home before dawn, and when he did get home he’d be drunk and mean with it.
Oh, why had her mama made such a stink about his never spending time with her anymore? That’s what had brought this whole blamed thing on. Her mama had screamed it at her daddy in front of the judge at their divorce, and her daddy had called later on the telephone and told her mama he was taking Maggie somewhere special over summer vacation, to a house on the beach that he had rented just for the two of them so they could spend some time together, so she could just quit bitching about his never doing anything nice for his daughter. He did, too. She just liked to bitch.
Mama had tried to take it back then, to say that Maggie couldn’t go, but it was too late. The judge had ordered it. So Maggie had to go.
When he had come yesterday morning to pick her up, her mama and daddy had gotten into one of their screaming fights right in the yard in front of the neighbors. It had ended with her mama yelling thank God she’d finally had the sense to divorce him and kick him the hell out of her life. Her daddy had looked around at all the nearby houses with their windows open and people listening behind them, said ‘‘Bitch,’’ under his breath, and gotten in his car. Then her mama had looked at Maggie, given her a kiss on the cheek, and told her to take real good care of herself because her daddy never would. Then Maggie had had to get in the car, and her daddy had driven them away.
To this shack, where he’d left her alone last night as well. Look, he’d said, it was his vacation, too, and he didn’t want to hear her whining about it.
Now the yard was getting darker, gloomy almost. Maggie shivered and went back inside the cottage and carefully shut and locked the door. If she got into bed now, before it got too dark, she might be able to fall asleep before it was full night and then she wouldn’t have to see it and know she was alone in it.
Maggie scurried to the bedroom—there was only one bedroom, so her daddy slept on the fold-out couch— and jumped into bed, huddling down and pulling the covers up over her head. Then she realized that it would be dark soon and she hadn’t turned on any lights. So she hopped out of bed and ran from room to room, flicking on switches until the three-room cottage blazed with wattage. Finally she got back into bed, pulled the covers over her head, curled into a little ball, and prayed to go to sleep.
The bed smelled musty, and sort of like somebody had peed on it a long time ago. What with the bad smell, and the heat, and the air conditioner in the kitchen not working right, she pretty soon started to feel sick to her stomach. But she would have to get up and go into the bathroom if she was going to throw up, and she was too scared to do that, so she just lay where she was and started imagining, started thinking about herself as a beautiful princess named Allyson who lived in an enchanted castle on a faraway isle and had a unicorn named Dazzle for her best friend.
It was her favorite fantasy when she was scared or lonesome, and pretty soon, as Princess Allyson, she was riding Dazzle through the clouds, and that was how she fell asleep.
Maggie didn’t know what time it was when she woke up, but she knew it was a long time later because her dad was home. He’d opened the bedroom door and turned out the light, and now he was coming across the floor to check on her.
‘‘Daddy?’’ Blinking, she pulled the covers away from her face, glad to be able to breathe in air that didn’t smell so bad at last. Her dad was right by the bed, looking down at her. Scooting her butt around on the mattress, she started to sit up—and then her dad swooped down on her, jamming a wet cloth that smelled sort of like gasoline over her nose and mouth while his other hand pressed hard against the back of her head so she couldn’t get away. She gagged and tried to fight him off, and as she did she looked up and saw that it wasn’t her daddy doing it to her at all, but a stranger.
Stark terror released a rush of adrenaline that gave her the strength to kick and flail.
It wasn’t enough. In less than a minute Maggie’s eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp.
Stealing little girls out of their bedrooms was the best, the ultimate thrill. They had usually just had a bath, and they smelled sweet and clean. He liked that. Plus, inside their own houses they thought they were safe, their parents thought they were safe, and he got off on imagining how horrified the mommies were in the morning when they got up to discover their babies missing. The last one, he had seen her face on a milk carton a couple of weeks ago. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD? the caption read. That had made him chuckle. Oh, yes, he’d seen her, all right. But he didn’t think he’d be calling the 800 number anytime soon.
This one looked like she might be a fighter. If so, he was going to enjoy her even more. Of course, once she woke up and saw where she was and what he meant to do with her the fight would go out of her pretty damn fast. Still, it was going to be fun to watch her face while she figured it out. He might keep this one awhile, in the place he had rigged up. Keep her until he couldn’t stand it anymore, until he just couldn’t hold out another minute.
But it would be fun to fight the urge for as long as he could.
Fun for him, that is. He chuckled as he drove along the interstate toward his destination. His toy was locked in a dog cage in the back of the van. From the sounds she was making, she was already starting to regain consciousness.
