Читать книгу When She Woke - Hillary Jordan - Страница 13

WHEN THE LIGHTS CAME ON, Hannah’s lids opened with reluctance. She felt thick-headed, like her skull was stuffed with wadding. She pushed herself to a sitting position and noticed a slight soreness in her left wrist. There was a puncture mark on the underside, surrounded by a small purple circle. She studied herself in the mirror, seeing other subtle changes. Her face was a little fuller, the cheekbones less pronounced. She’d put on weight, maybe a couple of pounds, and although she was still groggy, her lethargy was gone. She dug through her memories, unearthed the two white figures she’d seen. They must have sedated her and fed her intravenously.

Something about the cell felt different too, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Everything looked exactly the same. And then she heard it: a high-pitched, droning buzz coming from behind her. She turned and spied a fly crawling up one of the mirrored walls. For the first time in twenty-some-odd days, she wasn’t alone. She waved her arm and the fly buzzed off, zipping around the room. When it settled she waved her arm at it again, for the sheer pleasure of seeing it move.

Hannah paced the cell, feeling restless. How long had she been unconscious? And how much longer before they released her? She hadn’t allowed herself to think beyond these thirty days. The future was a yawning blank, unimaginable. All she knew was that the mirrored wall would soon slide open, and she’d walk out of this cell and follow the waiting guard to a processing area where she’d be given her clothes and allowed to change. They’d take her picture and issue her a new National Identification Card sporting her new red likeness, transfer the princely sum of three hundred dollars to her bank account and go over the terms of her sentence, most of which she already knew: no leaving the state of Texas; no going anywhere without her NIC on her person; no purchasing of firearms; renewal shots every four months at a federal Chrome center. Then they’d escort her to the gate she came in by and open it to the outside world.

The prospect of crossing that threshold filled her with both longing and trepidation. She’d be free—but to go where and do what? She couldn’t go home, that much was certain; her mother would never allow it. Would her father be there to pick her up? Where would she live? How would she survive the next week? The next sixteen years?

A plan, she thought, forcing down her growing panic, I need a plan. The most urgent question was where she’d live. It was notoriously difficult for Chromes to find housing outside the ghettos where they clustered. Dallas had three Chromevilles that Hannah knew of, one in West Dallas, one in South Dallas and a third, known as Chromewood, in what used to be the Lakewood area. The first two had already been ghettos when they were chromatized, but Lakewood had once been a respectable middle-class neighborhood. Like its counterparts in Houston, Chicago, New York and other cities, its transformation had begun with just a handful of Chromes who’d happened to own houses or apartments in the same immediate area. When their law-abiding neighbors tried to force them out, they banded together and resisted, holding out long enough that the neighbors decided to leave instead, first in ones and twos and then in droves as property values went into a free fall. Hannah’s aunt Jo and uncle Doug had been among those who’d held out too long, and they’d ended up selling to a Chrome for a third of what the house had been worth. Uncle Doug had died of a heart attack soon afterward. Aunt Jo always said the Chromes had killed him.

Hannah quailed at the thought of living in such a place, surrounded by drug dealers, thieves and rapists. But where else could she go? Becca’s house was out too. Her husband, Cole, had forbidden her to see or speak to Hannah ever again (though Becca had violated this prohibition several times already, when she’d visited Hannah in jail).

As always, the thought of her brother-in-law made Hannah’s mood darken. Cole Crenshaw was a swaggering bull of a man with an aw-shucks grin that turned flat and mean when he didn’t get his way. He was a mortgage broker, originally from El Paso, partial to Western wear. Becca had met him at church two years ago, a few months before their father was injured. Their parents had approved of him—Becca wouldn’t have continued seeing him if they hadn’t—but Hannah had had misgivings from early on.

They surfaced the first time he came to supper. Hannah had met Cole on several occasions but had never spoken with him at length and was eager to get to know him better. Though he and Becca had only been dating about six weeks, she was already more infatuated than Hannah had ever seen her.

He was charming enough at first and full of compliments: for Becca’s dress, Hannah’s needlework, their mother’s spinach dip, their father’s good fortune in having three such lovely ladies to look after him. They were having hors d’oeuvres in the den. The vid was on in the background, and when breaking news footage of a shooting at a local community college came on, they turned up the volume to watch. The gunman, who’d been a student there, had shot his professor and eight of his classmates one at a time, posing questions to them about the Book of Mormon and executing the ones who answered incorrectly with a single shot to the head. When he’d finished quizzing every member of the class, he’d walked out of the building with his hands up and surrendered to the police. The expression on his face as they shoved him into the back of a squad car was eerily peaceful.

