The Dark House

by John Sedgwick

  “Oh, yeah?” He seemed amused.

  “Richard had her address. She says hi.”

  “Yeah, she would.” He took a slurp of beer. There was a time when his father would never have touched beer, let alone drunk it straight from the can. Silence again as his father surveyed him. It was as if he were trying to decide something about him.

  “I was at Mother’s this morning,” Rollins said.

  “Making the rounds, were you?”

  “She had a stroke.”

  “Did she?” The tone was both unsurprised and uncaring. Rollins might have told him that she’d eaten a nice dinner.

  “It’s serious, Father. The doctor said she’s paralyzed on her right side.” Rollins felt for her just then. He imagined he was her, trying to win this gruff man’s attention.

  Nothing doing. Henry Rollins tipped his head back to take another draft of beer, then set the empty can down on the counter. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  The clock on the wall ticked. They’d had so little time together, and so little time remained. They might have been strangers on a train. “Kathi told me your marriage broke up.”

  His father’s features hardened. “Yes, that’s right.” He looked out at his son through slitlike eyes. “You’re not married, are you?”

  Rollins shook his head, although his father must have known from Sloane that he wasn’t.

  “So you don’t know how tight it gets.”

  Rollins braced himself; he was moving into realms of intimacy with his father that he had never dared penetrate before. His heart churned, and his palms turned slick. “That how you felt with Mother?”

  “Sometimes, sure.” His father got up and casually cracked open another beer. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Richard, for instance. He’s married, and that seems to be going well. How about you—thinking about it?”

  “It’s crossed my mind.” It calmed him to think of Marj.

  His father returned to his seat. “That why you wanted to see me? Get my permission?” He seemed to find that amusing.

  Rollins said nothing; it seemed safer at that point just to let his father talk.

  “Well, don’t do anything I did.” He took another gulp. “She any good in bed?”

  Rollins’ pulse jumped. What a question! If anyone else were to have asked such a thing to the father Rollins thought he knew, he was sure that the old man would have exploded. And it was all the more horrifying knowing that his father had already sicced Sloane on the question of Marj already. Was Rollins’ own relationship just another one to bore into the way he’d watched Elizabeth fondle Sloane at the Elmhurst house? Was he more grist for his father’s warped mill?

  The water on the stove started to boil, producing a low whistling noise and sending a cloud of steam into the air, but both men ignored it.

  “Don’t be shy, son. These things are important. I think that’s what broke your mother and me up. She was always so uptight about all that stuff.” Rollins was astonished to hear this revisionist history. It was as if Neely had never existed.

  The kettle grew agonizingly shrill, and his father finally stood up to attend to it. He poured in the water and handed the mug to his son. “How long’s it been, since we—?” He flicked a finger back and forth between the two of them.

  “Almost nine years.”

  “That long? Imagine that.”

  Outside, the sky turned dark, blackening the trees out the window. His father poured his son more coffee and helped himself to more beer. Henry Rollins’ words, once so clipped and sharp, loosened further, dropping into vulgarities here and there. His father seemed to enjoy the chance to catch up with his firstborn. He relaxed in his chair, but never did venture far from the rifle. He told Rollins about some of the places he’d been in Europe, and explained about the second wife, Christine, whom Rollins had only barely heard of. “That was pretty much a rebound thing. Didn’t last.” He’d tried different jobs. He had indeed taken up real estate for a while, in Oregon. “Sold little office buildings, mostly.” He never did mention Kathi.

  It was nearly eight-thirty, but Rollins still needed answers. “So, why’d you come back here to Vermont?” he asked, trying to make the question sound innocent.

  His father’s initial wariness returned. “Well, your old man had to go someplace, didn’t he?”

  “Of course.” Rollins tried to keep his voice soft. “I just never thought you were particularly attached to this house.”

