Authors: Pamela Grandstaff
“Why did you start?”
“For some people, all pathetic losers like me, to be alive
is to be overly aware, with no filters, no defense, like it’s always raining
acid and you have no skin. The question then becomes how much awareness can you
take?”
“Georgia said it was usually about feelings of anger, shame,
and guilt.”
“All of the above,” he said. “Things I’ve done in the past
haunt me. That’s the thing about the past; it won’t ever leave you the hell
alone. It’s noisiest at about three in the morning, when I can’t sleep for
agonizing over the shitty things I’ve done. In theory, I can atone for my bad
behavior, as long as my victims are still alive. Unfortunately, I feel the most
guilty about things I didn’t do when I had the chance, for people who are now
gone. And that’s just guilt; we’ve still got anger and shame to deal with.”
“I guess I never thought about the difference between shame
and guilt.”
“Shame is an unslayable dragon. How can you atone for who
you are?”
“But what’s wrong with who you are?”
“I’m not blaming this on my parents; you have to know that.
I was always the problem. I was the cuckoo’s egg dropped in their nest. My
father was this tough, manly, larger-than-life loaded gun, filled to the brim
with angry, righteous morality. My mother lived in her head, where she escaped
into her books, music, and art. They coexisted but just barely, and neither one
understood me or knew how to relate to me, let alone each other. I was so
lonely growing up; I never felt that I belonged anywhere. I expected to figure
it out in college, but that didn’t happen. There was nothing I was terribly
interested in, nothing that filled me with passion. I graduated not knowing
what to do with myself. I took the job working for my father thinking, well, at
least maybe I could earn his approval, his respect.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “My father viewed tender feelings
as weakness. I always knew when I’d disappointed him, but the opposite of that
was nothing, only the absence of his disapproval.”
“And you don’t like police work.”
“I loathe it,” he said. “I’m the lifeguard at a
sewage-filled cesspool of the worst examples of human behavior. I’ve come to
detest my fellow man. I expect the worst of everyone.”
“Why don’t you do something different, then?”
“Like what? I look around and I don’t see any more
attractive options. I couldn’t work for someone else now; I’d be fired the
first day for being such a sarcastic jerk. In this job at least I can be of
some use in the world. I’m not actively making things worse for innocent
people, and I can sometimes protect them from the bad guys. No, I’ve made my
life into this mess and it’s too late to change it.”
“There’s nothing else you’d like to do?” Claire said. “Even
if there was no guarantee you’d succeed, nothing you’d even be willing to try?”
“Life doesn’t work like that, Claire,” Laurie said. “There’s
no magical reward for self-actualization. There’s only us, the human race, down
here in the mud, ruining everything, fighting over shiny objects, and trying to
gain power over each other.”
“That’s so depressing.”
“That’s life,” Laurie said. “Anyone who thinks differently
is a fool.”
“So why bother?”
“I think that’s the point I was just making.”
“Would you consider talking to a doctor about this, maybe
try an antidepressant?”
“I don’t have a delusion about how awful the world is,
Claire, I have an accurate awareness of reality.”
“But you still believe good things can happen, don’t you?”
“I believe you believe that,” he said. “I want to warm my
hands by that fire every chance I get.”
“You have to find a reason to believe it for yourself.”
“What I would give to live in County Claire. I’d swim the
moat made from your tears; I’d climb the walls built from the failures of
lesser men.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“I could get better if I knew you were waiting for me.”
“I can’t save you.”
“But you could soothe me, I know you could.”
“I think if I let myself love you, you’ll pull me down with
you.”
“No doubt,” he said.
To Claire’s surprise, Laurie’s eyes filled with tears. She
reached for his hand and he pulled it away.
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” he said.
He attempted a smile but it dissolved.
“Laurie,” she said.
“Run,” he said. “Save yourself.”
The plea was there. Claire could feel it pulling her like a
natural force, like a whirlpool. The urge to jump in, to embrace him, even if
it meant drowning, was so strong it was disorienting, intoxicating.
