Читать книгу The Good Daughter: A gripping, suspenseful, page-turning thriller - Alexandra Burt - Страница 9

Dahlia

It all started with the crickets.

My mother sweeps them off the porch but to no avail: they seem to multiply exponentially—They’re taking over, she says melodramatically—and she sprays lemon-scented Raid in every nook and crevice until the fragrance of artificial citrus descends upon her Texas bungalow and becomes part of our lives like the unsightly boxes in her room she hasn’t managed to unpack in decades.

April and May bring more rain, which in turn brings more crickets. By June, the porch is covered in shadowy forms climbing up the wooden posts, reaching the horizontal rail just to fall off the precipice and pool under the porch. Come July, my mother is convinced that a rogue crowd of crickets will work their way up the brick walls and discover small pockmarks and cracks along the exterior. Eventually they will invade the house, she says.

I explain that last year there were the frogs, and the year before there were the crane flies, and before that—I can’t remember, but I make something up—there were the potato bugs. “Next year it’ll be something else. Just relax,” I say but she won’t have any of it.

“I just can’t stand those crickets,” she says, getting more irate with every swipe of the broom.

“Let me go for my run. I’ll think of something when I get back,” I say, feeling myself getting impatient.

Over the past months, I have become a master in avoiding fights with her, yet the better I’ve become, the more she insists on the drama. The world always revolves around her, she sees no point of view other than her own, no explanations occur to her but the ones that make sense to her and her alone.

I step off the porch and stretch my calves, yet my mother is determined to discuss the crickets.

“I hate the sound they make,” she says and follows me into the street.

“What sound?” I ask. If I wait any longer it’ll be too hot for a run.

“It’s like an old hardwood floor when the flooring nails rub together and they squeak,” she says and holds her hand behind her ear as if she is attempting to direct sound waves into it. “You don’t understand, Dahlia …” She pauses as if something important just occurred to her. “They crunch when you step on them. At least no one can come in undetected,” she adds as if her logic has a special shape that fits a special key which in turn fits a special lock.

“I’ll call an exterminator,” I say and jog off before she can say anything else.

I regret having come back to Aurora.

Months ago I stood in front of her door and I realized the house hadn’t changed at all—the same crooked solar lights from fifteen years ago were stuck in the cracked soil like elfin streetlights. The same drab curtains covered the windows; the paint was still chipped; the door chime hadn’t been fixed. I knocked and my mother opened the door and as we embraced, I felt a hesitation, but I was used to that. She still looked impeccable—wore a dress, had done her makeup, didn’t have a gray hair to be seen—yet she seemed grim and dark, and rarely was she without a cigarette between her manicured nails. And now she obsessed about crickets.

Leaving my mother’s subdivision behind, I make my way down a rural road toward the woods. It’s July and the sun that was orange an hour ago is about to turn into a yellow inferno. Another hour and everything will cook.

About two miles into the run, I realize I haven’t stretched nearly enough. I feel a slight stinging behind my left knee, an old injury that has been flaring up lately. When I reach the top of the hill leading into the woods, I stop. Hands on my hips, I attempt to catch my breath. The heat bites into me and the sun eats my skin and eyes. I ignore the pesky insects swarming around me, barely wipe away the salty beads trickling down my neck. I scan an unfamiliar tree line to my right—haven’t I paid close enough attention, or have the columns of rain that have swept North Texas for the past few months somehow changed the vegetation?—and I long for shade to stretch my leg.

Squeezing between the trees, I step into the woods and the temperature drops twenty degrees. The scorching sun loses its grip and the air turns dank and muggy. The beauty of the woods takes me by surprise; it’s not just a collection of trees but there are paths leading toward what looks like ancient tree cities; some are still standing, and others have turned into mere skeletons. The springy ground is an array of leaves and chunks of rotted wood, the dark wet earth soothes my feet after the unforgiving asphalt.

I follow deer tracks, and brambles claw themselves to the mesh fabric of my Reeboks. With my palms I lean against a gnarly Texas oak, stretching my calves. The bark is sharp, leaving painful imprints on my hands. The burn in my leg ceases and as I bend over and pull brambles off my shoes, I catch a glimpse of a crescent indentation in the ground, like a burrowed tip of a boot in the soil. Next to it, a speck of red, a shade somewhere between scarlet and crimson. I can’t make sense of it, as if my mind is trying to fit a square block into a round hole.

I step closer and my brain catches up; the colorful speck is a fingernail, a half-moon rimmed with dirt, resting among the tree scraps. A pale hand with nails a shade a teenager would wear, one with a silly name like Cajun Shrimp. The hand is motionless, just lies there, bare and helpless, a peculiar intruder disturbing the methodical layers of the forest’s skin.

I scan the ground. There’s a pale silver bauble—a coin maybe, larger than a dime but smaller than a nickel. The sun hits it just right and throws a sparkle my way. There’s a luster to it, radiant and sparkling, illuminated as if it wants to be observed. I believe the hand and the sunlit glint among the browns and greens of the woods to be a figment of my oxygen-deprived runner’s brain.

