“Alleged victim.” Vince pipes up, just to irk me, no doubt.
“My stepdaughter.”
“Alright,” I say, already exhausted. I turn to New Guy. I’d forgotten how much I hate introductions. And New Guy would be the worst of them all. They always were.
“Uh…My name is Sebastian Delacourt. And…I—uh—do I have to say more?”
I nod, encouraging, but I want to do it for him. Save us all the trouble of this awkward dance. I’d read his file already, memorized his dirty laundry list. And that was enough to know why he didn’t want to say it out loud. Even in here, with his own kind, he would be judged. They were already eyeballing the GPS monitor strapped to his ankle. I was judging him too for my own reasons. New Guy adjusts his glasses and runs a hand through his wavy black hair—as black as my own—and, just then, the hanging tree catches my eye. There’s something in it.
The rain is nothing but a drizzle, but the wind has picked up, tossing anything that’s not tied down. An unexplained dread stirs inside me, before I realize that’s how it got there, whipping around with a life of its own, struggling to hang on or to free itself. I can’t tell which. It’s caught in the tree, just like I am. A child’s birthday balloon.
****
It’s dark outside, my office empty, when the rain finally stops. I bundle up anyway, pulling the hood of my jacket around my face, and descend the stairs to the parking lot. They still haven’t fixed the street lamps like I’d asked—there’s only one working now—and the edges of the lot dissolve into blackness. I can’t even see the tree, but I head toward it anyway, knowing its place by heart.
I have to stand on tiptoe to reach the ribbon. One solid tug and I’ve got the whole balloon in my grasp. Wet and flimsy as a dead fish. I want to drop it, wipe my hands on my dress pants and leave it for someone else to find. But I don’t. It feels like a sign meant for me.
Nobody gave me a balloon on my twelfth birthday or any birthday for that matter. If I had been the sort of kid worthy of a balloon, I wouldn’t have been at the hanging tree that night. I’d like to think there’s some other version of my life, a version where Friday, May 13, 1994, passed without incident. With birthday cake and paper hats and gifts wrapped by someone who loved me. A version where the hanging tree doesn’t exist, spreading its black rot over my past, my future, and the brief speck in between.
I squeeze the thin flesh of the balloon between my fingers, close my eyes, and try again to remember. I start where I always do. Me in the tree, breathless.
The bark was as rough as calloused hands on my bare legs, so rough it scraped the back of my thighs. Cicadas screamed bloody murder from the branches above me. I’d never climbed that high before—what am I doing up here?—but had swallowed my fear in one gulp the same way Cassie had sucked down her Slurpee.
Fear had writhed in my stomach, desperate to get out. Cassie. I’d said her name then, but only in my head. My voice wouldn’t work. Hands either. They were useless stumps. But my eyes had registered her face, plain as day below me, with the full moon masquerading as a spotlight. Around her neck, laced tight—too tight—the man’s fingers. And his face, his face, his face . . .
C’mon, Evie, think. But like always, I come up empty, his face just a shapeless hole in my mind, scribbled over with black crayon—even after one hundred and four sessions with Dr. Riley, supposed expert in trauma, grief, and loss.
But then, you can only get so far in therapy without the truth. Haven’t I always told my patients exactly that? I understand now what I’ve been asking of them. To let loose of a string they’ve been holding tight, the one that held their seams together somehow. To pry open a part of the self they’d soldered shut. To do what seemed impossible. Maybe I don’t want to remember.
“Dr. Maddox, is that you?”
It takes a few skips of my heart before I find myself again. I’m not thirteen anymore. My feet are firmly planted on the earth, not scrambling against the hard armor of the hanging tree, one misstep away from a fall. From him. The faceless man. Cassie isn’t here anymore. Not her body anyway. Though I suppose I can’t be sure of that. Still, I imagine it’s buried in an unceremonious grave, somewhere it was meant to never be found, her bones biding their time—slowly, surely—rising to the surface.
“Hello? Dr. Maddox?” I recognize the voice—New Guy, Sebastian Delacourt—and then the skip in my heart becomes a flutter, frenetic as the beat of a moth’s wings.
