Bottled Abyss (17 page)

The air felt good outside, and cleared her head for a moment. She stared at the coin but couldn’t decide whether to touch it. After all, it wasn’t hers. Something about the intimacy of letting her bare fingertips touch its metal seemed tantamount to sinning.

Lester was whining outside. She needed to feed and water him. It wasn’t fair how much she’d neglected him for so long. Feeling badly, she got up, went outside and filled up his bowls. Lester ate the meal with what seemed like much appreciation. She petted him on his head and stared out to the dry desert stretching into infinity.
Herman wasn’t coming back. Was he?

“Evan and Faye will take good care of you, boy,” she told Lester. “They’ve always loved you. Nothing to worry about.”

The dog turned its eyes up to her. They looked too unbearably sullen to take right now, so she returned into the house. Distracting herself with the bottle was better than entertaining other thoughts. It was a resurgence of Not-Janet, because Janet Erikson would probably instead be gathering up some rope from the garage right about now.

What did this bottle do? Outside of remedy addiction and heal critically wounded houseflies? If she had encountered something truly supernatural why the hell couldn’t she pull herself out of this mortal despair? Yes, Not-Janet reflected, if Lester dug up some magic potion that could mean a whole variety things are true. Heaven. Hell. God. The Devil.

Or maybe this bottle is true and those things are not…

Perhaps every myth is just a perversion of the truth.

Why can’t you just hope Melody still exists somewhere?
Not-Janet asked Janet.

She should have expected this, coming from the version of herself that put hope into other gods. Magic carpets, witches, and dragons may well exist for all Janet knew, but that didn’t mean she’d ever see Melody again.

Oh really?
asked Not-Janet.
What if this bottle brings the dead back to life?

Good point, thought Janet. Morbid, but good, depending if she could get Melody’s remaining ashes from the mausoleum. The rest were one with Greenhill pond.

First things first though. She went to the master closet and got her grandmother’s empty coin purse from the jewelry chest. Back at the table, she tilted the magazine and allowed the coin to slide into the purse.
There
. It wasn’t hers to touch, so she wouldn’t.

 
That done, she took a limp looking white rose from the assorted bouquet Sam had brought. The flower was technically dead, and wasn’t much of a test subject, but what the hell? Fight crazy with crazy, right? She would have been astonished if the flower sprouted up, renewed and burst forth another coin, but it could be no less odd than everything she’d see so far.

Janet put the long stem down into the bottle and watched the flower intently.

For five minutes.

She pulled it out and set the unchanged flower on the coffee table. A new idea struck her and she grabbed the bottle and headed for the front yard. The sidewalk always had at least one or two snail fatalities, and this day was no different. Right near the first step to the porch a rather large snail had been smashed into a gushy, fibrous pile. It looked several days dead, if not an entire week.

Janet administered some of the bottle’s water on the corpse.

The fluid ebbed out around the snail, like searching fingers, then thinned to a transparent color that spread over the sidewalk until it vanished. She examined the dead snail for several minutes, wondering if the dead took longer to revive. Nothing was happening though. With a knowing sigh, she corked the bottle.

She retreated back indoors.

Not even magic changes death. See what I mean about the universe?
she told Not-Janet.

But her other half didn’t answer, and Janet knew then she’d never hear from the likes of her again. Not-Janet was dead. And the dead stayed dead.

9

Unconsciously, she’d been preparing for this day. Janet imagined she’d lose her mind on her little girl’s birthday, but that day had come and gone. It wasn’t as painful when you were passed out drunk with no husband around to toll that ghastly bell. Janet had created a life and it was taken away. She accepted this with surprising ease; the birthday really didn’t mean anything anymore. You don’t recall the first moment of marveling at your sandcastle, you remember when the sea brings its turrets crashing down and all that was once beautiful is erased.

That’s the moment Janet clung to.

Not the birthday.

The deathday.

And the staleness of the house, the frozen stasis of the universe, reminded her like no calendar ever could.

