However, he did not release her. He stood, placed a cool, damp hand on her forehead. Then he leaned down and pressed his slimy lips against her own. She tried to bite him. She opened her mouth and jerked her head towards him, but he had already pulled away.
“So much work left to do,” he sighed. For a moment, she glimpsed a sliver of the light from the hallway as he slipped from the room and then darkness returned.
Chapter 14
September 1965
Jude
Jude slammed her front door and threw her purse clear across the room. It smacked the back of her couch and landed with a thud. Startled by the noise, Gram leapt up from where he’d been sleeping, and barked anxiously.
“Shut up, Gram,” Jude snarled, kicking off her shoes and marching across the room to her answering machine. The little red light blinked that she had messages. She hit ‘play,’ frustrated at the rush of hopefulness that coursed through her.
One after another she hit delete. Two messages from strangers looking for photography services, and one message from the vet reminding her Gram was due for his annual check-up.
Seething, she picked up the machine, yanking it from the wall and held it over her head. She stood and breathed and imagined throwing the machine onto the floor and watching it splinter on the hardwood. She would stomp on it, again and again, until only tiny shards of plastic remained. Two more breaths, three and she felt a tiny pinprick in the anger ballooning inside her, just enough to allow her to return the answering machine to the table.
She ignored Gram’s whining and went to the kitchen, grabbing a large round glass and filling it to the brim with Merlot. She tilted the glass back and drank half before refilling it and going to her couch. As she sat, Gram jumped onto the cushion beside her. She considered scolding him for climbing on her furniture but ran her hand over his soft ears instead. At least he wanted to sit with her.
Damien. Days had passed and not a single call. Not even a call to ask about the pictures. Clients always called. When will the photos be ready, how did they turn out? And she hadn’t fucked those clients!
She unconsciously squeezed Gram’s ear, and he whimpered, pulling away.
“Oh Gram, I’m sorry. It’s not you I’m mad at. It’s him. Damien. A devil’s name. I should have fucking known. Isn’t that right? Some demon named Damien sent to earth to turn us all towards sin?”
Gram blinked at her with soulful black eyes and then rested his scraggly head on her knee.
“You know who else I’m mad at?” She told the room. “Hattie! Hattie and her insane stories. A giant crate full of evidence, what a load of bullshit. What is she playing at anyhow?”
She said the words with intensity, but all the while she pictured those yellowing newspapers. Jude saw again the photograph of her beautiful mother, face turning away from the camera as they carted her off to a nut house.
“Gram Ruth. That’s who deserves this hate,” she muttered, downing her glass and standing up. “Come on, Gram. Let‘s go walk off some rage.”
Hattie
Hattie hiccupped and wiped the sleeve of her blouse across her eyes. She had not intended to cry when she met with Damien, but the moment he walked into the church’s little kitchen and asked how she was doing, she burst into tears.
Damien grabbed a dishtowel from the oven. It was stacked with casseroles left by the church ladies who donated dinners every week for Hattie to take to the shelter.
“Patti French made this,” she murmured, smiling at the towel embroidered with little ducks and pressed it into her face. The ducks reminded Hattie of her mother and she started to cry again.
“How can I help, Hattie,” Damien asked, leaning over and squeezing her knee.
His hands, large and fine-boned, felt sturdy, grounding. She turned watery blue eyes toward him and shook her head.
“You can’t. I’m just…” Silly was the word hovering in her mind. Jude would have called her silly, but what was she truly? Lost, betrayed, and desperate to know the truth.
“When I was a little boy, my mother had a ritual when I was upset,“ Damien said, taking the seat beside her. “First, she’d let me pick out my favorite pair of pajamas. I’d put them on and she’d pack us a treat, usually cookies, and we’d go out to the horse stables. My older brother’s horse was Roland, and I wasn’t allowed to ride him, except on those days,” he smiled at her and winked. “On those days, it was a secret between me and my mom. I would ride Roland and she would ride her horse, Sunny. A huge oak tree, perfect for climbing, stood in a pasture not far from our house. We’d ride out there, lay a blanket under the tree, and eat cookies until I thought I’d explode. Then she’d knit or read while I ran all over that tree like a squirrel.”
Hattie laughed.
“I love that story,” she murmured. “Is it terrible that it also makes me feel so sad and empty? Like where are those memories with my mama?”
“Not terrible at all, truthful,” Damien told her. “It’s refreshing how honest you are.”
“Ha,” she scoffed. “One of my greatest weaknesses, according to my sister.”
Damien stiffened beside her.
“Then she’s a fool.”
Hattie turned a grateful smile on him.
“A fool I love. Though I’m not always sure she loves me back.”
“If I’ve learned one thing from working with people, it’s that families are some of the most complex, agonizing and yet amazing relationships that exist. Your sister loves you, Hattie. I try not to make declarative statements, but you’re not a patient after all.” He squeezed her knee again. “Love is always there, deep and everlasting, it just gets hidden by the faces we show to the world.”
Hattie cocked her head and watched him. He had looked away, staring toward the beige carpet as if he could see through a crack into the future, or maybe the past.
“Listen,” he blurted. “I have a friend with a stable outside town. Go with me? We’ll stop and get a package of cookies?”
She smiled, a little shyly.
“Yes, I would like that.”
Jude
Jude walked through the shadowy barn. Unlike her baby sister, she had never been fond of the large, creepy tomb-like lofts where Gram Ruth tucked her past away like it never existed. Old furniture, clothes, cars - all of it boxed and shoved beneath the sheets that spent decades collecting dust. Somewhere in those piles, Jude knew her mother’s belongings lived. Not only her mother’s but also her father’s, Peters, Hattie’s and even Jude’s.
After their mother died, they returned to their farmhouse for only a week before their father announced they were moving in with Gram Ruth.
The strain of life without their mother had gotten to him. He paced a lot. Jude remembered finding him at night whispering hurriedly into the phone which he’d dragged outside. She would follow the cord from the kitchen, through the living room, onto the big porch. He’d be sitting on the porch swing, tapping his foot and shouting in a whisper. Once Jude watched him scream and fling the phone into the porch rail where the mouth piece cracked off.