Читать книгу The Ladies Killing Circle Anthology 4-Book Bundle - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 12

LINDA WIKEN

She couldn’t run any faster. There was no escape. She tried to lengthen her stride, but it kept pace. She stumbled and almost pitched into the darkness. Get up. Run. The house. She had to reach the house and mommy. She needed her mommy. Keep going. Don’t look back. Almost there. The house. With locked door. It wouldn’t open. She pounded. She cried out for her mommy. Don’t leave me. And then woke to the sound.

Hannah Price jerked bolt upright in bed, gasping to reach total consciousness. Trying to shake off the dream. Her heart was pounding too fast in her chest. It’s only a dream. She tried deep breathing. It helped. She glanced at the bedside clock, 5:30 a.m. A shard of sunlight cut across her bed. Time to run. Shake off the night and the dream.

She groaned and rolled out of bed, jerking to a stop as a pain shot through her left hip. Running had brought that on again. She’d known it would happen. But she needed the high, needed to escape the horror of what was happening, if only for an hour.

As she pulled on a grey cotton T-shirt and nylon shorts, she listened for sounds from the next room. Carrying her Rykas, she crept along the hall and opened the door to her mother’s room. She heard the same raspy breathing she’d heard last time she’d checked, a couple of hours ago. She longed to go to her mother, crawl into bed beside her, wrap her arms around her and make everything all right. Why her, God?

Once outside the house, Hannah went through her routine of stretches while sorting a mental list of tasks for later in the day. Then she started down the gravel driveway at a medium lope, waiting until she reached the main road before going all out. She didn’t expect much traffic at this hour. Maybe on the way back, the occasional car would be transporting its load of office workers into Victoria for the day.

Hannah had no idea if that included the neighbours who were only a mailbox at the road’s edge about fifty metres along. They were new to the area, moved in long after Hannah had left home for the promised land of Vancouver. Her monthly visits home were filled with her mother. There was no need to look for others to socialize with. And now that she’d come back to nurse her mom, she didn’t want anyone else intruding. She wanted this time alone with her, to stretch out every moment of their final days together as long as possible.

Nobody loves you like your mom.

Ain’t that the truth, thought Hannah, especially when there’s no one else in your life to love you. And soon there wouldn’t even be Mom.

No-body-loves-you-like-your-mom. It fit her stride. No-body-loves-you-like-your-mom. Her mantra for today. Block out all other thoughts. The ones she couldn’t cope with.

“So what’s it to be for lunch today, a decadent chicken broth or an exotic pea soup?” Hannah tried not to stare at her mother as she straightened the bedding.

Five months of fighting ovarian cancer had reduced her to a body with sharply angled bones stretching a covering of translucent skin, a sharp contrast to the bright red and yellow scarf tied around her head. Her days were spent entirely in bed, mainly sleeping. Her short waking periods were filled with Hannah reading to her and, each afternoon, a visit from a home care worker.

“I don’t know, Hannah. Surprise me.” Her lips slid apart in a strained smile.

Death warmed over. The phrase, unbidden, leapt into Hannah’s brain. She swallowed hard to allow an answer through the massive knot blocking her throat.

“O.K., Mom—a surprise it is.”

She tried to think of some variation from the bland items that had become the daily food fare as she cranked up the volume on the Graco monitor in the kitchen. She’d had it installed last month, a convenience that allowed her to eavesdrop on her mom’s bodily noises. Nothing was private any more. There’s very little dignity in a painful death, thought Hannah. Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly poured herself a glass of water from the ceramic rooster pitcher kept in the fridge. Hannah ran both hands along its orange and yellow contours, a link to her childhood, a happy time with just the two of them and the assortment of four-legged creatures that were a part of the family unit from time to time. None of the pets had survived, and soon there’d be only Hannah. She can’t leave me. I still need her.

She shook her head and finished drinking the water, then opened a can of broth, adding some fresh mint and rosemary once it started heating, sniffing the aroma. A comfort food from a happier time. The doorbell startled her. She glanced at the aging round clock that hung above the sink. Another childhood memory. She turned the element to simmer and went to open the front door.

She knew this face but couldn’t quite place it. Something familiar. That smile, so damned sure of himself. It couldn’t be. No. The son-of-a-bitch was back. “What the hell do you want?” She stared at Dan O’Connor, debating whether to slam the door in his face.

As if he read her thoughts, he stuck his foot in the door and held out his right hand in appeal. “Hannah? It is you, isn’t it? You’re all grown up. Please, Hannah. Can’t we call a truce? I’d like to see Carolyn. I do still love her, you know.”

