The Sunflower Forest

by Torey Hayden

  Outside the police station was an enormous crowd of people. There were three police cars and an ambulance, two highway-patrol vehicles and a van marked ‘Channel Seven News’. Obliquely, the thought came into my mind of how much excitement my mama had provided for this small Kansas outpost.

  ‘Hello! Hello!’ cried a woman as we climbed out of the car. Trailing the cord of a microphone, she ran toward us. The policeman with me grabbed my arm and pulled me to his other side so that he was between the woman and me.

  ‘Are you the daughter?’ she shouted. Then a second officer opened the door to the station and tugged me through by the sleeve of my blouse. I turned to look back at the woman. Her question echoed in my head, like words from a foreign language.

  My father was there. The police station was little more than just a big room, divided by a wooden partition with a gate in it. The officers’ desks were all on the far side. Back behind the big room was a smaller one with a glassed-in office and just one cell. My father was sitting in a wooden chair beside one of the desks near the far wall. He turned when I entered, and rose partway up from the chair. Then he stopped, frozen mid-move, and gaped at me, as if he were seeing a stranger. He sat back down again.

  It was at that moment that the enormity of what had just happened first hit me. It came as a physical sensation, like scalding heat. The horror was so great, so overwhelming, that it wasn’t an emotion at all. I felt myself sinking, as if my feet were melting through the floor of the police station. All around me from above came crashing colours of paralysing, psychedelic brightness. My knees went weak from the weight of them.

  Then my father was beside me, his arms around me, supporting my weight, keeping me on my feet. The moment passed; the feeling receded like nausea after vomiting. And it left me with the same sort of foul residue in my mouth.

  I hardly recall the rest of the afternoon. For all the minute details etched into my memory about the return from Ladder Creek, almost nothing about the hours spent at the police station registered. I do remember Paul coming in with his mother. It had been his .22 Mama had used. He stood, face pale, hands behind his back. While he talked to the officer, I saw Bo looking over at me and then my father. She stared at us fixedly and did not look away when I turned toward her. Instead, she continued to gaze, as if I were a stranger, or rather as if I were not quite a person, and so staring did not matter. She was wearing a red silk blouse she had let me try on once. I thought then, as I sat beside my father, that I’d never cared greatly for red anyway. Paul glanced over too, but we were never close enough to speak.

  I also remember faces being pressed against the glass, almost like a surrealistic painting, when I went out in the hallway on my way to the toilet. But chiefly, I recall the coffee, which they kept giving us in small Styrofoam cups. It was weak and tasted of chemicals from the whitener. What I kept thinking was how, the weekend before, it had made my mother sick to her stomach. I wondered if I too would be ill from drinking it.

  The only other clear recollection was of the police sergeant. It had been he to whom my father had been talking when I’d come into the station, to whom my father had had to tell all Mama’s small secrets. He was a short, balding man, roly-poly and red cheeked like a Santa Claus. Later, while we were waiting on the long wooden bench in front of the main desk, he came to us and held out his hand to my father. When Dad took it, the sergeant simply continued to hold Dad’s hand and did not shake it.

  ‘This is the most tragic thing I’ve ever heard,’ he said to my father. ‘I want you to know I feel so awful. Nobody can hear these things that happened to her and feel anything but the most terrible compassion for your wife.’

  Not lifting his head, my father nodded. He still held the sergeant’s hand.

  I remember that.

  Sometime in the early evening we were allowed to leave the police station. My father went directly over to the hospital, where Mama was in intensive care. He had the car, so one of the policemen drove me home to avoid the crowd still collected outside the station.

