Reflection (19 page)

“If your husband comes on school grounds again,” he said, “I'll have to call the police.”

She couldn't bear the thought of humiliating Luke by having him carted away by the police. It was unthinkable. Surely things weren't that bad. “It won't happen again,” she said. It was Friday; she had the entire weekend to work on Luke, to persuade him to take the appointment she'd made for him the following week. “I promise you he won't show up here again.”

Luke wasn't home when she arrived at the apartment that afternoon. She was afraid he was at the local bar where he'd been spending too many afternoons lately. She got the mail from the mailbox—one letter, the handwriting unmistakable. Michael. She didn't even go up to the apartment before sitting down on the steps to read it.

Dear Rachel,

I'm writing to tell you that Katy and I were married on Saturday. I know that must be a shock to you; I'm still a little shocked myself. I love you very much—too much—and I will always cherish the time we had here together, but you and I both know nothing can ever come of it. I will be honest with you and only you—I am marrying Katy to forget you. She is staying on here with me for a while. Quarters are tight as you know, but we'll manage. I hope one day you and I can sit together and reminisce about Rwanda without any sadness or regret. And I hope you and Luke are finding your happily-ever-after. I love you, Rachel.

Michael

The letter burned her fingers. She set it on her knees and stared into space, aching with loneliness. Something made her turn her head to the right, and she spotted Luke walking up the street toward the apartment. Quickly she folded the letter and crammed it into her purse.

He was not drunk, but he had been drinking, and he wanted to make love. Or have sex. It no longer seemed like lovemaking to her, and all she could picture when he was inside her and she was enduring him, nothing more, was Michael touching Katy, kissing her, loving her. She cried when Luke fell into a sex-and-alcohol-induced sleep next to her. She wept loudly, knowing he would not wake up. She felt hatred toward him.

SATURDAY, SHE CAREFULLY PLANNED
her approach. “I made an appointment for us with the therapist in Lancaster,” she said.” We need help.” Maybe if she made it sound as if she didn't think it was Luke who had the problem, he would go.

“You have to work,” he said.

“I'd get a substitute.”

“Don't bother,” he said. “I'm not going. That's not the way I do things. No one in my family's ever gone to a shrink, and I'm not going to be the first one.”

“No one in your family has ever been through what you've been through,” she countered.

“I'm fine.”

She studied her hands. “The principal called me in yesterday to tell me you can't come on school grounds any longer. All right? I could lose my job.”

“I thought you wanted me to come talk to your kids about what it was like in ‘Nam.”

“Maybe later in the year,” she lied. “Right now we have to placate Mr. Holt. Okay, Luke? Promise me you won't show up at school again?”

“If I could find a fucking job I'd be okay.”

“I know.”

They talked about his job search. He was still looking for a few hours each morning, but the time he started drinking seemed to be getting earlier each day. She didn't dare confront him with that worry, and she tried to keep off his back for the rest of the day. It was easy. Her thoughts were still consumed by Michael's letter.

On Sunday she broached the subject of counseling again. She needed his commitment to go with her.

“For me,” she said. “Please do it for me. I need to go. I'm having trouble adjusting to…things. For my sake, please come with me.”

That tack seemed to work. He finally agreed, and she knew that Luke still cared about her and still wanted things to work out between them. She relaxed after he made the agreement, and they enjoyed that afternoon in a way they'd enjoyed nothing in a long time. They put air in the tires of their old bicycles and rode out into the countryside. They had a picnic on Winter Hill.

When they arrived home, she took a long bath while he went to the grocery store. At least she thought he was at the store. She was getting out of the tub when she realized he would have had to go into her purse to get the car keys, and she was trembling as she opened the bathroom door.

He was sitting in their bedroom, waiting for her, the letter balled up in his fist. She had a towel wrapped around herself, and she pulled it tighter.

“What happened with you and Michael in Rwanda?” he asked.

She started for the closet and her robe, but he was up instantly, grabbing her arm, twisting it behind her until she cried out.

“What happened?” he growled, his face close to hers.

“Nothing!” She tried to wrench her arm free, but he held it fast, forcing her to the edge of the bed.

“This letter doesn't sound like nothing. He says he loves you, the fucking bastard.”

“He means as a friend, Luke. He—”

Luke smacked her across the side of her face with the back of his hand, and she fell to her elbows on the mattress.

“Tell me,” he said. His hand rested hard on her chest, inches from her throat. She could feel her heart pounding, squeezed between the mattress and his palm.

“Luke, honestly, there isn't anything to tell. We were close friends when we went—you know that, you know all three of us have been very close all our lives—so that's all it was. We got to be even better friends, but that's all—”

“You fucked him.”

“No, I didn't. We didn't. I never touched him.”

“Lying bitch.” Luke held her down with one hand and undid his belt with the other. “I'm gonna fuck that coward right out of you,” he said. He pushed the towel above her hips and wedged himself between her legs. Her flesh resisted him for a brief second before he forced his way into her. She choked with the pain, digging her nails into his shoulders with each dry, wrenching movement of his body; and she was relieved when he came quickly.

He was sobbing, holding on to her, and she was surprised by her own reaction. She wept for him, no longer afraid. She clutched him to her, stroking his hair. Somewhere inside him was the boy who had been her best friend. He was still in there. He had to be. What had happened to him was not his fault. With help, the old Luke would reappear. Thursday. Her hopes were pinned on Thursday.

“It'll be all right,” she whispered to him, but her voice seemed to snap him back to his anger.

He leaped up from the bed. “
What
will be all right?” he asked, a look of suspicion on his face that sent a cold chill up her arms. Suddenly she knew she had to get away from him.

