Amnesia (39 page)

As she lay there, cocooned in his embrace, one coherent thought wafted through her foggy brain.
That was the best damn sex I’ve ever had in my entire life
.

The nightmare came again, as it so often did, seeming so real, as if it were happening at this very moment instead of in the past. Sometimes, like now, he knew he was dreaming, that he was asleep and would eventually awake, drenched in sweat, shivering and frightened. If only he could make himself wake now, before reliving those terrifying moments, but his subconscious mind would not allow him even that small mercy. This time, like the countless other times, he would be forced to recall the entire event, from beginning to end.

“How many girlfriends do you have?” she asked him, her voice deceptively sweet and calm.

“None, Mama. I swear I don’t have any girlfriends.”

“You’re lying to me. You know it’s not nice to lie, don’t you?”

“I’m not lying. I swear I’m not.”

“They’re calling the house, asking for you. Two of them called just this afternoon, not thirty minutes after you got home from school. One’s named Sherry and the other’s name is Brittany.”

“They’re just girls I know from school.”

She grabbed his arm and dragged him across the room.
He dropped his book bag on the floor and tried to jerk away from her. He was growing bigger every day, taller and stronger. One of these days she wouldn’t be able to overpower him. He was nine years old now and although small for his age, he knew that it was only a matter of time before he would be bigger than she was. When that day came…

She grabbed his shoulders and shook him soundly. “What have I told you about fooling around with girls? You’re too pretty, too charming. You’ll break their hearts. It’s not fair for one person to be able to do that to another person.”

When she stopped shaking him, she kept a tight hold on his shoulders, her long, thin fingers biting into him painfully. A glazed expression darkened her eyes. He’d seen that look before and knew enough to be frightened. Her mind was wandering off somewhere, to another time and place. Whatever had happened to her there, it must have been terrible because it had filled her with hatred. And cruelty.

Taking advantage of the moment, he jerked away from her and backed several feet from her before she realized he had escaped. Her head snapped up and her gaze punctured him with a dare. He froze to the spot.

“I will not allow you to hurt anyone else,” she told him and when he made no response, she asked, “Did you hear me?”

He shook his head.

“You gave those girls our telephone number, didn’t you? You wanted them to call and make fools of themselves. They both think you like them. They both think they’re your girlfriend. You lied to them, made each one of them think she was special.”

“No, I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t.”

“You’re doing an awful lot of swearing today, aren’t you? Bad, bad Quinn.”

Don’t pee in your pants. Whatever you do, don’t wet yourself. If you do, it’ll just make her madder and she’ll hurt you worse
.

“I’m not—” He caught himself before he corrected her.
She didn’t like it when he told her she was wrong about anything. But he kept trying to tell her the truth.
Just agree with her
, he told himself.
If you do that, she’ll go easier on you
.

“I’m sorry I gave Sherry and Brittany my phone number,” he lied. He hadn’t given either girl his number. “I promise that I’ll never do it again. I’ll never give another girl my phone number.”

“Good. I’m glad you understand what a bad thing you did.”

God, please, don’t let whatever she does to me hurt too much
.

She curled her index finger and motioned for him to come to her. It took a couple of minutes, but he finally managed to make his feet move in her direction. He had learned from past experience that disobeying her only made things worse.

When he stood in front of her, a couple of feet separating them, she reached out and patted his cheek. He gulped.

“You know you’ve been a bad boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And what happens to bad boys?”

“They have to be punished.”

“That’s right, darling. They have to be punished for their own good so that they will learn they can’t use their handsome faces and charming personalities to take advantage of other people and hurt them.”

He trembled inside, but managed not to shake outwardly.

“You know I love you. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t care. And I wouldn’t work so hard to make you a better person.”

He nodded. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. An involuntary quiver jiggled his hands, which he held down to either side of his thighs.

