Whispers and Lies (36 page)

K.C. staggered forward, Alison dropping from his arms and landing with a dull thud on the floor. K.C. spun around in a sloppy pirouette, his hands losing their graceful rhythm and flailing about for the blade that was buried deep in his back. The growing swell of Alison’s screams filled the air, like a third-rate orchestra, as K.C. balanced on his toes, his arms extended toward me, as if asking me to join him for one final twirl around the room. I declined his silent invitation, taking a step back as he fell forward, his disbelieving eyes glazing over with the approach of imminent death. He hit the floor, the top of his head just missing the base of the overturned tree.

It took a few seconds for me to realize that Alison had stopped screaming, that she was no longer sprawled carelessly across the floor, that she had somehow managed to gather whatever strength she still possessed and was making a desperate scramble for the front door. That she actually succeeded in getting it open and was halfway down the front steps before I caught up to her is a great tribute to her strength and determination.

The instinct for survival, the will to live, is an amazing thing.

I remembered having had similar thoughts about Myra Wylie. Only Erica Hollander had gone quietly, dozing off within minutes of finishing the late-night snack I’d prepared. The pillow I’d subsequently held over her nose and mouth had brought only token resistance.

“No!” Alison was screaming as I reached for her arm.

“Alison, please. Don’t make a scene.”

“No! Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”

“Come back inside, Alison.” I grabbed her elbow, dug my fingers into her flesh.

“No!” she screamed again, wresting her arm away from me with such force I almost lost my balance. She made it halfway to the street before her legs simply gave out, and she collapsed like the proverbial rag doll. Even then, she refused to give up, crawling on her hands and knees toward the sidewalk.

It was then we heard the barking, followed immediately by the click of high heels on pavement. Bettye McCoy and her two lunatic dogs, I realized, trying to drag Alison to her feet.

“Help me!” Alison cried as the third Mrs. McCoy wiggled around the corner in a pair of leopard-print capri pants. “Help me!”

But Alison’s cries were drowned out by the angry yapping of the dogs.

“It’s okay,” I called to the aging Alice in Wonderland. “—She’s just had a bit too much to drink.”

Bettye McCoy tossed her overly teased blond mane disdainfully over her shoulder and gathered the two dogs into her arms before crossing the street and walking briskly in the opposite direction.

“No, please!” Alison called after her. “You have to help me! Help me!”

“You really need to sleep this off,” I said loudly, in case anyone was listening.

“Please,” Alison begged the now empty street. “Please, don’t go.”

“I’m right here, baby,” I told her, gathering her into my arms, guiding her toward the house. “I’m not going anywhere.”

When we reached the door, she stopped fighting. Whether it was the drugs or the realization that such struggles were useless, I don’t know. She simply sighed and went limp in my arms. I carried her across the threshold, as a new husband lovingly transports his bride.

Do they even do that anymore? I don’t know. I doubt I’ll ever have the opportunity to find out. It’s too late for me, just as it was too late for Alison. And it’s too bad, because I think I would have made a fine wife. That’s all I ever really wanted. To love someone, to be loved in return, to make a home, have a family. A child on whom I could lavish all the tenderness I’d been denied. A daughter.

I’ve always wanted a daughter.

I carried Alison to the sofa, cradled her in my arms.
“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,”
I sang tenderly.
“Too-ra-loo-ra-lie …”

Alison raised her eyes slowly to mine. Her mouth opened. Whispers filled the air. I think I heard the word
Mommy
.

O
f course, I don’t believe for a minute that Alison was my child.

She probably heard about how I’d disgraced my family from the Sinukoffs. The name sounds vaguely familiar. Perhaps they were neighbors. Perhaps not. Baltimore’s a big city. You can’t know everyone, despite my mother’s assertion that the whole town knew about my condition, that she was a laughingstock, too ashamed ever to show her face in public again.

That’s why we moved to Florida. Not because my father’s job demanded it. Because of me.

