Part 1 (2/2)

She had only enough energy to nod at her daughter, giving her a wan smile.

They managed to find a s.p.a.ce big enough for them to spread out the blanket they had brought from home.

”How about right here?” she asked.

But Lucy had eyes only for the sea.

She threw down the blanket, towels and beach bag. The heat was adding a twisting nausea to her gut, to keep company with the headache no amount of aspirin would alleviate.

Lucy let go of her hand and started running toward the surf. ”Lucy! Lucy, come back here! Aren't you going to help me put the blanket down?”

”You do it!” she cried, and ran, splas.h.i.+ng, into the water.

Normally, she would have dragged the little girl back for sa.s.sing her like that, but she just didn't have the energy. She began to unfold the blanket.

There must be a way, she thought, to rid herself of this imagining a dead girl and her mother. Perhaps she could go to a hypnotist and have the memory excised from her brain, like a growth. She knew she couldn't do what she wanted most: turn back time to the day she went into the bookstore and listened to her own voice of reason when it told her not to look inside the book of crime scene photographs. But if we could do that, she thought grimly just before putting out the light next to her bed, everyone would be going back in time to correct his or her mistakes. She let out a whispered snicker in the dark: there would be no one in the present.

She wondered if the little girl's mother had rued the day she had strangled her daughter. Had it been some horrible scar she had borne the rest of her life? Was she still alive in prison somewhere, able to see that same picture in Technicolor memory over and over, tormenting her so much she would want to die? Did she too wish she could turn back time and change the one thing on that day that led to her killing her own child? Or was she a sociopath with no feelings, not even for her own little girl? Had she died in the electric chair? What were her last thoughts? Were they of her daughter? Had she been relieved to die?

She turned over and closed her eyes, but the image from the book was there: imprinted on a matte of black inside her eyelids.

”Why?”

”Because I said so!” She didn't mean to snap at Lucy. She realized just as her little girl was all she shehad that all Lucy had was her mother. She deserved kindness.

But she could be so exasperating! She had never been an easy child: loving one moment, impatient and demanding the next...and always so active. What she wouldn't give for just a small sample of the energy her daughter had. She had been trying for the last half-hour to get Lucy to come out of the water so they could go home. Her headache had only gotten worse. The heat and the sun had already caused her to vomit in the women's restroom what little she had eaten that day.

And she had tried to give Lucy a nice day. It was nearing six o'clock. Many of the people on the beach had gone home to their suppers. The wide expanse of beach was no longer crowded, but dotted with just a few people, unwilling to leave.

She pushed the towels down into the beach bag, threw away the brown paper sack she had brought the apples and the cheese sandwiches in and returned to Lucy. She had run back into the water and was standing up to her neck, turned away from her mother.

”Lucy! Lucy, I am counting to five, little girl...”

But Lucy started a dog-paddle out toward the bright red buoys bobbing on the waves. Oh G.o.d, she's going to make me come in and fetch her. Angry now, she began padding across the sand, feet coming down hard. She was tired to her bones and felt so sick she was beginning to wonder what was wrong with her. She couldn't tolerate this behavior. This ingrat.i.tude.

She reached Lucy, who turned and giggled, splashed her mother, soaking the front of the blouse she had changed into for the ride home.

”You little b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” she cried, and then bit her lip. When he he was around she had never even allowed was around she had never even allowed him himto use bad language in front of Lucy.

Lucy started dog-paddling away and, in order to follow her, she would have to get the bottom of her clam-diggers wet and she wasn't about to let that happen. She grabbed onto her daughter's ankle and tugged...hard. Lucy went under the water and came back up gasping and sputtering.

She pounded her back, then tucked her under her arm like a parcel and moved as quickly through the surf as she could, ignoring the stares of strangers that her daughter's wails inspired. She set Lucy down hard on the sand, ignoring her tears.