Hannah couldn’t look him in the eyes. She’d never been able to, even as a kid. She concentrated instead on the mass of wrinkles etched on his tanned face and the greying hair. He’d aged in the seventeen years since she’d last seen him. The night of her twelfth birthday party. The night he’d walked out of their lives; one of the happiest nights she’d known in the five years he’d lived with them. The worst part was she knew her Mother still thought about him. She refused to believe it was love. But her Mother would want to see him.

Hannah pulled the door open wide. “She’s in her bedroom. I’m just making her lunch.” She turned her back on him and went to dish out the soup.

How dare he? He thinks he can just waltz back into our lives. The bastard.

She rushed pouring the soup into a mug, spilling some onto the counter and floor. She threw the dishrag on the largest puddle and plunked the soup mug on the tray, spilling some more. Damn him. When she joined them in the bedroom, Dan was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Carolyn’s hand. Hannah flinched and bit back an acerbic comment.

“You’ll need to move, Dan.” That’s my place.

“Of course.” He leaned over and kissed Carolyn on the cheek. “I’ll just go and put away my things. I’m in the guest room, I presume?”

“Yes, my dear.” Carolyn patted his hand then looked at Hannah. “So, what’s my surprise to be?”

The guest room? Hannah busied herself helping her Mom sit up, and with setting up the bed tray, wanting Dan to be out of the room before she spoke.

“Did you know about this?” she asked, guiding spoonfuls of the liquid to her mother’s mouth.

Carolyn nodded. “Yes, he called the other day while you were out. I should have told you.” She paused, struggling to catch her breath. “I wanted to see him. Please, Hannah, try to understand.”

“All I understand is that life was hell when he was living with us. He was always butting in.”

“He was your father.”

“No. He was your husband. And the two of you were always arguing. Then he ups and walks out. And I thought that was great, but you were miserable for a long time after. And now, after all these years, he turns up in our lives again and you welcome him in. That I don’t understand.”

Carolyn closed her eyes. “I thought you’d grown up.”

The words stung. Hannah blinked back the tears. Here he was, dividing them again, now when her mom was dying. The bastard.

“O.K. Mom, I’ll be civil to him.” Just don’t be mad at me.

“Thank you, dear.” Carolyn reached for her hand, but Hannah barely felt the weak squeeze.

Dan returned as Hannah prepared to take the tray away. Time to be nice. “I usually read to Mom a while after lunch. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes, I would. Thank you, Hannah.”

She left as Dan sat down and stroked the side of Carolyn’s face, left before her anger erupted.

She closed the door to her room and stripped, changing into shorts and sports bra. She had to get out of there, run off some of the tension. The temperature had risen, making it too balmy for late September. Indian summer. A last chance for the heat of summer. But there’d be no last chance for her mom. On her way out she stopped at the open bedroom door. Dan had made himself very comfortable.

“I’m going out for a run. Won’t be long.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She had to get out of there. She hit the laneway at top speed and didn’t slow down until she’d done half her route, down the road, up a dirt trail through the woods and over to the cliff.

Her foot caught the tip of a stick and she stumbled, pitching towards the edge. She grabbed a low-hanging branch to stop her fall. Her whole body shook, her heart pounded in her ears. It was a long way down to the shoreline. She bent over from the waist, breathing hard.

She couldn’t catch her breath. She never ran out of breath. Hadn’t since her early days of running. She straightened, avoiding looking straight down, and did some leg stretches, then sat on a log well back from the edge, staring out at the ocean. Breathe slowly. Relax. She used to love coming here to sit and watch, sometimes to dream about sailing across that open expanse of water to whatever was beyond. Maybe all the way to Japan. Just relax.

Of course, in those days, she’d fantasized about a special guy going along with her. Well, guess what, he’d never materialized. Lots of false tries but never Mr. Right. One analyst had said it was because no one could compare to her father, the father she never knew, a memory she’d assembled from bits and pieces of other men. The warm laugh of a friend’s father. The dark, haunting looks of a magazine model. The togetherness of television’s Walton family. She didn’t know anything about him; her mother had always refused to discuss him. She didn’t even know his name, but that was okay, he was always “my daddy”. She’d woven a rich fantasy life for the three of them. Before Dan had come along.

He couldn’t compare to her daddy. And she had refused to call him that. He had pushed his way into their lives, taking up all her mother’s time, and driving her daddy further away from her thoughts. Hannah had hated him for five long years. Until he had left. And her daddy was able to return, to be with her. And she was happy.

