Cast a Pale Shadow

by Scott, Barbara

  Maybe he would catch a glimpse of her at a lighted window. Maybe she would pass him on her way to the corner grocery or the mailbox or walking her dog.

  Or maybe she transferred from that bus to yet another and she was still miles away from him.

  It didn't matter. He felt so much closer to her than he did when he was home. He felt so much warmer walking on a street she may have walked. Sometimes when he reached the camera shop again, he found he did not have the will to climb into his car and drive the lonely distance to his rented room. Instead he would turn and retrace his steps to the end of the line and back again.

  Trissa

  In his new blue suit and maroon-striped tie, Bob Kirk whirled Edie onto the dance floor, aware of every admiring female glance turned his way. He was a looker and he knew it and it made Trissa ill to see how her mother basked in his glow. She regretted allowing herself to be recruited as coat check girl for this event. But she had thought the cloakroom would be out of the way and quiet enough to let her read. There was a test on Silas Marner on Monday and she was only on chapter four.

  Instead, she found her outpost to be in a direct line with the dance floor and the ringside table where her parents polished their public veneer for all their friends and fellow parishioners. Bob Kirk had been the chairperson this year and had steered his committee to what appeared to be a rousing success, despite a raging thunderstorm. The bar was booming, the band was lively, the decorations were perfect, and they probably would make just enough profit to top last year's which would look good in the Sunday bulletin next week.

  That Bob Kirk is a whiz of an organizer, people would say. He sure knows how to put on a good show, they would comment, with more truth than any suspected. You must be real proud of your old man, someone was bound to tell Trissa. Yes, real proud, she would lie with a smile that was as good a show as any he could put on.

  There was a time when it hadn't been a lie, but that was so long ago now that Trissa was surprised she remembered it. Once upon a time, she had felt lucky to have such a handsome daddy, so tall and dark and warm voiced. She used to love placing her little white-gloved hand in his for their Sunday march up the aisle to their favorite pew. She would try to match his shiny shoes stride for stride and grin smugly back at Lonny who escorted their mother.

  She would have the aisle seat again. She would have the pleasure of snuggling between the carved oak of the pew on one side and her Daddy's strong arm on the other. Lonny would be stuck on the end between their mother and a stranger. The little bells at the offering had a hollow, sweet sound in her special little niche, and her Daddy would slip his arm around her and glide her off the smooth wooden seat to her knees beside him, her nose just clearing the back of the bench in front of them. After church, they would go home and while her mother cooked a big Sunday dinner, she and her Daddy would pull out his old portable record player, spin his favorite 45's and dance in the living room. She only remembered happiness with her father's touch back then. It was so long ago.

  Trissa was five when things changed. Her cousin Rita came to stay with them that summer. Rita was fourteen, old enough for Trissa to be awed by and young enough for Lonny, at twelve, to have his first crush on. She remembered being intensely jealous of Rita and feeling guilty for it because "Poor Rita, her mother is filled with cancer, just filled with it", and whatever that meant, Trissa knew from her mother's hushed voice, it was very, very bad. Rita's father, who was Edie Kirk's black sheep brother, had long since departed the scene. "Off to Australia. Opportunities are limitless there, you know. He'll send for Rita when we can get in touch with him."

  Rita wore lots of makeup, shiny blouses that bulged at the buttons, and pencil slim skirts. Her hair was a mass of black curls and her mouth was always moving, whether chewing Doublemint Gum or chattering endlessly about the parade of boyfriends she had left brokenhearted in Kansas City. She smoked and made no effort to hide it and could match coffee drinking and gossip with her mother cup for cup and tidbit for tidbit. Rita confused the boundaries Trissa placed between adult and child, and Trissa did not know how to treat her. As it turned out, it was a confusion others in her family struggled with as well.

  After Rita came, Trissa no longer scrambled out of bed early while her parents slept on Saturday morning to spend a cozy few hours nestled against Lonny while he read to her from his comic books. On the first Saturday after Rita, Trissa awoke to find that she had stolen her place. Rita and Lonny lay sprawled in their pajamas and robes on the living room floor taking turns reading the dialog in the characters' voices. Trissa stayed for a while to listen, but it just wasn't the same.

