She turned a page of the magazine. He carefully didn't stare at the stump where she'd lost a finger. After a moment, she asked, 'You been going to meetings?'
'Sure. I got a year clean and sober next week. I didn't tell you, I was elected secretary of a Narcotics Anonymous meeting over in the city.'
'That's good.' Her voice was as flat as the line on Aleutia's EKG.
'So -' He was afraid to ask it. It might push her into one of her screaming fits, and he found those hard to bear up under. But it was September and her therapist said he was supposed to ask her around the beginning of every month. He took a deep breath and plunged in. 'How about it? You want to come home for a weekend? Get you back here bright and early on Monday. I was thinking this Friday -''
'No.'
'We could talk about it.'
'No.'
Floundering, he blurted, 'Constance – why not?'
'I lived in that house.' She was still looking out the window. Her voice was still a monotone but now it seemed an octave lower.
He waited. She didn't say anything else. He prompted, 'Go on – please.'
She shook her head. He wanted to go to her, to put his arms around her, at least touch her on the shoulder. But he knew she didn't like that.
Still – he had told him something. I lived in that house.
She'd lived in that house, their house when she'd met Ephram Pixie.
'Why didn't you tell me before, it was the house? The reason you didn't want to do home visits… I thought it was me…'
She shrugged.
He said, 'Want to come and stay with me someplace else? Um… How about we visit your aunt in Portland?'
He waited on tenterhooks for twenty seconds. Then she nodded. Relief flooded through him. He remembered a Barbie doll. He wondered how her therapy was going, but didn't want to ask her. 'Sooner or later,' he said, 'you have to look at what you went through. I know it's hard here, because they don't believe a lot of it. But I know what happened. And I'm willing to listen as much as you need.'
She covered up her maimed hand with the intact one. He knew that as a warning.
He thought about confronting her. Talking her through it. He made you murder people. Only you and I know it wasn't you who did it – that he had the power to make you do that. Only I believe you. But God knows and you know and I know and the police don't know and it's okay now to feel the pain and sadness that you couldn't feel then. You have to just feel it and let it go, just feel it and tell yourself yes my body was a murderer, my hands helped torture people to death, but it wasn't really me, that wasn't me, it was him. You know it rationally and you know it emotionally and now you've got to say it, you've got to -
But he was afraid of it, himself. It might shatter her completely…
'I liked it,' she said. 'He made me like it.'
Something took off and soared inside him. She was taking about it!
'It wasn't you, Constance! He pushed a button that made you feel pleasure. He punished you when you didn't play along. He paralyzed you when you tried to run. Sometimes he manipulated your limbs. He raped you a dozen ways.' He was trying not to cry. It was hard; it was really hard not to cry. 'Anyone would have done what you did because -'
'But I did. It wasn't 'anyone'. It was me.'
'No! It wasn't really you. You were trapped in the body he was using. You were trapped inside. He was moving you around like a puppet.'
She shook her head. She opened her mouth and shut it again. Her shoulders shook and for a long moment he prayed she would cry.
She didn't. She pushed it back down, again.
But Garner wanted to dance around the room. She had talked about it! For the first time in a year. She'd talked – just a little bit. It wasn't even the light at the end of the tunnel. But it was a little gray patch hinting that the far-away light was closer.
'I got three kinds of cookies,' he said. 'Better tell me what kind you want before we go down and put on the Disney channel. I'll put some aside for you. You know how Alice is. She'll eat a whole box by herself.'
'Then she goes in the bathroom and throws it up,' Constance said matter of factly. But she got up and went to look in the cookie bag…
The Hills near Malibu
Lonny drove the old Datsun off the highway, and up onto the dirt road. The road led through the horse pasturage, over the hill, down into the brushland, and up another hill to Drax's shack. Eurydice grabbed onto the dashboard to steady herself as the car bounced from rut to rut.
It was about ten in the morning. Lonny came early, so there was no chance they could be caught out here after dark. It was safe after dark, it wasn't that. But Eurydice couldn't handle it here at night. And neither could he.
Lonny glanced at her, checking out the work the surgeon had done on the side of her face. The burn scars weren't so bad, but she still looked patchy. He wondered if he should tell her she looked better, since she'd just come out of the second round of plastic surgery. Might make her feel better. But it might just make her think about the scars that were still there.
Better keep his mouth shut about the scars. The idea in bringing her out here was to heal a few wounds, not open old ones.
He stopped at the wooden gate to the horse pasture and got out, opened the gate, swung it to one side for the car. Hurriedly got back in the car and moved it through. Have to close the gate before the horses decided to check out the big world.
But the horses were more interested in the car. Eurydice smiled when he pulled the car up, and the three apaloosas trotted up to the Datsun. 'They hoping for a treat,' she said reaching out a window to pat a soft muzzle.
'Next time we'll bring an apple or something,' he said. He got out again and closed the gate before the horses could get out. This is stupid, he thought, I should have asked her to get out and close the gate after I drove through.
But you felt like never asking her to do anything. That's the way it was with her now.
They drove on along the tracks that passed for a road, then down the other hillside. From here they could just make out, about a half mile away, the hilltop where the burnt-out ruins of the Doublekey ranch stood. Lonny had come back and torched it, in the wet season when it wouldn't start a big wild fire. It was probably unnecessary, but it made him feel better. It had been funny to watch the cops scurry around there, after the fire: The second time they'd been out there in droves and had gone away completely confused.
Lonny glanced at Eurydice to see if she were staring at the Doublekey. She was looking somewhere else.
They drove down and over the hills, and then up to Drax's place. He wasn't there anymore, of course. Not exactly.
They pulled up out front, near the ring of posts and the fetish dolls, which had been carefully maintained.
Lonny cut the engine and waited, the metal under the Datsun's hood ticking as it cooled. Eury looked at him and he made a 'wait a minute' gesture. She shrugged and settled back in her seat to wait.
Lonny could feel him watching them from inside the house. After a full ten minutes, the door of the shack opened and Prentice came out.
'Okay,' Lonny told Eurydice. 'We can get out now.'
They climbed out of the Datsun. Lonny shook Prentice's hand. Prentice smiled at Eury and patted her arm. His hair and beard was almost as long as Drax's had been, after only a year. His face was haggard; his eyes hidden in sunglasses. He wore a pair of Drax's old overalls and boots, an Iggy Pop t-shirt. Jerry, Drax's dog, snuffled up from behind Prentice, looking them over. Jerry looked around as if hoping they'd brought Drax with them.