“Hannah, do you think we could have a talk?” Dan asked as he cleared the dinner dishes from the table. It had been a quiet meal, just the two of them, eating a nuked frozen lasagna and fresh green salad she’d tossed together with makings from the garden.

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about.” She ran the dishwater to drown out his words.

He went back to sit with Carolyn while Hannah fumed. Her mom. She was the one who should be sitting with her, not cleaning up after him. She finished the dishes then went in to get her mom ready for sleeping. Dan disappeared until later that evening, when Hannah sat reading in the living room.

“You can’t avoid me for the entire time I’m here, Hannah.” Dan sat down beside her on the couch before she had time to object. “I know you think I didn’t belong in your lives, but I did love you both, you know.”

Hannah closed her book and turned to face him. “No, I don’t know and it doesn’t make any difference anyway. You’re here to visit with Mom. Let’s leave it at that. I do appreciate having my privacy, if you don’t mind.” She heard the chill in her voice and was glad of it.

Dan shook his head. “Okay. Okay.” He stood slowly and retreated down the hall. She waited until she heard the door to his room open and shut, then she opened her book and stared at the pages. An hour later, she closed it, not having progressed from that single page, and went to bed.

Hannah dreamed again that night but could recall only bits and pieces of it in the morning. She’d been with her mom, somewhere. Just the two of them walking along the river.

Her head throbbed. Another tension headache in full control. Run. She needed to run. Dan’s door was closed as she crept down the hall. Her mom slept noisily but soundly. Her Rykas crunched loudly on the gravel laneway, drowning out the sound of the nuthatches as she jogged over to the road. After ten minutes of full out running, she cut back to a medium paced walk for one minute, then another ten minutes at full speed. By the time she reached the cliff, her breathing was measured, her mantra keeping her pace. No-body-loves-you-like-your-Mom. Run for ten minutes, walk for one, then…she stopped at the sight of Dan sitting on her log, staring out at the water.

Her heart battered the walls of her chest making it hard to breathe. Her log. Her mom. Nobody loves you like your mom.

She ran straight at Dan and pushed. He pitched forward, his yell becoming more faint as he plummeted the hundred metres to the rocks below. She bent over from the waist and gulped air. After a few minutes, she sat on the log and stared across the ocean. The silence surrounded her. No birds chirping. No waves intruding. No thoughts invading her head. She eventually roused herself and headed back to the house.

Hannah sat on the edge of her mom’s bed and held her hand. The funeral had been held that morning, and Carolyn had insisted on attending. It had drained all of her strength, even on a gurney with an ambulance transporting her.

“I can’t believe it.” Carolyn sobbed, gasping for air. Hannah grabbed the mask from the portable oxygen unit and placed it over her mom’s nose and mouth until her breathing became less laboured. After a few minutes, Carolyn pulled the mask aside.

“I had so hoped you two would get to know each other again.”

“Please, don’t try to talk. Just rest, Mom.” Hannah reached for the mask, but Carolyn grasped her hand.

“I have to talk. To tell you.”

“It can wait, Mom. Just lie quiet now.”

“No. I have to tell you, now. Hannah, don’t hate me, baby. Please. I did it for you.” Her fingers actually dug into Hannah’s hand, and her voice sounded stronger. “You’d built up such an image of your father. Of what you thought he was like. Except…Dan and I. We…we’d been lovers. My husband found out. Dan left. He was in the military. They sent him away to Cyprus on a peacekeeping mission. And my husband left because I was pregnant.”

What are you saying? It can’t be true. My daddy wouldn’t leave me! He died. He wouldn’t leave.

Tears rolled down Carolyn’s face as she reached out her right hand to touch Hannah’s face. “Dan didn’t know I was pregnant. When he came back, he found me, us, and then we got married. We’d hoped it would work out. He tried to be a father to you, but you never—” she coughed and took a few minutes to get her breath back “—never let him get close to you. We couldn’t make a life together knowing you were so miserable. So he left, too.”

No. My daddy was dead!

“We should have told you. But I didn’t want you to know what we’d done. At least, not till you were older.” She shook her head. “But we should have told you.”

“Told me what?” I don’t want to know.

“Hannah, baby, Dan was your father.”

LINDA WIKEN is owner of Prime Crime Books in Ottawa. She’s written for radio, newspaper and magazines, and has published a number of non-fiction books. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies The Ladies’ Killing Circle, Cottage Country Killers and Menopause is Murder, Murderous Intent magazine, and her mystery novel is in search of a publishing date. She also writes articles for the Ottawa Police and adds her voice to their choir.