Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.
17
After dropping off Mom, I drove home. Katie was lounging on the couch, doing a fine job of emptying a half gallon of chocolate-brownie-chunk ice cream while hunched over a book the size of a small island.
“Exam?” I dropped my laptop bag on the table next to the door and headed into the kitchen to hunt down a snack.
“No, just a quiz. What’s up?”
Finding nothing, I grabbed a spoon and joined Katie on the couch. I dug into the carton, extracting a big blob of chocolate ice cream. “I’m going undercover again.” I dumped the cold dessert into my mouth and had a “foodgasm.”
“Cool. I’m jealous. I’d love to have a summer job like that. Any chance the PBAU needs a chemist?” Katie handed me the carton. “I’m done. You can have the rest.”
“Thanks. I’ll check with the chief about the job.” I spooned some more chocolate heaven into my mouth.
“The ice cream was yours, anyway. And thanks for checking with the FBI for me. For some reason, research and development isn’t looking all that great anymore.” Katie closed the book and leaned back. “I always knew what I wanted to do when I finished school. But now ... I’ve lost the love. It’s all just letters and numbers to me.”
“Maybe you’re burned-out.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to take a step back from chemistry for a while, and take a look at what else is out there.”
“You could realize chemistry isn’t such a bad thing,” I said as I dug another scoop out of the carton. “I’m telling you, there isn’t much out there worth getting too excited about.”
“I don’t doubt it. But I need a change. I bet I’d be a kick-ass undercover agent for the FBI.”
“Sure,” I said around a mouthful of sin.
“Just like you. It would be so exciting. We could work together. Like Cagney and Lacey.”
“Who’s that?”
“I don’t know. A couple of girl cops. I caught part of a show on TV the other night.”
“Katie, I’m pretending to be pregnant. I doubt it’ll be all that great. Not to mention, I’ll have JT following me around all the time. Even at night.”
“I would’ve thought you’d be happy about that.” She gave me a nudge. “I mean, you two were swapping DNA here on our couch, weren’t you?”
“No. There was no DNA swapping involved. And speaking of DNA, he told me he fathered a child recently. With another coworker.”
Katie’s expression went blank. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” I filled my mouth with more ice cream.
“Bastard,” she muttered.
“Yeah.”
“We hate him.”
“Yes, we do.” I set the carton aside and dropped my face in my hands. “And now, I think I have to sleep in the same bed with him. See? This undercover thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Katie gave me a pat of commiseration. “Still beats sitting around, injecting rodents with toxins, and then measuring their tumors.”
I grimaced. “Okay, maybe it does.”
“The wedding’s off!” my mother said between blubbering snuffles and hiccups.
It was late, almost eleven at night. Mom had called me just as I was going to bed and threatened bodily harm—to my father, not me—if I didn’t come over
right away.
So here I was.
“The wedding’s off? Why?” I asked her as I stood next to the door, tracking her frenzied motions with my eyes.
Ignoring my question, my mother threw a wadded pair of velour lounge pants into the open suitcase sitting on her bed. “I’m coming to stay with you.”
“But—”
“What was I thinking? How could I be such a fool?” Mom emptied one dresser drawer in a single scoop and dumped its contents into the suitcase.
“Mom, what happened?”
“What happened? I’ll tell you.” She dragged her hand across her face, under her nose, and blinked bloodshot eyes at me. “You were right. He’s a bastard. A two-faced lying bastard.” She emptied a second drawer, dropping the armload into the bag. Then she smashed the pile down to make room for more. “I don’t ever want to speak to that man again.”
“Mom.” I tried to still her by grabbing her by the shoulders and staring into her eyes. But it didn’t work for more than a split second. She went back to her dresser for more clothes. “Please stop moving around, Mom. I’m getting dizzy just watching you. It would be better if we sat down and talked about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She paused. She set her hands on her hips and gave me a funny look. “Why are you trying to change my mind? All along, you’ve said you didn’t trust him. Here I am, saying you were right, and now you want me to talk about it?”
“I just want to make sure—”
“I’m not delusional,” she finished for me. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“Well ...”
Mom gritted her teeth, but at least she didn’t go back to packing. She slumped onto the bed, yanking me down next to her. “Okay. You wanted to hear the whole story? I’ll give you the whole story. In a nutshell, your father is a two-timing cheat.” She stopped.
After about twenty seconds of waiting for the rest of the story, I asked, “That’s it? That’s the whole story?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Are you sure he’s been unfaithful?”
“He admitted it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Mom crossed her arms over her chest and gave me an I-told-you-so look. “You want to tell me now that I’m being delusional?”
“I guess not.”
She went back to packing. “Don’t worry. I won’t stay with you for long. That bastard is going to pay through the nose.” She patted her flat stomach. “None of us are going to want for anything.” She flopped the top over the suitcase and zipped it shut.
I dragged it—oh, my God, heavy!—off the bed and wheeled it down the hallway to the stairs.
Ugh. Stairs!
Mom snorted and gave it a shove with her foot. Down it went, flipping end over end down the steps. It landed with a thump at the bottom, just as the object of my mother’s rage rounded the corner.
He looked at the bag.
He looked at us.
His eyebrows squished together.