I bow down to get a closer look. Eyes peek from within the ground. They are surrounded by a spongy layer of pine needles.

Still the square block doesn’t fit into the round hole. Broken and cloudy, the eyes stare beyond the cathedral high pillars. The lids seem to quiver ever so slightly.

And then the hand moves.

Run.

My body obeys. Ten steps and I lose my footing and stumble, hit the ground, left shoulder first. I roll down a hill and sharp branches nip at my skin. I tumble farther and farther, a steady and painful descent that I’m unable to stop. I come to a halt and I feel a sharp pain hit me right between my eyes. Then my world goes dark.

When I come to, everything is quiet but for the thumping sound of my heart. I swallow water. I’m drowning. My head throbs but I manage to push my body off the ground. I’m in a creek, facedown. The vision of the hand has carved itself into my brain. I must be mistaken, I tell myself.

I catch my breath and return to the very spot. I kneel down and a burning sensation moves up my arm, to my face, then to my neck. There is an anticipation, a nervous kind of energy tingling through me, as if electrical sparks are traveling all the way to my toes. A scent hits my nostrils, an olfactory hint of something … unpleasant … out of place within the otherwise fresh forest. The scent is sickly sweet, a mere hint one moment, then a good stench. Something is dripping onto my lap—warm moisture spreads onto my bare thighs—and I realize my nose is bleeding profusely. My shaking hands are covered in blood.

A buried body, I think, as if I have finally solved a riddle I’ve been pondering for a while. My mind tumbles, spills into itself. My sense of smell is heightened and the soil and decomposing leaves make the atmosphere thick. I feel a sense of paranoia, I imagine someone watching me, no, I don’t imagine, I know there’s someone watching me.

I scan the trees around me. I know what I am; prey. A small sob works its way up and out of my throat.

There’s no visual clue, just knowledge and intuition, and my eyes find a narrow path with knotted roots. Run, I repeat to myself, and again my body obeys.

I reach the road and wave down a truck filled with men in overalls. There’s a large ladder covered in paint splatters extending beyond the truck bed. I scream and point at the tree line and they rush in that direction.

One man stays behind and says words in Spanish I don’t understand.

I feel as if I have traveled through a time machine: I remember the clinic well—Metroplex, a three-story building, aged and tacky, from the industrial carpet to the disassembled pay phones left deserted on linen fabric–covered walls.

I recall the emergency room—every strep throat, every fever that wouldn’t go away, every sprained ankle, every cut that required stitches resulted in arguments with nurses and administration. My mother refused to sign paperwork, wouldn’t give them any information but our names.

There’s this rage inside of me that I feel toward my mother and I wish my memory was a sieve, yet it maintains a detailed account of her transgressions, all fresh, all defined, neat and organized. They sit in waiting and many have come back to me lately, so many memories have returned, yet not a single one of them pleasant. Lately, all it takes is an image, a smell, a faint recall, and the dam of restraint breaks. It sloshes over everything, unforgiving in its clarity.

They say—I’ve done the research—humans are hardwired to retain negative memories as a matter of survival.

Survival; the act of surviving, especially under adverse or unusual circumstances.

El Paso, Texas, 1987

I roll down the car window to allow the night to seep in. I hear trucks idle. I listen to the drone of the engines; observe them maneuver in and out of the parking lot. They hiss and scream; sometimes their engines fall silent. Men emerge and climb from the cabs.

It’s their house on wheels, my mother tells me.

My house is the backseat of my mother’s car. From there I watch the constant movements of trucks and men. I arrange my pillows and blankets just right. I have learned how to tuck myself in. I am to remain underneath, hidden.

It’s just a game, my mother says. So no one knows you are here.

I listen to their radio until it jitters, and then there is nothing left but silence. Underneath the many layers, I hear my mother talk to the truckers.

One man said, I saw a black dog, so I pulled over.

I’m afraid of the black dog. I watch the road sometimes, expect him to stand in the middle, drooling, baring his fangs.

I spread out my crayons over the seat. When I run out of paper, I flip through my drawings until I find one that’s blank on the back.

We wash up in a sink in a nearby building. The floor is cold and my bare feet leave dirty wet trails all over the white tiles. I wiggle and struggle to get away from the cold that makes my skin turn into tiny bumps.

Is the black dog coming for me? I ask my mother.

She just laughs.

The dog’s not real—it’s when you drive too long and you see things. It’s time to pull over and sleep. That’s all.

I know the feeling of seeing things. I will keep an eye out for the black dog anyway. To make sure.

Mom leaves and when she returns, she smells of food. She hands me a donut, and I eat in the car. I get powdered sugar all over everything but mom doesn’t seem to mind.

Those days don’t feel real. It’s almost as if I travel while I sleep. When I wake up, I’m in a different place but still in the car.

I love the car. All my toys are in the car.