”A fine way to treat me,” she said, pulling a brush through Lucy's wet hair, yanking out tangles that caused the child to scream. ”I didn't have to bring you here today, didn't have to try and make it fun for you.”

She finished brus.h.i.+ng Lucy's hair. Already, with the heat, it was drying and turning back into coils. She shook her head. The kid was so d.a.m.n pretty; it was hard to stay mad at her. She chucked her under the chin. ”Let's forget the trouble, kiddo, 'kay?”

Lucy nodded, rubbing her nose.

”You wanna get dressed here?”

”Don't be silly, Mama. And have everyone see me buck naked?”

”We can get you changed in the ladies' room. It's right over there.” She took Lucy's hand and began leading her off the beach, to the small cinderblock building at its edge.

Then something caused her to stop. A man and a woman were ahead of them, about a hundred yards away, maybe a little more. But even from the back, she recognized him...the dusting of freckles across his broad shoulders, the way his dark hair curled at the nape of his neck. They were hand in hand, laughing. She had short red hair, a pixie cut. He let go of her hand and slid his arm around her slender waist, pulling her close.

Lucy tugged and suddenly she realized her daughter was there. ”C'mon, Mama. Let's get this show on the road.”

She stood frozen for a moment longer, then let her daughter lead her to the ladies' room, feeling numb.

It was cool inside the washroom, cool and too dark after the brightness outside. She groped her way to a sink, where she set down the beach bag-Lucy's outfit she had carefully folded and placed on top, so it wouldn't wrinkle. It was hard to stay mad at her when she had the two-piece outfit on: red and white with big polka dots, a midriff top and short, frilly skirt. She may not have been the best-dressed mother, but she always made sure Lucy looked good when they were in public.

And then she thought of him, seeing him again in her mind's eye. The two of them. Laughing. It made her sick to her stomach. She saw them in her mind: f.u.c.king. Saw him saying all those sweet lies with which he had once wooed her.

”Come on, Mama! You were in such a big hurry. Let's go.” Lucy tapped her foot.

Lucy's voice came through a fog of pain and memory. Her voice, high and yes, a little shrill, had a weird effect, almost as if it were coming from a distance, as if her daughter was much farther away than the foot or so she actually was.

”Mama!” Lucy snapped.

She turned her eyes dully to her, imagining the way a cow might turn to look at a fly on its flanks.

Lucy had pulled off her wet suit and it lay in a heap on top of the outfit she had so carefully folded earlier. Lucy had crossed her arms absurdly over her chest and had pulled her legs together. ”My clothes! I need my clothes!” She stamped her foot.

She bent down to her daughter, the damp red-and-white polka dot outfit in one hand. She stretched the elastic waistband of the skirt and said, ”Step in.”

She didn't really notice the pa.s.sage of time. It could have been an hour, it could have been thirty seconds, but there Lucy was before her, fully dressed. There was a buzzing sound that drowned out what little noise her daughter may have been making, her mouth open in a gasping scream. Her dark eyes bulged.

She had her hands around Lucy's throat, pressing in on her windpipe, cutting off the air, thinking, ”I gave you life and I can take it away.”

Lucy, in a voice in her mind, chided her, calling her an Indian giver.

Suddenly, she stopped as Lucy's hands went limp, hands that had been tearing at her own, trying with her small child's strength to stop her. She dropped her hands to her sides and moaned. Lucy was gasping, sucking in air in wheezing breaths, a caw-cawing noise that broke her heart.

”Oh G.o.d, honey, I'm so sorry. Oh G.o.d, what have I done?” Her voice went up high and dissolved into wracking sobs. She drew the trembling, wheezing little girl to her bosom, holding her tight, blotting out the image of a necklace of bright red thumbprints around her throat.

She pulled the sheet over herself, even though the August air wafting in her bedroom window was sticky, mired in heat and humidity. Dawn's gray light filtered into the room, filling it was a flat gray presence. She turned and closed her eyes, finally able to sleep.

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