only woman in the world prettier than she was. There was some feud between them that had ended in estrangement, but Amber's details were not forthcoming. She never called anyone in her family; never wrote; never mentioned missing them even around the holidays. Her family name was actually Fultz, which Amber changed to Wilson as soon as she was old enough. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to give her connection. I always believed that I could fill that huge emptiness surrounding Amber Mae. What I didn't understand until much later was that she never wanted it filled.
Years after that, when I met Isabella's family for the first time, I saw the difference in bold relief. There was a closeness there, a strong sense of interconnectedness, a blurred set of borders where she left off and her parents-Joe and Corrine-began. And where Amber was alone and vague and fore-molting one skin for another, Isabella was positioned firmly with her people, forthright, and quietly content with them and with herself. As I fell in love with Isabella, I plunged gratefully into that pool of connection, wondering sometimes why I had be so taken with Amber's solitude and secrecy.
And while I sat there on the deck with my head in Isabella's lap, I was proud of her, and of myself for having had the good sense to marry her.
'When you go downtown at night, do you look at other g-girls?'
'No. I think about you.'
'Then why do you go?'
'I need to be away sometimes.'
'That hurts me more than anything else. That you need to get away from me. Remember how it used to be when we were always together?'
'It can be that way again. We'll have that again.'
'But you need to get away from me and I understand. I know you have to dress me in the morning when you wish you were writing, and you do all the shopping and errands, and you clean up after me. And you do the c- cooking at night and the dishes. And you don't have a social life anymore because I don't want people to see what a pig you have for a wife. And I know I don't like our friends to come over. And I know you wanted babies, Russ- because I wanted them even more than you did. And I know now when you Iook into the future, all you can see is me getting w-worse. I can’t stand the look on your face sometimes. It's so full of regret and hate. It scares me.'
I drank more. 'It's not you I hate, Iz. It's the sickness. It’s not our life I regret. It's all the things we wanted to do.'
'I wish I could change it. I've tried so better to get hard. I mean-'
'I know. You're doing everything you can, baby.'
Her speech was deteriorating more rapidly. She stroked my hair for a long while. The fireworks burst open in colors, lobbed fading comets down toward the hills. Fresh ones wobbled upward through the darkness, leaving smoke trails. Coyotes yipped from some unspecified distance, their cries bouncing madly around the night. I looked out to the hillsides and followed the outline of Our Lady of the Canyon-one of Isabella's favorite formations. At night, two hills running one behind the other became a pregnant woman lying supine against the sky; the sandstone became her hair, the oak stands became her breasts, and the lights of the city spraying up from between her legs became a soft glow in the place her genitals would be. Isabella had named her. You couldn't even see her during the day. Isabella had even named the sound the wind made-or was it the cry of some misplaced animal? — a keening moan that issued from deep in the canyon on some nights. She called him the Man of the Dark.
'Our Lady of the Canyon looks nice tonight,' I said. Her sobbing stopped. She drew a deep breath and I felt it shudder back out of her chest. 'She's watching the show, too.'
It is hard to describe what I felt then, kneeling beside Isabella's chair. Have you ever known helplessness while someone you love is suffering? Have you ever cursed God for what He has done? Have you ever felt your heart throbbing with so much love and rage that they get mixed up and you can't tell one from the other?
Well, let me tell you this: No matter how deep my own despair was, I knew it was nothing compared to hers; knew that I could only follow her so far out on that gangplank she was being forced to walk over deep black water. Isabella was the one it was happening to. Isabella was having this nightmare. Isabella-no matter how I felt or what I said-was in this alone. And she knew it.
'I'm done with my little outburst,' she said finally. 'What for d-dessert?'
By nine, I had done the dishes, gotten Isabella undressed and into bed, and almost finished the wine. My heart was beginning to beat faster. I could feel the motion coming on. I imagined breeze blowing against my face, objects racing past. I was a unfettered spirit, rushing with the wind down Laguna Canyon. I was a thing without conscience. I was free.
I kissed Isabella good night.
'Don't stay out too late,' she said. 'Don't smile at an big-titted blondes.'
'No. I'll be good.'
CHAPTER SIX
I drove back down to South Laguna and parked a hundred feet short of Amber's solitary mansion. It looked just as it had the night before, the one faint light coming from deep within. Reuben Saltz had not gone into the bedroom. No, of course not. He had stood in the entryway, called out to her, heard nothing, maybe climbed halfway up the stairs before the creeping dread of being in someone else's home uninvited turned him back.
I took a drink from the flask. With all my love, Isabella. A voice inside told me to get out of there, go back home to all that love, preserve myself. But the voice was faint, drowned by alcohol. Yes, I wanted that love, but I wanted more. I wanted that other world now, the world of speed, the world with no history and no conscience. I got my gloves from the trunk and put them on.
Down the sidewalk, through the gate, along the stepping-stone walkway, around the corner of the house and onto the patio. The same half moonlight of the night before, a fraction, gradient brighter, maybe.
The glass door was shut and the screen door was pulled tight. I put my finger to the mesh-the flap gave, then closed
But neither was locked. Because you can't lock them from the outside, I thought, because whoever has been here since last night didn't want to be seen going out the front. Reuben?''
I slid open the doors and stepped in. I went to the stairway and climbed. On the landing, I stopped for a moment to receive whatever silent messages the house might be sending. A voice told me again to leave. I crushed that voice by walking straight to Amber's bedroom door. I felt the vein pounding in my fore head. I reached inside and flipped on the light.
The bed was made up.
The walls and mirror were clean.
There was a throw rug where I had last seen Amber.
Amber was gone.
Something from hell welled up inside me, rode along with my blood. I felt a tremendous withering-as if my cells were trying to retreat, shrink, cover themselves. I could smell something strong, and it took me just a second to realize what it was Fresh paint.
I stood beside the new rug, knelt down, and lifted. A stain very faint, so faint that it vanished when I stepped away and looked from another angle. Was it just a shadow? I arranged the rug over it-just as it had been.
I realized I was scarcely breathing. In the bathroom, I turned on the light to look in the mirror at my own sweating yellow face. The eyes belonged to someone I'd never met and wouldn't want to.
That was when the door slammed shut behind me and I felt the hard steel of a gun barrel jammed into the base of my skull.
'Turn around. Real slow.'
I knew the voice. It went with the face. My forehead felt as if it were ready to explode. I turned very slowly, open hands edging up. 'Hello, Marty,' I said.
'Monroe.'
Martin Parish's face looked worse than mine did. His breath smelled like gin. He was wearing a pair of
