and using that for inspiration, she found ways to get Frank up and walking toward the better side of his character. The backslides could be brutal, though, requiring a special vigilance. Every year, at about this time, he went through the anniversary spooks of Jesse’s death, and that was not a sight for weak minds.
She heard Frank turn on the shower. Throughout the old house the water pipes banged and groaned behind the walls from the sudden flood of heat. It seemed heartbreaking, that sound.
Frank wasn’t the only one with a problem. She was lost. She’d taken a wrong turn, and now found herself engulfed in a haze, unable to retrace her steps. Worse, she felt robbed of the will to try.
It wasn’t like her. She’d been a feist, a firecracker, the Devil’s own redhead- at least she had been long ago. Now, she thought, chuckling sadly as she folded a piece of nameless lunch meat, now you’re the sadder but wiser girl.
First there’d been the arrest in Oregon, and all the tangled-up guilt, fury and humiliation it entailed. Next came prison, where the counselors harped and hammered on you about the notorious knack female offenders had, once free again, of inflicting more damage on themselves than anyone else. Then, after her release, the relentless, all- too-familiar life of dreary jobs and drifting town to town. It felt, at times, like her life with Danny and the happiness she’d known had all been a mirage. Nothing had really changed, except she’d grown older, life was harder. The loneliness had become more vicious and personal.
And so it was cheap to blame Frank for anything. She’d been heading toward Frank, toward Jesse’s death and the awful aftermath, all along. Besides which, what she saw that absolutely no one else did was that once, before his son’s murder, Frank had been capable of a great love. And great loves- like between her and Danny- they were rare indeed. Frank had possessed a true, selfless devotion for his boy. And that devotion had been savaged in a way all the naysayers dared not imagine. Shel herself recoiled from the images when they erupted, unbidden, in sleep, or an unguarded moment. Well, that nightmare belonged to Frank like the blood under his skin. And when its worst moments hit, there was no one- no one- in the world to talk him down but Shel.
Sure, he was a shadow now of who he’d been. A loser in a tailspin. Cut him loose, she imagined people telling her. She couldn’t do it. Because in her mind’s eye, she saw the hand with the knife was not her own, and the life plummeting into the abyss wasn’t Frank’s. It was hers.
Once, during one of her trips to ER with Frank, a doctor had taken her aside, grilled her a little. Saying she should stop worrying about Frank’s head and deal with her own, he prescribed intensive therapy and pills. Once he left her alone, she balled up the prescription slip and ash-canned it. She knew girls in their teens and twenties for Christ’s sake, hardly enough of a life to bitch about, already swearing by Prozac or Zoloft or some other pharmaceutical cousin, tossing them down like they were Rolaids. Like any emotion south of chipper was death itself. Not me, she told herself. I ain’t depressed, or at least no more than anybody would be on a good dose of what I’ve been through. I’m just stuck. Badly positioned in the swirl of things. Nothing to do but soldier on.
If I could just find the steam.
As if all that weren’t enough, now Danny was out. A tangle of wants she’d thought no longer existed had begun to surface, just in time for the third anniversary of Jesse’s murder. Frank would be going off like a bottle rocket sometime soon. You had to laugh, she thought. That or get “depressed.” And hell, what’s depression anyway but the thing that happens to you when you decide not to go totally fucking nuts.
“What’s the joke?” Frank asked from behind.
She turned around, startled. Fresh from his shower, he’d dressed and combed his wet hair away from his face. He looked like a boy.
Jesse.
“Nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking to myself.”
“Talking to yourself,” Frank corrected. “First sign of being crazy.”
Sleeves rolled up and shirttail out, he went to the fridge, collected a beer, twisted the top off and tossed it in the trash. Putting the bottle to his lips he slid into the breakfast nook and eyed her. She served him up a bowl of soup, cut his sandwich in half, placed it on a plate and came to the table.
As soon as she set down his lunch he curled his arm around her hip, pulled her to him and, lifting her T-shirt, ran his free hand across her belly. He kissed her navel, closed his eyes and placed his cheek against her skin.
“God I love the way you smell,” he said.
“I thought you were hungry.”
He flinched at her tone, withdrew his cheek and lowered her shirt.
“Frank- ”
“Can I tell you something?” he said, vexed. “You been drag-assing around this house the past I don’t know how long. Mumbling to yourself like Popeye.” He picked up his spoon, toyed with his soup. “Feel like I’m here all by myself.”
“Given who we owe for being here,” she said, “I’d say merely talking to myself requires a special courage.”
“Now, now, now. Like we had a choice. Got evicted last time, right? Lucky Roy had this place.”
Luck has nothing to do with it, Shel thought. Frank had met Roy Akers on a construction site, or that was the story at the time. It wasn’t till later, after considerable prodding, Shel learned that Roy and his Arkie transplant brothers weren’t nomad carpenters trailing after new construction up and down the valley. They were jackals. Crankers. Thieves. Shakedown artists. Worse, they owed their ability to operate to a ruthless, cagey old wolf named Felix Randall. No one in the Delta so much as felt an untoward impulse without paying Felix Randall for the privilege.
“Don’t kid yourself,” she said. “We’re just here to keep the lights on, ward off snoops and squatters.”
“Yeah, well, hey,” Frank said with a shrug. “Rent-free.”
“No such thing as rent-free, Frank. Sure as hell not with the likes of Roy Akers. We’ve had this discussion.”
Frank sighed. “While we’re on the subject of ‘we’ve had this discussion,’ remember that little talk we had a while back, about what we’d do if we came into a little money?”
He toyed with his sandwich, wearing an odd smile. His eyes zagged.
“What talk?” Shel said. “When?”
Frank shrugged. “Maybe I just thought about it. You know, like a little windfall.”
Shel sat down across from him. “What are you driving at?”
“Pull up stakes,” Frank said. “Haul ass outta here. Money in our pocket and gone gone gone.” He tasted his soup. “Any event, an opportunity’s come up. Nothing major. But it could give us just that kinda chance.” He glanced up, offering a wink and a smile. “You and me. You and me.”
Shel froze. “Roy know this?”
Frank pursed his lips and waved his spoon back and forth. “Our little secret.”
“You trying to get yourself killed?” She reached across the table and grabbed his wrist. “Promise me, Frank. Don’t get clever. Frank, look at me.”
Two months earlier, she’d almost fled in the night. Shaking Frank awake, she’d told him, “I’m going. Come with me.” Frank’d stared up at her, gripped her sleeve, and said, “Whoa, wait, stop. Please. Not that simple.” There was panic in his eyes when he said it, a look she didn’t want boring into her back. At which point she realized there’d be no walking out alone. Blame conscience, she thought, or habit, or that deadening haze inside your mind, whatever. The truth remains: You’re staying. You’re staying because, without you, Frank will crumble. And in that state he will undoubtedly do the very thing the Akers brothers will kill him for.
“Frank, I said look at me.”
Frank, smiling, prodded a wedge of meat with his spoon. “Chicken rice, mighty nice.”
Chapter 4
Walking through the Tucson air terminal, Abatangelo fought intermittent bouts of vertigo adjusting to the speed of things, the freedom of movement, the colors. The presence of women. Erections surged and waned with an unsettling lack of discrimination. He ordered a cup of hot tea and sat by himself in the lounge, waiting for his flight.
