She's young, she's strong. She'll be wonderful. Everything's going to be fine. The world is diamonds and roses, Ryder. No, screw the diamonds, they're just dirt with an attitude. The world is roses.'
Her smile broke like white glass and she fell toward me. I held her and she wept softly, more breath than tears. I felt the warmth of her lips brush my cheek. Then she stood back, wiped damp eyes on her sleeve, and pushed me toward my car.
'Things to do, dear,' was all she said.
I watched her straighten her back, set her mouth, and stride into that cavernous house. I knew it signaled the trip I'd been avoiding. Our case had just rocketed into a wall and now it was my turn to straighten, set, and stride. Though I'd called the number perhaps six times in my life, I pulled the phone from my pocket and dialed Vangie like the number was branded across my soul.
CHAPTER 26
The night, muted breezes and a pearl-white crescent of moon, would be beautiful if I were anywhere but here. But above these grounds the glowing moon, like the stars, was incongruous. This was a place beyond beauty, a land where even the shadows were shadowed and light was irony. Driving the mile from the road to the gate, my hands gripped the steering wheel so hard they cramped. Shaking them out I remembered I had been here four times and each time I lied and told myself it would be the last.
The gate guard took my name and checked his clipboard against my ID while his flashlight stayed on my face. I wasn't offended; it's the way things are done here, no room for error. I parked in the lot and went to the door, where another guard treated me as if the guard at the perimeter was only a warm-up. I entered amid a burring of locks and clanging of doors.
Though it was late, Vangie was there. She knew my mood and we didn't converse beyond pleasantries. A guard arrived to escort me to Jeremy's room. I told him unless I specifically called for him, he was not to open the door or the slat window. I'd requested the camera monitoring his room be turned off and Vangie had reluctantly agreed. The guard looked at her with skeptical eyes.
'He knows what he's doing,' she said.
'He better,' the guard replied.
We walked a long white hall with several solid steel doors, slatted, the slats closed. A siren started down the hall, rising in pitch. I thought it a fire alarm until I realized it was a human scream, though I couldn't fathom what hellish vision could inspire such a sound. The scream lingered in the air as if trapped between molecules, then disappeared into another dimension. I saw the guard studying me with a strange, exultant smile and I realized he was energized by working where anguish and horror were the norm. I wanted to punch his grinning mouth, to see his head snap backward as spit and blood trailed a comet pattern down the wall.
It's this place, I told myself. Stay calm.
We stopped at a door. 'I'll be right outside,' the guard said. He slid the slat aside and peered inside before sliding a plastic key into the electronic lock. The door hissed open.
I entered.
If anything, it resembled a dorm room: built-in drawers, an open closet, a long table that served as a desk, chair beneath it, another chair in a corner, and a futon-style bed. The furniture was made of soft plastic. There was a bookcase, full and neat. A sink and toilet and shower stall recessed into a wall. The full-length mirror was Mylar. Its reflections were skewed, like viewing yourself in mercury.
Jeremy sat on the bed with a green book in his hands. Slight and fair, with yellow-blue eyes and cornsilk hair, he lacked my father's powerful build, but had his coloration. Jeremy wore gray sweats and white socks under institutional slippers. He glanced up as if this was our nightly routine. I leaned against the wall with my arms crossed.
He tapped the book. 'Ever read Lucretius, Carson?' 'Not since my sophomore year, I'd guess.' 'Oh? Which sophomore year? Just kidding.
Here's one of my very favorites: 'For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold as terror and imagine will come true.'
He wrinkled his brow, perplexed. 'But my question is, who should fear when the trembling children are correct, Carson?'
I looked at my watch. 'I'd like to start back by ' His voice dropped an octave. 'Who should fear, Carson, when the trembling children are correct?' 'It's been a long day, Jeremy.'
'Who should fear, Carson? It ain't brain surgery!'
Though he suckled from emotion, I couldn't keep the anger from my voice. 'The parents, Jeremy. How's that? Question and answer. Call and response. Sound and echo. Are you done?'
He canted his head as if hearing faint music in the distance. 'Is Mother all right?'
I sighed. Always the game.
'I asked if Mother was all right. She's fine isn't she?'
'She's dead, Jeremy. She's been dead for three years.'
He raised a curious eyebrow. 'Oh? A pity. Was there much pain?'
'Yes, Jeremy, there was pain.'
White pain, black pain. Pain that scorched her small hands into iron knobs and she turned almost transparent before its snow-white fire. She never touched a pill nor, until the end and she could not resist, allowed me to do anything for her. She needed to go through hell just in case there was a heaven.
'Enough pain for three?' he asked. 'I'm not including you in this list, of course. You escaped the flames. Oh, maybe you were a bit inconvenienced, a bit neuroticized, but your soul didn't get burned.
You were saved from the flames. Did your soul get burned, Carson?'
'You know, Jeremy, we could have handled this by mail: Question. Did your soul get burned? Please circle Yes or No.'
'Don't you dare mock me! You Need me, I don't need you! I'll try again: Did your soul get burned, Carson?'
I yanked the chair from beneath the table and sat eye-to-eye in front of him. 'No, Jeremy, it did not.'
'How unusual, given the flames that seemed to be everywhere. Why?'
'You tell me, Jeremy. You seem to have little else to think about.'
Jeremy leapt up his bed, screaming and pig-squealing. 'Because I killed the bastard, that's why! I wired that squeal to the squeal and I squealed until his squeal and his squeal were pouring down his legs like tube worms and black honey. I stuck my face in his dripping squeal while he was alive to watch. That's why your soul didn't turn to ashes, brother. I saved you!'
Jeremy jumped from the bed and paced the room, once, twice, then crouched before the mirror in a batter's stance. He winked at me through the shifting image of the mylar.
'Maybe all of this could have been avoided if dear daddy had played ball with me instead.'
He lowered his voice and affected a perfect imitation of our father's voice. 'Hey, son, what say we go outside and throw the old pill around?
'Stop it, Jeremy.'
'No, son, that's not the right way to grip a hat, hold it like this.'
'Stop it.'
'Dammit, boy, I said hold it like this.'
'Don't.' I stood.
'Hold it, you little fuckerf
I jumped toward him. 'Jeremy!'
'I'll show you you little bastard I'll fucking show you I'll show you I'll '
I grabbed his shirtfront. Jeremy threw back his head and a shriek from a corridor of long ago pierced the heart of today. My mother turns to me and says, Go to bed it will be quiet soon.
The door slat snapped open.
