Dead Hunger V: The Road To California (31 page)

“Yes,” she said.

“He told me something.”

Her eyes pleaded in the glow of the firelight.  “What, Dave?”

“Rachel, Don loved you like a daughter.  He appreciated being able to spend that year with you after this all happened.  But there was something about Jess that he couldn’t tell you when you got back home and found that ATV and the note outside your place.”

“What?  About Jess?” Rachel asked.

“Yes,” I said.  “Rachel, that Sunday – when all this happened.  That morning.”

“Yes, I know, I know.  Please, Dave.  Tell me.”

“Jess was out there.”

“Where?”

“He was in the corral.”

Now her expression was one of confusion and realization, combined.  I knew Rachel was smart enough to figure it out.

“With … with the things?”

I nodded.  “Jess was … well, he was one of them, Rachel.  He was going after the horses.”

“No,” she whispered through her tears, burying her face in the palms of  her hands.  “Not my Jess,” she cried.

I put my arm over her shoulder and pulled her to me, and she allowed it.  I rubbed her arm and back and rested my head on top of hers.

A moment later she pulled back and looked at me.  “Did Don … kill him? Don shot my husband?”

“No,” I whispered.  “Rachel, you know it wasn’t Jess anymore.  Not by then.”

Her sobs came then, shaking her entire body and the couch on which we sat together.  Off to our left, Lolita Lane gave a quick snort and rolled over onto a corner pillow.

“A whole year and he didn’t tell me?”

“I’m sure that after a couple of months of not telling you, it just got harder and harder, Rachel.  You know, when a lie or an omission goes on too long and then there seems to be no way to get to the truth.  Let sleeping dogs lie.”

Now there was no controlling her emotions anymore as she sat up and stared at the fire, swiping roughly at her eyes in anger.  “He went back to that house with me every time I asked him to!” she shouted now, and this time everyone did awaken.

“He lied to me again and again, treating me like a weak fool – like the chauvinist fuck he was, thinking I couldn’t handle the truth about what he did!”

I let her rage for now.

“What’s going on?” asked Nelson.

“It’s okay, Nel,” I said.  “I told her about Jess.  And Don.”

“Oh,” he said.  “God, I’m sorry, Rachel.  I really am.  I know Jess must have loved you a lot.  What happened to him wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t  Don’s fault, either.”

Rachel nodded at him as she dabbed at her eyes with a sleeve, and suddenly, Nelson got off the floor and on all fours, crawled to where she sat.  He got up on his knees and opened his arms, pulling her into them.

I watched him, again marveling at the heart within this young man I continued to think of as a kid.

Rachel closed her eyes and let her tears flow as she returned Nelson’s embrace.  With his head against hers, he held her tight; he did not pat or rub her back in some lame gesture to make the embrace seem less personal; he just held her in his arms as her shuddering sobs came harder and returned the hug as though helping her cling to her own sanity.

I felt tears running down my face, too, and looked over to see Serena wiping her own face in the flickering, dying firelight.

Among us, only Lola slept through, unaware of this powerful moment of shared sorrow.

Afterward Nelson sat on his legs and held her hands as we listened to the crickets outside and the crackling and popping of the fire within.  When Serena announced it was three in the morning, everyone got up and went to their respective bedrooms. 

Lola had slept through all of it.  It was okay; she could be brought up to speed later on when Rachel did not have to relive the loss of her husband yet again.

*****

Serena and I lay in bed together, me on my back and her on her side, facing me.  Her arm was over my chest, and her head was on my shoulder.  I could not have imagined I would ever feel this content again after the loss of Leona, but here I was. 

This world bred the need to connect; I might have grieved for years in a normal society; started drinking heavily, hitting strip clubs, losing myself on purpose so I wouldn’t miss her.  But here, in this fucked up world, I was preoccupied with staying alive. 

And protecting my friends and my family.  And apparently falling in love again with a strong woman who had never really shared her own story with me.  I wasn’t tired.  Serena was still awake, and I could feel her eyes on me in the dark, so I broached the question.

“Serena,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“How did you get to Shelburne?  And before you say anything, tell me you’ll be up front if you don’t want to talk about it.”

She was quiet for a long time.  Finally, she said, “To answer your question, I had lived in Vermont for years, in a town called Carthage.  We moved to Shelburne when I was nineteen.  And this might sound stupid maybe, but from the moment you walked through the door of ZFZ-4, I was attracted to you, David.”

I never knew what to say – especially when the opposite wasn’t true.  I was still pretty hung up on Charlie at that time, and didn’t really see anything but a bunch of strangers.  I decided to be honest.

“I think you know I had a little Charlie crush going on then.”

“But you knew she was with Hemp,” said Serena.

“I did,” I said.  “And when he was kidnapped, I don’t know … I got this terrible hope that I should never have gotten, because I love Hemp.”

“You hoped he’d … die?”

“No, but I didn’t know that he wasn’t already dead, Serena.  It’s not that I’d ever hope that.  That’s not me at all, and I knew how much Charlie loved him.  Hell, I love the guy.  It was just that if he was gone, I wanted to be there for her.  Eventually, anyway.”

I lay there in the dark for a while, then said, “Anyway, I interrupted.  I just want you to know that by the time we were leaving Shelburne, I wanted you to come.  I was so damned excited that you did, I can’t even tell you.”

“I’m kind of the opposite of Charlie,” she said.

“In some ways,” I said.  “Mostly physically.  You’re taller, have longer hair, and darker skin.  You’re runway model sexy, and as for ass-kicking, I’d say it’s a tie.”

She elbowed me in the ribs, and I feigned injury, laughing.  “I love you, Serena.  You’re part of me, like it or not.”

