THANKSGIVING
____
I
1
It was a little gray outside with the Sun rarely peeking out, but Jane felt that she had never been happier in her life. As she was fixing the thanksgiving turkey on this drizzling Thursday, the only person she could think of as her soon-to-be-husband. Having done a decent job, she felt dizzy and decided to take a catnap; the rain was softly whispering, the drops melodically touching the windowsill, you have to drift to sleep.
After the midday sleep, she turned off the alarm clock, and went to the kitchen. It wasn’t raining anymore, and she could see the sunlight breaking through. She lowered to turn off the oven and puts on an old pair of oven mitts that her grandmother—God rest her soul—gave her on her birthday. She stopped for a second to look at the Slavic symbols running through the middle of each glove, and the memories of her granny flash for but a fleeting instant, but she knows she has no reason to worry now. She’d had her tough days before, several months of torture and the small apartment at the other side of town full of cancer and her only dying relative, the only one that mattered to her, anyway, and now this is over. Sad, but over. She knew she could do nothing to fix it. She gets those distant glimpses of sadness under this shrewd of the upcoming marriage.
The doorbell brought her back to her senses, and she rushed to it with the gloves still on, because she knew her husband has returned from work.
“I am shocked,” Rick said, finally breaking the silence.
“The what now?” she widened her eyes as she tries to swallow the last bit of the crispy meat. “What do you mean? There something wrong?”
“No, hon, everything is fine, it’s just the dinner is amazing. You’ve really outdone yourself this time.” No hints of sarcasm in his tone.
“Oh. Fine, fine.” She breathed out and straightens her black t-shirt, the one that has a faded depiction of the classic telephone booth, like the ones that pop up when someone says Britain, or double-decker, or the Tube. “I knew you’d like it.”
She felt weird as if something didn’t click. Somehow queasy; the sensation slowly picking up from the stomach and gaining traction upwards, like scratching on the esophagus. Was it his question? Or was it something about the weather? Her granny used to say that some women of our kind are prone to feel under the weather, whatever that meant. But only old people react to the changes in weather, so it is definitely not that. She found that she couldn’t look at the meat anymore, and all that gravy and the leftover macaroni were driving her stomach wild. And there she had it, all perfectly lined up – these extra 5 minutes in the oven, and the overcooked meat says hi to your guts, and they all shake hands after a business meeting and look for an exit.
“You look pale,” Risk said and carefully wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
“I don’t know, I think I’m gonna puke.” She wanted to say throw up, but was a mouthful to spell.
“Oh Jesus, what’s wrong? he got up and touched her slim shoulders.
“I needta—”
She pushed him away, and made it to the toilet leaving the door open. Rick decided to follow her through the long corridor to check if she is okay. He stopped and looked at the guest room, minding his phone on the sofa. He smelled his shirt and unlocked the phone, listening for her footsteps, and hastily deleted a couple of call entries.
They lived in a spacious apartment in Queens, the good deal they made on a mortgage, because he had ‘bank people’, as Jane calls them.
He heard the sounds of hefty vomiting and thought of the burned meat he’d also eaten. But his stomach is unforgiving in such matters: if that were the case, he’d have been be the first to go.
“Jane? You alright in there?”
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just the fucking meat, the goddamn, I shoulda—”
A loud hiccup cut her off, and she couldn’t finish her profane sentence. He knew she’d probably be alright after all of the bad stuff—and cursing—were out, and closed the door, reassuring her he’d be there.
“Thank you ho, I am—”
Another retch, but he could barely hear it.
2
A few days later, when he was on his shift, he got a message from dispatch.
“Rick, I got a wife or yours on the line again, this time she says it’s urgent, damn it, shouted at me for asking.”
“She’s not yet my wife, Steve, I’ve told you that, but, sure, I’ll get back to her as soon as we’re done with putting the end to that damn fire if you hadn’t noticed, alright? Tell her I’ll call asap.”
“You know, ye’r both something. Don’t shoot the messenger Ricky, my boy. Hello?”
Rick shut off the squad radio and was off performing his duties. A firefighter he may be, but no drinking from the firehose to get things done, as the guys love to joke.
When he returned to the station and washed his face clean of the grease and sweat, he dialed her from the phone they have at the station, this way they don’t charge you. He thought this might be the thing again, but she hasn’t had any for a long time, the pills worked; he knew that. This was impossible, yet, he admitted that he was extraordinarily nervous.
“Rick, is that you, hon?”
“Yes, that’s… me Jane. What’s up?”
“Are you sitting, hon?” she asked as if she merely wished to give a newsflash on what a slut one of her girlfriends was. Except, Rick thought, she barely has any.
“I am, I mean, I am on the phone here downstairs.” He frowned and scratched his head that wasn’t itching. “Is there something wrong?”
He heard her breathing, but that wasn’t your ordinary breath, she might be having the thing.
“Jane, you there? Jen, you’re scaring me.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she said casually. “I been to the convenience store this morning, and thought I wanted some coffee, and I took one, but it tasted awful, so I got some rye bread and dipped it in there, and it felt better. You know? Then I went and got a sandwich, but it didn’t taste right. I needed a melon, you know?” She was gasping for air, but spoke fluently and sounded very excited.
“Jen,” he was somehow weighing each separate word carefully, “I don’t understand. Are you okay?”
“Oh, but I am. The first thing that came to mind was that I’d started having the thing, you know? I know you know, but it’s not it. When it was my third time to go shopping, can you believe it, I bought one of those first response things, you know?”
“Jen, what is a first response thing?”
“That’s the what girls usually buy when they smell fish and think of a watermelon; it is a pregnancy test, you silly, and it showed two stripes. Rick, honey, are you there?”
“Ye—yeah, I’m still here, come again?” He cleared his throat and touched down on a brown sofa, feeling it with his fumbling hand, near the almost vintage table they’d use as a “conference desk”, to keep the tea pouring during quiet hours of watching some second-rate Netflix flicks, pulling all-nighters.
“Sorry, what do you mean?” He was flabbergasted, and the leather squeaked under his thick duty pants.
“It showed a predicate, dummy. What do you think?” He heard chewing. “You’re gonna be a father.”
3
“That’s how I found out about you, Neil,” Rick said, as he was picking up his 5-year-old son from the kindergarten. Neil smiled and asked to tell the story again, which Rick did with pleasure, avoiding some of the graphic stuff not suited for a child’s ears.
“Daddy, why are you home so late?”
