Life Sentences (31 page)

That night, Jack watched over the
house after Daisy and her mother had gone to bed. He sat out in his parked
car like a man on a stakeout. Upstairs in her room, Daisy opened the
drawer of her bedside table to make sure the revolver was still there.
It was like a dark secret tainting the room. She hated the fact that it
was there at all. She slept on her stomach with her face pressed into her
pillow and fell into a void where no light could penetrate, where no
shadows could possibly form.

In the middle of the night, she awoke
to a strange sound. A rabbit was crying somewhere in the woods. No, wait
a minute. Rabbits squealed. This sounded more like, a human child.
She shivered and checked her alarm-clock-1:30. She lay listening to the
world from some foggy woolly place. Her pillow was hot. In her half-sleep,
she couldn't figure out why a child would be crying all by itself in the
woods. Then she realized that was the baby screaming. She could picture
his tiny body shaking with inner drama and got out of bed, stuck her feet
into a pair of Anna's fuzzy slippers and shuffled down the hallway toward
his room.

"
Shh
.
Daisy's here." His diaper was dry. "What's the matter, big
guy?" She lifted him out of his crib.

He paused long enough to stare
sadly at her, as if he were incubating solemn thoughts.

"Are you hungry? Is that
it?"

He gazed at her with his intense
dark eyes and then shit his diaper before letting out another exaggerated
scream.

Daisy changed his
poopy
diaper, then took him downstairs for his bottle.
He drank with epic thirst, and when he was done, he curled up his fingers
and toes and screamed with his entire body.

"
Shh
.
You'll wake the whole neighborhood." She tried everything-rocking
him, holding him, singing to him. But even his stuffed toys seemed to unnerve
him. She shook his favorite mint-green bunny in his face, but he only yelled
and blew snot.

She snagged a pink tissue from the
box and wiped his nose with it. They were forever wiping liquid substances
from his body. They must've gone through a landfill of diaper wipes, a mountain
of paper towels. Now she strapped Noah in his baby seat on the kitchen
table and went over to the sink to rinse out his bottle. She accidentally
dropped it, and it crashed to the floor.

The baby reacted by shrieking.

She cleaned up the mess using an
old newspaper. She tore out some of the pages to sop up the glass with,
and he fell silent.

She glanced up. "What?"
she said, tearing another page out of last Tuesday's paper.

He listened with rapt attention.

She ripped another section in
half, and he gurgled happily. She went through last Sunday's edition and
was on yesterday evening's by the time he finally nodded off.

Lily came shuffling into the kitchen
just then.

"
Shh
,"
Daisy said. "Baby's sleeping."

Her mother nodded. "Want some
ice cream?"

"Sure."

"Couldn't sleep," Lily
whispered. "Such a racket."

Daisy could hear the distant cries
in the woods.

"Sounds human, doesn't
it?" Lily shuddered, then took a pint of sugar-free chocolate ice
cream out of the freezer and fetched two bowls from the china cabinet.

Daisy rubbed her nose fiercely.
"It's a cat," she said. "Only cats sound that human."

As the cries grew louder and more
pronounced, Lily said, "I wish it would stop. Two scoops?"

"Sure, why not?" She took
a seat at the table while her mother scooped several generous helpings
into the bowls, then put the ice cream away and got them each a spoon. She
sat down and examined the baby with elaborate interest.

"His hands remind me of starfish,"
she said. "All pink and curled." "Mom?" "Yes?"

"I can't take this baby."
Lily nodded. "I know." "I've got to go back to work soon,"
Daisy said. "But see, what I'm asking is… do you think you can handle
it?"

"Me?" lily smiled at the
sleeping baby. "I'll manage somehow. I managed all those years
with you two girls, didn't I?"

Daisy said nothing. The world felt
strangely empty. "Mom?"

"Yes?" she said.

"I know about Dr.
Slinglander
."

Lily stared at her ice cream, spoon
lifted midway to her mouth.

"Dr.
Slinglander
is Louis's father. Right?"

She dropped her spoon and stood
up in one long rush of movement.

Looking into that stricken face,
Daisy thought she saw her own grieving eyes. "I don't get it. Why is it
such a deep, dark secret?"

"Don't you have secrets?"
Lily asked in a raw voice.

The silence stretched. Daisy
had to be careful. Her mother seemed as delicate as a ghost; one puff
and she'd blow away. "Mom? Sit down and talk to me."

Lily slumped into her seat.
"After Gregory died, I was so heartsick," she said. "I
just knew I needed help. I knew I couldn't cope with this alone, so I went
to see a therapist. Arnold was a kind man. Very patient and gentle. I would
cry and cry, and then one day he got up and held me. It felt so natural, being
held by him. At the end of each session, he would get up and hold me, and it
was wonderfully comforting. Just what I needed. Then one day the hug turned
into a kiss."

The baby was sound asleep in his
carrier.

