The Shape of Desire (32 page)

“I’ll do that,” I say. We both pause for a moment, as if debating whether or not we should hug each other, and then he just shrugs and goes out the door. He shuffles off the porch, along the driveway, down the street. I stand pressed against the glass, feeling its icy smoothness against my bare skin, and watch him until he’s out of sight.

This has been one of the strangest hours of my recent life, which has been filled with odd incidents.

Not until I turn back to the breakfast table and think,
I could feed the scraps to the dog
, do I remember that there is, in fact, a dog to be fed. With a muttered curse, I throw on a coat, stuff my feet into boots, and hurry out the side door to check on the husky.

But she’s gone. The food bowl is empty, though there’s about an eighth of an inch of ice at the bottom of the water bowl. The blankets remain piled inside the box and I am gripped by the ridiculous notion that the dog did her best, with teeth and claws, to fold them neatly so as not to leave a mess behind.

I glance from the makeshift doghouse to the spot where I saw the wolf’s eyes in the middle of the night. When did she leave? This morning before I woke up? Last night, when the presence of a dangerous predator made her cede this territory without a struggle? When William arrived this morning—or last night? I wonder again if William was the creature I had spotted on the lawn, if he stayed to guard me through
the dark hours of night. Could he have told me, if I’d thought to ask him, whether the white husky was a shape-shifter like himself?

Am I romanticizing all of this, seeing magical creatures and terrifying monsters where none truly exist? Perhaps even Brody Westerbrook is harmless.

Perhaps I am losing my mind.

Lost it a long time ago
, I think. Wearily, I pull the blankets out of the carton, then fold it down to a manageable size, and lug all the dog gear back to the basement. But I leave all the pieces—the box, the blankets, the bowls, the bag of chow—at the foot of the stairs. That way I can get to them quickly in case I need them again.

T
he rest of Saturday holds no other excitement. I should be grateful for that, but instead the hours pass with a sort of sticky, unendurable slowness. I find it hard to concentrate, hard to settle, hard to function. But I do manage to get the house clean and finish off piles of laundry that have accumulated. I also pack two suitcases—one filled with my clothes, one filled with Dante’s—and leave them in the trunk of the car. I top off my gas tank; I make up an emergency ration pack of bottled water, soy bars, and apples, and this goes on the front seat for easy access. I have looked up the phone number of the Marriott in Kansas City and programmed it into my cell phone, which I obsessively recharge every few hours. I want to be ready to leave the moment I hear Dante’s voice.

When I’ve completed all my preparations for travel, I chop up ingredients for beef stew and place them in the Crock-Pot so they can simmer overnight. This is what I plan to bring with me to Kathleen’s tomorrow. Also some rolls and a small carton of strawberries that was ridiculously expensive. But strawberries always make me feel better, so I hope they will have a cheering effect on Kathleen as well.

I do all of this with a nervous, jittery intensity that feels like the manic alter ego of depression. Once all my chores are finally done, I try to sit and relax, but neither books nor television shows can hold my attention. I spend a lot of time solving Sudoku puzzles and playing Scrabble against the computer. I wish I knew how to knit. I wish I could bring myself to take up smoking. I think if I could occupy my hands, then perhaps I could occupy my mind, or at least distract it.

S
unday morning I head to Kathleen’s, arriving a little before noon. It is hard to think of a place in the world where I would less like to be. At the door I am greeted by her sister, who looks a little more rested but not much happier than she had last week. “Thanks for coming by,” she says, taking the Crock-Pot from my hands. “I hope you’ll stay and eat with us.”

“Sure,” I say. “How is she?”

Kelly just shakes her head. “She’s in the living room,” she answers, and moves toward the kitchen.

I make my way to the room of blue hearts and ruffled curtains. Kathleen is sitting in a denim-covered recliner, wrapped in what appears to be a homemade afghan in a zigzag pattern of blue and white and sea-foam green.
Mermaid
, I correct myself, and almost smile. The television is on, though the sound is almost down to zero. Her eyes are turned toward the screen, but I don’t have the sense she’s really watching the program, which appears to be an old
Law & Order
rerun.