She grabbed him by the nape of his neck, then she drew back her other hand and slapped him hard across the face. He reeled from the impact, but didn’t cry out even though his cheek and jaw hurt really bad. Using her hand on his neck
to force his head to turn in the opposite direction, she hit him again. Harder. He moaned, unable to stop himself. She smiled. God, he hated it when she smiled that way.

She hit him again and again, until she had busted his lip, bruised one cheek and blackened an eye. Then she stopped, looked at him and frowned. “Why do you force me to do these things to you? Now you won’t be able to go to school for a few days. Not looking like that.”

“Please, don’t keep me at home,” he begged. “I’ll tell the teacher I fell off my bicycle.”

“She won’t believe you, dear. You know how teachers are. They don’t understand my type of punishment. If they knew it was the only way to control a person like you, they’d understand. But we don’t want to have to move again, do we? If they send a social worker to the house, we’ll have to leave here, maybe even move to another state.”

He knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue with her. The only time he felt secure and unafraid was when he was at school. She couldn’t touch him there. But if he stayed at home the rest of the week, he’d do something to upset her every day. And she would punish him every day.

“Go to your room,” she told him. “There won’t be any supper for you tonight. No food for bad little boys.”

Thankful to escape from her, he grabbed his book bag off the floor, then turned and ran down the hall and into his room. Just as he started to close the door, he heard her call, “Leave your door open. I don’t want you doing something naughty in there. I’ll come check on you in a little while, after I’ve had my dinner.”

He left the door wide open—he had no choice.

Hoisting his book bag onto his bed, he sat down, opened the top flap and pulled out his math homework and a pencil. He read over the first problem, but he couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was how much his face hurt, how bad the blood in his mouth tasted and what his mother would do to him later when she came to his room to check on him.

I wish she was dead. I wish one day I’d wake up and she’d be gone to Jesus. If she could just go to heaven, she wouldn’t suffer anymore and she could never hurt me again
. He glanced up at the ceiling and prayed.
Wouldn’t it be better for both of us if she died? Couldn’t you just strike her dead? Please
.

But he knew God wouldn’t kill her. God left things like that to people here on earth. He understood that God expected him to help his mother. And he would—someday, when he was older, when he had the power to ease all her suffering.

You will be the one to give her peace
, he heard a voice inside his head saying.
It will be your duty someday to send your mother to heaven
.

Quinn tossed and tumbled. When he groaned, he rolled over and flung the sheet off, his big arm waving in the air before it came down across Annabelle. His restlessness the past few minutes had roused her, but not until he draped his heavy arm over her and moaned in her ear did she awake completely.

“Don’t. Please, don’t.” He talked in his sleep.

Annabelle touched his forehead. He was warm and sweaty.

“Quinn?”

“Kill you…I’ll kill you. Please, don’t,” he mumbled.

Every nerve in Annabelle’s body went numb, her muscles stiffened. It was apparent that he was dreaming and had no idea what he was saying. But listening to his words unnerved her. Hearing him pleading with someone, telling someone— what? that he’d kill them? frightened her.

He’s having a nightmare, she told herself. Who wouldn’t have terrible dreams about death, about murder, if they’d been through what he had? Four of his former lovers had been killed and even though he wasn’t the murderer, he still
felt guilty. If someone had killed those women—including Lulu—because they’d been Quinn’s lovers, it was only natural that he’d feel partly responsible.

“No!” Quinn cried out, then shot straight up in bed, his eyes wild, his breathing erratic.

Annabelle put her arms around him. “It’s all right, darling. You were just having a terrible nightmare.”

Blowing several times, then drawing in some deep breaths and releasing them, Quinn quieted. She felt the tension in his big body subside, but his muscles remained somewhat taut.

“I’m sorry.” He turned to look at her. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right.” She reached up and shoved his unruly, damp curls off his forehead. “Want to tell me about it?”

“About my nightmare?”

She nodded.

“It’s an old nightmare, one I haven’t had in years, but I suppose after all that’s happened recently…”

He grabbed her hand, flipped it palm up and kissed the center, then lifted his gaze to hers. “I wanted to wake early and make love again.” He nodded toward the nightstand. “We’ve still got one condom left.”

