Prologue
January 6, 1982
There is a fear I live with all the time. It’s like a shawl around my shoulders that I cannot remove. Today has been a hard day. Gray skies and a chill in the air that bites like razors. Clothes refuse to dry on the line, and a particular angry whistle passes continuously through the house.
Perhaps it is only the memory of seeing him this morning. It wasn’t intentional. He was in town with his family, and I saw him across First Street heading to lunch perhaps. Or shopping. My mind raced in all the directions he might have been going. The pain was excruciating, but at the same time it made me happy to see him looking good. He was smiling, reaching down to lift his smallest child to his shoulders. The last time we spoke he was devastated. I think in my life there will never again be a love like him. I am now resigned to it. When I think of the damage our love has caused, the responsibility we bear for the lives of others, I feel ill all over again and yet, I am once again fortified against my weakness for him.
I’ve not been right since I got home this afternoon. I’ll say the truth only here, in these pages. I cannot trust myself to speak it aloud. Or perhaps it is that I cannot trust others.
An icy terror sits within me. A feeling, or more than that, a certainty that something terrible is about to happen, maybe has already occurred. Some form of destruction, an unraveling I suppose. I see shadows following me at times. Objects are moved, no longer where I left them. Sometimes gone for good. Yesterday, I went to get the mail, walked down to the box, a solid five-minute trek and found the box empty. Upon my return I found the mail stacked neatly on the kitchen table. John says I must have forgotten I’d gone to fetch it. I’m certain I would remember if I was the one who’d put it there.
I mention to my doctors that I sense I am being watched, but, when they only want to give me more medication, I stop telling them. I’m sure this is not sickness. I’m quite sure this is real. Why will no one listen?
-Gwen
Chapter One
Eden, Louisiana- Present Day
The day they found the dead girl, the sky was the color of marble and the air stank of rubber and mud. Spring had escaped Bonfante Parish early that year and it was much too hot for early June. Ray Lee Beaumont was thirteen-years-old, skinny as a jackrabbit and brimming with the sweaty, excited, newness of burgeoning adolescence. He stood, with the self-conscious, impatient, cool, peculiar to young adolescent boys, under the shade of a live oak, half-moons of damp staining his T-shirt underarms, and smoking a stolen cigarette. Legs slightly apart, shifting weight one foot to the other, head down and cocked, peering out from under a lock of shaggy black hair. One hand to his lips, holding the Lucky Strike between his first two fingers, the way he remembered his Daddy had done-when the man still lived with them. A thin curl of smoke wafted into the still, hot air and hung there for a long time before breaking up into nothing. Occasionally he held the cigarette away from his body and tapped at it, letting the ash fall to the ground next to his feet.
All at once, he flicked the butt away, took two steps forward until he was standing just outside the shade of the tree and he shouted. “Basco, what in the hell is taking you so long?”
Genie Basco twelve, just four months younger than Ray Lee, but six inches shorter and lacking the peach fuzz that darkened Ray Lee’s upper lip, emerged from the woods, pulling up his pants.
“I don’t know Ray Lee. I don’t feel good. I think I got the diarrheas.”
“Oh, shoot Basco. You ain’t got the diarrheas. You’re just scared I’m gonna shoot you full of holes before you get one round off,” Ray Lee said, laughing.
“I ain’t scared,” insisted Gene. He approached, and Ray Lee studied his face. Pale, big-eyed. “I’m telling you, I don’t feel too good.”
“Yeah. Well don’t be thinking we’re going back now that we’re all the way out here and I got my brother’s gun and all. No way. Like my Daddy says, time to man up.”
Ray Lee gave the younger boy a hard stare, so he’d know there wasn’t a choice. Not now. Ray who’d been practically shooting out of his shoes with excitement since waking up this brilliant Saturday morning to find Mack’s paintball gun, and all his gear, sitting by the back door. Mack never left his gear, or anything else he cared about, out where Ray Lee might get into it. Must have come in drunk or too tired to think straight. Or both. Ever since Mack made sixteen and started driving and got a girlfriend, he thought he was all that. Ray Lee had quietly snatched up the gun and the half-full box of yellow paintballs and made his way out of the house. He’d ridden his bike straight over to Genie’s since Genie was the only other kid he knew owned a paintball gun. Which, Ray Lee was pretty sure, the little softie shit never even used.
“And look,” added Ray Lee, picking up the weapon from where he’d laid it on the ground. “I gotta get this gun back before Mack wakes up or he’ll kill me. So, get your stuff and come on. I already loaded yours for you.”
