Darkness My Old Friend

“Seriously, Ray. What is it with you? Do you think I wouldn’t have called?”

“Let’s do it, then.”

She released a deep breath. She knew he was going to ask her to do this. She hated it. It was painful, exhausting. And, frankly, she didn’t know how much longer she was going to be able to do it, to do any of it. Ray was in deep denial, but Eloise knew that her time was almost up.

“What did you bring?”

“Shoes.”

Shoes were good, very good. Feet were the place where the body most often connected to the earth, all the energy passing through the soles.

“You should see that place,” Ray said. “Holt’s father was a hoarder. It’s disturbing.”

“Is that where he found her shoes?”

“Yeah, the old man kept everything.”

“You know the Hollows PD asked Jones Cooper to look into the case.”

Ray frowned. “I didn’t hear about this.”

“He told me today. I thought he’d come to you next.”

“Why did he come to see you?”

“He remembered that I cleaned for her, baby-sat for the children sometimes. He wanted to know what my impressions were.” That wasn’t really true. She didn’t really want to get into their whole conversation. She didn’t want to tell Ray that she’d shared her vision with Jones. She didn’t even know why.

Ray didn’t say anything, cast his eyes up to the ceiling. She stared at the bag he’d put on her desk.

“We don’t know that my vision yesterday was related to Marla Holt,” she said. “It could have been anyone. I was just online, looking. It could be someone else.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No,” she admitted.

The intensity he’d had yesterday was reduced to embers; he seemed as tired as she felt. He wasn’t looking well lately. His wife had left him almost two years ago now. His kids, both living and working in Manhattan, didn’t seem to have much time for him. That’s what happened when you couldn’t join the living. Late to dinner, distracted when you were there. Ray drank too much, got morose about all the ugly things he’d seen and couldn’t change. His wife wanted to play golf and vacation in the Bahamas. Ray wanted to dig up graves. Who could blame the poor woman for leaving?

“I heard from Karen,” Ray said. They read each other’s minds. It was that way with them, even after they’d ended their affair.

“Oh?” said Eloise.

“She’s getting married again.”

Eloise gave a little laugh. “She must be out of her mind.”

Ray smiled, too. “She met a retired doctor. Get this. She met him while she was taking ballroom-dancing classes.”

Karen had always been asking Ray to take ballroom-dancing classes with her. He’d never had the time or, he’d confessed to Eloise, the desire.

“I’m sorry, Ray,” Eloise said.

He lifted a dismissive hand. “I’m happy for her. She deserves it.”

Karen did deserve happiness. She’d been a good wife to Ray and a loving mother to their children. She was beautiful and vibrant, a kind person. And Ray had treated her badly; so had Eloise, for that matter. Eloise would have dinner at the Muldunes’ on a Sunday, sleep with Ray the following Wednesday. It wasn’t tawdry or dirty; it was desperate and sad. But that was so long ago. They were all different people now.

Eloise could see that Ray was in pain-of course he was. Ray had chosen badly, and all the predictable consequences had formed a line at his door. But there was nothing to be done about any of that now. You just open the latch and let it all in-loneliness, regret, a kind of bone-crushing fatigue.

“Okay, let’s do it,” said Eloise. Maybe it was pity. At least she could give him this.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sure.”

She got up from her desk and walked past him. She went to her bedroom and sat on the squeaking old mattress. She pushed off her shoes and lay on her back. Ray stood in the doorway a minute, and she remembered what it used to be like with them. How he’d come to her in the night like this and they’d make love with all the lights on, all their imperfections in plain sight. They saw each other, understood each other. And when they were together like that, the dead and missing, all the people they were chasing, all the gore and horror that obsessed their thoughts, would recede for a while, leaving them with a brief moment of pleasure and comfort in a world that had gone too gray for everyone else.

He walked over to her and stood above her. For a moment she thought he’d reach for her. And she thought she’d let him, thought she’d take him and let him have her. She could see him thinking about it, what it would be like after so much time. Then he looked away from her face and down to her feet. He removed the shoes from the brown paper bag, an old pair of sneakers. Tenderly, he placed one on each of her feet. Then he took a seat in the chair in the corner. They waited.

chapter sixteen

Bethany Graves cooked dinner, because that’s what she did. Her world, it seemed, conspired against putting words on the page, her other great comfort. Sometimes it felt like every page was stolen, secreted, managed in spite of all efforts against her. Inspiration was flighty and delicate, and any disturbance could send it squawking off into the sky. But hunger, the need and desire to prepare food, was steady and reliable, a centering ritual that must take place every day.

She couldn’t even talk to Willow at the moment. Her child sulked in the family room, sitting on the floor, hunched over a pile of homework on the coffee table-even though there was a perfectly lovely desk built into the bookshelves that lined the wall. But that was Willow, always choosing the hard way.

Bethany chopped the garlic with quick, staccato motions on the butcher-block board. She slid it into the olive oil waiting in a pan on the stove and listened to its happy sizzle; she took in the pleasant aroma. Garlic cooking in olive oil, was there anything better? Then, right before it browned, she tipped in the crushed tomatoes. She chopped the fresh basil and brushed it into the pot. Then she stirred, the heat on low. She’d defrosted the meatballs she’d prepared over the weekend. After a few minutes, she placed them into the sauce and covered the pot, turned the flame to a low simmer. She’d start the pasta and toss the salad after a bit. Spaghetti and meatballs, Willow’s favorite. She should have made steamed tilapia and broccoli, which Willow hated. But maybe what they both needed was a little comfort.

She doesn’t need comfort. What she needs is a good kick in the ass. That’s what her own mother would have said. Bethany and her mother had never gotten along, right up until the day the woman died.

Bethany sank into the sectional behind her daughter, who didn’t bother to turn around and acknowledge her. This room was exactly what she’d hoped it would be when she bought the house-a towering ceiling, a wall of bookcases, a plush cream sectional, a flat-screen television. Outside the window all she could see were trees.

“Your father wants to come this weekend,” she said. She was extending an olive branch. They hadn’t talked since the screaming match they’d had in the car. Willow hated The Hollows, hated her life, and hated her mother, and she had expressed this to Bethany in a furious shriek that still rang in her ears.

Willow let out a snort. “You mean Richard?”

She took a breath. “Yes. Richard.”

“Did his girlfriend break up with him?”

She reached out and touched the back of Willow’s impossibly silky hair. The shades of red and gold were dazzling. It was cut in a funky asymmetrical bob. She’d always loved the way Willow’s hair felt beneath her