Whispers and Lies Read online

  “Merry Christmas, everybody,” I said, locking the door behind me and heading for the kitchen. “And an especially merry Christmas to you, dear ladies,” I greeted the sixty-five china heads regarding me with indifferent eyes. “I trust you were good little girls while I was away.” I filled the kettle with water, made myself a cup of ginger-peach tea, and carried it up the stairs to the bathroom, where I stripped naked and poured myself a bath. I climbed inside and leaned my head against the cool enamel, jasmine-scented bubbles covering me like a blanket.

  I remembered how once, when I was a little girl, my mother had found me in the tub, my legs akimbo, the water lapping against the insides of my thighs, as I giggled with childish abandon. The spanking I’d received that night was worse than any other she’d administered over the years, partly because I was soaking wet, and partly because I had no idea why I was being punished. I kept begging her to tell me what I’d done wrong, but my mother never said a word. To this day, I can feel the sting of her fingers on my bare buttocks, like the bite of thousands of tiny wasps, my wet skin a magnifying glass, reflecting and enlarging my pain and humiliation. More than anything, I remember the sound of those slaps as they resonated against my bare bottom, then ricocheted off the walls. Even now there are nights, when I close my eyes to sleep, that I hear it.

  I shook my head free of such unpleasant thoughts and slid down in the tub, dragging my head under the water’s surface, my hair floating around my head, like seaweed. Immediately, another unpleasant memory attached itself to the insides of my closed eyelids: three little gray-and-white kittens, abandoned strays I’d found shivering in a corner of our garage, all mangy and mewing and “probably riddled with ringworm,” as my mother had proclaimed before wresting them from my arms and drowning them in a pail of water in the backyard.

  I tried unsuccessfully not to see the kittens as I lay in the tub, an inch of water covering my face, like a shroud. What was the matter with me? Why was my mother so much in my thoughts these days?

  It seemed that ever since Alison’s arrival, my mother had once again taken up residence in not only the house, but my brain. Probably it was all the questions Alison asked, the photographs we’d looked through together. They were responsible for my strange dreams, these unscheduled trips down memory lane. I hadn’t thought of those damn kittens in years. Why now, for God’s sake? Hadn’t I made peace with my mother during those long, awful days of her illness? Hadn’t she begged my forgiveness? Hadn’t I gratefully bestowed it?

  My mother was such a formidable presence, although I’m at a loss to say exactly why. At only five feet two inches tall, it was hardly her physical stature that made her so imposing. Indeed, her disproportionately large bosom gave her a pigeonlike shape that was almost comic, and her features were surprisingly small and nondescript.

  I think what truly set her apart was the way she carried herself, proud shoulders rigid, stubborn head held high, so that her tiny, upturned nose always seemed to be looking down at you from a great height.

  That posture infused all aspects of her life. She was definite in her opinions, even on subjects she knew little about. Her temper was quick, her tongue sharp. I learned early that there was no point in trying to press my side of things, that only one side mattered.

  Certainly my father was rarely consulted. If he had any opinions, he kept them to himself. I’d learned early to count on him for nothing, and in that way, he never disappointed me. If he had any regrets, they died with him.

  My mother became even angrier after my father died, lashing out at me at the slightest provocation. You’re a stupid, stupid girl! I can still hear her shout whenever I’ve done something particularly foolish.

  Later, of course, when age rounded those stubborn shoulders and infirmity softened her more abrasive edges, she became gradually less formidable, less self-righteous, less prone to poisonous outbursts. Or maybe she just became less. After her stroke, my mother literally shrank to half her former size.

  And a strange thing happened.

  In becoming less, she became more, as the architect Mies van der Rohe might have said—more tolerant, more grateful, more vulnerable. Her shadow shrank to something approximating human size.

  You know that everything I did, I did for your benefit, she said often in those last months of her life.

  I know that, I told her. Of course I know that.

  I didn’t mean to be cruel.

  I know.

  It’s the way I was raised. My mother was the same with me.

  You were a good mother, I said.

  I made a lot of mistakes.

  We all make mistakes.

  Can you forgive me?

  Of course I forgive you. I kissed the flaky, dry skin of her forehead. You’re my mother. I love you.

  I love you too, she whispered.

  Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe I just wanted to hear her say the words so badly that I imagined she said them.

  Why was she returning to haunt me now?

  I pushed my head above the water’s surface, felt the tiny soap bubbles evaporating on my skin. Was there something she was trying to tell me? Was she trying to warn me, to protect me, in death, the way she never had during her lifetime?

  Protect me from what?

  I pulled the plug with my toes, listening as the water gulped its way musically down the drain. It took a moment for me to become aware of other sounds, another moment for me to understand exactly what those sounds were. Bells, I realized, hearing a downstairs door open and close, as my heart slid down the drain with the last of the bubbles.

  Someone was in the house.

