by Joel Arnold
Natalie shook her head. “I don’t know.” Why did she bring him here? To show him off as a trophy to her father? Stupid, she thought. Stupid.
“Keep him away from me.”
“Okay. I won’t let him near you.” Natalie felt worn out. Exhausted. She had moved back in with her father only two months earlier. She was thirty-eight and had worked ten years as a nurse in Faribault. It was her father’s health that called her back to Ellingston. He needed her. But now, she wanted to go lie in her bed and sleep for a few days.
She heard her father roll away from the door. She waited a moment, and gently pushed it open. He sat there, a pathetic figure in his sweat and drool stained t-shirt, head hung forward, hands limp at his sides, potbelly sticking out like an old wrinkled medicine ball. The furious energy of a few minutes ago had drained from him like the air of a popped balloon.
Natalie watched him, then walked up behind him.
Sometimes, she thought, it would be so much easier to get it over with. She could do it right now. Put her hands around his neck and squeeze. She doubted he would put up much of a struggle.
Maybe that’s what he wanted. Maybe he was waiting for her to do it.
She put her hands on his shoulders. Flicked her thumbs up and down along the sides of his neck.
His flesh felt hot. His pulse beat beneath her thumbs.
It would be so easy. The pain would be over.
She looked down at the top of his head, at the age spots showing through his thin white hair.
So easy.
But instead, she slid her hands down his chest, leaned over him and gave him a hug.
“Dad,” she said, her mouth next to his ear. “I love you.”
He raised his right hand and feebly patted the top of her head. She watched a tear travel a rough course over his cheek.
She didn’t know how much more she could take.
EIGHT
The clouds split apart, the sun searing Andy’s eyes. He squinted. His head throbbed. He couldn’t breathe deeply enough. The tall dead weeds clawed at his ankles, and he stumbled when he reached the edge of Mae’s property, nearly falling over.
Stop, just stop, he told himself, taking a deep breath.
He stopped in the shade of one of the large oak trees. Leaned over, his hands on his knees, and sucked in mouthfuls of air. The sun reflected off the windows of Mae’s house, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Put his hand up to his temples.
What the hell was that all about?
He tried to think of what he did or said that made the man so angry. Was it the way I looked at his daughter?
What else could it have been? Did he mistake me for someone else? Did I remind him of someone?
There was a lot he wanted to ask Mae about. Ask her about the graves, the pictures on the walls. That crazy bastard next door. Ask her about a lot of things. But that would have to wait. For now, he just had to get out of this place. Get back to Cathy. He couldn’t even remember why he'd left her in the first place.
To breathe, he reminded himself. But the air out here, fresh as it may have been, left a strange taste in his mouth. He didn’t know exactly what he'd been expecting when he walked out of his Milwaukee apartment only a few days ago, but it certainly hadn’t been this.
Well, it didn’t matter any more. He was getting the hell out of here.
He caught his breath. Stood up. Shaded his eyes with his hand, and walked around to the front of the house. The sun felt like an ice-pick in his head. He saw Mae’s silhouette on the other side of the screen door.
“Mae,” he said, pulling the door open. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
Mae didn’t answer.
“Look,” Andy said. “I’m sorry to leave you like this. I know you wanted to catch up on Edna, and I promise I’ll call you sometime and we can do that. But I can’t stay here any longer. I have to go.” As the words left his mouth, he finally got a good look at Mae. She’d been crying. Her face was red, her eyes cast down to the floor.
“Mae? What is it?”
“You do what you have to do,” she said.
He wanted so badly to run up the steps to his mother’s old room, grab his bag, and go. But seeing his aunt like this, even though he hardly knew her...
“What’s wrong?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” A touch of anger crept into her voice. “You’ve got nothing to do with this, so just go. Get the hell out of here.”
“I’m sorry, Mae. I – ”
“Leave.” Mae sobbed, the tears streaking her face like welts from a whip.
Andy put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what you want. Do you really want me to leave?”
