And now, here she was, pine needles crisscrossing her arms like porcupine spines, a caterpillar crawling over one cupped palm. “Look,” Trudi said, and then, “Here’s your phone.”
Danni cringed, thinking of Rebecca: self-righteous mini-Amanda, pretend-grown-up, Goody Two-shoes. She wished she hadn’t lent the phone to Trudi, and sighed. “We shouldn’t have called her.”
“I wanted to.”
“Yeah, but now she’ll come after us.”
“I want her to come.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Well, you should,” said Trudi. Then she said, “Look,” again as the caterpillar inched all the way up her arm, inside the droopy mouth of her sleeve.
What Trudi had said was true, Danni realized. She should want Rebecca here. No one in recent memory, maybe no one Danni had ever met, had tried harder to be her friend—not take care of her or teach her, just be her friend—than that girl had.
Well, she thought, maybe someday. But not today.
“It tickles,” Trudi said, wriggling.
Danni put a hand on the little girl’s head, held her still. “Listen.”
As if on command, the woods erupted. A pair of barred owls, somewhere close, burst out barking and trilling, which set off all kinds of movement in the bushes and low branches as little things scurried and burrowed and leapt. Mosquitoes seemed to pour out of the ground, buzzing into each other and alighting on the girls’ skin. On the lake, a loon laughed, calling up a breeze that feathered the leaves and stirred the pines, which somehow settled everything else again, almost completely. Only the needles on the ground still rustled, as though something underneath had shrugged off the surface of the world like a blanket and sat up.
And whatever that was, Danni thought, swatting at mosquitoes, allowing herself a single shiver and a half-breathed curse, she had always known it was there. She had sensed it even before her parents died, lurking underground, inside tree trunks and cumulus clouds. She could feel it even now, every waking second, behind Amanda’s businesslike commands and Joel’s jokes, just biding its time. With a jolt, she realized—was absolutely certain—that Rebecca sensed it, too, and always had. It was obvious in everything that girl did, the way she kept coming over, kept talking to Danni no matter how rudely Danni talked back.
Yep. Rebecca sensed it, too. Danni just hadn’t noticed, before. Because whatever it was, it didn’t seem to scare Rebecca. And it didn’t make her anywhere near as angry.
“Come on,” Danni told Trudi. “Let’s go to the lake.”
“Should we go back? They’ll be worried.”
They’ll be shouting, Danni thought. At each other, until we appear. Then at us.
“Lake.”
“Trailers!”
“Ugh. Gross. Why do you like that place?”
But Trudi was already ducking between pines in the direction of that clearing, the needles enfolding her as one of the owls unleashed its awful, taunting call. Whocooksforyou …
“You invited me, Danni,” she called from somewhere in the trees. “You wanted me to come.”
“That’s because I’m stupid,” Danni murmured. She started to follow, wishing, nonsensically, that Trudi would lower her voice. “Shut—”
“That’s what Rebecca says.”
Mid-tree, needles jabbing at her arms and neck, Danni stopped. The question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “She says I’m stupid?”
But Trudi was out of earshot as well as sight, now, racing down the overgrown path. Even the ripples of movement she’d stirred had gone still in her wake.
Rebecca had been comforting Trudi, Danni realized. That’s why she’d said that. If she had.
Then she thought of what she’d seen and overheard this afternoon. Was Rebecca trying to destroy Halfmoon House? After all, she was already safely out of it, the thoughtless, two-faced …
“Yeah. Well, she’s stupider,” Danni said to the trees, to whatever that thing was behind and beneath them that had followed her for so long. A shrew stuck its head out of the roots, scampered right over her foot. Down the hill, the lake, stirred by something, smacked against the boat pier. “Trudi, wait up,” she yelled, pushing through the branches toward the path. Abruptly, instinctively, she broke into a run.
