Don't Make Me Beautiful (41 page)

Nicole tries to answer, but her voice comes out sounding strangled.
 
“I …
gah
… I don’t know about…”

“I’m coming over right now.
 
No better time than the present, right?”

The phone goes dead and Nicole just stares at it, the butterflies flying mad circles and figure-eights in her stomach.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

LOCKED DOORS DON’T STOP BRIAN for a second.
 
Wrapping his hand with an old work rag, he punches out a pane of glass on the back door and has the thing unlocked in less than a minute.
 
The place has a musty smell to it.
 
John hasn’t made it out of the hospital yet, apparently, because the place definitely doesn’t have a lived-in feel anymore.

There’s a layer of dust on everything and something rotten coming from the area around the refrigerator.
 
Brian walks quickly through the house to stand at the front door, waiting for Nicole, Helen, and Agnes to join him inside.
 
The key sitting in the lock makes it a piece of cake to let them in.

“Come on,” Helen says, taking Nicole by the elbow.
 
“Time to slay some dragons.”

Nicole doesn’t budge.
 
Her face is pale-white and she’s shaking her head.
 
“I can’t.”

Brian holds out a hand.
 
“Come on, babe.
 
There’s nothing in here that can hurt you anymore.”

Nicole’s taking big gulping breaths.
 
It looks like she might be ready to vomit.

Agnes places her hand on Nicole’s shoulder.
 
“Sweetie, what are you worried about?
 
Tell us.
 
Maybe we can help.”

Nicole stares down at the threshold.
 
“I just … I sat on the other side of that line, wanting to come out for so long.
 
And now I’m here.
 
I’m afraid … I’m afraid …”
 
She looks at the ceiling of the porch, as if tipping her head back will keep the tears from falling.
 
“… If I go back in, maybe I’ll wake up and realize this was all a dream.”
 
She looks at Agnes and then Brian.
 
“…That I’ll be inside again, looking out.”

“But you know that’s not true,” says Agnes, her tone letting everyone know how badly she feels for Nicole.
 
“You’re a smart girl. Besides, you know you’ve never had a dream this detailed before.”

Nicole looks at her absently.
 
“That’s true.”
 
She goes back to staring at Brian, her face full of anguish.
 
“But I’m still afraid.”

Brian steps over the threshold and holds out his hands.
 
“Take my hands and I’ll go with you.
 
You’re not alone.”

“We all will,” says Helen, holding out a hand too.

“Together,” says Agnes. She holds out a frail, bony hand.

Nicole takes Agnes’s and Helen’s hands, laughing just slightly as she looks at Brian apologetically.
 
“I only have two.”

“See?
 
You have more help than you need.”
 
Brian walks up and takes her face gently.
 
“Nothing can hurt you anymore in here.
 
Just painful memories, but we’re here for you, okay?
 
Come on … let’s do this.”

Nicole walks forward as Brian’s hands slip down to her shoulders.
 
He’s guiding her without pulling, as the women walk next to her.

She smiles briefly. “I feel like I’m in a love straightjacket.”

“Am I holding too tight?” asks Agnes.
 
“I have to admit, I’m a little nervous.
 
I can imagine how scared you must be.”

“No, I don’t mean it like that.”
 
Nicole looks at the older woman.
 
“I like love straightjackets.
 
They make me feel safe.”

Brian backs over the threshold and lets Nicole go.
 
“Your turn,” he says, glancing down at the slight rise in the flooring Nicole has to move her feet over before she’s officially inside the house.

Nicole lets Helen and Agnes go.
 
“Okay.”
 
She huffs out a loud breath and squares her shoulders.
 
“I can do this.”
 
Lifting her foot and letting it hesitate over the threshold for a few seconds, she finally steps into the house.
 
One foot in front of the other puts her into the foyer where she stops and looks around.

Helen and Agnes come in right behind her.

“It smells different,” says Nicole, wrinkling her nose a little.

“No one’s been in here for a while,” says Agnes.
 
“The place needs a good dusting.”

“There’s rotten food in the fridge,” Brian says.

“Someone should just burn the whole thing down,” says Helen, walking into the living room.
 
She stares down at the holes in the carpeting.
 
“What happened here?”

Brian clears his throat, glancing at Nicole before he answers.
 
She seems to be waiting for his explanation.

“That’s where I found Nicole. He probably cut out the spots in the carpet that had blood on them.”

“Must have been quite a bit,” says Agnes, holding onto the edge of the arch leading into the room.

“So where’s this picture?” asks Helen, walking back to the front hall and facing Nicole.

Nicole points to a narrow table against the stairs.
 
“It used to be there.
 
He always kept it there where I’d have to see it all the time.”

“Stay here,” Brian says.
 
“I’m going to look around for it.”
 
He doesn’t stick around to deal with any of the reticence he expects to get from Nicole.
 
This whole place just depresses the hell out of him and he has no desire to stick around any longer than necessary.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he quickly finds himself at the top and goes into the closest room.
 
It’s empty except for a weight bench and miscellaneous work-out equipment.
 
The room at the end of the hall reveals what he assumes is the master suite.

There’s a bed in the middle of the room against the far wall.
 
The bedspread is so tight, he imagines a quarter bounced on the top would fly right up to the ceiling.
 
It makes him think that John must have been a military guy or maybe one of his parents was.
 
It’s perfectly symmetrical with two identical nightstands on either side.

He walks over to the side nearest the attached bathroom.
 
Opening the top drawer he finds two pictures.
 
One is a photo of a woman with an infant wrapped in a blanket.
 
