Fall from Grace (27 page)

She saw his consternation, and felt a great echoey emptiness.

He stood quite still, towering over her; she had the sense of his blotting out the sun.

She thought about the cats, about how she needed them. She had always cared about animals, but since her brother's bizarre death on the horns of a deer she had, illogically, focused her life upon them. A person has to have something, thought Hetty, looking up at Bobby, craning her neck because she was so short.

And frail, she thought. For the first time in my life, I feel frail.

Most of the murders in the world happen among family members. She watched the news. She knew.

But she also knew that he would never hurt her.

“How come you changed your mind?”

“Notgood.”

“Not good. Not good. Shit. Fuck.” He threw himself onto the love seat. “Do you know what you're doin' to me, Aunt Hetty?”

“No,” said Hetty.

“You're killin' me.” He gripped his head with both hands. “Killin' me.”

“Notme,” said Hetty. She was crying again. She hadn't wept for years, and now it seemed like she was doing it all the time. “You,” said Hetty, through her tears. “You.”

“M
Y GOODNESS, WHY are you two hanging around the house?” said Annabelle. She was flying from room to room, wielding a duster. “Where's that mangy dog, anyway, Camellia? Why aren't you outside playing with that mangy dog?”

“He's not mangy,” said Camellia, following her from the kitchen to the living room, which was a long, narrow room with only one window in its end wall. “I don't feel like it.”

“Why don't you sit down, Ma?” said Rose-Iris uneasily. “Have a cup of coffee or something.”

“I don't want to sit down,” said Annabelle.

“Well I don't want to go out and play, either,” said Camellia.

Annabelle stopped dusting and put her hands on her hips. “I don't like that whine in your voice,” she scolded Camellia.

“It's not a whine,” said Rose-Iris. “She's just worried, that's all.”

“I'm worried, that's all,” said Camellia.

“Oh for goodness' sake,” said Annabelle, dusting the television set, “what've you got to be worried about?”

“You, Ma,” said Rose-Iris. “We're worried about you. Why're you acting so funny?”

“It's you two who're acting funny, if you ask me,” said Annabelle, bustling past them on her way back to the kitchen. “Here it is beautiful weather again and you have no chores to do, because I've given you the whole day off. Arnold at least has a brain in his head. He knows what to do when he's given a day off, he's gone off to play like a normal child.” She had begun to shiver. “But you two, you just hang around, mope around, getting in my way.”

Annabelle remembered, suddenly, a day last autumn when she'd been walking up the gravel road to Erna's house. The sky at the top of the hill was brilliantly blue. The trees stretched up and over the road, and the wind was blowing strong, lifting leaves from the trees and hurling them down; the air was filled with them—a golden rain of autumn leaves. And Annabelle, walking up the road, lifting her face to the sky and the golden falling leaves, had thought she heard laughter.

“Maybe when your dad gets back with the truck,” she said now, trying to control her shaking, “maybe we'll go somewhere. To the beach, maybe. I'll cook a roast and we'll slice it up and pack us a picnic and go to the beach. That's what we'll do.” But she couldn't stop shaking, and Camellia began to sniffle.

Then they heard a car.

The children looked at one another and then back at Annabelle, and they were all thinking, well it isn't the truck, and it isn't Uncle Warren's van, and then they heard a car door bang and up to the screen came the girl from the newspaper.

“Will you please go away,” said Annabelle, suddenly enraged.

She struck the screen door with the heel of her hand. It slammed open, nearly hitting Diana. Annabelle strode through it, across the yard and around the corner to where Diana's car was parked, next to the broken-down gas pumps. She opened the driver's door and stood there.

“Get into your car and drive away,” she said. Diana gaped at her, looking very silly, Annabelle thought. The girl came near: thank God, thought Annabelle, she's going without a word.

But instead of getting into her car, Diana said, in a very soft voice, “Can I help you?”

Annabelle looked at her incredulously.

“Please let me help you,” said the girl.