“Those poor people,” Hannah’s mother said. “What a way to die.”

Cole shook his head in disgust. “Nine innocent people murdered, and that animal gets to live.”

“Well,” Hannah’s father said, “he won’t have much of a life in a federal prison.”

“However much he has is too much, as far as I’m concerned,” said Cole. “I’ll never understand why we got rid of the death penalty.”

Becca’s eyes widened, reflecting Hannah’s own dismay, and their parents exchanged a troubled glance. The Paynes were against capital punishment, as was Reverend Dale, but the issue was a divisive one within both the church and the Trinity Party. Soon after he’d been made senior pastor at Ignited Word, Reverend Dale had come out in support of the Trinitarian congressional caucus that cast the deciding votes to abolish the death penalty over the vehement objections of their fellow evangelicals. Hundreds of people had quit the church over it, and Hannah’s best friend’s parents had forbidden their daughter to associate with her anymore. The controversy had died down eventually, but Hannah’s friend had never spoken to her again, and eight years later, the subject was still a sensitive one for many people.

The silence in the den grew awkward. Cole’s eyes skimmed over their faces before settling on Becca’s. “So, you agree with Reverend Dale,” he said.

“ ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ ” said Hannah’s father.

“We believe that only God can give life, and only He has the right to take it.”

“Innocent life, yes, but murder’s different,” Cole said. “It says so right in the Bible. ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.’ ” He hadn’t taken his eyes off Becca. Hannah could feel the force of his will pressing against her sister.

Becca hesitated, looking uncertainly from Cole to their father. “Genesis does say that,” she said. “And so does Leviticus.”

“Leviticus also says people should be stoned to death for cursing,” Hannah said. “Do you believe that too?”

“Hannah!” her mother rebuked. “Do I have to remind you that Cole is a guest in our house?”

“I was speaking to Becca.”

“That’s no way to talk to your sister either,” Hannah’s father said, in his most disappointed tone. Cole’s eyes and mouth were hard, but Becca’s expression was more stricken than angry.

Hannah sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Becca, Cole.”

Becca nodded acceptance and turned to Cole. The naked hopefulness with which she looked at him told Hannah this was no mere infatuation. Her sister couldn’t bear conflict among those she loved.

“No, it’s my fault,” Cole said, addressing Hannah’s parents. His face turned rueful, but his eyes, she noted, were a few beats behind. “I never should have brought the subject up in the first place. My mama always said, ‘When in doubt, stick to the weather,’ and Lord knows my daddy tried his best to beat it into me, but my tongue still gets the better of my manners sometimes. I apologize.”

Becca beamed and shot Hannah a look: See? Isn’t he wonderful?

Hannah made her lips curve in answer. She did see, and she could only hope that she was wrong. Or if she was right, that Becca would see it too.

But Becca’s feelings for Cole only grew stronger, and Hannah’s qualms deeper, especially after their father was injured. He was in the hospital for ten days and incapacitated for another month after that, and his absence left a void into which Cole stepped eagerly. He became the unofficial Man of the House, always there to fix the leaky sink, oil the rusty hinges, dispense advice and opinions. Becca was delighted and their mother grateful, but Cole’s ever-presence in the house put Hannah’s back up.

More than anything, she disliked his high-handedness with Becca. Their parents had a traditional marriage, following the Epistles: a woman looked to her husband as the church looked to God. John Payne was the unquestioned authority of the family and their spiritual shepherd. Even so, he consulted their mother’s opinion in all things, and while he didn’t always follow her counsel, he had a deep respect for her and for the role she played as helpmeet and mother.

Cole’s attitude toward Becca was different, with troubling overtones of condescension. Becca had never been strong-willed, but the longer she was with him, the fewer opinions she had that weren’t provided by him. “Cole says” became her constant refrain. She stopped wearing green, because “Cole says it makes my skin look sallow,” and reading fiction, because “Cole says it pollutes the mind with nonsense.” She gave up her part-time job as a teaching aide because “Cole says a woman’s place is with her family.”

