Beyond Midnight (59 page)

"
What do you keep in that drawer?
"
she said to Nat.
"
Tell me what you keep in it!
"

He stared at her as if she
'
d gone mad.
"
Condoms,
"
he answered.

"
Always? Always in that drawer?
"

"
Christ, no. I haven
'
t used
'
em since I was eighteen. These are for tonight—for you. For
me;
for us,
"
he said, angered and confused by her outrageous behavior.

"
Before
tonight! I mean
before,
"
she cried.

"
Before—? I don
'
t know. Stuff. What does it matter? She kept stuff there. Dental floss. Paper, pencils, that kind of thing. For making notes to herself as she was dropping off to sleep.
"

"
Why would she do that?
"
Helen demanded, more of herself than of him.
"
Why would she want a paper and pencil?
"

"
I just told you why, Helen. Jesus! What
'
s wrong with you?
"

She wasn
'
t listening.
"
What was so important that she had to write it down
then?
"

"
Then? When?
"

"
When she was dying, Nat!
"
Helen said, whirling around to him.
"
Why did she bother forcing this drawer instead of ca
ll
ing you—or 911?
"

His voice became quiet, his face, as still as a pond at midnight.
"
How do you know that she opened the drawer?
"

Helen made a tisking sound of impatience, as if one of her kids were asking her how to ring a doorbell.
"
Because I heard it—how do you think? I heard it. Over and over and over.
"

"
Helen—
"

"
No, no, I know what you
'
re thinking. I
did
hear it, Nat. I did! You have to believe me. Becky knows.
"

"
Becky!
"

"
She didn
'
t hear it, exactly; but she saw me hear it!
"

"
When? Where?
"

"
After Linda died. In my bedroom. Why do you think the plumber said the house is haunted, Nat? Because it is! She
'
s there!
"

"
In your house? But—you never even met Linda; you talked to her only once!
"

"
It was the owl. I saw the owl in front of your house on the day she died. The
owl,
Nat. I told you about the legend I heard at the sanctuary—
"

"
You sure as hell didn
'
t tell me you believed the legend!
"

"
You thought it was charming enough when I related it to you—
"

"
Charm is one thing, but this is nuts! You
'
re nuts!
"

She recoiled from the blow, but kept on charging forward. There were doors to be knocked down; she
'
d have to ignore the pain.
"
Tell me how she died, Nat—tell me!
"

"
No!
"
he said, his voice rising dangerously.
"
It
'
s over! Done with!
"

"
Don
'
t you understand? It
'
s not over! She
'
s not over!
"
Helen cried.
"
She
'
s still here—and she
'
s in
pain.
Tell me how she died, Nat,
"
she pleaded.
"
Please, please tell me what you saw.
"

Tears were flowing freely now; Helen let them flow unheeded. He let out a furious oath, then grabbed her by her shoulders and brought his face close to hers.
"
You have to know? It
'
s so
damned
important to know? All right—I
'
ll tell you! I went into the bedroom to change my shirt—the door was locked—she didn
'
t answer—we
'
d been fighting—I came back down to my study to get a key—went back up—unlocked the door and found her. Dead. Of an overdose. Ergotamine. The drug that so fascinated you the last damn time you were here.
God!
"
he said, investing a wrenching bitterness in the word.
"
Are you happy now?
"

Helen blinked back more tears.
"
Was the drawer open? Was she holding a pencil?
"

Another escalation in his anger. His
hands gripped her shoulders ever
more tightly.
"
There was no pencil!
"
he said in a furious voice.
"
Damn you! Only the bottle of pills, spilled on the rug!
"

"
Why was the drawer open, then?
"
she asked, wincing from his hold.

"
Why? Because that
'
s where she kept the
freaking
pills
!  In the
freaking
drawer!
"

Her voice was a mere croak.
"
But are you sure?
"

"
No,
I
'
m not sure!
"
he said, throwing his hands in the air so violently that Helen staggered back.
"
What do you want from me?
"
he shouted.
"
What do you want? Every gruesome detail? Is nothing sacred to you? All right! Linda was pregnant, you understand?
But not by me.
She t
ri
ed to abort the fetus and ended up killing herself in the bargain! And yes, they did an autopsy! Is that what your next—?
"

"
That was
your
son who died, not anybody else
'
s!
"
Helen shouted, rounding on him.
"
How dare you accuse your wife that way?
"

He scowled, then suddenly stopped as if he
'
d been stabbed. He stared at her with something like fear and said,
"
How do you know it was a boy? Even Linda didn
'
t know.
"

Helen blinked.
"
I don
'
t know how I know. I—
"

"
Mom-meee-e-e,
"
came a wail from behind her. Instinctively Helen snatched her dress from the floor and held it to her breast.

