by Sharon Potts
“I am.”
“So take a nap. You’re wearing yourself out.”
“That’s what Dr. Guzman said. He gave me a mild sedative.”
“Really? But you’re pregnant.”
“Not for me. For Lillian. He figures if I can get her to sleep, I’ll be able to take a break.”
“Not a bad idea. Good luck getting her to take it, though.”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
“If you’d like, I can sit on her and hold her mouth open while you shove the pill down her throat. Sort of like I do with Gizmo.”
She smiled.
“Good. First smile I’ve seen on you today.”
“Actually, Dr. Guzman gave me a sample in liquid form. She’s not supposed to be able to taste the sedative if I mix it in hot chocolate or something.”
“Try chocolate mousse, but watch out for a chalky under-taste.”
Kali smiled again. They always used to quote the line from Rosemary’s Baby when they were kids.
“Thanks for watching her.”
“No problem. Get some rest. And if you want to talk, give me a call.”
She took a step toward the house, then hesitated. She hadn’t told Neil anything about her meeting with Seth last night—that her marriage was over. She was afraid that he’d try to comfort her and that she’d let him. But he looked so sturdy and strong standing beside the columned portico, his jaw set like he’d take anyone’s punch for her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I need—” The words caught in her throat. She tried again. “I need—” She shook her head. She couldn’t do this now.
Neil leaned toward her, his gray eyes wide behind his glasses. “It’s okay, Kali. I won’t ask if you’re all right, because I know you’re not. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here for you.”
Kali nodded thanks, then went inside.
“Who’s there?” her grandmother called from upstairs, her voice shrill with panic.
Tired. Kali was so tired.
“It’s just me,” Kali called back, locking the door behind her. “I’ll be right up.”
Then she went into the kitchen to fix her grandmother some hot chocolate with the sedative Dr. Guzman had given her.
51
After Kali had left his office this morning, Javier changed into a uniform stolen from a local cable company, put on a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and a fake beard, and drove to the old woman’s house. He parked his car a block away and walked down the cracked, tree-lined sidewalk wearing an official-looking tool belt.
He needed to have a look around the property in daylight and thought his chances pretty good that Kali wouldn’t be out and about. Given how exhausted she looked in his office, he was optimistic that she’d be napping along with her grandmother, who was hopefully doped up on the sedative he’d supplied to Kali.
Javier had considered passing along a stronger drug that would likely have put the grandmother into a sleep she’d never wake up from, but he didn’t want her death to look suspicious and possibly point back to him. The mild sedative would be sufficient to knock the old woman out for a few hours so she wouldn’t be listening for noises and making a fuss if she happened to hear him.
He carefully opened the rusted gate that led to the backyard and was hit by the stench of feral cats and decaying vegetation. The yard was overgrown. A thick ladder of purplish-red bougainvillea grew up the back of the house blocking the first-story windows, probably of the kitchen, judging from its location. That was good. If Kali or the old woman were in there, they wouldn’t be able to see him.
He took a step back and followed the dense flowered vines up to the second floor with his eyes. He could just barely make out a couple of small windows behind the bougainvillea. He wondered what rooms were up there. He’d already established that Kali and her grandmother used the bedrooms that faced the street.
He wished he could see into Kali’s bedroom. He imagined her spread out naked on her bed, her full, trembling breasts shifting to the side, her pink nipples alert.
His erection pressed painfully against his pants. He thought about his father, sniffing the inner band of the hat Leli Lenz had worn. Javier understood his father’s preoccupation a lot better now. It wasn’t just about saving civilization. It was more personal. But soon the old woman would be out of the picture, and then—
There was a rustling in the bushes. A large gray cat, like an oversized rat, darted through the weedy dirt beneath the mahogany tree.
Disgusting creatures.
Javier readjusted his pants, then stepped over to the cracked coquina patio and examined the back door. It was locked.
The police report, about the fire set by Lillian Campbell and her rescue by Neil Rabin, said that Rabin had gone into the house through a back door, but hadn’t explained how he had gotten in. Rabin had been out jogging when he noticed the flames, so it was unlikely that he had his neighbor’s key on him, if he even had a key.
But Rabin and Kali were the same age, and their behavior toward each other suggested a relationship that probably went back to their youth. Many people left spare keys hidden outside their houses. Very likely, Rabin knew where the Campbells kept theirs.
Javier’s eyes skimmed the likely hiding places. He slid his fingertips over the top lip of the doorjamb, then behind the shutters of the kitchen windows. Nothing. He stepped back, accidentally kicking a plastic food dish that clattered against the coquina. He froze and waited. No sound came from inside.
He studied the broken coquina tiles, but none appeared to have been lifted out recently. Then he noticed the circular pattern of dirt about an inch from one of the planters, as though it had been moved.
He smiled. How obvious. He tilted the planter and slid his fingers beneath it. They touched a small, metal object.
He took the key and put it in his pocket. Then he went out the rusting gate, down the street.
Perhaps he’d return later when it was dark. With a little luck, she’d stand near her bedroom window where he could see her.
