Beyond Midnight (64 page)

Helen stared at the pho
ne, her mind adrift. For the mo
men
t,
things were almost eerily silent. She began to wander through her shockingly empty house, waiting: for Becky to come, for Russ to call. For some sign, any sign, that her life had reached a low point. She couldn
'
t bear the thought that it might go lower.

The hardest place to be was Russ
'
s room. Helen paused at the door, then made herself go in. She hadn
'
t been able to bring herself to make his bed or change his sheets, which were still the way he
'
d left them. She wanted him simply to show up, as if he
'
d been to basketball practice, and go into his room and crank up the music to some deafening volume. She
'
d give anything to feel the walls of the house shaking again.

She stopped in front of Russ
'
s shrine to his father and fingered the trooper
'
s badge that lay propped against the photograph of Hank. It seemed inconceivable to Helen that during all the recent traumas, she hadn
'
t once had a sense of Hank
...
being there for her, somehow.

It was too ironic. A virtual stranger had been able to figure out the trick of crossing the veil and confounding her life; but her husband—the father of their two beleaguered children—was sitting it out on the other side. There was only one man alive who could comfort her—but he was busy making money.

She sat on Russell
'
s bed, staring blankly for a long time at the picture of Hank, and then she began to cry. It was both her curse and her blessing that no one was there to hear her do it—not Hank, not Becky, not Russell, not Nat. She could wail as loud as she wanted. And she did.

It was a release that was long, long overdue. Tomorrow—tonight—she would be strong again. But not now. The tears were as vital to her survival as spring rain to a good strong crop.

When Helen finally heard the front door slam, that
'
s
when she hastily wiped her eyes and called out,
"
Who
'
s home?
"

Because it was always possible that he
'
d decided to come back. Far stranger things had happened lately.

"
It
'
s only me, Mom,
"
Becky called up.
"
Sorry.
"

"
Don
'
t be sorry, dope,
"
said Helen, coming down the steps to hug her daughter. She held her for a long, emotional moment.
"
Don
'
t you know how glad I am to see you?
"

Helen
was
glad. In her yellow T-shirt and white shorts— Becky hadn
'
t worn black since Russ left home—the girl was as cheerful a sight to behold as the five-foot sunflowers that looped around the birdbath.

Becky had brought home half a dozen doughnuts. Helen took the cordless phone over to Aunt Mary
'
s, where the three women drank tea and ate all six pastries while they insisted to one another that Russell couldn
'
t have gone far, because no tollbooth attendant or bus driver would
'
ve let him pass—he was a cop
'
s kid.

No one brought up the possibility of hitchhiking.

And then it was time to try again to sleep. The nights so far had been endless; but tonight, no doubt because of her good long cry, Helen dropped off at once into an exhausted, dreamless stupor.

Until the rapping sound.

****

It was a single, sharp crack, nothing at all like the persistent jiggle and knock that had haunted the nights of her spring. Disabled by sleep, Helen sat part of the way up and tried to track the sound. Someone was trying to communicate; she hadn
'
t dreamed it; someone was out there.

The clock in the hall struck three. There was another sharp crack. This time she heard it clearly. Something was being pitched—or pitching itself—against the windowpane. Fumbling for her flashlight, Helen ran to the window and threw up the sash, then the screen, and hung over the sill.
If he doesn
'
t have a key
..
..

But it wasn
'
t her lost son who was standing below her window in the misty black of the garden, and it wasn
'
t the prayed-for ghost of Hank Evett. It was flesh and blood that Helen never thought she
'
d see at the house again, much less standing in the ivy at three in the morning.

She aimed the flashlight directly down on him. In the narrow beam he looked drawn and haggard, even fiendish, as he squinted in the focused penetration of light. His hair was unkempt, almost wild; the expression on his face was urgent and intense as he called her name in an undertone.

"
What
'
re you doing here?
"
she asked, shocked by his appearance.

He gestured to the front porch, signaling her to take him in.

"
Yes. Wait,
"
she whispered, although she felt she must be dreaming. She threw down the flashlight and, without taking the time to grab a robe, ran down the stairs and swung open the door.

The man who stood before her was not the man from whom she
'
d fled. He looked thinner, older, worn with care—a carbon copy, she thought, of her own suffering. She was baffled;
he
hadn
'
t lost a son. And then she realized he had, and—like her—so much else besides.
"Oh.. . Nat
,
"
she said in a voice wrenched by emotion.

