Benighted (22 page)

“Anyway, Leo and Mom are hitting it off, I think. He was so good. He didn’t cry once.”

“Oh.”

“She asked about you.” Becca looks at me, her face a mixture of caution and censure. She knows this is risking an argument.

I put a cushion under my head and lean back. “She asked about me?”

“Yes, she wanted to know how you were.”

“What did you say?”

Becca shrugs, brushes her hair back. “I said you were fine. That I’d been seeing quite a lot of you, that you’d been giving me a lot of help with Leo.”

“I—I have been helping.” I’ve been around here a lot. Becca’s had a lot of sleep because of me, a lot of fresh fruit from the shops, a lot of free hours. I have been useful. I look at my sister, resting back on the sofa, her face calmer than I’ve seen it in months, and Leo bats his hands against me, showing off his arms, enjoying himself. The room smells of talcum powder, and I’m starting to understand how tired I am. The word
tomorrow
drifts into my mind, and I can’t handle it. All I can think now is that I’m comfortable on this sofa, how much effort it would be to stand up and leave.

“May, are you all right? You look a little gray.”

“Gray.” Our mother used to call me peaky. You have to eat your greens, May, you look far too peaky. Don’t wear that, the color makes you look peaky. Peaks pushed through me, angles came out in my face like mountaintops above clouds. Becca called me spiky; sharp-edged things inside me forcing their way out into the light.

“May—” Becca brushes her hair off her forehead, the old gesture that’s come back since the baby, and leans forward. “Is something wrong?”

“What?”

“You’re just sitting and staring and repeating everything I say. Is there something bothering you?”

Leo struggles in my arms, leans back against me. He wants space. When he learns to walk, there’ll be no stopping him; he’ll run right out into the world without a backward look. “I don’t feel very well,” I say.

“Are you coming down with something?”

“No.” I blink. There’s a blue haze, and I can’t wake my voice up. “No. Someone’s died.”

“Died?” I see Becca sit up on the couch, come to attention. Concerned, puzzled. Not threatened, nothing after her. Her face, frowning, is still pretty, and the word in her pleasant accent has no meaning. A story in the paper. Nothing real.

“A boy I worked with. Someone shot him.” Leo pants against me, and I lay him down on a little mat in front of the sofa. I don’t know how to handle him.

“Who?” She knows it means something to me. She’s trying to be involved.

“No one’s been caught. But we think we know who did it. We don’t know where to find him.”

Becca’s hand covers her mouth. The nails are unmanicured, but the fingers taper, shapely and long.

All at once the weight of my head is too much for me, and I lie down. Becca’s image floats horizontal, and I can’t get my eyes to right it. “They think he might be after me.”

“I—I don’t understand, May. What’s happening?”

I shut my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“May, wake up!” I open them, shade them with my hand. Becca’s not sitting cross-legged anymore, she’s on her feet, and she’s taken Leo in her arms. “You have to tell me everything that’s happening.”

My voice comes out like a wail. “You won’t like it.”

“I don’t care.” In her tone I hear years of discipline, protecting Leo from harm, pulling him away from the curb. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

If I close my eyes, it can be as if I was telling a dream. “I arrested a prowler. A man who was out on purpose. He almost killed my partner. I interrogated him. He’s crazy, I think. He’s got a grudge against us. Someone who interrogated him with me was shot last night. They think it might be this man, and he might be after me, too.”

“Why?” The question is hushed, and I don’t look at her.

I can’t even shrug. “He seemed the type.”

“May. May, open your eyes.”

“I’m tired, Becca.”

“May, look at me, this is serious.”

“I’m so tired.”

“May, we have to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to say. Maybe we’ll catch him before he kills me.” My body is solid, tangible. There’s no way I can conceive not being alive, not ever feeling anything again. Even in this dull confusion, I can’t understand it.

I open my eyes a crack, and Becca is sitting opposite me. Leo is in her arms, restless; he wants to be put down so he can kick his legs, but she isn’t letting him go. The poise of her upright spine is almost military. “There is something to talk about, May,” she says. “What about Leo?”

