“I said Bridget gets a terrible screeching sound in her head when she tries to bake. It’s loud. And have you seen Aggie?”
Izzy breathed carefully, in through her nose, out through her mouth. The air in her special room was fragrant with the scent of exotic things: bergamot, hawthorn, ginger, lavender.
When the kids had been little, they’d taken them for picnics in the summer. They would spread blankets under the trees. When her blanket was snapped open, scent would fill the air. She’d always stored her linens with lavender. She grew it herself. There had been a time when they all did.
“Oh my god, the boy’s started up again. Screeching, ‘Esme! Esme!’ This has to stop. Someone will call the police. Remember the Symington boy? That’s what will happen again.”
Izzy frowned and fingered the shaft of her knife.
Nasty
. Nearly made the papers. The neighbours, fortunately, had forgotten ever witnessing anything. Imagine forgetting something like that.
“Why aren’t you at the hospital?” On the table four knives were laid out, all but the last one sharp as a razor.
“Because I have to deal with Esme’s shit!” Tula screeched, her voice full of panic. When she stopped, Izzy could hear a keening wail in the background. Esme’s young suitor.
“I can’t help you.” Izzy hung up and put the phone down gently on the table beside the knives. She picked up the last one and began again …
throa-k throa-k throa-k
.… a pleasant sound. There was nothing she could do, nothing that she wasn’t already doing. He would do what He willed until He stopped.
“I’ve got business to attend to.” She said this to no one. She tried not to think too much about the implements in front of her, the messy business ahead. A woman had to do what a woman had to do. A woman’s life was harder than a man’s
(and so much more valuable)
and everyone had to make sacrifices. Sometimes literally.
But something her mother used to say—long before any of this—came into her head.
From your lips to God’s ears
. But of course, that sentiment was useless to them.
TEN
M
ARLA WAS APPALLED AT HOW BAD
the traffic was in Lakewood. The sister suburb of Haven Woods, it was larger and maybe a touch more cosmopolitan, with a mall and a movie theatre, a couple of restaurants worth going to if you couldn’t drag yourself all the way into the city. But the traffic—she didn’t know how people could stand it.
Two light sequences passed before she made it through the turn onto Mall Drive. (That was another thing: what Lakewood offered in services it subtracted through lack of originality.) On the seat beside her, Troubles purred; he was sitting up and appeared to be watching their progress through the windshield.
She finally made it into the parking lot of Lakewood Mall, behind a little yellow car that she had tailgated the whole way. It was worse than driving in the city.
The parking lot was in chaos. Stuck behind the yellow car, Marla saw a huge banner strung across the mall facade:
LAKEWOOD MALL SPRING BLOWOUT!
Four or five cars jostled for position up ahead, pulling out, pulling in, waiting on an empty space. She couldn’t go around and she was stuck where she was, so she chilled. It didn’t really matter where she parked, or even if she parked, as long as she had a view of the long stretch of road that ran in front of the mall. When the queue in front shifted, she pulled to the left and found a space at the farthest edge of the lot, facing the road. She shut off the car and waited.
Her phone beeped from inside her purse: a text message. She reached over without looking, felt around inside and came up with the phone. The message was from Sharie, the dancer. The new girl.
CANT GT MY SHOE ON!! WTZ GNG ON?
Marla didn’t respond. She’d had enough. She’d already had calls from Esme and Bridget.
Esme had a boy screaming her name on the lawn. She couldn’t make him stop and was scared his mother would show up. Marla had heard the kid in the background:
Essmmee, I love you!
It would have been funny if he hadn’t been out on the front lawn.
There’s nothing I can do
, she had told Esme.
Bridget had been in tears. She had an order for sixty cupcakes for a wedding shower in the city, but every time she went near the oven, a screech began inside her head. Marla had said the same thing to Bridget:
There’s nothing I can do
. Bridget had said,
Talk to your godforsaken mother. Do that
.
Marla wondered half-heartedly if there was anything worth picking up while she was at the mall. The kids always needed things. She would like a pair of sandals to go with a new summer dress she’d bought.
The phone rang. She couldn’t turn it off in case it was Izzy, or the school about one of the kids. She looked at the call display—Glory. Marla groaned as the phone continued to ring. Glory was in bad shape.
She had barely said hello when Glory started bawling. Could Marla come over? Please? Please?
Marla felt responsible for Glory … somewhat. She’d been her first recruit and she’d been a mistake. Marla’s mistake. Glory didn’t have the fortitude for this life. “Glory, calm down. I’m out right now. I can’t come.”
Glory uttered a keening wail like a child denied. Please?
Please?
She couldn’t be alone. She was frightened.
With a deep sigh, Marla said, “When I’m done. Okay?”
Glory made her promise.
“I
promise
. Cripes.”
