by John Saul
Once more, Carol sighed. “I know. And I also know it looks as though Alan must have done it. But I don’t care. I just don’t think that’s the way it happened at all.”
Suddenly Lisa appeared in the wide archway that separated the living room from the foyer, and the four adults fell guiltily silent.
“Are you still talking about Mrs. Lewis?” Lisa asked uncertainly. Her mother hesitated, then nodded. “Can I … well, is it all right if I sit down here and listen?”
“I thought you and Alex were listening to some records—”
“I don’t want to,” Lisa said, and the sharpness in her voice made the Lonsdales and the Cochrans exchange a curious glance. It was Ellen who finally spoke.
“Lisa, did something happen up there? Did you and Alex have a fight about something?” Lisa hesitated, then shook her head, but it seemed to Ellen the girl was holding something back. “Tell us what happened,” she urged. “Whatever it is, it can’t be so bad that you can’t tell us about it. Did you two have a fight?”
“With Alex?” Lisa suddenly blurted. “How can you have a fight with Alex? He doesn’t care about anything, so he won’t fight about anything!” Suddenly she was crying. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that but—”
“But it’s true,” Marsh said softly. He got up and went to Lisa, putting his arms around her. “It’s okay, Lisa. We all know what Alex is like, and how frustrating it is. Now, tell us what happened.”
Somewhat mollified, Lisa sat down and dabbed at her eyes with her father’s handkerchief. “We were listening to records, and I wanted to talk about Mrs. Lewis, but Alex wouldn’t. I mean, he’d talk, but all he’d say were weird things. It’s like he doesn’t care what happened to her, or who did it. He … he doesn’t even care that she’s dead.” Her eyes fixed on her mother. “Mom, he said he never even met Mrs. Lewis, and even if he had, it wouldn’t matter. He said everybody dies, and it doesn’t make any difference how.” Burying her face in her handkerchief, she began sobbing quietly.
There was a long silence in the room. Carol Cochran moved over to sit next to her daughter, while Marsh, his expression cold, gave his wife a long look. “It … it doesn’t mean anything—” Ellen began, but he cut her off.
“No matter what it means, he doesn’t need to say things like that. He’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut sometimes.” He turned and started toward the foyer and the stairs.
“Marsh, leave him alone,” Ellen protested, but it was too late. All of them could hear the echo of his feet tramping up the stairs. Ellen, her voice trembling, turned back to Lisa. “Really, Lisa,” she said again, “it doesn’t mean anything.…”
Marsh walked into Alex’s room without knocking, his breath coming in short, angry rasps, and found his son lying on the bed, a book propped against his drawn-up knees. From the stereo, the precise notes of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik echoed off the bare walls. Alex glanced up at his father, then put the book aside.
“Are the Cochrans gone?”
“No, they’re not,” Marsh grated. “No thanks to you. What the hell did you say to Lisa?” Then, before Alex could answer, he went on, his voice icily cold. “Never mind. I know what you said. What I want to know is why you said it. She’s down there crying, and I can’t say that I blame her.”
“Crying? How come?”
Marsh stared at Alex’s serene face. Was it possible the boy really didn’t know? And then, as he made a conscious effort to bring his breath under control, he realized that it was, indeed, quite possible that Alex didn’t know what effect his words would have on Lisa.
“Because of what you said,” he replied. “About Mrs. Lewis, and about dying.”
Alex shrugged. “I didn’t know Mrs. Lewis. Lisa wanted to talk about her, but how could I? If you don’t know someone, you can’t talk about them, can you?”
“It wasn’t just that, Alex,” Marsh said. “It was what you said about dying. That everybody dies, and that it doesn’t matter how they die.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Alex countered. “Everybody does die. And if everybody dies, why should it be a big deal?”
“Alex, Marty Lewis was murdered.”
Alex nodded, but then said, “But she’s still dead, isn’t she?”