They started out back behind a wood structure that looked like, once upon a time, it might have been an outhouse. Everything out here looked like it came from another century. As far as Ray Lee knew, nobody had lived out at the Crazy Yates Place since the old man died and that was almost before Ray Lee was born.
“Ray Lee,” came Genie’s whine. “Are you sure we should be doing this? I mean, what if we get caught? My mom says the Sheriff will arrest you for shooting outside. In, like, the wild. I don’t know.”
Ray Lee turned around. Peering at his friend. “See, I told you, you were scared.”
“I ain’t!” Gene took another step.
“Well then, quit jabbering.” They trudged across the field about a hundred yards before Ray Lee stopped just on the edge of the forest. “Ok. Here’s good.” He looked at Genie. Softening. “Hey, look, I won’t aim at your face ok? Or your neck. And I’ll give you first shot. Ok?” The twelve-year-old nodded, looking reluctant. Ray Lee felt a little badly for him. Getting splatted with paintball hurt like a bitch and Genie knew how good a shot Ray Lee was too.
They crept into the forest in opposite directions, counting off before they turned and began. Almost immediately, Genie started firing. Randomly. Aimlessly. Almost all Genie’s balls hit tree trunks or rocks, leaving neon yellow and green paint splatter everywhere. He’d be out of ammo in five minutes, thought Ray Lee. Idiot.
Ray Lee avoided the shots and snuck deeper into the woods and was circling behind the thick, gnarled trunk of a live oak, when the toe of his runner clipped a fat root and sent him sprawling, face first, into the earth. The gun spilled from his grip and went skittering off into darkness. Once he’d caught his breath, he pushed himself up onto hands and knees, peering around for the weapon. A tiny kernel of panic seeded itself in his belly.
Mack would murder him, literally, if he lost that gun.
He screamed back at Genie to quit firing and come help him. Continued to scrabble around in the half-dark. Finally, there it was. Brown plastic sticking half out of the mud. Reaching for it, Ray Lee wrapped his palm around the hilt and knew immediately the thing in his grasp was not the plastic gun. Fear shot through him like black ice water and he yelped drawing his hand back so quickly, droplets of mud splashed his face. His eyes. He scrambled back away from…whatever it was, and leaned against a rock, panting. Peering into the darkness.
He pulled a penlight from his jean’s pocket and, using it to navigate, he took a few steps. It seemed suddenly darker inside the cypress wood. His foot sank into mud so thick it overflowed the top of his shoe. He felt it oozing through his sock. Like fingers. Inside the jungle of plants, he was momentarily disoriented. He swung his head this way and that, panic rising, suddenly, he saw it. Sticking out of the wet earth. It was small and appeared dipped in layers of earth and rot. Picking up a branch, he used it to poke a bit. Trying to separate the thing from the gun. No way did he want to touch it. He pushed some of the filth away and leaned in for a closer look. He jammed the branch underneath the thing and as he did so, a brownish bowl-shaped object emerged from the earth.
He stared as a clump of long hair fell away in a thin stringy sheath. He made a garbled gagging sound, dropped the stick, turned and pushed his way back past a giant palmetto plant. Emerging from the edge of the forest, he stopped abruptly, bent at the waist and vomited into the dirt.
Chapter Two
San Francisco-Present Day
It was happening again. The sleepwalking. Or whatever it was. When Evelyn was a child she’d called it dreaming but that wasn’t right. Dreaming was that thing people did while remaining stationary in their beds. And dreaming had a sort of pleasurable connotation. The word nightmare wasn’t right either. Evelyn’s ex-husband, Stuart, had called it her “Linda Blair Thing,” and thought it hilarious. Of course he was a prick and had only witnessed two episodes both of which had involved copious amounts of alcohol followed by nakedness combined with something having to do with mud and nocturnal enuresis so, Evelyn wasn’t even sure it had been the same thing. But these more recent events: these were too familiar; occurring too frequently.
Evelyn picked up the tweezers and leaned into the beveled glass over her sink. The marble vanity edge dug painfully into the soft flesh of her abdomen. She pursed her lips. Tilted her head and expertly plucked at an errant eyebrow hair, while casting furtive glances at the reflected image of her daughter, Libby, who stood behind her across the large bathroom. Scowling.
The teenager was fidgeting from foot to foot, arms folded across her chest, ready for battle. The pale skin of her face, nearly shrouded in a mass of black clothing. Her fierce dark eyes laser focused as she spoke.
