It was Emma.
Nooooooooo. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She was helpless, ineffectual, powerless. But inside her head, the screaming was so loud her brain threatened to implode. Casey untangled the dead child from the kelp, took her daughter in her arms like a rag doll, and slowly, laboriously, made her way through the water to the shore. Reddish drops of sea water dripped steadily, plunk, plunk, plunk, from Katie/Emma’s hair. A tiny splotch of red appeared on the front of the burial gown. As she watched, the spot grew larger, then began to drip, running faster, faster, until it carved a river of red in the wet sand.
Behind her, instead of the hiss of waves, there came a soft murmuring, like the buzz of a beehive in early summer. With the limp child still in her arms, she turned and saw them. Her dead babies, their precious souls instantly recognizable. While she stood rooted in place, the buzzing grew louder. Those three dead babies multiplied into a hundred dead babies. A thousand. A sea of dead babies where there once was water, a chorus of voices taunting her, judging her, terrorizing her.
“Baby killer!” a voice said, and then another, and another, like bullfrogs randomly chirping in a dark spring bog. “Murderer!”
“No!” she shouted, although she didn’t open her mouth. “I’m not a killer! I’m not! I loved my daughter!”
“Your fault,” the voices whispered. “Your fault, your fault, your fault. Baby killer!”
No. Oh, no. A wave of grief and despair washed over her, brutal, unbearable, so powerful it brought her to her knees. She knelt on the sand, her dead daughter in her arms, opened her mouth, and let the pain pour out in a shrill, piercing scream that went on and on and on.
“Casey.”
The voice intruded into her dream. It was a familiar voice, but she couldn’t place it, couldn’t respond, because every ounce of her was focused on the utter blackness of her grief. The poison continued to pour forth in the keening of a grieving mother, until she thought surely her insides would come up next because there was nothing left to hold them in.
“Babe, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”
She awoke with a gasp. Blinking in the light from the bedside lamp, she was unable, at first, to tell what was real and what was not. Rob lay on his side next to her, one hand curled around her hip, the other stroking her temple. “Emma,” she said. “Emma!”
“Shh.” Rob gathered her in his arms and began rocking her. “Shh,” he said, his fingers gentle in her hair. “Emma’s fine. She’s sleeping.”
“No.” She struggled to escape, terror giving her a strength she never knew she possessed. “I have to see her!” She shoved him away, sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I have to make sure she’s okay.”
“Stay here.” He put a hand on her arm to impede her. “I’ll get her.”
Dazed, she sat with her heart pounding, the pain and the grief and the despair still clutching her in their grip. He returned with a sleeping Emma cradled limply in his arms. For an instant, her heart rate accelerated, until he placed the child in her arms and Casey saw the rise and fall of her chest.
She brushed a damp clump of hair away from Emma’s face, buried her nose in her daughter’s soft little neck, inhaled the incomparable aroma of baby powder and shampoo and sleeping baby. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”
“A bad one?” he said.
“You don’t want to know.” As she rocked her beautiful, perfect, very much alive daughter, Casey said, “She’s sleeping here with us tonight. I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
Her husband knew better than to argue. He turned out the light and wrapped an arm around both of them. And with their sleeping daughter cradled between them, her breathing soft and even, they returned to a fitful, restless sleep.
* * *
“And then,” she said, “your father woke me up.”
“Jesus Christ,” her stepdaughter said.
They were sitting on a bench in a small riverfront park in Lower Manhattan, not far from the World Trade Center. Nearby, a group of excited Japanese tourists grouped and regrouped for a series of photos set against a backdrop of New Jersey skyline. “Did you tell Dad what you just told me?” Paige asked.
“No.” Beside them, clad in a pretty yellow sundress that matched her hair, Emma sat in her stroller, squinting into the sun as she contentedly watched a tugboat chug upriver. “I couldn’t talk about it last night. All I could do was hold Emmy and try to stop shaking. And this morning, in the bright light of day, it all seemed so silly and ridiculous.”
“Fear’s never ridiculous.”
“I suppose you’re right, but I just didn’t want to get into it with him.”
“Dad left pretty early this morning.”
“He had a busy day ahead of him. You take studio time when you can get it. That week he lost really screwed up his schedule. Now he’s rushing to get the job done on time.”
A man walking a white Pomeranian passed them. Leroy, napping on the bench beside Paige, lifted his head and growled low in his throat.
“Mind your manners,” Paige told him, and he laid his head back down on his paws and returned to napping. Paige stretched out her long legs, so much like her father’s, and said, “Is everything okay between you and Dad?”
“Of course,” Casey said, surprised. “What makes you ask?”
“He’s been so quiet. Ever since you lost the baby. The bounce is gone from his step.”
“Really?” She turned her head and met Paige’s eyes.
“You didn’t notice? Things have been kind of weird.”
She hadn’t noticed, and guilt gnawed at her. How was it possible? How could she have been so wrapped up in her own pain that she hadn’t noticed Rob was struggling? “Your father worries,” she said. “He can’t help it. It’s built into him. And he’s had a lot to worry about lately, thanks to me.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s not like you miscarried on purpose.”