"
The monitor,
"
Nat muttered, waving away her gesture. The wail—heartwrenching, pitiable—evolved into a loud, sorrowful cry through the speaker on the commode.

"
Mom-mee-e-e-e
...."

Nat was standing with his legs apart, arms at the ready, watching Helen intently from under partly lowered lids— as if, she thought, he were expecting her to metamorphose into some kind of evil old crone. She watched the muscles of his clenched jaw working as he waited for her next move. His breathing was as labored as her own.

The wail grew louder.

"
I have to go,
"
he said abruptly.

"
And so do I.
"

He turned on his heel. Before he was through the door of the bedroom, Helen had slipped her dress over her head and was pulling up the zipper. She glanced at the opened drawer with its unopened condoms, and then at the bed. It was not a bed she would ever lie in; of that she was sure.

Then she, too, left the room.

****

The silence of Sunday was deafening. No one called, no one came, no one apologized, no one withdrew, no one did
anything. All day, Russ and Becky draped themselves listlessly over various pieces of furniture, as oppressive to Helen
'
s spirits as the damp and muggy weather that refused to clear out. The garden was buggy, the house was hot. There was no place to go and nothing to do, nothing to do but wait. The sense of imminence was profound.

In the evening Helen, hoping to bring down her feverish, anguished state over Nat a degree or two, poured herself a tepid bath. She piled reading material high alongside the claw-footed tub, and brought in the first cup of tea she
'
d made all day.

The top book in the pile was a home reference manual that listed symptoms for various illnesses. Helen turned straight to
"
dementia
"
and decided, all in all, that nothing came close to describing her state of mind. What she had was not in home reference manuals.

That left Aunt Mary
'
s worsening condition. That afternoon she
'
d given everyone a scare by forgetting, for at least fifteen minutes, what day it was and what had happened on Saturday (she
'
d gone to a slide show on urban gardens at the senior center). Half an hour later, she was fine again. Most frustrating of all, the episode was completely unlike her other lapses—forgetting words like
afghan,
or how to use a waffle iron.

Helen was scheduled to see a doctor about her aunt; but that wouldn
'
t be until a week from Tuesday, and that was too far away. After some reading, she was more confused than ever. She sighed and put the book aside, then moved on to her next terrible concern: the outburst of near-hysteria that had prompted a dozen children to be pulled out of The Open Door in little more than a week.

Nat had been right, of course: Helen was obsessing over
Salem
. Now she
'
d found a collection of essays that tried to interpret the witch hysteria of 1692. Surely there
'
d be an answer in there somewhere. If she could just understand the past, she felt that she
'
d be able to understand the present. Wasn
'
t that the whole point of history?

And so Helen read of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, the nine-year-old daughte
r of a minister and her eleven-
year-old cousin, who one day suddenly began weeping and staring and running around on all fours making strange, guttural sounds.

Bewitched,
said the examining physician.

The hunt for witches began. Soon the girls named the minister
'
s servant, the Barbadian slave Tituba, and two other lowborn women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn, as their tormentors. Tituba, terrified by her interrogators, eventually confessed to flying through the air and being a handmaiden of Satan.

The hunt continued. More women were accused. More women accused. Soon men were blamed, including a former minister. Neighbors came forward. Old grudges were satisfied. Trials were instigated. Those who admitted their guilt were put in prison. Those who proclaimed their innocence were hanged.

Nineteen died on the gallows. Four died in jail.

One man was braver and more adamant than the others; he refused to plead at all. For his convictions, Giles Cory was pressed to death under a weight of stones. In his death agony, his tongue protruded from his mouth. The sheriff shoved it back with his cane.

Why?

****

He looked haggard and tense and fiercely distracted.

"
Peaches?
What
'
re you doing back here already?
"
Nat glanced at his empty wrist, as if it could tell him the day of the week, and then looked blankly at her again.