52
Kali was strangling. She tried to pry the squeezing hands away from her throat, but they tightened around her.
She awoke with a start. Her damp T-shirt clung to her body; the top sheet and blanket had been tossed to the floor. Why was her bedroom so dim and airless? Then she remembered. Her grandmother had told her to close all the windows in the house, terrified that some bogeyman was trying to get in.
Kali got out of bed, checking the time on her cell phone. Already six in the evening. She’d been asleep for hours. She went to the window and worked the crank until the casement window popped open. She breathed in the cool, scented air and then reality hit her. She felt a wave of nausea. Seth, her marriage, her baby, her grandmother.
She looked again at her cell phone, desperately needing to talk to Neil. Was it right to burden him with her problems? But who else could she turn to?
She went to the corner of her room and sat down in the rocking chair. It was where she’d been sitting last night when Seth called. She looked up at her mother’s face.
“Tell me, Mama, what should I do?”
Her mother looked back at her.
“Can I raise my child without a father?”
Her mother smiled.
“I know. Of course, I can. You did. But how lonely that was for both of us.”
Her mother seemed to take a deep breath, but that was just the change in the angle of the horizontal line across her chest as Kali rocked back and forth.
“Were you always lonely, Mama, even when my father was alive? Grandma never hugged you, so you never learned to hug me. I guess that’s why I don’t know how to hug.”
The sound of rocking filled the room.
“Tell me, Mama. When you felt lost and all alone, what did you do? Who did you turn to?”
Her mother didn’t answer.
Kali got up from the chair and put her finger to the glass in front of her mother’s pink, parted l
ips. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry I couldn’t be enough for you.”
Kali braided her hair, slipped into her leggings and sneakers, and went across the hallway to her grandmother’s darkened bedroom. She had closed the drapes after giving Lillian the hot chocolate hours ago.
She hadn’t followed Dr. Guzman’s instructions and had used only a small amount of the sedative when she prepared the chocolate. Her grandmother had reluctantly drunk it, then lay back down against the pillows.
From the doorway, Kali could hear her grandmother breathing strong and even. She left the bedroom door open and went downstairs.
She rummaged through the refrigerator, weak with hunger. She put the leftover vegetarian chili in a pot to heat and tore into one of the cold pastries that Seth’s parents had left.
She wondered if Seth had told them yet. Would they accept that their son was gay? They were open-minded people. Maybe they’d even get him to realize he couldn’t walk out on Kali and their baby.
But was that what Kali wanted?
She spooned some chili into her mouth directly from the pot. It was hot and cold, not cooked through. She didn’t care. The baby was ravenous, making her eat.
She looked again at her cell phone. Call him.
Her fingers dialed Neil’s number.
He answered on the first ring. “You up?”
“Yeah.”
“You slept all this time?”
“I did.”
“Good. What about your grandmother?”
“She’s still sleeping.”
“Well, you two have been through a lot these last few days.”
Kali didn’t answer. She watched the chili bubbling in the pot. She turned off the gas.
“Shall I come over?”
She stared at the chili. “I’d better eat something first, then I’ll meet you out back.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
In the semidarkness, the backyard had the faded edges of an old black-and-white film.
“Hey.” Neil got up from the lawn chair and held out his arms as Kali crossed the lawn toward him. She thought about what she’d just said to the photo in her bedroom, how she and her mother had never learned how to hug.
Neil wrapped his arms around her and she rested her head against his chest. His T-shirt smelled like laundry detergent, his skin like soap. She held his scent deep in her lungs like it was a balm.
“You looked like you could use a hug.” Neil lifted her chin and looked down into her eyes. His thumb rubbed her cheek and she felt a cool wetness beneath his finger. She was crying.
“Whenever you’re ready to talk,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
She took another deep breath. “I went to meet Seth last night.”
Neil frowned.
“He . . . we—” She cleared her throat and tried again. “I guess we’ll be getting divorced.”
“Divorced? Why?”
“Seth is gay.” She let out a small laugh. “How do you like that? I’ve been married to a gay man and never realized it.”
“Shit, Kali.”
“Anyway, Seth feels it would be unfair to me to stay married.”
Neil’s lower lip jutted out as he tightened his jaw. “What about you? How do you feel?”
“Hurt. Abandoned. Deceived.”
“He’s known for a while?”
“He suspected it, but didn’t want to acknowledge it. But I feel more like I deceived myself. I wanted to believe everything was perfect, even though I should have seen it wasn’t.”
“Come here.” Neil opened his arms.
She rested her head against his shoulder. Such a hard-soft shoulder.
“And if he decides he wants to stay married, after all, what will you do?”
“I don’t know.” Her hand went to her abdomen. “We’re having a baby.”
“So you’d stay with him? Even if you couldn’t truly love each other?”
She raised her head to look into the intense gray eyes behind his glasses.
“Even if you love someone else?” he asked.
Some force, like a magnetic pull, brought their faces closer, closer. His warm breath was on her cheek. Her heart pounded in her ears, making her light-headed.