Rick cleared his throat and prepared to lie like a pro. “Neils, you know, it is the work I do; you see—I work in a huge department, and sometimes the fire just won’t give in. You need to see that it is extinguished or prevented, especially now, in summer season, in July. Do you know what “Extinguish” means?”
Neil nodded without knowing. Rick thought where the little guy was learning the ropes of lying. Rick said it anyway, as if to clear the air: “It means to put out.” He smiled and ruffled his son’s hair. “Write it down in one of your little wordbooks, as we agreed, okay?”
“Yes, yes, ex-wing-wish.”
Rick laughed and said that an X-Wing is something else entirely. Maybe when he is a bit older, he’ll get his son acquainted with the rebels and the empire. They were just a couple of miles from home now, and his Ford Taurus was making a smooth way towards home with a purring engine and the godlike air-conditioning.
“Can I ask you something, daddy?”
“Sure, Neilie, shoot.” Rick grabbed the wheel harder until the leather squeaked. He was making a steep turn and was focused on the road.
“Daddy, who is Veronica?”
If there was any semblance of a smile on Rick’s face it was gone now, like a scared duck flees a small pond. He cleared his throat and repeated it quieter this time, hesitating. “What? Who? Ah, well, nobody, son, it is just a friend from work. How do you know her?”
“Mommy, she—nothing, daddy.”
“I am sorry, son, mommy what?”
“I don’t know, mommy gets sad, when you are not home.”
“What do you mean sad, Neil. Is there something wrong with mommy?” He was now focused on his son and dropped to second gear to slow down.
“I don’t know, when I play, she sits on the bed and says bad things. She once said that that lady is a slut,” he looked out of the window and ploddingly drove the big eyes onto Rick. “What’s a… slut, daddy?”
Rick quickly wiped his mouth. “Don’t say this word. It is swearing,” he said. “Does mommy say these bad things to you Neil? What else does she say?”
“She just sits on the bed and talks to herself. She says she wants to fix Veronica.”
He wanted to say the forbidden word again, but didn’t.
“What else does mommy say, Neil?”
“I am sorry, daddy, she told me not to tell you, and she must hate the lady very much.”
There was fear in the kid’s voice. It is too easy not to admit it. She’s somehow found out about it. She might have started having the thing, but why hasn’t she come forth with that?
“And mommy speaks very loud sometimes, and I get scared a little bit, but then she looks at me, smiles and says it is all going to be alright when she fixes it.”
He started to draw with his finger on the condensed window.
“Neil, son, what does she want to fix?”
“I am sorry, daddy, she will shout at me again, I don’t know everything, daddy, I am hungry, may I have an ice cream, please?”
“Sure, you can have all the ice cream you want.”
They parked on their block and got up to the second floor.
“Shit,” Rick dragged in a whisper, almost gibbering.
His face was a middle-of-the-smile-cry grimace. The door to the apartment was ajar.
“You said swear daddy, I heard it.”
The kid giggled. Rick entered the apartment and Jane greeted them.
“Mommy!” Neil ran to her and hugged her waist.
“Hey, hon.”
Jane was wordless.
“Where ya been? You should have returned an hour ago.”
“Erm, we dropped by so that Neil could have an ice cream, no need to shout.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“Jen, don’t raise your voice. Neil, go play in your room.”
“You okay, mommy?”
“Son, go to your room now.”
Rick only noticed she had red eyes, ruffled hair and a pricked nose. She was furious. If for no better, but worse, he knew it wasn’t her period. He waited for the door to Neil’s room to shut.
“Jane, what’s wrong?”
“You take me for a fucking idiot?”
“I am telling you we’ve been to that ice cream place. Jez, relax.”
“I guess I am overreacting, really. I—”
She looked at the carpet and straightened her long dark hair.
“Sorry, I don’t know what got into me.”
“This is fine, it’s okay.” Rick came closer.
“What have you been up to?”
“That quarantine thing doesn’t state I should be up to anything these days, but I’ve been doing the gigs again.” Jane looked in the mirror.
“I told you I’d brush up on my German, and I’ve been doing some texts for the clients Clair channeled my way.”
Clair was a friend of theirs, they met at the pregnancy girls exercises and have kept in touch since. Clair’s got a girl of 5 named Lucy, whom Neil loves to hang out with. Rick usually drops them both to the daycare, and they’ve both attended each other’s baby showers.
“I am a Boyle now, I am fireproof! But have you got any idea how tiresome it is to be processing so many things in my head?”
“Actually.” He took off his coat. “I should know a thing or two, remember?”
“Yes, everyone knows you’re a reader, but it is just another world, and being in them. It helps me fix it.”
“That’s why you look like you’ve been through a meat grinder, hon?” he said, ignoring the previous sentence.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“I did… why?”
Rick came closer and warily gave her a hug. She smelled lovely and was tired in a sweet way. He didn’t tower above her.
“It just makes me calm when I fix ‘em, you know, when it all adds up. Even saying it out loud makes it so much easier. My head hurts a little less.” Jane breathed out.
“I guess that makes sense.”
They smooched.
“The lunch is ready, by the way, so get out of your rags and let’s eat.”
Rick’s second day off was slipping away, but it was a perfect day when they were all under the same roof. The sun was brisk, and there was chatter dying out into the distant street car horns, with some breeze and light TV music lending the background to this brightest most troublesome day when all the bad shit really started to brew.
SUSPITIONS
____
II
1
Several weeks later Rick got a call from an unknown number, it was his cell this time.
“Yes, who is it?”
“Mr. Boyle, correct?” an intelligent voice with German accent spoke.
“That’s him. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Dr. Phanik, from the Pacific Oath. I am sorry for bothering you, sir, but I haven’t been able reach your wife recently.”
“Sure, what’s the matter?”
Rick looked over his shoulder and saw Neil sitting on Jane’s lap in the living room going through a magazine of sorts, lowered his voice and sat down, so that he wouldn’t face them.
“She hasn’t been to the regular monthly inspection for quite a while, and I was calling to check if everything was fine on your end. Have you moved town, Mr. Boyle?”
Rick didn’t want to lie to their therapist basically on retainer, but he couldn’t come up with a better excuse.
“I—We—Yeah, been out of town lately.” Rick lied, as if on cue.
“Doctor, how long—”
“Who are you talking to?” Jane walked in the kitchen with Neil holding her hand and carrying a piece of torn page with the word article in the other.
Rick blinked and coughed, and it seemed he’d shit his pants, but he kept it cool.
“Ahem, we don’t need any loans with very good interest, no, thank you.” He hit the decline call button, but missed, putting the phone on the table.
