Cursed Be the Child (18 page)

But that was how it worked in the American literary game! It was your second book that established your reputation.

Was she too damned insensitive to realize his writing, his art, was a monumental concern in his life? With her religious upbringing, it was a weird irony she turned out to be a goddamned philistine! Christ, she was enough to drive a man to drink, which Warren did often. He just wanted to be left alone.

He certainly left her alone—all alone.

Vicki reached for the tissues as fresh tears began rolling. “Warren, I missed you. I wanted you.”

“I’m sorry, Vick…”

“Please, it’s my turn to be sorry. And please, just let me get on with it. This is hard for me.” She shook her head. “I was childish. I dreamed up crazy fantasies, but I wasn’t too original. There was the old stand-by—suicide. ‘Then he’ll be sorry for the way he treated me.’ But that was too scary. What if the razor blade did too good a job or I took one pill too many? Only way I was willing to commit suicide was if I had a guarantee I wouldn’t die.”

She dabbed at her eyes. “I put together a corny scene, night out of a 1940’s Technicolor movie, complete with violins. I’d be holding Missy in one arm and waving your manuscript in the other hand. ‘You must choose between your wife and child and your precious art!’ Every time I projected that on my mental movie screen, I could just about hear myself using a British accent. But you know, I almost worked up the courage to try it.”

“You didn’t,” Warren said. “I’d remember something like that.”

“I was afraid you’d laugh at me.”

“I probably would have.”

“So,” Vicki said, her tone detached, “that’s when it happened. David Greenfield.” Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Nothing original there, either. A classic stupid strategy. ‘This will make him pay attention to me!”’

Not yet the renowned photographer, but obviously on his way, David Greenfield had been awarded a state arts council grant to teach at Laurel Valley College for a year. Greenfield was no academic. He had never even graduated high school. That was part of the charisma that established him as a very big deal on the Laurel Valley campus. He wasn’t ivory tower isolated, but real. He was also strikingly good-looking. He projected a cool competence that held particular attraction for confused people in an indecisive era. It didn’t take long before there were faculty jokes, some envious, about the photographer’s harem; not numbered among the jokers were the men whose wives had joined the harem.

“Most women found him appealing,” Vicki said, “but it wasn’t like that for me, Warren. I knew you liked David. The stupid way I was thinking, I decided an affair with your friend would be sure to…” She paused, searching for words.

“Get my attention?” Warren said flatly.

Vicki put a hand on his knee. She suddenly wished she could take back everything she’d said, but she had to forge ahead. It all had to come out now, because it hadn’t been dealt with then.

Warren thought a great deal of David Greenfield, respected his work and considered him a comrade in arts. Several times, they’d had lunch in the student union cafeteria. They’d discussed the goals of art and the struggles faced by American artists. They’d gone drinking together, and David Greenfield had been a supper guest.

“But there was another reason,” Vicki said. “I didn’t want to get seriously involved with another man. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but I loved you, Warren. No matter what I did, I never stopped loving you. I couldn’t run the risk of falling in love with anyone else. The way my mind was working or maybe wasn’t working, David seemed perfect.’’

David Greenfield was bright, intense, talented and witty when he chose to be, but he was not quite complete. There was something lacking in him. He could not give or accept love; you could sense that. Totally independent, he needed no one. “And no one should need me,” was the message he subtly telegraphed in a myriad of ways.

She approached him, awkwardly flirting and turning red-faced with embarrassment. David told her, “If you want to go to bed with me, say it. But mean it if you say it.”

She said it.

Naive in such matters, she didn’t know exactly how many trysts constituted an affair. She kept count. She went to bed with David Greenfield nine times over a six-week period.

Vicki’s attempt to emotionally remove herself from what she was doing was unsuccessful. Her moods swung wildly between rage and guilt.

But Warren never even seemed to notice, not a thing.

She ended it then and told Warren.

“Not long ago, you told me I was angry and hurt,” Vicki said. “You kept it hidden inside, but you were angry and hurt by what I did.”

“Yes.”

“And you still carry that anger and hurt inside you, Warren.” She took a deep breath, deliberately not looking at him. “Last night, when you were drunk, it came out.”

“Yes.”

She leaned forward, slipping away from his arm and turning to look directly at him. “Warren, I want your forgiveness. I need it. But can you really forgive me?”

He nodded, but she couldn’t accept it. “No, I want you to think about it. Now that you know why, that as stupid as I was all I wanted was your love, can you forgive me?”

He took her shoulders. “Let me ask you a question, Vicki.” His eyes were piercing. She felt as though a lie detector within him would instantly register even her slightest falsehood.

“Do you love me, Vicki?”

“Yes.” Her heart felt like a stone frantically skipping across a pond.

“And do you know I love you?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s all that matters now—and forever.”

“I…I’m going to cry again.”

