Into The Night (6 page)

... It hurt more than I realized it would. I must have gotten in far deeper than I was aware of...

... when he said who it was, I wouldn't open the door, so he slid a paper underneath it. I picked it up and looked at it, and it was a copy of the final divorce decree, his and hers. Uncontested. I thought it over for a while. Then I opened the door. Suddenly we were in each other's arms. I'd never realized it until that minute, but I'd been in love with him for a long time past...

... We were married yesterday...

... The longer I know him, the more I love him. It's like a dream come true. I love him so much that sometimes I'm afraid something will happen, some unkind fate will punish us for daring to be so happy. It seems too good to last...

... A year and a half yesterday. Eighteen months. Our yearly-and-a-half anniversary, is that how you say it? He gave me a gold charm bracelet. Each year you're supposed to add another charm, until it's all complete. The first one says "I love you." How can the ones that are to be added improve on that? I gave him a lighter with his initials on it. We had champagne cocktails in the apartment, just the two of us alone by ourselves. Then we went out and had a Chinese dinner. Then afterward we went to a big musical show. As we were working our way out through the crowded lobby after the curtain came down, he wanted to take me to one of these big nightclub places, for a windup. I said, "Vick, don't use up all our money in one night. I know you love me. You don't have to prove it this expensively." All he said was-- and he gave me that look that just melts my heart like a snowball in an oven--"Won't you let me prove it? Just this one night. Won't you let me prove it? Please, huh?" That little-boy look, that husband look, that lover look. I couldn't hold out, I couldn't. I threw my arms around him right there in all the crowd, and hung from his neck with my feet lifted clear of the ground, and kissed him about eighteen times. "There's only one Vick, there's only one you," I said close to his ear. "And that," he said, "is because there's only one Starr...

Madeline refolded the letter and closed her eyes.

That rings true, she reflected. That can't be faked, that can't be made up. The very ink it was written with still glows this long after. They were desperately in love, madly in love, truly in love.

It was the last of the letters. There were no more after that.

"But the first wife didn't take it lying down. She was a singer. Worked in clubs. A roughneck, know what I mean? She did something to them that completely destroyed the marriage. Completely destroyed it."

"What?"

"I never knew what. Starr wouldn't say what."

"Did Starr ever meet her? Did she know her at all?"

"I asked her that myself. She said, 'I never set eyes on her in my life.' Those were her words. 'I never set eyes on her in my life.' Then she said, 'She called up just once. Just once, one o'clock one morning. Just one little phone call, but it wrecked my life, ruined my happiness, opened wide the gates of hell and pushed me through."

Madeline stared at her, intently, fearfully, wonderingly.

"As -I- stared at -her-," Charlotte said, reading the look.

"Did she say anything else?"

"Only this. 'I'd like to get even with her.' She rounded her small fist, held it clenched like this--and brought it back against her own face, between her eyes. 'I'd like to get even with her,' she said. 'But what could I ever do to her that could equal what she did to me? There can be only one of such a thing in this world, only one, never two.'"

Charlotte came to the door and her face lighted up when she saw Madeline. She was beginning to be fond of her, Madeline guessed. They kissed one another lightly on the cheeks.

"Come in," Charlotte said. "I'll fix you up a little lunch. It's so nice to have someone to eat with, and not be alone."

"No," Madeline protested. "I came to take you out. It's such a lovely day. Have you seen it yet?"

Charlotte nodded. "It really is. I could tell from the windows."

"Let's take a walk in that restful little park you have not far away from here--"

"Lakeside?"

"--and sit in the sun awhile and chat. Then I'll buy you whatever you feel like having, in a restaurant or tearoom. You'll see what an enjoyable way it will be to pass part of the day together."

"You're spoiling me," Charlotte said wistfully.

Madeline shook her head slightly to herself while she stood waiting, partly in and partly out of the doorway. She couldn't help feeling a little disloyal, a little secretive. And yet, she told herself, there was nothing in this to harm Charlotte or be to her detriment. On the contrary, she was only trying to carry out her own daughter's wishes, trying to fulfill them. That should make her approve, that should make her feel content, if she were to know.

