Boy Who Shoots Crows (9781101552797) (33 page)

A
FTER she had emptied the trash container into the toilet, had flushed the toilet and rinsed out the trash container in the tub, after she had rinsed out her mouth and gargled and returned the trash container to its place beside her bed, she sat on the edge of the bed for a while and wondered if she should climb back beneath the covers or whether she should get up.
If you get up,
she told herself,
what are you going to do? Should you make breakfast?

You have to get her out of your house,
she thought.
You have to get her away from here.

She rose quietly and put on a pair of jeans, a pink T-shirt, and a long-sleeved Nautica shirt that she left unbuttoned. She put on clean socks, the thick, heather-colored Ralph Laurens that kept her feet warm.
You should take her out to breakfast somewhere,
Charlotte thought.
Then stop by the trailer on the way back. And maybe she'll want to stay. You can bring up her work, the people in town she cleans for. The generating plant. Talk about how important it is to keep busy. To keep ourselves occupied. You can lend her the Jeep if necessary. If necessary, you can buy her a car.

Once she had made up her mind about how the day would progress, Charlotte felt better. The dream still lingered, but she told herself,
It was only a dream
. The morning was cool but already bright at just after seven. The grass was damp and a vivid green, and this morning, the sound of the crows waking each other in the trees did not fill her with grief.

She reminded herself of what June always said. What is, is. If you can't accept what is, you can't move on.

She washed her face and brushed her teeth and ran the brush through her hair. She made little attempt to be quiet and, in fact, hoped that her actions would wake Livvie. As soon as she heard Livvie stirring, she would go to her room and say, “I'm really hungry for waffles this morning. Let's go up to Carlisle to the IHOP.”

But no sounds emanated from Livvie's room. Charlotte stood outside the closed door, held her own breath, and listened.

She put her hand to the knob. A slow half-twist. The latch clicked out of the strike plate. She eased the door open, winced at the creak of hinges.

The bed was empty. Neatly made.

Immediately Charlotte's heart began to race. “Livvie?” she said, then pushed open the door. The room was empty.

Charlotte hurried downstairs. “Livvie?” she said.

She checked every room. Every room was empty. She stood in the kitchen between the counter and the table, her heart beating wildly now.
You wanted her gone,
she told herself,
but this is different. Her things are still here. But where did she go?

She could feel the window behind her, the light on the window that looked out on her backyard. She turned and stood with her hands on the edge of the little table.
What if she went out there?
she asked herself.
What if she's out there?

And the longer she stood there looking out, the more she convinced herself that Livvie had awakened early, had lain awake in her bed and listened to the darkness talking to her. Maybe the man made of shadow had come to her last night after he walked away, disappointed with Charlotte. Disappointed because she had been afraid to look down to see what the vultures were squabbling over. So the man had gone to Livvie instead. And now she was out there in the back where he had told her to go.

Charlotte told herself,
If the back door is unlocked, that's where she is.

She went into the mudroom and put her hand to the door and tried to jerk it open, but the door remained locked.
Okay,
she told herself,
but you can lock it from the outside too. You can press the little button and then step outside and pull the door shut behind you and it will be locked. So whether it's locked or not doesn't mean a thing, does it?

Charlotte slipped her feet into the Timberlands. She looked down at the loose laces and told herself that she should tie them, but then she asked herself,
Why bother? What difference does any of it make now?

She knew what was coming now and what had been coming all along, and she knew that she had no choice but to accept it.
What is, is,
she told herself.
Accept what you cannot change.

She went out onto the back patio and stood there looking across her yard.
How I loved this place,
she thought.
Not another house in sight. I thought everything was perfect here.

She went out onto the grass and started walking toward the barn, where she knew Livvie must be. It was only natural that Livvie would be drawn there. A mother's instincts. A mother's intuition.

You should have had children,
Charlotte told herself as she walked.
You wouldn't be here now if you had had a child of your own. None of this would have happened.

Her chest was aching now, made sore with every breath. She could feel her shoelaces dragging, could feel the way they pulled at her.
Why didn't you have children?
she thought.

Her face was wet with tears by the time she reached the corner of the barn. Her eyes stung and she sucked hard with every breath, but her lungs felt empty. She moved like an old woman now, bent forward and hollowed out, brittle with sorrow. Every exhalation carried a small whimper of regret.
It hurts too much,
she told herself.
It hurts too much to live.

When she saw the fenced-in pasture behind the barn, she knew she could go no farther. There was no strength in her legs, no air to breathe. She saw the tall grass, the weeds on the other side of the fence, and she told herself,
That's where you fell down.

And she remembered the feeling then, the feeling of crushing disbelief that had dropped her in the weeds, the sear of astonishment that had brought to an end her mad race for something like escape.

