The Fall of Never(31)

The image of this disfigured fairytale ungulate was what awoke him in the middle of the night now. Breathing heavy, afraid he’d made some sort of noise in his sleep and awakened Marie, he sat up and looked over at her. Peaceful and dreaming, his wife lay on her side, her dark hair curled beneath her chin. She had the thumb of her left hand stuck between her lips—a childhood habit she’d never been able to break.

Sometimes stealing children, he thought and climbed out of bed.

Downstairs, the lights were off and it was still dark. He listened and heard an owl hooting somewhere in the distance, and thought it peculiar that there would be an owl around this time of year, particularly so close to the city.

Now what? his mind scolded. Are you going to start jumping at every shadow? It’s only an owl, for Christ’s sake.

And Nellie Worthridge was only an old woman.

His medical bag was on the counter in the kitchen, his unread newspaper draped over top of it. Clicking on the kitchen light and with one eye open, he went to it, unzipped it, and peered inside. After a moment’s hesitation, he produced a small hand-held tape recorder. He stared at it for a long time. For some reason, he thought of his mother telling him he works too much and that he shouldn’t smoke, that smoking would kill him. We’re all going to die at some point, was his classic response. We’re all going to die at some point. And does it really matter when?

He pressed first the REWIND button and then the PLAY button on the little machine. A static whir hissed through the speaker…and then he could hear the old woman’s strained and slurred voice, and pictured her speaking those words inside his head as he listened…

“Kellow…Kellow…Kellow…”

Then his own voice on the tape: “Miss Worthridge? Can you hear me?”

The old woman: “Kellow…”

“Miss Worthridge?” The sound of rustling paper. “Nell?”

On the tape, the old woman continued to repeat the name for some time. Several long minutes, in fact. And though it was the same thing over and over again, Carlos Mendes did not fast-forward the cassette. And then, after some time, there was a choked, coughing sound, then something else—something that sounded oddly like someone passing gas (blowing sugar, as his brother Michael would have put it)—and then the old woman’s voice again, only much stronger, and so much more than he’d been able to bring himself to tell Joshua Cavey at the hospital: “Julian will be born dead! Your son will be born dead, Carlito! Your son will be born dead!” Then something that sounded like sheets being upset on the old woman’s bed. And in a higher, almost child-like voice, the woman cried, “We almost killed that f*cking dog!”

Footsteps behind him and he clicked the tape recorder off.

“What are you doing?” It was Marie. She stood wincing in the sharp light of the kitchen, a terry cloth robe about her body. “Carlos?”

He just shook his head, trembling. Miraculously, he managed to slip the tape recorder back into his bag without dropping it on his foot.

She came to him quickly. “Baby, what is it? What’s the matter? Don’t you feel all right?”

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I feel fine.”

“Can’t you sleep? I can make you something…”

“No, no.”

“What?”

“I just need…”

“What is it?”

“Bad dream,” he said finally.

“A nightmare?” He could almost taste her relief in the air. “It woke you?”

“I’m all right now.”

“What was it about?”

“The baby.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think of anything else to say.

“You had a nightmare about the baby? What about?”

“Nothing,” he said, forcing a grin. He suddenly felt very, very old. “It was stupid. Just so stupid.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.” Then he thought. “But I would maybe feel better if we scheduled an appointment with Doctor Chalmers for some time this week.”

“I have a check-up next month…”

“I know,” he said, “but I would just rather clear my mind, okay? Is that okay?”

She smiled wearily and hugged his neck with one arm, kissed the tasseled springs of his hair. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I will call tomorrow.”

“Good,” he said.

“Good,” she repeated. “Now will you come to bed, my Carlito?”

He smiled at her, trying to erase the sickening image of Aunt Tet’s devil-child from his head.

They went to bed.





Chapter Ten


After coming in from the woods, Kelly rushed upstairs and quickly changed out of her urine-saturated jeans, both frightened and disgusted. For the first time since her homecoming she thought of Josh, and of Josh’s concern for her. For the past month or so she’d been acting peculiar and for that same period of time she knew Josh could sense it. He was a stranger, really—a twenty-eight-year-old sometimes-musician stumbling through a relay of his own hidden problems—but he was also the closest thing to a true friend she had in the city. She’d never been personable, never really understood what was involved in talking with people, laughing at all their around-the-buffet-table dinner jokes. Collin had pursued her (and she’d allowed herself to be caught because she understood no other way and merely assumed that she loved him, which she genuinely did for a period) and had maintained the role as her social buffer throughout their cursory marriage. And it had taken a lot to finally leave him when she did, but then she was Out There again, and there was no more buffer Out There, there was just her and the world. And it was a hungry f*cking world.