The Lurking Man (7 page)

“Cailean, did you hear what I said?”

He sat at the bottom of the couch by her feet and he tapped his foot aggressively. He always did that when he was upset.

“Please stop shaking the couch,” she said.

“Then answer me when I ask you something.”

“Just keep your voice down and stop shaking the couch, OK?”

“I don't like it when you don't answer me,” he said.

“I know, Wilson. I'm exhausted and you just woke me up, what do you expect?”

“It's two pm.”

The windows were covered with heavy curtains and she had hung clothing off the curtain rod to block out any daylight that might enter the room through the slightest crack.

“I don't care what time it is,” she said. “Leave me alone and let me get back to sleep. I'm tired.”

“You're not tired, you're hung over again. There's a big difference.”

“What's it to you anyway?”

“It is everything to me, Cailean.”

A persistent ache in the back of her head was accompanied by a full body tremble that begged for more alcohol.

“You're totally creeping me out,” she said. “How long have you been sitting there watching me?”

“Long enough to know that as bad as I'm going to feel about it, I know this is the right thing for me to do.”

“What are you talking about? You're not even making any sense.” Her face was pressed into the cushion and her hand remained firmly on the floor. “Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?”

He pulled the blanket off of her completely and she looked at him with intense irritation.

He lifted a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his lap and waited until she looked at it. He turned it upside down and not a single drop came out.

“You are a drunk,” he said, and dropped the empty bottle on the floor. The loud clunk made her sit up.

“What is wrong with you?” she said.

“Look at what you've done to Beau's playroom,” he said. His eyes were locked somewhere in the distance, focused on his agenda. “You've turned it into this dark chamber of self-pity. I feel depressed just coming in here.”

“Why don't you lower your voice, Wilson? You know damn well that I'm not feeling well.”

“I am done giving you free passes. You continue to do this to yourself day after day and there is nothing I can do to help you anymore.”

“How did I ever guess?” she said. “As soon as I woke up and realized it was you sitting there, I knew that this would turn into a lecture session. Spare me, would you?” She settled on her side, muscled the blanket away from Wilson, and pulled it over her head.

“I didn't come here to lecture you. That hasn't changed a thing, and if I'm going to be honest with myself, I don't think anything I say or do ever will. I've come here to tell you that your behavior is unacceptable and it will not be tolerated anymore. Beau is at my mom's house and he will remain there until tomorrow. I'm giving you until then to be out of the house.”

She pulled the blanket down, stared at him for a second, and then laughed.

“You can't kick me out of the house. It's as much mine as it yours.”

“No, not anymore. You will go because I'm not going to give you any other choice.”

She sat up again and the nausea followed her. She realized that her wild hair, probably reaching out in all directions, and her puffy eyes and tired face contorted into a look of disbelief made her look even more deranged. “You know, why don't you cut the crap? This isn't funny and I get the message. Let's wait until I'm feeling a little better so we can talk about it rationally.”

Wilson shook his head. “What annoys me most about this entire thing is that you weren't considerate enough not to get yourself drunk because of the appointment.”

“What appointment?”

He heaved a sigh. “Beau had an appointment at the doctor's office today and you made a promise to him that you would come.”

She swung her feet onto the floor. “I'll get dressed! How long until we have to be there?”

He shook his head again, this time for a while. “You are so lost inside that bottle. It's like you haven't heard a thing I've said to you.”

She stared at him blankly, her mind inconceivably disorganized.

He stood, walked to the curtains, and yanked them down. Light flooded the room and Cailean clamped her eyes shut and turned her head.

“What are you doing?”

“I've already told you that the morning has come and gone,” he said. “Beau has already been to the doctor's and he is now at my parents' house so he doesn't have to see this.”

“See what? Why didn't you wake me?”

“I tried, but you wouldn't budge.”

She shook her head and shoved the blanket onto the floor. “You didn't try and wake me! You did this on purpose so you could use it as an excuse to get me out of the house.”

She stood, teetered, and sat again.

“Look at you,” Wilson said, his voice full of pity. “You can't even stand up.”

“I can stand just fine. I just woke up out of a deep sleep and I need a few more minutes to gather myself.”

“Beau cried because he couldn't understand why you weren't there.”

She clamped her eyes shut. “Why do you always have to tell me this?”

“Because it is the truth. That is what you do to him. He thinks the reason you didn't go was because of his condition. He asked me if you were embarrassed by it.”

“Of course I'm not embarrassed. You told him that, right?” she said, her eyes as wild as her hair.

“I wouldn't tell him anything bad about you. I'm not going to do that. But you need to know that you are making an impression on him that is going to last a lifetime. It is going to set a tone about the way he feels about himself and the way he interacts with others.”

“I know what I've done. I don't need you to keep reminding me.”

“Maybe I don't because it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference. He's only eight years old and he's been through more crap than most fifty-year-olds. Why can't you just stop and be normal for his sake?”

“How am I supposed to answer that? There's no switch I can flip. It's just not that easy.”

“I don't know, Cailean. I guess I want to know what is going on inside of you and how I can help you deal with it.”

“You can't.”

“And that's it?”

“I resent you for always making it my fault. I've never heard you once accept any responsibility in this.”

“You're right,” he said and bobbed his head. “I am to blame for allowing this to go on for as long as it has.” He picked up the bottle of Jack Daniels and set it down on the end table. He walked out of the room. “I can't believe what you have become,” he said as he walked down the hall. “Just make sure you are out of the house by morning.”