“You said it, and if you take it back now, I’ll hate you,” she spat, pressing her lipstick-blackened lips together so that the baby fleshiness of her mouth became a hard line. Evelyn leaned away from the mirror, set the tweezers down on the marble counter, and turned around. Then she folded her arms and stood to wait for what would come next. “I can’t stand it here anymore,” Libby continued. Her eyes wet. “You do this all the time. Say things. Then say you didn’t.” That, Evelyn thought, was unfair. It happened. But definitely not all the time. Did it? “I’m going anyway. You should say ok and let me do what I want.” Libby was breathing heavily.
“Uh huh,” Evelyn said, weariness rolling over her; a thick, grey, muck. “Look, Lib there’s no way. There’s just no way I would have approved it. So…no. You can’t go. Sorry.” She hoped she sounded…what? Parental? Certain? Like an adult?
“I am,” said Libby. “I am going. You said I could. Last night, you came in my room, totally fucking blotto and you said I could.”
Evelyn considered which part of that sentence she should address. The curse word? The accusation she’d been intoxicated (which was true of course)? The claim she approved her sixteen-year-old daughter could attend an overnight party for graduating high school seniors? Hmm. Parenting provided so many opportunities to screw up. There seemed no good choice here so she gave up. Tossing about in her mind for something to say. To change the subject. “You know, Libby, I think that thing is getting infected. It’s pretty awful looking.” Evelyn uncrossed her arms and reached a hand, forefinger outstretched, toward Libby’s right eyebrow, which sported a small silver ring surrounded by a quarter-sized bruise the color of a ripe plum.
Libby ducked out of the way. “You are not even listening to me!” Evelyn jerked back against the sink, banging her hip bone on the porcelain.
“Fuck, ouch,” Evelyn said rubbing at her hip, fighting the urge to say what she should not. She really wasn’t good at this. At least not first thing in the morning.
“Whatever, I don’t really care,” Libby hissed, rolling her eyes. She ferreted in her purse and pulled out her phone.
A more direct approach, Evelyn said. “Look, Libby, I listened. I said you couldn’t go. You’re barely sixteen. It’s a ridiculous request. I don’t have time to argue about it. I don’t even know what you guys would be doing all night in a hotel.” She fumbled around in her cosmetics drawer for something although she was not entirely sure what.
Libby’s reflection in the mirror stopped texting. Evelyn turned around to look at her. “Mother, again, you are not listening to me. I told you what we would be doing. We will be doing nothing. We won’t be out all night. We will be at the hotel.”
Evelyn sighed, the breath coming from a deep, tired place all bone-dry and withered and lost; a place where remorse and guilt and something incomprehensible lay. Her mouth tasted like stale chardonnay. She tried to remember how much she’d had to drink. It had started with the voice mail message in the early afternoon. I’m calling from Eden. Please call me back as soon as possible. She’d already been reaching for the wine bottle as she listened to it but, in fairness, she’d seen the area code when the call came in. She’d known. It’s important, Mrs. Adamson. Please do call me back. Mrs. Adamson? She hadn’t been Mrs. Anybody in over five years. The name hit hard. Then there was the other name: Eden. It conjured images she’d thought had evaporated from her brain. Or been drowned out. Her father at the kitchen table. His long narrow face, eyes sliding over her like she didn’t exist, knobby fingers gripped around the neck of a beer bottle; Sunlight and dust on pine floors under bare feet; and Carolyn, there was always Carolyn.
She reached out to touch Libby’s shoulder with the tip of one finger. Her daughter jerked backward, both arms up as if preparing to defend herself from attack. Evelyn snapped her hand back. Rivers of eyeliner ran down Libby’s cheeks, and there were slashes marking the inside of her left arm from wrist to elbow. Some delicate white lines like embroidery cloth, and some new ones, freshly scabbed. Evelyn tasted vomit in her mouth. Libby followed her mother’s gaze and quickly dropped her arms allowing the layers of fabric to cover her skin below the wrists again. They both looked away.
Evelyn checked her watch. “I’m late. I have to go to my office. I’ve got that Clark thing to finish.” Only a part-lie. She did have to go to her office, just not at any particular time. “What if we talk about this when I get back? Tonight?”
Libby rolled her eyes. “Right, whatever.” A car honked.
“It’s your carpool.” Evelyn nodded her head toward the window.
“I’m going on Friday. You can’t stop me,” Libby said over her shoulder as she walked out. Evelyn closed her eyes and sucked in air through her teeth in long, tough strands like twine.