Marsh took a deep breath, and when he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “Alex, there are some things you have to understand, even though they don’t have any meaning to you right now. They have to do with feelings and emotions.”
“I know about emotions,” Alex replied. “I just don’t know what they feel like.”
“Exactly. But other people do know, and you used to know. And someday, when you’re all well again, you’ll feel them too. But in the meantime, you have to be careful, because you can hurt people’s feelings by what you say.”
“Even if you tell them the truth?” Alex asked.
“Even if you tell them the truth. You have to remember that right now, you don’t know the full truth about everything. For instance, you don’t know that you can hurt people mentally as well as physically. And that’s how you hurt Lisa. You hurt her feelings. She cares a great deal about you, and you made her feel as though you don’t care about anything.”
Alex said nothing. Watching him, Marsh couldn’t see whether the boy was thinking about his words or not. And then, once again, Alex spoke.
“Dad, I don’t think I do care about anything. Not the way other people do, anyway. Isn’t that what’s still wrong with me? Isn’t that why Dr. Torres says I’ll never get well? Because I don’t have all those feelings and emotions that other people have, and I never will?”
The hopelessness of Alex’s words was only reinforced by the tonelessness of his voice. Suddenly Marsh wanted to reach out and hold Alex as he’d held him when he was a baby. And yet he knew it would do no good. It wouldn’t make Alex feel more secure or more loved, for Alex didn’t feel insecure, and didn’t feel unloved.
He felt nothing. And there was nothing Marsh could do about it.
“That’s right,” he said quietly. “That’s exactly what’s wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.” He reached out and squeezed Alex’s shoulder, though he knew the gesture was much more for himself than for Alex. “I wish I could fix it, son. I wish I could help you be the way you used to be, but I can’t.”
“It’s all right, Dad,” Alex replied. “I don’t hurt, and I don’t remember what I used to be like.”
Marsh tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. “It’s okay, son,” he managed to say. “I know how hard everything is for you, and I know how hard you’re trying. And we’ll get you through all this. I promise. Some way, we’ll get you through.” Then, unwilling to let Alex see him cry, Marsh left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
Ten minutes later, when he had his emotions back under control, he went downstairs.
“He’s sorry,” he told Lisa and her parents. “He says he’s sorry about what he said, and he didn’t really mean it.” But a few minutes later, as the Cochrans left, he wondered if anyone had believed his words.
Alex woke up, and for a moment didn’t realize where he was. And then, as the walls of his room came into focus, so also did the dream that had awakened him.
He remembered the details, which were as clear in his mind as if he had just experienced them, yet there was no beginning to the dream.
He was just there, in a house very much like the one he lived in, with white plaster walls and a tile floor in the kitchen. He was talking to a woman, and even though he didn’t know the woman, did not recognize her face, he knew it was Martha Lewis.
And then there was a sound outside, and Mrs. Lewis went to the back door, where she spoke to someone. She opened the door and let the other person in.
For a moment Alex thought the other person was himself, but then he realized that although the boy resembled him, his skin was darker, and his eyes were almost as black as his hair. And he was angry, though he was trying not to show it.
>
Mrs. Lewis, too, seemed to think the other boy was Alex, and she was ignoring Alex now, talking only to the other boy, and calling him Alex.
She offered the boy a Coke, and the boy took it. But then, after he’d taken only a couple sips of the Coke, he set it down on the table and abruptly stood up.
Muttering softly, his eyes blazing with fury, he started toward Mrs. Lewis, and began killing her.
Alex remained still in the corner of the kitchen, his eyes glued to the scene that was being played out a few feet away.
He could feel the pain in Mrs. Lewis’s neck as the dark-skinned boy’s fingers tightened around it.
And he could feel the terror in her soul as she began to realize she was going to die.
But he could do nothing except stand where he was, helplessly watching, for as he endured the pain Mrs. Lewis was feeling, he was also enduring the pain of the thought that kept repeating itself in his brain.