She stood up slowly, beginning to dress as she spoke. “Everything,” she said, reaching in her dresser drawer for her underwear. “Thursday we'll go to the counselor and—”

“And you'll lie to him like you're lying to me. You have to tell the truth in those places, Rachel. You have to tell what really happened with you and my onetime best friend.”

She pulled on her jeans and T-shirt before speaking again. “I'm going to my parents for the night,” she said carefully, pulling a small overnight case from the top shelf of the closet.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I think we need to be apart tonight. We're both upset, and I think it would be good if—”

Luke picked up the crumpled letter from the floor, flattened it on the bed, and began to read. “'I love you very much,'” he read, “'
too
much'… I am marrying pig-faced Katy to forget you.” He looked up at Rachel, the rage reddening his cheeks once again, and she quickly threw her makeup bag into the overnight case and closed it up. “Does that sound like an innocent man to you?” he asked. “You expect me to believe that he was in love with you for a full year and didn't touch you? I'm going to kill that bastard, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to blow his fucking dick off and then put a bullet in his brain.”

She left the room, and he didn't try to stop her. But she heard him call down the hallway, “And then I'm coming after you, Rachel!”

She was sick in the car, retching, but her stomach was empty and nothing came up. In the rearview mirror she could see the red welt on her cheek where he'd hit her, and her arm and shoulder ached from being twisted. She took a minute to rummage through her overnight case for some concealer, which she spread liberally on her cheek.

When she reached her parents' house, she told them only that she and Luke had had a fight and she wanted time away from him. Her mother tried to counsel her about sticking by her husband, working it out instead of running away, but Rachel barely listened.

In the morning she spent twenty minutes working to conceal the bruise on her cheek. She'd heard about women whose husbands beat them up, but she never thought she would be one of them. Those men were brutes, though, not like Luke. On the dresser in her old bedroom was Luke's high school picture. Where had that beautiful, clear-eyed boy gone? Could he ever come back?

The eighteen seven-year-olds in her classroom were full of themselves that morning. Her seasoned colleagues had warned her about Mondays. The kids were wild, wound up from the weekend, and it took her a good half hour to get them settled down and working. Even then, little blond Lily Wright was up every few minutes, sharpening her pencil, asking to use the rest room, trying to engage her classmates in conversation. On the other side of the room sat her dark-haired twin, Jenny, working quietly. She would probably be Rachel's best student. She had to remind herself these two were related. After Lily got out of her seat for the fourth time, wandering over to the pencil sharpener with her already sharp pencil, Rachel called her over to her desk.

The girl stood in front of her with innocent eyes.

“It's hard for you to sit still sometimes, Lily, isn't it?” Rachel asked.

“I don't know what you mean,” the girl said.

Rachel sighed. She glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty. In a half hour, she could take a break. She'd call Luke, make sure he was all right.

“There are rules in this classroom, Lily,” she said. “I think it's especially hard for you to stay in your seat, and I understand that, but you still have to stay there. It's a rule.”

“But I need to sharpen my pencil.”

Rachel looked past the little girl, through the window and out to the street, and what she saw struck horror in her heart. Luke was crossing the street toward the school. He was dressed in camouflage, which only made him stand out more than he would have otherwise, and his rifle was strapped to his shoulder. He was clutching something small close to his chest, and her first panicky thought was that he was carrying one of his prized grenades.

She stood up suddenly, startling Lily, who jumped away from her as if expecting to be hit.

Was he planning to hurt her? Scare her? Just talk to her? Or was this simply another of his unscheduled visits to the school, the visit that would cause Jacob Holt to call the police? She hoped the principal couldn't see Luke's approach from his office window.

“Children!” She clapped her hands together. “Listen to me. This is very important. All of you need to find your favorite book, or something to color and your crayons, and go into the cloakroom.” She pointed to the doorless opening of the cloakroom at the rear of the room. She would get the children out of sight. Keep them safe in there.

The children looked at each other without budging.

“It's a game,” Rachel said. “Let's see who can get settled in there most quickly.”

“Stupid game,” Lily muttered to herself as she sauntered, slowly, back to her desk. Rachel had an urge to kick her.

“Come on, come on!” Her heart was starting to race. She could see Luke disappear around the far outside corner of the building.

The children caught her fever. They were up now, racing into the cloakroom, giggling, allowing the weekend wildness to reemerge. Lily was last to go. Rachel had to drag her by the arm, more roughly than she would have at any other time.

“On the floor!” she commanded them, and enjoying the weirdness of the situation now, they obeyed. “Open your books and read. Now stay here. I'll be right back.”

She tried to keep her face calm, moving deliberately as she passed back through the classroom. She grabbed the key to her classroom and locked the door on her way out. But after she turned the key, it jammed, and she spent precious seconds struggling to remove it. At least, though, Luke would not be able to get into the room. With any luck, she would be able to intercept him before he even reached the building.

Which door would he come in? Surely he wouldn't want to go past the principal's office. She raced down the west hallway toward the back door of the school and pushed the double doors open in one forceful motion. Once outside, though, she couldn't see him anywhere. She ran around the side of the building, looking toward the street, toward the playground. All was still.
Oh God, oh God
. Where was he?

She ran into the building again and straight into the boys' room. Empty. Then she ran, breathless, back toward her classroom, the clicking of her shoes on the floor the only sound. But as she neared the turn in the hallway, she heard Luke's voice.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

She thought she heard the deep boom of Jacob Holt's voice in reply, and just as she turned the corner, a blast filled the world with sound and silver light that threw her back against the wall.

But even from there, she could see that her classroom had been turned into a battlefield.

THE PARKING LOT FOR
Hershey Park was crowded for a Monday night, but Michael managed to find a space close to the entrance. Rachel was quiet—she hadn't said more than ten words on the half-hour drive—but he could sense her astonishment, nevertheless.