  But it was Rita's effect on her father that shattered Trissa the most. As if it meant nothing at all, Rita waltzed down the aisle on Sunday next to him and sat her tight-skirted bottom in Trissa's special place on the pew.

  It was Rita who plopped herself on the front seat on her daddy's regular weekend outings to the hardware store. Trissa was relegated to the back. Forgotten were Trissa's lessons on the names of all the hammers and saws, and Trissa would just whisper them to herself as she tagged along behind. "Ballpeen, claw, tack, framing, sledge. Keyhole, jig, coping, crosscut, hack." Someday her father might care again that she remembered them.

  He never did. As the summer of Rita wore on, Trissa quit going with them at all and found what comfort could be had in her dolls and roller skates. It was the latter's betrayal that snapped the last thread of trust she had in her daddy.

  On a summer evening when her mother had gone to Ladies Guild, Trissa and her skates had a tangle with the curb and her knees and elbows paid the price. Whimpering softly, she ran to find her father. Maybe he would have a kiss to spare to make them better. She heard his muffled laughter in the old sewing room that Rita had been given as her bedroom. Behind the closed door, she heard Rita's voice as well. Later Trissa would learn of the green-eyed monster but she would always picture jealousy as red. It was in a red haze of anger she heard Rita pleading, "Please, oh please. Yes, that feels so good," and her father's warm, rumbly "Rita, my baby, my baby."

  The sidewalk burns on her knees and elbows became as nothing to the hate that had scorched through Trissa's heart at that moment. Trissa was her daddy's baby, not Rita. Not Rita! Prepared to scream that challenge, she pushed the door open. She didn't understand what she saw there. She couldn't. She was so confused that it hurt. Her daddy didn't see her at all, but Rita turned her head and smiled at her, a smile that said "He's mine. He's mine now. And you can't have him back. Never." Trissa shut the door and ran.

  After all these years and all the times her father had disappointed her, she was surprised how much she still hated Rita. But Rita was only fourteen then. For all her adult ways, she was no older than Trissa had been when she regained her father's attention in a way she never wanted. Rita was a child, just a child, and maybe not to blame at all...

  "Silas and Eppie. Silas and Eppie," she scolded herself and bent her head over her book once more.

  Alone in the house after the dance, her parents out seeking further entertainment, Trissa was determined to put aside her memories. What good did they do her? The only thing she could control was the future. By just the light over the sink, she sliced some cold roast beef and made a sandwich, tossed a handful of potato chips on the plate beside it and poured a glass of milk. Meal enough for the few moments she could spare away from her book. She had to get good grades on this test. If the future was to be hers to control, she couldn't chance failing her freshman year.

  Anxiety from just considering the possibility tied a knot in her throat that made her look at the sandwich in horror, its whiteness swimming like a blank page on an exam. Suddenly, she was not sure if she would be able to fill in even one answer. Abandoning the sandwich and milk, she took the chips, an apple, and a paring knife to her room. Cutting the apple into slivers, she alternated bites of it with the chips, sweet and salt to keep her alert, as she sprawled across the bed with her books and notes.

&n
bsp; The bed was a mistake, and soon Trissa slipped into a sleep of fitful dreams. The dreams wove sounds of the waking world into their fabric so that when she heard her father's footsteps in the hall, she dreamed they were Professor Edwin's coming to collect her test paper.

  "But I'm not finished. I need more time," Trissa told her in her dream.

  "That's a shame," Professor Edwin said shaking her head and frowning. "You should have studied harder. You should..." Professor Edwin's voice trailed off and was replaced by Bob Kirk's slurred bellow.

  "Teresha Marie, God dammit, wake up! Do you think I pay good money for food so you can let it rot on the sink? I'll teasch you to--"

  Startled awake, with the wisps of her dream still clinging like cobwebs, Trissa clambered to her feet. But her father hovered closer than she expected, blocking her path, and she stumbled into his chest.