It’s me. The boy who is killing her is me.
And now, fully awake, the thought stayed with him, as did the memory of the feelings he’d had during the killing he’d watched.
Feelings. Emotions.
Pity for Mrs. Lewis, anger toward the boy, fear of what might happen after the murder was done.
Then, just as Mrs. Lewis died and Alex woke up, the emotions werfe gone. But the memory of them remained. The memory, and the image of the killing, and the words the boy had spoken as he killed.
Alex got out of bed and went downstairs. In the back of the third volume of the dictionary, he found the translation of the words the boy had repeated over and over again.
Venganza … vengeance.
Ladrones … thieves.
Asesinos … murderers.
But vengeance for what?
Who were the thieves and murderers?
None of it made any sense to him, and even though he’d recognized her in his dream, Alex still couldn’t remember ever meeting Martha Lewis.
Nor did he know Spanish.
Then the boy in the dream couldn’t have been him.
It was just a dream.
He put the dictionary back on the shelf, then took himself back to bed.
But the next morning, when he opened up the La Paloma Herald, he stared at the picture of Martha Lewis for a long time.
It was, without any question, the woman he had seen in his dream.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On the morning of Martha Lewis’s funeral, Ellen Lonsdale woke early. She lay in bed staring out the window at the cloudless California sky. It was not, she decided, the right kind of day for a funeral. On this, of all mornings, the coastal fog should have been hanging over the hills above La Paloma, reaching with damp fingers down into the village below. Beside her, Marsh stirred, then opened one eye.
“You don’t have to get up yet,” Ellen told him. “It’s still early, but I couldn’t sleep.”
Marsh came fully awake, and propped himself up on one elbow. He reached out a tentative finger to touch the flesh of Ellen’s arm, but she shrank away from him, threw back the covers, and got out of bed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, though he knew full well that she didn’t. If she wanted to talk to anybody, it would be Raymond Torres. Increasingly he was feeling more and more cut off from both his wife and his son.
As Marsh had expected, Ellen shook her head. “I’m just not sure how much more I can cope with,” she said, then forced a smile. “But I will,” she went on.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Marsh suggested. “Maybe you and I should just take off for a while, and see if we can find each other again.”
Ellen stopped dressing to face Marsh with incredulous eyes. “Go away? How on earth can we do that? What about Alex? What about Kate Lewis? Who’s going to take care of them?”
Marsh shrugged; then he, too, got out of bed. “Valerie Benson’s been taking care of Kate, and she can go right on doing it. Hell, at least it gives her something better to do than whine about how she never should have gotten a divorce.”
“That’s a cruel thing to say—”
“It’s not cruel, honey,” Marsh interrupted. “It’s true, and you know it. As for Alex, he’s quite capable of taking care of himself, even if he isn’t like he used to be. But you and I are having a problem, whether we want to face it or not.” For a split second Marsh wondered why it was all going to come out now, and if he should try to hold his feelings in. But he knew he couldn’t. “Did you know you don’t talk to me anymore? For three days now, you’ve barely said a word, and before that, all you were doing was telling me what Raymond Torres had to say about how we should run our lives. Not just Alex’s life, but ours too.”
“There’s no difference,” Ellen said. “Right now, Alex’s life is our life, and Raymond knows what’s best.”
“Raymond Torres is a brain surgeon, and a damned fine one. But he’s not a shrink or a minister—or even God Almighty—even though he’s trying to act as though he is.”
“He saved Alex’s life—”
“Did he?” Marsh asked. He shook his head sadly. “Sometimes I wonder if he saved Alex, or if he stole him. Can’t you see what’s happening, Ellen? Alex isn’t ours anymore, and neither are you. You both belong to Raymond Torres now, and I’m not sure that isn’t exactly what he wants.”