“Sebastian? It’s late. What are you still doing here?” Group ended eight hours ago. That’s what I don’t say. Saying it aloud would only make it worse. And by it, I mean the blood whooshing to my head with the urgency of a siren.
“I could ask you the same. It’s Friday night. Shouldn’t you be home by now? With your…husband?” His voice lilts up at the end, but he doesn’t give me a chance to dodge the question. “This isn’t the best neighborhood, you know.”
I do know. Even back then it was the kind of neighborhood two little girls could get lost in. Forever. “It’s not so bad,” I say, not wanting to offend him, because he’s pointing up the street to one of the only halfway houses that accepts offenders like him. Rapist and murderer, both.
“I live up there,” he says.
“How do you like it?”
“Not so bad. Short commute for therapy at least.” He chuckles a little. “And there’s this great park exactly 2,603 feet away.” Any closer and it would be off limits to him and any other registered sex offender. But I couldn’t imagine anybody calling it a park. The grass, what little there is, colored a dingy brown as if it sprouted from poisoned soil. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” He gestures his hands wide and dramatic like he’s sweeping them across Central Park itself. And for a moment, they could be the hands. The ones that wrapped around Cassie’s throat. He’s old enough, mid-forties, similar m.o. I nod at him, unease curling like a worm inside me. “I especially like that tree,” he adds.
“Which one?” As if there’s any doubt.
He looks at the balloon in my hand, and I feel caught. Like I’m holding a loaded gun. “The one you can see from the window in your office.”
Chapter
Two
Evie
January 13, 2017
Friday
Hitchhiking is usually very safe. That line never fails to amuse me and punch me in the gut. I read it every other Friday on the Hitchwiki website before I call the taxi. It’s part of my ritual, and tonight’s no different. Except it’s just my second time hitching from my new apartment. And it’s Friday the thirteenth. My hands shake a little—my nerves still frayed from my run-in with Sebastian—when I fill up Samson’s bowl to the very top just in case I don’t return. He meows like a madman, flicks his tail, and darts through my legs as if to say, I can be crazy too.
“Don’t judge me, Sammy,” I whisper, prompting another, more demure meow. “Haven’t I always come back to you?” He blinks at me before disappearing behind the sofa. If I was a cat, I’d look just like Samson, sleek black hair and eyes the color of swamp grass. That’s what the lady at the shelter had told me when I’d pointed to his cage—“That’s the one.” I’m even more like a black cat than she knew, because nobody wants me. And because I’m cursed. Obviously.
I double-check my backpack to be sure I haven’t forgotten anything. Well, the most important thing really—my keychain canister of pepper spray. Someday, it might be all that stands between me and a fate like Cassie’s, between the milky white skin of my throat and those hands. I can’t bring myself to carry a gun, not even a cute little number that could fit inside one of those fancy clutches that Jared’s mother totes around.
I perch on the edge of the sofa in silence, staring at the shiny edge of the cellophane balloon I’d rescued—Happy, Happy Birthday! I’d pressed it flat between page 100 and 101 of Memory: The Science of Recollection, marking the passage I’d memorized sin
ce grad school. Learning and memory are state dependent. The surest way to access traumatic memories is to return the brain to the same state of consciousness as when the memory was first encoded.
State-dependent recall. That’s the general idea. When my cell phone rings, I hurry for the door like always. Before I can change my mind. I wave at Samson, his eyes, anyway. They’re shining from beneath the bookcase. Then, I steady myself—this is for you, Cassie—and make my way downstairs to the taxi waiting for me.
“Where to, lady?” He’s probably expecting me to name some swanky new bar in the city even though I’m not dressed for it. Skinny jeans, a two-sizes-too-small Warriors T-shirt, and my favorite pair of Converse sneaks. Ponytail and no makeup. I want to look young and fresh-faced. But mostly, I want to feel young again. If I could, just for a moment, maybe I would remember.
“The Safeway in El Cerrito.”
“Alright.” He hides his surprise well, but it’s there in his voice. Most people wouldn’t, but I notice.