I stayed in school until my condition became too obvious to ignore, then I was asked to leave. Nothing happened to Roger Stillman. My shame was his badge of honor, and he was allowed to remain in school and graduate with his classmates.

I endured almost twenty hours of labor before my
mother let my father drive me to the hospital. It was another ten hours before the baby—weighing in at an impressive eight pounds, seven ounces—was born. I never got the chance to hold her. Never even got the chance to see her. My mother made sure of that.

Of course she was right. What else could she have done? I was only fourteen years old, after all, a baby myself. What did I know of life, of looking after another human being? It was a ridiculous notion, one I’m sure I would have lived to regret.

And yet, maybe not. Would I have been such a bad mother? I’ve often wondered. I’d secretly loved that little baby growing inside me from the first minute I felt her moving around. I talked to her when no one was home, sang to her when we were alone in my room, assuring her that I would never lose my temper with her, never hit her or disparage her in any way, that I would shower her with kisses, assure her each and every day how very much she was loved. “I’ll take care of you,” I promised her when no one was listening. Instead, she was pulled from my body and banished from my side before her sweet little face had time to register, and I spent my whole life taking care of other people instead.

Of course Alison wasn’t my child.

She’d undoubtedly heard about “the fourteen-year-old slut who couldn’t keep her legs together” from someone back in Baltimore, possibly even her older brother, as she’d claimed. Then she and her friends had concocted this elaborate scenario, determined to insinuate themselves into my life.
I wanted you to like me. No. I
wanted you to
love
me
, Alison herself had admitted shortly before she died.

I miss her terribly, of course, think of her often, and always with great affection, even love. So maybe Alison got what she came for after all.

She didn’t suffer. She simply fell asleep in my arms. The rest was easy. There were so many drugs in her system, I doubt she was even aware of the pillow I held against her face for the better part of two minutes. Later, I dressed her in her pretty blue sundress—the one she had been wearing the first day we met—and then buried her in the garden beside Erica. The flowers are especially lush in that corner of the yard, and I think she would have approved.

K.C. was a different story. I’d never killed a man before, never used a knife, never had to resort to such brutality. It took days for the vibrations to stop echoing through my hand, weeks till I was finally able to scrub all the blood from my living room floor. Of course, I had to get rid of the rug. It was ruined. Alison was right—a white rug in the living room hadn’t proved very practical. At any rate, it was time for a change.

I didn’t want K.C. polluting my garden, so I waited until the middle of the night, then bundled him into the trunk of my car and drove all the way to the Everglades, where I tossed him into a slime-covered swamp. It seemed fitting, and I’m sure the alligators appreciated my efforts.

It’s been three months since Alison died. The season is almost over. Every day there are fewer cars on the roads, fewer tourists prowling the streets. It’s easier to
get into restaurants now. There are shorter lines at the movies. Bettye McCoy still walks her two lunatic dogs down the street several times a day, and occasionally one breaks away from her, makes a beeline for my backyard. I’ve erected a small fence to keep them out. Hopefully, that will suffice. Should one of those mangy mutts manage to get into my yard again, I won’t be chasing it out with anything as gentle as a broom.

Occasionally, I wonder what would happen if Lance and Denise came back, looking for Alison. But so far, there’s been no sign of either of them, so maybe Alison was telling the truth about their taking off together, about her relationship with her ex-husband being over once and for all. I hope so. Still, I can’t let down my guard.

My job at the hospital continues much as it always has. Myra’s bed has been filled by an elderly gentleman with advanced Parkinson’s. I take very good care of him. His family think I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Incidentally, I was right about Josh. He did send flowers to the staff several weeks after his mother’s funeral. Actually, the flowers were from both him
and
his wife. The note thanked everyone on the ward. No one was singled out for special mention.

The journal he gave me has proved useful, however. It’s nice to have somewhere to record my thoughts, as I’m doing now. A place to set the record straight.

