Page 76

I sit on my heels, head bent forward. The sun beats down on the back of my neck, burning me up. I pull off my hat. The air feels fresh on my wet scalp until a tremor of cold runs through me. My hands are too useless to put the hat back on.

I’ve fucked it all up. Everything I touch dies. The lamb in my coat. My mother. My father. David. The bees. They’re buzzing, angry. Ghost bees, haunting me, blaming me for their murder.

It’s not your fault, David says. He’s right in front of me, standing onstage in a noisy bar. He holds his violin by the neck with one hand. With the other, he points to me with his bow. It’s not your fault, Audrey, darling. Stop blaming yourself.

“I’m so sorry,” I blubber. “I’m so sorry I left you on that sidewalk.”

It wasn’t your fault, kiddo, my dad says. He stands to the left of the stage, the ground around him miraculously green. He takes off his work bandana and wipes his sweaty forehead. It wasn’t your fault, he repeats. Don’t beat yourself up over it.

“Why did Mom leave us?” I’m ten years old now, kneeling in sand along the shore of Lake Michigan, waves crashing so loudly I can’t hear myself think. “Weren’t we good enough?”

You were perfect, my mother says. She’s rising from the lake like Botticelli’s Venus, draped in rainbows, love radiating from her sparkling eyes. You’ve always been my perfect, beautiful girl.

“Why didn’t you stay?” I cry, tears freezing on my cheeks.

I wanted to stay, for you, my love, but it’s so dark and cold where you are. Look where I am now! See how magical! Come with me and we’ll live together forever on a lovely rainbow cloud.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I’ll come!”

I try to stand, but my knees are rusted hinges. I tip my head back. All I see is my mother’s rainbow in a circle of blue sky. The circle becomes smaller and smaller, like an iris-out in an old movie, I think, impressed that my brain can come up with the perfect simile for what I’m seeing. Then the iris closes and my vision is gone.

“No, Mom, wait!”

I channel all my life force into my knees, breaking the rust’s grip, forcing the hinges open. As my legs straighten, the frozen lamb slides out from under my coat and lands on my boots, pinning my feet in place.

“Take me with you!”

I have no idea if I shout the words aloud or send my silent cry up to the sky. Either way, it works. When strong hands close over my raised arms, I’m certain my parents and husband are lifting me up to carry me home.

Chapter 37

Something is burning my skin. The light of heaven, I assume, until I open my eyes and see not my mother’s loving gaze but Nancy Sprague’s severe face. I plunge from heaven into the hell of a Stephen King novel where I’ve been kidnapped by fiendish neighbors who are plotting to kill me the way Joe killed my bees. I try to wriggle out of whatever heated thing they’ve trapped me in, terrified they’re planning to cook and cannibalize me, too.

“Stop your fussing, child,” Nancy says, pinning my shoulders with firm, flat hands. “I’ve had enough boys come home half-frozen from deer hunting to know what I’m doing. You might feel hot, but trust me, the electric blanket’s on low. And if you don’t want to lose your fingers to frostbite, you’ll keep your hand in that bowl of warm water.”

I slump back, eyes closed. I’m still disoriented from, what was it? A vision? A delusion? No—a visitation. In the moment I came close enough to death for them to reach across whatever void separates this world from the next, my family appeared to welcome me home. Maybe it was a fantasy, a hologram generated from fragments of memory when the synapses in my brain started shutting down. I don’t care. The look in David’s eyes. The sound of Dad’s voice. The feel of my mother’s love. They were real, a gift I’ll treasure all my life.

Because I am alive. Grateful tears run warm down my raw cheeks. Nancy pats my face with a soft towel. “There, there, girl. You’ll be fine.”

“How?” My throat is sore, my voice hoarse.

“Well, that’ll be because Joe can’t seem to mind his own damn business no matter what names you call him.” Her eyebrows, painted high on her forehead, lift nearly to her hairline. “We thought you were away, what with that van of yours out of sight. Lucinda said the same thing when we saw her at Price Chopper last week. After the storm, Joe snowmobiled across the property like he used to when Evelyn lived there, just to take a look around.” Nancy smiles and shakes her head. “Evelyn and Joe never did agree on a single damn thing. It was one long argument between them from the day she opened that bookstore to the day she died. By the end, she didn’t even recognize her own roommate, but when Joe drove down to the nursing home in Saratoga for a visit, she took one look at him and said, ‘Nixon’s the one, Humphrey’s a bum.’ Well, that was the slogan Joe used to say to rile her up back in 1968. Yup, she knew him right to the end.”

Nancy’s prattling has given me time to calm down. “Joe found me?”

“He did, and just in time, too. You were delirious. He hauled you out to Ridgetop Road on his snowmobile, then called me on his cell to hop in the truck and plow a path to your place to pick you up.”

I have no memory of any of this. “What about the lamb?”

“Oh, didn’t it give Joe a heart attack when he saw that poor thing at your feet! Said he thought you’d disemboweled yourself or some such crazy thing. Lambsicles, the farmers call it, when a ewe gives birth outside in winter.”

“She was stuck in the snow.” I piece it together as I speak. “I went back for the lamb. I was trying to bring it home to warm up.”

“From the look of it, Joe figures it was stillborn, so there wasn’t anything you could have done.” Nancy lifts my hand out of the water. “Make a fist for me?”

I stare at my hand. Each joint is stiff and sore, but I’m able to bend the fingers.

“Good.” Nancy picks up the bowl. “You keep moving that hand while I go take care of this.”