“No. But I allowed myself to get pregnant, knowing how risky it was. So who else can I blame but myself?”
“The last I knew, it took two people to make a baby. I’m no mathematician, but by my calculations, that means that at most, you’re only responsible for fifty percent of the blame.”
“You’re a sweet girl to say that.”
“I’m not sweet. I’m just brutally honest.”
They began walking uptown, in no hurry on this beautiful summer day when neither of them had any place to be or anything important to do. Here, in Lower Manhattan, the sidewalks weren’t as crowded as they were in Midtown. They passed block after block of office buildings and convenience stores and brownstone apartment buildings. Wandered the side streets, with no particular destination in mind, until she glanced at a cross street sign, recognized the name, and realized they’d wandered into the West Village, and they were two blocks away from Wong’s. She wasn’t sure what drew her, but the pull was strong, as strong as the undertow that had nearly drowned her in last night’s dream. “Let’s go this way,” she said, and turned Emma’s stroller into the crosswalk. “There’s something I need to see.”
As she approached the corner where she’d spent so many hours waiting for the bus to take her to Midtown and the Hotel Montpelier, her hands grew sweaty and her heart rate accelerated. They turned the corner, and there it was, the big red and yellow WONG’S TEA HOUSE sign still hanging from the side of the building.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, moving automatically in the direction of the building. “They’re still in business.” To what miracle should she attribute this mixed blessing? Casey paused across the street and stared at the restaurant, heedless of the fact that she was blocking the sidewalk with Emma’s stroller. Beyond the red neon “open” sign in the window, she could see customers, heads bowed over noodle bowls. Out front, a burly young man was unloading produce from a yellow truck. He hoisted a case of cabbage onto a dolly, wheeled it down the ramp to the street, then wrestled t
he dolly up over the curb and began rolling it in the direction of the front door.
With a wild mix of emotions churning inside her, Casey took a deep breath and raised her gaze to the second floor. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but the sky didn’t fall. Lightning didn’t strike her dead. She continued to breathe, without any fatal repercussions. The apartment windows were dirty and bare. No curtains. No sign of life. Had the housing authority finally shut Freddy down? Was he between tenants? Or had he rented to some crackhead who didn’t give a damn about curtains or privacy or any of the niceties of life? Not that anybody who cared about the niceties of life was likely to rent from Freddy Wong.
“You’re staring,” Paige said. “Why?”
Casey wet her lips and said, “We used to live here.”
“We?”
“Your father and Danny and I. This is where we lived. In the second-floor apartment over the restaurant.”
“You lived in that dump?”
“We were poor.”
“I’ll say.” Paige silently gazed at the building. Then eyed her and said, “Are you okay?”
Lost in the past, she dragged her gaze away from the building’s façade. “I’m fine,” she said. “Why?”
“You just turned as white as the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
“I’m just remembering.”
“Maybe we should get out of here. It’s kind of creepy. Unless you want to get lunch.”
“At Wong’s?” she said with raised eyebrows.
Paige shrugged. “Whatever. I just figured it’s lunchtime, and we’re here. How bad can it be?”
“You don’t even want to know. I spent two years living upstairs over that place, and I wouldn’t eat at Wong’s if you held a gun to my head.”
Rob
The recording session wasn’t going well.
Phoenix had dragged in a half-hour late, trailed by Luther and arm in arm with a couple of the less unattractive female members of his posse. Not that any of them were particularly attractive; it was more a matter of levels of skankiness. His blue eyes, those eyes that famously made prepubescent girls swoon, were bloodshot. With his face as pale as a cod’s belly, and his customarily flawless hair looking like he’d combed it with an egg beater, the kid smelled like a combination of alcohol and tawdry perfume.
Rob eyed him long and hard, gave Luther an inquisitive look, and raised his eyebrows. “Mere employee,” Luther reminded him. “Not responsible for a certain person’s behavior.”
The kid extricated himself from the hold of the two girls and, his attitude clearly as sour as his breath, spat out, “Let’s get on with this, then,” and slammed through the door into the sound studio.
“You know,” Rob said to Luther, “there was a time in my life, after my second divorce, when my two favorite activities were drinking and whoring. But I didn’t do it at seventeen. And I never, ever did it when I had to work the next morning.”
“Point taken,” Luther said. “What might you suggest I do about it?”
“Where the hell are his parents?”
“His father’s dead. His mum is…well, perhaps we shouldn’t discuss his mum. And, as you know, he’s soon to turn eighteen, which means that even if the woman cared—which she clearly doesn’t—the lad would be out of her reach.”
“Ah, yes. The eighteenth birthday bash. I haven’t mentioned it to my wife yet. I’m afraid to.”
“One could hardly blame you for that. If there was a way to avoid participating, that evening would find me sitting in my hotel room, with my feet up on an ottoman and a cup of tea in my hand.”
“You and me both, buddy.”
“I don’t know what you two are yammering about,” said a disembodied voice, “but the sooner we get started, the sooner I can get back to the hotel and take something for this hangover.” On the other side of the window, Phoenix stood with arms crossed, a scowl on his face.