Then she heard the front door slam and felt a cool relief pass over her like a prayer.
#
It was early summer, and the city was pale and chilly. A gray mist hung low obscuring the neighborhoods and erasing street signs. The Honda was freezing, colder than the street outside, and Evelyn fiddled with heater knobs. She headed down toward Market Street where pedestrians lurched off sidewalks without warning like carnival surprises. The sky, occluded by the architecture, left the streets feeling airless and claustrophobic. She poked her fingers into her right temple, which was growing angry with hangover pain. Fighting with Libby didn’t help. A drink would help. She shooed the thought like a picnic pest.
One hand on the wheel, one eye on the road, she reached into her bag on the passenger seat and fished around for the Tylenol. Not there. She pictured herself placing the medicine on the bathroom counter after the fight with Libby. She tried to remember if she’d taken any of the pills. Likely not, given the pain in her temple.
She thought about the trellis of scars on her daughter’s lovely arm, her eyes simultaneously radiating guilt and accusation. Evelyn had considered just letting Libby have what she wanted. Anything to be left alone with her pain. Her thoughts. Eden. Eden. Eden. Instead, she’d tried to hold her ground. Be some version of a good parent. The resulting fight had not been worth it. Anger rose in her chest when she thought about Libby intentionally choosing that moment for a confrontation. What did you expect? She’s angry. You drink. You lie. You sleepwalk (or whatever). She’s pissed off and you have no right to be surprised. Probably it was only partly about going to the party Friday. It was also about Libby’s resentment of Richard. Libby detested him. Thought he was a player, whatever that meant. Libby had chosen to confront her in the bathroom this morning specifically because she knew Evelyn would be feeling awful. Hungover, sleep-deprived. Vulnerable to giving in.
So, she’d made a promise. Another one she wouldn’t keep. Shit. She told herself she’d genuinely forgotten about her evening commitments when she promised Libby they’d “talk about it” tonight. But it wasn’t true. A familiar pang of guilt hit, squeezing her gut into a tight ball. She shook her head as if she could dislodge the thought. What choice did she have but to make promises? Libby pushed her into corners all the time. She was practically a single mom. Doing the best she could. Are you? Doing your best? What did it mean that thinking about Libby sometimes made Evelyn feel far away as if she were floating high above the ground looking down upon the scene? Like a witness.
She’d had to practically shove Richard out the door. He’d been so nasty. What had he said to her? Something awful. Something Libby had heard no doubt. There was a space in her head where memories seemed to be missing. It happened like that. Was it getting worse? Maybe. Probably. It was like the tape recorder had run out of batteries and just lay dormant in her brain for a few hours until someone dug out the double A’s and replaced them. Then the recording started up again as if nothing unusual had happened. Often she found herself filling in the blanks: “I was home at ten,” or “Sure, the movie was great,” or “My car? I left it at the office. Too tired to drive home.” Not lies as much as best guesses.
The last thing she remembered was her anger at Richard for being such an asshole when she asked him to leave. Looking around the kitchen this morning, it appeared she’d finished off a second bottle of wine after he’d left. She’d gotten into the good vodka as well but had no idea how much she’d consumed. It was after two in the morning when her brain resumed full operations. She knew this because she’d found herself standing in the kitchen, in the dark, leaning into the digital clock on the stove trying her best to interpret the numbers in the LCD. A two, a one and a five, in that order. 2:15 am. Fuck. Last she remembered, she’d swallowed a couple of sleeping pills and gone to bed. She wished she could recall what she’d said to Richard exactly. What he’d said to her. On second thought maybe the not remembering was better. He’d finally left but not without slamming the front door. For some reason she had this one isolated memory.
The whole day had collapsed after that goddamn phone call. A man’s voice. Eden. Please call me back. Important. He’d left a number. She’d stared at the phone in hand. Told herself it was nothing. Just as her finger hovered over the button to delete she’d changed her mind. Left the message there. Infecting her phone. Her life.
She’d woken up this morning with a head heavy from hangover and the weight of the phone message she’d never returned.
Carolyn’s small fingers dancing like butterflies across her scalp as she braids Evelyn’s hair. Mama hanging laundry from the sagging cord stretched between the house and the shed, her skirt flipping in the morning breeze…Carolyn on that last day…the man from social services carrying her past the sheets fluttering there on the line…his broad back, her flailing arms and legs, the soles of her shoes sticky with mud. Moving away and away… into the distance…into the glare of morning sunlight…until they both simply disappeared.