“Telemarketers, you know. Stupid… crap.” He did his best not to show the way his Adam’s apple moved. “Third call this week, they must be on a streak to get me, is all. What’s up, Neil? Chewing on them new words already?”
Neil let go of his mom’s hand and went to the fridge, but didn’t have the strength to open it with one hand, so he ran to his room to probably start scribbling down the new words his mom had helped him come across.
“Okay, I just thought I’d heard you talk there for a minute.” She was drilling him with her grey eyes.
“No, why? You expecting a call?”
“No reason.”
Jane stood there for a second, her face seemed a bit pale. It has been quite like this since the previous ice cream meltdown. In the meantime, the phone spoke quietly.
“Mr. Boyle? You there, Mr. Rick? Your spouse hasn’t reported for over five months. I would insist—”
This time Rick hit the right button on his iPhone, while Jane was checking her own. When he raised his eyes, he saw that her look was fixed on him.
“What were they selling. The telemarketers?”
“The—the bank people, I’ve just told you.”
“Indeed, you have.” Jane came to the window that gave way to a narrow street filled with a lot of green lush trees for this kind of stone jungle.
“I am about to hit it with the guys at the pub. I won’t be home late, promise.” Neil gave her a hug from behind and started kissing her neck, and she leaned implying he continue. She touched his crouch, and they thought of doing it wildly.
“Neil isn’t—”
She moaned quietly into his ear letting the warm air out of her lungs.
“He’s still—He will hear.”
“Yeah, the stormtrooper. Probably still up,” Rick half-whispered through the gritted teeth, following a car on the lane that was making a turn, casting big circles of warm light on the rough road in front of it.
They sat down on the kitchen sofa with her on his lap, and his loins vibrating like chainsaw.
“Rain check then,” Rick said disappointingly.
She might be a bit off sometimes, but she is a great wife and the most passionate lover.
“I will hold you to that, fire boy.”
“You’re the only fire I wouldn’t want to put out.”
Jane smiled, but that seemed like an evil, distant smile.
They kissed long and hard and Rick went to the john to empty his troubled bowels, because he knew he was up for some nasty bar snacks that his guts never agreed to. He left his phone on the table, and she picked it up and unlocked it. She looked from the kitchen door and moved aside. Jane stated browsing the calls and saw the unknown one. She bit her lip very hard and dialed back. After a few beeps, the man replied,
“Afternoon, Dr. Phanik speaking.” It was the voice of an old man.
“How may I address you?”
There was only breathing.
“Hallo? Mr. Boyle, is that you?”
Jane started scratching the pulps of her nails, hung up, and deleted the call entry.
2
Rick returned later than promised, it was 12 am, and the apartment was extremely quiet. He took off his shoes and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Having taken a leak, he went to the bedroom and saw the curves of his wife under the blanket. She was stunning, but he knew to wake her up now isn’t such a good idea, in addition to that he isn’t quite sober yet. He turned off the nightlamp and covered half his body with a blanket. He drifted off with a bit of snore.
This night he wasn’t dreaming much, but felt it was a bit cold. Colder than usual. Probably because he’d left the window open, but July or not, it might still get windy at night. He opened his eyes to get up and shut the window, and that’s when it happened again. He saw that Jane was not next to him, he touched the pillow, and there was nothing. When he looked up, he saw her standing over him, with her hair covering most of her face. She was only wearing her nightgown, and the slim figure was drilling him with eyes, he knew it. Wind was ruffling the bluish curtain on the left.
“Hon—Jane, are you alright?” Neil whispered.
“Come back to bed.”
She didn’t move a muscle.
“I am not sorry,” she said.
He quickly raised on his elbows fully awake now.
“I am not a child anymore.”
She distortedly shook her head.
“I didn’t to it, DIDN’T—DIDNSH DO IT YOU-SH GOD DAM FUCKEM LIASH!”
She started tearing her hair, and Rick grabbed her hands and shook her with great force, trembling himself, his eyes wide.
“Jane, damn it, snap out of it!”
“I fell asleep?” she said with a drowsy voice. “Late? Is it—what time is it?”
Rick gave her a hug and kissed her on the head.
“Let’s get some sleep, honey, you—I mean, we—need it.”
It is a good thing that this didn’t wake up Neil. Not this time anyway.
3
He walked in with a slight hangover looking for a glass of water and saw his wife in the kitchen. She was holding a cup, and the odor of Melissa permeated the air. She was looking out the window, probably admiring the afternoon trees. When he came closer, he saw that she was not present, she was somewhere else entirely.
“Something on your mind, Jen?”
She looked at him with rheumy eyes.
“Sorry?”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
She made a sip, but the drink was still hot.
“I haven’t had one of those for a while—since college, I think,” she said. “I am sorry if I frightened you.” Jane’s eyes danced. “Didn’t mean to.”
“It is okay, really.”
The sat in the kitchen, as she was making slow sips.
“Alright, if you don’t want to talk about, I’ll—”
“No, don’t go. You remember what I told you about.” Jane pursed her lips, thinking of an expletive, Rick thought. “Mother?”
“Yeah,” he said with a raspy voice, drawing a char over the laminate beside her.
“Want to talk about it?”
“About her? No.”
“Alri—”
“But I want to talk about me.” She looked him in the eyes, and he quickly glanced away. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to listen to this.”
“Jane. Please. I’m here.”
“Remember what I told you about the patrol?”
Rick nodded, trying to ploddingly reproduce a vague picture which wouldn’t pop up.
“It wasn’t a nightmare, just a memory—a bad one, that’s all. At least, that’s what I think it was.” She took a sip and hissed less. “She—mother—would be having her usual chums over, and they were coming in droves, more than usual, smelling of booze; they were talking pretty loud, and I came out of my room to ask them to keep it quiet, and I saw that their faces were red. Mom shooed me away and lit up a cigarette with her face a little twisted.”
He took her hand.
“I was frightened. When I asked them to keep it down, she shouted at me, took the belt and… everyone was laughing; they liked the performance.”
“Okay.” Rick sighed heavily and caressed her hand and looked out at the door.
“I was a schoolgirl back then, you know,” she looked him in the eyes.
“I hadn’t had the thing since I was a kid. We’d ask someone to buy us some cheap booze; some people told us off, but we got our way eventually, and our small gang would lounge around the neighborhood in search of street bums. We’d kick them and run away laughing. The patrol thing, remember? Once I stole from home a small pack of matches and brought it to our little party and said we could try to light one of the drunk fools with a very big smile.”