“Maybe me too. It’s a time for tears, I guess. It’s a time for something else, too.” His voice dropped. “Let’s make love. That’s what I want now, Vicki.”

It was what she wanted, too. But upstairs in the bedroom, with the sun slipping around the edges of the lowered window shades, she wondered if it was a mistake. They were distant and silent, undressing slowly without looking at each other.

Then it all changed. In bed, Warren was forceful in a way she had never known him to be. He held her as though challenging her to try to push him away. His lips attacked her mouth, and it was hard for her to breath. Vicki twisted her head. “Warren, please…”

“Be quiet.” His voice was soft, but there was no question it was a command. It surprised her. In a way she could never have articulated, she realized what this was all about.

This was a ceremony, a covenant of the flesh, a living symbolic act, as he claimed her as his and only his.

It was what she wanted, what they needed.

She yielded to his demanding mouth and hands. He moved and positioned himself between her thighs.

She braced herself, not yet ready, but willingly surrendering. On his knees, Warren slipped his hands under her buttocks, lifting her up and curling her back onto her shoulders, as his mouth voraciously fell on her womanhood, his tongue a spearing wet shaft.

She became only feeling, all heat and tightenings and tremblings. He was doing what he wanted. He was forcing her, taking her. He was doing what she wanted him to do—taking her! The climax he forced upon her was so intense she screamed, and only the quivering totality of her body kept her from losing consciousness.

Warren moved, turning her over, his arm under her heaving, damp belly, lifting her to her knees, buttocks high. She was utterly vulnerable to him.

He thrust into her. His hands on her hips, he lunged against her again and again.

She climaxed in a blinding rush. A moment later, he pounded hard against her, pouring himself within her. Then, gasping, he was curled over her back, arms tightly wrapping her to him.

That was when he said something that made her feel loved and protected, cared for and looked after, something that made her know she was his. That was when he called her by a dear name he had never used in their years together.

He said, “Everything is all right, and everything will be all right…”

And he called her, “…my little girl.”

— | — | —

Twenty-One

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. Those were the words of the Prophet Isaiah. They also had been the words of affirmation in the mind of Evan Kyle Dean as he watched Emerald Farmer cock her revolver.

I trust in God. I am not afraid.

He stood before a woman who meant to kill him, yet he was at peace. The peace of God which passeth all understanding, a blessed radiance, filled him. The Lord’s will be done.

“No!”

He heard Carol Grace scream. He wanted to reassure his wife, to remind her of God’s eternal promise to His children, but he could no longer speak. The Holy Spirit had seized him and taken over his mind and body.

Emerald Farmer pulled the trigger.

The Colt’s hammer fell. The firing pin struck the casehead of the .38 caliber bullet. There was no explosion no discharge.

“No! Oh, no…” Emerald Farmer’s face screwed up in horrified surprise. Then she thumbed back the hammer and again pulled the trigger. The gun clicked harmlessly and she pulled the trigger and pulled the trigger and pulled the trigger.

Head canted to the side Emerald stared dazedly at the pistol she held. With awe and misery in her voice, she said, “Something is wrong. I don’t understand.”

Evan Kyle Dean took the pistol from Emerald, and Carol Grace ran to him. “Praise God for deliverance!” she whispered, tears streaming down her face.

Emerald Farmer staggered back, moving like a short-circuited robot. She dropped to the chair behind her. In slow motion, she put her face in her hands, and then a ululating wail burst from her.

An arm around her husband, Carol Grace whispered, “I’ll phone the police.”

“No, the police aren’t needed.”

“But Evan…”

He patted her shoulder. “It’s all right. Please, could you make some coffee, Carol Grace? Yes, coffee. That would be nice.”

In slow motion, Emerald Farmer tumbled to the floor, curled on her side in a catatonic fetal position. Her eyes glazed over. Her tongue protruded wetly from her mouth.

“Coffee,” Evan said, softly nudging his wife in the direction of the kitchen. “And a prayer, too.”

His wife out of the room, Evan knelt beside Emerald Farmer. So much anger and hatred, he thought, so much hurt. And so much of it his fault.

“You lied.” That had been the woman’s accusation—and the truth. There had been lies to those who’d come to him seeking God’s healing. Not at first. But when it became “heal on cue and we’ll go with camera three,” when he became a performer and charlatan because God had withdrawn His favor and His gifts, yes.

The power of God burned inside him. It was in his soul and his heart and his mind. He was uplifted. He was transfigured. His eyes were as the eyes of the prophets of old, and as he gazed at Emerald Farmer, he beheld a vision.

Evan Kyle Dean had lied. No less had he lied to himself, rationalizing he was still doing God’s work. After all, so many of the afflicted suffered strictly from psychosomatic illnesses, you could say they were cured, or rather, as good as cured, by the power of their belief in him.