Hold Me Close(88)
A hundred times she’d driven past this house and never stopped, but she stopped today. She didn’t park in the driveway, but along the street. She sat there for twenty minutes, waiting for someone to rap on the window and demand to know what she was doing there, but nobody even passed by on the sidewalk. She stared straight ahead, hands on the wheel, until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Then she got out. She went to the front door.
She knocked, hard. Three times. Then again when nobody answered.
She didn’t have a story ready, in case it wasn’t him. She hadn’t thought she’d need one until right this second when she could hear someone on the other side, shuffling. A faint voice, muttering, “Hold on. I’m coming.”
The door opened, and there he was. He did not look the same. He’d shrunk throughout the years. Shoulders hunched. His dark hair had gone gray and thin, brushed over a bald spot. His skin sagged, circles like bruises beneath his eyes. He’d become an old, old man, and clearly one in ill health, but it was him without a doubt.
Daddy, she thought but didn’t say.
“Help ya?” His voice had grown as old as the rest of him. Raspy and clogged. He looked at her without expression or recognition.
Effie opened her mouth but could find no words. The old man in the doorway frowned. This was not how she’d imagined it would happen. He would see her, he would blanch, maybe stumble back. Or he would smile and wave her inside, though no, no, of course she would not go. She would scream at him, or she would turn away without a word. She’d even imagined punching him in the face. Kicking him. Knocking him down while she knelt over him, battering until he bled. Instead, she stood there and gaped like a fish while he stared.
“I don’t need Jesus or a vacuum cleaner, and I don’t read magazines,” the old man said. “So if you’re selling something, you can go right on along out of here.”
Effie found her voice. “No, no... I’m sorry. I thought this was... I knocked on the wrong door. I’m so sorry.”
His smile had not changed, though the teeth inside it were dingy and yellowed. She backed up from the sight of it, her heel catching on the step. She almost fell backward off the concrete stoop but caught herself.
“Careful. You don’t want to hurt yourself now.” He gave her a curious, up-and-down look that shifted into sly wariness in a second. He straightened. “What do you want? Who are you?”
Who are you?
Who are you?
Effie answered something meaningless, a scatter of words as careless as a handful of gravel thrown at a window. She turned. Back straight, not shaking. Down the two steps and onto the sidewalk. Furtive, embarrassed glances from side to side, making sure nobody could see her leaving.
He shouted something after her that sounded like a question, but Effie had no answer. She could not speak. She could see nothing but her car in front of her. Her fingers fumbled with the key, setting off the car alarm for a horrifying second before she could hit the button to stop it. She was behind the wheel moments after that, key in the ignition, foot on the gas. She didn’t look for traffic, but fortunately she didn’t hit anything as she sped away.
Effie always made sure not to drive and text, but today she pulled her phone from her pocket as she steered with one hand. Dialing Heath. She needed him, but he wasn’t there, and she’d done that. She’d f*cked that up. She’d forced him away from her, she’d been so stupid and prideful and awful, and now when she needed him, he would not answer her calls.
“I saw him,” Effie said to the voice mail. “I saw him, and he didn’t...know me. Heath, he didn’t even recognize me. Call me. Please. I need you. Please, Heath, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please call me, baby. I miss you so much and I need you.”
Then, although she’d been lucky up until that moment, the light turned red before she was ready for it. Effie slammed on the brakes. She dropped her phone. Her car skidded on the damp road and came to a stop so hard she hit the steering wheel with her chest because she’d forgotten to put on her seat belt.
The car behind her hit the rear bumper hard enough to knock her forward again. Her teeth clicked down, catching the tip of her tongue. Stars. She saw stars.
In the next moment, her car rocked forward again as the second car in the line hit the one behind her. Glass shattered this time. A horn blared. Through it all, Effie sat stunned, not sure what had just happened, and she sat there without moving until someone finally knocked on her window to ask her if she was okay.
When she faced him, the man outside the window recoiled, face twisting. It wasn’t until she looked into the rearview mirror that she understood why he looked so startled. Her grin had gone wild, fierce. Her teeth, outlined with blood from her cut tongue.
“No,” Effie said around the taste of blood. “Nothing is okay. Nothing is okay at all.”
chapter thirty-nine
Everything hurt, but ice and some ibuprofen would take that away. Nobody had been injured badly in the three-car fender bender. Effie had not admitted to talking on her phone and being distracted, and nobody, so far, had said otherwise. Wet roads, a red light, cars following too close to each other. Her car needed to be repaired, but it was still drivable until she could get it to the shop. It all could’ve been so much worse. It was an accident, and they happen.
Mom had come to take care of her, of course. Clucking her tongue and muttering, but she’d done it. She’d made sure Effie was tucked into bed with the ice packs and the television remote, and she’d warned Polly about what had happened as soon as the kid got home from school, and she’d managed to do it without scaring her, which Effie appreciated. Polly had sat with her for a while but had grown bored of Effie’s choice in TV. Now Mom and Polly were in the kitchen playing cards. Effie could hear the slap of them and their laughter, but she couldn’t bring herself to get up and go out there to join them.