She hung up and watched the road. Any minute now. She was excited. Gleeful almost.
On Wednesdays Coach Crawford didn’t teach until the afternoon. Most mornings he jogged a circle around Haven Woods before school started, but on his morning off he left his car in the school parking lot, about six big blocks away, and ran over to the mall. Then he ran back. She knew this because she was a runner too, and they’d once had a pleasant conversation about it on the school grounds, both of them in their gear. That was before he ruined her son’s life.
Talk to your godforsaken mother
. It made her smile just to think about it.
I can’t help you
had been a truthful response.
David had been Izzy’s favourite, not Marla. She had been a consolation prize at best. Izzy was doing the same thing to Marla’s children, favouring her grandson, Tim, over Amy. She’d confronted her mother about it, but Izzy had reacted with surprise that Marla should even think such a thing.
Marla got a pair of small binoculars out of the glovebox and looked down the street in the direction she’d come from, her mind wandering between current troubles and past tragedy, until she saw a small figure about twenty yards from the mall, wearing white shorts and a blue and white striped T-shirt. Haven Woods School colours. The figure jogged closer.
Marla panned along the street from the crosswalk to the light at the far end of the mall, to her right. A black Jeep sat at a red light in the middle lane. She watched the truck as the light turned and the cars moved forward. She followed it with the binoculars until it was about forty feet from the crosswalk.
About ten people were crossing, the lights flashing, everyone heading to the mall. The people moved slowly, women stopping to chat in the middle of the crosswalk, then making their way across together. Marla checked the progress of the runner.
It was indeed Crawford. She tracked him as he swerved gracefully around a mother with a stroller, an older couple, a woman with bags. When he was about four yards from her car, she could see that he was in the zone, zonked with a runner’s high, keeping a steady pace.
About twenty feet from the crosswalk he slowed ever so slightly to get around some pedestrians, then picked up his pace towards the crosswalk. She swung her head: the Jeep was moving slowly. The crosswalk was empty. Crawford jogged in place, slapping the button on the post for the crosswalk signal. The lights blinked furiously and the approaching cars slowed, stopped. Except for the black Jeep, which suddenly lurched forward as if the driver had hit the gas instead of the brake and then kept pressing.
Crawford looked up a second too late. As the Jeep ploughed into him, someone screamed. There was pandemonium, and for a moment Marla lost track of the action as a crowd of people swelled away from the path of the truck. Then she caught a glimpse of Crawford, his body curved against the front of Jeep, his face bloodied. Then gone, under the wheels.
The Jeep didn’t stop.
People screamed and a boy in a hoodie leapt through the shrubs into the parking lot. The Jeep kept moving. It drove through a pair of women who’d been trapped between a decorative pillar and the road. The pillar went down and the Jeep ploughed over it, bouncing but not stopping. Gore covered the headlights, and a pair of jeans, the tag dangling, from the bumper.
Marla sucked in breath. She dropped the binoculars and fumbled to start the car. The Jeep was headed for the parking lot. Though her windows were closed, Marla could hear crying, screaming. With a hiss, Troubles jumped from the passenger seat into the back.
The engine caught and she backed up fast, narrowly missing a woman running behind her, shrieking. She shot a glance over her shoulder as she gunned out of the lot, and for a split second saw the man inside the Jeep—a young guy, Marla’s own age, his face white with panic, his mouth a big O of horror.
The blood drained from her own face, her heart a staccato throb, knuckles white on the steering wheel. She drove past erratically parked cars, trucks, SUVs, abandoned on the road as people jumped out to help the injured. People were lying on the road, on the crosswalk, on the sidewalk. And Crawford: still, his body folded almost in two.
She sped away from the scene, moaning, horrified. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Only Crawford was supposed to get hit, at the crosswalk. And hurt, not—She hadn’t really thought it through, but just him.
Just him
.
Behind her was a cacophony of sirens, so many they threaded in and out of each other like screams. The binoculars rolled off the seat onto the floor when she swerved suddenly to take a side road home. She didn’t trust herself
(what could happen to her?
what was happening to them!?)
on the busy road.
–
Tula stood unhappily over Audra, who lay supine on the hospital bed. She wrung her hands in indecisive agony.
“Tula, please,” Audra croaked. “You’re making me nervous. Just show me.”
Tula smacked at the little nurse’s cap that kept slipping down. Bobby pins stuck out at odd angles and the hair under the cap was dishevelled. Very unprofessional. Of course, she wasn’t really a nurse anyway.
Tula bent over to peer into Audra’s eyes. She stood up and wrung her hands some more and moaned, “You can’t be seen like this. No way, no how.”
“Let me see.” Audra sat up in the bed, her every move an agony. The pain was in her bones, her joints particularly. They felt tugged on, as if being pulled by an invisible rope. She groaned. “Get the mirror.”
