Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (13 page)

Still,
someone
was crying. Not the tears of an
eight-year-old awakened by a nightmare, but the hitching, almost silent sobbing
of the brokenhearted or the distressed.

Between the slats of the blinds, he saw the woman in the
backyard, the night breeze carrying the sound of her sorrow in through the open
window. She stood with her back toward the house, her arms wrapped close around
her body, her head bowed.

He frowned, pushing the plastic slats almost to the breaking
point. Although he’d only moved into the rental house last week and hadn’t met
any of the neighbors yet, he’d seen some of them come and go, and none looked
like this.

The woman wore a dress in a deep, yet vibrant, shade of blue, the
color of an ocean in a far off country. The gauzy fabric hung in loose folds
and pooled around her feet; her long dark hair was caught up in some sort of
clip that caught the moonlight every time her shoulders hitched. She turned her
face up toward the window, and he saw the curve of her cheek, wet with tears,
and the dark of her eyes. Her nose was strong and angular, her cheekbones
sharply defined, the bone structure reminiscent of old statues, her skin marble
pale. She was striking,
present
, in a way that made it hard for him to
breathe.

It didn’t answer the question, though. Why was she standing in
his
backyard? He took the stairs two at a time, but when he opened the kitchen
door, the back gate was hanging open and the woman was gone. He scanned the
shadows in the alleyway beyond, but there was no sign of her at all.

§

“You know what the agreement says, Alec.” Shari twisted his
name into something like a curse.

Alec swallowed hard before answering. “Would you listen to me? I
don’t care what your lawyer says. I don’t want to only see Megan on Wednesdays
and every other weekend. Christ, we live fifteen minutes from each other. She’s
my daughter, and I should be able to see her anytime I want. All I’m asking is
for a little leeway from you.”

“I said no. There’s nothing more to discuss.”

The phone went silent in Alec’s hand. He threw it down on the
sofa with a groan muffled behind a clenched jaw. Shari swore she didn’t want a
war, but he couldn’t figure out how she thought this would turn into anything
else. A rigid schedule of when he could see his own daughter? Fuck that. Fuck
that hard. He was paying Shari more money than his lawyer said he had to; she
could at least bend on her side a little. He wasn’t asking for the moon, just
more time with his daughter.

In the kitchen, he shoved the curtain aside and stared out into
the backyard, scanning the dark-shrouded corners.

§

A week later, he woke to the crying again. The woman in blue
was in the same spot, her shoulders hunched, dressed in the same dress. The
waning moon offered little light, yet he could see her clearly as if she’d
trapped enough to wrap her in a halo. She didn’t turn around this time, simply
remained in place, shedding her tears. The skin of her upper arm appeared
discolored. Bruises?

The clouds slipped over the moon, turning everything into a pool
of shadows; when they moved away again, the yard was empty, the gate hanging
open once again.

If not for the gate, he might entertain the thought of a ghost.
The house
was
old, and while Alec wasn’t sure he believed in ghosts, he
wasn’t sure he
didn’t
believe in them either.

§

“Make a wish, Daddy.”

Megan held the dandelion in one hand, gripping it tight. Around
them, his neighborhood was filled with the sounds of barking dogs and laughing
kids and the rhythmic drone of many lawn mowers. The back gate to his yard was
latched shut, as it had been when he and Megan first stepped out into the yard.

“Maybe in a minute. Let me finish my coffee first, okay?”

She cupped her hand around the dandelion. “Dandelions are my
favorite flower, but Mommy said they’re a weed. That’s not true, is it?”

He chuckled. “I’m afraid it is.”

She squeezed her eyes half shut and pursed her lips. “Uh-
uh
.
They’re a flower and they’re magic and if you make a wish, it has to come
true.”

“You are silly.”

She remained quiet for several minutes, staring down at her hand,
and then looked up, her eyes shadowed. “Daddy? Are me and Mommy going to come
and live here with you?”

“No, punkin’, remember? Daddy is going to live here, you and
Mommy are going to live in the other house, and you’re going to come here to
visit.”

