Dark Lie (9781101607084) (24 page)

“Of course we will pray for her,” Mr. Birch added.

Lewinski could see quite clearly that they wanted him to leave before their bacon and eggs got cold. Actually, he had to control an impulse to flee. But he made himself say, “Let us pray for her together.” Before they could refuse, he bowed his head and started speaking to God. In no way could they refuse to lower their heads also, and listen.

In his prayer Lewinski likened Dorrie's self-sacrifice for the sake of another to the sufferings of sacred martyrs, stopping only a hair short of declaring her Christlike. He extolled the virtues of her quick mind and generous heart, then requested the Almighty's aid in restoring her with due speed to health. He also implored the Almighty to soften the hearts of those who had grown hardened in their belief and remind them to judge not lest they be judged. He closed by calling for blessings on families of the faithful. He noticed without surprise that the Birches did not echo his “amen.”

He shook hands with them anyway, met their chilly stares with a smile, and left their home with a sigh, shaking his head.

* * *

Three days later, to Sam's great relief, Dorrie was declared out of danger. Her sepsis was under control; her medications had been lightened; she was more alert and even, occasionally, able to talk. Sam felt hopeful and pleased when the hospital staff moved her out of ICU, but astonished when they put her in a generously proportioned private room. They shrugged off his questions as to whether his insurance would cover it. The father of the girl whom Dorrie had saved, they explained, insisted that Dorrie should have nothing less than the penthouse of hospital suites, and he had legally committed himself to pay for whatever expenses Sam's insurance would not meet.

This felt a bit hard on Sam, and when Lewinski came in—Pastor Lewinski was a dependable daily presence, as much so as Mom and Dad—Sam told him about it and asked anxiously, “What do you think?”

“I think you need to put your pride aside,” Lewinski said firmly. “Dorrie deserves whatever goodness and consolation the world can bestow on her.”

* * *

Sissy, who had received frequent accurate reports of Dorrie's condition thanks to the authority of the FBI, heard about her release from intensive care with almost as much relief as Sam. She decided it was time to get started, even if that meant no more than showing her face.

Dressed like the human being she preferred to be (T-shirt, jeans, Chucks), Sissy walked softly into Dorrie's small kingdom, which included no less than three easy chairs. She was not at all surprised to find Sam White occupying one of them, at Dorrie's bedside, like a permanent installation, but he did look taken aback to see her. Struggling to his feet, he inquired, “Officer Chappell?” as if he thought she might be a hallucination. Mentally, Sissy gave him points for remembering her name at all. She wondered whether he had made the acquaintance of a bed in the past three nights. He looked like a study in sleep deprivation.

“I'm not an officer anymore,” she replied, shaking his hand. “Please call me Sissy.”

“Um, okay, Sissy.” With a gesture he introduced her to another person in the room—she had walked right past his chair without seeing him. Despite chaotic red hair, he still managed to have that kind of self-effacing personality. But as he stood up to smile and shake her hand, she noticed with great approval that he wore Chucks—an old, obviously cherished pair, faded blue with white checks.

“You're not an officer anymore?” Sam asked her. “What happened?”

Sissy decided to skip the Bud Angstrom unpleasantness. “I've been hired as a consultant by the FBI.” She tried to keep pride out of her voice. “I've been authorized to take your wife's deposition when she's ready. No rush, but I thought I'd come in today just to see her. May I?”

“Of course!” Sam guided her toward the bed where, covered by a white blanket, Dorrie lay very still, intravenous tubes in both arms. Circumnavigating the drip stands, Sam stood on one side of Dorrie and Sissy on the other as if at a shrine.

What Sissy saw was not what she expected. When a person is lying with her eyes closed, you don't expect to see pus-filled blisters on her
eyelids
, let alone the rest of her face. “What's wrong with her skin?” she asked, embarrassed that her voice came out as a startled squeak.

“Lupus. It's not usually that bad, but skipping her meds on top of—well, you know—”

Sissy nodded to assure him that she understood.

“Her ordeal has caused one doozy of a flare, and it's all over her, sores popping up on her scalp and in her mouth and ears and—and even more miserable places.”

“I hope it doesn't feel as bad as it looks.”

“It would be uncomfortable, but her injuries where that bastard cut her with the knife would hurt worse. The doctors are keeping her bung full of pain meds and sedatives.”

