her youngest daughter. On the morning of Celia's eighteenth birthday she used it
to punish her for failing to appreciate properly the card she'd given her.
"I don't know why I even bother," she'd said in a frighteningly calm voice as
she pulled the belt off the hook in the linen closet. "No matter what I do for
you, it's never good enough, is it?"
Celia had thanked her, but when her mother advanced with the belt she didn't
attempt to reply or protest. She'd learned years ago that her mother's rage
never listened to reason. As the first blow came she curled up into the fetal
position and tried to protect herself, but the belt buckle still caught her on
the left eyebrow, and could just as easily have taken out the eye. After an
eternal minute of feeling it crack against her arms and head and body, her
mother tossed it aside and beat her with her fists, tearing at Celia's hands to
get to her face. Her fury spent, she returned the belt to the hook, picked up
her purse as if nothing had happened, and slammed the door. Celia climbed up off
the floor, dragged herself onto the couch, and peeked out from behind the
curtain. When her mother disappeared down the block, she called a taxi. The gift
she'd longed for was now within reach.
She packed frantically, a suitcase and knapsack, then sailed into the bathroom
to grab her toiletries and toothbrush. She caught her reflection and groaned.
Her face had been bruised, and a thin stream of blood ran down from the corner
of her eyebrow. She washed the cut and put on a Band-Aid, but had no time for
makeup.
She left her bags in the bedroom, lest her mother return suddenly, and moved
back to the curtain in time to spot the gleaming yellow cab inching down the
street, the driver studying addresses. Her heart jumped as she raced to the
door. And then she froze. She was about to defy her mother as she never had
before. That was the word she'd always used: "How dare you defy me." Celia
stared at the handle, the bolt lock, and urged herself on.
But seconds passed before she could force herself to open the door. The driver
had just braked in front of the house and hit his horn.
"I'm here!" Celia screamed so loudly that a neighbor with a bag of groceries
turned around and stared. Celia worried that she might try to stop her, then
remembered that her mother had no friends, only enemies, real and imagined.
Celia waved, and the woman, though clearly puzzled, raised a hesitant hand
before rallying up her steps.
"I'm coming, just a second," Celia shouted to the driver. She ran to the bedroom
and breathlessly grabbed her suitcase and knapsack.
On her way out she placed her house key on the end table, then closed the door
softly, as if to leave the past as undisturbed as possible.
She hurried with her bags to the curb. Tensely she shoved them into the
backseat, sure that during those few moments of distraction her mother's
powerful hand would grab her from behind and her cold voice would ring out:
"Where do you think you're going, dearie?"
But only the driver had spoken: "Looks like you went a few rounds."
Celia glanced nervously at the house. "The train station, please."
The "please" had always been the touch that she recalled most clearly. She'd
been old enough to leave home legally, had planned her departure for years, yet
remained so intimidated by her mother that even with the cabbie she spoke it
less out of politeness than as a plea.
Please, like Oliver Twist with his empty bowl: "Please, sir, I want some
more ..." All the please please please that crucified childhoods the world over
with their desperately muffled hope and their clearly defined despair. She'd
said "please" plenty to her mother, for all the good it had done.
The driver didn't say another word. He flipped on the meter and pulled away.
Celia didn't dare a final glance. She leaned against her bags and trained her
eyes straight ahead as the dimes and dollars started to click away.
As soon as she found a seat on the commuter train she huddled over her compact,
studied the mirror, and began to doctor her face with makeup as she had so many
times before. She peeled off the Band-Aid, saw the blood crusted on her eyebrow,
and darkened it with mascara. Her hands shook terribly, and even as she snapped
the compact shut she knew she'd done a lousy job.
She'd plotted her route carefully and planned to get off at Penn Station, then
travel west to Chicago. She had saved $378 from waiting tables all summer at a
steamy crab house down by the docks. Six, seven days a week of putting on
Pan-Cake to hide the bruises on her neck, back, face, and arms; and then
touching them up as the night wore on and perspiration washed away her attempts
to cover up her injuries; learning that a customer's inquiring gaze usually
meant a black-and-blue mark had poked through the makeup.
That's all she fled Long Island with, a cut eyebrow, a suitcase half-full of
clothes, a knapsack, and the memories. She would discover that after the bruises
faded and the clothes wore out, the memories remained so indelible that it was
as if she'd been tattooed with the bloodstains of her childhood.
She hadn't relaxed until she'd boarded the Amtrak, stashed her suitcase in the
overhead bin, and taken a seat by the window where she could turn away from her
fellow passengers. That's when she began to believe that her mother had not
tracked her, and that she had indeed set herself free. She stared out the window
as Manhattan rolled away, the river too, and felt tears of relief dampening her
cheeks and spilling onto her skirt. She tried to brush them away but they'd
already formed a dark bloom on the burgundy fabric. Her nose clouded, and when
she checked her knapsack for a tissue she noticed the conductor standing in the
aisle.
"Are you okay, young lady?" he said softly. He was older, black with a puffy
white mustache.
"I'm sorry," she stuttered, careful to keep her head down so she wouldn't reveal
much of her poorly made-up face; unaware that her reflection in the window
already had given her away. "I know it's in here."
"Don't worry about your ticket none. Here." He leaned over and gave her a
freshly pressed white handkerchief.
She nodded her thanks.
"You traveling alone?"
"Yes." Her voice had become barely a whisper.
"You leaving whoever did that to you?"
Again she nodded.
"You're going to be okay now, you hear me? You go on to where you're going and
don't go back. You'll be okay. Chicago's a good town, lots of nice folks. You'll
see. Now take your time with that ticket. Don't worry yourself about it. It's a
long trip."
She swallowed hard, and as she wiped her eyes thought that perhaps his kindness
had marked her anew, and that the path she had chosen really would lead to a
better life, the kind some women had known since birth, where you were less wary
than welcomed, less leery than loved.