Even before she reached the trailers, she smelled them, as usual. They reeked of the leaves and dirt and spores that blew through them all day and all night, the worms and insects that wriggled up through their rotting floorboards and spawned in their wheel wells and rusting walls. And yet, despite the life they housed, they also smelled dead, like the forest but minus light and air. Forest-in-a-casket. Trudi was not just babbling as usual but whooping now, the noise way too much for the place, and Danni was shushing her furiously as she burst out of the deep-shadow shade into the clearing and stopped, and saw.
Just at first, and just for a second, Danni started to laugh. Here was Crazy Trudi, sock-puppet whisperer, sometime-sister, in her natural habitat: limned in moonlight, rampaging around and around the clearing, past the tilted-over trailer with its front door hanging down, the American flag trailer (rust, not-white, and blue), the yellow trailer with the bullet holes, the black Sierra back there in the trees that hadn’t ever been there before. In the baggy, thrift store flower-dress Amanda had bought her, with her cornrow pigtails flying, Trudi looked like a child ripped out of time, hollering like a marauding Sioux, or—no—like a wagon-train girl, a pioneer kid playing marauding Sioux.
And that seemed like bad luck to Danni, downright ill-advised. She’d stopped laughing even before the man in the sombrero stepped out of the Sierra into the clearing.
26
The second that Sophie appeared in the doorway, with Eddie lodged in the sling she’d jerry-rigged from her sheet so she could swing herself along—Benny jackknifed upright. And that surprised her so much—as far as she knew, he’d just lain in that bed for three weeks straight—that it actually froze her momentarily. If he’d thought to untwist the sheets before he made his move, he might even have made it out of them.
Not that that would have mattered, in the end, but maybe he would have felt less weak, more of a man, something. Regardless, she had him, now. She could actually see the wave she’d unleashed with her gaze slam into him, so powerful it could have flung him against the wall if she’d wanted it to. She really was getting the hang of that, and after just a few weeks. Although she had to admit, it had barely registered on Rebecca. Go figure.
She watched Benny’s mouth round, his breath spurt out, as though she’d punched him, punctured him. She smiled slow, pursed her lips. Even with Natalie’s kid squawking away against her—and even without her legs—she was way too much for Jess’s fuzzy little man.
He did manage to speak this time, at least. Eventually. And that was undeniably cute, even impressive, given how much of himself he was fighting. But all he said was, “No.”
Sophie burst out laughing. “You’re a sweetie, Benny. Always were.”
“Sophie. Please.”
“You always had a peach pie slice for me. I’ll never forget that, I mean it. Every single time I came in to your Waffle House. Almost like you were saving one for me.” Sophie felt her smile widen, all on its own. She was glad to know it could still do that.
Abruptly, she cocked her head, studying fuzzy Benny as he cowered before her. Her skin prickled, and her dead lungs seemed to spasm in her chest. “Almost like you hoped I’d come,” she murmured, only now realizing, when it was way too late.
In a single movement, she deposited Eddie at the end of the bed and vaulted one-handed onto Benny. Clearly, the hours of practice up in the attic and the hundred thousand pull-ups had paid off, and oh, she was getting good. She lowered herself onto Benny’s lap and stared down into his face, and that was the moment she knew she was right, understood the reason that the power she wielded seemed to devastate this man more than anyone else she’d met since she’d met the Whistler.
Benny had loved
her then. Before. Not desired, at least not seriously, not consciously, but he’d loved her. Like a father, maybe. Was that what father-love was like?
Whatever. He’d loved her, and more than he ever realized, and definitely more than she had realized. Maybe even more than he’d loved Natalie, and wouldn’t that have been a first?
With a wink—which felt mean, forced, and actually broke her spell momentarily, so that he cried out as though she’d bitten him—she dropped her full weight atop him. She ground herself there, just once, and felt him stiffen pitifully beneath her. Jess’s fuzzy little man, who loved her, or had, once.
So why was she doing this?
Because it infuriated her that he’d felt that way and yet never said anything or even figured it out. That she had never known. Because that, of all things, really might have made a difference. It wouldn’t have changed the ending, maybe, or changed anything, really. Except maybe the feel of all those wandering nights before the ending …
“And anyway,” she whispered, returning her gaze to his face, “you loved her more.” Those words felt thick, almost suffocating in her mouth, like a peach pit.
