Keeper of the Keys (34 page)

“I’m glad to see you,” Kat said, and broke into a smile. “It’s been a long time.”

“I’m glad, too. It’s so good to see you, Kat. I can’t believe it.”

“We joined forces to look for you.”

Leigh’s eyes welled. “I didn’t expect that. I thought you both hated me.”

“I never hated you, Leigh,” Kat said. “Are you all right?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I’m not sick, if that’s what you mean. But there have been times when I thought I might never come back. I just couldn’t see my way out. I needed time.”

“I don’t give a shit about what happened with Martin anymore,” Ray said. “And I swear, you don’t have to run from me. I will never hurt you. I’m sorry if I scared you that night.”

“Oh, my darling. Of course, you would never hurt me! I didn’t leave because of Martin. I didn’t leave because you were so mad.” She closed her eyes for a moment. Then, when Ray tried to speak again, she laid her finger across his lips.

A fan spun overhead and a chill ran down Kat’s back.

“I’ll explain. Just let me catch my breath. Hold me, please. Tight.”

“Tell me one thing,” Ray said. “Tell me you’ll come home.”

The look she gave him puzzled Kat. Leigh put a hand on her husband’s shoulder and it was a look like a goddess comforting a penitent, a look full of love and—what? Pity? “You came a long way to find me. I hope—I pray you won’t regret it,” Leigh said.

“Never,” Ray said. “Come home with us.”

“I need to explain but I’m afraid.”

During the pause that followed, Kat stood up and said, “I’m sorry. Where are my manners? I’ll leave you two for a little bit, okay? You can catch up. I’ll take a dip or something.”

“Don’t go,” Leigh said firmly. “We’ve all kept too many secrets. No more of that. Let’s just go. I’ll tell you everything soon. So much to say, but first, we need to pack up and get on the road. I want to go home.”

She went over to hug Kat for a long time. “You haven’t changed a bit. You’re as extreme as ever,” she said with a flash of her old impudence, giving Kat’s cheek a quick caress. Then, “This will just take a minute,” she said, opening drawers and tossing clothing toward her suitcase.

They checked out of the motel, Ray slipping the clerk a hundred-dollar bill and being rewarded with the name of the clerk’s brother, who would be willing to drive Leigh’s van back to L.A. He collected Ray’s money, collected the card keys, and turned back to a small television at the back of the office, which was at that moment offering up a compelling advertisement about pizza.

When they opened the door to leave, the clerk spoke at last, still watching the TV.

“You all find what you were looking for here?”

They nodded.

“Leaving me with just the tumbleweeds, the old folks, and the highway patrol for company.” He chuckled raggedly. “Well,
hasta luego.
”

“I bet he’s a transplant,” Kat said, as they walked through the parking lot toward the Echo. “I think he got stuck here because his elderly parents owned this run-down motel. He spruced it up, advertised in some good magazines, and gets all his news from travelers.”

“You still do that,” Leigh said. “Make up things about people. Oh, it’s so good to see you, kiddo.”

“Sit with Ray in back,” Kat said. “I’ll chauffeur.” She should be dying of curiosity, she supposed, but she wasn’t. She didn’t care why Leigh had left. She only cared that Leigh was returning, with new chances all around.

Or perhaps some part of her just wanted the moment to stay bright and unalloyed, pure, happy. Ray and Leigh were holding each other, and she could feel in a visceral way both Ray’s overwhelming joy and Leigh’s deep relief at being found.

Leigh’s face when she said, “I pray you won’t regret it”—let that wait, let the universe hold still for a few moments and just rejoice.

After stopping for gas and a snack at a convenience gas station, they climbed back into the mountains at top speed. For as long as they had open highway, Kat drove fast, dashing from one lane to another, eyes glued to the side mirrors, watching for trouble.

Leigh’s mood changed. She pulled away a little, looking out the window silently, though she kept Ray’s hands in hers. Every once in a while they would lean their heads together, murmur to each other, their love for each other obvious.

Kat passed her bottled water back to Leigh. They were at the top of the grade, looking down on the L.A. Basin. All they could see was brown air swathing everything. External temperature, ninety-four.

Leigh stirred. “Um, take the 605,” she said, “when you can, okay?”