“I would gladly destroy you,” he said, through his tears,
“in order to be loved by you.”
Claire fled.
Claire ordered a pizza delivered for her father’s supper,
and he said it was the best he had ever eaten. One convenient thing about
taking care of someone with a severe short-term memory problem was that he
didn’t complain about having the same meal several nights during a week because
he couldn’t remember that he had.
Claire had deliberately ordered a pizza covered in toppings
she didn’t like, but still she found herself picking at the crust. To stop
herself eating it she put the leftovers down the garbage disposal. She ate some
celery with fat free cream cheese, but that did not satisfy her hungry ghost.
“Knox, if that’s you trying to get me to eat too much, take
a hike,” she said. “I’m not going to embezzle money or run for office, either,
just so you can get your ghostly rocks off.”
“Who are you talking to?” her father called out.
“I’m on the phone.”
To distract herself, Claire took a long, hot bath, put on
her yoga pants and a T-shirt, and settled in on the living room couch with
Confessions
of an English Opium Eater
by Thomas De Quincey, one of the books from
Professor Richmond’s collection. She kept re-reading a page and then realizing
she wasn’t retaining a thing. She couldn’t get Laurie’s tear-stained face out
of her head.
She had just begun the first chapter for the fourth time
when the house phone rang. Claire ran to grab it before her father woke up, but
he kept snoring in his recliner, a small cat and dog tucked in between his
legs.
“I need to talk to you,” Sarah said when she answered.
“I’m beat,” Claire said. “I was about to go to bed.”
“I’m right outside your house,” Sarah said.
“Meet me out back.”
Claire slipped on some tennis shoes and quietly let herself
out the back door. She sat down at the picnic table in the back yard just as
Sarah rounded the corner.
“I need you to do something for me,” Sarah said.
“I’m not wearing a wire,” Claire said. “One near-death
experience per year is my limit.”
“No,” Sarah said. “I need you to find Knox’s wife,
Meredith.”
“If you can’t find her, how in the world am I going to find
her?”
“No one in this town trusts me,” Sarah said. “But you get to
hear all the gossip.”
Claire bit her lip.
“You know something.”
“I heard something,” Claire said. “But I don’t remember who
told me.”
“Fair enough,” Sarah said. “Let’s have it.”
“Meredith went to see Trick Rodefeffer, to contract him to
sell the tea room. I heard she needs the money.”
“So, you can make an appointment to see the tea room,” Sarah
said. “Nose around there and see if you can get Trick to tell you where she’s
hiding.”
“I could do that,” Claire said. “My cousin is interested in
buying the place, so I could take him with me in case she shows up and tries to
kill me.”
“Let me know when your appointment is and I’ll make sure I’m
nearby,” Sarah said. “And keep this to yourself; I don’t want the feds to know
I’m tracking her down.”
“I really am beat, Sarah. Can we wrap this up?”
“How’s Purcell?”
“I’m not his babysitter, Sarah.”
“He’s going to crash and burn in Pendleton,” Sarah said.
“There aren’t several decades of loyalty to his old man to protect him there.”
“I wish him the best,” Claire said. “I just don’t want to go
down that road with him.”
“But I would,” Sarah said. “And yet he doesn’t give a damn
about me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sarah shrugged.
“That’s life,” she said. “Nobody lives happily ever after.”
Kay came home from a campaign committee meeting to find
Marigold Lawson sitting on her front porch.
“I know you’re surprised to find me here,” Marigold said.
Marigold’s hand was trembling as she shook Kay’s.
“Come in,” Kay said. “I need to get these shoes off and you
look like you could use a glass of wine.”
Marigold followed her inside and looked around.
“Your place is so cute,” she said, “but Lord, it’s tiny.”
“It suits me,” Kay said. “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll
be right back.”
Kay changed into some casual clothes. When she returned to
the front room, Marigold was perched on the edge of the loveseat, dabbing at
her eyes with a wadded up Kleenex.
“Whatever it is, a glass of wine and a good cry may help,”
Kay said.
“I’ve cried enough tears over Knox Rodefeffer,” Marigold
said.