“But why?”

A knot tightened in his chest, a knot of barbed wire. Harsh words
pushed against his lips, but it wasn’t Megan’s fault, none of it was her fault,
and he couldn’t take it out on her. He put a smile on his face that felt like
broken glass but hoped it kept his words calm. “Because Mommy and Daddy can’t
live together anymore.”

“But if you move all your clothes back, you can.”

The smile tried to shatter, but he held it in place. She bent
down in the grass, plucked another dandelion free, and spun in a slow circle,
the seeds spreading out like white rain.

§

Alec tiptoed down the stairs and stood in the entrance to
the kitchen. Through the window, he could see the woman. Same dress, same
posture, same tears, and again, she was illuminated in a pale glow, brighter
than the moon could explain.

The front door made a slight creak when he pushed it open; he
padded around the side of the house as carefully, as quietly, as he could,
expecting her to be gone.

She wasn’t.

The marks on her arm appeared
darker—swirls of green and purple in irregular patterns. Most definitely
bruises. Was she seeking temporary shelter after a storm of violence? Did this
yard and this house hold something in her memory, something she couldn’t get
back?

He took a hesitant half-step forward, and a twig snapped beneath
his heel, the tiny sound a shriek in the night silence. She didn’t move, but
Alec sensed a stiffening of her shoulders and spine, and he retreated until he
was mostly hidden by the edge of the house.

She continued to cry but, after a time, cupped her hands over her
face then extended her arms and tipped her hands. He saw teardrops slip from
her palms to the ground, a rain of glistening pearls, each one distinct and
separate. Impossible.

He hissed in a breath, and this time, she turned; once again, his
breath gathered in his chest as if his lungs had gone on holiday. He didn’t
think she could see him, but he pressed closer to the house. She blinked once,
slowly, and then walked to the gate with a smooth, gliding step, her dress
spread out behind her, and slipped through and out.

When the ability to breathe returned, Alec knelt on one knee
where she’d been. Beneath his fingers, the ground felt damp in one spot, the
spot where she’d spilled her tears.

It wasn’t until he returned
to his bedroom that he realized her dress had made no sound moving across the
grass. No sound at all.

§

Alec’s fingers gripped the phone tight hard enough to hurt.
“What do you mean I can’t see her tonight? We talked about it last weekend.”

“I already told you, you can’t just see her whenever you want,
and I told you I’d think about it, that’s all. Well, I thought about it, and it
isn’t a good idea tonight.”

“She’s
my
daughter, too.”

“I never said she wasn’t, but she has school in the morning.”

He closed his eyes. Swallowed.
Pressed one hand against the heart thumping madness beneath his skin, imagining
a stone instead of muscle and blood. It was better, safer, that way. His
attorney told him to check his anger and keep the peace, no matter what. Be the
bigger person. “Both of you being angry won’t help the situation,” he’d said.

“Then let her spend the night, and I’ll take her to school.”

Shari gave a long drawn-out sigh. “I don’t want to fight about
this with you.”

“I didn’t think we were fighting,” he said through clenched
teeth. “Please, let me see her for a little while.”

Silence. Then the dead air of a disconnected call. Alec bit back
a curse and paced back and forth in the living room. Seven steps from one wall
to the other. Seven back again. Seven, a number of luck. (Like eleven, and
eleven years of marriage had turned out so well, didn’t they?) He stopped on
the sixth step, pivoting on the ball of his foot, lurching back across the room
like a drunk in search of a bottle or a zombie catching the scent of flesh.
Fuck seven, eleven, and anything else remotely stinking of luck. That was for
other people, not him.

Why was Shari doing this to him? To Megan? They both had a right
to spend time with their daughter; they were divorcing each
other
, not
their daughter.

He picked up his glass of water, the shake in his hand sending
water sloshing over the top. With a grimace, he threw the glass against the
brick fireplace, the shatter a bright scream in the quiet. Slivers of glass and
chunks of ice tumbled to the floor; streaks of water dripped down the brick.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Stop it. Stop this. Get control of yourself.