Part of Andy hoped she would say yes. Hoped she would tell him to get the hell out of there and never come back. But he knew she wouldn’t say this. He knew it deep in his heart.
Mae lifted Andy’s hand gently off her shoulder, but didn’t let go. Instead, she took it, and led him out to the south side of the house. She pointed at the oak tree there.
Andy gasped.
It was the cat. The same cat he had found the previous night, only now it was nailed to the trunk of the tree. A bit further up, nestled in the crook of a branch, was the cat’s head, its lifeless eyes staring at the bay windows of the living room.
How long had it been there? Andy hadn’t seen it that morning, yet he didn’t remember looking there, either. He glanced up at Mae’s bedroom window. Whoever did this had intended Mae to find it.
“How could someone do this?” Mae asked. She reached out to touch the blood-mottled fur. Bits of leaf and dirt and twigs were stuck to it. “How on earth could anyone – ” She stopped, unable to go on.
But the sentence finished in Andy’s head.
How on earth could anyone do this?
He remembered the rage exploding in his mind the night he left Cathy, remembered the way it took over so quickly, his logic, his reason shattered in an instant as all he could think of was his release and the way it would take the pain away. Yet all it had accomplished was make the pain more palpable and real.
“I’ll call the police,” he said.
Mae shook her head. “Why? It won’t bring Holden back.”
Andy stared at her in disbelief. “This isn’t your typical school-boy prank. These are some sick kids you’re dealing with. They could be dangerous.”
All of the energy seemed to drain from Mae, all of the tension and fear and revulsion. As she started to walk slowly around to the front of the house, she asked in a low, weary voice, “Why would you want to stay here? Why would anyone want to stay here?”
Mae sat on the front step watching the two-lane highway while Andy took the cat down. They buried it in the far end of the tulip garden. Mae gathered a few stones and piled them on top of the makeshift grave. Andy knelt down beside her, then got up, leaving her alone for a while. He went inside. Went upstairs to his mother’s old room. Looked at his bag lying there.
What was Cathy doing now? He pictured her in their apartment, sitting on their couch, hunkered down on a pile of pillows, the television humming in front of her. She was wearing an extra large University of Arizona sweatshirt that hung below her hips, just above the knees.
Does she miss me? Is she glad I’m gone? These thoughts made him tired. Milwaukee was so far away. Cathy was so far away. If he were back there, what would he do? Beg for her forgiveness? Shower her with kisses, hugs and promises? Tell her he loved her? That he’d never hurt her again?
Would it do any good?
He wanted to wake from this dream of endless cornfields, of crazy old men and sick pranks, wake up in the comforting restraints of his apartment, of his marriage, of Cathy’s arms.
I’ll call her, he told himself. I’ll call her and tell her I love her.
He sat down on the old bed. It creaked with his weight, the creak sounding so lonely and human. He lifted his feet up and lay down. Stared at the ceiling. Stared at his bandaged hand. The dull pain where
he'd cut himself on the glass at the cemetery was still there. He thought of Natalie. Her father. What had happened only an hour ago seemed like days ago. Funny how time had a way of twisting back and forth on itself like an insolent snake.
He turned his mind to Cathy again.
I’ll call her, he thought. In a little while.
Wasn’t time the healer of all wounds?
“Andy?” It was Mae. She stood in the doorway, her eyes red, the skin beneath them puffy and dark. “There’s a lot I could tell you if you have the time. A lot about your mother. About me. Your father.” She came in the room. “If you have the time.”
Time.
Did it heal? Or was it merely a rope that bound things together?
