Eleven Hours (24 page)

She didn't dare move, even though he turned his back to her to face Melanie's gravestone.

“I remember the first day I met Mel. She was at a bar in Abilene with some other guy. I thought she was hot, you know, so hot. She went home with me that night,” Lyle said proudly. “The guy and I had a fight. Mel didn't want him anymore without his front teeth.” He paused.

Didi hoped he wouldn't turn around to see her mortified face.

“Do you remember the first day you met your husband?” he asked.

“Ahh—yes,” she stammered.

Didi thought, if I could have any day back I would have back the day I met my husband. He was my new boss, and he took me out to lunch. We were gone the whole afternoon and I knew then I would never go out with anyone else after that day. That's what I'd like to have back. The beginning of my life with him.

“The sand is cool at Mazatlán,” Lyle said to the gravestone. “Right, Mel? So that the kiddies don't burn their feet. They run around barefoot. We were so happy at Mazatlán.”

Didi waited.

Oh my God.

It had just occurred to her that perhaps this
was
what he wanted—to take her to Mazatlán with him. The thought pummeled her guts. Oh, Lord, help me. He'd take me with him forcibly? What is he thinking?

“All I want to do is be in Mazatlán forever,” said Lyle mournfully. “Have it be forever sunset, and warm. I want to walk the streets in our T-shirts.”

Our
T-shirts? thought Didi.

“And shorts,” Lyle continued. “Not own a car, but eat tortillas and drink margaritas outside, get drunk on tequila, and just walk and walk, and feel Mazatlán under our feet. I'm stuck there. I want it back.”

I want my life back, thought Didi. The one I had before I met you.

“Things are different now,” he said.

Didi nodded, but he didn't turn around.

“They'll never be the same,” Lyle said.

She agreed.

“Death can do that to you,” Lyle said. “Crash through your life and spill your guts on the floor.”

Didi said quietly, “Bend down, pick up those guts, put them back inside, stitch yourself up, and keep going.”

“Easy for you to say, pretty Didi. You've lived a charmed life.”

He's crazy, isn't he? That's what's wrong, and I can't right that. Anything can happen.

And it already had. In the middle of a perfectly nice day; she was abducted. Hours later, upon hearing about Mazatlán, she was
just
realizing he was crazy? Maybe I'm not too swift, Didi thought.

Lyle shook his head. “I'm not crazy, Didi. Even if I do sound it. I'm only crazy with grief.”

“Of course, Lyle,” she said hastily. “I didn't say anything.”

“You think you have to say something for me to know what you're thinking?” He turned to her when he said this, and in the dying light, she could have sworn he was reaching for his gun. She felt as if glass had exploded in her chest. She swayed.

But he didn't reach for his gun. He didn't kill her.

“She was a good wife, Didi,” said Lyle, clutching his hands to his heart. “A better wife than you.” She stared back at him incredulously. “That's right. A better wife. She was worth ten of you,” he said cruelly. “She never would have carried heavy bags.”

“Bags—” Didi repeated dully.

“We never had any money,” Lyle went on, “but she didn't complain. Not once. She wished we had a little more, but she didn't complain. And she certainly didn't go to the mall and spend the money we needed to eat on makeup or underwear or some shit—” He stopped abruptly, as if thinking of something.

Didi mumbled, “That's because she was busy spending all her money on booze and cigarettes.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Didi said quickly. “I said, she must have been busy getting ready for the baby and everything.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “You're too far away. Come closer to me.”

She reluctantly stepped closer.

“What did you buy at Victoria's Secret, Didi?”

Didi could no longer remember the morning's events and remained silent. She needed to sit down. She needed to get back in the car.

“What did you get?” he asked again.

“I don't know, Lyle,” she said. “Something for the hospital.”

“The hospital?” he repeated, as if not comprehending.

“To have my baby,” she said weakly. Was this a good time to tell him she was going to have her baby very soon? Was this another good time to ask him to let her go? Oh, Lyle, please let me go, please, I won't tell, I'll be good, I swear, I promise. Let me go, 'cause I'm having a baby.

