Lisey's Story(106)
"Not even doughnuts? They have great doughnuts." A smile in his voice.
"Dieting!" It was all she dared.
"Oh-oh, I heard that, " he said. "You have a nice day, Mrs. Landon."
Please God no more, she prayed, and called back, "You too, Deputy!"
Clump-clump-clumpety-clump, and away he went.
Lisey listened for the sound of an engine and after awhile thought she heard one starting up, but very faint. He must have parked by her mailbox and then walked the length of the driveway.
Lisey lay where she was a moment longer, gathering herself, then rose to a sitting position. Dooley had sliced diagonally across her breast and up toward the hollow of her armpit. The ragged, wandering gash had stiffened and closed up a little, but her movement tore it open again. The pain was enormous. Lisey cried out and that made matters even worse. She felt fresh blood run down her ribcage. Those dark wings began to steal over her vision again and she willed them away, repeating the same mantra over and over again until the world grew solid: I have to finish this, I have to get behind the purple. I have to finish this, I have to get behind the purple. I have to finish this and get behind the purple.
Yes, behind the purple. On the hillside it had been lupin; in her mind it was the heavy curtain she had constructed herself - maybe with Scott's help, certainly with his tacit approval.
I've gotten behind it before.
Had she? Yes.
And I can do it again. Get behind it or rip the goddam thing down if I have to. Question: Had she and Scott ever spoken of Boo'ya Moon again after that night at The Antlers? Lisey thought not. They had their code words, of course, and God knew those words had floated out of the purple on occasion when she'd been unable to find him in malls and grocery stores...not to mention the time that nurse misplaced him in his smucking hospital bed...and there was the muttering reference to his long boy when he'd been lying in the parking lot after Gerd Allen Cole had shot him...and Kentucky...
Bowling Green, as he lay dying...
Stop, Lisey! the voices chorused. You mustn't, little Lisey! they cried. Mein gott, you don't darenzee!
She had tried to put Boo'ya Moon behind her, even after the winter of '96, when -
"When I went there again." Her voice was dry but clear in her dead husband's study.
"In the winter of 1996 I went again. I went to bring him back."
There it was, and the world did not end. Men in white coats did not materialize out of the walls to carry her away. In fact she thought she even felt a little better, and maybe that wasn't so surprising. Maybe when you got right down to where the short hairs grew, truth was a bool, and all it wanted was to come out.
"Okay, it's out now - some of it, the Paul part - so can I get a smucking drink of water?"
Nothing told her no, and using the edge of Dumbo's Big Jumbo as a support, Lisey managed to pull herself to her feet. The dark wings came again, but she hung her head over, trying to keep as much blood in her miserable excuse for a brain as possible, and this time the faintness passed more quickly. She set sail for the bar alcove, walking her own backtrail of blood, taking slow steps with her feet wide apart, thinking she must look like an old lady whose walker had been stolen.
She made it, sparing only a brief look for the glass lying on the carpet. She wanted nothing more to do with that one. She got another out of the cabinet, once again using her right hand - the left was still clutching the bloody square of knitting - and drew cold water. Now the water was running again and the pipes barely chugged at all. She swung out the glass mirror over the basin, and inside was what she had been hoping for: a bottle of Scott's Excedrin. No childproof cap to slow her down, either. She winced at the vinegary smell that wafted from the bottle after she popped the cap, and checked the expiration date: JUL 05. Oh well, she thought, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
"I think Shakespeare said that," she croaked, and swallowed three of the Excedrin. She didn't know how much good they would do her, but the water was heavenly and she drank until her belly cramped. Lisey stood clutching the lip of her dead husband's bar sink, waiting for the cramp to pass. Finally it did. That left only the pain in her beaten-up face and the much deeper throbbing in her lacerated breast. In the house she had something much stronger than Scott's head-bonkers (although certainly no fresher), Vicodin from Amanda's previous adventure in self-mutilation. Darla also had some, and Canty had Manda-Bunny's bottle of Percocet. They had all agreed without ever really even discussing it that Amanda herself couldn't be allowed access to the hard stuff; she might get feeling yucky and decide to take everything at once. Call it a Tequila Sunset. Lisey would try for the house - and the Vicodin - soon, but not quite yet. Walking in the same careful feet-wide-apart way, a half-filled glass of water in one hand and the blood-soaked square of african in the other, Lisey made her way to the dusty booksnake and sat down there, waiting to see what three geriatric Excedrin might do for her pain. And as she waited, her thoughts turned once more to the night she had found him in the guest room - in the guest room but gone.
I kept thinking we were on our own. That wind, that smucking wind 23
She's listening to that killer wind scream around the house, listening to snowgrit whip against the windows, knowing they're on their own - that she is on her own. And as she listens, her thoughts turn once more to that night in New Hampshire when the hour was none and the moon kept teasing the shadows with its inconstant light. She remembers how she opened her mouth to ask if he could really do it, could really take her, and then closed it again, knowing it to be the kind of question you only ask when you want to play for time...and don't you only play for time when you're not on the same side?