Hush (39 page)

her youngest daughter. On the morning of Celia's eighteenth birthday she used it

to punish her for failing to appreciate properly the card she'd given her.
"I don't know why I even bother," she'd said in a frighteningly calm voice as

she pulled the belt off the hook in the linen closet. "No matter what I do for

you, it's never good enough, is it?"
Celia had thanked her, but when her mother advanced with the belt she didn't

attempt to reply or protest. She'd learned years ago that her mother's rage

never listened to reason. As the first blow came she curled up into the fetal

position and tried to protect herself, but the belt buckle still caught her on

the left eyebrow, and could just as easily have taken out the eye. After an

eternal minute of feeling it crack against her arms and head and body, her

mother tossed it aside and beat her with her fists, tearing at Celia's hands to

get to her face. Her fury spent, she returned the belt to the hook, picked up

her purse as if nothing had happened, and slammed the door. Celia climbed up off

the floor, dragged herself onto the couch, and peeked out from behind the

curtain. When her mother disappeared down the block, she called a taxi. The gift

she'd longed for was now within reach.
She packed frantically, a suitcase and knapsack, then sailed into the bathroom

to grab her toiletries and toothbrush. She caught her reflection and groaned.

Her face had been bruised, and a thin stream of blood ran down from the corner

of her eyebrow. She washed the cut and put on a Band-Aid, but had no time for

makeup.
She left her bags in the bedroom, lest her mother return suddenly, and moved

back to the curtain in time to spot the gleaming yellow cab inching down the

street, the driver studying addresses. Her heart jumped as she raced to the

door. And then she froze. She was about to defy her mother as she never had

before. That was the word she'd always used: "How dare you defy me." Celia

stared at the handle, the bolt lock, and urged herself on.
But seconds passed before she could force herself to open the door. The driver

had just braked in front of the house and hit his horn.
"I'm here!" Celia screamed so loudly that a neighbor with a bag of groceries

turned around and stared. Celia worried that she might try to stop her, then

remembered that her mother had no friends, only enemies, real and imagined.

Celia waved, and the woman, though clearly puzzled, raised a hesitant hand

before rallying up her steps.
"I'm coming, just a second," Celia shouted to the driver. She ran to the bedroom

and breathlessly grabbed her suitcase and knapsack.
On her way out she placed her house key on the end table, then closed the door

softly, as if to leave the past as undisturbed as possible.
She hurried with her bags to the curb. Tensely she shoved them into the

backseat, sure that during those few moments of distraction her mother's

powerful hand would grab her from behind and her cold voice would ring out:

"Where do you think you're going, dearie?"
But only the driver had spoken: "Looks like you went a few rounds."
Celia glanced nervously at the house. "The train station, please."
The "please" had always been the touch that she recalled most clearly. She'd

been old enough to leave home legally, had planned her departure for years, yet

remained so intimidated by her mother that even with the cabbie she spoke it

less out of politeness than as a plea.
Please, like Oliver Twist with his empty bowl: "Please, sir, I want some

more ..." All the please please please that crucified childhoods the world over

with their desperately muffled hope and their clearly defined despair. She'd

said "please" plenty to her mother, for all the good it had done.
The driver didn't say another word. He flipped on the meter and pulled away.

Celia didn't dare a final glance. She leaned against her bags and trained her

eyes straight ahead as the dimes and dollars started to click away.
As soon as she found a seat on the commuter train she huddled over her compact,

studied the mirror, and began to doctor her face with makeup as she had so many

times before. She peeled off the Band-Aid, saw the blood crusted on her eyebrow,

and darkened it with mascara. Her hands shook terribly, and even as she snapped

the compact shut she knew she'd done a lousy job.
She'd plotted her route carefully and planned to get off at Penn Station, then