Janet had gone to bed in her clothes but Faye had covertly changed her black sweat pants to a maroon pair. The busy bee had buzzed about the kitchen all morning, probably making something Janet would not want to eat.

Food wasn’t an option. Janet’s mind fixated on this day, a year ago now.

Herman had been upset with Melody’s constant fussing over getting up from bed and Janet herself was late for work. Nobody was happy that morning. Everything was tense and chaotic. The last time Janet saw Melody, she went to kiss her but the toddler resisted and turned her face away.

“Oh well fine,” she’d told the little girl with fake contempt. She’d really not had time to make a big show of it. She didn’t even give Herman her usual peck on the cheek—it was just out the door, quick, quick, quick, hurry off into the first day of oblivion.

A year later, she no longer had a daughter, had committed adultery with one of her good friends, almost died from alcohol poisoning, lost her husband somewhere, and discovered a magic bottle that, while extraordinary with healing physical trauma, did nothing to resolve the psychological.

And now another deep mental wound with an infection setting in…

The length of time without a word or sign of Herman had become out and out unreal. She’d woken in the middle of the night and had a long, tormented weeping episode about it. Something bad had happened. Even if Officer Davis’s laughable vigilante theory was true, why had Herman not called at least Evan yet?

The only thing keeping Janet breathing was the need to have one conversation she’d be putting off for a long time now. It had gone through her mind just as she was blacking out in the bathroom the night of the alcohol poisoning. It was a regret that stung even during her body’s extreme battle. Up until now, she’d never had the courage to ask for answers. Today, Melody’s deathday, made absolute sense to go get them.

Janet got dressed into some black jeans, UCLA sweatshirt and tennis shoes. There was no time for a shower, but she did run a comb quickly through her greasy black locks. She took her spare car keys from the dresser, pushed the coin purse into her pocket and collected her wallet. She also grabbed the bottle, for fear of Faye discovering it.

Faye’s clanging of pots and pans seemed to provide enough cover for escape, but the water running in the sink suddenly stopped as she sneaked to the front door.

Janet froze.

Silverware clashed together and the water started again.

The door whined open. Janet slipped outside and gently closed it. She hurried to the truck and hoped Faye didn’t come running out.

Janet checked the bottle was securely corked before stashing it in the glove compartment. Moving her wallet to the driver’s seat, she put the truck in neutral and rolled back into the street, where the truck coasted past Sam’s house. She noted he wasn’t out in his backyard doing work, which was atypical of him, but very good for her.

She turned the ignition and put the truck in drive. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. In less than ten minutes, for the first time in a year, she would be visiting Horrace’s childcare.

Janet couldn’t stop staring at the lawn. She considered every corner, every sprinkler pit and sundried yellow patch, and thought about where the impact of the car might have happened, where had Melody’s body come to rest? Over there, by those bushes? On the driveway, blood running down like an old oil stain—
knock that shit off
.

This older neighborhood had quite a narrow sidewalk, which undulated from root intrusion and all the minor earthquakes that had shifted it about over the years. It would be easy for a car to glide over the low curb. It was something she’d considered when choosing this place. If the curb had been as high as some she’d seen, Melody would most likely still be alive. She and Herman just hadn’t looked for the right things, hadn’t asked the right questions. Hell, they didn’t even know the children were allowed to play out front.

And that activity hadn’t changed since the murder. Even today five kids ran across the yard, involved in overlapping games of chase. A clear plastic toy box had been brought out, but other than a Frisbee, the rest of the bright neon items had been neglected. One of the childcare helpers stood on the sidewalk leading from the front door, dressed in floral patterned medical scrubs. Her shoulder was turned to the kids. She held an infant in her arms and rocked it. Judging by her cooing and ahhing over the baby, the helper enjoyed playing a surrogate mother.

A boy with a brown bowl-haircut, ten or eleven, winged the orange Frisbee and it sailed sideways through in the air, building speed as it raced down. The trajectory of the disc landed it upside-down in the middle of the street. The bowl-cut boy and a companion his age plunged into the street with one casual glance over their shoulder.

The helper tapped the baby’s nose and smiled goofily.

