Succubi

Remember that, or next time we’ll break that tube into so many pieces you’ll be pissing glass for a year.”

—

Chapter 20

Ann waited up late. What would she say? And could she be sure that it was Maedeen she’d seen in the car with Martin? But she didn’t worry about such reasonable considerations. Ann was mad, and she let her anger sit up with her.

Furthermore, Melanie hadn’t come home yet either, which made Ann madder. The grandfather clock in the foyer ticked past 10 pm. Where could she be at this hour? What was she doing?

That afternoon she brought the B-12 to Milly and hadn’t mentioned what she’d witnessed Rena doing on the bed, as she’d previously decided. By then she was too mad to care anyway.

She couldn’t imagine Martin’s fascination with Maedeen. The little scrub. Ann had seen how Martin was looking at her the time they went to the store, and was well aware of her tendency to misinterpret certain things. Was she just being paranoid?

I’d still like to drag her little ass down the street.

She sat in the quiet library off the foyer. The silence and dim lamplight made her feel watched. Earlier her mother had been seen going down to the basement with the photo albums. She’d unlocked the basement door, entered and exited, then locked the door and headed back upstairs. She’d said nothing to Ann as she’d crossed the landing, which was typical. But why lock the basement door?

Again, at this moment, Ann didn’t care. All she could think about was how bad she was going to grill Martin’s ass when he had the nerve to come home.

She thought she’d pass time watching TV, then remembered her mother didn’t approve of television. There were no TVs, in other words, in the house. She hadn’t noticed one in Milly’s house either. Did Lockwood consider anything modern to be a corrupt influence? She wandered about the quiet house, each journey bringing her back to the front window where she’d peek outside to see if the car was in the driveway yet. But what was she really thinking? That Martin and Maedeen had something going? Even Ann knew that was ridiculous. She just didn’t like Maedeen, for her own womanly reasons, and she didn’t care what Milly said. Sometimes a woman could just tell, could sense a woman who was trouble. The little flirt, she dismissed. Silly earth-mother-looking hippie. And Martin didn’t have to be so quick to assert that Maedeen was “nice.” I’ll show her nice, Ann mused. Maybe I’ll shove one of her homemade ice cream cones up her scrawny ass. See how nice she is then.

By 11 pm, Martin and Melanie still had not returned. Ann’s mother had long since gone to bed. Bored now in her anger, Ann went upstairs to talk to Milly but instead found Dr. Heyd in her father’s room.

“Ah, hello, Ann. You’re up late, aren’t you?”

“I’m waiting for Martin. He went out a while ago.”

Dr. Heyd made some nameless adjustment to the cardiac monitor. “I think I saw him going into the Crossroads earlier. I understand he’s getting along well with some of Lockwood’s men.”

And some of Lockwood’s women too. But was that where he was? At the bar? “He mentioned some of them yesterday,” she said.

“Fine fellows, all of them. If you’re looking for Milly, she’s asleep in the next room right now. The poor girl hasn’t gotten much rest these past few days. I sent her to bed. I’ll be looking after your father tonight myself.”

The monitor beeped on. Her father looked pallid as a wax dummy in the bed.

“But would you watch him a few minutes?” Dr. Heyd asked. He wore baggy slacks and suspenders, his bald pate shining. “I’d like to go down and fix myself a sandwich.”

“Sure,” Ann said.

Dr. Heyd left her to her own unease. She didn’t like to look at her father, because her mind could not associate the vision she had of him with the sunken form in the bed. She sat down and flipped through one of Milly’s romance novels. A random page revealed a rather explicit sex scene. She remembered when romance fiction was innocuously tame. Not anymore, she thought now. Nothing is. She hadn’t read a complete novel herself, though, in years.

Milly’s purse lay opened on the floor, and inside a large woman’s wallet hung similarly open. Ann noticed pictures. What was the harm? She took the wallet out and looked through it. No credit cards or the like, of course not. But there were several snapshots in the string of clear plastic envelopes, all either of Rena at different ages, or Rena and Milly smiling together. Ann looked closely at one school portrait of Rena, probably at around age six. The picture made Ann clench. It was almost impossible to believe that the adorable little girl in this snapshot was the same girl she’d seen today masturbating with a vibrator.

Toward the end were some baby pictures, even more adorable. But the last picture caused her to stare.

A baby, days old, lying atop a quilt. But the tiny pudenda left no doubt. It was a baby boy.

Milly had never referred to a son. Ann immediately feared why that might be. Did the baby die?

She put the wallet back in the purse. What an awful thing. She could be wrong, of course, but why else would Milly have never mentioned a son? Or perhaps it was a relative’s child.

Ann glanced up. The beeps of the heart monitor seemed to change their rhythm a moment, then increase in pitch. Ann was about to call for Dr. Heyd, but her gaze was quickly overwhelmed.

Her father’s eyes opened.

His mouth was moving, and he was looking at her.

“Dad!” Ann jumped up, raced to the bed. Her father’s own gaze followed her. He’s conscious, she realized in a burst of exuberance. “Dad, it’s me,” she said. “It’s Ann…”

She could see his mouth working. It opened and closed; it was obvious to her that he was trying to say her name. Ann’s heart was racing.

Next, his crabbed hand took hold of her wrist. It felt cool, dry, wriggling in infirmity. The other hand faltered, rising over the bed. It moved around in some cryptic gesture.

“What, Dad? Can you try to talk?”

He clearly couldn’t. It crushed Ann to see the frustration on his infirm face. The mouth moving but giving no voice, the futile concentration in efforts to communicate to the daughter he hadn’t seen in over a year.

“Dad, what…”

His hand moved furiously, not pointing but seeming to mimic an act.

The act of writing. Thumb pressed to fingers, the withered hand made gestures of writing.

“A pen, Dad? Do you want a pen?”

He actually huffed in relief. His tired face nodded.

He couldn’t talk but he wanted to write. He must be much more lucid than they’d thought. Ann took one of Dr. Heyd’s notepads and sat down on the bed. She lay it against her knee. Then she placed a ballpoint pen into her father’s right hand.

“Go on, Dad. Take your time.”

First just scribble. The old man chewed his lip as he struggled to wield the pen. Ann felt tears in her eyes, witnessing her father’s desperation at so simple a task.

He began to whimper, eyes fluttering, then closing. “Dad, Dad?” she cried. He fell unconscious again, and the monitor slowed back to its normal pitch.

“Ann, what’s happened?”

Dr. Heyd came back into the room, rushing over. She excitedly explained what happened. But he only half listened as he quickened to take vital signs. Suddenly, Milly and Ann’s mother were crowded into the room, both in robes and slippers. Ann repeated everything for them in desperate joy.

“He was seeing me,” she went on. “I know he knew it was me.

But Dr. Heyd seemed disapproving, busying with an injection.

“What’s wrong?” Ann asked, dismayed. “Isn’t this good?”

“No, Ann, it’s not,” Dr. Heyd replied. “You should’ve called me at once.”

“But he was writing, he was trying to talk. He recognized me. I’m sure of it.”