The Matriarch (15 page)

“Frank—”

“But that’s not why you’re wrong.” He squints at me as if I’m in bright sunlight. “Your theory of the figs affecting women, changing them—it’s no good. You remember Kate Hammond? You met her at the funeral along with her husband and little girl.”

“Yeah.” I remember her all right.

“Well, she’s crazy about my figs. She’s had more than Carla and Lindee put together. She’s been here twice this past week beggin’ for more. And her husband Vic is still kickin’.”

I’d feel a whole lot better if I could actually see hubby Vic still kicking.

“This epidemic shit,” Frank goes on, jamming his hands down into his pockets. “Who in the world of statistics would call just
two
of anything an epidemic? On top a’ that you’re sayin’ whatever it is doesn’t affect men ’cause of their gender? Like folks with dicks don’t get it?” Again with the derisive snort.

“Why are you so angry?”

Frank seems to actually consider my question. “Shit sakes Cassidy, I’d hate to think that the figs I’ve been giving away … have caused …” He shakes his head. “I think you’d better watch yourself around that Dott woman.”

I can’t seem to get this man to really consider what I’m suggesting.

“Think about this, Cassidy. That woman pals around with a bunch of religious nuts who live in a tent, for shit sakes. She calls that tent a church!” He pauses, frowning as Louie comes out from under the table, his ears at attention. I guess he’s responding to the excited tension in Frank’s voice. “There’s some kind a’ name for that groupie sort a’ stuff … cult! That’s it! And her sexual problem has probably screwed her up plenty as well.”

“So you think Dott is a member of a religious cult. And a screwed up homosexual. That’s wonderful Frank, a really thoughtful opinion.”

“Well, okay, maybe not,” he allows, grudgingly. “But she’s nobody for you to take seriously, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Just let me show you how that tree is changing, Uncle—”

“No! I don’t have to …” A look of surprise comes into his eyes then. His mouth drops open, and his face goes white. His apparently boneless hand drifts down the face of a cabinet as he falls. It’s such a graceful move it looks rehearsed, and for a brief moment, I think he might be kidding—making some sort of lame joke. But of course, he isn’t.

I kneel and grab his shoulders, shaking him gently. “Don’t do this, Frank. Come on now.” Louie rushes over and begins licking the old man’s face.

He sits on the floor, his back resting against a cabinet. His eyelids flutter. He looks like a cadaver trying to come back to life. I put a hand behind his neck and massage it.

“C’mon, man, please.” After a moment his eyes slide back into focus. “Thank God,” I murmur. I get to my feet, find a glass, and fill it with water. I kneel again, pressing the glass to Frank’s lips.

I never should have pushed him that way. What the fuck is wrong with me? If the old guy doesn’t want to see The Tree, he doesn’t have to!

Water dribbles down Frank’s chin, and Louie laps it up. At last Frank takes a bit of liquid into his mouth and swallows.

“Good man! That’s the way.” A few more swallows, and I help him stand. He allows me to lead him to a chair at the kitchen table. I put two pieces of bread into the toaster. “You have to eat something, Uncle Frank. That’s all there is to it.” His eyes redden, and I know he’s close to tears. “It’s going to be all right … really.”

“Work’s the thing,” Frank mumbles. “It’s time we got started on the quake damage. That’s what we need to get us back to normal.”

I haven’t felt
normal
since I arrived in this valley. Diablo sounds more and more like a very apt name for this place. I put the heels of my hands to my temples and press, massaging my head there with tight circular motions. I can’t shake the memory of Frank sliding down to the floor, morphing from his cantankerous old self into this frightened and defeated old man I don’t even recognize.

Something is very wrong here. Something with that tree. What can I do about it? Who can I talk to?

Charlotte. I’ll start with her. I should at least tell her about the Banyon murder.

The toast pops up, and I set it on the table with a jar of jam. “Okay, we’ll go to work, Uncle Frank, first thing tomorrow. Eat this toast now, will you? And then take it easy the rest of the day. Where’s Lester, anyway?”

“Now there’s an interesting thing,” Frank says as he gingerly picks up a piece of the toast. “He’s off with the girls. Charlotte and Shelly. They asked him over for dinner at the Russo place, and I figured he needed a night off.”

“That
is
interesting.”

Frank studies the toast as if it’s a piece of foreign matter. But he finally takes a bite.

Breathing hard, Molly Hammond stands in the kitchen looking down at her stepfather. Her right hand is sticky and feels hot.

“Oh God.” Her voice is soft.

She’s holding a hatchet, its blade red with blood. Victor Hammond lies face down on the floor, the back of his head a tangle of blood, hair, and … ugly stuff.

Did I do that?

Victor’s blood has spilled from what’s left of his head onto the white ceramic tile of the kitchen floor. It’s soaking into the grout, turning it a vivid pink. Molly is grateful he’s on his chest and belly; she can’t see his eyes—his dead, staring eyes.

She didn’t like her stepfather, never had. Maybe she even hated him. Especially lately since he’d taken to teasing her about her height. But to whack him with a hatchet? She must have hit him plenty hard, that’s for sure. So how come she doesn’t remember doing that?

Molly suddenly thinks of Victor’s face, his eyes so full of mindless terror. “Oh God.” With amazement, she gazes at the bloody hatchet she’s still clutching in her right hand. “My mother’s husband. Oh God.” She looks at the clock but can’t see it because of her tears. As she blinks her eyes rapidly, she sees the time. It’s almost eleven o’clock at night. Molly has lost a whole lot of time somewhere. She thinks of her mother.

