I try to remember that now as I watch his chest rise and fall. I sit back down in the chair. After a minute I wonder if he’s fallen asleep. Sometimes he is so exhausted after he’s been away that he falls asleep during arguments or while making love. I try not to take it personally.
“Annie,” he says finally with a sigh. He sits up and comes over to me, kneels before me on the floor. He takes my hands in his and puts them to his mouth for a second. Then, “Whatever is going on, I swear to you, Marlowe Frank is dead.”
Over the last few hours, sitting in my vigil, I had convinced myself that Marlowe didn’t die that night, that Gray has lied to me all these years. I thought of at least five ways he might have survived. My twisted imagination spun a web around me, and I was sure of all of this, positive. But now, with Gray to ground me, I’m more inclined to believe that my mind is playing tricks on me - again. Maybe Drew’s
When I raised my eyes from my hands again, he was still watching me in the mirror, a lopsided smile on his face. I could see that my anger at my mother pleased him and I was soothed by this.“I wish she was dead,” I said, the words feeling forced and uncomfortable. But when his smile widened, I basked in the warmth of his approval.When the rage of adolescence is contained by rules and boundaries, banked by the assurance of strong and present parents, it burns white hot but burns out fast. When it’s allowed to run unchecked, it turns everything to ash.A few days after her bathroom sermon, my mother made me accompany her to choose her wedding dress. We took the bus to a strip mall off the highway and picked through racks of used gowns in various states of disrepair-this one stained with red wine, that one with the hem ripped out. She was sweet and happy on this day, excited in this girlish way she had. If she remembered that just a few days ear
She could never leave my sight, any fall was a soft one, and what she found here she could keep. The windowsills and shelves of her room were lined with her treasures: dried pieces of coral, all sizes and shapes of shells, sea glass, and ice-cream-colored rocks. Today there is heavy rain, and after last night the beach doesn’t seem very safe. I pad down the hallway and slip into her room. I can see the crown of her head and the subtle rise and fall of the blankets. I try for stealth, just in case she is still asleep after all. I won’t wake her if she is. But as I draw close, she pulls the covers away and jumps up. “Boo!” she yells, smiling and pleased with herself. I feign surprise, then scoop her up and smother her with kisses. “Shhhh,” I say as she laughs the helpless giggle of the tickled. “Daddy’s sleeping.” “Daddy’s home?” She is wiggling out of my arms and then off like a bolt down the hall. I’m always thrown over for Gray. He’s th
He had bizarre, ugly mood swings; I’d grown to fear them already. Not because he’d ever hurt me, but because they took him someplace I couldn’t follow. His gaze would go empty, his body slack. He might disappear like that for hours, then return to me as though he were waking from a nap. I was too naïve to understand that this was not normal. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.“To be with you,” I said, because I knew that was the answer he wanted. I remember that the sunlight had a way of coming in golden at that time of day. It made the place seem less dingy than normal.“Forever?” he asked, reaching out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me onto his lap. He held on to me hard, buried his face in my neck. I wrapped my arms around him.“Forever,” I whispered in his ear, drawing in the scent of him. And I meant it as only a teenage girl could mean it, with a fairy tale in my heart.He released
There wasn’t much to Detective Ray Harrison. At least there didn’t seem to be at first blush. He was a man you’d pass in the grocery store and wouldn’t glance at twice-medium height, medium build, passable looks. He’d hold the door for you, you’d thank him and never think of him again. But watching from an upstairs window as Detective Harrison approaches the house, my heart is an engine in my chest. The gold necklace in my pocket is burning my thigh. I go downstairs to greet him before Esperanza can get to the door and let him in.I remember his face from last night; he’d seemed nice. Kind and without artifice. I’d liked him. But there’s something else I see in him as I open the door that I don’t like: suspicion. Today he’s a wolf at my door.“Detective Harrison,” I say, offering my best fake smile. “Are you checking in on us?” I keep my body in the door frame, careful not t
The two men engage in a brief staring contest until the detective averts his eyes and brings them to rest on me.“Well, it was just a thought,” he says. He has a lot more to say, but he won’t say it now. “Sorry to have bothered you.”Harrison walks toward the door, and Gray follows.“There was just one other thing,” he says as Gray opens the door for him. “I noticed that Mrs. Powers was born in Kentucky. But I swear I hear New York in your accent, ma’am.”Noticed where? I wonder. Did he check me out after he left here last night, look at my driving record or something?“I was born in Kentucky but moved to New York with my family when I was a child.Kentucky, land of lenient birth-records release policies. Just a little easily obtained information-birth date, mother’s maiden name-and you’re on your way to a brand-new life. If he keeps asking questions and checks on
But he fell softly to his side on the bed, head coming to rest against an old stuffed bear that I’d had since I was a little girl. He stayed like that nearly an hour, as I whispered and yelled, soothed and cajoled, stroked and shook, pleaded and wept. I was about to dial 911 when he returned to himself, drained and dazed.“What happened?” he asked me, I suppose taking in my tear-streaked cheeks and frightened expression. He was a person waking from a deep sleep, rubbing his eyes and issuing a yawn.“You, like, checked out,” I said, weary with relief to hear him talking again.“Oh,” he said with a shrug. “It happens sometimes. Like a seizure or something.”“It was scary,” I said. “Really scary.”“It’s nothing,” he said sharply. I didn’t press.Slowly the grim picture of his life with Frank started to emerge. They went to parks, to churches, a
Meanwhile, of course, my mother nursed her own fantasy. Every six weeks she took a bus to the Florida State Prison, where she got to spend time with her fiancé separated by a sheet of bulletproof glass. She had never held, kissed, or even touched the hand of the man she planned to marry-and possibly never would. She wore this fact like a badge of courage. “But bars and armed guards can’t keep people from loving each other. They can’t stop the Lord’s will,” she’d say.She spent her free time lobbying for a new trial for Frank. She wrote letters, contacted law firms that specialized in pro bono death-row appeals. The private investigator she hired had told her that Frank Geary’s arresting officer had a career fraught with allegations of excessive force and coerced confessions, that one of his recent arrests and convictions had been overturned. This seemed to give her hope, even though Frank had never confessed to any of the murde
“Then let’s get this one moving again.” These waters must be full of sharks. That little boat looks like an hors d’oeuvre tray. Suddenly dying out there seems less attractive than it did before.He climbs back onto the deck, runs his hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “The engine’s dead,” he says flatly. “Whoever has done this disabled the boat. They left you on it. Leads me to believe they’ll be back or that they’ve rigged the boat to explode when they’re far enough away. We need to go. Now.”“No,” I say.Dax is looking at me hard. He might have been a handsome guy once, but his eyes tell me something about the things he’s done and seen. His skin is creased and weather-worn; his mouth is a thin, tight line, a mouth that looks as though it has never smiled. He puts his hand on my arm again. I wonder if he’s going to try to muscle me onto the Whaler.