“Sophie,” Benny whimpered, “what on earth are you—”
“Jess.” Gathering Eddie to her, she lifted him to her face, blocking her view, because she didn’t want to look at Benny’s face right then. “Yes he did, little Nat-man. He loved her—loves her—more than anyone loved me, ever. Except your mom.”
Eddie wriggled, squawked, started to flail. She crushed him again against her chest, held on, whispered, “Both of you. Just stop.” Then she closed her eyes for one blessed second.
That was a mistake, of course. Immediately—so fast!—Benny jackknifed again, got all the way sitting up, grabbed her hard around the elbows and locked her in place. His face hovered inches from hers, now, but he kept his eyes averted. His whole body coiled, she could feel it. It was almost as though he really thought he had a move to make.
Sophie stayed still, let him carry out whatever it was he thought he’d planned, which turned out to be locking her arms to her sides and pinning Eddie between them. He shook her a couple times. The child screamed. She could have bitten Benny’s Adam’s apple out of his neck with a single dart of her head.
But he’d loved her. And that wasn’t her plan.
Benny tightened his grip on her arms, but he also sagged back slightly to give Eddie room. Then he just sat there.
“It’s a problem, huh?” she murmured, right in his ear, which set his whole body trembling. Even those million white hairs sticking out of him quivered like twisted-up chicken wire in a wind. “You’ve got me. And well done, by the way. But now what?”
“Shut up.”
“Want to head-butt me, Benny? Hurl me off the bed? Of course, there’s the Eddie problem.” She gestured with her chin at the squirming, screechy bundle between them, which wouldn’t stop screeching, now, and she couldn’t catch his eyes to quiet or comfort him. That was annoying. “You could grab Eddie, I suppose. But then I’d be free.”
In the end, he couldn’t help it. He looked up. There he was: the walking toilet brush, exploded pillow. Benny Peach Pie, who could have been a father to her, if either one of them had understood themselves sooner. She watched him melt under her gaze, his eyes flashing hatred.
“Oh,” Sophie said. “I see. I guess you could try and rape me.”
“You raped me!” Benny shouted, hands popping open like handcuffs he’d slipped. He sank all the way backward into his pillows.
It was strange, but until he said that, Sophie hadn’t thought of what she’d done to him that way. She rolled her head around her neck, tapped her fingers on his stomach through the sheets. “Huh. I … Well, kind of. I guess I did. Ugh, quiet, little Nat-man. Jesus, you’re getting as grumpy as your mom.” She lifted the baby and settled him against her breast and rocked him. He kept hiccupping and squirming, but he stopped screeching. Sophie returned her attention to Benny. Her smile felt ugly, even to her. “And you know what? I think I’m sorry. Not that you seemed to mind at the time.”
She felt bad about that last bit even before Benny teared up. He stared pathetically back. “The part of me that’s me minded.”
Yet again, something inside Sophie flinched, while something else reared up. The sensation was brand-new, and it was awful. “Yeah. Well. As far as I’ve seen, that’s the way it mostly is with sex, isn’t it? The part of us that’s us always minds, for one stupid reason or another.”
“That’s because you didn’t get to see enough,” Benny whispered.
And that was such a perfect—almost loving—thing to say, that Sophie considered handing him the kid, right then. If she’d done it, she would also have broken down crying.
Outside, on the street, something else shrieked, and it went on shrieking. Sirens? Were those sirens?
Sloppy, sloppy Whistler-prick …
“You see?” she said quietly, rocking Eddie but gazing at Benny’s eyes, through Benny’s eyes, all the way down into Benny. “We kind of have the same problem, you and me, Benji-boy. We can’t do it all. We have to make choices. I could just … but then there’s Jess … and … him, the fucking monster who … You just can’t do it all. I mean, not just you, none of us can. And also … I hate to say it, Benny, but I’m getting more than a little … peckish…”
She withdrew her gaze from him, like a needle from a vein, the poison already delivered, pouring into his bloodstream. She saw him watching, watched him understand. And then—astonishingly, even sweetly—he nodded. He … accepted. Just let go of her arms and settled back.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Go ahead. Take me. Just … afterward…” He wasn’t lecturing or pleading, knew there was no point, but he was going to ask. “Tell me you’ll save—”
Abruptly, still cuddling Eddie with one hand, she dropped the other hand over his mouth to shut him up. Then she brushed the white whiskers smooth along the curve of his face. She felt herself smile at him, one more time. “Does Jess, do you think, know what she had? What you gave her?”