“Sorry,” Rob said into the mic. “You all set with your lyrics?”
Through dark glasses he hadn’t bothered to remove, the kid stared blankly at him. “You take care of your little piece of this venture,” he said, “and I’ll take care of mine. It should work out nicely.”
Since he wasn’t sure how to respond to that comment, he chose to ignore it.
Nine takes later, Rob pulled off his headset and said, “Maybe we need a break.”
“Don’t need no break, mate. I’ve got this.”
“You flubbed the lyrics nine times, Phoenix. Maybe you need to sit down and take another look at the sheet music.”
“My mouth’s as dry as the Sahara. What I need is a drink.”
“There are vending machines just down the hall.”
Phoenix took off his headset and trudged back through the control room and out the door. The two interchangeable groupies eyed each other, shrugged, and went back to contemplating their navels. Luther looked up from the Wall Street Journal, met Rob’s eyes, and raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll go,” Rob said.
He followed the narrow hallway to an alcove that held vending machines and a couple of folding chairs, arrived in time to see Phoenix pop the top on a Dr Pepper and upend the can. The kid swilled half of it, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, before he stopped, belched, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
And saw Rob standing there. “What?” he said.
Rob moved loosely to one of the vending machines, dropped in a handful of quarters, and pushed a button. His drink fell with a muffled thud. He took it from the machine, popped the top, and was rewarded with a satisfying fizz. “You know,” he said, studying the bright red can in his hand, “I’m not the enemy. We’re on the same side here.” He took a long slug of Coke and added, “We both want this album to be the best it can possibly be.”
Phoenix eyed him. Said, “Right,” and went back to his soda.
Rob perched on the edge of a metal folding chair. Stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “Okay,” he said. “I want this album to be the best it can possibly be. And you should, if not for creative reasons, then at least because it puts food on your table.”
“Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. It puts food on your table, as well.”
“I’m not pretending a goddamn thing. There’s not a hypocritical bone in my body. But the future of my career doesn’t depend on this record, Phee. And I’m not in any danger of running out of money.”
“So you think I am? And don’t call me Phee.”
“Just a word of caution, my friend. You may have a nice, fat bank account balance right now, but that money disappears damn fast, especially if you spend it on the wrong things. If your career’s down the toilet when it disappears, think of how screwed you’ll be.”
“What makes you think I spend it on the wrong bloody things? What do you spend your money on?”
Groceries. Diapers. Heating oil for a ten-room house, in Maine, in the winter. Sheep. Goddamn sheep.
“Nothing extravagant. That’s not the way we live. We’re not pretentious people. My daughter goes to public school. I drive a Ford Explorer. My wife drives a Volvo, mostly because it’s a tank, and I want to feel that my family’s safe on those icy Maine roads. Nice car, and not inexpensive, but still modest compared to, say, a Ferrari. Or a Lamborghini. Or a Rolls-Royce.” All of which, Luther had informed him, were among the kid’s recent purchases.
“Don’t be a judgmental ass. I have a perfect right to spend my money any way I choose.”
“That you do, my friend. And if you take care of them, those cars will appreciate in value. I understand your love of nice cars. I drove a Porsche for years. There’s nothing like the open road ahead, the top down, the wind in your hair—”
“A pretty bird tucked under your arm.”
It occurred to him then that he wasn’t really all that different from Phoenix. For a time, he’d had the fast car and the fast women, the booze, the parties. He halfheartedly tried to convince himself that his taste in women had bee
n a little classier than Phee’s. But he was too honest to believe his own bullshit. For a time, he’d lost his way, and he’d been quite indiscriminate about who he slept with.
Until that fateful morning when he’d waltzed through the front door of Casey’s Malibu house, in search of breakfast. Casey had taken a single look, a single sniff, and slammed the door behind him.
If you think you’re coming to my house looking for a handout, she’d said, after rolling out of some skank’s bed, looking like yesterday’s garbage and smelling like a whorehouse, then you have another think coming, my friend.
And she’d proceeded to ream him a new asshole.
Danny, being nobody’s fool, had grabbed his car keys and his daughter, suddenly remembering an urgent errand he had in town. And he’d left them there to duke it out. The neighbors probably heard the screaming all the way to Sacramento. When it was over, she tossed him out on his ass, minus his breakfast, minus his dignity, minus his outer layer of skin.
“You can come back,” she said, “when you clean up your act.”
She’d probably saved his life. He’d been headed down a bad, dangerous road, a road not so very different from the one he saw Phoenix traveling now. His devastation had been total; there was nobody whose regard was more important to him than Casey Fiore, and he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being cut out of her life. He spent a couple of weeks licking his wounds, and then, infinitely smarter, he pulled himself up by the bootstraps and put his wrecked life back together.
Tough love. Sometimes, it was the only way you could save someone from himself.
“You’re right,” he told the kid. “I don’t have any right to judge. But I can tell you from experience that you should be careful. Think before you jump, because if you land the wrong way, the only one you’ll hurt—if you’re lucky, that is—is yourself.”
The Miles Between Us Page 10
