Lying with the Dead Read online

  “I’ll walk you to the door,” Quinn says.

  “I see it from here.”

  “You know, Mom won’t answer unless you use the code.”

  “Three knocks, then one.”

  “You’re set.”

  My feet are in my shadow until it floods under the shade of the front porch. I feel Quinn’s eyes on me. I bang on the door, and his eyes bang on the back of my head. Then Mom opens up a crack, and I hear the car drive away. She tilts her head like an owl in a tree, leading with her big eye, the left one. She holds shut the collar of her housecoat and the sweater she wears on top of it. There’s a broom in her other hand, and without unchaining the door, she sticks it through the crack, straw end first.

  “That spiderweb in the corner of the porch,” she says. “Up there between the post and the roof. I’ve been after Candy for months to sweep it down. I’m afraid the spider’ll bite somebody.”

  “The cold kills them in winter.”

  “Don’t count on it. Anyway, the sight of it makes me nauseous. Knock it down.”

  It’s a tent caterpillar nest, not a spiderweb. I stab the broom at it. The gray sack splits open and out spill bits and pieces, dark as the overcooked bacon on Quinn’s plate. It’s baby caterpillars, all dead. I sweep them off the porch under the rosebushes, and Mom lets me in and leans the broom in a corner of the hallway.

  She sits on the couch and folds her feet in her slippers up under her housecoat. I sit where Quinn sat yesterday, in the rocking chair. The smell is everyplace, and my hair is sticky like it has strings of caterpillar nest stuck in it.

  “Are you enjoying your visit?” she says.

  I tell her I am.

  “I guess it’s different in California.”

  I tell her it is.

  “Me, I’d miss the change of seasons.”

  I tell her I do, too, even though I don’t, except for snow.

  “Do you have friends out there?”

  “Nicky’s my friend.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Woman.”

  “You oughta get married, a handsome fellow like you. Find a gal to look after you. Have a family. It’s never too late for a man.”

  “I’m friendly with the Mexicans, too. They take me to church.”

  “Careful who you chum around with.” She lights a cigarette. That helps the smell. “Speaking of church, it wouldn’t surprise me if Candy married Lawrence soon. What do you think?”

  “About what?” Her questions spin the bicycle tire, blurring the spokes in a bright circle.

  “Think he’ll make a good husband?”

  “I don’t know what makes a good husband.”

  “Me neither.” Mom laughs and coughs into a Kleenex. “We sure as hell never saw one around this house, did we?”

  “I need to check on my boat.”

  “Your what?” She squinches her face, and the glasses slide down her nose.

  “The boat I built in the attic. Is it still up there?”

  “Damned if I know. It’s been years since I risked that ladder.”

  “Be right back.”

  “Can’t it wait? We’ve got things to talk about.”

  I head for the staircase, and she says, “I never did understand how you intended to haul it from the attic. It’d be like pulling a model boat out of a bottle. Something’s bound to break.”

  On the second floor, I yank the cord that lowers the ladder. The spring groans loud like Quinn did last night, and the steps creak as I climb. I push open the hatch and switch on the bulb. It’s hard to see through the dust. I want to hide here from Mom, like I did in the old days, staring up at the slanted roof and the shiny nail points. But the nails are rusty now and the boat is rotten down to its keel and ribs, like a cow skeleton in the desert. One touch and the last of the wood’ll collapse in a puff. If I wanted to haul it from the attic, all I’d need is a broom. It’d sweep away as easy as the dead caterpillars. I close the hatch and go downstairs to listen to what Mom has to say.

  She’s flat on the sofa, a pillow under her head and another one on top of her chest with her arms crossed over it. She did that at Patuxent when Quinn was in her belly—crossed her arms over the big bump that Candy said moved from the baby’s kicking.

  “Sit beside me, sweetheart.”

  “I like the rocking chair,” I say.

  “No, I want you near me.”