Charlotte came back with simply a hat and a handbag added to her basic dress.

"Make sure it's locked tight," Madeline reminded her protectively as she pulled the door shut after her.

They walked down the sun-glowing street together, the girl and the older woman, like mother and daughter. Like Starr herself might have, in a day that was gone now.

Madeline sighed a little. Starr. Always Starr. Why was I born with such an oversensitized conscience, she thought. Those that aren't, how much easier they have it.

They entered the park and, slackening still further their already leisurely pace, strolled down one of the long, winding, paved walks. The greenery was absolutely incredible, its hues heightened almost above nature by the clearness of the air and the brilliance of the sun. The grass was like emeralds, and even had a sparkle to it (from being recently wetted down, she supposed). The leaves on the trees were like little slivers and disks of waferthin dark green jade, and under each tree lay a pool of sapphire shadow. It looked like an artificially colored picture postcard of a park, and not a real one, on such a jeweled day as this.

"Cities, and their parks, still can be beautiful at times, even nowadays," Madeline remarked.

"I used to come here and play when I was a child myself, many times. My mother would bring me."

They came past a small lake with ducks swimming on it. The water flashed and dazzled like highly polished silver. Even the plumage of the ungainly little fowl glinted like burnished bronze and green-gold.

Madeline had seen her opening in the last remark.

"I suppose Starr did too, afterward."

"Yes, I brought her as often as I could. And the cycle repeated itself. Strange thing, life."

But now she's dead, so she herself will never be able to bring a little girl of her own here to play, in her turn.

Charlotte turned toward her quite unexpectedly and said, "I know what you were thinking just then."

Madeline didn't try to deny it. She simply nodded and said, "Yes, I was."

They came to a bench and Madeline said, "How about sitting here? Will this do?"

They both sat down.

Madeline took out cigarettes and offered one to her companion.

"It's been years since I've tried one," Charlotte said. "But I think I will have one for a change, as long as it's all right with you."

"I want to talk to you a little more about Starr," Madeline said. "That is, if it doesn't bother you."

"It doesn't now anymore," Charlotte said. "Not since you've been here. Before that it used to hurt even to think about her. Now it seems to help me, to ease me, if I talk about her."

Madeline wasted no further time on preliminaries. "When she went back to the city, when she left you the last time, do you think she intended to --rejoin her husband, effect a reconciliation to him?" She completed dropping her midget cloisonné-enamel lighter back inside her handbag.

Charlotte looked up at her in considerable surprise.

"Why do you hesitate about answering? You're not sure, is that it?"

"I am sure," Charlotte said, and looked the other way.

"You're sure she was not going back to him?"

"I'm sure she was -not- going back to him. Not in the way that you mean."

"Oh, I see," Madeline said briefly, hoping that enough impetus had been given the conversation by now for the rest of it to come more or less by itself without having to dig at it too much.

It did, but a little reluctantly.

"I asked her that question myself, when she started her packing the night before she was to leave. It was a natural one for a mother to ask a married daughter who's been estranged from her husband, don't you think?"

Madeline nodded, trying not to break in.

"She stopped what she was doing and looked at me. I'll never forget that look as long as I live. It was a terrible look. I'd never seen such a look on her face before. Not on anyone else's either. It was grim, it was deadly with hate. Her eyes were pulled back tight at the corners, and they were as hard as rocks. Her mouth was drawn out too, into a thin, bitter line. And even her nostrils, I could see them pulsing in and out with her breaths. I repeat, it was the most terrible look I've ever seen.

"And then she said--and even her voice wasn't the same--'I'm going to look him up, all right. I'm going to look him up if it's the last thing I do. I'm going to look him up, you can count on it.'

"I didn't understand, just as I see you don't now, what she meant. I knew by the terrible, almost maddened look I've just been telling you about, she didn't mean reconciliation, she didn't mean forgiveness, she didn't mean love. Even the way she'd said it. She didn't say, 'I'm going back -to- him.' She didn't say, 'I'm going back -with- him.' She kept hammering on the words 'look him up,' as though that was where the threat or the implication of whatever she intended doing lay."