  Everything continued to seem unreal to me. As I rode along, I thought about exactly how unreal it seemed, and before I was aware of it, I had begun seeing things as they usually were. I could see myself arriving at the front door and opening it. The scent of soup and freshly made bread mingled with the familiar home smell in the darkness of the front hallway. Everything was starkly clear to me. The dusky rose-coloured rug on the floor by the front door. Megan’s dirty overshoes. The outline of Dad’s beloved tall clock in the hallway. The tangle of coats and jackets on the hooks at the bottom of the stairs. That certain kind of darkness that fills a house when only the kitchen is lit. I could smell the soup very distinctly. Lentil. Because it was my father’s favourite, Mama made us eat it about once a week. I could hear her voice, first humming, then breaking into song for a line or two, then humming again. It was a song she often sang absently to herself. Neither her voice nor the song was very melodic, and I never even knew what song it was. Upstairs, Megs was playing. I could hear the muted thunk of her sock feet as she ran back and forth in the upstairs hallway. It was all so clear.

  Still trapped in imagery, I thanked the officer for the ride and got out. The sights, the sounds, the smells, even the way I always felt emotionally when arriving home, were an illusion so powerful that I was convinced it was real. And this other obscene thing was not. It had just been some awful joke someone had played on me. Elaborate but false. And in bad taste. I knew when I turned the doorknob that there would be the hallway darkness and the light spilling from the kitchen and my mama.

  The dream collapsed with sodden suddenness when I opened the door. The house, of course, was empty and unlit. Silence tumbled out on top of me like an armload of books from an overloaded closet. I stood a long minute on the doorstep, feeling bitter and humiliated.

  I didn’t know what my father had told Megan about the murders. I didn’t ask when I finally went to get her from the Reillys’ next door. I didn’t know how Dad had done it, but Megan certainly knew.

  That evening continued to be tainted with a powerful aura of unreality. Megan and I went through the routines of normal living, saying nothing to each other about what had occurred and yet never thinking about anything else. Megan too was doing a great deal of pretending, just to get by. Once, mid-evening, she looked over at me and said, ‘Really, it’s just like Mama’s had a bad spell and Daddy’s upstairs taking care of her. That’s all. And we’re down here like usual.’

  One of Paul’s rat rifles was still out in the hall by the coat closet. I had assumed the police would have been over to take it as well, so when I chanced across it, it startled me as much as if it had been a living thing lurking there. I jumped back and cried out in surprise. There too were the boxes of ammunition. I could see they’d been disturbed but I was unable to bring myself to lift up the lids and see which box Mama had taken the shells from. I didn’t even want to touch those things, but the fact that they were there unsettled me. It was Megan who resolved to do something about it. She brought out a plastic garbage bag and carefully transferred the boxes of shells into it. We carried the bag and the gun out to the back porch and put them into the cupboard with the vacuum cleaner. Megan shut the door and leaned the dirty-clothes basket against it. Pausing, she regarded the basket pensively before going out to the garage for some rope to run through the door handles, tying the cupboard securely shut.

  ‘There,’ she said, trying the cupboard to see if it would open. The rope held fast. Thoughtfully, she studied it.

  ‘You don’t suppose they’ll think we’re trying to hide them, do you?’ she asked me. ‘Would they arrest us?’

  ‘No. We’re just putting them in a safe place. They’d know that.’

  We both regarded the cupboard.

  ‘Anyway, they got the other gun down at the police station,’ I said. ‘I saw it. They probably don’t care about this stuff.’

  Megan continued to look at the cupboard. Then she turned an
d went into the kitchen. ‘Let’s lock the door,’ she said and shut the kitchen door tightly behind me as I came in. She slipped the bolt through.

  We ate a supper of cold cuts and bread, food Mama had bought for Sunday lunch. I was hungry and embarrassed by it, since it hardly seemed like a time to feel much like eating.

  Around eight my father came home. Mama’s condition was not stabilizing the way the people at the hospital had hoped, and they were debating about bringing in a helicopter to fly her down to St Joseph’s in Wichita. She’d had three-and-a-half hours of surgery to remove the bullets and still she continued to haemorrhage. Dad said she had never been conscious the entire time he was there. But then, she was still under the influence of the anaesthetic, so he wasn’t too worried. Or at least that’s what he said.

  After he had had a cup of coffee and a sandwich, Dad rang Auntie Caroline in Chicago. Auntie Caroline was his older sister, and she was the only member of my father’s family with whom we still had contact.