“My gang said, ‘You kidding Jen-Jen, it’s insane, listen to her,’ and they’d burst out laughing. I didn’t get it at first, but then I started laughing along, only Jen-Jen wasn’t kidding. A couple of days later I went to patrol alone without the pussies and saw a hat sticking out of a rusty industrial steam pipe: the bums always nested there with street dogs. I had nothing against dogs, I love animals, they never hurt anyone. But the bums… they seemed useless and… they reeked, like mother’s chums. I won’t lie that I didn’t think about what it’d look like.” Jane licked her lips.
“I’d seen that in movies, of course, but everyone knows that shit is fake. It is human nature: we’d could watch fire forever, that’s why everyone finds it captivating still. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Anyway, I came closer and put my sneaker to the bum’s head. It didn’t move. I looked around and poured some Vodka on him. By the time I struck the match, the bum had started moving around. They fucking smell alcohol from a mile away, how could I forget about that. I knew he was just a useless sorry bum fucker and I—”
“Jane!” Rick shouted.
Everything was foggy, but she was back now. Neil was peeking out of the doorway.
4
It took very long few days, but Rick has managed to convince his wife to go on and check on the doctor.
“Brrr, I don’t really like that place, you know it, Ricky.” She was doing the laundry.
“No one likes hospitals, hon, but you’ve been sleepwalking again. Neil’s worried.”
“Fine, I’d do anything for him, you know that.” She smiled and swung a dirty pair of pants at him.
“And you, of course, you fool. I am sorry if I have been off lately. Probably to do with the lack of work and all the time I am not allowed to work. What do those fucking bureaucrats know, right?”
“Thanks, love. I am sorry to be putting you through all of this again, but I worry, too.”
“Okay, jeez, I’ve given in already, stop buzzing me about it and come kiss me.”
She stopped halfway and locked eyes with him, squinting.
“And why did you come back later that night anyway?” her voice maliciously quieter.
“We had to drop off Clint, I told you, Jane. Look, I am not in my twenties anymore, okay? I may have abs, but I am not a womanizing material. I love you, and wouldn’t even think of it. And come on, this stuff hurts me.” Rick wanted to kiss her, but she wouldn’t let him.
“I will be done in an hour, get Neil, too.”
“He is in the daycare, Jane. He won’t be coming with us.”
5
The drive to the clinic was about 80 miles, near Old Pinefield, but nothing the ford couldn’t handle. Jane had arranged that Clair would pick up Neil along with her daughter and let him stay over. They listened to their favourite post-grunge bands on the way. He put his hand on her legs and massaged in the right places. It was almost like in college times, when they met. Hard to believe it over 10 years ago. Now that he was 30, half a year older that she is, he was a chief brigade office at his fire department. The pay was good. Real good. And the checks to Dr. Phanik were rather fine too, but Rick didn’t mind it. Not until he found out she’d been evading her mental checks anyway.
Dr. Joseph Phanik, a man of about sixty with a goatee, was a very good sport about everything. After their talk, which went rather smoothly, he insisted that Jane stay in one of the “personnel” rooms and do all the tests that she’d been skipping on, which could take from a few hours up to a couple of days. Thus, it was decided that Rick leave her to it, and they shook hands on that. She drifted away sometimes, but didn’t we all? Aside from that, she was a prodigy in language learning, a bright mind, and a stunning beauty. And a mother of a great evolving mind, don’t forget about this. Neil was clearly taking after her – he swallowed new words like an eager-beaver and one time asked who Dickens was, because the last name resembled Rick’s. He considered himself a lucky man to have grabbed that freshman – or rather, freshgirl – when he was a sophomore in college.
“I’m way down for number too.” She put her lush lips to his ear and gasped.
Goosebumps rushed through his spine and bloodstream soared from his brain; he nearly rolled his eyes. He pulled himself together and got a grip.
“Joseph is a good guy, don’t hurt his German heart, okay?”
“No promises, hot boy. I will be missing Neil something bad. Give him a kiss for me and put him on the phone when you get there, okay?”
He gave her a tight hug at the hall, sliding his hand over her svelte thighs pressed against the bulge in front of his jeans.
6
They got in touch in the evening with Neil telling his mom he’d managed to say Discombombulate, and the big lady didn’t know what it meant. Jane corrected the spelling and told him off, saying it was rude to make people look stupid and be disrespectful towards your seniors, “You little Webster’s, people can look stupid, so let them do this on their own, deal?”
“You can drive a bargain, mommy.”
Dr. Phanik was sitting at his wooden desk with a glass surface in his study, and Jane was switching her iPhone to silent.
“Now that we’ve examined you for the first time, Mrs. Boyle, would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions regarding your own examination of yourself?”
“Please, doctor, proceed, and you can call me Jane, I think I’d told you that.”
“Okay, Jane. It is very well written in general, as one would expect from someone of your tenure, but it’s not the structure, or grammar, that concerns me—it is the contents,” he cleared his throat with a saggy hand over his mouth. Sorry, let me cut to the chase. What do you mean by “Fixing it”? It comes up quite a few times in your essay.”
“Work term, nothing special. To rectify stuff.”
“Jane, I appreciate your sense of humor, but let’s not drag this out.” “Just… be candid, Jane.” Phanik put on a smile. “You will get a candy at the end of this.”
“If it is a candy, doc, then count me in.”
“And again, what did you mean by “Fixing?”
“It is a habit that I picked up from my granny. She used to say she’d fix things: fix a cup of tea, fix her sewing machine, fix – or arrange, if you like—a meeting. It’s just been with me. Spontaneous and unregistered, I suppose. An old people’s word that stuck somehow.” She started scratching on her fingers.
“Alright, we can work with this, Jane. But what did you mean by this particular sentence – the last passage after you mention your son, ‘They do not have a single clue, have not yet comprehended it, but I am aware, and it is my intention to fix all of them the right way’.” “Could you please explain what this might mean?”
“Das Rauchen tötet,” she said in the perfect German. Jane’s expression changed to a haughty mien.
“It is nothing.” Phanik removed the pack of cigarettes from the table.
“I think you are trying to read between the lines, doc.”
“Have you been sleepwalking, Jane?” He sorted away the papers, evening them out at the glass table, and faced her.
“No, I haven’t.”
“But your husband says you have. On multiple occasions.”
“Well, then he is a fucking liar.” She smiled and her eyes glittered.
“Alright, thank you, Mrs. Boyle, I think you’d better get some rest. We will continue tomorrow, if it is fine with you.” Phanik got up and extended his hand in order to shake on the deal. She grasped it and nodded.
“You don’t know the half of it, doc.”