Ellen sank onto the foot of the bed and put her hands over her ears, as if by shutting out the sound of Marsh’s voice she could shut out the words he’d spoken as well. She looked up at him beseechingly. “Don’t do this to me, Marsh,” she pleaded. “I have to do what I think is best, don’t I?”
She looked so close to tears, so defeated, that Marsh felt his bitterness drain away. He knelt beside his wife and took her hands, cold and limp, in his own. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what any of us has to do anymore. All I know is that I love you, and I love Alex, and I want us to be a family again.”
Ellen was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I know,” she said at last. “But I just keep wondering what’s coming next.”
“Nothing’s next,” Marsh replied. “There’s no connection between Alex and Marty Lewis. What happened to Alex was an accident. Marty Lewis was murdered, and unless Alan can come up with something better than ‘I don’t remember anything,’ I’d say he’s going to be tried for it, and found guilty.”
Ellen nodded glumly. “But I keep having a feeling that there’s more to it than that. I keep getting this strange feeling that there’s some kind of curse hanging over us.”
“That,” Marsh told her, “is the silliest thing I’ve heard in months. There’s no such thing as curses, Ellen. What’s happening to us is life. It’s as simple as that.”
But it’s not, Ellen thought as she finished dressing, then went downstairs to begin fixing breakfast. In life, you raise your family and enjoy your friends. Everything is ordinary. But Alex isn’t ordinary, and someone killing Marty isn’t ordinary, and getting up every morning and wondering if you’re going to get through the day isn’t ordinary.
She glanced at the clock. In another five minutes Marsh would be down, and a few minutes later, Alex, too, would appear. That, at least, was ordinary, and she would concentrate on that. In her mind, she began to make a list of things she could do that would make her life seem as unexceptional and routine as it once had been, but by the time Marsh and Alex appeared, she had come up with nothing. She poured them each a cup of coffee, and kissed Alex on the cheek.
He made no response, and, as always, a pang of disappointment twisted at her stomach.
She mixed up a can of frozen orange juice and poured a glass for her husband and one for her son. It was then that she noticed that Alex was dressed for school, not for Marty Lewis’s funeral.
“Honey, you’re going to have to change your clothes. You can’t wear those to the funeral.”
“I decided I’m not going,” Alex said, draining his glass of orange juice in one long gulp.
Marsh glanc
ed up from the front page of the paper. “Of course you’re going,” he said.
“Alex, you have to go,” Ellen protested. “Marty was one of my best friends, and Kate’s always been a friend of yours.”
“But it’s stupid. I didn’t even know Kate’s mother. Why should I go to her funeral? It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Ellen, too stunned by Alex’s words to respond, slid the muffins under the broiler, and reminded herself of what Raymond Torres had told her over and over again: Don’t get upset. Deal with Alex on his own level, a level that has nothing to do with feelings. She searched her mind, trying to find something that would reach him.
There was so little, now.
More and more, she was realizing that relationships—Alex’s as well as her own and everyone else’s—were based on feelings: on love, on anger, on pity, on all the emotions that she’d always taken for granted, and that Alex no longer had. And slowly, all his relationships were disappearing. But how could she stop it? Her thoughts were interrupted by Marsh’s voice. She turned to see him staring angrily at Alex.
“Does it make any difference that we’d like you to go?” she heard him ask. “That it would mean a lot to us for you to be there with us?” He sat back, his arms folded across his chest, and Ellen knew he was going to say no more until Alex came up with some kind of answer to his question.
Alex sat still at the table, analyzing what his father had just said.
He’d made a mistake, just as he’d made a mistake with Lisa the other night. He could see from the look on his father’s face that he was angry, and now he had to figure out why.
And yet, in his mind, he knew why.
He’d hurt his mothers feelings, so his father was angry.
He was starting to understand feelings, ever since the dream he’d had about Mrs. Lewis. He could still remember how he’d felt in the dream, even though he’d felt nothing since. At least he now had the memory of a feeling. It was a beginning.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, knowing the words were what his father wanted to hear. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