Kay fetched two glasses and a bottle of white wine. She
poured them both a glass, pushed the tissue box closer to Marigold, sat down,
and put her feet up.
“Tell me about it,” Kay said. “Whatever it is, it’s not
worth the high blood pressure.”
“Claire said you wouldn’t use this against me,” Marigold
said.
“Unless you killed Knox,” Kay said. “I can’t keep that kind
of secret.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Marigold said. “I don’t know what
happened after I left his house, but he was alive the last time I saw him.”
“Start at the beginning,” Kay said.
Marigold drank her glass of wine in one swallow so Kay
poured her another.
“We dated in college,” Marigold said. “It was our first
semester in the fall. I was in the sister sorority to Knox’s fraternity. We
were both from Rose Hill, and my dad was mayor at that time.”
“I’d forgotten that,” Kay said. “You’ve never mentioned that
in your campaign.”
“It was only for a short time, as interim, after the
incumbent mayor passed away, and only until the next election, which he lost.
It was humiliating. He thought he was more popular than he was. He felt
betrayed by the whole town. He never got over it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Anyway,” Marigold said, “my dad was the mayor, and Knox was
impressed with that. He had political ambitions even back then. He dumped me,
of course, as soon as Dad lost.”
“Jerk.”
“Yes, he was,” Marigold said. “I was heartbroken. I thought
it was something more than it was. I did things I wouldn’t have done if I’d
known.”
“You were young,” Kay said. “We all make mistakes.”
“I got pregnant.”
“Oh, my.”
“You went away, back in those days, to a group home in
southern Pennsylvania. I had the baby there and then went back to school the
next fall. We told everyone I went to Europe for spring semester. I got good at
acting like nothing happened. Eventually, it felt like it happened to someone
else.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Knox was gone by the time I came back. Something happened
at his fraternity and they shut it down. His parents paid everyone off and
transferred him to another school. I didn’t see him again until he came back
here after grad school. The glassworks was closed by then, so he went to work
for the bank. I was married with a little one.”
“It must have been difficult to have him living right across
the street.”
“He acted like we were barely acquainted, so I did, too. I
didn’t tell him about the baby,” Marigold said. “My parents were so ashamed;
they forbid me from telling anyone.”
“How hard that must have been for you,” Kay said. “How
lonely you must have felt.”
“I never told anyone,” Marigold said. “Not even Ken. When we
got married, he thought he was the first.”
“He was, in a way,” Kay said. “He loved you; it meant
something.”
“But I lied,” Marigold said. “He knows now, of course.”
“When did you tell him?”
“Two years ago,” Marigold said. “My son got in touch with
me, my son by Knox, that is. The adoption agency let me know that he wanted to
meet me. I can’t tell you how upset I was. I was terrified someone would find
out about it.”
“Of course you were.”
“He was adopted by a family in Pennsylvania, a Jewish
couple. He was about to graduate from law school at Penn State, and had a job lined
up in Pittsburgh, with a law firm where a friend of his father’s works. He’s a
big boy, of course, how could he not be, with my and Knox’s genes? He didn’t
play football in high school, though; his parents said he was more of a
bookworm.”
“Do you have a photo?”
Marigold was beaming, her face pink, as she scrolled through
the photos kept on her phone, and then held it out for Kay to look at. The
young man had dark hair and the Rodefeffer nose, but his build was classic
linebacker Lawson. Kay could see both his biological parents in his facial
features. His adoptive parents, in contrast, were short, friendly looking
people who were obviously proud of their son.
“He’s handsome,” Kay said. “I can see your dad in him.”
Marigold broke out into fresh tears.
“My father refused to meet him,” she said. “He’s ashamed of
him.”
“That’s too bad,” Kay said. “Maybe he’ll change his mind one
day.”
“It’s the sin, you see,” Marigold said. “It’s living
evidence of my sin.”
“If God can forgive you, surely your father can, too.”
Marigold shook her head.
“He won’t,” Marigold said. “My father is a devout Christian,
and he has never forgiven me for what I did.”