Heart of Ice

“Well, all right. What?”

“The articles don’t mention it, but your husband had been severely abused by someone.”

“What do you mean, abused?”

“Physically abused.” Gwen searched the younger woman’s eyes. “Does he still have the scars on his neck? The little round scars?”

Olivia remembered seeing them for the first time. She was helping him put on a tie for one of those awful company events he had to attend. It was an almost perfect row of small circular scars faded by time, hidden by the hair that brushed against his collar.

“What’s this?” She asked, looking at his face in the bathroom mirror.

“What?”

“These little scars, Michael. What are they?”

His eyes narrowed and he shrugged off her inquiry. “Oh, those. Bad acne. I scarred up pretty bad on my shoulders and neck.”

“Scars from acne, he told me,” Olivia said.

Gwen set her cat on the floor. She touched her fingertips to her lips and shook her head.

“That wasn’t from acne. When we found Michael and Sarah, the back of his neck was still scabbed over from the burns. On his hand, too. Some, it seemed, had been quite recent.”

Olivia felt her stomach turn. Burns? What she was hearing was beyond anything she could have imagined. Who burns the neck of a child? “You mean, burned flesh?”

The horror of the scenario welled up in the younger woman’s pretty dark eyes.

“Yes,” Gwen said, softly, taking her questioning tone down a notch. “It appeared to us at the time that he’d been tortured with a cigarette.”

Olivia couldn’t help herself. She started to cry. She had come there for answers, not tears.

“Look, I know this is hard.” Gwen got up and looked for a tissue, finally producing one from a crocheted dispenser on the top of her upright piano. “I’d never seen a kid more abused than Michael. He could barely speak to us. He was a wreck. His sister, being younger, I always felt had a fighting chance. But Michael….” her voice trailed off as she handed the tissue box to Olivia. “Well, you brought me a bit of a miracle today.”

Olivia dabbed at her eyes and looked up. “What? How?”

“He has you. He has two children. That poor little boy has survived and made a life out of what was handed to him. I thought for sure he’d end up in the system somewhere, giving back to the world what his mother and father had given to him.”

As she got up to leave, she offered to take the empty glass into the kitchen, but Gwen waved her away.

“Ms. Trexler,” Olivia said her voice slightly tentative, “one thing I don’t understand.”

The older woman put her hand on Olivia’s shoulder, a gesture meant to comfort. It did.

“What is it?” she asked.

“How come you thought the woman was Michael and Sarah’s mother? Did she look like them?”

Gwen looked out the window. “It wasn’t that. I mean, there was a resemblance, of course. It was something else.”

“What?”

She returned her gaze to Olivia. Her face was full of regret and worry. “She’d been burned on the nape of her neck, too. She had a row of scars that matched what he had.”

Olivia felt sick. It was more than the smoothie and she knew it. “Sarah?” she asked.

“None there. Her neck was flawless.”

“Was the body ever claimed?”

“No. Buried in the Potters Field behind the old Westward Ho Motel and Casino.”

“Thank you,” she said, tears running down her face. Olivia turned on her heels and headed for the door.

“I wish I could have been more helpful. I’m glad to know your husband’s a survivor. The girl, too?”

“We don’t know,” Olivia said, without looking back. “They’ve lost touch.”

As Olivia drove, the Etta James song that had been playing in the background when she called Gwen Trexler kicked back into her consciousness.

Yes, at last.

When Olivia and the children arrived home around 7 P.M., the house was still. She found Michael in the bedroom dressing to go running. He sat on the edge of the bed.

“How was your mom?” he asked, lacing his shoes and not looking up.

“Oh you know my mama—a little good, a little bad.”

“I guess so. You can always count on that with her. Thought you’d be home earlier,” he said.

“Traffic was worse than usual. I don’t even know if there is a usual anymore.”

“You three had a good time?”

“Yeah, nothing exciting. I managed to break away for about an hour. I got you a shirt from the Gap. On sale.” She smiled.

He looked up and returned the smile. “Great. I’ll try it on when I get back from my run.”

“All right, baby. See you in a bit.”

Michael took off and Olivia went into the kitchen. The message machine had already been played. But there was a new message on it, so she hit the button.

Her mother’s voice came on the line: “Hi Michael. The kids want me to take them for ice cream to their favorite place. For the life of me, I can’t remember what that place is called. Neither can they! Oh dear. I know you’re working at home today, but Olivia’s cell must be off and she’s not expected back for the rest of the day.”

Olivia felt a chill run down her spine. She had no real way of knowing what her husband had thought of the message and her obvious lie. He might have thought the very worst; that she’d been cheating on him or something crazy. All she had been doing was seeking the truth. She felt the truth would set him free from his torment.

That was about to change.

Olivia, stop. Olivia, please.

Michael Barton, running around the Rancho Alamitos High School track, used the speed and repetition of doing laps to focus his thoughts. Why was it that she seemed to think that her digging into his life was something that would benefit him? He’d loved her so much. He thought that she and the children had been the cure for the disease that ravaged him since he was a little boy. Her big brown eyes looked at him with nothing but love when they were first together. Now, all he saw was the reflection of her suspicion.

Olivia, stop. Don’t make me stop you.

He saw a young woman doing stretches by the long-jump pit and he looked around. The parking lot was empty, save for his car and a blue Mazda, which he assumed was the woman’s. She wore green sweats with a big gold and green V on the back of her jacket, a nod to the Vaquero, the school mascot. A student. He ran past her, his heart pumping blood and adrenaline like a fire hose.

Olivia, I want to love you. I want to know what it is to be normal. Stop. Stop. Don’t make me do this.

He moved closer to the girl as he turned toward the stretch in front of the bleachers.

She reminded him of his wife a little, small-framed, with dark hair that she held out of the way in a loose clip. Her brown eyes held his for a second. She turned away as he ran past. His running shoes pounded the spongy black track, and he fought the urge.

She’s not on the list. Got to stop. Can’t keep doing this. No. Olivia, please don’t make me angry.