Iris gave the girl an encouraging smile. “Rachel has a friend …” she started, and then paused, waiting for Rachel to leap in.
“Jenny. It’s about Jenny,” Rachel said. Then the story poured out of her, details about how her father beat Jenny, about her injuries, about Rachel trying to raise money to help her friend escape.
Jolene felt bombarded, shell-shocked, when Rachel fell silent, watching her anxiously. She couldn’t imagine mild-mannered Leland Naylor beating his children. Surely Rachel had gotten it wrong. Where had Rachel said she was getting money to give Jenny? Those details had been fuzzy. And why, oh why, had Rachel confided this story to Iris of all people? A hot, caustic feeling surged like bile in Jolene’s throat. Rachel was her daughter, not Iris’s. Iris had no right to her daughter’s confidences. She found herself gripping the edge of the patio table, the wood biting into her palm. Iris had put Rachel up to this, hoping to embarrass the Community somehow. Jolene thrust her chin out and said stiffly, “I’m not—”
Iris’s voice, soft, but with an undertone of warning, cut across what she was going to say. “You have to believe her.”
Jolene bit her lip, her gaze flying to Iris who leaned forward a little bit, opening herself to Jolene’s scrutiny. In Iris’s vulnerability, Jolene suddenly saw her friend trembling in the church twenty-three years ago, where she stood accused of lying. With her back to the altar, she had faced the Community, her features twisted with desperation as she searched for help from those who loved her, her gaze lighting on her parents, her brother, Jolene. Her face had gradually hardened in the jumpy candlelight, smoothed itself into blankness, as she realized she had been abandoned. Sacrificed. Jolene couldn’t stand the thought of her daughter’s face going all waxy like that, of her pupils shrinking to pinpricks so it looked like she had left herself. She reached for Rachel’s hand.
“You did the right thing telling me, honey,” she said. “It was very brave of you.”
“You believe me?”
The combination of hope and doubt in her daughter’s voice brought tears to Jolene’s eyes. “Of course I believe you,” she said strongly, willing at that moment to accuse Leland Naylor and anyone else in the Community of terrorism or devil worship if that’s what it took to reassure Rachel that she always and forever had her back. “We’ll talk to your father tonight and see what our next step should be. We’ll need to call the police.” The thought almost made Jolene hyperventilate—the Community members would be scandalized, disbelieving, and Esther would be furious, saying that such things should be handled within the Community—but if Rachel was right, they had a duty to protect Jenny and her siblings.
Rachel squeezed her hand hard enough to make Jolene wince.
“I guess my work here is done,” Iris said mock-seriously, pushing back from the table.
“Thank you,” Rachel said, flinging her arms around the taller woman. Jolene gasped at how much the affectionate gesture stung. When was the last time Rachel had hugged her like that?
The hug clearly took Iris by surprise and she stood stiffly for a moment, before hugging Rachel in return, her dark hair contrasting sharply with Rachel’s bright hair. “Happy to help,” she said, “although you did all the hard work. Just remember, no more of you-know-what.” She wagged a finger at Rachel.
“Thank you, Iris,” Jolene called as Iris rounded the corner of the house. She smiled at the uplifted hand she got in return, and then turned to Rachel. “What is ‘you-know-what’?” she asked.
thirty
iris
Iris drove away from the Community, headed for the hospital, feeling something almost like affection for Rachel. Despite her errors in judgment, her heart was in the right place and she’d had the courage to do the right thing … with a little prompting. Jolene and Zach had done well with both their kids, she had to admit, the thought of Aaron making her wince. She had used him last night, like—The unspeakable thought that popped into her head made her swerve onto the verge. She guided the car back onto the road, a plume of dust streaming behind it, and let the thought re-enter her brain. She’d used him like Pastor Matt had used her. Her muscles clenched and she found it hard to breathe, her lungs shutting down like a faucet had been turned off.
