The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(45)

I’m sorry I didn’t recognize his depression earlier, and the fact that he suffered from severe emotional problems. Would anything have been different? Doubtful. He was on a predestined course of self-destruction and was oh so very good at hiding it in public.

That night at the Red Shack, he was the Eddie I remembered. Warm, dark, and mysterious, with a touch of ironic, black humor. He made me laugh, and we reminisced just as we had when he and I got together in 1976—a Christmas break event as well.

I went home with him after dinner. It felt strange parking Dad’s car in front of Eddie’s house. Looking across the street at our old place gave me the shivers. There were no lights on; the home was dark and soulless. The family with the young child had gone to bed. I wondered if they knew about the house’s history.

We went inside so that Eddie could check on his mother. She was asleep in bed, so he led me through the back door. The near-full moon was bright in the sky. I followed him, unquestioningly, as he moved directly to the fallout shelter, unlocked the door, and opened it. Once we were underground, he lit some candles and covered the inverted cross with a black drape. Of all the devilish iconography in “The Temple,” that cross creeped me out the most. Once it was hidden, it felt like we were back in the dungeon of lust. That’s what the shelter was to me, a place you went to when you wanted to do something naughty. In 1994, it looked like a Halloween carnival haunted house. What could make it even more taboo?

Eddie pulled out another bottle of wine, and we drank the entire thing. By then, I was in no shape to drive, so I stayed. There was no bed in the shelter anymore, but there was the altar, which was long and wide enough for a couple of bodies. He placed a mattress and blankets on top, and that’s where we did it, on his goddamned altar. In the moment, it slipped my mind that it was a place of sacrifice and worship that he used in his black masses.

Before we had sex, Eddie asked, “So there’s no chance you can get pregnant?”

“No.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Why?”

“I never want to have children.”

I had no response to that. So we got on with it. The lovemaking was rougher than I remembered it, but intensely satisfying. I swear Eddie turned into a kind of beast; the next day, I found scratches from his fingernails on my forearms and back. He probably had marks on him as well. Later, when I reflected on what we’d done the night before, I was suddenly repulsed. And what was a mattress doing in “The Temple,” anyway? Did he use it often? I didn’t want to continue the thought.

I woke up in the bomb shelter with a hangover. Because we were underground with no windows, it was difficult to say whether it was day or night. A nightlight was always kept on whenever someone slept in the shelter, otherwise it would be pitch black. My eyes darted around the room and stopped on Eddie’s wristwatch, still on his arm, a few inches away from my face. 9:35. Morning. Eddie was still asleep when I got up to pee in the toilet behind the partition. I was desperately thirsty after drinking so much wine only a few hours prior, and I couldn’t find any water around. I slipped on my clothes, quietly opened the steel door—it still squeaked a little—and emerged from the lower depths. The morning air was chilly. The sliding back door to the house wasn’t locked, so I went in and made my way through the living room to the kitchen. I found a glass, filled it from the tap, and drank up. I found some orange juice in the fridge and drank that as well.

A noise coming from the back of the house caught my attention. A moan? I put the glass down and gingerly stepped into the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Mrs. Newcott’s door was open. Another moan. I moved forward and knocked. “Mrs. Newcott?” She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at me. “Good morning. Can I get you anything?”

She said something unintelligible, unable to move her mouth.

“How can I help you?”

I went to her, but the woman attempted to form more words. This time I understood her. “Go away.” She gestured with her hand, waving me out of the room.

I left and went down the hall, and peeked in Eddie’s office. Dark and quiet. My stomach lurched. The sudden intake of water and juice was a shock to my system, and I desperately needed to use the toilet again. There was a bathroom across the hall with a full-size commode, more comfortable than the one in the shelter. As I finished up, I noticed that the medicine cabinet above the sink was ajar. I peeked inside. Besides the usual grooming supplies and various toiletries, there stood some prescription pill bottles. Curiosity got the better of me, so I examined them.

One medication was Klonopin, or clonazepam, a tranquilizer my mother had taken. It was used for anxiety. The other bottle clued me in to the reality of Eddie’s problems. Zoloft. That was the brand name for an antidepressant, an SSRI, used to treat not only depression but obsessive-compulsive disorders and anxiety.

If Eddie was taking that stuff, surely it wasn’t good that he chased the medication with alcohol.

I put everything back, stepped out into the hallway, and listened for Mrs. Newcott. Silence. I made my way back through the living room, out to the backyard, and down into the dungeon of lust. Eddie was awake and staring at the ceiling.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Hey there.”

“You all right?”

“Sure. Are you? Where were you?”

I told him I’d gone up for water and said hello to his mother.