“Leo?” I look at her properly, but I can’t lift my head. My skull is full of lead, dull base metal weighing me down. “Leo wants to lie on the mat. You should let him go.”

“May, if there’s someone after you—what if they follow you?”

“They followed Nate. Forensics said they followed him two hundred yards along the road.”

“Oh, my God.” She hoists Leo and stands. “May, I’m sorry to do this, but you have to leave.”

“Leave?” I say the word, and as I say it my ears start to ring. “I just got here.”

“May, you said there was a man following you, a crazy man. What if he comes here? Leo’s here, May. How can you take chances with his life?”

“I’m risking Leo’s life.” I’m doing this. She holds Leo as a block between us, there’s discomfort in her tone. She doesn’t want this. She wants the discomfort away, and me with it.

“I am sorry, May, really I am. If you knew how I hate doing this—”

“Doing what?” I sit up. My head sings. “Cutting me off? Sending me away?”

“This isn’t about you, really…”

“I see that.”

“Oh, May, don’t take it like that. Please?”

“Don’t take it like that.” My words are flat in my own ears. “How am I taking it?”

Becca stiffens, raises herself to be tall. “I am sorry to do this. If it wasn’t a question of Leo, I wouldn’t have to, but I can’t take any risks with his life. If you love him, you’ll understand that.”

“Since when did you become the arbitrator of love, Becca?”

“He’s my son.”

“I’ve been good to you, Becca. I’ve helped you every day. I’ve shopped for you, I’ve looked after Leo. I have helped you.”

“You’ve helped Leo, at least.” She looks away the moment she says this.

“What does that mean?”

“You haven’t spent much time with me, have you? You’ve come, picked him up, and left.”

“You said you wanted to sleep.”

She shakes her head. “Let’s not do this.”

“And I’ve been here the past few weeks.”

“You hardly have a thing to say to me, May. I’m sure Leo doesn’t press your many buttons.”

“That’s what this is about? I thought you were wild with concern for your son.”

“I am. Oh, May, let’s not do this.”

“No. You say things, you—sandbag me with these things, and then you say ‘Let’s not do this’ and expect it all to go away? I always knew you were one for the last word, but this is—you’re not this stupid, Becca, you never were.”

“Stop it!” Leo starts to cry. Both of us react. Becca turns her head and I start to my feet. She looks away from him at me. Our eyes meet, and the single second it takes stretches out for a long time before I sit down. “I’ll—put him down in the other room,” she mutters.

“Are you just going to let him cry?”

“He’s
my son
! It’s not up to you. You handle your children your way, and let me handle mine.”

“I don’t have children.” My voice is dead. I stare straight ahead and my face doesn’t move at all.

“And whose fault is that? Mine?” I say nothing. Leo sobs between us. “Oh, May, I’m sorry. This isn’t—May, I’m just—scared for Leo.”

I draw in a shuddering breath. “I know.” This is my sister. I can’t be hating my sister.

“No, May. I mean—be honest. If you were in my position, wouldn’t you be saying the same?”

“Yes.” Truth falls out of my mouth, plummets to the ground. “Yes, I would.”

“I’m sorry for what I said.” The schoolgirl phrasing stabs me in two places at once. The shelter of it, the life protected from the world that swallowed me up. But there’s the familiarity, too, my sister who always talks this way, even when her own life is falling apart. “Really. I’m so sorry. I wish you hadn’t taken it like this. But it’s not your fault. I wish I could have put it to you better. But—it’s just…” She sits down on the sofa, strokes the head of her crying son. They’re far away from me. “Leo’s everything I have, May. If anything happened to him, I’d die.” She looks down. “I’m telling you the truth now, so I hope you’re listening. I don’t want to have to go through saying all this again. I’ve heard nothing from Lionel, nothing. He’s still abroad. I sent messages to let him know when Leo was born. I got Leo’s blood group tested on my own and sent him the results. I even—named him for his father. But I haven’t heard a thing. And it isn’t because he’s too hurt to speak to me. I know that now. He was upset at the time. Now he’s—it’s just easier for him not to have to come and sort this out. He doesn’t care too much, May. He just doesn’t care enough. But if Leo’s all I have out of that marriage, I can’t be sorry.” She ducks her head, rests it on Leo’s. “Don’t expect me to say this again. Leo’s everything I have left out of six years of doing everything I could to make a marriage work. He’s all I have left. I can’t take any chances with him. If anything happened to him, it would be the end of me. I’m sorry to do this to you, May, really, I’m so sorry. I hope they catch the man soon, so you can come back. Leo loves you.” She squeezes her eyes shut. For a moment, I think it might happen, but she doesn’t say she loves me. “You’re good with him. You’ve been a great help to me, more than anyone, and I am grateful. But please, for me, just do this?”

