She stopped on the last step, her hand lightly touching the new railing.
She was, she realized, thinking objectively, logically. As Paul apparently had been. But it was impossible. Death precluded it. Especially this kind of death.
It was, she thought, as if something had been misplaced. It wasn’t a sense of emptiness she felt, but merely that she had expected something and it had not arrived.
She grasped the railing tightly.
That something, she knew at last, was grief. Guilt, yes. She had that in abundance—though it was not the self-defeating, self-destructive guilt Paul supposed it to be. It was far weaker, far more rational—dammit—than that. But no grief. Not for the boy. And not even for herself that she was now without him. It was as if a visitor had come and stayed and interrupted their lives. And now was gone.
She sat on the third step, hand still on the railing.
Was she…grateful? But that was impossible, too. She had been, for all intents and purposes, the child’s mother these past few months. And now she and Paul would have to bury him, would have to dig a deep hole and put him in it and cover him because those arms, those legs, that chest, all of what just yesterday had been so wonderfully animated, would never again…
Oh, but she was being maudlin, wasn’t she? Maudlin and dreary and…
But that was to be expected. Death made everyone maudlin.
“Rachel?”
She turned her head sharply. Paul stood at the top of the steps. She half expected to see the boy’s body in his arms.
“Paul…”
“Did I startled you?”
She grinned, embarrassed. “Yes.” She thought a moment. “What are we going to do with him?” The question, she could see—or, she amended, the mere fact that she’d asked it—confused him. She fought down a larger grin.
“Do with him?” Paul asked.
“Yes.” She stood. “Are we going to take him into town? That would be the right thing, wouldn’t it? Or are we going to bury him”—she turned her head briefly, nodded—“out there somewhere?”
“I don’t know, Rachel.” It was apparent by his tone that it was not, at the moment, what concerned him.
“Well, we’ve got to think about it, don’t we, Paul?” It was more a statement than a question.
“Yes, of course. It’s just that…”
“It’s just that,” Rachel cut in, “you don’t understand my attitude. And I don’t blame you. I don’t understand it, either. If you’d prefer, I could go into shock…”
“Rachel, please!”
“But I’ve read that the complete lack of emotion at times like these can be a form of shock.”
“Rachel, listen to yourself.” He took a few steps toward her. “Do you know what you sound like?”
“I imagine I sound awful. I’m sorry. But facts are facts and we’ve got to face them. And the bald and unattractive fact is that there’s a body lying dead up in that room”—she nodded at the upstairs window; Paul took another step toward her—“and we’ve got to do something with it. Now, if we took it into town, we both know there’d be lots of uncomfortable questions, maybe even some accusations, and we don’t want that, do we? No. At least, I don’t want it.” She smiled at him. “I can’t speak for you and never would.”
“Rachel, you’re babbling.”
“Babbling? No. Merely thinking out loud. And thoughts are sometimes less than coherent. Mine are, at any rate. Speech is, too. Lumas was quite often coherent. Do you remember?” She looked questioningly at Paul; he was within a few steps of her and moving very slowly.
“Yes,” he said soothingly. “I remember.”
“All that crap about the land and creation.” She chuckled derisively. “If you ask me, Paul, he was loony. Positively out of his gourd. Though, on second thought, maybe he was just senile, as you said. Or maybe he had syphilis—did you ever think of that? It’s possible.”
“Sure,” Paul, said; he was only a step above her, now. “It’s possible.”
And as for the boy, eh was never incoherent. He didn’t have the vocabulary for it. He was as coherent as…as that sky.” She nodded at it. “Of course, you weren’t with him much so you didn’t know him as well as I. He was quite single-minded—“
In the weeks that followed, Rachel would reflect that it was probably Paul’s touch—his hand gently on hers on the railing—that sparked her short-lived breakdown. She remember none of her words—“Oh God, thank you, thank you.” And, “It’s over, isn’t it, Paul?” were the most telling—and Paul, though she begged him for the details of her breakdown, said nothing.
Chapter Seventeen
October 3
Nothing marked the spot—no crudely improvised cross, no stone. All Rachel knew, as she looked out their bedroom window, her hand holding the heavy curtain aside, was that the boy had been buried “north of the house.” Although she had—uncertain why—asked Paul to show her the exact spot, he had told her, “North of the house. It’s all you need to know, darling.” She was, she knew, grateful he had been so close-mouthed; if she had been with him at the burial and knew the spot, she would have made daily forays to it—perhaps to mutter, “I’m sorry,” over and over again, as she had done before, or perhaps merely to remember and regret. This way—“North of the house”—she could almost convince herself that the boy hadn’t been buried at all, that, in fact, he hadn’t even died, that when Paul had led her back into the house that morning—led her into the bedroom and told her to rest, “I’ll do what’s got to be done.”—he had gone back upstairs and found the boy alive, miraculously resurrected, and had set him free. It was a comforting and strong fantasy. Once, a couple of days after the boy’s death, she remember, when she had recovered from her breakdown and the fantasy was just beginning to take hold, she had even imagined that she had seen him “north of the house”—his head, at least, though dimly because, as now, it was dusk. It—the illusion, the imagining—had first appeared at the periphery of her vision, and when she had turned her full gaze on it, it had held for a second—the dark face, the darker hair—then had vanished into the shoulder-high weeds.