  I grew angry. I didn’t want Auntie Caroline to come down. She hardly ever came to visit otherwise, so I didn’t want her now. I told my father that. I also told him that every time Auntie Caroline was there she made snide comments about him and Mama and the way we lived. He said he knew that, and that it was just Caroline’s way. I said I didn’t like it and I didn’t want Megan to hear that kind of stuff. Especially now. So how could he even suggest it? Moreover, I was upset that he hadn’t even bothered to consult Megan and me about the matter. He’d simply gone in the living room and phoned her.

  Dad said there wasn’t much to consult about. What else could he do? There was no one else to come. He didn’t even exchange Christmas cards with Uncle Kip and Uncle Mickey. Aunt Kath was still with the Sisters of Mercy in Colombia. Uncle Colin wouldn’t be any help, given the way he drank. And Dad hadn’t spoken with Uncle Paddy since that time Mama threw the cranberry juice at Aunt Gretchen. In general, Mama just hadn’t made a great impression on Dad’s relatives.

  I said we didn’t need anybody. If I’d been able to cope with things before, I certainly could do it now with just Megs and me. No, he replied in a tone of voice that left no room for argument. If Mama went to Wichita, he would have to go there to stay with her and he didn’t want us left alone for days at a time. With Auntie Caroline here, I could return to school and carry on with my ordinary affairs, he said.

  Great. Just what I wanted to do, go back to school. After all my agonizing to get back earlier, now I couldn’t even bear to contemplate the idea. Given what Mama had just done, the only school I wanted to attend would be in another country. Possibly another planet. I sighed and turned away from my father. That’s basically what’s wrong with life, I thought morosely. When you want to do something, you can’t. When you can, you don’t want to.

  Afterward, my father went upstairs, showered, shaved and put on a clean shirt. Then he kissed both of us and went back to the hospital to spend the night with Mama. That left Megan and me alone once again.

  Since the murders had occurred, there had been an almost constant barrage of people from the media. The police had put a van outside our house to discourage them from bothering Megan and me. They also told us to keep the phone off the hook. But Dad, without thinking, had replaced the receiver after talking to Auntie Caroline. About fifteen minutes after he’d gone back to the hospital, the phone rang.

  It was a quarter to ten. I remember looking at the clock and wondering who would be calling so late before it occurred to me that we shouldn’t answer it. Megan already had.

  By the baffled expression she had on her face, it was clear that the caller was someone we did not know. Cupping the receiver in both hands, she was listening intently to what the person was saying.

  He must have known he had a child, someone who didn’t know how to put him off, because whoever it was, he was talking a great deal. I could hear the faint buzz of his voice. I gestured for Megan to hang up.

  ‘Who is it?’ I mouthed when she continued to listen.

  She shook her head slightly, still intent on what the caller was saying.

  I stood just outside the small circle of light thrown out from the table lamp. Megan, bathed in incandescent gold, began to cry. The tears welled up around the corners of her eyes; they glittered in the lamplight.

  Reaching over, I removed the phone from her hands. The man’s voice was still audible as I gently laid the receiver down in the cradle. Giving the line a few minutes to clear, I then lifted the receiver and laid it alongside the telephone.

  ‘Don’t put it back,’ I said. ‘Just leave it there, Meggie. And if it gets put back accidentally, I don’t want you to answer the phone. Understand?’

  With the tip of one finger she was flicking back traces of tears, hoping, I think, that I hadn’t noticed them. ‘Has Mama accepted Jesus, Les?’

  ‘Is that what he was on about? Look, Megs, don’t pay any attention to that.’

  ‘But has she? He said Mama had the Devil in her. That the Devil made her go out and kill innocent people. That God was trying her and she needed to accept Jesus.’

  ‘Megan, forget it. We believe differently than that man does. Don’t pay any attention to what he was saying.’

  Her face remained puckered with concern. ‘But he said Mama’d go to Hell. He said she’d die and go to Hell and burn for ever for what she did. He said I had to go over to the hospital right away and tell her to accept Jesus as her saviour quick, in case she died, so she’d be saved from Hell.’