  “I’ve got happy-enough memories of this place. Skiing, all that. Your mother gave it to me, straight out. Seven, eight years ago, she sent me the deed in the mail. Damnedest thing.” Mr. Rollins eyed his son. “And this was after she put the screws to me in the divorce. Of course, I don’t have the cash to keep it up, but I’m working on that.”

  “Are you?” His words, with their simplicity and their skepticism, hung in the air.

  “Yes,” his father said evenly. “I am.” He held his son’s gaze a moment.

  Rollins felt an understanding pass between them—an understanding that both locked them together and blew them apart. The edge to Henry’s words and the silence that followed seemed to acknowledge that he suspected his son knew all about his financial dealings involving Neely’s inheritance—and dared Rollins to do anything about it. And there was another message, too: I am past caring about your mother. And now I am past caring about you.

  Rollins drained the last of his coffee. It was over. This was the time. He’d go to the bathroom off the front hall, start the water running, then dash to his car and drive away. “Mind if I use the bathroom?” Rollins asked.

  “Actually, I do.”

  Rollins tensed. Was there no escape?

  “Aw, don’t give me that look,” his father said. “I’ve just got a little problem with the plumbing. You’ll have to go out back. Just a piss you need, right?”

  Rollins nodded.

  “Go out in the bushes there past the door. That’s what I do.”

  Rollins got up and went to the kitchen door. It was dark out, but the bushes were lit up by the light from the kitchen. Rollins stepped toward them, settled himself, then released a long yellow stream. He zipped up, turned back, just to look. He saw no sign of his father. This was his chance. He should have run, right then. He might have made it. But when he turned back toward the lawn, he saw the slender croquet wickets. And then a gust of wind sent the stench his way, and he remembered the mound of dirt beyond. He glanced back at the kitchen once more, saw nothing, then crossed the lawn to the hay field. In the moonlight, the dirt pile was a heap of black. He still had the flashlight in his pocket and he shined his beam down into the hole beside the mound. It went in about a foot or so before it bottomed out onto white plastic. He swept away some loose dirt, and made out a word scrawled in Magic Marker. Septic. The lid was about eighteen inches across.

  Wide enough to fit a body through.

  Rollins crouched down, recalling the facts of Neely’s disappearance. What had been a notion hardened into an inescapable fact. He flicked the flashlight off, shoved it back into his pocket where it clicked dully against the wristwatch, and dropped to his knees. “Oh, God.” He brought his hands to his face as horror spread through his chest.

  Above him, a few stars peeked through the lightly overcast skies, and a quarter moon over Bald Mountain shone dully upon him, casting a dim shadow on the field around him. The breeze had turned chilly, and it cut through his shirt. The full weight of the universe had settled down upon him.

  Neely was buried in the septic tank beneath him.

  He could still get to his car from there. He’d just go. Quickly. He’d be free of his father, and what he’d done, forever. Free of his family, free to start a new family with Marj.

  He stood up and started running toward the far side of the house. It was 8:34. Quickly. Some change jiggled in his pocket; he reached in a hand to still it, for fear his father would hear. Quickly. To the road and then to his car, and then—
/>   But before he even reached the corner, the dog howled from the front of the house, and then dashed around toward him, barking. The screen door screeched, and his father called out through the night. “Edward? What the hell you doing over there?”

  Rollins froze. He was near the corner of the house, but not near enough. The dog stood before him, growling furiously. Rollins glanced back toward the kitchen. His father was a dark shape in the light by the door.

  “Edward?” he called again. He was holding his rifle.

  Rollins didn’t move.

  “Why don’t you come back inside, son?”

  Rollins was too terrified to speak, or to move.

  “Come back inside, son.”

  “Yes, Father,” he replied. He stepped back toward the kitchen door. He was a child again, forced to obey. It was natural, easy. Whatever made him think it could ever have been any different? He was in his father’s grip, now as always. The gun loomed larger as he came closer. The barrel glistened in the moonlight.

  “What were you doing out there?” his father asked when Rollins drew near.

  “Just—just looking at the croquet course. We used to have one in Brookline—remember?”

