The Widow's Season
Page 22
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
He sighed and propped the pillow against the headboard, then lay down beside her. “No,” he said. “Not you.”
He was staring at the ceiling, watching the dim light from the window spread into gray polygons. She turned her eyes upon the same dark geometry, and together they formed two stone effigies, listening to the snow blowing across the roof.
“They’re predicting two feet,” he said after a while.
“Let it come,” she replied. “Let it bury us.”
• 33 •
The next morning her muscles ached and her jaw was shivering. She recognized the symptoms; for two decades her body had thrived and constricted according to the academic seasons. Adrenaline carried her through each semester’s crises, until the completion of exams marked a retreat into illness and exhaustion. These past four days had felt like finals. They were all being tested.
David sat at the edge of her bed and pulled a thermometer from beneath her tongue. His palm felt warm and competent against her forehead as he read her temperature in the window’s light.
“One hundred and two. Would you like some Tylenol?”
“No, it’s all right.” She would let her body burn away its impurities.
“I’ll make you some tea.”
Five minutes later he brought her a mug of Constant Comment. “Is there anything else you want?” His voice was cold.
Yes, she wanted to talk to him. She wanted to explain that she had never loved Nate, nor did she imagine that he loved her. He had helped her through a difficult winter—that was all. He had forced her to engage with the living world, something David couldn’t offer here in this quiet retreat. The cabin was a chrysalis from which David might emerge, transformed, and fly, but for her it was little more than a time warp. David was tied to her past while Nate lived wholly in the present; between the two brothers, she had begun to find her own place in time. But all of this was too hard to explain to an angry man.
“No,” she said. “I don’t need anything.”
For two days David tended her, bringing food and books and blankets and dull jokes about “cabin fever,” while she lay in a dim fog, listening to the metronomic precision of his ax. Sometimes the ax’s sharp crack was replaced by the crunch of a shovel, scraping away at the driveway bit by bit. He responds to pain with physical labor, Sarah told herself, remembering David poised with a shovel beside his mother’s grave. But this pain was of her own making, and she curled her knees to her chest.
On the third afternoon he ran a bath. He helped her rise from bed and escorted her to the tub, leaving her in privacy. When she dipped her foot into the water, her skin turned bright pink. She added some cold and tried again, first one foot, then another. For thirty seconds she stood quiet while her calves grew accustomed to the scalding, then she lowered herself into the tub, inches at a time.
The water burned against her stomach, spreading beads of sweat along her throat and across her temples. She could feel her muscles melting into relaxation; so many corners of her body needed to be thawed. Her forearms bobbed up and down while the steam rose like drowsy spirits, filling the window.
Somewhere in her revery she heard a car starting. David must have finished the driveway—two afternoons of work. But it was strange for him to drive in these conditions, with the mountain road still packed with snow. Strange to drive at all after seven months without a car. We must need groceries, she thought as she heard the tires spinning, stopping, spinning. Her wagon was rocking back and forth, spitting gravel and ice. After a few minutes she sensed that he had turned the car around; the front-wheel drive was now helping him to plow toward the road. The engine paused at the end of the driveway, then the tires spun briefly in a surge of acceleration, followed by a long, distant decrescendo.
An hour later she wrapped herself in a large towel, drained the lukewarm tub, and walked, dripping, back to bed. Sleep came easily, and when she woke the room was dark. Turning on the bedside lamp, she saw by the alarm clock that it was already six, and snow had begun to fall again. Her joints felt stiff as metal as she pulled on some clothes and walked into the main room.
The morning’s fire had dwindled into cold ashes and the woodpile was low on kindling. She placed the last four sticks on the ribs of the grate, then reached for David’s ax, planning to split more strips from the driest logs, but the ax was not standing sentry at its usual post. Nor was it behind the couch, the easel, the kitchen island. She opened the door onto the deck and stepped outside far enough to see the empty chopping log. Coming back inside, she shook the snowflakes from her hair and began to strip bark from a few pine logs, sprinkling the chips across the four strips of kindling.
Where was David? A trip to the general store should have taken less than an hour. Round-trip to Jackson, with a two-hour shopping spree, should have brought him back by five o’clock. Now it was six-thirty, and as she held a match to her makeshift fire, she imagined her car in a ditch, David trudging home with arms full of groceries. Or perhaps he wasn’t able to walk. Perhaps he was lying unconscious in the Jackson emergency room. How long would it take the local nurses to recognize him? He wouldn’t be carrying his usual ID; in recent months he had abandoned his wallet, erasing all traces of his old identity. The nurse would wipe the blood from his face and gasp. She would call the doctor and together they would stare at their old colleague, who would slowly open his eyes and find himself discovered.
Or perhaps his eyes would never open. Perhaps the gathering crowd would witness Dr. McConnell’s second death. Then once again Carver Petty would come knocking at her door, this time more inquisitive than sympathetic. How did it happen that her dead husband had been driving her car through the mountains on a snowy winter afternoon? Behind Carver she could see the insurance investigators, dressed like morticians, ascending her porch stairs.