  Suddenly, she felt his strong grasp on her arms, clinging as much to steady his own drunken instability as her clumsiness. He held her tighter than necessary as if loosening his hold might allow her to float away from him.

  Her mind flashed a vivid memory of herself as a child, held tight then lifted and tossed, giggling and breathless, into the air, free falling through space to be caught, safe and warm in her daddy's arms, then tossed again. High, so high she thought she would touch the ceiling, then down, down, falling. She trusted him to catch her back then, so long ago now, so long ago. "Daddy, I..."

  Then she really was falling and he with her, his hands no longer holding her but touching her, cold and possessive hands, sliding under her blouse, up her skirt.

  "Don't! You're drunk! Let me go!" Her voice was a rasping squeak. She could not make herself believe this was happening. The smell of gin on his breath pricked at her throat making tears flood her eyes.

  "I'll teasch you. I'll teasch you," she heard him mumble, his lips wet and mushy against her neck and down the opening of her blouse as he slipped the buttons free.

  "Stop! Stop! Let me go, please!" she sobbed. "Don't do this to me! I'm your daughter! I'm Trissa. Don't, you're hurting me, Daddy!" She pushed and struggled against his sodden weight as it crushed her down into the soft mattress.

  Abruptly, he stopped and pulled away from her, his eyes filled with a strange light, as if her voice, her cry of Daddy had at last stirred some faint conscience in him.

  He knows me now. He wouldn't hurt me. She tried to take advantage of his sudden perplexity by wriggling free, but his knee pinned her by her bunched-up skirt.

  She saw the light fade in his eyes and something else, darker, angrier take its place. He snatched at her hair and dragged her back beneath him, slapping her hard against the left cheek then backhanding her right. It was an action so familiar that she felt all hope drain from her, replaced by the same fury and rebellion that honed her sharp tongue and she fought back, kicking and flailing at him.

  She pummeled him, then fell back, winding up and hitting again and again and again until her hands felt so weak she thought she could not raise them one more time. And still he pressed down on her, groping her roughly, grimly, as if it were a duty he abhorred, with a touch so harsh it bruised her skin.

  A shudder of panic shook her as she realized her strength to fight him was failing. She clawed at the bedspread beneath her, frantically trying to pull herself out from under him. In the folds of the rumpled coverlet, her fingers touched something cold and hard.

  The knife! The paring knife. Without bidding them to, her fingers curled around it, and she watched in horror as the knife came up with her flying hand and traced a jagged red line down her father's face and neck.

  A shocked, strangled scream emerged from both their throats and they recoiled from each other. Her father's hand covered his cheek but the blood seeped through his fingers. Trissa's vision was awash with it as she scrambled from the bed. A haze of red descended on her, blinding her, fuzzing in her ears, choking off her air. She threw the knife away from her with a force that clattered it against her dresser mirror, cracking it.

  "You little bitch! You could have killed me!"

  "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to--" But did she? My God, her heart screamed, she did. She did.

  She wanted him dead. She hated him. "No. No. No," she whimpered as she backed away from him then turned and fled. Out of the room. Out of the house. Into the night.

  Chapter Three

  The cemetery and the railroad tracks marked the boundaries of his meandering that rainy night as Nicholas roamed the quiet side streets sprouting from Trissa's bus route. He had gotten himself thoroughly lost the first time he'd tried blazing new trails from the bus map. He had wandered the streets until dawn that day before he crossed a street that would lead him home.

  Since then he had armed himself with a city map and a small flashlight for his quest for Trissa and the dragons that made her so unhappy. But this night he wouldn't need them. All he had to do was walk east until he reached the tracks, turn south along the gravel right of way to the next dead end leading west to the stone and black iron fence of Calvary Cemetery.

  Gilmore Street to Switzer Avenue to Robin to Thrush, then Baden to Church to Christian. Brick and frame bungalows lined the streets with tiny lawns and just-budding forsythia. He could imagine Trissa living in one of these houses, maybe behind that half-drawn shade or that lighted dormer.