Hannah kept her growing aversion to herself, hoping that Becca’s ardor would cool once their father was well again, or failing that, that he would discern Cole’s true character and dissuade her sister from marrying him. In the meantime, Hannah did her best to be cordial to him and was careful not to challenge him openly or express her doubts to Becca. Confrontation was not the way to defeat him; better to bide her time and let him defeat himself.

But she’d overestimated both her skill as an actress and her forbearance, as she discovered on Becca’s birthday. Their father had been home for two weeks, but he still wasn’t strong, so they kept the party to the immediate family—and Cole, of course. Hannah made Becca a dress out of soft lavender wool, and their parents bought her a small pair of opal earrings to match the cross they’d given her the year before.

“Oh, how beautiful!” she exclaimed when she opened the velvet box.

“Let’s see them on you,” their father said.

Becca froze, and her eyes darted guiltily to Cole.

“Go on, Becca,” Hannah urged. “Try them on.”

Looking trapped and miserable, Becca put on the earrings.

“They look lovely on you,” their mother said.

“Yes, they do,” Hannah agreed. “Don’t you think so, Cole?”

He gazed at Becca for long seconds, his expression unreadable. “Personally I don’t think Becca needs any adornment to look pretty,” he said, with a tight smile. “But yeah, they’re very nice.”

After he left, Hannah cornered her sister in the kitchen. “What was that all about?”

Becca shrugged uncomfortably. “Cole says the only jewelry a woman should wear besides a cross is a wedding ring.”

Hannah’s antipathy toward him crystallized in that moment. Even more than his opinions, she disliked their absoluteness and the hypocrisy that underlay them. “But it’s perfectly fine for him to wear all those big shiny belt buckles and turquoise bolo ties.”

“It’s different for men,” Becca said. “You know that.”

It was different, and Hannah had been well-schooled in the reasons why. Still, the double standard had always bothered her. And applied to Cole Crenshaw, it was infuriating. “No, I don’t. But I’m sure Cole could give me a nice long lecture on the subject.”

“I know why you don’t like him,” Becca said, her tone hard-edged. “You’re jealous because I have a man in my life, and you don’t.”

“Is that what Cole says?”

Becca crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t think he hasn’t noticed your coldness to him all these months. It hurts his feelings, and it hurts mine.”

“I’m sorry, Becca. I’ve tried to like him, but—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Becca said, turning away. “I love him, and I want to spend my life with him. Can’t you just be happy for me?”

And that was that. Becca wed Cole as soon as their father was well enough to walk her down the aisle. Hannah made her sister’s wedding dress and stood at her side holding a bouquet of calla lilies while she vowed to love, honor and obey Cole Crenshaw for all eternity. Then Becca was gone. She and Cole lived only a few miles away, but they might as well have moved to Maine. Hannah tried to make nice with him now that he was her brother-in-law, but he wasn’t having it; the damage had been done. The sisters saw each other mostly on family occasions, and even then, Cole made sure they had little time alone together. Hannah felt Becca’s absence keenly. As different as they were, they’d always been close. Now, Hannah had no one with whom she could share her inner life.

Part of it, she wouldn’t have dared share. Though she hadn’t seen Aidan Dale in over two months, he was still an insistent presence in her thoughts. As she sewed pearls onto veils and rosettes onto bodices, she remembered his many kindnesses to her family, the fervency of his prayers for her father, the comforting warmth of his hand on her shoulder. Again and again, she relived the moment when she’d looked into his eyes and seen her own feelings reflected there, or thought she had. Two things kept her from dismissing it as a wishful figment: He hadn’t come back to the hospital after that day. And Alyssa Dale had.

She’d paid them a visit the very next morning. Hannah and Becca were alone with their father; their mother was home resting. The previous day’s excitement and the long, tense buildup to it had left them all spent. Hannah was catnapping in the chair beside her father’s bed. She was distantly aware of a murmured conversation taking place between Becca and another woman, but that wasn’t what drew her up out of sleep. Rather, it was the prickling sense of being watched. She opened her eyes to find Alyssa Dale standing at the foot of the bed, exactly where Aidan had stood, staring down at her. Disconcerted, Hannah looked around the room, but Becca wasn’t there.

“Your sister had a call, and she went outside to take it,” Alyssa said softly. “She didn’t want to wake your father.”

