The Taker (44 page)

Q
UEBEC
P
ROVINCE, PRESENT DAY

L
uke stops at a diner close to the exit from the highway, needing a break from the endless gray ribbon of road. Once they’ve slid into a booth, he borrows Lanny’s laptop to catch up on news and check his email. Besides the usual queue of emails from the hospital administrators (“Employees are reminded not to park in the east parking lot, as this space will be used for snow removal …”), no one has written to him. No one seems to have noticed his absence. Luke makes the cursor scurry aimlessly around the desktop in his distraction, but there is nothing to double check. He is about to power down the computer when he hears a chime. Somebody has sent him an email.

He expects it to be spam, another cheerful but impersonal invitation from his bank to open a CD or something similarly worthless, but it’s from Peter. Luke feels a pang of discomfort for having taken advantage of his colleague’s good nature. Peter is more of an acquaintance than a friend, but since there are few anesthesiologists in the county and Luke is an emergency room physician, they saw more of each other than most of the other doctors. Luke’s latest series of misfortunes
had made him less friendly than usual, but Peter was one of the few doctors still speaking to him.

“Where are you?” the email reads. “I didn’t think you were planning to be gone with the car so long. I tried calling but you’re not answering your cell phone. Everything okay? Haven’t been in an accident? Not hurt? Worried about you. CALL ME.” Then Peter listed all of his phone numbers and his wife’s cell phone number.

Luke closes Peter’s email, his jaw clenched.
He’s afraid I’m cracking up
, Luke realizes. He’s aware that his behavior is odd, to say the least, and the people in town hold their breath around him, afraid to mention either Tricia and the divorce or his parents’ deaths. They don’t think he can handle the abundance of unhappiness in his life. It’s not until that moment that Luke realizes that leaving town with this woman has distracted him from his misery. He hasn’t
not
been miserable in months. This is the first time he’s been able to think of his daughters without wanting to weep.

Luke takes a deep breath and lets it out in a long stream.
Don’t jump to conclusions
, he tells himself. Peter is being nice, patient. Hasn’t threatened to call the police. Peter is the most well-adjusted person in Luke’s life right now, but Luke realizes this is probably because Peter is new to St. Andrew. The young doctor hasn’t been infected yet with the town’s inherent strangeness, its cold standoffishness, its Puritan addiction to judgment.

For a moment, Luke is tempted to call Peter. Peter is a tether to the real world, the world that existed before he helped Lanny escape from the police, before he listened to her fantastical story, before he slept with a patient. Peter might be able to talk Luke down from this ledge. He takes another deep breath: the question is, does he
want
to be talked down?

He reopens Peter’s email and hits Reply. “I’m sorry about your car,” he types. “I’ll leave it somewhere soon and the police will find it and get it back to you.” He considers what he’s written and realizes what he’s really saying is that he’s gone and he won’t be coming back. He
feels tremendous relief. Before he hits the Send button, he adds to the email, “Keep my truck. It’s yours.”

Luke stops in the restroom before getting into the SUV and sees that Lanny is already in the front seat, staring straight ahead with a humorless smile. “What’s wrong?” Luke asks as he turns the key in the ignition.

“It’s nothing …” She drops her gaze. “When I went to pay the bill, when you were in the restroom, I saw they had liquor for sale behind the counter, so I asked for a bottle of Glenfiddich. But she wouldn’t sell it to me. Said I had to wait for
my father
to come out of the restroom if he wanted to buy a bottle.”

Luke starts to reach for the door handle. “I’ll go in if you want—”

“Don’t. It’s not about the scotch; it’s just that … this happens all the time. I’m sick of it, that’s all. Always being mistaken for a teenager, treated like a kid. I may look like a kid but I don’t
think
like one and sometimes, I just don’t want to be treated like one. I know looking young also helps me get by, but God …” She holds her head, shaking it, then throws her shoulders back. “Let’s give her a show. Really blow her mind.”

Before Luke can answer, Lanny grabs his jacket by the collar and pulls him to her. She locks her mouth over his and gives him a long kiss, grinding against him. The kiss goes on and on, until he gets dizzy. Over Lanny’s shoulder, he can see the woman frozen behind the cashier’s counter, her mouth formed into a horrified circle and her eyes widening.

Lanny releases him, laughing. She slaps the dashboard. “Come on,
Dad
, let’s go find a hotel so I can fuck your brains out.”

Luke doesn’t laugh with her. Without thinking, he wipes his mouth. “Don’t do that. I don’t like being mistaken for your father. It makes me feel …”
Like I’m a terrible person, and I’m not
, he thinks but doesn’t say.

She quiets right down, flushes with shame, and looks helplessly at her hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” she says. “It won’t happen again.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

S
T
. A
NDREW
, 1819

T
hat blissful reunion on the settle was not to be our last time together. We contrived to meet as best we could, although the circumstances were inconvenient, to say the least—a hay barn on the edge of the pasture, fragrant with dried alfalfa (but then we had to be diligent to brush every seed and stalk from our clothes), or the horse barn off the St. Andrews’ house, where we’d lock ourselves in the tack room and quietly grind against each other amid dangling reins and harnesses.