Janet slammed her car door. She brought her wallet and the coin purse but decided, unfortunately, the bottle should stay in the glove box. She couldn’t explain it, but she liked having the bottle around. It didn’t put her at ease, but it redirected her thoughts better than booze sure ever had.

The trip up the driveway was tedious and uphill. The sun blared down around a blotchy arrangement of gray clouds. It would be another Southern Californian winter day; you could already smell the sidewalk cooking and it wasn’t even
noon
yet. Janet was tired of it, like so many other things.

For a moment the helper was so oblivious she didn’t notice Janet walking up to the house.

She kissed the baby on top of the head before meeting eyes with Janet. “Hello, can I help you?”

Janet didn’t recognize her as a helper from Melody’s time here. “I’m looking for Mrs. Horrace.”

“Oh, go right in, she’s finishing up Shakespeare Circle.”

With a nod of thanks, Janet reached for the push-handle door knob. She’d forgotten about
Shakespeare Circle
, Pythagoras’s Practice and Play, and Mozart’s Music Mastery. Her daughter had spoken of them fondly. And often. The hallway was decorated in projects from Greek Philosophers up to illustrations of John Donne poems.

She was ready for all this… so sharp.

Janet tapped on her teeth as she came to the end of the hall. She could hear Mrs. Horrace finishing a section of some Elizabethan play.

“End of Act III. Okay, so does everybody know what they’re going to draw?” Mrs. Horrace asked through labored breaths.

A choir of mumbles answered her. “The King,” one boy said.

Janet came around the corner. Mrs. Horrace appeared to be squatting in the middle of a large throw rug decorated in Roman pillars and ivy, but her morbid obesity had obscured the rather tiny elementary school chair she sat on. Like the helper, Horrace was also dressed in scrubs, these patterned in blue stars upon a black field of night. Her eyes widened a little as she recognized Janet.

“Well, my Lord!” She put down one massive knee to push herself up to stand. “Children, go to it.”

The band of kids around her, all of whom stared intently at Janet, scrambled to their feet and walked crookedly to desks lined up against the mauve painted walls. Their eyes never left the interesting new adult.

Mrs. Horrace shuffled over, her paperback
Macbeth
held to her lower ring of belly fat. Beautiful coffee ringlets swayed around her rosy face. The woman had always heaved for air and moved with great pain clenched in her jaw, but the small walk across the rug seemed even more now. The last year had aged Mrs. Horrace.

“Jan-Jan.” She hugged Janet with one tremendous arm.

Janet had forgotten her ridiculous nickname and wasn’t so glad to hear it again. “How are you, Mrs. Horrace?”

“The same, we’re the same.” Mrs. Horrace glanced around. “What brings you by?” She lowered her voice and dipped her head closer to Janet. “This isn’t about you-know-who they’ve got up in that hospital.”

“No,” said Janet, shaking her head. “I didn’t come to talk about that. I came to talk to you. I realized that we never talked after…everything.”

Horrace gave a micro-nod that jiggled her double chin. “Come sit up at the counter. Would you like some lemonade?”

“Sure.”

Janet walked across the carpet, feeling all eyes prod her, and pulled out a bar stool.

“Do your illustrations, kids,” Mrs. Horrace instructed. She opened the refrigerator and took out a half full pitcher of lemonade. “How’s Herman doing?” She stretched breathlessly for a green plastic cup in the overhead cupboard.

“He’s… working a lot.”

Mrs. Horrace frowned and poured lemonade into the cup. Janet took it gratefully from her and had a taste. Plastic lemons and sugar.

They now sat across from each other. Janet was eye to eye with this woman that for so long she’d wanted to give a piece of her mind, but she was tongue-tied. She told her herself not to be a coward, not to bend or be intimidated, but she didn’t have a clue where to begin.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because Mrs. Horrace excused herself to the bathroom.

Janet sat there at the counter, listening to children giggle, looking around at the hideous conflicting décor while nursing her polyvinyl lemonade.

Fifteen minutes later, looking flush, Horrace returned. The scent of baby powder room fresher trailed after her.