A moment’s thought told her that she was over-reacting. She was not like Pastor Matt. Aaron, and all the young men she slept with, were legally adults, not vulnerable teens. She was not in a position of authority over them. Quite the contrary, actually; she was nothing to them. She breathed shallowly, testing her lungs, and then more deeply. She stilled owed Aaron an apology and she called him, leaving a voice message inviting him to breakfast the next day. Breakfast was a nice, safe meal with no sexual overtones, unlike dinner that looked ahead to darkness and beds. Iris pulled into the hospital parking lot, dismissing the idea that she owed any of her other sex partners apologies. She wasn’t entering some damn twelve-step program that would have her saying “I’m so sorry for having hot, mutually gratifying sex with you” to dozens of men around the country. Her celibacy, going cold turkey with sex, was about her, not about the men she’d slept with.
As if to contradict herself, she pulled out her phone and dialed.
“Lansing.”
The single word sent a spiral of warmth curling through her and it took her a moment to find her voice. “I’ve decided to be celibate.”
A long pause made her wonder, agonizingly, if he recognized her voice.
“Permanently?”
His humorous undertone, free of judgment, let her relax back against the seat with a small laugh. “Maybe.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Whatever you need, Iris.”
“Things are a little more complicated here than I anticipated, so it might be another week or two before I get back. Maybe we could get together, have dinner?” The beeping of a delivery van backing up cut through her last words.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good to know.”
“Thanks for calling.”
She swallowed around a lump in her throat. “Thanks for
answering.”
She hung up with a feeling of well-being, a fragile sense of connection, that entering the hospital obscured but didn’t destroy. Not giving herself time to re-think the visit, Iris hopped on the elevator and wound her way through the halls. She heard voices as she approached Pastor Matt’s room, and let them stop her short of his door. Deciding to retreat and return again another day, she was startled when a compact, lab-coated figure shot through the door and almost collided with her.
“Oh, so sorry,” the woman said, pushing black-rimmed glasses up her pointy nose. The nose made her look like a fox, an impression her henna-red hair, pulled back in a loose knot, reinforced. She had the muscled build of a gymnast and exuded an energy that suggested she mainlined caffeine. A gold chain made up of oval links thick as a pencil looked too heavy against her thin neck. “Dr. Valeria Shaull” was embroidered over the white coat’s pocket.
Thin brows arched up, wrinkling her forward as she studied Iris. “Have you come to visit Mr. Brozek? I don’t think I’ve seen you before?”
Her voice was enquiring, not suspicious, but a lie came immediately to Iris. “I’m his niece,” she said. “From Portland. I couldn’t get here before now. My job,” she said vaguely. “Uh, how’s he doing?”
Dr. Shaull nodded rapidly. “It’s a miracle,” she said, “a medical miracle. I can only think of two, three other cases in medical history of a patient emerging from a minimally responsive state like this after more than ten years. It’s mind-boggling how the brain sometimes heals itself, given time. Medical science can’t explain it. Not yet. It’s early days, of course, but we can already see huge improvements in his cognition and speech, although speech is still difficult for him and he sticks to short phrases and struggles to find the right words. He recogni
zes his children now, although of course he thinks it’s still 1991.”
“Of course,” Iris said, although she’d given the matter no thought. How weird. What must it be like to fall asleep in 1991 and wake up to a world with Internet, terrorism, cell phones, e-books, and who knew what other medical and scientific advances? The first Gulf War had barely happened when Pastor Matt fell into his coma, and Ronald Reagan was still alive. He’d never heard the name Monica Lewinsky or seen the Twin Towers collapse.
“Does he remember the attack?” Iris asked. If he did, maybe Pastor Matt’s testimony could free her father.
Dr. Shaull shook her head. “He suffered a lot of head trauma, including to the temporal lobe and the hippocampus. He appears to have no memory of the attack itself or the week preceding it. He may re-gain some of those memories as he heals, but he may not. Many of his other memories seem disjointed, non-sequential, or displaced in time, according to your cousins.”
It took Iris a moment to realize she was referring to Esther and Zach.
An orderly in striped scrubs wheeled an elderly woman past them, greeting Dr. Shaull. “Let’s see if he recognizes you,” Dr. Shaull said, startling Iris.