  I knelt and put my arms around her. ‘Meggie, that’s what that man believes. It’s not what we believe. Mama’s innocent, Megan. Even if she did do it, she didn’t mean to. She just got things confused. But she didn’t mean to. She’s not going to Hell. Mama’s not even dying. So just forget what he said. Don’t worry about it.’

  She was having a difficult time keeping up with the tears. They never fell but they continually puddled up. As soon as she wiped them away, they were back. ‘But I think he might be right, Les. It’s a sin. It’s against the Ten Commandments to kill someone. I don’t think Jesus would be very pleased, even if it was just one of Mama’s things. You’re not supposed to kill people for any reason.’

  The telephone call upset us both. Megan had a nearly impossible time getting it out of her head. It was late anyhow, well past her normal bedtime, and both of us were extended far beyond our ability to judge things rationally. For me it was upsetting because it made me suddenly feel very vulnerable there in the house alone. Maybe having Auntie Caroline wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Before going to bed I went through the house and made sure all the windows and doors were locked and the curtains were closed. Although a police van with two officers remained outside on the street, for some reason I was not comforted. While upstairs brushing my teeth, I glanced over at Megan, who was changing her clothes. Without speaking, we went downstairs afterward and put chairs under all the doorknobs.

  We slept together. First we planned to sleep in her bed. Then in mine. Finally, we ended up in our parents’ bed. What if Daddy comes home? Megan asked hopefully. I said I didn’t think he was planning to. But if he did, there was enough room in there for him too.

  The three of us, Megan, me and Big Cattie, lay clutched together in the dark. All the windows were closed against the balmy, scented spring night; all the curtains were pulled. Megan’s hair, long and dark, spilled over us like an extra covering. She smelled good. Being close to her, my nose was filled with her warm, familiar child’s scent, and for an instant, it seemed perhaps the possibility still existed that this was just a nightmare and we might soon waken.

  I couldn’t sleep. I lay perfectly motionless with Megan and the stuffed cat still in my arms but I did not even close my eyes. Megan too lay without moving. A long time after I had assumed she was asleep, she spoke.

  ‘Are you awake, Lessie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  I drew her even closer to me.

&nb
sp; ‘Are you scared?’ she asked.

  ‘A little.’

  Silence.

  ‘They’re dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, they’re dead. I keep seeing them. You know, that little boy, that little Toby Waterman. I remember the first day when I was with Mama and we saw him. I can see him clear as anything. Like he’s right in front of my eyes. And then I see him shot dead. Right out there in the bushes by the creek. I know that isn’t how it happened, but that’s what I keep seeing. And he looks like Mrs Beckerman’s cat looked when it got run over. All squashed out.’

  ‘Megan, don’t think of such things.’

  Silence.

  ‘Lessie, that gun’s down there. In the cupboard. We should have made Daddy take it away.’

  ‘Megs, that’s not the gun. Don’t think about it. Just forget it.’

  Silence.

  More silence.

  ‘Can you forget about it, Lessie?’

  Silence.

  ‘Can you, Les?’

  ‘No.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The mattress in my parents’ bed sagged in the middle, and it was nearly impossible to sleep without rolling on top of Megan. Megan, restive in her sleep anyway, continually hit against me. Underneath us was the muted plastic crunch of the waterproof sheet Megan had put on in case she wet the bed. So I awoke very early, feeling as if I had never been asleep. Megan, whose relaxed body was flung out in abandon across the big bed, stirred when I climbed over her, because moving on the bed without jostling her was out of the question. Disoriented a moment, she rose up on her elbows and looked at me. But before I could tell her to go back to sleep, she already had.

  It was not quite six-fifteen, and everything was bathed in morning quiet. The day had dawned peerlessly clear and cool, the sun so bright that it shimmered on the dewy grass. Without thinking, I went to get the Sunday paper off the front step. Wearing only one of Dad’s T-shirts and my underpants, I was startled to find one of the two officers in the police van watching me as I opened the door. He waved when I looked up, paper in hand. Embarrassed, I pulled back inside and slammed the door.