A Twisted Ladder (44 page)

“Daddy, I know it’s hard for you. I know the medications make you sick.”

His voice was hoarse. “Yeah, they do make me sick. But it isn’t just that. I—”

He worked his lips as though straining to formulate his thoughts into words.

He said, “Madeleine, I know you want to believe I can just take some medicine and get better. But there’s more to it than that. And then the coming back, it’s like, it’s . . .” He sagged in his chair.

She watched him closely. “What’s it like?”

“It’s hard to explain, baby.” He shook his head, quiet for a moment, and then said, “I have conversations with someone who supposedly isn’t really there. It’s funny, you always see in the movies how you can just ignore these things, but that just isn’t so.”

She nodded.

He said, “But this other person—or thing, I don’t know—he tries to talk me into . . . Things I would never consciously do. But the way he phrases it, it makes sense. Especially if I follow him into that other place. That damned bramble.”

Madeleine sat up straighter. “What? What do you mean?”

Daddy frowned. “I don’t know, I guess it isn’t even the way he phrases it. I’m doing a piss-poor job of explaining this.”

He growled in frustration and looked toward the window. “I guess it’s how he
wills
me. And later I’ll remember what I heard, or what I saw on the other side, but I don’t remember the
sense
of it. That’s what’s important. The sense. Words are words, but there’s a whole feeling, like a . . . an understanding.”

He looked at her, and his gaze landed on her bruises. “Of course, when I realize what I’ve done to you, I get to wondering if maybe I am just another crazy person.”

She swallowed, but it did little to lighten the ache in her throat.

Daddy said, “You want to know what it’s like taking those pills? You just wake up and find yourself in the real world again. You’re still seeing things but you’re here. You’re sick, and everything moves slower, and harder, and dumber.”

He shook his head, eyes red and damp. “It’s misery. But you know that’s what normal is. That’s how it’s s’posed to be. You look around, and you’re . . .” He shrugged. “Embarrassed. You find out you’re actually a monster.”

The anguish in his voice turned a vise on her heart. She was weeping. Barely breathing.

His hand trembled when he spoke again. “And there you are, useless, a burden to your family. To your own children.”

“Daddy, it isn’t like that at all, you know that. We love you.” She stopped. “
I
love you. Yes, I worry, and we have to figure out a way to get a handle on the violence. But it won’t do either of us any good if you see yourself as a burden or a monster.”

But as she spoke, she heard herself from the standpoint of the observing scientist, and the scientist noted the overwrought stoicism in her voice. While her words were a true reflection of how she felt, she knew there was more to it. More to say.

And so she said, “Truth is I need you, Daddy. I love you but I need you, too.”

He squeezed her hand. Her mind buzzed like a radio picking up multiple broadcasts: fears, scenarios, hopes, frustrations, the bramble; and it suddenly exhausted her. She couldn’t observe through the tangled inner noise. So she shut off her thoughts. Radio silence. Just like she’d done with Zenon, only this time she did it not as a means of self-defense, but to strengthen the twisting, complex connection with her father. She heard the murmurs of other patients and their visitors, the television bleating out some enticement to a car lot in Metairie, and all of it passed through her as though she were the now-familiar field of steam. The life force jumped in that field. She felt it radiate from her and all around her, even in their oblong shadows on the laminate.

Thoughts pressed back in. She knew she couldn’t keep them at bay for long. At the forefront of the returning flood of thoughts was a digital image of Marc, his arm slung around Emily Hammond’s middle. But this time Madeleine recognized the life force dancing in that picture too. Fresh and sparkling.

“Daddy,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Marc was dating a girl named Emily Hammond. I think they might have had a child.”

“Yeah.”

She swallowed. “So it’s true?”

He looked at her, eyes full of sadness and love.

She said, “If you knew this, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Marc’s gone now honey, and that girl, she left. Moved up to Canada. She and the baby.”

Madeleine shook her head. “But why? It’s not that simple. This means you’re a grandfather. And I’m an aunt.”

“Honey, don’t you know it’s better this way? Let that girl have her life. That baby’s gonna grow up safe and normal.”

Madeleine stared at him. “Does this have anything to do with Chloe LeBlanc?”

Daddy shook his head very slowly to the side and back again. “Don’t say anything to old Chloe, honey. Don’t ever let her know.”

“You’d better tell me why.”

“She watches. Got her eye on everything we do.”

“All right. I got that. But why?”

“I tried to tell you before.”

“Tell me again. I may be listening with new ears.”

Daddy said, “Your mémée, she thought if she kept Chloe away, we’d all be safe. But you see how it is. Chloe gets her way regardless. Even if you never meet her face-to-face. It’s like she’s grooming us for something. I don’t even know what. That’s why she ought not know about that little baby up there in Canada. One thing peels away and then it just gets worse and worse.”

“I’m not following you, please be specific. Is it about pigeon games?”

