The Angel of Death (3 page)

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Authors: Alane Ferguson

BOOK: The Angel of Death
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“Maybe later.”
Mammaw’s lips were already compressed in disapproval as she murmured, “Do you see what looking at death does? It kills the appetite.”
Although it had been nearly sixty years since Mammaw had lived in Dublin, the Old World still clung to her like the blue waves of incense Father John swung from his censer in church. A rosary clicked inside her apron pocket, and a picture of the pope smiled beneath magnets on the refrigerator. The cross that hung from her neck was Celtic, ringed with a halo, the symbol of which Mammaw claimed came from St. Patrick himself.
But somewhere along the way she’d become Americanized, too. Her snow-white hair had been cropped short, like a man’s, and twice a year she made a trip to play the slots at The Lodge Casino in Black Hawk with other gray-haired ladies from St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. On those occasions, with her thin lips painted in rose-berry hue and a layer of powder on her nose, Mammaw looked just like any other Western woman bent on losing money.
“I ran into Velma today, and she told me the pictures for the yearbook are already due,” Mammaw said now. “We’d better look into it. Lord above, I can’t believe we’re talking about your graduation already—where does the time go? Oh, and Father John says he needs your help a week from next,” she went on in her soft Irish lilt. “I told him you’d call. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
Cameryn looked at the row of flowers her grandmother had brought in from outside in order to nurse them through the winter, confined in their pots but secure from the elements. Cammie had always felt safe in this kitchen, in this house, in this life. Her grandmother was the only mother she had ever known, a woman as solid and rooted as Ireland’s native alder trees.
Mammaw hesitated. “I’m not meaning to press, but I want to know if you’re tense because of your mother.”
“Mammaw! ”
“No, no, hear me out. To have her burst into your life only to disappear again—well, it’s a lot for anyone to bear. Your father and I are worried. It’s only been a month since you got the letter and—the nerve of the woman, begging you to call her on a telephone number that was no good. I can’t help but think it’s heavy on your mind.”
“I already told you I’m over it, Mammaw. I called, Hannah’s number was disconnected, and that’s it. End of story.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Her mammaw smiled and shaped the dough. The news that Hannah had slipped away again confirmed everything Mammaw had always suspected about her daughter-in-law, and she’d wasted no time in telling Cameryn exactly what she thought. “I’m sorry for your pain, Cammie,” she’d said. “But hard truths are better when you take them straight. Your mother
said
she wanted contact with you, but clearly she wasn’t ready. And I have to admit I’m relieved. So’s your father. It’s a romantic thing, thinking about a lost mother rising up like the dead, but Cammie, Hannah’s never been a well woman. It’s better if she stays away. It really is.”
With unerring instinct, Cameryn had surmised exactly what her father and grandmother wanted from her. They wanted her life—the lives of all three of them—to stay just as they were, to go on in their rhythms. There had been a shock, yes, but Hannah had disappeared once more and life could go on as it always had.
Yet when the call had come for Cameryn at the Grand Hotel and she had listened to her mother’s breathy voice, she’d made a decision of her own. To give herself the time she needed to sort out everything, she would keep this new contact with Hannah a secret. The roles had been ironically reversed: now it was
Cameryn
who knew what her father and grandmother did
not
know. It wasn’t payback, exactly. More like justice.
“What are you thinking about, girl? What’s spinning inside that head?”
Cameryn looked up. She blinked, then said, “Nothing.”
Her mammaw sighed. “All right. I can’t reach in and pull out your thoughts. So while you’re thinking about nothing, there’s some laundry of yours that needs to be folded. I left the basket in your room. I also noticed your bed wasn’t made.”
Raising her hands in mock surrender, Cameryn cried, “Okay, okay, I’m going. Bed made, clothes folded. I got it.”
“I’ll make you something to eat when you’re ready,” Mammaw called as Cameryn hurried up the narrow stairway.
In her bedroom, her bed lay rumpled. It had once held a canopy, but she’d long ago taken off the top so that the bedposts stood bare, rising like steepled spires toward the ceiling. Leaping onto the middle of her bed on top of a mound of blankets, she began to fold her clothes, enjoying the small static sparks as she pulled her things apart. When she had a stack of underwear, she crossed over to her dresser and opened the drawer.