“Can she hear us? Dorrie, my name's Sissy; can you hear me?” Sistine reached for one of her hands, then saw that they too were encrusted with oozing sores. “Never mind,” she said, ashamed of calling on this woman to make the slightest effort. “It doesn't matter.”

Sam said, “She can hear us.”

Dorrie responded to his voice with a slight movement of her head.

“That's my brave wife. Don't try to smile, sweetheart. Just rest and pretty soon you'll feel better.”

Dorrie was going to be okay, Sissy knew in that moment. Dorrie had a wonderful, big warm husband and Sissy bet she had a wonderful family too. She'd be fine.

NINETEEN

S
issy started to say, “Well, I should be going—”

The sound of the door opening rather hard interrupted her. Turning, Sissy saw entering Dorrie's room a man and woman dressed in old-fashioned black, looking eerily like Grant Wood's
American Gothic
come to life—if one were to place a narrow-brimmed black hat in the man's hand instead of a pitchfork, and a black prayer bonnet on the woman's head.

Sam stepped forward quickly but did not offer to shake hands. Rather, he seemed to stand between them and Dorrie as if to guard his wife. “Mother and Father Birch,” he said in a carefully neutral tone. “Long time no see. I trust you've been sleeping well?”

These were Dorrie's parents?

Instantly Sissy revised her rosy ideas of a moment earlier. She sensed family trouble, which was none of her business. “Um, I'd better be going,” she said, meaning it this time, and she started toward the door. But to her surprise, the young redheaded man, Pastor Lewinski, stopped her by grasping her wrist for a moment.

“Reinforcements,” he murmured very quietly, so that only she was likely to hear him.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Birch, who carried a plate swaddled in aluminum foil, sidled past Sam and advanced on Dorrie's bed. “Candor,” she said loudly but without emotion, “I've brought you some cookies. Your favorite kind. Hermits.”

Whether Dorrie responded in any way, Sissy could not see.

“Thank you, Mother Birch,” said Sam, his tone a bit warmer than it had been before.

“Yes, Mrs. Birch, thank you. It seems God has answered my prayers.” Pastor Lewinski sounded as if, like a happy golden retriever, he had received his reward.

But neither of Dorrie's parents answered him. Simultaneously they gave him a disgusted glance.

Sam went to take the plate of cookies from his mother-in-law. “Dorrie can't eat these yet. Her throat is too sore, so she's being fed intravenously.”

“Just as I expected,” said the old woman harshly.

Sam's eyebrows shot up. “Expected?”

She gave him a look that said any other response wasn't necessary. Meanwhile, Mr. Birch stood at the foot of Dorrie's bed, regarding her with profound disapproval. Indeed, Mr. Birch seemed to swell with negative fervor like a male grackle puffing its feathers at a rival.

Suddenly, “Candor Verity,” he proclaimed like a tent-revival preacher to a congregation, “we have come to bear witness of our condemnation of your behavior.”

“You have dragged our good name into the public cesspool,” Mrs. Birch joined in as her husband drew his next breath. “We have heard mention of you, our daughter, on the radio, the television—”

“Mr. and Mrs. Birch!” Pastor Lewinski exclaimed. “Think upon the mercy and humility of our Lord!”

He might as well not have spoken. They seemed not to hear him. Mr. Birch thundered, “You disobeyed us and now you are being punished.”

“—but we don't watch the news. We don't wish to know the extent of your iniquity.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Birch!” Pastor Lewinski tried again. “Examine yourselves. Are you without sin?”

Sissy watched and listened, dumbstruck. How had Dorrie survived being raised by such a pair of fanatics? Sissy made a mental note never to complain about her own mother and father again.

Mr. Birch flung his next verbal stone at—under the white blanket on the bed, Dorrie lay so still that she might as well have been made of wood. A target. “It is our misfortune that you were born to be a woman and disgrace us.”

“Stop it. Stop it!” Sam tried to forced Dorrie's parents away from the bed, but he was only one person, and the pair of them sidestepped him relentlessly.

Whipping the air with his black hat, Mr. Birch thundered, “Candor Verity, we ordered you never, ever to go back to Appletree. It's your own fault you experience the Lord's vengeance.”

“We pray for you constantly,” added Mrs. Birch in tones of martyrdom.

