Lacy Eye (29 page)
Authors: Jessica Treadway
When we got to his place, before he went to bed, he told me to take a shower and throw both our clothes away. I was happy to, because I was wearing the sweater my mother had bought for me when we were at the mall that morningâan early Christmas present, she said. I didn't like it, it wasn't my style, but I could tell she wanted to get it for me, so I let her. I threw the sweater in the trash with my jeans and socks and underwear. I figured, after what happened, she'd never know the difference.
I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up and watched those Hitchcock movies. In the morning, it was real early, Rud came out of the bedroom and said he was taking me home. I thought he meant home as in Wildwood Lane, and I said, “What are you
talking
about?” But he said no, he meant my apartment. “You were there all night,” he told me. I said, “What?” He got all impatient like he usually did when I said something stupid, and told me, “That's your alibi. You were at home with dumb-ass Opal all night. You and I talked on the phone around midnight, and I said I was going to sleep. Got it?”
Then he farted. I know it's dumb but I always laughed when he did this, and this time he did, too. We got in the car and he dropped me off without kissing me, which I didn't like. He always kissed me when he dropped me off, if he wasn't coming in. But this time he just drove away. He didn't even look back.
BG:
And what made you decide to come home nowâmove back from New Mexicoâin the wake of Rud Petty's being granted his appeal?
DS:
Rud asked me to. He was worried my mother might remember something about that night, and he wanted me to find out if she was planning to testify.
Reeling, seeing the wall shimmer in front of me, I thought about the Friday afternoon a few weeks earlier, when Kenneth Thornburgh came to tell me what had happened in court. Then I remembered Dawn's two separate calls to me the following day, and her asking me, during the second one, if she could return home to live.
DS:
Once I got here it became pretty clear right away that she didn't remember anything, and I told him that.
BG:
How did you tell him? He was in prison. And records show you never visited him there.
DS:
(shaking head)
That's right, I didn't. But he has a cousin, Stew, who does visit him, and he's been kind of a go-between between me and Rud.
Stew.
The boy who had been eating pizza with Dawn in my kitchen. The boy who'd followed and watched me at the mall even before Dawn moved back home. I put a hand to my stomach again.
DS:
I told Stew my mother didn't remember anything, but he said Rud told him we couldn't take that chance. I said, “Whatever you're talking about, you can forget it.”
BG:
He was referring to removing your mother from the picture, so she couldn't testify, is that right?
DS:
(shaking head emphatically)
No. Not “removing.” More like just scaring her. But there's no way I'd let him do something like that. She's been through enough.
BG:
I see. Now, Dawn, here's a question I think anyone reading this story would want to ask. In light of what you've just told us, why would you want to spend the rest of your life with the man who attacked your parents in the way you've described?
DS:
This is what I want people to understand. It wasn't really Rud who did it. I mean, something took overârage, or somethingâand I know his
body
did those things, but he wasn't in his right head. His real head. It wasn't the Rud I know, or the Rud I love. (
A pause as she seems to reflect.
) And it never would have happened if my parents hadn't treated him the way they did.
BG:
What about the dog? The dog didn't do anything.
DS:
(voice shaking)
I know. I told you, it was an accident. Collateral damage, Rud called it. I still don't know what that means.
(She appears to try to regain her composure.)
But I know he'd give anything if the whole thing hadn't happened. And when we get to start over together, he'll never do anything like this again.
BG:
Okay. Do you mind if I just look at my notes for a minute?
DS:
Take your time. Wow, this scone is good.
BG:
Is it okay if I switch tracks for a sec?
DS:
It's your interview. Shoot.
BG:
Some people might assume that once you met Rud Petty, you became a victim yourself. That he held a power over you it was impossible to resist, leading you to do things you wouldn't normally have done. Most people who know you don't realize that your tendency toward violenceâor destruction, anywayâprecedes your time with him.
DS:
What?