  I do what she tells me, crouching at the edge of the sofa like I did on Quinn’s bed last night. But I don’t cup my hand to her head.

  “It’s been so nice having you home,” she says. “Normally I don’t have company.”

  “You have Candy.”

  “She’s busy with Lawrence. Once they marry, they’ll move away and play golf. You know what that means?”

  I shake my head that I don’t. I’ve seen golf on TV. I like the sound of the club hitting the ball. Nicky tried, but couldn’t teach me how to keep score.

  “They won’t take me with them,” Mom says.

  “They told you that?”

  “Not in so many words. But I wouldn’t go even if they asked me to. I’m too old for North Carolina. I don’t know a soul down there. I intend to die in my own house. Candy’s been babysitting me long enough. She deserves to have her own life.”

  Half my butt has fallen asleep. The other half hanging over the edge starts to ache.

  “That leaves me all alone,” Mom says.

  I begin to think this is the thing she called me to Maryland to tell me. I see what I have to do. “I’ll talk to Nicky,” I say. “She has space. You could live in her house. Or we could rent a trailer.”

  She jabs her glasses back up her nose. “I don’t feature spending my last days in Slab City.”

  “It’s nice in winter.”

  “Thanks anyway, sweetie. That’s not for me.”

  “Then what’ll you do?’

  “Candy and Quinn plan to dump me in assisted living. If it’s not bad enough dying in a roach nest, it costs money. I’ll have to sell the house and waste my savings. There’ll be nothing left for you. I told you I have something to give you. But if I go to assisted living, it’ll eat up your money.”

  The bicycle tire is spinning faster. “You oughta live with Quinn in London.”

  “Fat chance! All his fancy friends around, he doesn’t want to be stuck with an old woman that looks like death warmed over. Doesn’t it burn your ass to lose the money I saved for you?”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I wanted to leave some for Candy too. Now she’ll miss out.”

  “Lawrence is a dentist. He makes money.”

  “It’s good for a married woman to have her own.”

  “Give her mine.”

  “What a love you are. But there won’t be a penny left.” One of her hands slips off the pillow and onto my arm. I pull back, but she holds tight. “You’ve always been so generous. Even as a little boy you shared everything with Candy. And you loved and helped me. I didn’t have to ask. When I was in trouble, you protected me. You knew what to do then. You know now.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Sure, you do. I need to die so Quinn can fly back to London and Candy can marry Lawrence and you can have the money that belongs to you.”

  “I don’t want the money.”

  “Don’t just think of yourself, dammit.” Her different-colored eyes flash at me, and her fingernails dig into my arm. “Have some sympathy for Candy. Have some mercy on me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I’ll fix your car and paint your house, and we’ll live here together.”

  “No, you’re better off in California with Nicky. And I’ll be better off once you take this pillow and press it over my face.”

  “I can’t do that.” My head starts to float with what she says.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re my mother.”

  “You killed Dad.”

  “Th
is is different.” I feel like I need to get down on the floor.

  “You killed your father but you won’t kill me?” she shouts.

  “I can’t. I love you.”

  “Then do it for love.”

  I stand up and almost tip over.

  “Sit down,” she says real loud so that her big voice and her skinny body don’t match.

  “My head is messing with my brain.”

  “Trust me.” She pats the sofa. “Sit down and let’s talk this over. There’s nothing to be scared of. I’m dying already. Let’s just get it done with. I’d do it myself, but then they won’t pay my insurance and I’ll go to hell.”

  “I’ll go to hell if I kill you.”

  “You can confess.”

  “They’ll throw me in prison. This time I won’t get out.”

  “I mean confess to a priest.”

  “They’ll blame me.” She keeps patting the couch beside her, and I keep backing away.

  “Nobody’ll blame you. I’m old and sick and they’ll think I died in my sleep.”

  “No, they’ll accuse me of killing you for your money.”

  “Who’ll accuse you?”

  “The cops.”

  “You don’t have to tell them a damn thing.”