“I don’t think—”
The doctor re-entered the room, confident Iris was following. “This is an unprecedented opportunity to study the human brain, you know,” she said over her shoulder. “We’re doing MRIs, studies. For a neurologist like me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. No, even rarer than that. Studying Mr. Brozek could do more to advance our knowledge of how the brain heals itself, re-wires itself, than decades of lab work. Mr. Brozek,” she said, “you’ve got a new visitor.” She beckoned impatiently at Iris.
Swallowing hard, Iris lifted a leaden foot and put it down on the threshold. Her body followed and she found herself staring into the well-lighted space, her gaze resting on the seams in the linoleum and the way the sun coming through the blinds striped the bed … anywhere but at the man in the bed.
“Do you recognize her, Matthew?” Dr. Shaull asked.
Iris forced herself to look, to let her eyes drift up the expanse of white sheet to a hand held awkwardly at shoulder height, palm outward, fingers curled. Blue veins twisted from the back of his wrists to large, prominent knuckles. His fingernails were too long, thickened and ridged. Iris stared at them, fascinated.
Following Iris’s line of sight, the doctor said matter-of-factly, “Contractures. The muscles contract when a patient is essentially immobilized for as long as Mr. Brozek was. Come closer so he can get a look at you.”
Fighting an almost overwhelming urge to turn and run, Iris moved closer, her feet dragging. Her peripheral vision grayed out when she reached the foot of the bed and she realized she wasn’t breathing. She sucked in a long audible breath. Then, she closed her eyes briefly and opened them to look full into Pastor Matt’s face.
He was old. She supposed she should have expected that—he was in his seventies, after all. Buzz-cut hair stubbled his skull, and what there was of it was white. He was clean-shaven, but his eyebrows were long and bushy, a few wiry hairs poking forward. It looked like no one had thought to trim his brows in years. He was thinner than he’d been, parchment-like skin covering broad cheekbones and sinking into the hollows with no trace of the ruddy glow he’d had. His skin was relatively unlined for a man his age and Iris realized that must be because he’d quit smiling, frowning, and squinting almost a quarter century earlier. Blue eyes so like Esther’s it was uncanny, gazed into hers from rheumy corneas as viscous as egg whites. Pastor Matt stretched out one of his restricted arms and said, “Mercy.”
Iris jumped back a good foot and Dr. Shaull raised her brows questioningly.
“My name’s Iris,” she managed to whisper.
“Not to worry,” Dr. Shaull said, patting Pastor Matt’s hand. “You’ll remember in time. It’s possible he’s reliving the attack,” she said in a low voice to Iris, “asking for mercy like that. He gets agitated sometimes and says it over and over again: ‘mercy, mercy, mercy.’” A beep sounded from her waist and she checked a pager. “I’ve got to run. You two enjoy a good visit. Don’t expect much,” she told Iris. With a brisk nod, she hurried from the room and Iris was alone with Pastor Matt.
“Mercy,” he said again, his blue eyes locked on hers. The way he said her name, the slight over-emphasis on the sibilant, slammed her back into Outback Cottage, where his weight pressed her into the sofa as he whispered her name over and over again through lips that grazed her ear.
“You bastard,” she bit out. “You bastard.”
He didn’t react to the word or the fury in her voice, and his eyes never wavered from hers. In them, she read knowledge. Knowledge of her flesh, of her most intimate corners, of the way she expelled her breath with a little heh when he brought her to orgasm. His memories, smothered by the coma for so long, were alive again. He was remembering her acquiescence, her complicity, her eagerness … she could see it in his eyes and hear it in the way he said her name. Taking a step toward him, she latched onto the metal guardrail that rimmed the bed and rattled it. “You bastard!”
She didn’t realize she’d screamed the word until a nurse ran in. “What are you—?”