“You changed the subject. I thought you were going to tell me about your nightmare.”

“You don’t want to hear about that.”

“Yes, I do.”

He looked at her, an inquiring squint to his gaze. “I said something, didn’t I? I talked in my sleep. What did I say?”

“You said, ‘please don’t.’ And then you said, ‘I’ll kill you.’ You said it twice.”

Quinn eased out of her arms and stood, fully naked there in the semidarkness of her bedroom, only the faint glow from the nightlight in the bathroom saving them from total darkness.

“If we’re going to talk about old demons that still haunt me after all these years, I’m going to need a drink first.”
Quinn got out of bed, rummaged through their pile of clothes on the chair and found his pants. After putting on his rumpled slacks, he headed toward the door.

“I can make coffee if you’d like,” Annabelle called to him.

He paused before opening the door and glanced over his shoulder at the digital clock on the nightstand. “It is nearly five o’clock, isn’t it? Why don’t we fix the coffee together and then later order breakfast. And if you’re very good to me,
querida
, I’ll make love to you between the coffee and our bacon and eggs.”

“I like the sound of all of that,” she told him as she got out of bed. “The coffee, the bacon and eggs. But mostly the making love.”

She fumbled through their clothing until she found Quinn’s shirt, then she slipped it on and buttoned it up to the vee between her breasts. Barefooted and eager, she followed him out into the lounge. He flipped on one lamp, which partially illuminated the room, but left most of it in shadows. On his way to the coffeemaker, he paused and pulled the curtains open, revealing a dark, starless sky. A heavy patter of raindrops hit the window. Off in the distance lightning flickered, then by the time Quinn removed the pot from the coffee-maker, a low, faraway rumble of thunder echoed.

Annabelle opened the coffee packet as Quinn poured the water into the reservoir. While the coffee brewed, he drew her over to the windows, draped his arms around her and held her back to his chest as they stared outside at the city lights below and the rain peppering down steadily.

“The dream was about my mother,” Quinn told her, his voice just above a whisper. “I told you that I nearly beat a guy to death because of her.”

“Is that what the dream was about—you defending your mother?”

“Yeah. I relive that night from time to time. I can see him hitting her, hurting her. And I tell him to stop, but he doesn’t
listen. Then I beg him to stop. But he just keeps hitting her. And then I tell him that if he doesn’t leave her alone, I’ll kill him.”

Annabelle tensed despite her best efforts to control her immediate reaction to what he’d said.

“I know. I know. You’d rather think I’m not capable of killing someone.” He turned her in his arms, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “But I am. Not in cold blood, but to protect someone I care for. I wanted to stop that man from hurting my mother and I would have killed him if that’s what it took to make sure he never hit her again.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to go through something like that.” She hugged him, wanting to comfort him, longing to erase the unhappy memories that plagued him. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him as a boy seeing his mother brutalized.

“It’s in the past.” He stroked her back as he held her. “And it stays there, at least most of the time. He wasn’t the first man who’d knocked my old lady around but until then, I hadn’t been physically big enough to stop them. I’m telling you, Sheila could pick some real winners, including my father.”

“Your parents must have possessed some good qualities,” Annabelle said, lifting her face to his. “Otherwise they couldn’t have produced such a remarkable son.”

Quinn’s lips twitched. “You think I’m remarkable?”

“Remarkable. Extraordinary. Incredible.” Annabelle smiled.

Quinn kissed her. Featherlight. Tender.

“Those are words I would use to describe you, not me.”

“Then you must feel about me the way I feel about you,” she told him, seeking the answer in his eyes.

“If you love being with me, love making love to me, want me more than anything on earth and never want me out of your sight, then yes, I’d say I feel the same way you feel.”

Her heart laughed with joy. Whether Quinn realized it or not, he had just told her that he loved her. “Don’t leave later
this morning,” she said. “Stay with me. Stay all day and again tonight.”