There was such tenderness in her voice that Annabelle was embarrassed for her. And then Annabelle realized that her face —Annabelle's own face—was wet with tears; dripping with tears. And that Camellia and Rose-Iris, staring at her, were transfixed with fear.

She looked intently into Diana's face.

“Let me take you into your house,” said Diana, “and maybe your daughters and I can make you a cup of tea.” She put an arm around Annabelle's shoulders and led her inside.

A few minutes later they were sitting around the table, the four of them.

“I have a friend,” Annabelle said. “Who's in trouble.” Her daughters were listening intently. “Now it's trouble of his own making, mind.” Camellia glanced at Rose-Iris. “There isn't a thing I can do. To help him,” said Annabelle, rubbing the palms of her hands against her skirt. She had put on the blue and white sundress again, she noticed.

She saw Rose-Iris look quickly at the door.

“Here's Dad,” said Rose-Iris, and Annabelle held her breath to listen.

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It is indeed. Herman is home,” she said to Diana over the pounding of her heart, which had moved up into her throat; if it stays there, she thought, it is going to be extremely difficult to talk, and to breathe, too.

Herman flung the door open and stood in the kitchen, staring down at her. He didn't seem to be aware that there was anyone else in the room.

He knows, she thought, looking up at him.

Everything went into slow motion then.

They all stood up from the table, Diana, and Rose-Iris, and Camellia, and Annabelle. Diana took a step toward Herman, and then a step back. Camellia moved toward the wall. Rose-Iris placed herself between Herman and Annabelle.

Nobody said anything. Through the screen Annabelle heard the truck motor making ticking sounds in the heat; Herman had driven it right up to the back door. She was glad he hadn't driven it through the window wall.

This was the last thought she remembered having.

“You whore,” said Herman, breathing hard and fast.

Annabelle turned herself into a sponge.

“You been doin' it again,” he said.

Nobody moved, because everybody knew that if they moved, so would he, and everybody thought that maybe if they didn't move, neither would he.

“You filthy whore,” said Herman, his voice rising. “After what I done for you.” He raised his hand, which he'd made into a fist, and pulled it back, and came for Annabelle.

“No! No!” cried Rose-Iris, and grabbed him around the waist.

He flung her off and struck Annabelle across the side of the head. Annabelle fell to the floor, but scrambled clumsily back up again.

“Don't!” shouted Diana, and Annabelle saw her looking frantically around the room.

Annabelle lifted her arm to shield herself but Herman struck her again, in the neck, this time.

“No Daddy, no!” said Rose-Iris above the wailing of Camellia, who was crouched in the corner with her hands over her ears. Rose-Iris tried to cling to Herman's arm. Herman threw her aside.

Herman, sobbing, clubbed Annabelle again with his fist, and again she fell, and struck her forehead against the edge of the buffet.

“Daddy please,” said Rose-Iris, crying, clawing at him, “please don't do it.”

“I ain't your fuckin' daddy,” Herman roared. He turned on Rose-Iris and picked her up by the shoulders and shook her. “I ain't your daddy, you hear that?” He threw her to the floor.

“Herman!” cried Annabelle, staggering to her feet.

But Herman reached down and cuffed Rose-Iris, who was lying on the floor, trying to curl up into a ball.

“Herman, no!” screamed Annabelle. Herman kept on hitting Rose-Iris, and from the corner of her eye Annabelle saw Diana reach down and pick up a chair.

Annabelle turned, opened a drawer, and fumbled for a knife.

W
ARREN PICKED UP Wanda at the ferry terminal in Langdale that afternoon; she'd been in Vancouver, at a bank tellers' seminar. He was in his work overalls and she was in her city clothes. He felt proud of her, driving along the highway, taking sidelong glances at her whenever he could. She was a real pretty woman, Wanda.

He didn't have to go back to work, so when they got home Wanda changed and they went out into the backyard for a couple of hours before supper.

“Maybe I should get a bunch of these,” said Warren, indicating the two railroad ties in the middle of the yard, “and make a raised bed back here.” He was taking a break from the siding to build boxes to surround the bases of the cherry trees. He planned to fill them with bark mulch.