“Oh,” Hannah said. She felt slow and stupid. She knew she ought to get up and greet her visitor, but Alyssa’s frank, assessing gaze seemed to pin her to the chair. In public Alyssa Dale was the quintessential minister’s wife: demure and gracious, pretty without being beautiful enough to cause resentment, dignified without being aloof. Now, for the first time, Hannah perceived the intelligence that inhabited the other woman’s mild hazel eyes. Had she missed it because she hadn’t expected to see it there, or because Alyssa usually kept it hidden?

“Congratulations on your father’s good news. You must be very relieved.”

“We are, thank you.” Hannah pushed herself to her feet, stretched out her hand. “I’m Hannah.”

Alyssa nodded but didn’t extend her own. “Yes, my husband has mentioned you. In his prayers.”

Hannah let her hand fall to her side. “It’s kind of you to have come.”

“Aidan told me the Lord worked a miracle yesterday. I wanted to see it for myself.”

Alyssa’s eyes didn’t leave Hannah’s. The scrutiny made her want to squirm. “Well,” Hannah said, “we’re all incredibly grateful for his concern.”

“The Lord’s or my husband’s? People do tend to confuse the two.” Alyssa’s tone was gently acerbic. “Of course, that’s only because they haven’t been around him before he’s had his morning coffee.”

Hannah said nothing, nonplussed by the image that popped into her mind of Aidan in his pajamas, his hair disheveled, his eyes heavy-lidded. Alyssa watched her with a knowing expression that held a hint of warning, and Hannah’s cheeks burned as it occurred to her just how many women must have fancied themselves in love with Aidan Dale over the years. She must be one of dozens, hundreds even, who’d fantasized about him. Wished him unmarried to this astute, composed woman.

“Hannah,” Becca said in a loud whisper. She stood in the doorway, holding up her port. “Mama wants to talk to you.”

Hannah suppressed a sigh of relief. “Please excuse me, Mrs. Dale.”

“No, I should be going,” Alyssa said. “We’re off to Mexico tonight, and South America and California after that, and I’m still not completely packed.”

“A long trip, then,” Hannah said.

“Three weeks. Long enough.” She didn’t need to add, For him to forget you.

For a while, it seemed he had. Summer gave way to fall, and the temperature finally dropped down into the double digits, and as the first holos of cavorting skeletons and witches on broomsticks began to appear on her neighbors’ front lawns, Hannah’s memories of Aidan started to lose their definition, taking on the hazy quality of images seen through tulle. If he’d ever had feelings for her—and she was becoming doubtful that he had—he must have since come to his senses, as she herself needed to do. Even to think of being with him, a married man, a man of God, was a grave sin. And so in Bible study, she made a point of sitting next to Will, a shy young man who’d been casting yearning looks her way for weeks, and when he finally got up the courage to ask her out, she accepted.

She’d had two serious boyfriends, one her senior year of high school and the other in her early twenties. They were nice young men, and she’d enjoyed their company and attention, but neither of them had stirred anything deeper in her than affection and a sporadic sexual curiosity she had no intention of exploring, not with them. That wasn’t enough. They weren’t enough.

Nor, she soon realized, was Will, though by every rational measure he ought to have been. He was a veterinarian, sweet, shy, funny in a self-deprecating way. They started dating in mid-October, and by mid-November, when the oak leaves began to drift to the ground in spiky brown curls, she knew that Will was falling along with them, and that she was not. “Please, Hannah, give him a chance,” her mother urged, and so she continued to see him. He became ardent, spoke of love, hinted at marriage. She stilled his roving hands and deflected his near-proposals. Finally, when his frustration turned to anger, she cut him loose, bleeding and disoriented, her own heart perfectly intact.

Aidan wouldn’t leave it intact, she’d known that from the first. Long before they became lovers, she could foresee that there would be an after, and that it would lay waste to them both.

Still. She hadn’t envisioned this: herself a Red, an outcast, while Aidan went on with his life and his ministry, moved with Alyssa to Washington to take up his new post as secretary of faith, continued to inspire millions by his words and example. Hannah knew he thought of her, missed her, grieved as she did for their lost child. Blamed himself and tormented himself with what-ifs. Probably hated himself for not coming forward.

Still.

She watched the fly buzz busily around the room. When it landed on the floor beside her, she killed it with a vicious smack of her hand.