BG:
I had an interesting conversation with your next-door neighbor, Emmett Furth. You might recall that the defense tried to implicate him in the attack against your parents.
DS:
What does Emmett Furth have to do with anything?
BG:
You remember the day your family's tree house burned down, in tenth grade?
DS:
(voice rising)
Of course I remember. Why are we talking about this?
BG:
It's always been assumed that Emmett was responsible for that fire. But he says he actually saw
you
out there, standing on the ladder and lighting sticks before tossing them inside.
Now I thought I might choke on the hot shriek gathering in my throat. But I was afraid Abby would hear me from the yard and be alarmed, so I swallowed hard to keep it down.
DS:
I have no idea what you're talking about. Of course he would say something like that! He doesn't want people to know what he did. Look, aren't we done here? Didn't I do what you wanted? Did you bring my check?
BG:
I went back and looked at the date. The fire happened the morning after we had auditions at school for
A Chorus Line
.
DS:
(nearly shouting)
So?
BG:
You didn't try out for a part, even though your name was on the list. You signed up, then changed your mind.
(Ed. Note: Dawn Schutt remains silent.)
You were upset by that, weren't you? I think you wanted to audition, and you were mad at yourself for pulling out.
DS:
(attempting to regain her composure)
That's completely crazy. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry, Cecilia, but that has nothing to do with anything. I get that you want to “stir up interest,” but you can't just make (
expletive deleted
) like that up out of thin air.
I'd read enoughâin fact, I'd read too much. But every time I tried to force myself to click the
X
at the top of the website, I couldn't make myself do it. As with the transcript of Dawn's interrogation, I couldn't stop reading the next paragraph, and then the next. Finally, I forced myself to close the website's window and then, as if it meant anything, shut the computer down.
The first thing I did was walk to the hall closet and, taking a deep breath before pulling it open, saw that Joe's old “Puff Daddy” jacket was not hanging where it always had, with our winter clothing. I'd never noticed it missing before. I went through the rack three times, hoping I'd just rummaged over it, but there was no mistakingâit was gone.
Numbly, I went to the back door and let Abby in. Usually she was calmer when she entered the house after being outside, but tonight she still seemed agitated. “Sorry, girl,” I told her, assuming she hadn't appreciated my leaving her alone for so long while I was at Warren's house.
Then I said, “Come with me,” and she panted up the stairs behind me. At the closed door to Dawn's room she paused and sniffed, giving a little yip, but I barely noticed because I was so intent on my mission.
It was true that I hadn't remembered anything significant when I'd gone into our old bedroom by myself a few weeks earlier, but somehow I believed that tonight might be different, especially given everything I'd just read. I felt a new resolve, though it contained a measure of dread I didn't recognize fully until later. And I planned to go further in my efforts to reenact that night.
Opening the door, I tried to focus on my breathing, as Barbara had taught us all in Tough Birds. But it didn't work. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath as I switched the light on and walked to the spot I'd stood in the first time, when I remembered the tattooâat the foot of the bed, across from the bathroom.
This time, though, I took a step closer to the bed, feeling my breath catch in my throat. It came out in a sound that resembled a muffled scream.
I heard myself, but it was through a rushing in my ears. I was two places at onceâthe present and the past, this night and the one from three years earlier holding equal weight at either side of my pounding head.
Before I realized that I was doing it, I turned off the light and sat down on the bed, then swung my legs on top of it and settled down against one of the pillows where no head had ever lain. Abby came over and turned her face up, as if to ask,
Are you sure you want to do this?
“It's okay,” I told her, trying to soothe both of us.
I closed my eyes, and after a moment I could almost imagine the sound of Joe's breath next to me. Because of his asthma, he was never silent when he slept, and I had gotten used to the familiar noise over all the years of our marriage. Though part of me knew the sound was only an illusion, I listened to it for a minute or so, tempted to give in to the comfort it made me feel.