She let the curtain fall. Someday, she vowed, she would tell Paul about that vision. Someday far into the future, when they were very old and their whole experience with the boy could be looked upon as something that might or might not have happened: Did it really happen, Paul? I think it happened, but I’m not sure anymore. I don’t know, Rachel. I wish there were someone we could ask about it.
She smiled a self-pitying smile; it would never come to that, would it? Their memory of the boy would be a terrible burden on them for the rest of their lives. A terrible burden on her, at least. Paul seemed to think of the whole thing as an embarrassment, a kind of extended faux pas. But perhaps that was unfair. Perhaps she wasn’t reading him correctly. Perhaps there was vanity in the way she read him—a vanity that said he couldn’t possibly feel the way she felt, couldn’t possibly possess the overwhelming guilt she possessed. At first, in the hours after the boy’s death, it had been an easy and rational guilt. Then, almost overnight, it had become more than that, had been attended by the knowledge that she had caused the death of an exquisite and vibrantly alive creature. That wasn’t rational, she knew. She had fed him well, had cleaned up after him, had shown him in many ways that she cared for him. Any other child would have… No, any other child would have survived it. And that was the key to her new guilt—any other child. That special knowledge was always with her, but so elusive—like trying to remember a specific but rarely used word or a particular name because someone had asked. It would come spontaneously, but only selfdom if an effort were made, and never if the effort were strong.
She turned her head. Paul was standing in the doorway, a vague look of admonishment on his face.
“What are you doing, Rachel?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Thinking, I guess.”
“We’ve got to talk,” he said. “There’s something…”
“And remembering.”
“Punishing yourself, you mean.”
She smiled again, again self-pityingly. “Yes,” she whispered.
He sighed. “We’ve got to talk.”
His tone brought her up short and she resented it; she would have preferred to stay within herself a while longer. She said nothing. Maybe he’d go away.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he went on, his tone softer. He waited. Still she said nothing. “I don’t know where to start.” A pause. “Sit down, okay?” He nodded at the bed; she didn’t move from the window. The questioning look in her eyes said, Continue.
He closed his eyes briefly, sighed once more. “I’ve thought about it, Rachel. I’ve thought about it a lot in the last few weeks, ever since the boy died. And I think it’s…I think we’ve got to leave this house.”
“Leave,” she said, though not as a question or a statement, but as if the word were one she’d just learned, and she was trying it out.
“There are…” He stopped, seemed uncertain as to how to continue. He looked questioningly at her, as if she might finish his sentence. She said nothing. “The day before the boy’s death, I saw them, so I know. There are…I mean…others…like him, like the boy, Rachel.”
He hadn’t expected it—her short, brittle laugh; as if it were a physical blow, it stopped his breathing for a moment.
“Are there, Paul? Are there others?” She laughed again.
“Yes,” he managed.
“Yes? I thought you’d never notice.”
“Rachel, please…” he had never before heard this harsh sarcasm from her.
“Do you think I’m blind?” she said. “Do you think you’re the only one with any awareness, for Christ’s sake? Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t know? Jesus, I’ve known it for months.”
He shook his head. “No, I…I mean…” He gazed helplessly at her. “Yes,” he continued. “I knew…I simply…” His confusion and helplessness changed abruptly to anger. He said nothing for a long moment, then turned and stalked from the room.
Rachel’s tears started when she heard the screen door slam shut, when Paul was safely beyond the range of her voice. “Oh, God, no,” she murmured. “No!”
*****
“One load,” Paul said. “We’re not coming back.”
They’d acquired little in their brief stay at the house. If they had stayed another year or so, Rachel thought, as she transferred some of the clothes from her dresser drawers to a large, much-used suitcase—they would have had boxes and boxes of miscellaneous things—books, knickknacks, games, potted plants, all the et cetera that accumulates from being in one place, of calling a place home for a long time. But she hadn’t been away from the house since the boy had come to them and Paul’s trips to town had been primarily to restock their cupboards, so leaving the house involved mostly repacking what they had unpacked just four months earlier.
Paul had made a few acquisitions—the rifle, three boxes of ammunition, and some paperback novels to augment the several dozen books they had brought with them. Having no TV or radio, Paul had proposed that when winter started settling in they could use some of their free time by reading to one another. It had been a romantic idea and Rachel had looked forward to it.
She closed the suitcase, locked it, and stood for a moment with her outstretched arms on it. They were wrong, she thought—all those who said a common enemy brought people together. It had brought her and Paul together, it hade put them in their own private, confused and self-protective worlds. Well, that was the operative word, wasn’t it? Confused. It they had an enemy, they weren’t certain what it was, or even that they could fight it. Perhaps they didn’t share a common enemy after all—they shared only uncertainty and confusion. If so, ending it this way, running from it, might bring them together once again. Perhaps that underscored Paul’s decision to leave, and perhaps he wasn’t even aware of it. She thought about that; it was a happy delusion, she concluded. She could cling to it if necessary.