RELAPSE
____
III
1
The evening was beginning to wear thin when I was lying fully dressed on the squeaky bed in one of the local cheap-ass motels they usually rent for you before you get sent to a real joint, where they make you take those pills that you soon learn to hide under your tongue or the lower teeth row in order to cover them, when the guy wearing ridiculously looking blue jumpsuit, who probably was bullied at school and still lives with his mom, asks you to open your gob to make sure you’ve been a good girl to swallow. I used to think this medicine would work, probably didn’t want to upset Rick. I didn’t get into any fights in the joint. Almost. I remember a dame that was over fifty or so that was mean to everybody. I’d been there for nearly a month then and got a friend named Jessie. A troubled girl, always talking about some guy who would come and rescue her, scratched her head until it bled to take out the chip in the head that she said was used to control our brains.
‘Jane, I know what it sounds like. I see rain when it is not raining. Don’t you believe me? I am a shrink. I know what I am sayin.’ She would pause and smolder with her big blue eyes astray without blinking, nodding. ‘You wait and see, Jane, this computer guy will save me. He will get this out of my head.’
I pitied her, but that’s not why we became friends. I’d heard she became ill when she lost her child – some smart-ass doctor’s mistake. I am not familiar with medical terms, but I’d heard them talk about umbilical cord strangulation. That was enough, my mind could also go to places, and I didn’t need to know further than that. I wanted to bite the throat of that fucker and burn his eyes. You see, I wanted a child back then, that’s why I sympathized.
The tallest hag locked up with us was named Marie Something, I don’t remember her last name, only know that she was from Western Europe. I used to wonder how she ended up in an American institution. One day my friend had it bad again; everyone circled around her like a bunch of drooling animals, no one offered help. The guards were pointing fingers and were not in a hurry to call in the cavalry that would give her a shot and numb it at least for a while. She was having a seizure, and I thought it came naturally, because we all had some kind of thing from time to time. When I tried to calm her down, a saw an incision in her lip.
“Who did that to you, Jessie?”
She was shaking her head, poor thing. She was scared shitless. I took her shoulders and shook them.
“Was it the tall bitch?” I think I saw her nod. Maybe she didn’t, but I wanted her to. I’d meant to fix the cunt since I saw her beat up other girls.
I waited until the lights were out and took all the collection of pills. I also had a pack of matches; one of the young nurses left it on the windowsill after a break. I waited until the overseers – what we called them – were lulled by the calm tender of the night and lost their guard, probably justifying working in a place like this to pay for their mortgage, not for the funsies. It is not a prison, after all, and the security was lax; some rooms weren’t even locked; I heard Marie’s relatives had made a deal in terms of her sojourn in this paradise. I wasn’t very strong, I was aware of that, so I had to get creative. The only surveillance they had oversaw the common hall, the rest were dummies recording at 144p, if at all. I knocked on the door and stood aside from the peephole. The handle jerked, and she stuck her big dumb head out. I kicked the door as hard as I could. Marie didn’t fall down, she just knelt, almost like I did near Jessie, and held a hand to her temple. She was bleeding, I licked my lips; the hit was a bleeding success. I pushed her into the room hoping we’d be alone; we were. The bitch wasn’t even screaming; I think she only wanted to see what – or who – dared. I hit her again on the head with my foot, hard, I hurt; she was on the brown linoleum floor, panting. I stood behind her and started pulling her big greasy forehead.
I said, “Open it, pills time.”
She wouldn’t.
I struck a match, and part of her hair caught on wonderfully, I wet my lips and felt I was going moist down there, too; the smell was extremely putrescent, like burning feathers, it made me remember stuff, but her breath was worse. I clipped her big nose and calmly waited. She was dizzy, didn’t resist much.
As soon as she opened it, I slipped a handful I’d saved up for a rainy day.
I held my palm to her mouth and said, “Swallow! You fucking swallow now or you will look like Freddy Kroeger.”
She growled, but did it obediently in the end.
Before I slipped out, I saw her start to convulse and said, “How’s your medicine?”
I didn’t know if she’d make it. I didn’t care; all I cared about was the fix, and how complete it made me feel.
They actually never found out who did it. What, you think I didn’t think this through? I had learned to dispose of the evidence, so I ate all the matches one by one. Something we’d also do as kids – they believed the black crispy salt at the tip was good for your health. They concluded ninety percent of the wounds might have been self-inflicted. We are all crazies here, did you forget?
They found her with froth coming out of her mouth, all twisted. When they were carrying the body, she looked almost like the two-face from DC.
I didn’t regret anything, neither was I afraid. Satisfaction filled me to the brims; I felt like masturbating.
2
She went to the john, did her thing, locked her phone, flushed, and returned to the bed. She thought of calling Rick again, but what she’d planned was more important. Besides, the good-natured fucker messed up. They all did. But Neil didn’t. Not yet, anyway. She couldn’t be sure if her son would grow up to be like his father, but he was a man; would be eventually. She scratched her pulp around her nails. There was no one in the room with her. There was a modern LED TV screen, a fridge – and is that a mini-bar? Shit, they do put a lot of effort to make you feel that you are not a prisoner here, even though there are no bars on the windows. She was now lying in bed, looking at the white ceiling and biting her lips. The essay she’d presented to the shithead doctor was crumbled in her pocket that she clenched along with her fist on her way to the room. She took that piece of paper out of her black jeans, tightly worn around her legs, and straightened it. The light emanating from the lamp she left on was pretty dim, so she knew she needed an additional source, so she took out a lighter. They scrutinize you and your stuff on the way in, but some of it has a tendency to come out of dark places. She lit it and started rereading her small essay correcting some of the stuff and thinking how it could have been written better, but the thing is, she knew this, any manuscript can always be better; the same goes for a translation. She paused and thought for a second what expression would best suit to describe fixing in another language, and felt a pang of pain – the corner of the paper has caught on fire. She brought the burning piece of paper to the fire detection system.
No rain on the parade.
“That’s rich,” Jane said to herself.
She thought of the odd time intervals between messages on his phone and the faint whiffs of perfume on his clothes, grinned and laughed. She lit up the lighter and held her palm over it. It hurt, but felt good. It is so captivating this evening. The flames were dancing in her grey eyes, and she saw clearer that she has for a long time.
She sang, “Doctor, doctor, doctor.”