*
She'd left home twenty years ago last month, and had spent ten of them with
Jack. She found herself crying, then screamed his name so hard that her entire
body shook.
Jack heard her again, calling his name, and a few seconds later she repeated
something about a killer. But you're still alive, he told himself, and if you
survived him— whoever he is— I will too. Of course, if she'd been tangling with
the shepherd he could understand why she'd feel that he was a killer. But he's
definitely not, Jack thought dismissively, and he looked forward to assuring her
of this.
He hurried out of the house, tracking her distant voice. It sounded as if it
came from behind the wall of firs that lined the driveway. He stopped and
studied the shadows that greeted every turn of his eye, but it was damned
difficult to see into all that darkness. If he was going to find her quickly, he
had to risk calling out to her.
"Celia, I'm here, where are you?"
As soon as he said this he knew he'd revealed his location, so he spun around
quickly, holding the knife in front of him like a real street fighter. But no
one challenged him. And he told himself that no one would, not if they were
smart.
"I'm in the tank," she screamed.
The what?
"Be careful. There's a guy out there with a razor!"
A razor? He glanced at his foot-long blade. Good luck, buddy. Cocky, but still
cautious, he walked toward the firs and tried to look past them.
"Don't worry about me. I'm coming."
He pushed aside a branch, and saw more trees and bushes and the wooden tank
cover reflecting the moonlight. He wondered how the hell she had ended up in
there, of all places. Christ, couldn't she have picked a better spot?
As he stepped past the firs the branches scraped against him and rustled back
into place. He paused as they settled, and looked around carefully. Now he
realized that a man could be hiding in any of a dozen places: in the shadows,
crouched behind a tree, behind the thick vegetation, anywhere. Jesus. But
standing so close to the firs cut off his view of the driveway and made him feel
just as vulnerable, so he forced himself forward.
He'd covered about half the distance to the tank when he heard the twangy snap
of a twig. He froze. What the hell was that? He looked around but saw only those
shadows. He pivoted his right foot softly from side to side, then his left. No,
he hadn't stepped on anything. But he had heard it. He was sure of it. He kept
the knife in front of him but the glinting metal proved less persuasive now.
Still, he remained ready to strike as he moved ever closer to the tank, always
looking from side to side and glancing back behind him. In this fear-driven
manner he made his gains.
When he drew within three feet of the tank another twig snapped, and now Jack
did jump, and he sucked in a mouthful of air that sounded sharp in the
stillness.
"Jack, be careful. He's out there."
"It's okay, hon. It's okay."
He reached toward his wife's voice, felt the edge of the cover, and tried to
lift it, but couldn't. He realized he was standing near the hinge where the
resistance was greatest, so he inched toward the middle. While still facing the
shadows and keeping his knife hand free, he lifted the cover without once
looking in. When he'd raised it high enough he heaved it like a shot put and it
thundered open against the far side.
"Jack, thank God."
But still he didn't look down until he'd studied every tree and shadow that
surrounded him. Then and only then did he dare a glance at his wife's pained
face. He took heart in the fact that all the noise he'd just made hadn't
attracted anyone to leap from the darkness. Maybe they won't, or maybe— hell, it
was likely— they were gone.
He finally looked at Celia. "Are you hurt?"
"Yes! Get me out of here. Quick. Someone's out—"
"The shepherd?" Jack interrupted with great hope. "Because I just beat him up."
"No, not him," Celia replied frantically. "Davy's stepfather. Get me out of—"
"Davy who?"
"Forget it! Just," she sputtered, "just get me out of here."
"Okay, okay, here." Jack kneeled and stretched out his free hand. She was a
couple of feet away and appeared to have trouble moving through the water. He
looked back over his shoulder but only the night looked back.
"Hurry," he urged.
"I am," she said grimly, "but there are ra—"
She stopped in mid-sentence and her eyes shot past him. As he turned around she
screamed, "Watch out," but it was already too late. A powerful arm wrapped
around his chest, and a short sharp blade pressed against his neck.
"Drop it, asshole."
Jack hesitated even though he didn't have the knife in a useful position. He'd
been weighting the hand that held it while he reached for Celia, and now the man
with the blade was leaning on him so forcefully that Jack could hardly move his
fingers.
"Now!" Chet hissed.
"I'm trying."
Jack released the handle by scraping his knuckles against the hard dry earth.
Chet kicked the knife away.
"Good boy," he whispered in Jack's ear.
Chet held the razor firmly against his neck and watched that big vein throb like
the skin of a drum all stretched tight and just beating away for all it's worth.
He saw it thumping in the moonlight, and remembered how he'd seen a vein just
like it two weeks ago, the boy's mother, who knew knowing she was going to die,
begging him to let the kid leave. "He doesn't need to see this," that's what
she'd said. But she was all wrong. He did need to see it, and so does Mrs.
Griswold.
"Please don't hurt him."
There she is, begging already. We got a long night of this ahead.
"I'll do anything you want, just don't hurt him. Please."
Anything? But you're going to do anything I want anyway. You got to do better
than that, Mrs. Griswold. He shook his head over her foolishness and pressed the
blade harder against her husband's neck. The big asshole started to squirm. He
moved his lips closer to Jack's ear. "You're not cut yet. I just nicked you, so
quit moving or my hand could slip."
The body stilled, and Chet smelled the sweat steaming off him. Then he saw the
blood rise up along the edge of the blade. But that's nothing, not the gusher.
That's just a little skin stepping aside. He could almost hear this guy
thinking, What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And praying too. Oh, you bet.
Jesus, save me, save me. That's right, saying his prayers like a good little
boy. Praying for life and saying you're sorry when you're about to die. Eternal