Whiskers quivering, eyes overflowing, Benny … smiled? Was he smiling?
“A man worthy of her?” he said, as Sophie’s palm lifted. “I hope I was. Save that boy, Sophie. Tell me that when you’re done, you’ll save the boy.”
For answer, Sophie swept Eddie to her open mouth, clamped her lips to his skin at the open zipper of his onesie, and farted against his neck. He jerked, laughing his surprise. That laugh! Along with her Roo’s laugh, it had once—not so long ago—formed a river of laughter right down the middle of Sophie’s life, one that promised to carry both her and Natalie everyplace they’d always heard those rivers really might run. Without thinking, looking, giving herself a single second to reconsider, she dropped Eddie onto Benny’s chest and vaulted off the bed, scuttling straight down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door into the shrieking summer night.
* * *
The hardest part for Rebecca, as she tore through the woods, wasn’t deciding whether to sprint straight for the trailers—because she already knew that’s where Trudi and Danni would be—or to Halfmoon House to get help. The hardest part was keeping from turning around. Because that was what she most wanted to do. It was, in fact, the only thing she wanted to do.
She didn’t want to escape, but to return to Oscar’s truck, throw open the door once more, and stand there. She wouldn’t shout or even cry. Eventually, she’d climb into the cab, slide into the space between her guys, and sit amid the ruins of them: Oscar and Jack, who had supported more of the life she’d barely begun staking out than either of them had ever imagined, because she’d never managed to communicate it, hadn’t even realized it, really. And now that it was too late—which, apparently, would always be her cue—the only acknowledgment she could think to make was to be there, sit among them, wind her hands through their knotted, ripped-out entrails, untangle what she could, tuck in what was possible, and when that was done, slip her arms around th
eir shoulders and pull them to her. Then she would hold them until every last trace of heat, of the magnificent people both of them had been, had streamed, softly, away.
That was her proper place, as far as she could see, possibly the one role her whole life had prepared her for.
Unless it was to keep running, get to the clearing or Halfmoon House, dangle her whole self over the lip of the void that she’d always known was there, and pull anything that was still living back out of it.
And that was why she didn’t turn around. She tore down the forest path, hurtling past startled scurrying things underfoot and overhead, the birches with their individual mottlings, the oaks with their mosses, each pattern on each trunk as familiar to her as faces in wood grain on a bedroom closet door. These tree trunks were her closet-door faces, this woods her bedroom, those loons—oh, hello, loons!—her overheard, downstairs, grown-up conversations.
Was that her voice, shouting? Was she shouting?
Flinging aside the fronds of the weeping willow at the bottom of the lane, Rebecca burst onto the grounds of Halfmoon House, hurtled across the yard, and yes, that was definitely her voice, she really was shouting. But she stopped short of the porch and stood in the too-long grass, panting, sweating, weeping—-how long had she been doing that?—until she felt like herself again, detached, almost calm: Crisis Center Rebecca, on the scene, for whatever the hell good that was going to do.
Jess came out first, flying down the little porch stairs, all five feet of her, eyes blazing. She had a steak knife in one hand and what looked like a pinking shears in the other. Behind her, at the door of the house they had built—which hadn’t even quite become their home, either, Rebecca realized—stood Amanda and Joel. Amanda had Joel’s broken-toothed rake and Joel a shovel, which made them look, for one second, like younger versions of the couple from that American Gothic painting. Like that couple’s children, except that the second they saw her, they smiled, both of them, the smiles relieved, frightened, fleeting. But they’d been there, and Rebecca had seen them.
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