“I’ll be home by ten, Molly. See that I find you in bed.”

“Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God! She’s due home any minute!” Never has Molly felt so lost, so alone, so devastated. Not even in the first days of her mother’s marriage when she and Victor had hung on to each other in front of Molly like she wasn’t there. As if Molly had disappeared. Victor and her mother spent long hours locked away in their bedroom making odd scary noises. Today though is
much
worse.

Kate had always told Molly that she was special and that she couldn’t live without her sweet daughter. She had explained that the two of them were best friends and didn’t need others at all. Before Victor, Molly spent long lazy afternoons with her mother on a blanket in their lovely backyard with cans of cold soda, books, and Molly’s fantasy comic books. Just the two of them.

But then, Victor had come along. He had taken her mother away from her. Oh sure, she gave Molly a hug every now and then, but she knew her mother didn’t mean it anymore. Victor was now “the love of her life.”

And now Molly is alone with his cooling corpse. Again her eyes fill with tears.

Molly thought she was getting used to Victor, but yesterday proved her wrong. First it was that crappy funeral. After that some bad ideas had come into her head. Lots of them about Victor and what Molly would like to do to him, complete with mental images as clear to her as those in a movie.

Today has been the worst yet. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t keep those awful pictures from coming into her head.

After dinner, Kate went off to see one of her girlfriends. Molly and Victor were in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes when Victor lost one of his contact lenses. He got down on his hands and knees to look for it, running his hands slowly back and forth over the tile floor. As Molly watched, nasty thoughts mushroomed up in her mind just like in a horror movie. All of a sudden, Victor collapsed onto the floor face down, with no back to his head and bloody gunk everywhere. Molly couldn’t bear to think what all that pink, meaty-looking stuff coming out of Victor’s head might be.

She must have blacked out then, because the next thing she knew, she was standing over that same bloody Victor with the kindling hatchet in her hand. She didn’t remember getting it from the tool shed on the back porch.

Molly hears a car, its tires crunching on the gravel in the driveway. “Oh God! My mother’s home!” What to do? What
can
she do? She stands as if frozen, waiting.

“What …?” Kate Hammond tosses her purse onto a counter. She wears black pants and blouse, her arms ghost-white. Molly watches her mother’s eyes take in Victor’s body, herself, and the hatchet she holds at her side. She’s holding her breath.

Kate walks to Victor, kneels, and places two fingers at the side of his neck—the side that isn’t bloody.

“No pulse,” she says. Kate looks up at her daughter, her face stark and colorless.

Molly can’t meet her mother’s eyes. She stares down at her new white sneakers. They have bloody spots all over them, and she wonders if the spots will come out in the wash.

Kate rises from Victor’s body and moves toward Molly. She reaches long white arms out to her daughter, and the girl flinches.

“My poor baby,” her mother coos and gathers Molly close. Kate clasps her body, and with one long-fingered hand—its nails a shiny blood red enamel—crushes her daughter’s face to her lean bosom.

Molly gasps with relief.
Oh God. I’m home again. Like before Victor.
She melts into her mother, sobbing.

Kate lets her cry for a few minutes. Then, “Did you hate him?” She strokes the back of her daughter’s head, and the girl nods, no longer afraid to admit the truth. “Did he drive you crazy, sweetie? Drive you mad?” Molly pulls away slightly and looks up at her mother. “Did you want to hurt him?”

“Yes, Mama, I did.” It feels so wonderful to confess!

“Of course you did, Baby Girl, my little sweetie.” She kneels to face the girl and begins to wipe her face gently with a tissue. “Shall I tell you a secret?” Oh, how long it’s been since her mother has asked that question!

“Oh yes, Mama.”

“Everything you’ve been feeling, I’ve been feeling as well. Everything!” Molly’s eyes widen. “You see how alike we are? What a pair!” She laughs and kisses Molly’s forehead. A puzzled look crosses her face. “I didn’t know that until yesterday though. Odd.” She shrugs and rises.

There’s a bowl of figs on the counter. Kate selects one and tosses it to Molly. She then picks one up for herself.

“I’ve had too many today,” Molly says. She bites into the fig, but it seems wrong somehow, as if the fig is beginning to turn.

“I’ve had several myself, but I need the energy. And so do you, sweetie.” Kate gestures toward Victor’s body. “There’s a place I’ve been watering out back to get the ground ready for an herb garden. I think it’s probably soft enough now for the two of us to … manage.” She smiles and squeezes Molly’s shoulder playfully. “I know we’ll be able to put your stepfather to rest there. What do you think?”

Molly puts a hand to her stomach and rubs at her sudden nausea. Though relieved and amazed that her mother isn’t freaked out by what she’s done—and happy to have her back—she thinks she may throw up. And she knows it isn’t all because of those figs she’s eaten.

Thou shall not kill.

An important commandment, she knows, if not the most important one.

Molly Hammond has killed.

She’s taken a life. Molly can only hope her mother’s incredibly surprising approval of her act will be enough to take away the feeling of guilt and shame that now threatens to overwhelm her.

It’s very late, and The Church of Personal Peace is deserted when Dott hears someone at the heavy canvas door of the tent. She opens it, thinking it might be one of the converts with flowers or, if she’s lucky, a pot of stewed chicken or something equally sustaining.

A white-faced, sorry-looking young girl stands before her. It’s hard to tell her age—not a girl, really, but a long way from being a woman. Her face has a pinched, blotchy look, as if she’s been crying. She wears jeans, a clean white tee shirt, and a blue denim jacket. Her shoes are white sneakers with red spots all over them. She looks vaguely familiar to Dott.