Sarah heard footsteps outside the cabin. David entered and placed three brown paper bags on the kitchen counter, and she rose to face him as he hung up his coat.
“I was worried about you. Where did you go?”
“I had to run some errands.” He bent down and began to unlace his boots, not looking at her.
“In this weather?”
“The streets are clear, once you get past these gravel roads.”
“But you were gone for so long. Did anyone see you?”
“I didn’t go into Jackson. I crossed the mountains in the other direction, on Route 29.”
Route 29 led to Lynchburg and then Charlottesville, a long way to go for a few bags of groceries. When David lifted his face, she was struck by its pallor.
“You look like you’ve caught my flu. Come over here by the fire.” She spread an afghan around his shoulders as he sank onto the couch, then she walked to the front window and looked out into the driveway.
“I didn’t hear the car.”
“I parked it at the end of the driveway so we could get out in the morning.”
“Are you planning to go somewhere?”
He didn’t answer. It occurred to her that David might not want to be near her, after what he had witnessed at their house. He had not asked her to join him here at the cabin, and his tone ever since her arrival had been oddly robotic. His shoveling for the past two days now seemed like the tunneling of an escape route.
“I’ll make you some tea.”
She filled the kettle and held her fingers above the stove as the burner began to glow. Her legs ached again, her brain still groggy. She wanted nothing more than to wrap herself in a comforter and claim the other half of the couch, where the fire might soothe them both. But she didn’t know if David would welcome her there, or if he wanted her in his life at all.
When the tea was ready, she came to the back of the couch and held out his mug. “Here you go.”
From underneath the afghan David’s right hand emerged, and as his fingers wrapped around the side of the mug, she felt a sharp pain in the middle of her chest. There, on
David’s fourth finger, was his father’s wedding ring.
A vision of Nate came rushing back, standing in her bedroom in October with that same ring on his finger. “The shape of things to come,” he had said, and laughed, his hand spread wide.
When she spoke her voice barely rose to a whisper. “Where is the ax?”
David did not answer. He merely hunched his shoulders and lowered his face to his mug.
“Where is the ax!”
“My God, Sarah, what’s wrong?”
He set the mug on the table and stood up, reaching for her with his right hand. As the ring came nearer it winked at her with its golden flash, and she backed away until she hit the wall.
“Oh God.”
She ran to the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the faucet. The cold water, cupped in her hands then splashed across her face, helped ease the surge of saliva in the back of her throat.
David rattled the door handle. “Sarah? Let me in.”
What have you done? she thought as she listened to his voice rise.
“Please, Sarah.”
Her name sounded liked a curse. What have you done? she thought as she stared at her dripping reflection. Wasn’t this her fault, this clash between brothers? Hadn’t she sensed how it would all turn out? She knew the ending of the Frankenstein story, how the monster turned murderous kills the family members. The danger had been obvious and she had not bothered to stop it. Whatever David had done, she shared the blame.
When she opened the door, he stood three feet away, his mouth twisted, just as she remembered it in her basement. He stepped back as she edged sideways, her shoulder blades brushing the wall. She crossed the kitchen floor quickly and pulled her coat off the rack by the door.
“What are you doing?” His voice was muffled, like a man speaking through water.
Sarah knelt to lace her boots. “I’ve got to go.”
“Where?” His voice was louder, but still thick and strange.
She spotted the keys on the kitchen counter, beside the grocery bags. As she reached for them David’s right hand came down upon her own. The ring touched her skin like a lighted match, and she yanked the keys away.
“What is it?” he yelled.
“I’ve got to go!”
“It’s completely dark, and you know you can’t drive in the snow. You won’t make it to the general store.”
She opened the front door and was stepping outside when David grabbed her elbow.
“Let go of me!”
She bashed her arm, with his clutching hand, against the doorway, and he jerked it back, holding his knuckles to his mouth. “Jesus Christ!”
And then she was running, with David yelling from the doorway, “You’re sick, Sarah! You’re feverish. You need to lie down.”
The driveway was slick, and the trickle of light from the cabin’s entry lamp disappeared after a dozen yards, leaving her in complete darkness. Each time her feet left the gravel, she stepped into leaves and snow and veered back onto the driveway, like a drunk staggering to maintain a straight line. Behind her, she heard the cabin door shut, and when she looked back she saw the beam of a flashlight bobbing up and down. She hurried faster, until her knee smashed into the back bumper of the car. With her hands groping blindly across metal and glass, she felt her way to the handle, climbed inside, and locked the door, just as David reached the window.
“Get out of the car, Sarah!”
She started the ignition and he ran in front of the hood, shining the flashlight into her eyes.
“Get out of the car!”