He clenched his fists hard enough to hurt,

Don’t let it hurt. It will pass. It
has
to pass.

picturing the stone again,
hard and unbreakable. Shari was calling all the shots, and wasn’t that always
the way? Damn the law and the lawyers to hell. Mothers did whatever they wanted,
adding new rules as they went along, and fathers were supposed to keep their
heads down and their mouths shut and play along.

Six steps (Because six meant nothing, lucky or unlucky. Six was a
fucking neutral.) one way, then the other, heel-toe, heel-toe, legs stiff and
awkward, arms down at his sides with his fists like a boxer’s, breathing in and
out, the sound too loud, too
animal
. He stopped in the middle of the
room and closed his eyes, willing himself still while a muscle in his jaw
twitched and twitched and twitched.

Eventually that stilled, too.

§

The crying. Soft, desperate. Like a lullaby of sorrow. Alec
used the kitchen door, opening it slowly. The woman in blue turned, then spun
around toward the gate, but not fast enough to prevent him from seeing the side
of her face, swollen and awash in purple and yellow.

She left behind the open gate and another damp patch on the lawn.

§

“Daddy?”

“Yes, punkin’?”

“How come you don’t want to see me more?”

Alec took Megan’s hand in his. “Never think that. Never, okay? I
wish I could see you all the time.”

“So how come you don’t?”

“Because when Mommies and Daddies don’t live together anymore,
they have to follow certain rules.”

“Like in school?”

“Yes, sort of like that.”

“But why are the rules like that? Why can’t they change them?”

He gathered her into a hug and stared over her head toward the
fireplace. A piece of broken glass glittered in the edge between the slate
hearth and brick, and he glanced away fast. A momentary lapse in judgment, in
control, that was all it had been.

“It’s not fair,” Megan said.

“No, it isn’t fair at all, but it’s the way things are right now,
okay?”

She nodded against his chest. He closed his eyes and pictured the
stone, a perfect, untouchable, unbreakable sphere.

§

The crying crept in through the open window along with a
slight breeze. Alec put his forearm over his eyes. For hours, he’d been tossing
and turning with sleep an elusive ribbon he could chase but never catch, and
now
she’d
returned to serenade him with woe. As if he didn’t have enough
of his own. He flopped over on his stomach, buried his face in the pillow.

If she was looking for a prince on a rescue mission, she’d picked
the wrong yard and the wrong man.

§

“I wish you could go to the beach, too, Daddy.”

“It’s okay, maybe we can go back, just you and me, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy. Um, Mommy says I have to go finish packing. I love
you.”

“I love you too, punkin’. So very much.”

Alec let the phone drop from his hand. A day’s notice from Shari
that she was taking Megan to the beach for two weeks. One day. He exhaled
sharply through his nose. Better than a phone call when they were on the road,
at least. He sank down on the sofa, steepled his fingers beneath his chin, and
stared at the wall while images flickered on the muted television in the
corner.

§

Sleeping pills made his brain thick and sluggish in the
morning, but even with the window open, he slept

like a stone

better than he had in weeks. Months. The pills brought vivid
dreams, though, dreams of Shari dragging Megan away, of crying women, of
bruises, images that lingered even after coffee, and every morning when he went
out into the backyard, the gate was open. After a time, he didn’t even bother
to close it. What was the point?

§

After one last hug, Alec watched Megan run into the house,
her hair bouncing bright against her shoulders. Shari followed behind without a
second look in his direction; Alec didn’t wait
for the door to shut before he drove away.

§

The lamp on the end table cast a small sphere of light in
the living room; the rest of the house was dark. Alec took a sip of vodka,
grimaced even though the alcohol went down smooth and clean, and pushed the
glass aside. He stared into the shadows, not drinking, not thinking, and when
the crying began (how could he even hear it, all the windows were shut?), he
fumbled for his phone. He bit back a laugh. Who exactly was he going to call?
The police?