travel west to Chicago. She had saved $378 from waiting tables all summer at a

steamy crab house down by the docks. Six, seven days a week of putting on

Pan-Cake to hide the bruises on her neck, back, face, and arms; and then

touching them up as the night wore on and perspiration washed away her attempts

to cover up her injuries; learning that a customer's inquiring gaze usually

meant a black-and-blue mark had poked through the makeup.
That's all she fled Long Island with, a cut eyebrow, a suitcase half-full of

clothes, a knapsack, and the memories. She would discover that after the bruises

faded and the clothes wore out, the memories remained so indelible that it was

as if she'd been tattooed with the bloodstains of her childhood.
She hadn't relaxed until she'd boarded the Amtrak, stashed her suitcase in the

overhead bin, and taken a seat by the window where she could turn away from her

fellow passengers. That's when she began to believe that her mother had not

tracked her, and that she had indeed set herself free. She stared out the window

as Manhattan rolled away, the river too, and felt tears of relief dampening her

cheeks and spilling onto her skirt. She tried to brush them away but they'd

already formed a dark bloom on the burgundy fabric. Her nose clouded, and when

she checked her knapsack for a tissue she noticed the conductor standing in the

aisle.
"Are you okay, young lady?" he said softly. He was older, black with a puffy

white mustache.
"I'm sorry," she stuttered, careful to keep her head down so she wouldn't reveal

much of her poorly made-up face; unaware that her reflection in the window

already had given her away. "I know it's in here."
"Don't worry about your ticket none. Here." He leaned over and gave her a

freshly pressed white handkerchief.
She nodded her thanks.
"You traveling alone?"
"Yes." Her voice had become barely a whisper.
"You leaving whoever did that to you?"
Again she nodded.
"You're going to be okay now, you hear me? You go on to where you're going and

don't go back. You'll be okay. Chicago's a good town, lots of nice folks. You'll

see. Now take your time with that ticket. Don't worry yourself about it. It's a

long trip."
She swallowed hard, and as she wiped her eyes thought that perhaps his kindness

had marked her anew, and that the path she had chosen really would lead to a

better life, the kind some women had known since birth, where you were less wary

than welcomed, less leery than loved.
*
She'd left home twenty years ago last month, and had spent ten of them with

Jack. She found herself crying, then screamed his name so hard that her entire

body shook.
Jack heard her again, calling his name, and a few seconds later she repeated

something about a killer. But you're still alive, he told himself, and if you

survived him— whoever he is— I will too. Of course, if she'd been tangling with

the shepherd he could understand why she'd feel that he was a killer. But he's

definitely not, Jack thought dismissively, and he looked forward to assuring her

of this.
He hurried out of the house, tracking her distant voice. It sounded as if it

came from behind the wall of firs that lined the driveway. He stopped and

studied the shadows that greeted every turn of his eye, but it was damned

difficult to see into all that darkness. If he was going to find her quickly, he

had to risk calling out to her.
"Celia, I'm here, where are you?"
As soon as he said this he knew he'd revealed his location, so he spun around

quickly, holding the knife in front of him like a real street fighter. But no

one challenged him. And he told himself that no one would, not if they were

smart.
"I'm in the tank," she screamed.
The what?
"Be careful. There's a guy out there with a razor!"
A razor? He glanced at his foot-long blade. Good luck, buddy. Cocky, but still

cautious, he walked toward the firs and tried to look past them.
"Don't worry about me. I'm coming."
He pushed aside a branch, and saw more trees and bushes and the wooden tank

cover reflecting the moonlight. He wondered how the hell she had ended up in

there, of all places. Christ, couldn't she have picked a better spot?
As he stepped past the firs the branches scraped against him and rustled back

into place. He paused as they settled, and looked around carefully. Now he

realized that a man could be hiding in any of a dozen places: in the shadows,

crouched behind a tree, behind the thick vegetation, anywhere. Jesus. But

standing so close to the firs cut off his view of the driveway and made him feel

just as vulnerable, so he forced himself forward.
He'd covered about half the distance to the tank when he heard the twangy snap

