by V. E. Lemp
“Of course.” Karen took the keys and gazed up into his face. “Is everything all right? You look pale.”
“Must be the air in this place. Karen, this is important.” He gripped her arm. “I need a very specific notebook, not just any one. It should be in the trunk, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but please, take your time and search thoroughly, would you? It’s a silver notebook, with black writing on the front. That’s the one I need.”
There was such urgency in his voice. Karen stared at him. “I won’t come back until I find it.”
“Good girl.” Alex pulled her close and planted a kiss on her hair. “Now go.” He released her with a little shove.
“See you in few minutes.” Karen headed for the door. As she twisted the doorknob, she heard him call her name.
She turned and was met with one of those dazzling smiles that had so entranced her the evening they met. “Thank you, Karen,” he said.
She smiled in return and walked out the door.
Outside, the air was still and the sky clear as a sheet of glass. Karen walked to the car, thinking about her next painting. A portrait of Alex, based on some recent sketches. It would be the first one she would complete when she had access to a studio again. The tricky part would be capturing his eyes—the way they seemed to mirror the sky, the way she could look in them and see depths belied by the sparkling blue of the surface.
She reached the car and popped open the trunk. There were any number of books and ledgers scattered about, as well as a briefcase, but Karen didn’t see a silver notebook. She dug through the papers in the briefcase with no success.
After a while, she straightened and leaned against the car to catch a breath of fresh air. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a form cross the street in front of the car. It was a dark-haired figure, a woman. Karen slammed the trunk lid.
Alice.
It was time for some answers. Karen followed Alice up the street, hanging back far enough to keep her quarry in sight without drawing attention. As they reached the warehouse where Alex was, Alice spun around and looked directly at Karen, her dark eyes burning like coals in her pale face, then strode away and disappeared around the corner.
When Karen rounded the corner, there was no sign of Alice anywhere. She paused for a moment, leaning against the brick wall of an adjacent building. The whole area was deserted. There was no evidence of activity in any of the buildings or on this street. Karen wiped her forehead with one hand and peered down the sidewalk to see if she could detect open doors on any of the buildings. She glimpsed a flash of movement in one of the deeply recessed doorframes further down the street. It was not Alice, Karen saw, as her eyes focused on the scene, but one of her twins—the man Karen saw at Vance’s holiday party. The man moved aside for a moment, and Karen realized there was someone standing with him. A tall figure, with a haughty stance and distinctive silver-winged hair. That could be only one man. That was Ian Vance.
Karen stumbled back around the corner, breathing hard. What in the world was Vance doing here, when he’d sent Alex to a building so close to this location, and why was the dark-haired stranger, whoever he might be, hiding with him in a doorway? Something was not right, and she didn’t intend for Alex to remain in ignorance of the situation.
Several yards from the front doors, she heard a low rumbling sound, followed by a strange hissing. She paused, casting frantically about, and in that second, a terrible roar filled her ears and she was thrown backwards into the street. Her head crashed against the pavement. Flames flew up the walls of the warehouse like devouring birds, and a hail of debris rained upon the street, covering her in dust and glass.
Karen struggled to sit up but could only manage to roll over. She crawled, hand over hand, toward the building, but when she reached the small plot of grass beside the steps, she collapsed, her vision narrowed into a pinprick of light. Then all light vanished.
“Over here!” a voice called out. Karen thought she’d heard that voice before, although she couldn’t place it. She lifted her head and realized she was lying facedown in grass. Every part of her ached and burned, and when she tried to sit up, her body wouldn’t respond to her mind’s commands.
Hands touched her, strong yet gentle, fixing something about her neck, turning her over and sliding her onto a firm surface. She was lifted as the light around her kept fading into dark. She struggled to remain aware, to stay in this place. There was something she had to tell the hands, something the voices around her had to know.
“Alex,” she said at last, but the sound emitted from her throat was cracked as old varnish.
Bright lights burned her eyes as the hands slid her into a vehicle. An ambulance, she realized, if only by the flash of stainless steel and the smell of disinfectant. A face swam into view, and she recognized Mark Hallam, his brown eyes brimming with concern. She heard him tell the others he was not going anywhere and they had better get over it.
Her hands clawed at the air. She took hold of the front of Mark’s shirt and pulled him down until his face was just inches from her own.
“Mark.” In her mind she was screaming, but only a hoarse whisper fell from her lips. “Alex is in there. Alex is in that building.”
“We know, Karen.” Mark gently unclasped her fingers and lowered her hands. He laid one hand on her chest but kept hold of the other. “There are many people looking for him. But right now we need to take care of you. Lie back and get some rest.”
“No, Mark, you don’t understand.” Someone stuck something in her arm. “Vance, Ian Vance …”
“Vance is here. He came as soon as we heard. Do you want him? I’ll bring him to you.”
“No, no.” The blood flowing through Karen’s limbs turned to sludge. “Vance was here, before.”
“What do you mean?” Mark’s face faded in and out, but she could still feel his hand and instinctively tightened her grip about his fingers.
