Part 19 (1/2)
”I'll go to h.e.l.l if I kill you.”
”You can confess.”
”They'll throw me in prison. This time I won't get out.”
”I mean confess to a priest.”
”They'll blame me.” She keeps patting the couch beside her, and I keep backing away.
”n.o.body'll blame you. I'm old and sick and they'll think I died in my sleep.”
”No, they'll accuse me of killing you for your money.”
”Who'll accuse you?”
”The cops.”
”You don't have to tell them a d.a.m.n thing.”
”They're smart and they've got tricks. This time they'll gas me.”
”No, no, no. Listen to me, G.o.ddammit. You're making me cuss. You're making me lose my soul. Is that what you want? You want to condemn me to h.e.l.l?” she hollers. ”Okay! I'll do it myself and you'll have that on your conscience because you're too selfish.”
She mashes the pillow over her nose and mouth. Her arms shake, and she moans like I do.
”Stop!” I grab the pillow, but she won't let go. I lift her clean off the couch. She weighs nothing and has no strength so she loses her grip and falls to the floor. I bend down to help her up, but she comes at me like a sidewinder, hissing, ”You son of a b.i.t.c.h. Gimme back my pillow!”
I run to the front door. She's on her feet now, following me. Her gla.s.ses hang c.o.c.keyed off her nose, and her fists clench to wallop me. I keep on going outside, through the rosebushes and onto the dead gra.s.s in the yard. The pillow is still in my hand. Mom hobbles onto the porch in her slippers and housecoat. The door slams behind her and she hollers, ”You G.o.dd.a.m.n killer r.e.t.a.r.d. Now look what you made me do.”
Up and down the block, her yelling brings people to their windows and doors. Their worried faces turn our way. Next thing they'll be dialing 911 because Mom's screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder. Then she runs at me, stepping right out of her slippers. I let go of the pillow and hurry into the trees left over from the woods where I caught frogs and lizards. Those that aren't dead are underground for winter. The creek is underground forever. But I know a path and a place to hide at the tree where I had a house, a little box that Dad nailed to the branches. It's gone now, and the hammer marks on the oak have healed over into scars, so the tree looks wounded. I catch my breath and as soon as I'm sure Mom isn't after me, I run on out the other side of the woods.
Candy
As a girl, I dreamed about becoming a nurse. Because of Maury. It never dawned on me to become a doctor. Girls didn't do that in my day. But being a nurse, I believed, I'd learn what was wrong with him and how to cure it. The closest I've come is working in a dentist's office, which at least led me to Lawrence. G.o.d works in strange ways.
When by the end of the day Maury hasn't called the office, I drive to the townhouse where Quinn's in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine with a brand new Screwpull. The label reads pinot noir, which I know means black, but the wine is ruby red. He pours himself a gla.s.s and drinks it off in a single gulp.
”Thought you were going cold turkey,” I say.
”The road to home is paved with good intentions.”
He sets out a gla.s.s for me, and I signal him to pour an inch. That's my limit. Since I have to pick up Maury I'm afraid to drink too much.
The kitchen's fluorescent lights don't flatter Quinn. He looks haggard, like this might not be his first drink of the day. His black-and-gray outfit, which I guess is fas.h.i.+onable in London, gives him the grim appearance of a funeral director.
”How was work?” he asks.
”Work's the easy part. I get to be with Lawrence.”
”That's nice.” Deep weariness dulls his voice.
”What about you? How'd you spend the day?” I ask.
”Hanging out at the mall. Judging by the crowd, it's a regular elephant burial ground for retirees. They loll around the fountain listening to the slow drip. I browsed at Barnes & n.o.ble, had a latte at Starbucks and made up my mind not to spend my golden years in Maryland.”
”Do actors retire?”
”Not if they can help it. In England there's a tradition of dying onstage. Literally. But if you don't get parts, it's as bad as being dead already.”
”You get parts,” I say.
”That's another thing I did today-I called my agent. I'm up for a role in a BBC special. A trilogy of Greek plays.”
”Great!”
”Maybe not so great. There's been some complaining that Aeschylus might be too depressing. Probably they'll perk up the script by putting kittens and puppies in the House of Atreus.”
Now I have no doubt Quinn's been drinking.
”It won't be long,” he says, ”before I'm cast as an aging uncle or doddering grandfather.”
”Doesn't sound bad to me. I'd like to be a grandmother.” I don't add the obvious-that I'd love to have been a mother. ”At least you've got that to look forward to. You could have kids, then grandkids.”
His response is to pour himself a second gla.s.s of wine.
”Ever think of that?” I prompt him, even though, honestly, I've never imagined him married with children. I can't picture him in a domestic setting.
”Recently I haven't done much thinking about the future. I've been preoccupied with the past.”
”I know you're writing your memoirs. But you have to live in the present.”
”The past is the present, isn't it?” he asks in a voice that convinces me he's quoting somebody. ”It's the future too.”
I tip the wine to my lips and have to resist the urge to chug it down. This is something I hadn't counted on-that Quinn might come home and fall apart, rather than rescue me.
”I have a young girl working for me, doing research,” he rambles on. ”I asked her to find a literary quote about mothers who abuse their children. One from the woman's point of view.”
”I thought this book was going to be about your career.”
”Who knows what it'll be about? Now it's piles of notes and scenes. My researcher, Tamzin, that's her name, turned up a pa.s.sage from Faulkner. The gist of it is a woman speaking from the grave, confessing how she beat her kids to brand them as her property forever. Do you think that's what Mom had in mind?”
”Why go over it again? Half the time she doesn't even remember hitting us.”
”But you remember. I do. I bet Maury does.”
”I wouldn't say she abused us.” I'm having trouble hiding my irritation. I take another taste of the wine, and it's warm, almost body temperature. ”She was a single mother with no money and a bunch of stress and sometimes she lost her temper. That's all.”
”That's enough, isn't it? I mean, it's worse being knocked around by your mother than your father.”