She inspected the room she was in and saw what Wilson was talking about: she had barricaded herself in and the light exposed her filth. Separated from her family and the rest of the world, she caged herself in with the nasty thing that lived inside of her.

“Oh, here,” Wilson said, returning to the room. He removed an envelope from his pocket and leaned it against the empty whiskey bottle. “There is enough money in there for a hotel room and some food for a few days. I suggest you don't drink it away. Maybe you can call your boyfriend to help you out. I don't know if he's any better than you and I don't really care anymore. I just hope you are sober enough to know that there are no more chances and that I have never been so serious about something as I am about this.”

“Wilson?”

“I don't care what you take or intend to destroy because you're pissed at me so as long as it doesn't belong to Beau. Like I said, I will be back with him in the morning, and for your sake, you better be long gone by then.”

“Wilson!”

“I don't want to get the police or Child Protective Services involved, but I will call them if I have to.”

“Please, don't do this to me.”

“I'm not doing anything to you. You did this all by yourself.”

“I'll stop drinking and go back to seeing my doctor. If I miss an appointment, then you can tell me to leave. Give me a chance to fix this. Please, I don't want you to give up on me. Not now.”

He shook his head.

“We're way past that now. You won't stop until you realize how big of a problem you really have.”

“You're doing this because you blame me for what happened to Beau.”

“What I blame you for is being a drunk.”

“Look at what happened to me as a kid! How can you think that is easy to live with?”

“I know it hasn't been easy. But when we married and decided to have a child you said that was behind you. We agreed on therapy and counseling, but after a while you decided that you didn't want to do that. I don't know what happened or where we went wrong, but you started drinking again and it quickly grew into this.”

“I never stopped drinking, Wilson. It is the only thing that eases the pain and stifles the memories.”

“Like I said, shame on me for not seeing it sooner and for allowing it to get this far. I don't know, maybe you should have focused your energy on mothering your son. If you did that instead of floundering in your misery I'm sure it would have helped lessen your pain.”

“Oh, Wilson, please.”

“You chose to drink and neglect your family. The worst part is you're screwing up your own kid because of some awful man that lived across the street from you when you were a child. I figured you would have learned from that, knowing how a dysfunctional adult could affect a child as it did you.”

“You don't know how awful it was.”

“Then why wouldn't you learn from that and try and protect our son from it?”

Her face reddened.

“Just go and get the hell outta here!” she waved a dismissive hand, stood, and pushed her way past him. She walked to the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator. She took out a beer.

“There is nothing you can say to me that I haven't thought of already.”

“You need to stop drinking,” he said.

“Don't tell me what to do.”

She opened the beer and drank.

“I told you that you cannot do this here anymore!” He snatched the beer out of her hand. She reached for it, but he pulled it away.

“Do you know how hard it is living with the memory of what was done to me and what I did to you and Beau? Can't you try and grasp for one second what it must be like for me?”

He dumped the beer into the sink.

“Yes, Cailean, I can because we've been living it with you every single day. It's what you are, it's a part of your anatomy, and I cannot accept that any longer.”

She got another beer.

“Look at you,” he said. “You're drunk all the time and you disappear for days. Your husband and son shouldn't have to wonder where you are and whether or not you're ever going to come home again.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You say you know what it is like, that you've had to live it with me, but I can assure you that you don't know what it is like. You couldn't possibly know what it feels like in here.” She pounded her chest.

“Please, stop feeling sorry for yourself all the time, Cailean. It is pitiful and it has worn me out.”

He grabbed the beer out of her hand, cracked it open, poured it out, and crushed the can.

“I can never escape the thought of what I have done to him or my father,” she said, her eyes filled with a mix of regret and frustration.

“You didn't do anything to your father. He did what he did to protect you.” He walked to the front door and paused. “And you've let his sacrifice stand for nothing.”

“How can you be so cruel?” she shouted and cried harder. “I don't know where you expect me to go from here. I really don't.”

“Now you will have plenty of time to figure that out.”

He looked at her over his shoulder.

“And don't bother trying to find all of your stashes of beer, wine, and booze throughout the house. They are all gone. I got rid of them before I woke you. I left those last few beers in the refrigerator to see how much we really meant to you. I am certain I understand now.”

He exited the house and gently closed the door.

For the first time in a very long time, Cailean was sober. The sudden realization that she had been forsaken stifled her buzz and brought her back to reality. The pain in this moment was more intense than the memory of her past. She collapsed to the floor and submitted herself to a steady flow of tears.

Chapter 8

 

 

TRUMPET LILIES

 

 

Present day.

 

“Cailean?” Sariel said.

The untamed sound of his voice startled her. She had been focused on the ebony wall and how it succeeded in containing her. Merely an expanse absent of light, it filled her with such angst and did so without words.

“What are you thinking?” he said.

“About the obscurity and how it troubles me. And that box,” she said, and looked at it by her feet. “There's something about it that I don't like at all.” She backed away from it.

“Why do you think it troubles you so?”

“I know there's something inside it that I don't want to see.”

“But you know you must,” he said.

She nodded. “I know.”

“Look straight ahead. Try to focus on me.”

The gray light that surrounded him remained unabated and she watched him with a steady focus, not knowing what to expect.

“Forget about the box by your feet and let us talk about your glimpse into the past,” he said. “What did you get out of everything you saw?”

She turned to her thoughts and didn't like what she felt. “That I was unloved and rejected when I was at my lowest.”