“He was here, before … with one of those odd people, the dark-eyed man.” Karen’s body sank down, down through the bottom of the stretcher, down through the floor, down to the ground. Until the ground took her and covered her and swallowed her up in darkness.
“Stay with us, Karen,” she heard Mark say. And nothing more.
TWENTY
Karen woke in a hospital room. Her parents flanked her bed. Her mother burst into tears as soon as she opened her eyes, and her father thanked God and the doctors and even Mark Hallam.
“You’re going to be fine, honey,” her mother said. “They told us you’ll recover completely. You just need to rest and heal.”
Karen’s hand, stiff with bandages, strayed to her neck. “My necklace.” Her voice was rough as sandpaper.
“It’s okay,” her mother replied. “I have it. I’ll keep it safe for you.”
“Alex?” She was afraid to hear the response but desperate for an answer.
Her father and mother exchanged worried glances. “Get some rest, honey,” her father said. “We’ll talk about it later.”
And Karen unwillingly drifted into the darkness.
In the end, it was Thea who told Karen the truth. Thea had driven to the hospital as soon as Karen’s mother called to inform her of the accident, breaking every speed limit and traffic law, she later confessed. Karen woke to Thea sitting on the edge of the bed, her deep brown eyes liquid with unshed tears.
“Thea,” Karen said, “what happened? Where’s Alex? Is he okay?”
“I’m so sorry, Karen.” Thea’s tears spilled over and slid, unheeded, down her cheeks.
Karen turned her face to the wall and said nothing for several days.
As her health improved, Karen had other visitors, although she gave strict instructions that Ian Vance not be allowed to see her. She did allow Pandora O’Drury admittance. The photographer entered the room quietly and gazed at Karen with honest sympathy in her eyes.
“I heard the doctors talking.” Dora’s voice was infused with an unexpected solemnity. “They said yo
ur hands aren’t permanently damaged. Thought you’d like to know.”
Karen looked her in the eyes and nodded. “Thank you,” she said, sharing a moment of understanding with the older artist.
Mark Hallam and his wife stopped by a week later. Emma Hallam carried in a large bouquet and spent time arranging the flowers in an empty vase she found on the windowsill. Mark sat next to Karen’s bed and covered her hands with his.
“I am sorry, Karen,” he said, as Emma initiated a spirited conversation with a nurse about the unionization of health-care workers. “I must tell you they’ve closed the books on the case. Natural gas explosion. That’s the official explanation.”
“Ian Vance was there,” she said. “Before you or anyone else arrived, before the explosion. He was meeting with a dark-haired, dark-eyed man. I told you that.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” After a moment of silence, Mark released her hands and sat back in his chair. “He’s been here too, numerous times, but your friend and parents are quite ferocious about keeping him at bay. And I’ve instructed him he’s not to contact you. I think he’ll leave you alone.” He offered her a slight smile. “I still have a little authority in these matters.” He rose to his feet and walked over to his wife, taking her arm. “Come, Emma, it’s time to go. Karen needs her rest.”
The day she was to be released, Karen sat quietly in a chair by the window, staring at the small courtyard bridging two wings of the hospital. Thea sat with her, talking brightly about any number of insignificant things.
“Thea,” Karen said, as she watched goldfinches fluttering about a battered bird feeder, “I don’t dream anymore.”
“What? But you always dream. You told me that. Lots of weird and vivid dreams.”
“Not anymore.” Karen turned her head. “Perhaps I dream, but I don’t remember anything. Not one image, nothing at all.”
“It might be the pain medication. They might return after a while.”
“I don’t think so.” Karen raked her hair back from her forehead with one hand. “It’s making me crazy. I don’t dream, but during the day I see strange things. Not hallucinations. But objects look different, like light is bending around them in odd ways. And I can’t concentrate. My thoughts dart about like those birds outside. I have no focus, everything’s all jumbled up.”
“You’ve been through hell.” Thea gently laid a hand on Karen’s arm. “It’s only natural.”
“So many secrets.” Karen’s voice was taut with desperation. “So much confusion. I’m tired of the questions. I don’t want to think about those things.”
“So don’t.” Thea squeezed Karen’s arm. “Don’t think about anything right now. Don’t try to figure stuff out. Just heal.”
Karen shook her head. “Heal? How’s that possible? What’s waiting for me when I heal?”
“Your life.”
“My life.” Karen leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. One of the tiles was stained in a pattern that resembled a star. Her hand slid up to the pendant of her necklace. “I can’t even dream of him. I don’t even have that.”
“It’ll get better, with time,” Thea said.
“No, time will only take me farther away. Farther from where I want to be. Away from my memories. Away from happiness.”
“You’ll find happiness again. It’s possible, Karen. I know it is.”
“But I don’t,” Karen said.
Karen was sent home to complete her recuperation. Despite her parents pressing books and other diversions on her, she spent most of her days sitting on the sofa, staring at the walls of the living room while the television blared, unheeded, in the background.
The letter from the lawyers arrived after some delay, having been forwarded from the condo address. Karen asked her mother to read it.