Then Abby whined at my side, and I sat back up and patted her on the head. “You were downstairs on your bed that night, next to the TV.” Somehow, narrating my thoughts out loud put them at a distance I could bear. When I said this, I realized that now I actually
did
remember Abby settling into her big cushion in the family room after Joe turned off the movie, and I knew I had the right night in my head because, on our way up the stairs to the bedroom, I assumed Joe was thinking about the awful scene earlier in the day with Dawn and Rud, and I told him, “She'll probably call in the morning and apologize.”
In the room where I sat trying to remember, Abby barked. And then it was all clear before meâso clear that it was as if it had always been there, and immediately I couldn't remember what it was like
not
to have it at the front of my consciousness. The sudden, vivid clarity felt like a kick in the forehead. It was the most disturbing sensation I'd ever known.
“You weren't barking that night,” I whispered, allowing myself to return slowly to a lying position, knowing that if I didn't take care, when I sat up again everything would have changed in a way I wasn't prepared to face. “That means Dawn
was
here with him. Right?” In retrospect, I can almost feel amused to realize I was asking a dog for confirmation, though there was nothing remotely funny about it then.
The next thing I remembered was hearing Joeânot his strained breathing, but his voice. He was saying something, but not to me. He started wheezing, and he knocked his inhaler off the table when he tried to grab for it.
I reached up to turn on the light on my nightstand, but a voice said, “Leave it off,” and I recognized it as Rud Petty's. Across the bed, I saw Joe sitting with his legs over the side, putting his head down to his knees. At the time, I thought he was only trying to catch his breath. After reading Dawn's interview, I understood that he had also been hit in the head already with the mallet.
Then I heard another soundânot a word but a more high-pitched, asthmatic gasp, the sound so familiar and chilling that I heard my own voice scale an octave when I asked, “Dawn?” Dimly, through the darkness, I thought I could make out the Fair Isle pattern on the blue sweater I'd bought her that morning. “It looks so pretty on you,” I'd told her, when she tried it on for me. “It brings out the color in your eyes.”
In the store, she told me she liked the sweater. I wouldn't have bought it for her otherwise.
In the bedroom, she raised her hand to touch the pattern on her chest, and I saw 768*âour alarm codeâscribbled in black ink on the back of her wrist.
I must be dreaming
, I thought.
But she murmured, “Shit,” and came toward me; I could see her face, now that my sight had readjusted in the dark. “Be quiet, Mommy,” she said. I heard right away that her words were more of a command than an attempt to calm me.
“Are you okay, honey?” I reached my hand up toward her and opened my palm, as if she might lay the answer inside it. In the distance I heard Abbyânot barking, but squealing in pain, and I thought I saw Dawn flinch at the sound.
Joe was standing now, though hunched over, still having trouble with his breath. He bent to pick up his inhaler from the floor, but Dawn beat him to it. Looking relieved, he reached out for her to give it to him, but instead she lifted a foot and squashed the inhaler with a force that made the floor shake.
I thought I heard Rud Petty laughing. Is it possible he would have laughed at a time like that? Then his tone turned quickly to alarm, as he must have noticed me trying to lift myself. “Shit, she up?” He made a movement in my direction, but then Joe made a sound like a sharply wounded animal.
“Get out of here,” he gasped, and I watched Rud raise what I thought was a baseball bat above my husband's head. In the next instant, I saw him swing the thing through the air and heard Joe yelp as it hit him, sending him to the floor.
I shrieked as Joe fell beyond my sight, then grabbed for the phone on the night table. I managed to dial 9 and 1, but then Dawn darted over and pulled the cord out of the wall. “Dawn?” I said again, still thinking she might help me as I tried to get out of the bed, but then Rud pinned me back onto the mattress, and after a few moments I gave up struggling and collapsed. Looking up, I felt rather than saw something coming at me, being swung hard and fast. Then nothing until I heard Kenneth Thornburgh's voice as if he were speaking through cotton. He asked if I could hear himâif I knew who had done this to me.