‘‘Mama . . .’’ she moaned.
Sweetheart, he thought, you won’t ever see your mama
again.
He smiled with an anticipation that was almost orgasmic. Then he had a thought that caused the smile to ripen into a full-throated chuckle. The white panel van he was driving was perfectly plain so as not to attract undue attention.
In the interests of truth in advertising, maybe he should hire somebody to paint a smiley face on it with the legend MONSTERS R US.
Would that bring the kiddies running, or what?
CHAPTER 22
WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE WEEK PASSED SWIFTLY for Olivia. Lamar Lennig called twice, once to invite her to a movie in Baton Rouge and the second time to ask her to lunch or dinner or anything else she cared to do, as long as she did it with him. Olivia turned him down both times. An old friend of hers from St. Theresa’s, LeeAnn Hobart, now James, who was living in LaAngelle as the wife of the pharmacist, of all things, called, then came by at Olivia’s invitation to reminisce over past, wilder times. From that visit, Olivia gleaned that the news of her return to LaAngelle Plantation was the talk of the town.
The rest of the time she spent with Sara, and getting reacquainted with her family. One or more of them— usually more—dropped by for dinner nearly every night, so, except for the occasional personality clash, evenings were generally merry affairs.
Callie’s chemotherapy regimen called for three weeks on, one week off, for six months. Since this was an off week, Callie stayed pretty much close to home, trying to gain back what strength she could before, in her word, they started dripping poison into her veins again. Seth, on the other hand, was hardly ever home. Olivia assumed he was dividing his time between the Boatworks and the hospital, but she didn’t know for sure. David and Keith were around, having settled into the garçonnière for what David described as an ‘‘indefinite period.’’ What that actually meant, Keith said candidly when David wasn’t present, was until Big John either died or was pronounced out of danger. Since David no longer participated in the day-to-day running of his restaurant, a lengthy absence would do it no harm.
Chloe was away from the house a lot, too, involved with her own activities from early morning to late afternoon. She had swim practice and tennis practice and piano lessons and play dates, all prearranged. At Callie’s insistence, Sara was invited to join in the play dates— Callie was sure Sara would love Chloe’s friends!—but Sara privately begged her mother not to make her go. She always preferred not to meet strangers unless she had to. Olivia saw no reason to force her daughter into trying to make friends with the local little girls, given the fact that their presence at LaAngelle Plantation was to be so brief, so Sara stayed home.
In the evenings Sara and Chloe played together—usually Beanie Babies or a video game on the TV set in Chloe’s room. The rain that had been intermittent since Monday precluded any more lightning bug hunts, which in Olivia’s opinion was just as well. Sara was back to comfortably sleeping alone in Olivia’s old room, and Olivia wasn’t anxious for a repeat of the vampire lightning bug king episode. It had been too unnerving for both of them.
Even if it was just a bad dream.
Chloe had the occasional unpleasant outburst, but since Sara seemed ready to do most anything Chloe asked, the girls got along fairly well.
Olivia and Sara spent the days together very happily, exploring outside when the weather permitted, reading when it rained, going into town for an ice cream and to view Olivia’s girlhood haunts in Callie’s Lincoln, which they borrowed, and basically just hanging out.
During most of the year, Olivia felt guilty because, as a single working mother, the amount of time she had to spend with Sara was limited. Even when they were together after Olivia got off from work and picked Sara up at the neighbor’s where Sara stayed after school, there was supper to be made and homework to be done and baths to be taken and clothes and lunches to be prepared for the next day—in other words, a whole litany of chores. What Olivia craved most in the world, always, was time. Unpressured time to just be with her daughter. So being free to wander and read and talk with Sara was the vacation she needed.
The plan was that she and Sara would return to Houston on Friday. Olivia had bought round-trip tickets on Greyhound that required them to leave New Roads at six A.M. They would arrive back in Houston late that night, pick up her car, which they had left in the bus station’s parking lot, and drive home to their apartment. That would give them the weekend to recover from their trip and do the necessary shopping and planning for Sara’s opening day at school the following Wednesday. Olivia had to be at work at eight A.M. Monday morning.
Thus would life get back to normal. With one exception. Now that the connection with her family had been reestablished, and especially given Callie’s and Big John’s illnesses, Olivia meant to come visit again as often as she could. LaAngelle Plantation was no longer a dream of faraway places and better times with which to beguile a little girl to sleep. It was, once again, simply home.