Andy sighed. He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”
NINE
They went down to the living room. Mae shut the curtains of the bay window that looked out at the oak tree. She turned on a small lamp that sat atop the upright piano opposite the couch. The piano was an old Kimball, the edges of its keys rounded slightly from age. Sitting on the ledge normally reserved for sheet music was a needlepoint of roses, framed in pewter. Mae sat on the piano bench, the top of it padded and covered with faded red velvet. She faced Andy, who had settled on the couch. She looked at him, and then looked away, still not sure how to proceed, as if the grotesque cruelty they had witnessed was an embarrassment. How does one react to something like that? Neither of them seemed to know. Mae turned around on the bench and faced the piano. She gently pressed middle C. No sound came out. She pressed harder, and the note came in a whisper.
Mae cleared her throat. “A bit out of tune,” she said. She pressed a few more keys, and then played a chord. She stopped. As she stared at the keys, she said, “One of my first memories of my mother - your grandmother, Andy - is of her sitting here on this same bench, playing. She had a beautiful voice. She’d sing to us all the time. Not just at the piano, but everywhere. When she was cleaning, doing the dishes, out in the yard. When she’d put us to bed. She’d sing. I adored my mother. I thought there was something magical about her, and both Edna and I were always competing for her attention. Then one night when I was ten years old, getting ready for bed, I heard an awful racket coming from this room. Someone was banging on the piano keys. I thought it was Edna at first. I could hear my father shouting. I ran downstairs to see what was the matter, and there at the piano bench - “
Mae paused, her head bowed, her shoulders drooped.
“It was my mother. She was banging on the keys with her fists, hitting them so hard that spots of blood speckled the keys. My father’s arms were around her and he pleaded with her to stop. She fought like some crazed animal, but then she slumped forward, her cheek pressing on the piano keys. I remember seeing her tongue move in and out of her mouth. In and out, like it was some separate creature living inside her head. And her eyes were looking right at me, but it wasn’t my mother. It wasn’t my mother.”
Mae shivered. “It was the only time I saw my father cry.”
She ran her fingers across the tops of the piano keys, barely touching them, “Soon after that, Mother was committed to the State Hospital in Rochester. She died there five years later.”
Andy didn’t know what to say. He remembered the headstone he had seen earlier. It floated clearly in his mind, the growing cracks, the fading letters, as if the name itself was trying to hide from prying eyes.
The mysterious name.
“Who was Evelyn?” Andy asked.
Mae turned to him. “What do you mean?”
Andy shrugged. “I’ve never heard of Evelyn before. I saw her grave in the cemetery, but Mom never mentioned her.”
“Never mentioned her?” Mae’s eyes seemed distant at first, then they focused on Andy. “She would have been your aunt.” The corners of her eyes bunched up. “You mean your mother never told you this?”
“No.”
Mae stared at him hard, then nodded. She turned back to the piano keys. “Well,” she said. Her head slowly shook. She played middle C again. It rang dissonantly through the living room. Then she stood up, walked into the dining room, opened a drawer and pulled out a photograph. She came back and handed it to Andy. “That’s Evelyn. When she was about ten years old.”
Andy took the picture and looked at it. It was a school photo, hand-tinted with soft pastels. In it, Evelyn smiled, her chin tilted up, the tresses of her hair hanging down to her shoulders, a pink ribbon on top. Her dress was pink, too, with a white lace collar.
“Why would my mother not tell me about her?” Andy asked.
Mae took the photo gently from Andy’s hands and looked at it again. She smiled. “Such a pretty girl. She was the youngest of us. Daddy’s favorite, too.”
She carried the photo back to the dining room and placed it in the drawer, then came back and sat down on the couch She looked at Andy’s bandaged hand as if noticing it for the first time. She motioned to it. “What happened?” she asked.
Andy held it up. “Oh,” he said. “Nothing. I just cut it on that tool shed out in the cemetery.”
“Tool shed?”
“You know - that old stone building?”
“That’s not a tool shed.” Mae closed her eyes. “I wish they’d tear that damn thing down. It’s falling apart and some kid’s going to be playing there when a stone comes loose and knocks him on the head. I don’t like that thing at all. Not one bit.” She sighed, a long, slow sigh that emanated from deep within her lungs and hung musty and stagnant in the air.