For me.

She didn’t speak for Leo. She asked me to do it for her.

“Of course I don’t want to put him at risk,” I say. My voice breaks, but I won’t, I won’t cry. “I—I didn’t even think about it when I came today…”

She could say, of course you didn’t, it would take a mother to think these things. She doesn’t. Instead, what she says is “That’s not your fault. You live in danger all the time. You must get used to it in some ways.”

I shake my head, my eyes closed. There are no teardrops to fly from my eyelids as I shake. “Not like this.”

Becca swallows. “What are you going to do?”

“I—I don’t know. I can’t go home.”

“Do you think he’s watching your apartment?” The concern is back, she speaks softer.

“He could be. I can’t risk it.”

“Where will you stay?”

It’s a weapon, and I hesitate a moment before throwing it. “I’ve been seeing someone for a few weeks. Maybe I can stay with him.”

“Oh.” It’s very quiet. “What’s he like?”

“He’s nice.” I stare at my hands. “He treats me well. He’s a social worker, very respectable.” Social worker, not DORLA. I spare her the wondering if he’s like me or like her. “But I don’t know if he will. I only met him after Leo was born. He might not be willing.” If this ends things with Paul, I’ll stay in my apartment and wait for Seligmann to come and get me. Even as I think this, I know it’s not true. I’ll keep going. I always do.

“What’s his name?”

“Paul Kelsey. He lives in north Sanctus.”

I look at her, and she tries to smile. “It’s a nice area.”

“Yes.” Yes. Yes, if you don’t have to catch in the park, I suppose it is.

She sits on the sofa and holds her son.

“I guess I should go now.”

She doesn’t stop me as I rise. As I reach the door, she says, “You will keep phoning me, won’t you?”

I turn, lean my back against the door. “Do you want me to?”

Her face creases. “Of course I want you to.”

“All right. I’ll call you.” I turn around.

“May?”

“What?”

She makes a helpless gesture as I turn back. “Should you—give me your boyfriend’s number? So I know where to call you?”

“I might not be there.” I should smile at her, give her a hug. Instead, I stand against the door. It’s the most I can give her. “I’ll let you know where I’m staying when I call.”

Twenty-eight years lie on the floor between us.

I don’t know which of us it is that’s turned her back on them as I once again face the door and go through it.

“You can’t just go in there, he’s on the phone,” the man tells me.

“I need to speak to him.”

“Can I help you at all?” He has a narrow face, his Adam’s apple stands out like a kink, as if his neck had been broken in half and set wrong. His hair is thin, but he stands in front of me as calm as if he was twice my size. There’s no harshness in his tone.

“No, I need to speak to Paul Kelsey.” I step back. The dizziness that’s been swirling around me all day rises, and I haven’t any fight left. “It’s all right, I can wait.”

“You might have to wait a while.” He gestures me to a chair. “Can I get you a cup of coffee, tea, water?”

My throat closes. There’s no room inside me for water. “No thank you.”

I stare at the wall. Every now and again Simon, the man who stopped me in the hallway, comes back and checks on me, offers me magazines and cookies. After half an hour, I take a magazine to free myself of his restless hospitality, and push the pages to and fro, half dazzled by the shiny images. Sleek-limbed women in shimmering dresses, page after page of ads. Articles on cleaning your skin, maximizing your assets. It’s been a long time since I’ve held one of these expensive magazines. I try to imagine, if I were beautiful, whether things would be better. I can’t make it fit. Faces break so easily.