Daddy’s eyes sharpened. “You didn’t start in with her, did you? I always thought you were too practical to believe any of that.”

“I—I am. But I read about it in Mémée’s diary, and I witnessed . . . tell me, what exactly are pigeon games?”

Daddy eyed her, then let his gaze drift to the window. “Honey, I just don’t know. It’s something to do with manipulation, that’s all I got. I told you, when Chloe comes around I just turn and walk the other way. Never got so far as the pigeon games.”

“Well then tell me this.”

“What?”

She folded her arms across her chest and looked into his eyes. “There was an article in the
Picayune
about Joe Whitney. The reporter says you gave him the information.”

Daddy nodded, his face grave.

Madeleine said, “So when did you do all that?”

He raked his hand through his hair and blew out a long breath. “When I came back from D.C., honey. Can’t you see? I couldn’t stand up in front of all those congressmen and tell them I’m crazy, not if they don’t know the bigger picture.”

“What is the big picture then?”

“It’s right in front of you! Girl, you’ve known me for close to thirty years but you made up your mind a long time ago. Got a degree as a headshrinker just so you could tell me I had delusions of grandeur.”

“I’m just asking you, Daddy. That reporter, Shawn, said you were very specific about names and dates, told him exactly where to look. Please, just tell me where you got the information about Joe Whitney.”

“Where do you think?” He reached up and took her face gently in both his hands, stroking her skin with his thumbs. “Same place I found out about Marc’s baby child. Down in that damn briar.”

HOUSTON, 2009

ANITA AWOKE TO WHAT
sounded like emergency sirens blaring into the early Houston morning. She slapped at the largest button on the alarm clock until the wailing ceased. At first she couldn’t remember where she was, then she realized she was in a guest bedroom at Julie’s parents’ house. The clock glared at her and refused to divulge the time. Or maybe she couldn’t see it because her clumped mascara had glued her eyes shut. She fell back asleep.

Nine minutes later, she repeated the drill, and then again and again until she leapt out of bed with the awareness that she was now late. Her mouth was pasty and sour from the bottles of Shiner she and Julie had downed the night before, and Anita was grateful that she lacked the ability to smell her own breath. She patted her face and tried to shake out the grogginess.

She slipped on a filthy bra under the t-shirt she had slept in, and reached into her bag and retrieved a pair of jeans that were four sizes too big for her. Perfect for the road, Anita thought, and shoved her fists deep into the pockets.

As she grabbed the rest of her things, the Taser gun she bought from Zenon tumbled out of the wadded pair of clam diggers she had worn the night before. She smiled as she remembered how she and Julie, already lightheaded from the Shiners, had watched the training video that came with the weapon. Julie had instantly perfected her Bubba imitation, and recited parts of the video as if Zenon were the trainer, twirling the Taser on her thumb like a gunslinger. But the Taser didn’t have a trigger so when she twirled it, it had gone flying. It sailed through the air and they both dove for cover, expecting the thing to send out random ropes of electricity.

Needless to say, the training video was probably wasted on them. Anita shoved the Taser into one pocket of the baggy jeans and then put the can of pepper spray in the other. She patted the bulges and checked herself in the mirror.

Julie’s mother had made coffee and was already in the shower, but other than that, the house was quiet. Anita finished getting ready and then dragged her heavy bag down the stairs and onto the Houston street. Still no chill in the early pre-dawn despite the fact that it was already well into fall, and as she locked the front door Anita was grateful that she did not need a jacket, because God knows she would have never thought to pack one. She heaved her luggage into the trunk of the Mustang. She was facing a sixteen-hour drive to St. Petersburg.

She pushed the hair away from her eyes and slipped the key into the driver’s side door, suddenly struck with the sensation that she was being watched. She looked up.

She gasped. Zenon Lansky was standing right in front of her.

She relaxed a bit when she recognized the face, but the shock continued to pulse through her. He was standing so close. How did he get there without her noticing? And what was Zenon Lansky doing in Houston?

NEW ORLEANS, 1920

C
HLOE ARRANGED FOR THE
burial of Henri LeBlanc, but elected not to hold a funeral. She also chose not to inform Rémi of his brother’s demise right away, as he was still suffering the ill effects of the previous night’s activities. Chloe aborted all further nuptial celebrations and set off with her husband for Terrefleurs. One night of honeymooning was as much as she cared to endure.

She packed a trunk with items that had belonged to Rémi’s brother, and instructed the house staff to load it into the motorcar bound for Terrefleurs. In it were strange mementos: mostly battlefield relics from the Great War. But Chloe found them to be fitting, lest Rémi romanticize the memory of his brother and his ruined body.

The drive home was agonizingly long. Freezing rains from the night before had transformed River Road into an endless rope of pulled taffy. Rémi suffered a nervous stomach and spoke of the river devil, crying out the name Ulysses in a near fever, attempting to leap from the motorcar as it bounced along the sodden road.