  His father pointed the rifle right at him. “That all, son?”

  Rollins’ chest tingled where the gun was aimed. He stepped back inside the kitchen door, and Father shut the door behind him, then bolted it this time. He motioned for his son to take a seat at the table again. Rollins did. Father sat back down, too. He kept the gun on his son.

  “Perhaps we should be more candid with each other.”

  Rollins’ eyes were fixed on the gun.

  “What were you looking in the septic tank for?”

  Rollins said nothing.

  “Edward, I saw you point a light into it.”

  Light was everything at night, as Rollins well knew. He stared at his father. This was no one he knew. The gruff way he talked, the coldness in the eyes. This was a total stranger pointing a gun at him.

  The wall phone rang. Rollins jumped.

  “I think we’ll let the machine take that,” his father said.

  “Ah, Mr. Rollins?” It was a hesitant female voice that Rollins immediately recognized. “This is Marj Simmons. I’m a, um, a friend of your son’s. I’m calling from the hospital in Hartford. You may have heard that your wife—I mean your ex-wife—is here. She’s doing okay. I was hoping to get in touch with, um, Edward. Is he there? I just wanted to make sure he got there all right, and that he’s, like, okay. Could you ask him to call me when you see him?” She left a number at the hospital. “Got that? Thanks, bye.” The machine clicked off.

  “That your girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “She sounds nervous.”

  “She’s worried about me. She knows I’m here, Father.”

  “She thinks you might be here.” The rifle remained pointed at his son’s chest.

  Rollins’ hands were out in front of him. “Put the rifle down, would you please, Father?” He spoke calmly. He’d reached the end of a long journey. It was 8:41. If his father didn’t get him, Sloane would. He was past fear now.

  His father sighted down the gun barrel. “Pow,” he exclaimed, then smiled weirdly. “I just wouldn’t want you to run off, not after you came all this way to see me.” There was a note of mockery in his voice. He did not lower the gun.

  “I can’t believe you’d ever get involved with slime like Jerry Sloane.”

  “So you knew about that, huh? Jerry told me you never made the connection, but I figured you did. You’re a smart boy, and you always were nosing around in things.”

  Rollins said nothing, just stared at the tip of the gun barrel.

  “I needed money. It was that simple.”

  “You get a cut of Neely’s inheritance, is that the—?” Rollins stopped, his eyes still on the gun.

  “It’s a deal like any other.” Henry Rollins smiled. “Just a matter of turning information into money.”

  “You bastard.” Rage consumed him. He wanted to hurl himself forward onto his father, fists flying. But the gun rooted him in his seat.

  Mr. Rollins ignored his son’s outburst. “So, how’d you find out—about Neely and me?”

  “From Elizabeth.”

  “That dyke.”

  Rollins ignored that. “She got in touch with me before she died. She told me where to find some copies of letters you wrote Neely. And that letter Neely wrote Mother.”

  “So she kept all those?”

  “In a strongbox she’d buried in her garden in Londonderry.”

  “Buried treasure. That’s cute. So that’s what brought you up here? Thought you’d check me out?”

  His voice turned imploring. “I had to know, Father. I had to know what happened to Neely.”

  “You’ll regret that.” He cocked the gun. “So how’d you find out?”

  His mouth felt dry. “I found her wristwatch in your bureau, Father.” It pressed into his pants pocket. He would die with it on him.

  “You always were fond of her, weren’t you?”

  Rollins couldn’t think about that. One word burst up from deep inside. “Why?”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Well then, you can explain. You can get a lawyer. You don’t have to make it any worse than it already is.”

  “Explain. I wanted to take her away from all this crap. I’d had enough of it, and so had she. That’s my explanation.” He kept the gun on his son.

  “Well, there, you see?”

  “No, you don’t see.”

  Rollins stared at the gun. “So what happened?”

  Father’s index finger was curled about the trigger.

  “Tell me. Please. I have to know.”