Sissy saw a nurse peek in, then hustle away, probably to summon security. Sissy hoped. Although it might be better not to wait. She figured she could handle the old man if Lewinski would subdue the woman. She eyed him. But he seemed too shocked and distressed to take action.

Mrs. Birch stabbed at a vase of roses with her forefinger and demanded, “Who sent you such expensive flowers? What a waste.”

“Flowers, bah!” echoed Mr. Birch. “Perfume the air all you like, Candor, we can still smell the putrefaction of your soul.”

“Dorrie's
injured
.” Shaking his head, with his lips pressed into a grim line, Sam grasped his father-in-law by the arm, trying to usher the old man away from the foot of Dorrie's bed. “And she's having a severe lupus flare. You're supposed to be helping her.”

Pulling away from Sam without even looking at him, Mr. Birch intoned, “We have helped her. God saved her unworthy life because of our prayers.”

And while Sam was distracted, Mrs. Birch had advanced to lean over the bed. “Why the private room?” she shrilled almost directly into Dorrie's ear. “Good money up a puppy's rectum!”

The nurse reappeared and strode in, speaking to the Birches. “Sir, ma'am, please lower your voices or I will be forced to call security. This is a
hospital
.”

Neither of them so much as looked at her; a mosquito would have received more attention.

Dorrie's father thundered, “Candor Verity, you have disobeyed us and disobeyed us unto the gates of Hell, and now you
must
listen.”

“Listen and repent,” Mrs. Birch exhorted.

Mr. Birch continued, “We absolutely forbid you to go near that illegitimate—the Phillips girl ever again. Not—”

Then it happened.

The drip stands supporting the intravenous tubing clattered and nearly fell, Dorrie sat up so forcefully. With strength she should not possibly have possessed, Dorrie reared forward in her bed and flared at her parents, “You two vultures are not my family anymore. Get out of this room. And get out of my life.” Her voice, so powerful it seemed almost supernatural, made Sissy think of a flaming sword. Dorrie's puffy eyes opened as wide as they could to blaze. “And stay out! Don't ever come near me again. Never!”

For a moment of silence so profound it seemed nearly miraculous, Dorrie stared down her startled parents. Sissy watched the old woman's face go cane-sugar white but far from sweet; the old man's turned heart-attack red. But Sam moved first, three long steps to sit with Dorrie and support her in his arms. And he spoke first. “I would take great pleasure in throwing you heartless freaks out of here with my own hands,” he said, his voice low and intense, “but I have to ask Officer Chappell and Pastor Lewinski to do it for me.”

“Glad to,” said Lewinski.

“Likewise.” Sissy stepped up to confront Mr. Birch, assuming the authority of a uniform even though she wore none. “You have been ordered to leave these premises at once. I advise you to go now, quietly—”

“Jezebel!” shrieked Mrs. Birch. So much for quiet.

Expertly Sissy seized Mr. Birch, spun him, and, with his arms twisted behind him, propelled him out of the room. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Lewinski was handling Mrs. Birch simply by towing the old woman, his hands gripping her elbow.

Sissy wished she had a slightly more expert assistant, and was relieved when hospital security met them before they reached the first elevator.

“We resign from your church!” Mr. Birch, restrained by a security guard, shouted at Lewinski.

“Good,” said Lewinski.

“Go to hell!” screeched Mrs. Birch. A real-life witch could not have invoked the curse more virulently.

“If that happens, I'll see you there.”

Sissy did not engage in any repartee. She could not forget the old couple quickly enough. Running, already halfway down the hall, she wanted only to see how Dorrie was doing.

Back in the room, she found Sam still tending to his wife, gently easing her back to lie down in bed, smoothing her hair as he settled her head on the pillow, talking to her, dropping tiny kisses on her anywhere there was some unblistered skin. He kissed her hairline, her ear, her nose. “I'm so proud of you, Dorrie,” he whispered, kissing her. “So very, very proud of you. What a woman.”

She opened her eyes slightly and answered him with an exhausted smile. She whispered, “Give those cookies to the nurses, would you, sweetie?”

* * *

I drifted back into myself over a period of days. I don't remember a thing about the ambulance or the helicopter or the emergency room. I don't recall any climactic moment of waking up to find myself alive with Sam by my side. I think it happens like that only in movies. For me, it was more like a series of dreams and vignettes, and I couldn't always tell the vignettes from the dreams.