Kat, caught up in the flow of getting home, was thrown off. “That’s not on our route. Why should I take the 605? I mean, Whittier?”

“I promise it makes sense,” Leigh said. “Could we stop and get coffee or something? This isn’t going to be easy.”

Kat pulled off and they found a chain restaurant. When the coffee came, Leigh talked. And talked. And talked.

A pounding at the door. At first, Esmé covered her ears with the extra pillow. That didn’t work. Her head began to pound along with someone’s fist, pow, pow, pow. She wished she had not drunk so very much whiskey that night, or at least had eaten dinner. Sodden and fragile, she realized that, now awake, she wouldn’t be able to sleep again. Fury built. That noise! She had to make it stop!

What time was it? Three in the afternoon, not good, not good.

Sliding out of bed, which caused a nasty shifting of perspective, she peeked out the side window toward the porch and saw a tableau of three shadowy figures in blinding sun. Her heart froze as she recognized Ray. Two women flanked him. One was tall. Leigh.

So you’re back, she thought. Back to ruin my life. The fury grew, as if it had an existence of its own, had lived independently inside her for many years. They had come like furtive critters who dig up carcasses in the night forest, that bring the soil aboil.

She peeked again from the raised curtain-corner. The two women stood silently along the pathway to the house, having retreated from the porch. Ray had disappeared. Well, she had taken his key away, hadn’t she? What could she expect? Her boy wanted in. He would not be denied.

She would fight. He had no right to violate her space. He was a traitor to the family, no longer welcome.

But he was her darling son. She had lived her life for him.

No more.

Which?

Swaying between emotions, her mind achieved a moment of clarity, and she understood he would attack the weak point of the house, the single basement window, the chink in her battlements.

She ran into the living room and located her sharp knife. She could not allow Ray to bumble around in that basement. She would have to go stop him.

Was there some way to explain away anything Leigh must have told him by now? Could she save him, sacrificing only the peripheral people who did not matter? Padding through the dark hallway toward the closed door that led to the basement stairs, she thought, I’ll just deny everything she says, whatever she told him.

But Ray would believe Leigh, not her. It’s a matter of love, she thought. He has cleaved to his wife and left me. She breathed in the bitterness of his abandonment and it mixed with the anger.

Glass broke. She heard the basement window creak open, the window she expected to open. She had every right to protect herself and—and—her hand shook, holding the knife ready. He was breaking in, all right. I thought it was a burglar, Judge, she thought, her mind swirling. It isn’t always about you, son, some of it is about me, my basic survival, and now when you turn your back after I have given you everything, everything—

Down below, like a big rat scurrying around in the dark, Ray was trying to find his way up.

29

Y
our mother attacked me,” Leigh had said in that highway diner to Ray, earlier in the evening, after finishing a cup of strong, steaming hot coffee, “the night I left you. With a chisel.”

Ray stood up. “Have you lost your mind? My mother—I don’t believe this.” The man in the next booth let his paper fall to the table and turned around.

“Please. Ray. Sit down,” Kat whispered. She pulled him back into the booth beside her.

“It’s outrageous. A damn lie! What are you trying to do to us, Leigh?”

Leigh looked him in the eye. “I wish I could spare you this, but I can’t hide what happened any longer. You have to know. I’m sorry but I am telling the truth. She stabbed me in the stomach with a chisel.”

She continued as if an inner propeller had started up and could not be stopped. “I ran upstairs and out of the house, holding my hand inside my shirt to stop the bleeding, to hold myself in one piece. Ray—I heard her coming behind me. I was so terrified. She’s strong when she wants to be, you know. I barely got inside the van, with the door shut, when I heard her whack the rear grille and I started up and drove like crazy. I didn’t know where.

“Once I got to the freeway I looked down and saw my shirt was wet and my hand on the steering wheel was wet. I was bleeding, feeling a lot of pain, so I stopped and asked directions at a gas station.” She ran a hand through her hair. “What amazed me was how calm I felt then just being in my own car, as if I was out of danger. Funny, isn’t it? The guy directed me to an urgent care clinic. I had a towel over my stomach, so he couldn’t see anything, I guess, or maybe he would have offered to drive me or called an ambulance.