“Yes, I am leaving you,” Mom yelled. “My lawyer will be in touch.” Head held high, she stomped down the staircase. I followed her, watching my father watch her. A dozen expressions crossed over his face. I couldn’t name them all. Didn’t even try.
“Is it true?” I whispered. “Did you cheat on Mom?”
“I wish there were something I could say to make this better” was his response.
It was as close to an admission of guilt as I needed. I shook my head and followed Mom outside. When I caught up to her, I took the suitcase from her and hauled it to the car. It went into the trunk, Mom went into the passenger seat, and away we drove.
Mom cried all the way to my apartment.
By three in the morning, my head was pounding so hard I was seeing stars.
I could hardly walk from being so exhausted.
And all I wanted to do was climb back into my cozy bed and go to sleep.
But my mother was standing in the middle of the living room, prancing around in her wedding gown, and screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs.
The neighbors were all letting me know how unhappy they were about Mom’s outburst. Some were banging on the adjoining walls. Others were pounding on their ceiling (my floor). Some had gone to the trouble of knocking on my door. I answered to find six furious men and women crowded in the hallway.
“I’m very sorry. I’ll get her settled down immediately,” I said, risking life and limb by poking my head out to deliver my apology. I closed the door, slid a help-me look at one stressed-out, sleep-deprived Katie, and then rushed to my mom’s side.
“Mom.” I waved my hands in front of her face.
“I don’t give a fuck what you need,” she shrieked in the general direction of the window. “You stay the hell away from me and my baby!”
“Mom, who are you yelling at?”
“The fucking bird!”
“Bird?” I checked the window.
There was a blackbird sitting on a tree branch. Had I been too hasty in dismissing the possibility that Mom could be a target of our unsub? I went to open the window, but Mom stopped me.
“It’s dangerous,” she warned.
“I’m ... going to shoo it away for you.” I wanted to get a look at that bird. I needed to get a look at it.
Mom literally pried my fingers off the window frame. “Don’t open the window!”
“I’m only going to open it a little—”
“No. Not even an inch. Not even a half inch.” Mom banged on the window; then she yanked the drapes shut. “That thing will get me. It’ll take my baby. Just like it did to those other women.”
“How could you ... ?” My gaze wandered around the room. I’d left some files sitting next to the couch. She wouldn’t have.
Yes, she would.
She spun in a circle, looking from one piece of furniture to another. Her gaze settled on the bookshelf. “Help me move this, Sloan.”
“Oh, Mom, have you been reading my case notes?”
Struggling with the shelving unit, Mom nodded. Her gaze jerked to the pile of file folders. “I read everything. I know what’s happening.”
“Please stop that. It’s too heavy. You’re going to hurt yourself, and maybe the baby too.” I gently pulled her away from the heavy piece of furniture. I steered her toward the couch. “You weren’t supposed to see that stuff.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left it out for me to see.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I’d regret. “Since you know as much as you do already, you must realize that bird can’t be what we’re looking for.”
“Why’s that?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Because all the other women were close to their due dates.” I pointed at her flat stomach. “You’re not even remotely close.”
She flattened both hands over her stomach and gave a little “hmpfh.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” my mother argued. “Maybe she just
prefers
mothers who are closer to their due dates. Maybe any expectant mother will do.”
“That’s possible. Sure. But for some reason, I doubt it. So far, the unsub’s MO hasn’t changed. You can check yourself. Every victim was within two weeks of her due date. Yours is months off. A serial killer doesn’t generally change her MO after killing for so long. We think this one may have been killing for many years. Decades. Every single victim we have tracked down was at least thirty-six weeks pregnant.” Figuring none of us would get any sleep until that big mangy blackbird outside left, I went back to the window and knocked as hard as I could. It didn’t budge. Even I had to admit, it seemed to be staring at us.
This was tough, discerning whether Mom’s worries were a manifestation of her paranoia or truly worthy of concern. But the more I thought about it, the more I believed it was a matter of her psychosis than reality.
Mom pulled a blanket over herself and let her head fall back. “I don’t believe you. I think she’s waiting for me to go to sleep. She’s going to suck out all my blood and steal my baby. We need to make sure all the windows are shut and locked.”
“Okay, Mom,” I said, deciding I’d get to bed a whole lot faster if I humored her rather than argued. “We’ll lock the windows.” With the help of Katie, I made the rounds checking and double-checking all the window locks. Meanwhile, Mom dumped lines of salt on every windowsill in our apartment. She also put one in front of every door.
“The salt keeps them away,” she said.
“Did you read that in those papers too?” I asked, hoping maybe she’d stumbled upon something I hadn’t, like the name of the creature we were trying to track down.
“No. It’s something my mother told me when I was growing up.”
Her mother, like mine, was schizophrenic. Along with the advice about the salt, which I’d never heard before, she’d also been the recipient of such sage counsel as, “Make sure you wear tinfoil on your head when you go outside, so that you’re safe from space alien transmissions.” That one, Mom had shared with me.
However, I’d long ago decided a bit of foil wasn’t going to save me from aliens. But to this day, my mother has been known to wear a little scrap on her head somewhere, usually hidden in her hair.
In summary, there was no convincing the woman of anything.