of a twig. He froze. What the hell was that? He looked around but saw only those

shadows. He pivoted his right foot softly from side to side, then his left. No,

he hadn't stepped on anything. But he had heard it. He was sure of it. He kept

the knife in front of him but the glinting metal proved less persuasive now.
Still, he remained ready to strike as he moved ever closer to the tank, always

looking from side to side and glancing back behind him. In this fear-driven

manner he made his gains.
When he drew within three feet of the tank another twig snapped, and now Jack

did jump, and he sucked in a mouthful of air that sounded sharp in the

stillness.
"Jack, be careful. He's out there."
"It's okay, hon. It's okay."
He reached toward his wife's voice, felt the edge of the cover, and tried to

lift it, but couldn't. He realized he was standing near the hinge where the

resistance was greatest, so he inched toward the middle. While still facing the

shadows and keeping his knife hand free, he lifted the cover without once

looking in. When he'd raised it high enough he heaved it like a shot put and it

thundered open against the far side.
"Jack, thank God."
But still he didn't look down until he'd studied every tree and shadow that

surrounded him. Then and only then did he dare a glance at his wife's pained

face. He took heart in the fact that all the noise he'd just made hadn't

attracted anyone to leap from the darkness. Maybe they won't, or maybe— hell, it

was likely— they were gone.
He finally looked at Celia. "Are you hurt?"
"Yes! Get me out of here. Quick. Someone's out—"
"The shepherd?" Jack interrupted with great hope. "Because I just beat him up."
"No, not him," Celia replied frantically. "Davy's stepfather. Get me out of—"
"Davy who?"
"Forget it! Just," she sputtered, "just get me out of here."
"Okay, okay, here." Jack kneeled and stretched out his free hand. She was a

couple of feet away and appeared to have trouble moving through the water. He

looked back over his shoulder but only the night looked back.
"Hurry," he urged.
"I am," she said grimly, "but there are ra—"
She stopped in mid-sentence and her eyes shot past him. As he turned around she

screamed, "Watch out," but it was already too late. A powerful arm wrapped

around his chest, and a short sharp blade pressed against his neck.
"Drop it, asshole."
Jack hesitated even though he didn't have the knife in a useful position. He'd

been weighting the hand that held it while he reached for Celia, and now the man

with the blade was leaning on him so forcefully that Jack could hardly move his

fingers.
"Now!" Chet hissed.
"I'm trying."
Jack released the handle by scraping his knuckles against the hard dry earth.

Chet kicked the knife away.
"Good boy," he whispered in Jack's ear.
Chet held the razor firmly against his neck and watched that big vein throb like

the skin of a drum all stretched tight and just beating away for all it's worth.

He saw it thumping in the moonlight, and remembered how he'd seen a vein just

like it two weeks ago, the boy's mother, who knew knowing she was going to die,

begging him to let the kid leave. "He doesn't need to see this," that's what

she'd said. But she was all wrong. He did need to see it, and so does Mrs.

Griswold.
"Please don't hurt him."
There she is, begging already. We got a long night of this ahead.
"I'll do anything you want, just don't hurt him. Please."
Anything? But you're going to do anything I want anyway. You got to do better

than that, Mrs. Griswold. He shook his head over her foolishness and pressed the

blade harder against her husband's neck. The big asshole started to squirm. He

moved his lips closer to Jack's ear. "You're not cut yet. I just nicked you, so

quit moving or my hand could slip."
The body stilled, and Chet smelled the sweat steaming off him. Then he saw the

blood rise up along the edge of the blade. But that's nothing, not the gusher.

That's just a little skin stepping aside. He could almost hear this guy

thinking, What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And praying too. Oh, you bet.

Jesus, save me, save me. That's right, saying his prayers like a good little

boy. Praying for life and saying you're sorry when you're about to die. Eternal