"One thing led to another,"
Lily continued, "and I suddenly found myself pregnant. I thought
about having an abortion, but for the first time since Gregory's death,
I felt… I don't know. Whole again. Anyway, Arnold offered to pay for an
abortion, but in the end, he respected my decision. We agreed nobody
should ever know who the father was. Arnold was a happily married man. Besides,
it was nobody's business. He agreed to pay child support. He was very generous.
He paid in cash so his wife would never find out. Edgewater's a small
town."

Daisy frowned. "What did you
tell your friends?"

"That I'd met a man on vacation
and that we talked about getting married. Later I said he'd jilted me
and I never wanted to speak of him again. In the meantime, Arnold was
as good as his word. He paid for all the baby's medical expenses, whatever
the insurance didn't cover. I felt ashamed of what we'd done. We both
knew it was wrong.

"He called it transference,
what had happened between us. He said that I'd fallen in love with him
because I missed Gregory so much. Something like that. Anyway, after
I became pregnant, he told me it should never happen again. We stopped
seeing each other. It was hard at first, but I got over it. He blamed himself.
He was very embarrassed, actually." Lily chucked the baby under
the chin.

"Mom, don't. Let him sleep."

She drew her hand away.
"Anyway, later on… after, Anna got sick, Arnold agreed to treat her
for free. He " never asked for a dime, and psychotherapy can be quite
expensive, believe you me. But he treated Anna like she was his daughter.
Louis had been his only child, and I guess he missed being a father…"

"It's despicable, Mom,"
Daisy spat. "You were vulnerable. He took advantage of you, then
lied to Anna for years."

"This was about protecting
his wife, protecting his position in the community, protecting me…
protecting us, Daisy. We couldn't tell anyone the truth. Not about
that."

She glanced at the baby. He was sleeping
soundly now, lulled by the cadence of their voices.

"Life is a series of paradoxes,
I think," Lily said. "A combination of mistakes and missteps
and lucky accidents. I would never ask you about your innermost secrets,
Daisy. You shouldn't ever ask me about mine."

"I don't have any innermost
secrets, Mom."

"It was a mistake, okay? I made
a mistake. Orson Barsum was a mistake, too. I've made a lot of mistakes
in my life, Daisy. You will, too."

Daisy lowered her spoon. She
wasn't hungry anymore. "Not that kind," she said sullenly.

"Don't you dare judge
me." Lily stood up.

Daisy looked at her. "You knew
about Mr. Barsum, didn't you?"

Lily moved toward the doorway so
abruptly she knocked her chair over, and it landed with a crash.

"Mom," Daisy said furiously,
"do not walk away from me!"

Lily stood in the doorway.

The baby stirred in his carrier
and began to whimper.

"You know what Mr. Barsum did
to us, right?" Daisy repeated.

Her mother's face turned crimson.
She gripped the door frame. "I don't have to explain my actions
to anyone."

"Yes, you do! You owe us an explanation.
Me and Anna."

Her body tensed, and she cried
out, "You don't know how terrible I felt that I couldn't see what was
going on right under my nose! Mothers are supposed to help their children,
not hurt them." She clung to the door frame. "The only reason I asked
Orson to come live with us was because I didn't want you girls growing up
without a father. He used to play games with you for hours. Maybe that
should've clued me in. Don't look at me that way!" she shrieked.
"Don't you think I carry the guilt around with me constantly? When I
found out what was happening, I thought my heart would break! It was
such a black day for me. Am I a mind reader? No. He was deceptive. He was
clever. I hate him every day of my life for what he did to us."

"He said that if we told you
about it," Daisy said quietly, "you'd leave us."

"Oh, that makes me so sad. Where
was I when this was going on? How could I have let it happen?" Looking
at Daisy, she said, "Was I a bad mother?"

"Oh, Mom."

"You think I'm a bad mother,
don't you?"

"He did these monstrous
things to us," Daisy said, "and all you did was kick him out of the
house. You never called the police. How come he wasn't arrested? On top
of that, the three of us never mentioned it again. It was as if it hadn't
happened. Anna and I had to live with it every day of our lives… just sitting
there inside of us. I really wish you'd had him arrested or something,
Mom. Then maybe we could've told somebody about it. We could've gotten
rid of some of the guilt and the
ickiness
…"

"I screamed at him and threatened
to call the police if he didn't leave immediately," Lily said with
tears streaming down her cheeks. "I watched him collect his things,
put them in the car and drive away. I never heard from him again, thank
God. Yes, maybe I should've called the police. Maybe I should have. But
I thought I'd solved the problem. I figured he'd never bother us again."

"That was a
chickenshit
way of dealing with it."

"You have to understand! I
was so confused! I honestly couldn't react any other way. Don't torment
me, Daisy. Why didn't I call the police? I don't know. Maybe because I
didn't want to think about it ever again. If I could just push it out of my
mind, then it wouldn't be so terrible for you girls. Besides, he promised
me… he swore to me you were virgins."

"Virgins?" Daisy laughed.
"He made us suck his cock."