He took her face in his hands, his fingers, still healing from the burns, rough against her skin. “Please, Kali, don’t go back to him. Ever.”
His lips were against hers, so warm. She remembered their feel, the taste from the last time. His tongue slid into her mouth.
“Come with me,” she said, breathless.
They ran across the weeds back to the house, hand in hand. She’d left the door to the storage rooms unlocked the other night, thinking she might go back searching for more of her past. Or perhaps she always knew she’d be returning with Neil.
She went up the back stairs, leaving the overhead lights off. She could hear Neil’s sneakered footfalls behind her own.
She stopped in the doorway to the first room. The dim glow from the light in Neil’s phone cast the room in sepia, ghostlike, as though it might disappear at any moment.
Neil put the lit phone on the floor and opened the folded cot.
Just like last time.
He pulled her toward him, took her face into his hands, and kissed her again.
Just like last time.
Kali could hardly breathe.
He lifted the T-shirt over her head and pulled off his own shirt. She leaned back against the cot, felt his whirling tongue on her chest. Cool against heat.
Just like last time.
He pulled down her leggings, caressing her abdomen, his fingertips wonderfully rough against her. He kissed the mound of her raised belly.
Not like last time.
Hot tears ran down the sides of her face into her hair and turned cold. Not his. It could have been his. Her baby needed a father.
“I love you, Kali,” he whispered into her soft flesh. “I’ve always loved you.”
She pulled his head up and brought it to her face. She kissed him until there was no breath left inside her. Then she turned her head away, gasping in the stagnant air heavy with the smells of mildew, sweat, and pheromones.
The light from his phone cast shadows around the small room— the broken chairs, icebox, sewing machine, paint cans, and the rickety ladder.
The room was as it had been the other time. When he had held her and she’d prayed he would never let her go.
He unhooked her bra, taking her nipples in his mouth, one then the other, then back again.
Oh, dear God, what was she doing?
He eased off her panties.
Yes? No? She couldn’t stop him if she wanted to.
She raised her hips and felt him slip inside her. The cot creaked and thumped against the wood floor. She held him tighter, tighter.
The world was expanding, contracting. Tighter, tighter. Faster, faster. Everything was converging. She had a past. An identity. Neil. She had Neil. A father for her child. The family she’d always dreamed of.
Her breath shuddered out of her. “I love you.”
He kissed her neck.
She melted against him. The smell of the musty cot wafted up, making her stomach roil. She pushed her nose against his chest, blocking the bad smell, inhaling his sweat, the scent of soap and laundry detergent. Taking him deep into her lungs, into her core.
For a long time, they lay in each other’s arms. Her braid had come undone and he stroked her hair, from her scalp all the way down. He kissed her shoulder.
If only they could stay in here forever.
The light from the cell phone was growing dimmer. There were no colors in the room. Everything was disappearing.
She held him tighter. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You won’t leave me?”
“Never.”
She remained motionless, locked in his arms. Did anything else really matter? Kali’s true past? Her grandmother’s secrets? Kali was tir
ed of secrets. Of discovering the people she cared about weren’t who she’d believed them to be.
She needed to tell Neil the truth. “Last time was the first time for me. I never thought that I could—”
“I know.” He kissed her hair. “I feel the same way. And here we are again. It’s like we’ve never been apart.”
It wasn’t what she’d been about to say. But maybe she shouldn’t tell him what had happened so many years ago. What mattered was they were together now. And he was right. It was as though they’d never been apart.
She snuggled against him and her eyes rested on the old rickety ladder. It leaned against the wall just beneath an indented rectangle. A trapdoor leading to an attic.
She sat up.
“What is it?” he asked.
Kali pointed to the ceiling. “I never looked up there.”
“For what?”
“Lillian’s afraid someone will find something she’s hidden. But I’ve been through the whole house and I haven’t found anything. Maybe it’s up there.”
“Your grandmother couldn’t climb up that ladder.”
“Maybe she hid something there years ago, when she could.”
Kali slid her T-shirt on and stepped into her panties. She went over to the door and flipped on the overhead light. It was startlingly bright.
“Ouch.” Neil held his hand in front of his eyes. “Thanks for the warning.” He sat up on the cot, completely naked.
Kali took in his broad shoulders, the vee of dark hair that ran down his chest over his taut stomach muscles. As she studied him, she noticed him hardening. She started toward him, then stopped. Tonight was just the beginning for them. Just as Neil had said earlier, they had plenty of time.
Instead, she went to the ladder and dragged it away from the cans of paint, closer to the trap door.
“Wait,” Neil said, putting on his jeans. He took the ladder and positioned it. “I’ll climb up and look.”
“No. I need to.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Please, just hold the ladder for me.”
He shook his head, but held the ladder in place as Kali climbed up. She pushed on the rectangle and it popped up. She moved it aside, then went up a couple more rungs until she could put her head into the black opening. She reached inside for a light switch or pull cord, but found nothing.