“What do we need a raised bed for?” said Wanda. She was sitting on her sloped-back red workout chair, lifting weights.

“It's easier on your back,” Warren told her. “You don't have to stoop down to do the weeding. You sit on the edge of it, see, and you reach in.”

“I don't stoop down,” said Wanda, breathless. “I get down on my hands and knees.”

There was a small garden beside the garage, which stood at the back of the yard. Wanda had planted some herbs there, and a zucchini, and a couple of tomatoes.

“Yeah, well, you wouldn't have to get down on your hands and knees,” said Warren, measuring, marking the tie with a thick pencil, “if you had a raised bed.” He reached for the power saw.

“That thing's hideously noisy,” said Wanda when he'd finished. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and sneakers, and she had a headband on, and wristbands, too, to soak up the sweat.

He started to say something, then stopped. “Did you hear something?”

“Only that saw,” said Wanda, all concentrated on her weights. Warren used to think about doing weights. No way he'd do them now, though.

He fitted the two pieces of tie together, marked the second tie, and did his sawing.

“I hope that's the end of that,” Wanda grumbled. “That's it,” said Warren. “Now I've just gotta nail them together, and I'm through.”

Wanda was naturally skinny; Warren couldn't figure why she'd gotten so keen on getting fit, anyway. She said it was for strength and flexibility.

Again, Warren thought he heard something.

He had a very bad feeling. He wished for a moment that his backyard wasn't enclosed by a six-foot cedar fence. He wanted to be able to see through it.

He went to the gate, opened it, and looked along the side of his house. Nobody was there, and he heard nothing but the sprinkler on the lawn across the street, and he saw the back end of the van, parked in front of the house, and no other vehicles. He closed the gate and stood there listening, but heard nothing.

He went back to the lawn and sat down. “Wanda, something weird's going on.”

Wanda, laboring with her weights, said, “I didn't hear a thing, Warren, you imagined it.”

Warren heard it again, whatever it was. He got up and went back to the gate and opened it. A cement walk ran along the side of the house and then around in front. There was nobody there.

Suddenly a woman appeared around the corner of the house. She looked terrified. Warren had never seen her in his life before.

“Are you Warren?”

He nodded, speechless.

She went back around the corner. Warren couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. But his heart was thumping, and there was a metallic taste in his mouth, and he absolutely knew something terrible was going to happen.

He watched the corner intently. And suddenly Annabelle appeared.

“Wanda,” said Warren, quietly.

It seemed to him that she was beside him in an instant. She looked at Annabelle and sucked in her breath. Warren didn't know what to do. He felt Wanda slip past him, ducking beneath his arm. She walked toward Annabelle and as she got closer she walked faster, and her arms lifted, and when she reached Annabelle she put her arms around her and drew her close, and all Warren could think of was that Wanda was getting blood all over her.

A
NNABELLE WAITED IN a room that had no windows. It was painted green. There was a rectangular table in it, and two wooden chairs. It wasn't a particularly threatening room, but Annabelle wished there were some things on the walls. It wasn't threatening; but it wasn't clean, either. Annabelle didn't sit down on a chair, at the table, because neither the chairs nor the table were clean.

She wiped the palms of her hands again and again down the sides of her blue-and-white-striped sundress. The dress was stained, of course. Annabelle was pretending that the stains were gravy.

At least her skin was clean now. Her hands were clean. She looked at them again, making sure. She held them out in front of her, inspecting closely around the nails. She thought she could see flecks there, around the edges of her fingernails; flecks of gravy.

That'd teach her, she thought, rubbing the palms of her hands against her dress, that'd teach her to cook a roast in the middle of the hottest summer in the world. If you cook a roast and then you cut it with a dull knife, why that's what's going to happen, the blade's going to slip and oh God you've cut yourself you've cut yourself now, there's gravy all over your dress no too red too bright it's juice from the roast you've cooked it rare Herman's going to be mad…