“Hey,” I say. I seat myself on the corner of the couch that’s nearest her chair.

Without lifting her head from the back of the recliner, she turns to look at me. I can tell her hair has been washed and she’s put on mascara, so she has at least made a little effort this morning, or Kelly has bullied her into it. “Hey,” she replies.

“I brought you some beef stew. And some strawberries.”

“Thanks. Ellen was here yesterday and she brought chicken chili.”

“Mmm, sounds good.”

“People must think I’m about to waste away. They keep trying to feed me.”

I make an uncertain motion with my hands. “Well, they want to do something useful, but they don’t know what. Cooking makes them feel like they’re
doing
something. It helps
them
, even if it doesn’t really help you.”

A faint smile touches her lips and fades. “It’s kind of weird,” she says. “I always felt sort of—left out—at the office. You know, like I didn’t really have too many friends there. I mean, everyone was polite, it was just…”

Her voice trails off. I nod instead of speaking, since I think she’s got more to say.

Her voice picks up strength. “But everyone’s been so
kind
. I mean, people I didn’t even think would recognize me in the hall have sent me cards and flowers and come by with food. Part of me wants to say, ‘Where were you
before
all this happened?’ But mostly I’m just amazed at how nice people can be.”

“That’s good to hear,” I say. It’s hard to think of an appropriate response.

“Even Caroline,” she goes on. “I mean, have you ever had a real conversation with her? I haven’t. But she sent me this note. About her father dying when she was twelve. He was murdered in a robbery, did you know that? And she was there. He ran a corner liquor store when she was growing up, and he was shot five times during a holdup. She and her mom were in the storage room in the back when the men came in—they heard the whole thing. She says that to this day she can’t go into an independent liquor store. If she wants alcohol, she buys it at the grocery store, or she sends someone else to get it.”

I am blank with surprise. “No. I never heard that story. That’s awful.”

“But she said I’d get through it. She said I might never get
over
it, but I’d get better. Like she did.”

“That was—wow. I wouldn’t have expected that from Caroline.” I wonder if Ellen knows this story. I wonder if Grant knows it. “I guess the only thing good about going through a tragedy yourself is that you can tell other people how to make it to the other side when it happens to them.”

Kathleen stirs and then straightens up, pushing the chair around on its swivel base so she is facing me more directly. “I think I’m coming to work tomorrow,” she says.

“Really? Are you ready for that?”

“I think it would be better than just sitting here all day, thinking. I keep having the same conversations in my mind, over and over again. Asking Ritchie not to go.
Insisting
that he not go. Or going with him. Maybe if I’d been there, too, I could have picked up a branch and beaten it off—or called for help—or something.”

My heart in my throat, I ask, “Has the coroner been any more specific about what kind of animal attacked him?”

She shrugs. “They’ve tentatively decided it was a wolf, though they’re still investigating.”

“I thought we didn’t have wild wolves in Missouri anymore.”

“That’s what I said. But Kelly did some Internet searches and she found a few reports about timber wolves wandering down from Minnesota and Michigan. Apparently every year or so some bow hunter sees one when he’s out looking for deer.” She shrugs again. “Or, I don’t know, maybe it escaped from one of the wolf sanctuaries. I know there are a couple across the state.”

Or maybe it was a man who just happened to take wolf shape that morning.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter to you where it came from,” I say softly. “I’m just sorry it happened to be there the same day Ritchie was.”

“Yeah,” she replies on a long sigh. “But at least the police are releasing the body now. I can have the funeral.”

“Oh, that’s good,” I say, though
good
seems like the wrong word to apply to any part of this situation. “When will it be?”

“Wednesday.”

Unless something goes very wrong, I won’t be anywhere near St. Louis on Wednesday. “Oh, no,” I say, infusing my voice with regret and effortlessly conjuring a cover story. “I’ve already promised my mother I’ll take her in for a colonoscopy on Wednesday. I’m probably going to be spending Tuesday night in Springfield with her, too.”

“That’s okay,” Kathleen says. “You’ve done so much for me already.”

Including protecting the man who may have killed your husband.
“I’d be there if I was in town, I really would.”