3
Joseph Phanik had trouble sleeping that night. Not because he was a bookish divorcee, but because he was a workaholic; that’s what he insistently assured himself of. He got up and went to have a glass of water, but the bottle of Jameson was also looking mighty fine, but he said not this time, friend. He went to his home desk and pulled out a file from the archive, which took him a few minutes to dig up. The file was dusty and read, “JENNIFER EVELYN SMITH, NOVEMBER, 12, 1985.” He started perusing the yellow faded excerpts from the local newspapers:
“ABANDONED HUT BURNT TO ASH, FOURTH THIS MONTH,” “THE POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING THE RECENT ARSON,” “THE LOCAL ARSONIST STILL NOT CAUGHT,” “LOCAL MINOR SUSPECTED OF ARSON.”
These titles were shouting at him. Unavailable to general public they may be, he still couldn’t fathom the idea that someone would have been capable of such monstrosities at such a young age. He plain couldn’t believe it. He spilled the water on one of the carpets of Persian variety that were a common thing in his apartment. He cleared his throat, touched his glasses, and corrected his posture. He needed a smoke.
He perused the flies, thoughts were heavy, it is as if he was suspicious. Why should he be? It is common practice among these sorts of troubled people. Yet he tried to imagine a kid, a young girl from his past; his tenure is vast and reinforced with countless years and a myriad of research papers, but this made his blood curdle, and he was already pushing the twilight years of his career. He decided to act on a hunch and went to the bedroom to get his phone. He stopped halfway and started looking around. He returned to his study for the pack of Camels, then went downstairs to puff it out with a glass of Irish. What the hell was this smell? Probably the old hag living next to him has got some kind of gas problem again. Someone has to report it; or better, he imagined, he could actually have her committed; that made him smile, with a cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth. He coughed a couple of times and bent down to catch his breath and saw a piece of burnt paper inside the oven. He whispered “Whoat ze hel,” putting the pack into the deep pocket of his robe, and clicked on his zippo to light up the cigarette, as he was unwrapping the paper.
The house went up, shattering the glass with a whack that could be heard within the two-mile radius.
4
The night sky was impeccable: stars shining, slight breeze and a sleepy wagon full of silence and dreams, a great summer trip to New-York to be making on a midnight train, Jane thought.
Rick was about to finish his quarterly reports and statistics to finally leave the office and hang out with the gang. That’s a good deal Jane had arranged for Neil to stay at Clair’s. He wouldn’t have had the time to pick him today anyway. He had to work exceptionally hard since it was the end of the month, and his eyes already hurt from looking at those Excel rows and columns. He would sometimes accompany guys to put out a fire or two, especially when extra force was needed, and did it with pleasure, reminiscing the times he was a regular. Just as he was going by the lounge room where the guys were having a conference binging on a newly released comedy flick, he heard the station phone call. He stood there for a minute, thinking of checking on that one. It’s so bizarre that this call sounded louder than others. Steve the dispatcher beat him to it, answering the call. Rick could only hear murmuring akin to the voices the main protagonist is able to hear when they are submerged. Rick walked in on the guys, and they invited him to stay for a little more.
“Thanks, boys, I think I am good for tonight. Had to leave my son at a friend’s, so I better get some sleep while I can.”
“Jennie is in the clinic again, Ricky?”
“Carl, come on,” Barry said, a muscular guy wearing his yellow equipment pants and towering over everyone.
“That’s really fine,” Rick said, looking for Steve.
“Seems we got us one of them gas leaks,” Stevie spoke behind Rick’s back, standing in the doorway.
“Ricky, you mind?” He squeezed into the room.
“So, we packin’?” Barry asked.
“No need, they dispatched their local team, but they wanted to keep the hub in the picture about it.”
“Where did that happen?” Rick asked.
“Ol’ Pinefield, a couple hours ago.”
“You know the place?” Barry asked with his deep baritone.
“No, I don’t think so. I gotta go, guys, see you tomorrow.” Rick left in a hurry.
“But his shift ain’t tomorrow,” Steve said, and they all just looked at each other.
“We’ll cover for him, whatever it is.” Matt paused the TV and chimed in.
He went to his car parked between the dozing gargantuan firetrucks waiting for their duties. He got in, checked the transmission and put the keys in the ignition. The smell of gasoline hit his nostrils. He sniffed a couple of times. Holy crap am I paranoid. He started the car, and looked at the fuel counter – it was almost null. That’s when he saw a dark shadow in the rearview mirror.
BAD HUSBAND, BAD
____
IV
1
“Who—Jenny, is that you?” He knew it was her, but had to ask that basically rhetorical question anyway. “Jen, what’s that smell? Have you been drinking?” Rick raised his hands, as if police were about to read him the Miranda.
“You’ve been a naughty piece of work, Rick. Now drive.”
He was catatonic; he couldn’t believe that was actually happening.
“For God’s sakes lower your hands and get to it.”
“Drive where, honey?”
“Quit calling me that, you’ve lost that privilege.”
He tried to look in the rearview mirror, but it was crooked.
“Now don’t you dare act stupid, cheater.” Little did she know that he’d almost forgotten how to drive. “Come now.”
Rick put in the first gear, and they started down Carrol Street. “What are you talking about?” He dropped from 3rd to 1st gear, and the car jerked. He heard her head hit his seat and smelled this. It was bad. “Honey—”
Jane growled like a rabid dog but with a higher pitch.
“Hon, what is that stench?”
“Oh that? Never mind that. You drive. Can you do that?”
“Jen, don’t I deserve to know what’s happening?”
“You know what I am. you know what I’ve done.” She was smiling.
“What are you talking about?” He tried to look at her.
“Fucking drive, you heart-breaking shiteater.”
“Where? You haven’t even told me where!”
“Drive to my son, you idiot, I want to get my son.”
“Why do you want to get him, Jenny?”
“What kinda stupid question is that, Rickie? Because he is my son, that’s why.”
“In this state? You’re having the thing, don’t you see. You have to calm down!”
“Calm down?” she repeated slowly and hit the top of the seat, and he felt the thud.
“How long has it been? You better be straight with me now, husband.”
“Alright, alright! A few months ago, okay? You were in treatment, Jenny, I am sorry.” He swallowed.
“I felt lonely, this all has been difficult. You know, you in your condition, the work, it stressed me too much—I, I guess I felt depressed.”
“You have no idea what it’s like,” she said calmly, “but you are about to find out.”
They were driving through a street, but there was no one, not a single pedestrian on that starry night. She’d been in the car for a while. The windows had been closed, and the glove compartment was open.
“You smell this?”
“Jennifer…”
“You don’t fucking call me that!”
He was thinking of Neil. Of his son and how he’d react when he finds out about this. He might have had his suspicions, he is an extremely intelligent kid, but this was the worst-case scenario.