  I stepped softly from the tub, gathering my robe around me as I stretched over to lock the bathroom door. But the lock had been broken for the better part of a year, and the closest thing I had to a weapon was the blunt blade of a disposable razor. I might have laughed had I not been so terrified.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” I called as I peeked out the bathroom door and stepped into the hall. “Alison? Is that you?” I waited for someone to respond, my wet feet leaving footprints on the hardwood floor as I ventured to the top of the stairs. “Alison? Lance? Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  Was it possible I’d been mistaken?

  I did a quick check of the bedrooms before inching my way down the stairs toward the living room, half-expecting someone to lunge out of the shadows with each step I took. But no one lunged and nothing in the living room appeared to have been disturbed. Everything was in its proper place, exactly as it had been earlier.

  I jiggled the front door handle and breathed a deep sigh of relief at finding the door securely locked. “Hello?” I called again as I headed toward the kitchen. “Is anybody here?” But the kitchen was as empty as the rest of the house. “So now I’m hearing things,” I muttered, my shoulders relaxing as I reached for the back door.

  It fell open at my touch.

  “Oh, my God.” I stepped back in mounting horror as the warm night air pushed its way rudely inside the kitchen. “Stay calm.” Hadn’t I just checked every room in the house and found nothing?

  You didn’t check the closets, I heard Alison say. You didn’t look under the bed.

  You’re a stupid, stupid girl! my mother added for good measure.

  “There are no such things as bogeymen,” I told them loudly, deciding it was entirely possible I’d neglected to lock the back door when I’d left the house. I pictured Lance, unapologetic and an hour late, slipping my purse over my shoulder and ushering me outside, his hand on my elbow. I hadn’t turned on any lights and I hadn’t locked the kitchen door.

  “I didn’t lock the door!” I informed the rows of ladies’ heads. “I didn’t lock the door,” I repeated, locking it now, laughing at my foolishness. “There are no such things as bogeymen.”

  The phone rang.

  “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to leave your door unlocked?” the voice asked before I had a chance to say hello. “You never know who migh
t drop by.”

  I spun around, my hand sweeping across the counter and knocking against the block of knives. I pulled the largest of the knives out of its slot, waved it in the air like a flag. “Who is this?”

  “Sweet dreams, Terry. Take care of yourself.”

  “Hello? Hello? Damn it! Who is this?” I slammed the phone back into its cradle, then immediately picked it up again, punched in 911.

  “Emergency,” a woman’s voice stated after several minutes on hold.

  “Well, it’s not exactly an emergency,” I qualified.

  “This is 911, ma’am. If it’s not an emergency, you should call your local police station.”

  “Well, I’m not sure exactly.”

  “Ma’am, is this an emergency or isn’t it?”

  “No,” I admitted, lowering the knife to my side.

  “Please call your local police station if you have a problem.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do that.”

  Except I didn’t. What was I going to say, after all? That I suspected someone had broken into my house, except that I’d left the door unlocked and nothing had been taken? That I’d received a vaguely menacing call from an anonymous man whose words, on their surface, were decidedly more solicitous than threatening. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to leave your door unlocked? You never know who might drop by. Sweet dreams. Take care of yourself.

  Sure. That would bring the police running.

  I returned the phone to its cradle and sank into a kitchen chair, trying to decide my next move. Should I call the police anyway, risk their derision, or worse, their indifference? If only I had something more concrete to offer them, to prove I wasn’t some lonely, middle-aged woman with a too active imagination and way too much time on her hands. If only I was sure about the voice on the other end of the phone.

  I played the words back in my head, like a recording. Sweet dreams, Terry. Take care of yourself. But while there was something familiar about the speaker, I couldn’t be sure it belonged to Erica’s biker friend, the man I’d seen talking to Lance at Elwood’s, the seriousness of their expressions indicative of more than a shared interest in motorcycles. Was there some connection between the two men? Between Lance and Erica? Between Erica and Alison?

  Was it just a coincidence these phone calls had started around the time Alison had turned up on my doorstep?

  What the hell was going on?

  And then I saw him.

  He was standing outside the kitchen window, his forehead pressed against the windowpane, the red of his bandanna bleeding into the glass.

  “Oh, my God.”

  And then, as suddenly as his image had appeared, it vanished, absorbed by the night like a blotter.

  Had I seen anyone at all?

  I rushed to the window, peered out at the night.

  I saw nothing.

  No one.

  I rifled through a kitchen drawer for the spare set of keys to the cottage. You’re a stupid, stupid girl, my mother admonished, and for once, I had to agree with her. But I needed some answers, and those answers could very well be found in Alison’s journal. I estimated I had at least half an hour before Alison and her brother returned home. More than enough time if I moved quickly.

  Clutching the keys tightly, I threw open the door and stepped outside, my bare feet slipping into the night air, like a pair of slippers.

  “Are you crazy? What are you doing?” I mumbled as I locked the door behind me and approached the cottage, hand extended, key pointing at the lock. I was almost at the door when I heard a twig snap behind me.

  I gasped, spun around.