  “All right, sure. I’ll tell you. Your mother sent me a ticket East a few years ago. I was down on my luck, and I thought I’d look up old Neels. It had been a long time, and I had such happy memories of her. I drove over there to that house of hers in Londonderry, and I saw her on the road, walking. I offered her a ride.”

  A quick upward glance into his father’s steely eyes. “She got in your car?”

  “I had a gun with me. Not this one. A handgun I bought out West. Like I say, I was real eager to see her. Guns can be persuasive, now can’t they?” He fell silent a moment. “It had been such a long time. I’d never stopped thinking about her. Through two wives, other women…Nothing else was like being with her. She was the whole reason for the trip. Nothing else was so—so fresh. I just wanted to be with her one more time. That’s what I told her. ‘Just once, Neely. That’s all I want. Then you’ll never hear from me again, I promise.’ She really didn’t like the gun. She started whimpering, telling me I’d ruined her life and all that.” His father’s voice turned scornful. “Come on. She was old enough to make her own decisions. I took her down the road, then turned down a smaller road, then a smaller one still. We were miles away from anywhere. I stopped under some trees, turned the headlights off. The rain was coming down. It was late, it was dark. There was nobody around. I was losing patience. She started crying harder, which annoyed me. She didn’t have any reason to cry. Not with me. We’d always been such good friends! I mean, the things she used to tell me! And she’d always liked the sex. God, she was an animal.” A strange new light came into his eyes.

  “I had to bring the gun right up close to her head to get her to understand me. She undid her things, and I got on her, and we did it right there in the car. It was nice. Just like old times.”

  “And then—and then you shot her? You just shot her?” Shocked. Desperate.

  “Hell no. What do you think I am? I wasn’t going to do anything like that.”

  “So, what—?”

  “She was crying pretty hard at the end. Her face was all red, and she was real broken up. I told her to quiet down. I couldn’t take that. That blubbering. It was rude.”

  Rollins stared at the stranger across from him.

  “I thought maybe
we’d go up to Canada. It’s real pretty up there in the fall. But she wanted out of the car, said she wouldn’t tell anyone. I told her no, I couldn’t do that. Then she tried to open the car door as we were going along! I told her, ‘Don’t. It’s dangerous.’ I didn’t want her to get hurt. Well, she came at me and clawed her nails into my face. I’ll admit, that made me angry. I still had the gun, and she’s damn lucky I showed a little self-control. I could have shot her. But I didn’t. I grabbed her and held her. She was struggling. She always was a wild one. So I had to hold her tighter.” He paused. “Maybe I shook her a little.”

  Rollins’ father was a blank shape across from him. “She went still. I guess her head must’ve hit something. I don’t know. She was breathing fine. I figured she’d passed out. I started up again. Like I said, I wanted to go clear up to Canada. It’s so beautiful up there in the fall. I tipped the seat back so she could rest. I kept on for miles. I kept expecting her to come around.”

  The world went darker, colder. Rollins had never felt so lonely, so scared. “But that’s not murder!” he cried. “You didn’t—”

  “I didn’t kill her, Edward.” His father spoke coldly, decisively. “I want you to know that.”

  “Then you can explain!”

  “It’s too late for explanations, don’t you understand? I’d hoped to keep you out of this, son. But you came at the wrong time. I was just emptying the tank. I have to do that every few years. Can’t use Red Tag for it—that’s the local outfit. I have to pump it out myself. Thought I’d be all done by now, but my pump got clogged this morning. I guess that’s our tough luck, now isn’t it? I had to drive down to Brattleboro for a spare part.”

  It was completely black outside. The kitchen was reflected in the windowpanes. It had all come down to Rollins and his father, and a gun between them. It would end here.

  “I loved that girl.” Mr. Rollins tightened his hands on the rifle again. “And now I need you to forgive me, son. Forgive me my trespasses, just as the Bible says. I’ve wronged you, Edward. More than your mother, your brother. More than your dear little sister, God bless her soul. More than Neely. She betrayed me, but you never did.”