“Your gas spilled a little. I’d suggest you be careful and not discombobulate.” They were driving through a small block, and there was barely any traffic this late.
“You never heard the whole story, did you?”
Her soft voice interrupted the purring engine.
“You know what they said about me, but fell for me anyway; it was the looks or you wanted to be that savior or whatever complex that is. You listening?”
“Yes, Jenny, I am—”
“You better.”
“That night, remember?” She paused. “I didn’t hurt the bum that night actually, I got scared and ran home, and saw a crowd of idiots standing there, all chatting, watching; I felt something was wrong, and I was right: my apartment was on fire.”
He was trying to look at her in the mirror.
“My caring mother said I was the one to do it.” She smiled and looked up out of the window. I was just thirteen, no one listened to me. And you know the best part?” Her voice changed from evil to an exited pitch. “The cops found those matches; oh yes, they did. No matter how I pleaded, no one listened! Mother eventually sent me to prison, but instead I got into first nut joint ever; you guess the name of the doctor that did the psych eval, Rickie? Guess that, fucking cheater?”
Rick’s Adam’s apple was jumping.
“Don’t strain your little cheating head.” Her voice was calmer now. “I have a spare set of keys. found it at home right in the living room. I got my license instead of that useless translation theory class, but I bet you don’t know. You never fucking know anything, or pretend not to. Don’t know what what’s more annoying.”
He tried to look in the rearview mirror, but couldn’t see her in all that darkness and fleeting streetlamps.
“I’d sucked the gas out of the car with the rubber tube that you store in the glove compartment.”
“What, you never complained when I was sucking before, what’s the matter now, love?”
“Jane, I am begging you—”
“Jane, I am begging you.”
“Why did I ever bother. The only good thing you could give me is Neil, but I am gonna fix you.”
“Jane, I don’t know what you’re planning, but I am begging don’t hurt Neil. I am guilty, I.”
“Traitor. You told on me to the nazi shrink. I fixed him. Fixed him good.” She took a deep breath with her nose. They were catching green lights. “You take a steep turn or act stupid, and it’ll get hotter in here than the Turkish bath.”
“Why are you doing this, Jen? I have been there for you, we can talk about this, we can get help.”
“I know that.” She smiled.
“You betrayed me, and I am gonna fix you, and after that I go see that slut, and I will—”
They stopped at a traffic light. Rick spotted a police cruiser slowing down right beside them on the second lane. The officer pointed at the window, and Rick half-turned his head to the rear seat. He started slowly pulling the window down. His face was in agony.
“You alright there, mister?” said one of the patrol guys.
“I—”
Jane took out a pack of Camels and put one in her mouth. He looked at the policemen and the steering wheel, and at that moment he glimpsed her face in the rearview mirror: ink was all over her glittering eyes, and she was holding a lighter to her face and smiling.
“Just bringing my wife from one of those hen parties, you know what it is like,” he swallowed.
“I think you have a problem with your car, sir. You might want to have it checked. It reeks of gas a mile from here. You got it sir? Sir?”
“Ye-Yes, thank you,” he said, “I got it.”
“You have a good one, sir and get that car inspected asap.”
The cop pointed at the tank, and Rick saw that the tank was open. They started off with their Chevrolet.
2
“Jenny, I am begging you not to hurt Neil, he has never done anything to any of us. This isn’t too late.”
“You shut up! Don’t say his name, you fucker cheater!” she said.
They were not far from Clair’s, and Rick knew he had to do something about it.
“I love you, Jennie, you know that?”, she was silent.
“I’ve always loved you.”
“At some point,” she said.
“Shut it and eyes on the road.”
He had been gaining, running through that last glowing red light in his life.
“Rick,” she said, “you’re being very stupid now.”
He turned back, and their eyes crossed.
“Fuck you, Jane.”
He put the pedal to the medal, so that he was doing about 60 mph, and steered the wheel to his left with all the might he could muster.
Seconds prior she was looking at him directly. She was fingering the crank of the lighter, but the spark wouldn’t come. She started doing it faster, and he grasped her hand,
“Traitor,” she whispered through her teeth, and spit flew out of her mouth.
The car rolled over hard a couple of times and ended up hitting what sounded like metal. He didn’t know what street it was, but he knew he couldn’t let her go. He loved her, but he loved his son more. Last thing he remembers is the feel of her metal-cold hands.
FALLOUT
____
V
1
Rick woke up in the hospital with Neil and Clair sitting by his side. He had second degree burns, but they later said he’d pull through just fine with a couple of burns that will probably stick for life.
“What about—” he gasped for breath.
He had to blink a few times to normalize the sight.
“Please, Rick, be brave for Neil now, okay?” Claire said and pressed the red button. Neil put his hand on his father’s.
“Mommy’s with her friends now, Daddy.”
“What are you—” he tried to move, but every muscle strained with pain.
“How long was I out?”
“Daddy, you haven’t opened your eyes for two weeks.”
2
She was sitting at a silvery metal table in a dimly light room. Her hands were feeling the cold of the metal. She tried to get up, but couldn’t, and realized she was handcuffed. Her lips hurt, and her ribs hurt even more; she was touching them with her tongue. The light from the lamp was facing her eyes. The head was heavy, and everything was foggy, like a room full of smoke. She heard footsteps approaching and distant chatter. She recognized there were two voices – both male, one of them deeper.
Two men formally dressed walked in and turned the light in the room, and that’s when she finally noticed the bars on the windows. They both took their seats in front of her, turning away the evil unrelenting lamp straight from the nineties. The men were sizing her up; both were wearing ties, had a short haircut. One of them produced a leather-bound notebook with a protruding pencil out of his jacket and laid it on the table. The second man cleared his throat.
“May I ask you to state your name, miss?”
Jane jerked a little when he said miss and looked up.
“Did you hear the question? Do I need to repeat it?”
“I heard the question.” She carefully rolled her tongue over the lips corrupted by burns.
“My name is Jane.” Her voice was raspy, and it hurt to speak.
“Jane what? State your full name please.” The man opened the notebook, licked the tip of his index finger and ran it through a furrow in the middle.
“Jennifer Evelyn Boyle.”
“Do you know what day it is, Jennifer?”
“I am not sure.”
The man with a serious mien jotted down a few notes.
“Alright, what month is this?”
“I am not sure.” Louder now.
“What year is this?”
“I—”
“Not sure?”
“No, I think it is 2021.”
“Okay. Are you married, Jennifer? You got kids?”
The first man was jotting faster now.
“I am, of course, I do.”