I crack the window, lean back against the seat, and close my eyes. With no traffic, it’s a twenty-minute cab ride from Oakland to the Safeway that wasn’t always a Safeway, and I’ve seen every mile of it before. Two years’ worth of every other Fridays, so many that the getting there is just a blur of stale cigarette smoke, talk radio, and the sound of the highway. When I open my eyes, the driver’s sneaking a glance at my chest in the rearview mirror, and I pull my jacket tighter. The way this T-shirt fits me, I’m not surprised, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far this time. If Jared was here, he’d tell me I have a death wish. But he’s not, and that’s my fault too.
My throat gets achy and raw, the same way it does every time I think about Jared. To be fair, I had warned him. The curse of Evil Evie is real. When I’d said that, he shook his head at me, brown eyes crinkling, then kissed me hard, almost like a dare to the universe. Overconfident, because life had never kicked him in the teeth. With his invincible broad shoulders that could carry the weight of the world and an easy smile that told you he’d never had to. He graduated first in his class and was accepted into Stanford, early decision at that. He’d known nothing about Cassie or the faceless man, and it still unnerved me how easily I’d concealed an entire country inside myself without him—my husband, for God’s sake—suspecting a thing. It was a lesson too. I had to notice. I had to remember. I had to go by feel. Because people lie.
“Ma’am, we’re here.”
I fork over the forty-dollar cab fare—a small price to pay for redemption, if it ever comes—and climb out, waiting until he’s rounded the corner before I start walking. The same route Cassie and I took twenty-three years ago. I try not to think about it that way, because when I do, I know what a freak I am. Like the first time I’d twisted a few strands of hair around my fingers and pulled them out until there was a tiny bald spot at the base of my head. I heard the class snickering behind me—creepy, creepy, creepy—but I couldn’t stop myself. Ripping hair from my scalp felt like scratching an itch I couldn’t reach. And it’s no different now, coming here. I’m compelled.
If I squint into the lights outside the Safeway, I can almost see it the way it used to be—the Port in a Storm Home for Children. The peeling white paint, the wraparound porch that seemed to make promises it could never fulfill. Inside, the twin beds stacked side by side like matchboxes, and everything I owned in a garbage bag at the foot of mine. I wished I’d been there when they bulldozed it down, but by then, I was long gone, aged out of the system.
That night, a lifetime ago, I’d climbed out the second-story window and shimmied down a drainpipe like I had nine lives. I can’t recall much of the walk, just Cassie by my side, but I imagine it wasn’t so different from tonight. Except for the cold that’s cutting deep as a blade through my jacket. I set a course through the parking lot, down the street, toward the freeway, grateful for the heat of the cars rushing past me. A man in a truck honks and whistles—“Hey, baby,” he says as I turn—but he keeps driving. It could be him, I think. It could be anyone.
Past the gas station, the inky cave of the underpass looms up ahead, straight out of my nightmares. “You need a ride?” That was the first thing he’d said to Cassie and me while we stood in the shadows drinking our Slurpees. I see his hand in my dreams sometimes—his fingers as long and white and gnarled as the branches on the hanging tree—dangling out the window of a run-down pickup truck, tapping along to a song only he could hear. And we’d nodded, somehow already knowing he was the one who would take us where we wanted to go.
CHAPTER
THREE
Evie
January 13, 2017
Friday
I stand on a small patch of weeds just outside the underpass—my usual spot, near the freeway sign—squinting in the headlights of the passing cars. The oncoming high beams expose the rot and rancor Cassie and I had simply disregarded since we’d passed that way so many times before. Or maybe things just look different when you’re thirteen (it’s your birthday), when you’re with your best friend (only friend), when you’re on a mission (do or die). Empty beer cans and needles at the periphery now. Further in, where I don’t go anymore, concrete walls defaced with graffiti. And further still, a lump of something—blankets? clothing?—that might be a person. Living or dead, it’s hard to say. I focus on the blades of grass just under my sneakers, inhaling the heady smell of exhaust.
Remember. Try to remember. It’s safe to remember.
“You need a ride?” The first thing he’d said, but not the last. Cassie had gone up to his window while I hung back, still tasting the wild cherry Slurpee at the back of my throat. His voice, what I could hear of it anyway, didn’t sound so different from the older boys who lived with us at the group home. Cassie turned to me and smiled, her tongue bright red. “He can give us a lift. What do you think?”