During these times with Jonathan, even as I inhaled his breath and drops of his sweat fell on my face, I was surprised to find Adair creeping into my thoughts. Surprised that I felt guilty, as though I was wronging him, because we were lovers, in our way. There was an undercurrent of fear, too, of the punishment Adair would exact from me, not for swiving another man but for loving another man. Why should I feel guilt and fear if I was only doing what he wanted?

Maybe because in my heart I knew it was Jonathan I loved, only Jonathan. He would win out every time.

“Lanny,” Jonathan whispered, kissing my hand as he lay recovering in the hay after an assignation. “You deserve better than this.”

“I’d meet you in the woods, in a cave, in a field,” I replied, “if that were the only way to see you. It doesn’t matter where we are. All that matters is that we are together.”

Pretty words, the words of lovers. But as we lay together in the hay and I stroked his cheek, my mind could not help but wander. And it wandered to dangerous places, poking into matters best left undisturbed, such as the circumstances surrounding my abrupt departure years earlier, and Jonathan’s silence on the event. Since I’d returned to town he hadn’t asked me once about the child. He
wanted
to question me; I sensed it whenever there was a moment of strained silence between us, when I would catch him looking at me sideways.
When you left St. Andrew
… but the words remained on his tongue. He must have assumed I’d aborted the babe, as I’d said I would that day in church. But I wanted him to know the truth.

“Jonathan,” I said softly, catching and slipping tendrils of his black floss through my fingers, “did you ever wonder why my father sent me out of town?”

I felt him hold his breath, a hesitation in his stillness. After a bit, he replied, “I didn’t know you’d gone until it was too late … It was wrong of me not to seek you out earlier, to see that you were not in trouble or if something more sinister had happened to you …” He began to fiddle absentmindedly with the lacing on my stays.

“What excuse did my family make for my being sent away?” I asked.

“They said you were being sent to care for a sick relative. They were very closed after you’d left and kept to themselves. I asked one of your sisters once if they’d heard from you and if they might give me an address so I could write to you, but she rushed away without responding.” He lifted his head from my sternum. “Is that not the case? Were you not caring for someone?”

I could have laughed at his naiveté. “The only one who needed
care was myself. They sent me away to have the child. They didn’t want anyone here to know about it.”

“Lanny!” He pressed a hand against my face, but I shook it off. “And did you—”

“There is no child. I miscarried.” I could say those words without emotion now, without a quiver in my voice or a knot in my throat.

“I am so sorry for all you have been through, and by yourself …” He sat up, unable to take his eyes off me now. “Does this have anything to do with how you ended up with this man? This Adair?”

I’m sure my expression became very dark. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”

“What trials have you been through, poor brave Lanny? You should have written me, informed me of your situation. I’d have done anything for you, anything within my means …” He went to hold me—for which my body longed—then seemed to think better of it and pulled back. “Have I lost my mind? What—what are we doing? Haven’t I wronged you enough? What right have I to start up with you again, as though it’s a game of some sort?” Jonathan held his head in his hands. “You must forgive me for my selfishness, my stupidity …”

“You didn’t force me,” I said, trying to calm him. “I wanted this, too.” If only I could take my words back; it had been a mistake to bring up the child, dead and gone. I cursed myself for giving in to my petty nature. I had wanted Jonathan to know I had suffered and to acknowledge his part in the ill that had befallen me, but it had backfired.

“We cannot continue like this. This is the last—complication—I need in my life.” Jonathan rolled away from me and got to his feet. When he saw my shocked and hurt expression, he continued, “Forgive my frankness, dear Lanny. But you know full well I have a family, a wife, an infant daughter, obligations I cannot forsake. I cannot jeopardize their happiness for the sake of a few stolen moments of pleasure with you … And there is no future for us, there cannot be. It would be hurtful and unfair to you for us to continue.”

He doesn’t love me enough to stay with me
—the truth cut my heart like a blade. I gulped for air. Anger flamed up inside me at his words. Could he be realizing this only now, after we had started up our illicit affair again? Or was I hurt because he was forsaking me a second time for Evangeline? I must admit the first thought that came to me, as I sat dumbfounded, was of revenge. I can see how scorned women swear themselves over to the devil; in such a moment, the need for revenge is strong but the ability to extract it insufficient. If Lucifer had appeared before me at that second, promising the means to make Jonathan suffer the everlasting torments of hell in exchange for my soul, I would have accepted it, gladly.

Or perhaps there was no need to summon the devil, to draw up the fiery contract, to sign my name in blood. Perhaps I already had.

I was at a loss, now, for how to carry out Adair’s plan, and the realization that I might fail made me sick with fear. I’d thought I’d lure Jonathan to Boston with my love and sexual favors, but I’d failed. Remorse made my lover swear off me, though he promised he would be my friend and benefactor, if need be, forever. I waited to see if Jonathan might change his mind and come back to me, but it became clear as the days progressed that he would not.
A visit
, I begged him;
come to Boston for a visit
, but Jonathan resisted. One day his excuse was that his mother couldn’t be trusted not to upset village affairs in his absence, and on another day it was that a complication had arisen that required his attention.

In the end, though, it was always his wife who kept him from agreeing to leave. “Evangeline would never forgive me if I left her alone with my family for a long spell, and she’d never make the trip with the baby,” he said to me, as though he really was at the mercy of his wife and an infant—as though he’d never put his own wishes ahead of theirs, dutiful husband and father that he was. Such excuses might have been believable for another man but not for the Jonathan I knew.