Would compassion suddenly be born in Lyle's small heart? He didn't care enough about her pregnancy to give her a drink all day. He didn't care that she spewed blood out of her face, but all of a sudden he was going to feel really bad she was having a baby?

Didi's faith in human nature dimmed.

Suddenly Lyle smiled at her.

With a warm and open expression on his face, as if he were welcoming her to his house for Christmas, Lyle said evenly, “You won't be going to the hospital, my pretty Barcelona, honeymooning bologna, pregnant Desdemona. No hospital for you.”

Didi staggered back and fell.

He didn't even reach out to catch her.

She fell on the earth, and he watched her with a papery smile on his face. As she looked up at him standing in the lights of the cop car, Didi thought, is this it? Is this where my life ends?

She screamed.

Didi was on her knees, her belly hurting, her arms at her breasts, and she was looking at him and screaming. He came up to her and dragged her to her feet, and she was still screaming. He started to shake her, and she suffered a contraction. It was almost convenient. It allowed her to writhe in his arms and scream into his face.

With a single slap he silenced her, as if he had pressed a mute button on her. Pop! Shut up. No sound, but the crickets and her breaths.

Finally he released her, and she sank back down to the ground.

Kneeling in front of her, Lyle said. “Scream all you want. They're all dead here.” And he laughed.

She reeled from the violence of his laugh.

He looked intensely into her face. “You scream and scream, you flail at me, you hit me, you cry to God, and no one comes.” He clambered to his feet and spun around in a demented dance around his wife's grave. Didi thought it looked as if he was dancing
on
his wife's and son's graves.

“You are good your entire life,” he railed, his body twitching in constant motion. “You're honest, you don't steal, you hurt no one, and then one fine day, when you are praying for help, when you—for all the good you ever did in your life—want help, just once in your fucking life, real help, because you're in trouble, no one helps you at all. And do you know why? Do you know why no one helps you, pretty Didi?”

“No,” Didi said, her voice barely audible even to herself. “Why?”

“Because no one gives a shit! No one cares. Because sometimes bad things happen to good people and no one cares to make that wrong right.”

Crouching on her knees, Didi felt vulnerable on the ground, two feet tall to his eleven. At least she was off her legs. She became dizzy with another pain that squeezed so hard even the terror inside her heart subsided for a minute. She was grateful for that, but the minute was soon over.

When she wasn't watching, dusk had turned to dark.

Didi leaned to the ground. With blood caking one eye and the other throbbing, she could barely see, but she searched for a rock or a stick, anything.

There was nothing, just dirt and some pebbles. She scooped up a handful of dust.

When Lyle came up to her, Didi tried to get up. A little at a time, the dust sifted through her fingers and fell.

“Why are you on the ground, Didi?” he said quietly. “Are you praying for my wife?”

She tried to get up. “No, Lyle,” she said. “No more. I'm praying for me now.”

He crouched down in front of her. “No one can hear you, Didi,” he said, almost tenderly, she thought. “Don't feel so bad. No one heard me either. No one heard my wife. No one heard my baby.”

They were facing each other, she on her knees, unable to get up without his help. He crouched a few feet in front of her, looking into her face. She lifted her eyes off the ground, still clutching what was left of the dirt and stared into his face. His eyes were clear and sad. His mouth was slightly open and his breathing was shallow.

It was a steaming night. The lights from the car made it seem hotter.

Didi threw the dirt at him underhand, hampered by the handcuffs. Lyle spit out the dirt she had flung at him.

He crawled to Didi on his knees, leaned over, grabbed her face, and kissed her very hard on the mouth. She leaned away from him as far as she could—she would have fallen backward if he had let go of her—but couldn't move her face away.

At last Lyle pulled slightly away from Didi, remaining inches from her face. Looking up at the starlit, moonlit sky, he whispered, “Where's God, Didi? Here we are, in the open field, in the open cemetery. Scream, shout for Him. Where is He? If He's not here among the dead, then where is He?”