I shrugged, looking past her, trying to make him out in the dark. Now I know the first rule of hitchhiking: If you doubt the ride, turn it down. But it wouldn’t have helped me then. Because I didn’t doubt the faceless man, even with all that had already happened to end me up there, orphaned and sneaking away from Port in a Storm. When you’re thirteen, when you’re with your best friend, when you’re on a mission, there’s no room for doubt.
“Al-right,” my voice cracking midway through. If the faceless man had a reaction, I wouldn’t have seen it anyway. We’d already climbed into the backseat, still holding tight to our Slurpee cups, though mine was nearly empty and sweating against my palm. I must’ve stared at the back of his head for the entire drive or close to it, but the smell of that truck—suntan lotion and sweat—is still the only memory I’ve got left. That and the morbid, old folk song he sung under his breath, faint as a whisper. Hang down your head, Tom Dooley. Hang down your head and cry…poor boy, you’re bound to die. I’d heard Miss Cherice singing it in the mornings while she went room to room waking us up—that one and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Two of the most depressing songs I’d ever heard. But Cherice’s voice, warm and thick as honey, had made them seem not so bad.
In his voice though, the words sounded strange. Eerie. Down in some lonesome valley. Hangin’ from a white oak tree. Now that was a sign, but I might’ve only imagined him singing about a hanging tree. The whole night was a riddle. A cipher. A puzzle, unsolved.
Sometimes, I stick my thumb out, old-school style, but not tonight. I just sit on my backpack and wait, cataloguing everything I know about the faceless man—white and young, but at least sixteen because he could drive—which is virtually nothing. Memory is a funny thing. I should know. As vast and mysterious as the universe itself, and that’s why I’m out here with a death wish—you’re right, Jared—because even if it kills me, I will remember.
****
“I’ve never seen eyes like yours.” The man in the driver’s seat—Danny, he’d told me—fiddles with the radio before he looks up at me. Other than his
name, it’s the first thing he’s said since he pulled his black jeep to the shoulder ten minutes ago, introduced himself, and asked those infamous four words, “You need a ride?” He’d added miss to the end of it, probably trying to be polite. “They’re so green—are those contacts?”
I shake my head no, taking note of the slight twist in my gut, the prickle that works its way up my spine like the buzz of a revving motor. Jared always told me that my eyes were my best feature. Actually the way he’d said it, they were springtime green. But then, he had a way with words. He is—was—a closet poet. My mom had said they belonged to my father, never hiding her distaste. Everybody else just called them creepy. Evil Evie with the glowing cat eyes.
“You get them from your mom? Was she as purdy as you are?” Danny doesn’t turn his head from the road, but the way he says that word makes me uneasy, and I’m willing to bet he’s side-eyeing me. His face is all shadow under the brim of his baseball cap—his hands tense as he grips the wheel a little tighter. I wonder what he’s holding back. Because everybody’s holding something.
My breath hitches a little—like a skip in a record—and I try to think of the right thing to say. It’s not the first time a ride has hit on me, but Danny’s different. Older. Fiftyish. With bits of gray in his beard. He should know better. I should’ve known better. I hold tight to the backpack on my lap, rethinking my reluctance to carry a gun. Along with my sanity. “Uh…I couldn’t really tell you. I don’t remember much about my mother.” That part is true, so it sounds believable. To me, anyway.
“What happened to her? To your mama?”
Panic flashes like lightning and I freeze, caught in its glare. “I—I didn’t say anything happened to her, did I?” Danny doesn’t answer. He reaches toward me with stubby fingers, leathery knuckles, and the bare, tan skin of his forearm. “Anyway, she’s dead.”
He doesn’t touch me—thank God—though I brace myself for it anyway. I consider the door handle, making a break for it, already anticipating the skin-ripping burn of the freeway at seventy miles per hour. I know the door opens, because checking is part of my hitching routine. But he doesn’t touch me. I repeat it to myself like my words have power, and somehow they do. He doesn’t touch me. Instead, he grabs an empty cup from the floorboard near my Chucks, puts it to his mouth, and spits into it. That’s when I notice the bulge of tobacco in his lower lip.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 34