“What is it, then?” Andy asked.
Mae stood up. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
They headed toward the cemetery, Mae walking briskly over the overgrown trail with Andy close behind. When they got to the edge of the clearing, Mae stopped. She touched Andy’s arm and pointed toward the group of graves he had seen earlier.
“Those belong to us,” she said.
She led Andy to them and stood before them. “Mother and Father,” she said. “And Evelyn.” She looked at Andy and smiled. Then she pointed to two other graves closer to the center of the cemetery. “Those are my grandparents. On my father’s side. They both died when I was just a baby. Drowned. Grandma fell through the ice and Grandpa tried to save her. They weren’t found until late spring, long after the ice had melted.”
Mae walked over to the yellow, stone building. She examined the door, puzzled. There was a brand new padlock on it.
“The city must have put that there,” she said. “Not much to show you, anyway. I suppose all that’s left inside are empty beer cans and liquor bottles. Kids used to come here to make out, smoke pot and drink. But when I was growing up, this place had another use.” She walked around to the lone window where Andy had cut himself, and looked up at it.
“Years ago, during the winter months,” she said, “the ground was much too cold to bury anybody in. We didn’t have the right equipment. We had to wait until spring came around to thaw out the ground. So, of course, we had to have a place to store the bodies.” Mae reached out and ran her fingers over the rough rock. “That’s what this place was for. A place to keep the bodies until the ground was warm.”
“Wouldn’t that start to smell?” Andy asked.
Mae turned to Andy with a quizzical look. “They weren’t just thrown in there,” she said. “They were prepared for burial beforehand. Embalmed.”
Mae’s eyebrows rose. “Did you know my father - your grandfather - was the undertaker around here? He used the basement as his workroom. Awful place back then. I still hardly ever go down there.”
“The basement? You mean he actually worked on dead people down there?”
Mae nodded.
Andy wrinkled his nose. “How could you stand it?”
“We had ways of coping. Games we’d play.” Mae’s eyes became distant, then refocused on Andy’s bandaged hand. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“From this building.” Andy point
ed to the remains of the broken glass on the window ledge.
“No,” Mae said. “I mean the bandage. I don’t have anything like that in my house.”
“Oh. Your neighbor. While I was busy cutting myself on the glass, she startled me. Felt guilty, I guess, and offered to fix me up.”
“My neighbor,” Mae said. “You mean Natalie?”
Andy nodded.
“She took you over to her house?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know who you are?”
Andy wasn’t sure what Mae was getting at. “Yes,” he said, puzzled.
“What did she say to you?”
“Not much. I guess I forgot it all when I met her dad. He didn’t seem to like me very much.”
“Oh. Hector,” Mae said. “No. I suppose he wouldn’t.”
“The guy blew up at me. I mean, I actually thought he wanted to kill me. If it wasn’t for his wheelchair - hell, even that hardly stopped him. If it wasn’t for Natalie grabbing hold - “ Andy’s pulse raced. “Natalie said he’s getting senile, but I’m telling you - it seemed like he genuinely hated me.”
“He’s had a tough life. A lot of crap to deal with,” Mae said. “He’s gone through a lot of grief.”
“He sure gave me grief. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot.”
The sun slipped silent and orange through the bare tree branches. There was only the slightest of breezes, feeling like an old woman’s kiss.
“I could use a drink,” Mae said. “Care to join me?”
“Sure.”
The walked back to the house and into the kitchen. Mae opened up the cupboard and brought down her bottle of gin. She filled a paper cup for each of them. Andy took a sip and grimaced as it burned his lips and tongue. He forced himself to take a bigger sip, this one burning all the way to his stomach, leaving a trail of fire in his throat. But soon, the vicious heat was replaced by a slowly spreading warmth that meandered through his body, through his limbs, out to the tips of his fingers and down to his toes. He grew calm in waves, the terror instilled by Natalie’s father gently subsiding to the euphoria of the gin.