“I don't need God to help me, Lyle. I need you to help me. I need you to lift me up off my knees and put me in the car and drive to the nearest highway, and leave me on the side of the road—”

“Dead or alive, Didi?” Lyle interrupted with a smile.

“Alive, Lyle, alive! I need you to consider me one of the living. I need you to see me as a human being and stop hurting me.” He didn't interrupt, so she continued. Her voice rose with intensity, until she was groaning, moaning, clutching her hands to the Belly. Didi was having pain she didn't want Lyle to see. “I never did one thing to you, Lyle, not one thing. I didn't turn away from you when you needed me, I didn't hurt your wife, I didn't hurt your baby—”

“You were hurting yours, though,” he said, “by carrying all those damn bags.”

“I wasn't hurting the baby!” she yelled, hurting herself.

Then the contraction was over. She spoke softer. “I wasn't hurting the baby. No more than if I were walking or jogging. I wasn't carrying bricks, I was carrying toys for my kids. I was fine, Lyle, and my baby was fine.” She paused. “We were fine until you came along.”

“You weren't fine, Didi,” Lyle said. “You thought you were fine, and one second you were, but the next you weren't, and that's the thing about life and fate. They're unpredictable things, aren't they?”

“Lyle, they're not the unpredictable things. You are. If you hadn't come into my life, I would have had a good day.”

“But I did come into your life,” he said. “I came into your life and you came into mine with your big belly.” He paused as he tried to get control of his breaking voice. “Death came into my life. I didn't invite it in, I didn't ask for it to come. My wife always tried to make Sunday service—”

What, when she wasn't hung over from the night before?
thought Didi.

“She would give her last piece of bread to a homeless bum in Abilene. She never begrudged me anything, yet death came into her life and into mine.” He was crying openly now.

Despite herself—maybe because of herself—Didi again felt something for Lyle. Something rose in her throat, a bubble, and burst into an echo of sympathy.

He collapsed in front of her. She raised herself from a crouching position to kneeling. This man was weeping in front of her, broken down, broken-hearted, grieving. He seemed so alone, so non-threatening, so lost.

Reaching down, she gently touched his head with her manacled hands. “It's all right, Lyle,” she whispered. “You'll be all right.” Then, on her knees, she backed away from him. He is a soul before God. He's a soul in darkness.

“Lyle,” Didi said softly. “You don't think I know how you feel?”

He looked up at her. “No, I don't think you do, pretty Didi. You've never lost anything in your life.”

“But that's not true, Lyle,” she said, lying. She really never
had
lost anything in her life that was as dear to her as a spouse and a child.

He shook his head. “It's true, Didi. I could tell just by the look of you. You were just so happy waddling into the mall, shifting around, gazing at the stores without a care in the world, smiling at the pretzel man, talking to the cashiers. You were so happy. And your husband too. He's happy, isn't he?”

“Not now,” said Didi.

And Lyle said, “Never again.”

If Didi hadn't been gritting her teeth through another contraction, she would have railed at his words. How could she have touched him when he was down?

“If you…” Didi fought to get the words out. “If you ask … God … for forgiveness, you will have eternal life.”

The pain was great. Didi started to cry. It seemed to take longer than sixty seconds for it to pass.

“It's God who should be asking my forgiveness,” Lyle said coldly, getting up.

“Help me off the ground, please,” Didi said. “My legs are falling asleep.”

He didn't offer her a hand. “Help yourself.”

She reached out her hand to him. My belly is too big, she wanted to say. I have thirty pounds of life pulling me to the ground. I need your hand. And then she thought, I'm asking the devil for help. If he extends his hand, I've invited him in, and once in, there is no driving him out, me with my vanished strength. I have no will to drive the devil out. Didi's hand lowered.

She struggled to her feet. At last she was up. Much better. She stared at Lyle. He looked much too strong for a pregnant Didi.

A pregnant Didi in labor. She had another contraction while she watched him walk over to his wife's grave. He lay down and kissed the stone. “Good-bye, Mel. I won't be back. You'll understand. It's all going to work out, though. I have a good feeling about it.”