“What is the name of your spouse, Jennifer?”
“His name is Rick. Rick Boyle.”
“And the child?”
“Jennifer, you are with me?”
“Is everything alright with him?”
“That’s what I want to hear from you, Jennifer.”
“Why am I here?”
“For now, I am asking questions. Can you work with me on that?”
“I don’t know you. I don’t want to speak to you anymore.”
The man put down his pencil and straightened in his chair.
“I am detective John Fealty; this here is detective Morris.”
The second man kept pensively looking through her, twisting his jaw to the side.
“Are you satisfied now, Jennifer? May Morris continue?”
“Yes.”
“Cool. You mind?” Fealty pointed at Morris.
“Where were we, Jane? Can I call you Jane?”
The deeper voice was back again.
“Well, Jane, I must ask that you recollect everything you remember about what happened on the night of the 30th of July. Are you following me?”
“Yes, I am following.”
“Very good. Let’s begin with the basics: what’s the last thing you remember? Anything at all.”
She saw the first man biting his lips, and it started to come back.
3
“Jane?” the first man snapped his fingers, “Mr. Morris has asked you a question.”
“I—we were on our way to the clinic, I think, and I had to stay there.”
She swallowed, and it burnt.
No reply. She sighed.
“I had a chat with the doctor and I went to my room, and I went to sleep after,” she licked her lips again and zoned out.
“Is this all you remember? Think hard, Jennifer.”
“This is all I remember,” she said.
“Alright,” said the first man, Mr. Fealty, “I reckon you know where you are?”
“I think I do.”
“Great, something you know. Hurrah.”
Mr. Fealty sarcastically threw hands in the air and opened his notebook without looking at it.
“Jane, do you think you are certifiable?”
“Wha—why are you asking me this?”
“Because help me and Mr. Morris understand, how you managed to slip past the surveillance of the hotel grounds at approximately 8 PM on 29th of July.” he looked at the notebook. “Made a trip to New-York and took your husband hostage at about 12 AM and nearly committed a double homicide at approximately 12 30 AM? Did I miss anything? Mr. Morris?”
The second man shook his head.
“Mr. Morris is with me on that. Are you with me on that, Jennifer Evelyn Boyle?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“But we know, and you’d better cooperate, okay? I said, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Are you holding something back, Jennifer?”
“I am not holding it back; I am telling the truth. I don’t remember anything after,” she swallowed, “I was in the clinic. It hurts to speak. Why’s it hurt?” she coughed.
The men exchanged glances; Mr. Morris nodded.
“You are really lucky for a nutjob, Jennifer.”
Mr. Fealty looked at his writing.
“You have second degree burns, four fractured ribs, twisted ankle and partial loss of hair. They said you ‘inhaled’ too much gasoline, but I reckon Mr. Morris here knows that you plain drank it; my version is this: you went cuckoo, angry at the whole world for no reason, were jealous, maybe, got to your husband’s car, worked your magic, and took him hostage. You made him drive about 5 miles before he’d had enough of your bullshit and committed a vehicular, which if he hadn’t done, he’d prolly be six feet under, along with you.”
He turned over a small yellow page.
“You had been in the car for a while, lucky it didn’t burn alright. When the emergencies arrived, they said the car had hit a fire hydrant, and that the water flooded through the windshield.”
He paused.
“That saved your life, for what it is worth,” he glanced to his side. “Little checkup, Mr. Morris?”
Mr. Morris nodded approvingly.
“The guys from the department had to put a lot of effort to get you out. Remember anything know? Or is it still in smoke?”
4
“You with us, Miss Boyle?” Mr. Morris said.
“I can’t. I—I couldn’t do something like that.”
Mr. Fealty’s cell rang. He took it out, pursing his lips, but didn’t answer it.
“It is not over, you hear me?” he pointed a finger at her, holding the notebook.
The men left the room.
When Fealty was done talking, he addressed Morris.
“So?”
“I am sure she believes she doesn’t remember anything.”
“You know those psychos are crafty, but I dunno. I didn’t see her flinch: she is either too clever or too mental,” he put the notebook in his inside breast pocket. “I don’t trust her.”
“Want me to ruffle some feathers in the files department? I am sure this time something might pop up; I know for a fact that she was a minor – 4th degree arson ruled as misdemeanor. I am telling you, they all got some kind of history.”
“Solid point. You do that, and I will see if her husband is finally ready to talk. I am almost sure he is the victim, but you can never know.”
“Sounds good.”
Mr. Morris put the hands in his pockets.
“What do you think will happen to her?”
“My best bet is that the psycho will be put in a nuthouse – I reckon that wouldn’t be her first rodeo, but if that happens, she will stay there for a while to think about what she’s done. Jesus, how in the hell did the local guys let that sweet thing fly under the radar?”
“The file said she’d been clean for over 10 years or so. Even did charity, for an orphanage down in—”
Fealty snorted. Morris went on.
“—in Pennsylvania,” Morris paused. “The surveillance didn’t pick up anything, it—”
“Goddamn masks it’s what it is,” Fealty was irate. “Perps are getting handy with that pandemic thing.”
They stood outside, and an old chevy cruised by, a couple of deputies were talking over a coffee at the parking lot. It was a warm August night.
“And what about the doctor?”
“Who, the shrink? What about him?” Fealty shot expectedly, and started nodding slowly. “Far-fetched, can’t deny: that also crossed my mind. The poor fucker burnt to a crisp that very night.”
The zippo with a US flag clicked metallically as he lit up a cigarette, when they were leaving the precinct.
“Them rugs he liked, that were all over, some dust, shit – everything was leveled to ash,” he spoke with a cigarette slightly incapacitating his speech. “Did you know he was quite smoker? Right, as if any of them would like you to know they are. Well here: he was quite a drinker, too. Neighbors previously reported gas leaks, and he had a couple of charges on the restraining order. Bottom line is,” Fealty scratched his head. “The forensics haven’t been forthcoming yet.”
“Clustershit of fuck,” Morris said, surprised at his own words.
Fealty puffed the smoke out.
“What a goddamn irony for the hot stuff like that to be married to a firefighter, huh?”
He didn’t finish the cig and scuffed out the butt on the back of his boot.
“Speaking of which. What about that coffee?”
Jane was sitting in the cold room with the lights off. Just a little of the moonlight breaking through the cell window lit her up. Hard to breathe, everything hurt. She tried to remember her son’s name, straining, beating her fingers on the metal. Was she broken or just a little discombobulated?
There was a creeping smile on her face.
05.11.2021-01.12.2021