  “Hi, there,” a disembodied voice said from the darkness. Slowly, almost magically, a man materialized out of nothing to take shape in my backyard. With deliberate care, he stepped into the moon’s spotlight. He was tall, skinny, clean-shaven. There was no scraggly beard, no red bandanna. “Remember me?”

  “K.C.,” I whispered.

  “Short for Kenneth Charles, but nobody ever … hell, you know the rest.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see Alison.”

  “She’s not home.”

  “Really? Then where are you going?”

  I slipped the key to the cottage into the side pocket of my robe, wondering if he’d noticed. “I thought I heard something. I was just checking to make sure everything was all right.” I wondered why I was bothering to explain myself to someone I barely knew.

  “It was probably just me.”

  “Did you just phone me?” I asked, my voice sharper than I’d intended.

  K.C. produced a cell phone from his pocket, smiled lazily. “Was I supposed to?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “No, I didn’t phone you.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You seem a little on edge.”

  “No,” I said, forcing a yawn. “Just a little tired, I guess. Busy day.” I looked down, realized my robe had fallen open. I quickly secured the two sides of the robe together, ignoring the growing smile on K.C.’s face. “I’ll tell Alison you stopped by.”

  “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wait till she gets back.”

  “Suit yourself.” I turned back toward the house.

  “Terry?” he called after me.

  I stopped, turned around.

  “I just wanted to thank you again for the lovely Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “You don’t find many people these days who are so willing to open their homes to strangers.”

  Or so stupid, I heard my mother say, the key to the cottage weighing heavily in my pocket. “I was happy to do it.” Again I turned toward the house.

  “Terry?” he called a second time.

  Again I stopped, although this time I didn’t turn around.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said, as I stepped inside the house and locked the door behind me.

  FIFTEEN

  “Merry Christmas!” Alison jumped into the air at precisely the stroke of midnight, clapping her hands with childish abandon.

  “Merry Christmas,” Lance echoed, clicking his glass of eggnog against Alison’s, then mine.

  “God bless us, everyone,” I added, taking a tiny sip of the thick liquid, pungent fumes of nutmeg swirling through my nostrils.

  The evening had been pleasant, filled with good food and happy chatter. Just the three of us. No uninvited guests. No apparitions in the glass. No unexpected phone calls. I’d asked Alison about K.C. She claimed not to have seen or heard from him since Thanksgiving. When I told her about my encounter with him, she’d shrugged and said, “That’s odd. I wonder what he wanted.” Ultimately I decided I’d probably blown the whole incident out of proportion and pushed it to the back of my mind.

  “Where’s that from?” Alison was asking now.

  “Where’s what from?”

  “What you just said. ‘God bless us, everyone.’ That sounds so familiar.”

  “Charles Dickens,” I told her. “A Christmas Carol.”

  “That’s right,” Lance said. “We saw the movie. Remember? Bill Murray was in it.”

  “You should read the book.”

  Lance shrugged his indifference. “Don’t read much.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Not really interested.”

  “Lance had his fill of books at Brown,” Alison was quick to explain.

  “What does interest you?” I pressed.

  Lance glanced across the table at his sister before returning his attention to me. “You interest me.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, lady, you certainly do.”

  I laughed. “Now you’re mocking me.”

  “On the contrary. I find you fascinating.”

  It was my turn to glance at Alison. She seemed to be holding her breath. “And what exactly is it about me that fascinates you?”

  He shook his head. �
�I’m not sure exactly. What is it they say about still waters running deep?”

  Now I was the one holding my breath. “Just that they do.”

  “Guess I’d like to be around when they get all churned up.” Lance took another sip of eggnog, the pale yellow cream creating a thin mustache across his upper lip. He ran a lazy tongue across it, his eyes fastened on mine.

  “I don’t read nearly as much as I should,” Alison piped in.

  “You don’t read at all.”

  A flush of embarrassment stained Alison’s cheeks, turning them almost the same color as her sweater. “Maybe you could recommend some good books for me, Terry. Something to get me started again.”

  “Sure. Although I probably don’t read as much as I should either.”

  “We should all read more,” Alison agreed.

  “There’s lots of things we should do,” Lance said cryptically.

  “Name three,” I said, and Alison smiled, although the smile was tentative, as if she was afraid of what her brother might say.

  “We should stop procrastinating,” Lance said.

  “Procrastinating,” Alison repeated with a strained laugh. “Good word.”

  “Procrastinating over what?” I asked.

  Lance ignored my question. “We should stop playing games.”

  “What kind of games?” I asked, watching the smile harden on Alison’s face.

  “We should shit or get off the pot.” Lance finished the eggnog in his glass, then tossed his napkin onto the table, as if challenging his sister to a duel.

  “Am I missing something here?”

  Alison leaped to her feet. “Speaking of getting off the pot, can we open the presents now?” She was in the living room and at the tree before I could answer.

  “Open this one first,” she was saying, holding a small gift bag toward me as I approached. “It’s from me. It’s just little. I thought we could start with the small gifts first. Save the best ones for last.” I carefully withdrew a small crystal rock from its tissue. “It’s a paperweight. I thought it was so pretty.”