“Livvie!” she tried to cry out now, but it was little more than a grunt, an exclamation of pain as sharp and senseless as the caw of a crow. All she wanted was to fall into Livvie's arms now, but Livvie did not come running, nobody heard or answered her cry, and she dropped to her knees in the short grass and then fell forward onto her hands, still gasping and trying to call out, “Livvie! Livvie!” as all the colors ran dark and the light was extinguished.

S
HE awoke to a clanking sound and also a chuffing, as if a little boy were pulling his wagon and pretending to be a train coming toward her. Above was blue sky, a vast, far emptiness. She rolled her head to the side and saw two men in blue scrubs jogging toward her, a gurney in tow. One man, the bearded one, was overweight and puffing loudly.

She tried to sit up but a hand pushed her down. “Lie still,” Livvie said. “Just lie still and wait.”

Charlotte looked up at her. “I went looking for you,” she said.

“I just went home, is all. I forgot my toothbrush.”

The paramedics took over then. They moved Livvie out of the way, took Charlotte's blood pressure, and listened to her heart. The bearded one laid his hands on both sides of her neck, held her neck as if to choke her, but, leaning close, asked, “Do you feel any pain anywhere? Did you fall or lay down on your own?”

She could smell his breath when he spoke, coffee and cigarettes, but she watched only Livvie; Livvie standing three feet away, one hand to her chest, the other hand kneading the knuckles. “I'm sorry,” Charlotte said.

Livvie held up both hands. “Shhh, lie still. Just let them check you out.”

“Is she on any medication?” one of the paramedics asked.

Livvie told him, “Sleeping pills last night. And a Vicodin, I think. I don't know what this morning.”

“I was coming to see you in the barn,” Charlotte said.

Livvie said, “Shhh,” and moved closer, stretched out an arm past the paramedic, and squeezed Charlotte's hand. “I wasn't in the barn. I went home to get my toothbrush.”

A brace was placed around her neck, and she was looking at sky again. She was staring straight up into the center of it but she could see the way it curved out on the edges of her vision, could see it curving down to enclose them.

At the same time the paramedics lifted her onto the gurney, a crow cried out from the trees and Charlotte sucked in a breath and began to tremble. She felt the straps tighten and she could not stop shivering. Livvie walked beside the gurney and held on to Charlotte's hand and looked down at her and tried to smile, and Charlotte kept her eyes on Livvie all the way to the ambulance in the driveway, and all the way there she could see blue sky rolling past behind Livvie's head, could see the sky turning all around them as if they were inside a bubble, motionless, while the shimmering surface of the bubble itself kept slowly revolving.

C
HARLOTTE did not see Livvie again until the doctor in the emergency room was through scolding her, warning that she could do irreparable harm to her organs if she wasn't careful, that dehydration was a serious matter. “Wine is not a good substitute for water,” the doctor said. Charlotte smiled up at her and asked, “Then why did Jesus turn water into wine and not the other way around?”

The doctor was a tall woman with thick, black hair and dark eyes that seemed to catch the light when she smiled. She said, “Listen, young lady. I like a glass or two of Lambrusco myself every night, but the organs need water.”

“Turn me loose and I'll drink a gallon of water,” Charlotte said.

The doctor told her, “Ask me again tomorrow.” She turned and grasped the blue curtain and drew it open.

In the lounge, the doctor spoke with Livvie for a few moments, told her that Charlotte was being moved to room 217 and Livvie could see her there. Livvie took the elevator to the second floor, then stood by the window in the empty room, and looked down on the parking lot. She was still there when the sheriff's car pulled into the lot and Marcus Gatesman climbed out and crossed to the entrance.

A few minutes later Gatesman appeared in the doorway. He looked at Livvie standing with her back to the window now, looked at the empty bed. Livvie told him, “They should be bringing her up any minute now.”

He said, “I heard it on the scanner. I didn't know if it was you or Charlotte.”

“The doctor said she's dehydrated and malnourished. They want to keep her overnight and give her more of that glucose drip, get her electrolytes back to where they ought to be.”

“It said on the scanner she passed out in the yard. A woman unconscious on the ground is actually what they said. I take it you called it in?”

She told him how she had left the house in the gray of dawn, went back to her trailer and gathered up a few small things, then walked back to the farmhouse through the trees when the light was full. How she had seen a body on the ground behind the barn and had run to it as quickly as she could. She did not tell him how her own heart had suddenly raced at the sight of that crumpled body and how breathlessly she had sprinted toward it, only to slow, disappointed, instantly drained of hope, and then pushed herself forward again. She said none of that, yet somehow, he knew.