Sometimes it was Juliet in a ballet tutu or a clown wig with a sapphire blue flasher stuck in her nose, Juliet saying, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

Sometimes it was a man or a woman in a white coat bending over me, murmuring, extracting fruit punch from one arm as they added milk to the other.

Sometimes it was a soft female voice asking questions. What had I seen at the mall? How had I followed the van? What had happened to my Kia? What had happened in the gravel parking lot?

“I broke the van and the alarm went off,” I explained not very lucidly.

“Did you put anything up the tailpipe?”

“Oh. Yes. Kleenex. I forgot.” I opened my eyes. She was a youthful black woman with such ineffably sweet concern in her caramel face that I did not think of her as an ordinary human being. Instead, I thought of her as God taking notes. “I killed Blake,” I said.

“With the knife?”

I nodded. “I threw all my strength into slashing his throat. I couldn't risk letting him live.”

“Yes.”

“It is terrible to kill like that, blood spurting and his eyes so surprised and hurt.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I will go to hell for killing him?”

“No. I think you can be proud. You saved the world from a rapist, a murderer.”

“I killed Blake with the mother of all scary castrating bitches,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes. Her name was Pandora.”

“Oh.”

“So if I could do that,” I added, closing my eyes again, “I guess I can get over being afraid of knives.”

“How did you get the knife away from Blake?”

“Pandora? He handed her to me.”

“Excuse me?”

“We had a suicide pact. I was supposed to slash his wrist. The way he did to his parents.”

“His
parents
?”

“He murdered them.” I had not known this until the moment I said it, yet I had known it back then in my adolescence too. Every time I had wanted to kill my own parents, I had known, then repressed, what Blake had done to his. I told the gentle being who was questioning me, “They made him crazy and he killed them. Or he killed them and then he went crazy. Whatever.” Humbly I asked, “God, do you think I'm going to go crazy from killing him?”

She said gently, “I think you need to go back to sleep and I'll talk with you again tomorrow.”

I slept, sometimes with my eyes open, amid limpid whiteness. The white-light presence abided with me, drifting into oneness with me as I drifted back into myself, meanwhile engaging me in important conversations. About the meaning of my name. Candor Verity: honest truth. Ironic, considering the life I had lived so far.

Sam stayed with me almost as constantly as the presence. Mostly silent, holding my hand in both of his. So warm, his hands. I remember once waking up to ask him in genuine surprise, “You're still here? Why aren't you slaving away at the machine shop?”

His reply was vehement and remarkable. “Screw the machine shop. I love you.”

Remarkable because I had never heard him use the verb “to screw” in any sense except its most literal one.

And even more remarkable because he hardly ever said “I love you” except on Valentine's Day or our wedding anniversary.

Which meant he too knew this was more important. I told him, “Sam, when I decided to live, it was for you. To give us another chance.”

“Decided to live?” he repeated blankly. Typical Sam, stuck on a detail while the gist sailed right past him. “You
decided
?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, because it hurt, remembering how I could have floated forever at peace on the wide horizon of eternity, and I had elected to return to the painful straits of time instead. When I opened my eyes, Sam was still there, still staring at me.

“I married too young, maybe. Up till now I haven't given you the love you deserve,” I told him, watching his face. How had I ever thought he was just an average-looking man? He was strong, rugged, handsome in his quiet way.

He turned his head. Not looking at me, he said as if we were dealing with a forgotten grocery item, “Don't worry about it, Dorrie. You do okay. I mean, shoot, look what you grew up with. Look at the parents who raised you.”

“Oh.” The mention of my parents distracted me from the odd way Sam was acting. I lay thinking. “I remember . . . am I dreaming, or did I really tell them to go jump in a lake?”

“Indeed you did, although not in those exact words.” Sam leaned over me and kissed me gingerly on one of the few places not encrusted with an ulcerating rash: my forehead. “You told them to get out of your life and stay out. They had to be physically removed from this hospital and they're not allowed back in.” He watched my eyes. “Are you okay with that?”

“Okay?” My heart felt like a winged thing, a once-caged bird free at last, ready to sing. All my beepy machines began to chorus like spring peepers, and I popped some lupus blisters by grinning. “I'm better than okay. I could dance, or fly. I'm free. I'm out from under all that black. Do you think we can make the old killjoys stay away from the house when I get home?”