“If I didn’t like it, I’d be part of someone else,” she said, and I heard the smile in her voice.  “But now you want to know about my life before, and I lie here beside you, realizing I’ve known you several months now and haven’t shared any of it with you.  How many times have we made love?”

“Not enough,” I said.

“I agree,” she said.  “Anyway, it’s a bombshell, I guess.”

“Really?” I asked.

“I was married, David.”

I hadn’t expected that.  “You … were?”

“That’s not all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a son, too.”

I had no words.  I felt embarrassed that this had gone unsaid for so long, and I felt it was my fault.  I knew I’d told her all about Leona, and yet, had I asked her about her past?  Had I detected some reluctance to talk about it?

I honestly couldn’t remember.  The last few months since we’d found Serena in that safe house were a blur.

“God, I’m so sorry, Serena.  I feel like some kind of selfish prick for not knowing about it.”

“Gem’s the only one I told,” she said.  “Not even your girlfriend Charlie knows.”

“Very funny.”

“Sorry,” she said, rubbing my chest and kissing my cheek. 

“It’s okay.  Go on.”

“My husband was the son of close friends of my parents, from our village in Spain.  I had known they wanted me to marry Enrique since I was six years old.  By the time I was old enough to marry, it was preordained.  So it happened.”

“Did you love him?”

“He was like an older brother to me,” she said.  “So I loved him in that way at first.  I don’t think I even knew how I really felt about him until after I gave in and married him.  The very night of my wedding was when I learned my true, inner feelings, and none of what came after our nuptials felt … moral.  I tried to accept it, but it felt disgusting.  Like incest.”

“It must have been horrible for you, babe,” I said.  “Was it the same for him?”

“Not at all,” she said.  “I was more to him, which became obvious after our marriage.  I was repulsed by the intimacy, but he was aggressive and insistent.  I couldn’t talk to my mother about it; she wouldn’t listen.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen,” she said.  “I had my baby at nineteen.”

“They forced you to marry at seventeen?”

“It wasn’t unusual,” Serena said.  “He was nineteen, working with my father at our jewelry store.  He was apprenticing there, and his family had contributed much to the business.  As I said, it had all been planned for years.”

“I’m afraid to ask, Serena.  About your son.  You said you
had
a son.”

“I did.  His name was David.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“It’s a very popular name in Spain, too.  Funny, huh?”

“I’m afraid to indulge in anything funny.  You want to tell me about him?”

“I do,” she said.  “He was like you, in some ways.  He was gentle, very kind.  He was twelve years old when it happened, but before that, a good student, and despite his father, he was kind to people, including the opposite sex.”

“Came from your influence, no doubt.  Right?” I said.

“I suppose it had to,” she said.  “Anyway, that Saturday night, before everything happened, Enrique had gone out, which he did a lot.  If David wasn’t doing a sleepover or something with his friends, we’d do fun things – whatever he wanted.  So that night, he said he wanted to build a fire in the pit in the back yard and roast marshmallows.  So that’s how I spent the last night with my son.”

“Serena, you don’t have to go on,” I said.  “I love you.  I don’t need you to go through this for me.”

“It’s as much for me, David.”

“Is that why you never call me Dave?” I asked.  “Did you call him David?”

“Always,” she said.  “It’s a beautiful name – a Biblical name.  To shorten it is to diminish it, to me.”

“I get it.”

“Anyway, so I had a tray with lemonade and we ate too many marshmallows, and when it got to be around ten, of course Enrique wasn’t home yet, so I just put David to bed and locked up the house.  I felt Enrique come home around three in the morning, smelling like about five different kinds of alcohol.  He tried to climb on top of me, but I pounded on him and told him to stop.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Exactly,” she said.  “I also smelled perfume on him, and to be honest, I said to myself at that moment – that
very
moment – that I was done.  I pushed him off of me and he rolled onto what would have been my side of the bed and passed out.”

I knew there was something to that part of the story, and she did not make me wait to find out what it was.  I put my arm over her shoulder and she tucked into me again.

“I woke up early, well before daylight, and I pulled my Kindle from the drawer and started reading.  I loved it, and with Enrique and David, I didn’t get a lot of time to do it.  At one point, I suppose I fell asleep again.  I was awakened by a snarling and then screaming.  It was Enrique, and I heard a loud noise and thrashing, just before I was literally knocked out of bed.”

“Did Enrique turn?” I asked.

“No,” she whispered.  “If he had, I might not be here to tell you this.”

She was quiet and I heard her breath filling her lungs, and releasing with a stutter.  “Wait,” she whispered.  “I’m sorry.”

“Take your time, Serena.”

Another deep breath.  “I got up and turned on the light, and saw my son … my precious David, on the floor with blood around his lips and mouth.  Enrique had kicked him and was lying in bed beside me holding his neck, where his blood was just pouring out.  I grabbed the phone and hit the power and just pushed 911 and dropped it.  I knew they’d come if they saw the number, and then I ran to David.  He wasn’t facing me at first, but when I turned him around, his eyes … they were white and blank, and he was making these sounds that I know now, but had no idea about then.”

“God, Serena, I’m so sorry,” I said.  “How horrible.  For both of you.”

“He didn’t know, and you know that, David.  He wanted only one thing, and that was from me, too.  He threw himself up at me and I caught him by the shoulders – I’ll never forget holding him away from me when I’d only ever welcomed his embraces.  The older he got the fewer they were and the farther between.  But when I saw him, his mouth chewing and chewing, and his eyes gone, I knew he was sick and looking at what he’d done to his father, I also knew he was dangerous.”

“What did you do?” I asked the question with full recollection of what had happened with Leona – the same monster coming for me – a monster that I loved just earlier that morning.  Such sudden changes turned our worlds upside-down.