He caught her in his arms and held her fast, as if he were afraid someone was going to snatch her away.
"
Helen
... Helen, I
'
m sorry. Oh my love, I
'
m so sorry,
"
he said hoarsely, over and over. His
breath felt warm on her night-
cooled skin. After all these nights: he was so real. It was a measure of her love for him that she didn
'
t know or care what he was sorry about; she only cared that they shared the heartache.

"
Nat
,
I
'
m so glad
—
oh, Nat, that you
'
re here,
"
she said, shutting her eyes, absorbing the reality of him. He was a dream come true. She was ecstatic at his return; if one dream could come true, than so could another.

Through the thin gauze of her cotton gown she could feel that his clothes were damp from the night air.
"
I thought you were away
...
that you were never coming back to me,
"
she said in joyful confusion.

"
Let
'
s go inside,
"
he said.
"
You
'
re shaking like a leaf.
"

He closed the door and she led him by the hand to the denim sofa in the family room, where she curled up against him, her arm looped across his chest, her cheek pressed over his heart. This was the important thing, to feel him there, to know he was there. All else could wait.

"
Tell me everything,
"
he said simply.

She said,
"
When did you find out?
"

"
I got back a couple of hours ago,
"
he told her.
"
Peaches wasn
'
t expecting me until tomorrow; she was asleep. I was glancing through my mail and saw an envelope from Rhea Lagor. I remembered her—I remembered her son—from my first visit to The Open Door. It
'
s not every day I get a train engine thrown at me. So I opened the letter and read it.

"
It was incomprehensible,
"
he said.
"
Something about an eviscerated cat and animal worship and would I be willing to attend a meeting of concerned parents. Apparently she
'
d tried to leave a message through Peaches, but Peaches told me—when I woke her up to ask her what the hell was going on—that Mrs. Lagor was a nut and she
'
d assumed I wouldn
'
t want to be bothered. Which was at least partly true.

"
So then,
"
he said grimly,
"
I got Peaches
'
s version. And now I want your version, the true version. I love you, Helen. I
'
m so sorry I wasn
'
t here for you.
"
He stroked Helen
'
s hair away from her cheek.
"
Forgive me, and tell me what happened. And then we
'
ll find Russ.
"

Overwhelmed by his simple declaration of faith and love—and hope—Helen told him everything, beginning with the call from Anna
'
s mother to Becky. From Becky
'
s reaction of horror to her own frustrated outburst, from Russell
'
s note after the night of hate calls to her indifference to the collapse of her preschool, she told him everything.

She tried hard to stick to the facts; to keep emotion out of her voice as she did so. But by the end of her account, tears were rolling unchecked down her cheeks.

"
I
'
m sorry,
"
she said, trying to brush them from his shirt.
"
I
'
m just
an emotional mess right now.
"

"
That
'
s all right. When you
'
re ready.
"
He held her close, and kissed the top of her head, and stroked her hair, and waited in silence for her to become more calm.

Eventually Helen sighed deeply; she was in control again.
"
What did Peaches say?
"
she murmured.

He shrugged off the answer.
"
It doesn
'
t matter.
"

"
She told you she believes it all, didn
'
t she.
"

"
It truly doesn
'
t matter, Helen. I
'
m not interested in what she believes. All Peaches knows is what she hears. Never mind her now,
"
he said, dismissing her in a voice that was surprisingly harsh.

Immediately he apologized and dropped his voice back down.
"
I don
'
t want to wake Becky.
"

Helen burrowed more deeply against him.
"
Becky asleep is anyone else in a coma,
"
she said, smiling. She yawned herself; her eyelids were becoming heavy. It would be so nice to nod off in his arms, right then, right there. In the morning she just knew everything would be back to normal.

"
And so you threw some stones against my window,
"
she said dreamily.
"
Instead of using the phone. I
'
m glad.
"

"
I didn
'
t want to alarm your house. I was out
,
I was walking around
.
I
—
my original plan was to call you first thing in the morning. I went to bed.
But
then
...."

He was rubbing her upper arm idly as his voice mean
dered around, groping for words.
"
Something happened, Helen,
"
he said unsteadily.
"
Something that sent me out of the bedroom, out of the house. . . and straight here. There
'
s no one I can tell this to. No one but you.
"

There was, in his voice, a low note of awe that spoke to her more profoundly than mere words could ever do. Helen shivered, and pressed against him, and when he seemed reluctant still to speak, she sat up and took his hand in hers.