“Don’t bother me now,” Tula snapped. “I’m thinking.”
“Paula will be here soon.”
“I
know
she’s coming,” Tula said. She walked to the window and shoved the blinds aside to stare out at the lot. As she turned to come back to the bed, they fell with a flap. “I don’t know what to—I should call Izzy.”
“Don’t call Izzy. Tula, there are sunglasses in my purse.” Her words came out thick and wet. The bones in her neck were as sore as the rest, and it hurt her to speak. To hold up her head.
Tula shot her a suspicious look but went to the cupboard and got her purse. She brought it to the bed, dumped it on the blanket. Everything spilled out, including the compact.
Audra reached out a hand. “Mirror.”
With a derisive snort, Tula tossed the compact closer to Audra’s outstretched hand, then found the sunglasses. “Look fast if you’re going to look. I shouldn’t even let you see, but I want you to.” Audra had never liked Tula.
Audra picked up the compact and flipped it open, raised it painfully to her face. She gasped.
“Isn’t that something?”
Her eyes, normally blue, had changed completely. The irises were golden, with tiny flecks of black that only accentuated the elongated black slits that were her pupils. She dropped the compact and squeezed her eyes tight shut.
Tula tsked and grabbed the compact, shovelling it and the rest of Audra’s things back into her purse. “You should be better organized. I have this little purse organizer … Here, we’re going to cover you up. Can’t have the family seeing you in such a state. Not yet.” She slid the sunglasses over Audra’s face and pushed her back on the pillow. “There, that’s fine. And don’t talk when she’s here. We’ll tell her your throat is very sore. You sound awful.” She closed Audra’s purse and put it back in the cupboard, then ran her hand over the bedclothes to smooth them.
“It’s only a couple more days and then everything will be fine,” Tula said. “Can’t let you mess it up, so keep your mouth shut, Judas goat.”
Audra did not respond.
When Paula and Rowan arrived, Tula was adjusting Audra’s bedding. She looked up when they walked in. “Hullo there,” she greeted them.
Paula hardly looked at Tula, her attention on her mother. “Hey, what’s with the sunglasses?”
It was Tula who answered. “Her eyes have become a little sensitive to the light, so I’m just keeping her comfortable.” She sounded pleased with herself.
Paula was not pleased. “What? Why?” She turned to Rowan. “Honey, why don’t you say hi to Grandma and then go wait in the lounge for a minute? I need to talk to her alone.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. She looked at her grandmother in the glasses. “Hi, Grandma,” she said.
“Hello,” Audra said back, her voice scraping like sandpaper.
“Oh, Mom, your throat—” Paula winced in sympathy.
“Um, I put the new collar on Tex. He likes it.” Audra smiled and reached out to her. Rowan took her hand.
“Okay, baby, if you don’t mind,” Paula nudged.
“Fine, but don’t leave me out there forever,
okay?”
When she was gone, Paula said, “Tula, I need you to call the doctor right now. I will speak to him before I leave today.”
Tula’s mouth dropped open in indignation. “Sorry, dear, I need to take your mother’s vitals. I’ll call the doctor later.” She pinched her fingers on Audra’s wrist and looked at her watch, a large and gaudy fashion item, the sort you pick up for ten dollars in an airport.
“Maybe you could do that after you call the doctor. Could you?” Paula said this as politely and sweetly as she could.
They were both surprised by the ringing of the phone down the hall. No one picked it up. “Shouldn’t you get that?”
Tula listened to the phone ring, her nose lifted as if she was sniffing the air like a dog. She shook her head. “I don’t think I have to.” She started to untangle the tubing from around the base of the blood pressure monitor. The phone rang on.
“What if it’s my mother’s doctor? I’d like to speak to him,” Paula said, as gently as she could manage. She wanted to throttle Tula.
Tula was indecisive for a moment, then dropped her mother’s wrist.
“Fine,”
she said, and waddled to the door, propping it open with the doorstop. Staring at Paula’s mother, she said, “Audra’s throat’s not right. She shouldn’t be speaking. Right?” And then she went to get the phone.
Paula sat on the bed. “I think we’re alone now,” she joked.
“Yes,” Audra rasped, nodding. She coughed rawly.
“You sound awful. You
look
awful. I should get you out of here, take you to Lakewood Hospital even. There’s something not right here.”
Audra’s head turned towards the door and she nodded, croaking out, “City.”
“The city? Well … that would be difficult. I had a bit of trouble in the city, Mom. I had to leave my job. And Rowan had an issue at school. I’m actually in a bit of a spot.” Her cheeks grew red with embarrassment. It was hard to gauge her mother’s expression behind the sunglasses. “Then I got Izzy’s call about how you weren’t well. I have to say that it sort of worked out. But as far as going back to the city, we have nowhere to go.”