The bed shuddered from the force of Iris’s shaking and Pastor Matt’s head bobbled. He slid sideways. The nurse grabbed her around the waist, trying to pull her away from the bed. An orderly arrived moments later, summoned by the nurse’s cries for help, and pried Iris’s whitened fingers up one at a time. Detached from the bed, she staggered backward in the nurse’s arms and they thudded against the wall. More people appeared in the doorway and Iris stared at the concerned and angry faces. Staggering to her feet, she offered the nurse a hand. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean—”
“I’ve called security,” the orderly cut in.
The nurse ignored Iris’s hand, struggled to her feet, and went immediately to check on Pastor Matt. Aghast at her behavior, and weakened by the flood of emotions that had thundered through her, Iris stumbled toward the door. The orderly moved to block her, then hesitated, looking to the nurse for guidance, but she was strapping a blood pressure cuff around Pastor Matt’s arm. Iris reached the door and wedged through the small crowd of patients and visitors, most of them aged or infirm and disinclined to stop her. Agitated whispers and speculation followed her down the hall. Her feet thwapped the floor and the sound of the thwaps coming faster and faster told her she was running. She hurtled down the stairs and past startled faces in the reception area, barely registering Esther’s presence, and burst through the doors into the sunshine.
She was three miles down the road with no memory of getting into the car or starting it when she began to shake. She pulled into a grocery store parking lot and parked on its fringe, far from shoppers. Tears pushed against her eyelids but she scrunched them back. She had vowed long ago that Pastor Matt would never again have the power to make her cry. Instead, she struck the steering wheel with her palm and the impact vibrated up her arm, making her elbow ache. She did it again, knowing she’d bruised her palm, but welcoming a pain that had nothing to do with what had happened in Outback Cottage.
thirty-one
jolene
Braiding her hair Tuesday night, Jolene watched from the bed as Zach stepped out of his slacks and draped them over a hanger. His lightly furred belly protruded a bit more than when they married, but he was still an attractive man. He stepped into the bathroom and the dental floss rattled as he snapped off a length. She’d never slept with anyone else and hadn’t felt the urge to in many years, not since she’d had a crush on Nicholas Eccles, the geometry teacher, not long after Rachel was born. She cringed to remember how she used to time her visits to the teacher’s lounge for when he was likely to be there, how she’d tingled if she bumped into him unexpectedly in the halls. They’d shared nothing more than some intimate conversations, but still she felt like she’d betrayed
Zach. She’d put it down to postpartum hormones and the seven-year itch, and eaten lunch in her room for the rest of the year to avoid him once she’d recognized how foolish and sinful she was being.
Now, she got out of bed, eased the door closed and locked it. Zach would take that as a signal that she wanted to make love, but she wanted to tell him what Rachel had said without Rachel overhearing. She had flat-out refused to repeat her story about the Naylors to Zach, saying he wouldn’t believe her, and Jolene had agreed to bring it up first. Zach emerged from the bathroom, wearing the lightweight flannel pajama bottoms he always wore to bed, and smiled when he noticed the closed door.
“We need to talk,” she said, patting his side of the bed.
His weight dented the mattress, rolling Jolene slightly toward him as he got into bed. He reached for her, smelling of toothpaste, and said, “I thought maybe we could—”
She batted his roving hand away, annoyed, and told him about Leland Naylor beating his children. He lay beside her, not interrupting, for the ten minutes it took her to relay what Rachel had said and how she’d come to say it.
“Rachel told you that Leland Naylor hurts his daughter and that she was stealing from the co-op to help finance Jenny’s running away?”
She hated it when he did that—repeated what she’d said back to her, a habit he’d picked up from some counseling course he’d attended. She knew it was supposed to assure her that he’d been listening, but somehow it frequently came out as slightly disbelieving.
“Yes. Well, she told Iris and Iris talked her into telling me.” It still grated that Rachel had chosen Iris as a confidante.
Zach thought for a moment and then said, “There’s no proof that Leland’s been overly harsh with his daughter.” He massaged his ear between his thumb and fingers. “He’s a good man. He’s served the Community well for many years. He’s been an elder, and our treasurer and—”
The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense Page 19