“Anyway, they asked what happened, and I said I did it to myself, that I made furniture and had stumbled against a tool in my shop. I don’t know if they believed me, but what could they do about it? They sewed me up, gave me a shot, prescriptions, all that. The gash skimmed along the front of my stomach and if I had been facing another direction I would have taken a hit in my liver and probably would have died.”

Ray’s face was screwed up like a child’s. “You can’t be saying my mother would do a thing like that.”

“She did, Ray. She would have killed me. I’ve thought and thought about it.”

“But why? Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Then I tried to think. I wanted to call you. I wanted your arms around me and the safety of our house, but we had fought—I thought you never wanted to see me again. And I felt like—like it would kill you to hear this. Look at you now!”

Kat said, “Take it easy, Ray. Just listen for now, okay?”

“I hate having to talk to you like this. I know how much you love her. I have rehearsed many ways of telling you over the past days, but I can’t make it easier.” She began to sob.

“It’s okay,” Kat told her. She reached across the table to hold Leigh’s cold, trembling hand for a moment. “Just tell us what happened.”

“Well, after the clinic, I—was still feeling very shocked and pretty battered. I needed to think and the cabin at Idyllwild seemed like a logical place to rest and take some painkillers. I drove up there and collapsed. The next day, even though I was still in some pain, I got worried you might think of the cabin and follow me there, so I moved on. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight, but I thought you didn’t love me anymore. I thought I had lost your trust forever. And still, I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already had.”

Ray said, “Leigh, you have it all wrong. Martin was right about one thing. I drove you away from me. Ever since you started talking about having a child—I got so scared. I drove you to him. You needed to be loved and I took my love away. And then I wanted to blame you for everything! I could see myself—hurting you back. Hurting you more.” Ray closed his eyes and shook his head. “I wanted you to go. I’m afraid you felt that.”

She nodded. “That’s why you called your mother and told her about Martin and me. I can only imagine what you said. And she—she got so angry at the hurt I caused you, she wanted me to die.”

“No! No! I didn’t call her! I wouldn’t do that! She didn’t know until Sunday!”

“Are you sure?” Leigh said. “It’s all right, I don’t blame you.”

“I didn’t! She didn’t know until after that night! You’re all messed up! None of this is true!”

“Wait,” Kat said. “Keep your voice down, Ray. Sssh. Ray, think about the shirt we found.”

Ray put his face in his hands.

“Leigh, go back, just explain again. You left the Topanga house. Why would you drive to Whittier?”

“I was going to my parents’ house,” Leigh said. “But just as I got to town I saw Esmé’s inhaler lying there on the car seat, you know, the one she needs for her asthma. I saw that and thought, oh, damn. She’s running out.”

“She used one while I was there on Sunday. Must have been the same one,” Ray said.

Kat asked, “But why did you have the inhaler, Leigh?”

“Esmé called the house on Friday morning, but Ray had gone in to work early, so I got the call. Her local pharmacy had run out and wouldn’t get any until Monday. She asked me to ask Ray to pick it up in L.A. and bring it on Sunday, during our regular dinner. I offered to bring it over instead.

“I just thought I’d drop it off. It was only a few more miles, and then I’d go stay with my folks. I got to Close Street, but I couldn’t raise her. She didn’t answer the door, so I went in the kitchen because I know she leaves that door unlocked sometimes when she takes out the trash. I called out—getting more worried. Then I saw the basement door open.”

“She keeps it locked.”

“Right. I thought maybe she had an asthma attack down there, or slipped down those steep steps. So I went in and ran down the stairs. It was so weird.” She paused, narrowing her eyes, remembering.

“What, Leigh?” Kat said.

“Well, I came down fast. She whirled around, and there was an instant there when I’d swear she was deciding this was exactly the right thing to do, then she stabbed me with the chisel. I dropped the inhaler, which was still in my hand in a bag, and I stumbled back up the steps. She followed me, but I guess the situation got her worked up. I could hear her wheezing, trying to catch me.”

Ray had kept his hurt, shocked eyes on Leigh. “A chisel?” he interrupted. “Why would she be in the basement with a chisel?”

“I don’t know,” Leigh answered. “Trying to get something open? Do you know what she keeps down there? I mean, it looked empty to me.”