  “They’re smart and they’ve got tricks. This time they’ll gas me.”

  “No, no, no. Listen to me, goddammit. You’re making me cuss. You’re making me lose my soul. Is that what you want? You want to condemn me to hell?” she hollers. “Okay! I’ll do it myself and you’ll have that on your conscience because you’re too selfish.”

  She mashes the pillow over her nose and mouth. Her arms shake, and she moans like I do.

  “Stop!” I grab the pillow, but she won’t let go. I lift her clean off the couch. She weighs nothing and has no strength so she loses her grip and falls to the floor. I bend down to help her up, but she comes at me like a sidewinder, hissing, “You son of a bitch. Gimme back my pillow!”

  I run to the front door. She’s on her feet now, following me. Her glasses hang cockeyed off her nose, and her fists clench to wallop me. I keep on going outside, through the rosebushes and onto the dead grass in the yard. The pillow is still in my hand. Mom hobbles onto the porch in her slippers and housecoat. The door slams behind her and she hollers, “You goddamn killer retard. Now look what you made me do.”

  Up and down the block, her yelling brings people to their windows and doors. Their worried faces turn our way. Next thing they’ll be dialing 911 because Mom’s screaming bloody murder. Then she runs at me, stepping right out of her slippers. I let go of the pillow and hurry into the trees left over from the woods where I caught frogs and lizards. Those that aren’t dead are underground for winter. The creek is underground forever. But I know a path and a place to hide at the tree where I had a house, a little box that Dad nailed to the branches. It’s gone now, and the hammer marks on the oak have healed over into scars, so the tree looks wounded. I catch my breath and as soon as I’m sure Mom isn’t after me, I run on out the other side of the woods.

  Candy

  As a girl, I dreamed about becoming a nurse. Because of Maury. It never dawned on me to become a doctor. Girls didn’t do that in my day. But being a nurse, I believed, I’d learn what was wrong with him and how to cure it. The closest I’ve come is working in a dentist’s office, which at least led me to Lawrence. God works in strange ways.

  When by the end of the day Maury hasn’t called the office, I drive to the townhouse where Quinn’s in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine with a brand new Screwpull. The label reads pinot noir, which I know means black, but the wine is ruby red. He pours himself a glass and drinks it off in a single gulp.

  “Thought you were going cold turkey,” I say.

  “The road to home is paved with good intentions.”

  He sets out a glass for me, and I signal him to pour an inch. That’s my limit. Since I have to pick up Maury I’m afraid to drink too much.

  The kitchen’s fluorescent lights don’t flatter Quinn. He looks haggard, like this might not be his first drink of the day. His black-and-gray outfit, which I guess is fashionable in London, gives him the grim appearance of a funeral director.

  “How was work?” he asks.

  “Work’s the easy part. I get to be with Lawrence.”

  “That’s nice.” Deep weariness dulls his voice.

  “What about you? How’d you spend the day?” I ask.

  “Hanging out at the mall. Judging by the crowd, it’s a regular elephant burial ground for retirees. They loll around the fountain listening to the slow drip. I browsed at Barnes & Noble, had a latte at Starbucks and made up my mind not to spend my golden years in Maryland.”

  “Do actors retire?”

  “Not if they can help it. In England there’s a tradition of dying onstage. Literally. But if you don’t get parts, it’s as bad as being dead already.”

  “You get parts,” I say.

  “That’s another thing I did today—I called my agent. I’m up for a role in a BBC special. A trilogy of Greek plays.”

  “Great!”

  “Maybe not so great. There’s been some complaining that Aeschylus might be too depressing. Probably they’ll perk up the script by putting kittens and puppies in the House of Atreus.”

  Now I have no doubt Quinn’s been drinking.

  “It won’t be long,” he says, “before I’m cast as an aging uncle or doddering grandfather.”

  “Doesn’t sound bad to me. I’d like to be a grandmother.” I don’t add the obvious—that I’d love to have been a mother. “At least you’ve got that to look forward to. You could have kids, then grandkids.”

