I Will Find You(19)

“Good afternoon, Rachel. How are you?”

“Fine,” she said. Then: “Isn’t this Cheryl’s phone?”

“It is,” Ronald said. He was always Ronald, never Ron or Ronny or the Ronster, which told you everything you need to know about his diction and affect. “Your sister is just getting out of the shower, so I took the liberty of answering for her.”

Silence.

“If you’d like to hold a moment,” Ronald continued, “she will be with you soon.”

“I’ll hold.”

She could hear him put the phone down. Rachel’s skull had a touch of the alcohol swirls going on, but she felt pretty firmly in control. There were mumbled voices before Cheryl got on the line sounding a little frazzled.

“Hey, Rach.”

Rachel realized that some might view her distaste for Ronald Dreason as either overblown or unfair. That was probably accurate, of course. Cheryl’s fault. Her introducing this new man into her life had been poorly timed.

“Hi,” Rachel managed to say.

She could almost see her sister’s frown. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“You been drinking?”

Silence.

“What’s wrong?”

Rachel had been rehearsing her words in her head since she got back to her room, but that all flew out of her head now that the time had come. “Just checking in. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good. The morning sickness stopped. We have an ultrasound on Thursday.”

“Terrific. Will you learn the sex?”

“Yes, but don’t worry—no reveal party.”

Thank God for small favors, she thought. Out loud she said, “That all sounds great.”

“Yeah, Rach, terrific, great, whatever. Do you want to stop stalling and tell me what’s wrong?”

Rachel lifted the photograph again. Irene and Bugs Bunny and that boy’s profile. She thought about David’s scarred face through the plexiglass, the way his head had tenderly tilted to the side as he lifted his finger up to the image, the naked, haunting pain in his hollow eyes. She had been right before. David had nothing. Cheryl had a life. She had suffered immeasurably, losing her child and then finding out the cause was her own husband. It was not fair to uproot her over what was probably nothing.

“Yo,” Cheryl said. “Earth to Rachel.”

She swallowed. “Not over the phone.”

“What?”

“I need to see you. As soon as possible.”

“You’re scaring me, Rach.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“Fine, come over now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Cheryl asked.

“I’m not home.”

“Where are you?”

“In Maine. Briggs County.”

The silence was suffocating. Rachel gripped the phone and closed her eyes and waited. When Cheryl finally did speak, her voice was an anguished whisper. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow. Meet me at my place. Eight p.m. And don’t bring Ronald.”

*



There is a fine line between day and night in Briggs.

We have “lights out” at ten p.m., but that just means dimming them. It never gets dark in here. Perhaps that’s a good thing, I don’t know. We are all in our own cells, so it isn’t as though we could walk around and bother one another. I have a lamp in my cell so I can read late into the night. You would think that I would do a lot of that in here—read and write—but I have trouble focusing due in part to my eye trouble from the first assault. I get headaches after more than an hour at either task. Or maybe it isn’t just physical. Maybe it’s more psychosomatic or something. I don’t know.

But tonight, I put my hands behind my head and lay back on the flimsy pillow. I open the mental floodgates and for the first time since I entered this place, I let Matthew in. I don’t stop the images. I don’t put a block on them or filter them. I let them flow in and surround me. I practically bathe in them. I think about my father, no doubt dying in that same bedroom he shared with my mother. I think about my mother who died when I was eight years old and yes, I realize that I never quite moved past that. I can’t see her face anymore, haven’t been able to conjure up her image in many years, relying on those photos we had on the piano more than anything from my memory banks. I picture Aunt Sophie, my wonderful Sophie, the kind and generous woman who raised me after Mom died, the celestial being whom I love unconditionally, still trapped in that house, caring no doubt for my father until his final breath.

A sound by my cell door makes me cock my head.

Night sounds are not uncommon here. They are awful sounds, sounds that chill a man’s blood, unescapable, constant. This wing is not full of men who sleep soundly. Many cry out in their sleep. Others like to stay up at all hours and chat through the bars, reversing their internal clocks, staying awake all night vampire-like and sleeping during the day. Why not? There is no day or night in here. Not really.

And of course, there are men who openly masturbate with far more lusty pride than discretion.

But this sound, the one that makes me cock my head, is different. It is not coming from another cell or the guard booth or anything involving the general population blocks. It is coming from the door to my cell.