Her hair is dyed black and she’s thin.
 
Her smile is haunting, but she’s definitely not Nicole, so he pushes it to the side in favor of the other.

His eyes take in the contents of this second frame.
 
It probably used to have a photograph inside, but now it has a shredded one there instead.

Picking it up, he looks at the image behind the glass.
 
It’s a close-up of Nicole; he can tell by the beautiful eyes.
 
But the rest of what’s there will probably do little to help the surgeon.
 
It’s been ripped and then put back together, but not the way it had originally been.
 
The strips are all off-kilter, making her face appear warped.
 
It’s so obviously off, it has to have been done this way on purpose.
 
It gives him chills, and he refuses to think of the point behind John’s cruelty; he’s sure he won’t understand it anyway.

He looks over his shoulder to be sure no one has followed him up and then quickly takes the frame apart.
 
The pieces of photograph paper fall to the bed in a mess of long strips and smaller squares.
 
There’s nothing holding them together.
 
He gathers them up and puts them as gingerly as he can into his front pocket, throwing the frame and its backing under the bed.
 
The last thing he wants is for Nicole to see this mess of her face.
 
She already has enough issues with her image and John’s responsibility for ruining it.

Helen walks in.
 
“Find anything?”

“Uh, no not really.”

She comes in farther.
 
“Nicole’s downstairs.
 
She’s looking out the back window.
 
Have you seen it back there?”

“The graves?
 
Yeah.”
 
Brian suppresses a shudder.
 
“Fucking awful is what it is.”

“Jesus, you said it.
 
That guy is a goddamn monster.
 
If he ever gets out of that hospital, I hope someone hunts him down and kills his ass.”

“Part of me wants that too, but mostly so Nicole can sleep at night.
 
I’m too worried about karma to wish death on the guy.”

“Did you really find nothing?”
 
Helen’s staring at him funny.

Brian’s never been able to get away with lying to her.
 
“Actually I found the picture, but he pretty much destroyed it.
 
I have it in my pocket.
 
Maybe someone can fix it.
 
But I don’t want her to see it.”

“You don’t want me to see what?”

Brian spins around and faces Nicole at the door, reversing into the drawer to close it with the back of his thighs.

“Uhhh … nothing?
 
The bedroom?”
 
He looks around in a panic.

Nicole comes into the room and stands at the foot of the bed facing Helen and Brian.
 
“I feel better now that I’m in here.
 
Now that I’ve seen Kitten’s old resting place.
 
Tell me what you found.”

Brian tenses his jaw muscle, hating that he opened his big mouth.

“Just tell her.
 
She can take it.
 
She’s strong.”
 
Helen leaves the room.
 
“I’ll be downstairs,” she says from the hallway.

“Tell me.
 
She’s right, I am strong.
 
I feel like I could take anything right now.”

“I found the picture.”
 
He puts his hands on her upper arms.
 
“He ripped it up and put it back in the frame in pieces.
 
I think I can get someone to put it back together, though.”

“Where is it?” She looks around the room.

Brian drops his hands.
 
“It’s in my pocket.
 
The pieces, anyway.
 
The frame’s under the bed.”

Nicole crosses her arms.
 
“You were going to hide it from me?”

The guilt attacks him full force.
 
“I was just trying to protect you. It wasn’t … nice.”

She drops her arms.
 
“You’re going to have to stop doing that all the time.
 
I need to stand on my own now.”

Brian backs up and walks over to the window.
 
“I don’t want to stop.
 
I want to protect you forever.
 
That’s my job.”

Nicole walks up behind him as he looks down over the graves, both of them empty now.
 
It makes him furious and sick to see the holes meant for people he loves.
 
He never met Kitten, but it doesn’t matter.
 
He loves her like she’s his own child now and her loss is horribly painful.

“If I never learn to protect myself, I’ll never feel safe.
 
Can you understand that?”

He sighs heavily.
 
“I guess I can.
 
But that doesn’t change my feelings.”

“How about we agree to let me do the best I can at protecting myself, and if I ever fall down, you be ready to step in.
 
Can we do it that way?”

He turns around to face her. Her expression breaks him.
 
“Yeah, babe.
 
We can do it that way.”
 
He takes her in his arms, wishing he could take her away from everything, but knowing that would be the worst thing to do for her right now.
 
The powerlessness is killing him.

“Thank you. Thank you for understanding and for everything.”

“I love you, Nicole.”

“I love you too, Brian.
 
And Liam. And Helen.”

“Ready to go?”

She looks up.
 
“I just want to show you where Kitten was born first.
 
I need to see it one more time and then never again.”

He nods, unable to voice his response.
 
Now is not the time to lose it, and he’s on a hair trigger.

Nicole brings him down to the garage door that’s off the foyer.
 
They’re joined by Agnes and Helen.
 
They’re looking at each other with questions in their eyes, but Helen is the only one who speaks.

“Where’s this lead to?” she asks.

“The garage,” Nicole says in a soft voice.
 
She opens the door and swings it wide.
 
Stepping out onto the hard floor, she shuffles over to the far corner.

Brian follows, his mood somber and his heart aching.
 
He cannot fathom what could possibly have been going on inside her head that night to make her think this was her best choice.
 
This is where a dog or a cat or even a rodent would come to give birth, not a young woman about to have a baby girl.
 
This isn’t even close to fit for a human being, let alone the woman he sees standing before him.
 
There are oil stains everywhere, dirt balls, dust, and particles of God knows what on everything.
 
It smells like something old and awful.