And there it was. Beneath the lacy bras, she saw the edge of a wooden picture frame, painted deep violet. She shoved the bras aside and lifted the picture.
The dreamy watercolor painting was evidence that her entire life had been built on a lie. That wasn’t exactly right, but that was how she felt. Both her grandmother and her father had lied to her. Not the deliberate lies she’d learned about in church, those acts of
co
mmission, but rather an act of
o
mission. The truth lay in the painting Cameryn held.
There they were, a pair of small, dark-haired girls in pink smocking, smiling the same shy smile, telling the same immutable truth she’d learned the night she’d read the letter from Hannah: Cameryn had once been a twin. Two halves of the same whole. Only the twin was gone, and Cameryn had been taken, borne away by her father to tiny, safe Silverton, where the San Juan Mountains would become the walls of her cloister.
Staring at the picture, she studied her sister’s face. “How can I have no memory of you?” she whispered. “Little girl Jayne, lost and buried, gone forever. Why can’t I remember?”
In her mirror she caught sight of her own reflection and suddenly understood the reason they were all becoming afraid for her. Her dark eyes, large in her face, had a hollowness that hadn’t been there before. Leaning in, she studied them, only inches away. They looked haunted. Would her mother even recognize her now? There was little resemblance between the child in the painting and the mirror’s reflection. Baby fat had melted away, and her face was longer, with high cheekbones and smooth lips. Yet her twin, frozen in time, would never age. “If you were here I wouldn’t be alone,” Cameryn murmured. And, for the millionth time, she wondered what might have been.
“Hey, beautiful one, whatcha doing? Admiring yourself again?”
Whirling around, Cameryn saw her best friend Lyric in the doorway.
“Could you knock or something?” Cameryn cried. “You almost scared me to death!”
“And why would a knock be less frightening? I say you would have jumped out of your skin either way.”
Lyric had on a kinetic print of blues and reds, what she called a “3-D look”—the kind of pattern made with a paint wheel in school. Her pencil-leg jeans had been tucked into black boots with fringe along the top. Like shoots rising from a scorched landscape, Lyric’s blonde roots showed along the part in her blue hair. Lyric and Cameryn—they had been best, if unlikely, friends, since grade school.
“Blame your mammaw—she told me to go right on up,” Lyric said. “I guess you were so busy staring at yourself that you didn’t hear me thumping up the steps. Of course, if I looked like you, I’d be checking me out, too.” Lifting a chubby hand to her forehead, Lyric said, theatrically, “Oh, how I hate mirrors!”
“Shut up. You know you’re a goddess.”
“A
big
goddess.”
“Not that big.”
“Thank you for that, thin one. If folks would just examine their history, they’d see that larger girls like
moi
used to be the standard for beauty. It wasn’t until the flapper era that skinny chicks like you pushed us out. You’ve ruined the curve, Cameryn. You and your legion of anorexic cousins.”
It was true that Lyric took up space, but contrary to what she thought, it wasn’t so much her shape as her personality. A gifted student, an artist, a mystic, Lyric was in many ways Cameryn’s opposite, the fire to her ice, the yin to her yang. Outsiders would never have put the two of them together if they’d seen them on the street. With her blue hair and wild clothes, Lyric had a super-sized personality. She towered over Cameryn in height and in attitude. A crystal chanter, a New Ager, a spiritualist, Lyric often turned up her nose at Cameryn’s beloved science, fought against Cammie’s Catholicism, talked right over her when they were together, and made Cameryn laugh like no one else. The bond they’d formed on the playground had never been shaken. They were split-aparts—chosen sisters in the truest sense.
Lyric jumped onto Cameryn’s bed and dropped the laundry basket on the floor with a resounding thud. Unlike Cameryn, Lyric wasn’t known for being fussy.
“So! You weren’t at work today. I came by, and they said they sent you home early. Playing hooky, huh?” Lyric accused.