She jerked the wagon forward and he jumped out of the way, stumbling into the trees at the side of the driveway. Yanking the steering wheel to the left, she skidded sideways into the road, then straightened out the wheels and pressed on the accelerator.
With the snow sweeping into her headlights, she could barely see ten feet ahead. She leaned forward, her chin just above the steering wheel, and wiped at the fog on the inside of the windshield, making a peephole five inches across. For half a mile she tried sticking her head out the window, searching for the tracks left by pickups and SUVs, but the snow lashed her eyes, blinding her even more. Rolling her window up, she concentrated on the few feet of road just beyond the hood of her car, but when the road veered to the right, she turned too late, and her back tires slid sideways off the gravel. She pressed on the gas and the tires spun, digging into the ditch. Two more attempts and she knew it was hopeless.
Sarah pressed her forehead into the steering wheel and fought against tears. With the headlights still on she stepped out of the car, turned up her collar, and looked in the direction of Eileen, guessing that it was a two-mile walk. When she turned in the opposite direction, back toward the cabin, she stopped breathing. A pinprick of bobbing light was coming her way. Quietly, quietly, Sarah backed away from the car, into the woods, and stood behind a large oak.
When David reached the car, he pulled the door open and shined his flashlight inside. She watched him feel the ignition for the keys that she now clutched in her hand, and his flashlight swept away from the car, into the woods.
“Sarah! Where are you?”
The light moved back and forth, and she leaned sideways against the tree, avoiding the touch of the glare. David walked to the other side of the road and repeated the process, shining the flashlight north and south.
“Sarah!” He was yelling at the top of his voice, the sound puncturing the silent woods. “Are you all right?”
Back at the car he began circling, the headlights shining on his torso so that his head was hidden in darkness, a decapitated body. He crossed the ditch and approached the trees where she stood hidden. Twenty feet away, fifteen, ten, nine.
His flashlight leaped up, shining down the road toward the cabin. Then it clicked off. A car was coming. In the darkness she could hear David move behind a tree ten feet to the left of her.
The vehicle slowed as it approached, then came to a full stop. A bearded man in a camouflage jacket stepped out of a pickup and walked toward her car door, peering inside. Sarah bolted out from behind her tree, into the headlights.
“Hello there!” the man yelled. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Looks like you need some help. Do you have any chains, or a rope?”
She shook her head.
“Sorry I haven’t got anything to pull you out. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone out here tonight.” She guessed he was about fifty-five, gray hair, a raspy voice. “Where are you headed?” he asked.
“Jackson.”
“I’m going into town myself. I can take you there and you can call for a tow. The Texaco has a twenty-four-hour service, but they’ll probably be busy on a night like this.”
“I’d appreciate a ride home.”
“Climb on in.”
Sarah walked over to her car and turned off the headlights. She climbed into the cab of the man’s truck, which was warm and smoky, with country music playing.
“My name’s Pete.”
“I’m Sarah.”
“Nice to meet you, Sarah.”
When they arrived at her house, Sarah opened her front door and turned back to wave at Pete, who was waiting to see her safely inside. She watched until his taillights disappeared, then stepped outside again and locked the door. David’s Subaru was in the back of the driveway, untouched for seven months. With her coat sleeve she brushed the top layer of flakes off the windshield. Chunks of snow and ice fell at her ankles when she yanked opened the door.
On her first turn of the ignition, the engine shuddered and died. Five more times it sputtered, coughed, and sighed before holding steady. She turned on the defroster, took the hand scraper from the glove compartment, and began gouging at the layers of snow on the hood and roof. A thin sheet of beaded ice coated the windshield, but the defroster had begun to carve a hole the size of a golf ball, so she left the machine to its work while she went to the basement to get her snow shovel.
She reached Nate’s condominium at eleven-thirty. The windows were dark and no one answered her knock, so she let herself inside with a key hidden in the shrubs.
“Hello? Nate?”
Switching on the living-room lamp, she found nothing disturbed, no chair overturned, no ominous stains on the carpet. She left her boots and coat in the foyer and began searching room to room.
Inside the dark kitchen her sock touched a puddle; warm liquid seeped between her toes. She steeled herself as she brushed her hand up and down the wall, groping for the light switch. But it was only a puddle of water, leaking from the dishwasher. She soaked it up with a sponge, then proceeded down the hall into Nate’s bedroom. The covers were neat, the closet empty. Inside the master bathroom, she opened the shower door and revealed a lonely bottle of Prell.
This was no crime scene, this model of tidiness. How crazy was she, to have imagined David as a murderer? Sarah closed the shower door, turned around, and froze. There, in the mirror, scrawled across her reflection: I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.
They were written in black Magic Marker, letters leaning to the right in the messy scrawl that David used on every prescription. She approached the glass, noticing how the words scarred her face—black stitches across her forehead, an A on her cheek—all meant to disfigure Nate, to let him look into his face and see his brother’s condemnation scribbled across his jaw.