On Wednesday afternoon, Olivia and Sara came running back to the house through a sudden shower. The day had been so hot that even the raindrops felt warm as they struck Olivia’s skin. The lawn seemed to steam. The air smelled of damp earth and honeysuckle. They’d been hunting for dropped peacock feathers because Sara was utterly enchanted by them, and, having already found four, she was bent on starting a collection. As they sprinted, laughing, hands clasped, heads ducked against the rain, up the front steps to the protection of the veranda, Callie and Keith called to them. Callie, in navy slacks and a short-sleeved print blouse, and Keith, in white slacks and a black T-shirt, were seated in the two white wicker rocking chairs near the swing that was the twin of the one on the upper gallery. Fifteen feet above them, the two ring-necked pheasants that Charlie had stuffed and hung from the ceiling twenty-five years before still winged their way skyward. On the floor between them, there was a big brown cardboard box.
‘‘Come join us, you two,’’ Callie invited, beckoning.
Uncomfortably damp and feeling slightly grubby in a rain-splattered yellow T-shirt and another pair of the cutoffs that she wore almost constantly when not at work (recycled from her worn-out jeans, they were the most economical of shorts), Olivia almost declined. But there was so little time left, and she had not said nearly everything she wanted to Callie. She therefore smiled assent and headed toward the others. Tugging on her mother’s hand, Sara resisted. Olivia looked down at her questioningly.
‘‘Can I go watch cartoons instead?’’ she whispered. A big satellite dish behind the garçonnière brought a dazzling array of programs into the house, including three channels of nonstop cartoons. Since they were not even able to afford basic cable in Houston, Sara was in TV lovers’ heaven. Sometimes she would watch in Chloe’s room with Chloe, or, if Chloe was not home, on the big set in the den.
‘‘Sure, baby.’’ Olivia let go of Sara’s hand, and with a quick, grateful smile for her mother Sara scampered into the house.
‘‘Looking at pictures?’’ Olivia approached Callie and Keith. It was fairly obvious, from the snapshots they were exclaiming over and passing back and forth, that they were, indeed, doing just that. With David spending a lot of time at the hospital, and Keith, like Olivia, decidedly persona non grata there, Keith had a lot of time on his hands. He had been spending most of it with Callie, with whom he got on like a house on fire. She even referred to him, in and out of his presence and only a little jokingly, as her new favorite sister-in-law. He seemed to take that as a compliment, and even returned the favor.
‘‘Oh, Olivia, I kept these for you,’’ Callie said, looking up as Olivia reached her chair. She gestured at the box at her feet. ‘‘I thought you’d want to have them someday.’’
Glancing down, Olivia saw that her aunt was holding out a snapshot for her to view. The picture showed a pretty dark-haired woman smiling as she crouched behind a cherubic little girl in a ruffle-bottomed playsuit. The little girl was clutching a yellow-haired doll that was nearly as big as she was.
The doll was Victoria Elizabeth.
&
nbsp; Olivia realized that she was looking at a photograph of herself with her mother.
CHAPTER 23
FOR A MOMENT IT WAS AS IF SHE HAD INADVERTENTLY stepped onto a carousel and was being spun back through time. Olivia felt light-headed, nauseated almost. The photograph in Callie’s hand blurred until she couldn’t make out the images, and then it seemed as if she were looking out from the picture, as if she had become the round-faced little girl and was looking out at her adult self.
She could almost smell the scent of her mother’s White Shoulders perfume.
‘‘You look just like Selena,’’ Callie said with satisfaction, her attention on the print in her hand rather than her niece. ‘‘I don’t think there’s a hair’s worth of difference between you. And Sara is going to look just like the both of you when she’s grown.’’
‘‘Amazing resemblance,’’ Keith agreed, looking up at Olivia and then back down at the picture in his hand.
Olivia did not want to take the picture. She did not want to see, to remember. Her instinct was to back away, to refuse to look, to do whatever she had to do to keep from touching the photo that Callie was holding out to her. But that was silly—worse than silly. It would be a repudiation of her mother, and of herself, and by extension of Sara.
‘‘It is amazing,’’ Olivia agreed in a hollow voice, and accepted the snapshot from Callie. It was a Polaroid, taken with an instant camera, and the colors were starting to fade a bit. The paper edges felt as stiff and slick as plastic between her fingers. Unable to bring herself to look directly at the mother and daughter who’d been caught laughing into the camera with no knowledge of what the future would bring, she turned the picture over.
On the back, on the white bottom border of the photograph, a line was written in black ink. The small, precise letters were heavily slanted to the right. Livvy and me, it said, followed by a date: June 13, 1976.
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