  He wished the weather were warmer. He was sure the folks in this neighborhood sat out on their front porches on balmy evenings, chatting about their gardens or city politics or baseball. Maybe Trissa brought her books to that porch swing to study in the golden circle from the light over the door. Maybe when the work was done and the night grew darker, she just sat, searching for the first star and whispering her wishes.

  And maybe he was a damned-fool romantic or, worse, an obsessed lunatic. Questing white knight or predatory beast? Or were they both just the same?

  Nicholas kicked at a chunk of blacktop in the graveled embankment along the railroad track and tried to rid his mind of the predator-prey imagery. His motives were honorable, he reminded himself. Rescue, only rescue. He was more Lancelot than Bluebeard. Wasn't he?

  Wasn't he?

  He shuddered as the face of Cynthia, cold and still, finally and unalterably at peace, floated before him as if in answer to his question. Grinding at his closed eyes with his clenched fist in a vain attempt to rub the memory away, he felt the black shadows descending on him.

  This was wrong. He was wrong. It was not Trissa who needed him. He needed her. Driven by his bitter memories of one he'd loved and couldn't rescue and another who'd come to him too late for saving, he needed salvation from his guilt. He needed Trissa to save him from the blackness again. He needed her to guide him from the shadows so he wouldn't be lost.

  And as much as he knew he needed her, that was how much he knew he mustn't have her. He must turn away from this madness now before it was too late. Blinded by the swirl of his own shadows, he missed his footing across a rain gully and stumbled to his hands and knees in the gravel. Puzzled, he stared dumbly at the white scrapings on his palms and the beads of red springing up along them.

  "Nicholas. Nicholas. Nicholas," came the fluttering whoosh and thump of his blood in his ears as if to remind him who he was and who he was losing. The blackness was broiling up through his veins and would soon fill and drown him. When he managed resurface again, he knew he'd be far away from here and Trissa would be only a memory. The submergence was always swift and unexpected.

  It had never taken this long before. He had never struggled this hard against it.

  "Let go," he heard the murmur in his brain. Was it his voice or someone else's? "God take you, Nicholas!" he heard the deep, masterful command, and he felt himself sinking into blackness.

  *****

  Trissa counted the railroad ties as she walked them and had reached one hundred and twenty-seven before it didn't matter to her anymore, before it didn't help to keep the tears from falling or her heart from slamming against her
ribs like a bird trying to escape its cage. Though the rain had stopped, she was cold, having fled the house in only her cotton blouse and wool skirt, but that didn't matter much either. She could no longer determine whether the pain of the cold came from without or within.

  Still and chilling, the night pressed her, urged her on toward anywhere, nowhere, as long as it was away from where she had come. Through the thin clump of woods to her right she saw the winking headlights of the cars parking along Calvary Drive. How many summer nights had she watched them from her hidden spot among the trees, wishing she were in one of them. They were hope to her back then. A sign that somewhere love or something like it went on.

  But now she knew with dreadful finality that she would never be one to find love there. Or anywhere. That would not be her future. There would be no future.

  She felt the faint hum of a distant train through the soles of her shoes and it filled her with a shiver of anticipation. Peering down the tracks to where they disappeared round the bend into the darkness of the night, she let her tormented mind make the decision her heart was too torn and ragged to make.

  She couldn't see it yet, but she collapsed to her knees and waited. Now the hum became a pulsing throb and then a numbing rumble that gently rocked her soul into acceptance. She closed her eyes and swayed on her knees then bent to press her cheek against the rail. The icy steel wrenched one gasping sob from her. Then only the thunder of the train and the wailing cry of its whistle rent the night as she waited.

  *****

  A sound lurched Nicholas into awareness. It was not the steady roar of the train or the piercing shrill as it trumpeted its approach round the bend, but something closer, softer, something that reached into his soul and shook it out of its slide into eclipse. His muddled mind told him it was Cynthia, and he remembered how he used to hold her as she whimpered in her sleep, unaware that he was close and that he ached to save her from the sadness that made her cry through her dreams.