And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll find true love. Just because Josh proved both weak and unworthy doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there who’s right for me. It’s not too late. I’m only forty. I’m still reasonably attractive. I
could meet someone tomorrow, get married, have the family I’ve always craved. Many women over forty are having babies. It could happen. I’m praying it does.

And that’s about it. Life goes on, as they say.

Who are
they
anyway?
I can hear Alison ask, her voice never very far from my ear.

I turn around, look the other way. She’s right beside me.

Describe your life since I went away
, she whispers playfully.
Three words.

“Uneventful,” I reply obediently. “Unexciting.” I survey the empty shelves that line the kitchen walls, thinking that perhaps the time has come to start rebuilding my collection. “Lonely,” I admit, choking back tears.

I stare out my back window at the small, empty cottage behind my house. It has been unoccupied for three months now and is starting to look a little neglected. It needs someone as much as I do. Someone who will love it and take care of it, who will show it the love and respect it deserves. After the debacles with Erica and Alison, I’m not sure such a person even exists. But maybe it’s time to find out. Maybe it’s time to bury the whispers and lies of the past, time to start afresh.

“Afresh,” I repeat out loud in Alison’s voice, deciding to place an ad in the weekend paper. “Good word.”

“Has she ever done anything like this before?”

“You mean, stayed out all night?”

Neil nodded. He was sitting beside Cindy on one of two tan leather sofas in her living room. Behind them a wall of windows overlooked the spacious backyard. Facing them were three paintings of pears in varying degrees of ripeness. Cindy couldn’t remember the name of the artist who’d painted these pictures. Tom had bought them without asking either her opinion or approval, I
make the money; I make the decisions
, being pretty much the theme of their marriage. Along with the never-ending parade of other women, Cindy thought, smiling sadly at the good-looking man perched on the opposite end of the couch and wondering if he’d ever cheated on his wife. She ran her hand across the sofa’s buttery surface. Fine Italian leather. Guaranteed to last a lifetime. Unlike her marriage, she thought. The sofas had also been Tom’s decision, as was the checkered print of the two wing chairs sitting in front of the black marble fireplace. Why had she never bothered to change anything after he left? Had she been subconsciously waiting for him to return? She shook her head, trying to excise her former husband from her brain.

“Cindy?” Neil was asking, leaning forward, extending his hands toward hers. “Are you all right? You have this very strange look on your face.”

“Yes, she’s stayed out all night before,” Cindy said, answering his question, wondering how long ago he’d asked it. “But she always calls. She’s never not called.”

Except once just after she moved back home, Cindy recalled, when she was making a point about being an adult and no longer answerable to her mother. Her
father
, she’d argued pointedly, had never placed any such restrictions on her. Her
mother
, Cindy had countered, needed to be assured of her safety. It was a matter of consideration, not constraint. In reply, Julia had rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room, but she’d never stayed out all night again without first phoning home.

Except one other time when she forgot, Cindy remembered, but then she’d called first thing the next morning and apologized profusely.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked Neil, trying to prevent another example from springing to mind.

“I take Fridays off in the summer.”

Cindy vaguely recalled him having told her that last night. “Look, you don’t have to stay. I mean, it was very thoughtful of you to come over and everything, I really appreciate it, but I’m sure you have plans for the long weekend.…”

“I have no plans.”

“… and Julia should be home any minute now,” Cindy continued, ignoring the implications of his remark, “at which point I’m going to strangle her, and everything will be back to normal.” She tried to laugh, cried out instead. “Oh God, what if something terrible has happened to her?”

“Nothing terrible has happened to her.”

Cindy stared at Neil imploringly. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he said simply.

Amazingly, Cindy felt better. “Thank you.”

Neil reached over, took her hands in his.

There was a sudden avalanche of footsteps on the stairs, and Heather bounded into view. “I heard the door. Is Julia home?”