Charlotte was holding her cigarette in the way of a woman unaccustomed to smoking, two fingers hooked around the extreme back end of it. She threw it down on the walk and stepped it out.

"Have him arrested, perhaps, have him taken into court? Or even put in jail?"

Charlotte shook her head, very quietly, very slowly. "More than that."

"What more than that can a wife--?"

"She intended to kill him."

Madeline gave an involuntary start. "How can you be sure of that?"

"I have the gun," Charlotte said flatly.

"How did you know she had it?"

"I didn't. It came about quite accidentally. She finished her packing that night, and we didn't talk about it anymore. I didn't want to see that look on her face anymore. I didn't want to bring it back. The next day she went out for a short while to do some lastminute shopping before she took the train. I came across some handkerchiefs of hers that I'd given her a helping hand with by washing and pressing. I'd forgotten to give them back to her the night before in time to go into the valise, and evidently she'd forgotten I still had them.

"I went into her room with them. The valise was locked and ready to go, but she'd left her keys on her dresser top. No reason for her not to. I'd never been the prying sort of mother that noses into a girl's belongings, even when she was younger. I opened it and started to spread the handkerchiefs out evenly all over the top of it. While I was doing this I felt something hard and heavy under one of the layers of clothing. I exposed it, and it was a gun."

A little of the fear and worry came back to her face, Madeline could see, even this long after.

"I was afraid to leave it in there. I kept seeing that look on her face the night before. I didn't want her to do it, to get into trouble. Her whole life would be worthless from then on, ruined. No matter what he'd done to her. I took it out and rearranged the valise, and relocked it. Put the keys back where I'd found them.

"I didn't know what to do with it. I knew if she missed it in time, before she got on the train, she'd look high and low for it. I didn't want her to get it back. Finally I thought of a place that might very well not occur to her. The refrigerator in the kitchen was very old, and there was a space between the back of it and the wall. I slipped it down inside there. The part that you hold, the handle, was a little bit thicker than the rest of it, so it didn't drop all the way down, it got caught and stayed where it was, near the top."

"Did she miss it?"

"No, she never reopened the valise again. The last-minute things she'd bought, she took with her in an extra shopping bag. There wasn't any more room in the valise for them, anyway."

She breathed heavily. "We kissed good-bye, and she took the train. That was the last time in this world I ever saw her. I never even heard from her again by mail. The next thing I knew she was dead. It must have happened right after she got back, within the next day or two."

Then she added, "She wouldn't even let me come to the train with her, I remember that. She said she didn't want me to see her off. That alone showed she fully intended to do --what I've told you. We said good-bye right at the door of the apartment, upstairs. And then I watched the light inside the little pane of glass in the elevator door slowly going down. Like a life going out."

Two very small girls came pedaling by, holding hands, sharing a single pair of roller skates between the two of them. One went down, nearly pulling the other one after her. The fallen one's face began to work, in the preliminary stages of having a good hearty cry, but her skate-mate, like a very small-sized mother, assiduously helped her up again, patted her hair smooth, and tugged at the bottom of her dress to straighten it Out. The cry never developed. They went swinging down the path again, blithe as ever.

"Cute," remarked Charlotte parenthetically, glancing after them.

At least they don't have our problems, Madeline thought.

"What did you do with it afterward?" she asked.

"Nothing. I didn't know what to do, I was afraid to tell anyone I had it. I was afraid to go to the police and report it, because that would link her to it. How could I explain having it in the first place? I couldn't say I'd found it, it could still be traced back to her. I was afraid to cover it up in a paper bag and just drop it into some trash can along the street. Somebody else might have found it and been tempted into doing something bad with it. Later, after her death, a repairman was coming to look at the refrigerator one day, and I was worried he might catch sight of it, so I took it out from behind there and put it into an empty shoe box, and hid that on the floor at the back of the closet. It's been there ever since.