“Nothing like that. Justin came by and convinced me I had to go with him to check out a body. Turned out it was a dead dog.” Twirling her finger in the air, Cameryn said, “Big whoop. Or maybe—big
woof
.”
Lyric grinned. “That man will use any excuse to be with you. You realize he’s in love with you.”
“You are, as always, delusional.”
“Deny it if you must, but you know I’m right,” Lyric claimed. “I also detect a hint of reciprocation. Are my psychic powers still cranked?”
“They are nonexistent. And since you’re being such a pain, I must ask the requisite question. Why are you here?”
“Because,” Lyric answered, suddenly serious, “I have a message from your mother.”
Cameryn felt a chill spread through her, seeping from her heart to her extremities. Hardly daring to breathe, she asked, “When did she call?”
“Today. Just now, actually. The call came into the Grand. Adam was there and he took it, but he couldn’t get ahold of you. He tried—”
“I turned off my cell.”
“So here I am, delivering the message.”
Saying nothing, Cameryn walked to the window and looked out.
“Cammie,” Lyric spoke low, “are you sure you don’t want to tell your dad what’s going on? I feel like we’re spies or something.”
“I told you, my dad checks my cell records. He checks our caller ID. If Hannah called here, he’d know.”
“Tell me again why that would be such a bad thing.”
“It just would, that’s all,” Cameryn insisted. “What did Hannah say?” Still staring out the dormer window, she watched the orange-gold sun paint the tips of the mountains as she waited to hear the newest message. She had meant to let Hannah go, just like her father and grandmother wanted . . . until that day at the Grand when the first phone call came while she was working her night shift. That was the night her mother arose once more, the night when the real secrets had started.
“Hey, kid, what are you doing staring out the window?” her father asked from the doorway. “I thought you were supposed to be folding laundry.”
Startled, Cameryn snapped to attention. "Dad! ” she said. “Um . . . hi.”
“And hello to you, Lyric,” Patrick added. “Long time no see.”
Lyric’s eyes had gone wide with panic. “Hello, Mr. Mahoney,” she answered. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Yes, I’m very sneaky. What on earth were you two talking about? Cameryn’s lost every ounce of blood from her face.”
“Boys,” Lyric said brightly. “We were talking about boys.” Cameryn had to hand it to her: Lyric could think fast.
“Ah, that explains it. We’re strange creatures, we who are the home of the Y chromosome.” Leaning against the doorframe, wearing jeans and a black cable-knit turtleneck, Patrick Mahoney smiled at the girls. Then he straightened, pulling his shoulder from the doorframe. “I don’t mean to rush you, Lyric, but I need to talk to the kid alone. Do you mind?”
“Not at all, Mr. Mahoney. I’m actually running off to meet Adam.” Lyric’s pale eyes shifted to Cameryn, silently apologizing, and then she gathered herself and hopped onto the floor. “I’ll talk to you later, Cammie. Don’t forget to fold the rest of your laundry.”
“I won’t,” said Cameryn. “See ya.”
“Yeah. Later. Good-bye, Mr. Mahoney.” Lyric’s blue hair disappeared down the hallway, like a wave retreating from the shore.
“So, Cammie, do you have a minute?” her father asked.
“I guess.” Since there was only one chair in the room, she sat on her bed and pulled up her legs, yoga-style. But her father surprised her. Instead of the chair, he gestured at her bed. “Mind if I sit by you?”
Without a word, she planted her hands on her bed and raised her body so that she could scoot back into her pillows. Her father sank onto the edge of the mattress, and when he did, she noticed he looked different somehow. It took her a moment to register: Patrick, who had never been a man who would “slick himself up,” as he called it, now looked as though he’d been polished. Gone was the old, thick brown leather belt, cracked and scored like elephant skin. Gone, too, were his old work boots. Today he wore new hiking boots made of fawn-colored suede and a smooth leather belt with a silver buckle. His hair seemed strangely controlled, and it took a minute before Cameryn detected the difference. His neck, which usually bristled with straggly white hairs, had been recently shaved. She thought she smelled the barest whiff of hair gel.

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