  His response is to pour himself a second glass of wine.

  “Ever think of that?” I prompt him, even though, honestly, I’ve never imagined him married with children. I can’t picture him in a domestic setting.

  “Recently I haven’t done much thinking about the future. I’ve been preoccupied with the past.”

  “I know you’re writing your memoirs. But you have to live in the present.”

  “The past is the present, isn’t it?” he asks in a voice that convinces me he’s quoting somebody. “It’s the future too.”

  I tip the wine to my lips and have to resist the urge to chug it down. This is something I hadn’t counted on—that Quinn might come home and fall apart, rather than rescue me.

  “I have a young girl working for me, doing research,” he rambles on. “I asked her to find a literary quote about mothers who abuse their children. One from the woman’s point of view.”

  “I thought this book was going to be about your career.”

  “Who knows what it’ll be about? Now it’s piles of notes and scenes. My researcher, Tamzin, that’s her name, turned up a passage from Faulkner. The gist of it is a woman speaking from the grave, confessing how she beat her kids to brand them as her property forever. Do you think that’s what Mom had in mind?”

  “Why go over it again? Half the time she doesn’t even remember hitting us.”

  “But you remember. I do. I bet Maury does.”

  “I wouldn’t say she abused us.” I’m having trouble hiding my irritation. I take another taste of the wine, and it’s warm, almost body temperature. “She was a single mother with no money and a bunch of stress and sometimes she lost her temper. That’s all.”

  “That’s enough, isn’t it? I mean, it’s worse being knocked around by your mother than your father.”

  “A man would pack a harder wallop,” I remind him.

  “But you don’t expect it from your mother. Anyway, for me it was never about how hard she hit or how often. It was why. What was so wrong with me?”

  “Listen, Quinn, nothing was wrong with you. It was just her and her moods. It’s too late to change the past. We need to discuss what to do with her now.”

  “You think packing her off to assisted living is the answer? That’s supposed to solve everything?”

>   “Not everything!” My voice cracks. I lean toward him across the table and start over again quieter. “But it’ll solve the one thing we have to deal with here and now.”

  “You want to talk about here and now? Okay, here and now, I love Mom and I hate her.” He leans across the table, too, his head nearly touching mine. “I blame her and I forgive her. I’m grateful for what she gave me and I regret everything I never had.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” I explode. “This is me, Candy, your sister you’re talking to. Not your researcher. Not your shrink.”

  Quinn’s face goes in an instant from agony to absolute blankness. Unlike Mom, whose expression shows every step of anger from mild exasperation to total fury, he kills the light in his eyes and brings down the curtain.

  I hold his hand. “Let’s not fight. In this family, you’re all I have. The only one I can talk to. I’m sorry about how you feel.”

  Again his response is to refill his glass, then mine. Because he’s pouring left-handed, the bottle shakes and a few drops splash the Formica.

  “I should call Mom,” I say. “She must be finished with Maury by now.” But the moment I reach for the phone, somebody bangs at the front door. So I go to answer it. A black man in sweat pants and an XXL Redskins jersey has his beefy arm around Mom’s scrawny shoulders. She’s shivering in her housecoat and hugging a pillow to her chest.

  “Is this you momma?” he asks.

  “My God, yes.”

  “Found her in the yard, in her slippers and such. Said she’s locked outta her house.”

  Mom appears to be frozen speechless until she sees Quinn step out of the kitchen. “It was a mistake,” she whimpers. “A misunderstanding.”

  “I live next door to her,” the man says. “Lucky I do. She coulda caught pneumonia wandering around outside.”

  “I wasn’t wandering,” Mom protests. “I was hunting for Maury.”

  “Where is he?” Quinn asks.

  “He ran off and I couldn’t find him.”

  “Ran off?” I ask.

  “We had an argument.” She shrugs off the man’s arm and shuffles into the house.