She set the suitcase on the floor and replaced it with a brown vinyl two-suited that had the look and smell of newness to it. Paul had bought it especially for their move to the house, she remembered.
*****
The station wagon wasn’t heavily loaded. “If you want,” Paul said, and set a large box filled with dishes, pots, pans and silverware on the tailgate, “we can find room for your desk and chair.”
“No,” Rachel said. “That’s all right.” A pause. “Can we take the rug, though?”
Paul peered into the car and said, “Yes. I think so. I’ll get it in a second.” He pushed the box of dishes forward, straightened. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his gaze on the house.
“No need, Paul. Let’s not look backward, okay?”
“Yes,” he said tonelessly. He sighed. “I’ll get that run and we’ll get the hell out of here. We’ll have to stop in town to close our bank account, you know, and settle things with Marsh and the glazier.”
“Uh-huh.” A pause. “I’ll wait here while you get the rug, if that’s all right.”
He stood quietly for a few seconds, then moved slowly down the shallow incline of weed-choked lawn to the house. When he’d closed the front door behind him, Rachel turned and critically examined his packing job. It was obvious he’d done it hurriedly—the boxes and suitcases hadn’t been packed into the car so much as thrown in at random, and much of the available space hadn’t been utilized. It didn’t really matter, Rachel decided, but it wouldn’t take long to tighten things up a bit. She set to it.
Several minutes later, she remembered: “Damn!” she whispered. They’d forgotten the cat, Mr. Higgins. Paul had probably purposely forgotten him—he’d never seemed to care much for the animal; he had, more than once, even prepared to kick him when Higgins had gotten in his way and his mood was bad.
On all fours, she backed out of the car’s interior and stepped to the ground.
“Higgins?” she called. “Mr. Higgins!” She listened for his answering meow from the thickets fifty feet south of the house. Nothing. “Higgins, here kitty-kitty.” She waited. Still nothing.
She started down the lawn. Stopped. “Higgins, c’mere Higgins! Do you want to eat?” The cat had learned what the phrase meant and it never failed to bring him running. “Higgins!” She moved further down the lawn, peered hard into the thickets. “There you are,” she said, smiling as if the cat had been playing a game with her. He was just inside the shadows of a huge chokecherry bush.
Rachel slapped her thigh. “Well, c’mon,” she coaxed. “Do you want to eat?” The cat turned its head and blinked lazily at her. She sighed and moved quickly across the side lawn and scooped him into her arms. “What’d you do, find a couple mice?” She stroked him; he purred loudly. “We’re taking you to a new home, Higgins. You think you’ll like that?”
She started back across the lawn. Stopped. Turned her head slowly. Out of the corner of her eye she had detected movement near the station wagon. “Paul?” she called, think it was him stowing the rug away.
“Yes?” he answered from within the house.
Rachel snapped her head toward the sound of his voice, then back toward the car. Because of the weeds and the slope of the lawn, she could see only its roof and the upper half of its windows.
A wisp of dust arose from behind the car and was followed almost immediately by a dull thumping sound. Rachel stared, confused. Another wisp of dust, another thump, then she heard various metallic, tinkling sounds.
“Paul!” she screamed, then, cat in her arms, she ran up the lawn. A dozen feet from the car, she halted, gasped, heard Paul, behind her, running across the porch and down the steps, across the lawn. “Rachel!” he called as he ran. “What’s wrong?”
He stopped beside her. “Jesus Christ, Rachel! What in the hell is wrong?”
“I went looking for Mr. Higgins,” she said, “and I thought I saw something…”
Here and the
re among the scattered boxes and suitcases—one of the boxes had popped open upon hitting the road, spilling its contents; books, clothing, an alarm clock, a toaster—there were footprints lightly traced in the earth to the side and in back of the car, and then to the opposite side of the road.
A child’s footprints.
Chapter Eighteen
Paul nodded at four thin, parallel scratched, one seeping blood, on Rachel’s left forearm. “Did you see those?” he asked.
Rachel gave the arm a cursory examination. “They’re not deep,” she told him.
“Well, maybe you should put something on them.”
“No. It’s okay. Let’s go.”
“It might get infected.”
“I said it’s all right, Paul.” Her tone had sharpened. “He’s scratched me before and nothing happened.”
Paul attempted to touch the scratches but Rachel jerked her arm away.
Paul put the car in gear. “We’ll get something in town,” he said, and took his foot off the brake. The car rolled forward slowly; Paul was drawing this out, Rachel knew. He was saying good-bye to the house. It was okay. He was entitled.
“Paul, if you don’t mind!”
He increased speed, though just slightly.
Against her better judgment, Rachel craned her head around and stared blankly at the house.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said.
“We didn’t know,” Rachel said, uncertain of the direction of his apology.
“We couldn’t know, Paul. Not really.”
The thickets that crowded up to the road hid all but the house’s roof, now. Rachel craned her head around further to keep her eyes on it. Mr. Higgins climbed onto the back of the seat, then into her lap. She idly stroked him, her head turning slowly as the car took her further from the house.
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