“They need you to come in when you’re well enough,” her mother said. “I’ll drive if you want.”
Karen had no desire to go anywhere. But it was easier, these days, to simply agree to things. In the attorney’s office, surrounded by dark wood paneling and expensive furnishings, Karen sat next to her mother and heard the lawyer talk about a will that left her everything and a life insurance policy that paid off all debts.
“So the condo is yours. Free and clear,” the lawyer said.
Karen asked her mother if she would please, while they were in town, go to the condo and remove Karen’s things. “Just my clothes and jewelry and art supplies,” she said, her voice devoid of all emotion, “and my portfolio. Everything else can stay.” She turned to address the attorney. “The family might want some things. There’s a rather large family, I understand. If you’ll walk them through the condo at some point, they can take whatever they want.” Her mother’s sniffling gave her pause, but she soldiered on. “Except for one painting. It’s a watercolor hanging in the living room. That must stay.”
The lawyer assured Karen he would carry out her wishes and informed her he would also find a caretaker to look after the condo until her return. Karen’s mother thanked him profusely while Karen turned her head and watched as a moth, somehow trapped between the window and the screen, beat itself to death against the glass.
A few months later, Karen was left alone in the house while her father played a round of golf and her mother shopped for the week’s groceries. Karen wandered through rooms and hallways, noticing, not for the first time, that objects in the distance seemed to flare about the edges like streetlamps on a rainy night, while anything close at hand presented itself in microscopic detail. Standing in her bathroom she lifted a tortoiseshell brush and stared at its swirling pattern for some minutes before absently running the brush through her hair. Her reflection displayed a stranger with sharp features drawn against pale skin, like ink on white paper. The eyes of this stranger were empty. Karen laid her hand flat against the cool surface of the mirror. “It’s okay now,” she whispered to the reflection. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
She walked downstairs and crossed into the mudroom, where her portfolio and art supplies were piled in one corner. Rummaging through one of the bins, her hand closed about something hard. She pulled out the object and examined it carefully. It was an X-Acto knife, its blade neatly stored inside the red metal handle.
Karen walked into the kitchen, still holding the utility knife. It felt cool and heavy against her palm. She sat in a chair, then stood and sat down on the floor with her back against one leg of the kitchen table. With her thumb, she pressed the mechanism, and the blade appeared, glinting bright and sharp as a diamond.
Karen took up the knife and, with all the dexterity in her well-trained hands, drew it cleanly and deeply across the inside of each of her wrists.
Karen later learned her mother had forgotten her grocery list. She’d returned to fetch it and discovered her unconscious daughter and a frightening amount of blood. Karen didn’t remember the second ambulance trip or her return to the hospital. She erased these memories from her conscious mind, although they surfaced occasionally during the time she spent in another institution battling depression.
After many months, she finally returned to the world, although it was a world diminished—narrowed and tarnished and lacking the one thing that lent it any special grace. But she resolved to survive, if only to honor the memory of the man she loved. She would live, for better or worse, until some unknown mercy released her. Whatever the cost, she could not attempt escape again. But while her life would go on, it would always be something less. It would be fine. She would be fine. But nothing more.
PART TWO
ONE
“Love what you’ve done with the place.” Thea dropped her suitcase in Karen’s living room. “Which is absolutely nothing, of course. Really, Karen, don’t you ever want to redecorate?”
“No. It’s fine as it is.” Karen walked into the kitchen and fished a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator. “Drink?”
“Yes, please.” Thea settled on the sofa. “A very large glass, please. I left A
aron pages of instructions, and he’s still calling. Damn cell phones, such a nuisance. But if I don’t answer, he just leaves messages. I swear, I don’t know how he survived before I came along.”
Karen first heard the name “Aaron Jones” in passing years before, during one of her weekly telephone conversations with Thea. At first she dismissed his significance, since Thea tended to pepper her discussions with the names of any number of random admirers. But over time, other names were mentioned rarely, then not at all. Meanwhile, Aaron’s name cropped up every other sentence. Aware of this trend, Karen wasn’t surprised when Thea called one day and invited her to be her maid of honor.
Karen handed Thea a glass of wine. “I’m sure Aaron’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. And the children.” She sat in a chair positioned across from Thea.
“Better hope so. They’re your godchildren, after all.” Thea kicked off her shoes. “So what’s the plan for the summer? Teaching? Leading workshops? Or what?”
“Actually, nothing. I know it sounds strange, but this year I didn’t arrange anything. I guess I’ll work on some paintings. The gallery in Baltimore would like another show as soon as I get enough pieces together.”
“Sounds dull. Responsible but dull. You could take a trip. How about Italy? I know you love Italy.”
“I do, but I was guiding a student tour when I was there last.” Karen took a sip of her wine. “I wouldn’t want to go on my own. Doubt it’d be as enjoyable.”
Thea eyed her speculatively. “You wouldn’t have to be on your own. If you worked at it.”
Karen frowned. “Don’t start, Thea.”
“Seriously, Karen, you make no effort at all. There’s such a thing, you know, as a new hairdo.”