“I know,” she says.

A moment of silence falls between us. She drops her head back against the chair, and I can tell, by the way her eyes lose focus, that she’s watching some internal memory play out. I cast about for something else to say, but she’s the one who speaks again, her voice low and dreamy. “We had a huge fight two days before he got killed. I told him I wanted to leave him. I told him I wished he was dead.”

I’m in shock. In part because I’d thought Kathleen never stood up to her violent husband—in part because I don’t remember her sporting any new bruises the week before he died, and I can’t imagine Ritchie responding in a reasonable manner to such statements. Of course, he was still wearing the cast on his right arm; maybe that limited his ability to punch her. Though I suppose he could have bludgeoned her with it. I stumble through a response. “We all say things when we’re mad or upset—things we don’t mean. Just because you said it out loud doesn’t mean it was true.”

She’s still viewing the rewind of that fight from a week and a half ago. “I meant it when I said it,” she replies. “I really wished he was dead.”

“And what did he say?” I ask a little fearfully.

She’s silent a moment. “He said,” she finally answers, “that I was the
one who’d be dead if I ever tried to leave him. He said he would kill me if I tried to go.”

We’re both quiet after that. As far as I know, Kathleen has never told anyone that Ritchie threatened her and beat her up. I had been under the impression that she hadn’t admitted, even to herself, what a scary and dangerous man he could be. I wonder if this is the first time she has ever said the words out loud. “I’m sorry,” is all I can think to say. “I’m sorry that that’s one of the last memories you have of him.”

“I know he loved me,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He
did
. He just didn’t always know how to show it.”

“I believe you.”

Now her eyes focus, suddenly and with unnerving intensity, on my face. “But when they called? The police? To tell me he was dead? Maria, it’s terrible. But for a minute I was glad. I was glad he was dead.”

It is as if the words have been scraped out of her by a sharp, serrated tool. Her voice breaks as she speaks the final sentence, and then she starts sobbing, great, rough, bitter sobs. I leap to my feet, thinking to take her in an embrace, but she has pulled the afghan up over her head and huddles under it, still weeping loudly. Kelly comes rushing in from the kitchen, her hands covered in soapsuds.

“What happened? What set her off?” she demands.

I am not about to repeat what Kathleen said. I shake my head, feeling even more useless—worse than useless, harmful—than I did when I came in. “She was talking about Ritchie, and then she started crying,” I say helplessly. “I’m sorry—I don’t think I said anything—maybe it’s better if I go—”

Kelly wedges herself into the chair beside her sister and wraps her arms around Kathleen. Muffled sobs are still issuing from under the bright woven yarn. “Sometimes they blow over really fast, these crying jags,” Kelly says. “Please stay. At least for a while. It’s easier sometimes when someone else—”

She doesn’t complete the sentence, but I know what she’s going to say. It’s easier when someone else is here to bear some of the burden of conversation, to help shore up the barricades against grief. “Of course,” I answer. “Why don’t I go set the table? Call me if you need help in here.”

A few minutes later, I gather around the oak kitchen table with Kathleen, Kelly, and Kelly’s husband, Tim. Tim is thin and bespectacled, serious and quiet. I think he earns major points for staying here a week with his grieving sister-in-law and still looking like he has stores of patience to draw on. Kathleen doesn’t even try to make conversation, so the three of us struggle through various discussions of our jobs, our recent electronics purchases, and movies we’ve seen. Tim’s a software guy, a computer geek, so I ask him about problems I’ve been having with my printer at home, and that fills ten minutes. Kelly and I compare notes on vegetarian diets, since she’s considering going meatless “when all this is over.” I ask when they plan to go home.

“Not anytime soon,” Kelly says, eyeing her sister. “Tim and I can both work remotely, so we’ve been able to keep up with our jobs since we’ve been here.”

“Oh, that’s nice. I’d like to work from home.”

Tim speaks up. “Your kind of job, I’d think that would be a real option.”

“Well, I’ve done it from time to time—when we had bad weather or I was home sick but there was a report I had to finish—but my company doesn’t really want to set that kind of precedent. They like us to all
be
there, under their watchful eyes.”