"Stop it!" Lily screamed,
clamping her hands over her ears. The baby started to wail, a full-throated
howl. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Why did you have to
bring it up?"

Daisy picked up the baby and bounced
him in her arms, then cradled him until the screaming shrank to little
gasps, fretful intakes of air.

"I tried to be the best mother
I could, given the circumstances." Lily's eyes blazed. Her nose
ran freely. "I don't know if you remember, but I was taking accounting
classes at the time… and between raising you girls and the cooking and
cleaning… between going to work and helping you out with your homework
and taking care of Louis and doing all of this without your father… I
was exhausted every day. Every single day. But I wanted you girls to grow
up happy. I sincerely wanted my girls to become successful adults."

Daisy watched her mother's anguished
face and tried to forgive her.

"I prayed you'd forget about
the terrible things he did to you," she said harshly. "I knew it
wouldn't be easy, but you were both so young. I just thought that maybe
you'd forget, that the damage wouldn't be so bad. I was so angry. I wanted
him to suffer, but I was afraid. What if I called the police, and he lied
to them? What if they thought I was a bad mother? What if he came after us?
Would the police protect us?' "Mom," Daisy said, rocking the
sleeping child in her arms, "we need to talk about this some other time."

"But we're talking now, aren't
we?"

"No," she said.
"You're talking. I'm listening." She looked away. She seemed
inordinately sad. "We'll talk about it again," Daisy said,
"when we aren't so tired. We'll talk about it later."

"I'll listen next time, sweetheart.
I promise."

"Good night, Mom." She took
the baby upstairs and tucked him snug in his crib.

Daisy crossed the yard toward
Jack's rental car, which was parked in front of the house. The rain had
stopped, and the night sky had cleared. She could see stars scattered across
the heavens and hugged herself inside her bulky sweater. In the spring,
the days started cold, then warmed up nicely, but they always ended cold
again. She could hear John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" wafting
from the tinny speakers as she approached the little foreign import.
"Hi," she said.

"Hey." Jack turned the volume
down.

"Brought you something."
She handed him a thermos of hot coffee through the rolled-down window.

"Thanks. Nice of you."

"Yeah, well. New England hospitality
and all." She glanced around at the moonlit hills and shuddered. Their
house was surrounded by wildly overgrown stone walls that kept the property
separate from the slowly encroaching forest. "Are you going to be
out here all night?" she asked, and he nodded. "What about tomorrow
night?"

"I'll stay as long as you need
protecting."

"That could take a while."

He blew the steam off his coffee.
"Fine with me."

She gave him a soft smile.
"Then what?"

He put down his coffee and rested
his hands on the steering wheel. He wore a clean black T-shirt, a pair of
old jeans and beat-up basketball shoes, and for some reason, this made
her feel sad. "I'll stay until the locks are changed and the alarm
system is installed. As for what comes next?" His eyes were a little
too vulnerable. "That's up to you, Daisy."

"The only thing I'm sure of is
that I have to go back to work." She glanced at the full moon and drew
her sweater closer. The cat had stopped crying. It was too quiet now, too
isolated, the woods crowding in on them like an unwanted hug. "I'm
sorry about what happened earlier."

"You mean Herr Professor?"

She smiled. "Perfect timing,
huh?"

"He wants you."

"At the lab."

"Uh-huh."

"You're jealous. Are you jealous?"

"I'm concerned."

"About what?"

"That you'll make the right decision."

"Don't worry about me, Jack.
I've got my head screwed on right."

"Do your

"What
d'you
think?"

"Okay, here it is. My inner
self. I haven't had a date in three years. I scare all my dates away, apparently.
Look at me, for God's sake. I didn't want to be anything like my father.
I swore that my life was going to be more meaningful than that, so I became
a cop, and now here I am. On suspension. I'll probably lose my job. I've
got three ex-wives and no future with the LAPD, and I want to be more than
just a footnote in your life, Daisy. I don't know what you plan on doing
with that beautiful baby boy upstairs, but whatever you do, I'm all for
it. You're funny, you're smart as a whip, you're beautiful, you're emotional,
you're vulnerable… and I just really want to hang out with you for a while."

She laughed. "Hang out with
me, huh?"

"For as long as you're willing
to put up with me."

"Yeah, okay," she teased.
"Let me sleep on it."

He clutched his heart.
"Ouch."

She walked over to the car, leaned
in the window and said, "You'll never be a footnote, Jack."

They kissed for a while, slow, gentle
kisses. Then the baby started to cry again, his baleful wails like arrows
whistling through her heart. She straightened with a shiver.

"Lock the door behind
you," he told her. "And keep your gun handy."

A nauseating fear gripped her.
"He's here, isn't he?"

"I got a call earlier. I
didn't want to alarm you."

She looked at the surrounding forest.

"They spotted him in West Virginia
two days ago."

"I'll never use it," she
said. "The gun."

"Don't worry. I'm
gonna
be out here all night long."

"Good night," she said.

"See you in the morning."