The Devil's Wire (14 page)

34

Jennifer sits on the bench in Redmont Park, a green space close to the clinic. It's too cold to be outside but she needs the oxygen because she can barely lift her head. She had to flee that stuffy clinic because everything seemed worse there, with those stainless steel instruments and unflinching eyes looking back at her, right into her soul.

She picks up the limp roast beef sandwich trapped in its triangle plastic capsule, and the meat flaps there like a tongue. She can't bring herself to eat it. Her mouth tastes like a sewer and her throat burns so she tosses the sandwich into the grass where it becomes fodder for the gulls.

She casts aside her coat and the chill finds her tacky skin. Better. She squints at the dwindling triangle of sun and listens to the dull scratch of leaves across the stones.

Up until the point she had buried Hank in the woods, Jennifer's worst crime had been to steal a collection box for the Blind Foundation with Alice Jackson when they were both thirteen. Jennifer's role was to distract the grocery clerk while Alice swiped the box from the countertop and hid it under her trench coat and walked out the door. Afterward they went to Hanson Park and smashed it apart with a brick and filled their pockets with nickels and quarters and pennies and boldly went back the store where they stole it from and spent the entire $23.25 on chocolate milkshakes, Hershey kisses, peanut M&Ms and their very first pack of Marlboro lights.

Jennifer hears voices and looks up. A couple in matching woolen scarves amble along the pathway, a toddler skipping between them. The girl waves at Jennifer but Jennifer doesn't wave back. Instead, she hauls herself up and leaves.

*

Rather than return to work like she's supposed to, Jennifer goes to the cinemaplex, and asks for a ticket. The guy with the Walter White goatee points at the display board above his head.

"To what?" he says.

She looks up. The electronic letters blur into a meaningless smear. She blinks at him. Her eyelids feel like sandpaper.

"I don't care," she says.

The guy shrugs, gives her a ticket and tells her cinema five. She follows the carpet-cocooned hallway until she finds the cinema and takes a seat but soon a woman with a crew cut enters and uses the light from her cell phone to scan the seat numbers then stops abruptly when she reaches Jennifer and demands she move because Jennifer is sitting in her spot, even though there are only two other people in the entire place. Too bone-tired to argue, Jennifer lugs herself out of the seat and into another row.

Her head feels like a balloon and she blots her brow with her forearm. It's too hot in here. Someone should turn the thermostat down. But there's no attendant to ask.

A man three rows ahead glances over his shoulder and gives Jennifer a look. At first, she thinks she must have said the thing about the heat out loud but then realizes the man is giving her a "I want to hook up" look, and she wonders if the guy at the counter was pranking her and sold her a ticket to a porn or something and do they even have those sorts of theatres anymore since the internet but then the lights go down and the titles roll and she sees the movie is a rom com. But the guy looks over his shoulder again and she stares back and thinks about fucking him in this spongy, velveteen upholstered chair, her legs in a V, heels in the cup holder circles, underwear round her ankle, him pounding into her, grunting and breathless, making her think of something else, taking her away from that cadaver stench and single milky eye.

When she wakes up her hair is a curtain over her face. She's drooling like an addict, bent forward in her seat. It hurts too much to swallow and she wipes the saliva on the back of her sleeve. Close by, a cleaner with a vacuum strapped to her back is sucking up popcorn that looks too much like brain matter from the purple carpet.

Jennifer tries to stand but her head spins and she collapses back down. She's burning up. You could fry an egg on her forehead and she laughs a half laugh –
Huh
– because that's something her mother would say – so hot out here you could fry an egg on your forehead. The cleaner stares at her, rolling the pearl of her gum around her tongue as if she's tying a knot in a cherry.

"You tripping or something?" says the cleaner.

That bad? I really look that bad? But Jennifer doesn't say it because there's a giant slug in her mouth. Her phone buzzes against her thigh, and she digs inside her pocket. She tries to say hello but it comes out only as a soft
haaaa
like her voice has run out of gas.

"Jenny is that you?"

"Uhuh," which is more like an air leak from a tire.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Uhuh."

Jennifer gives up and hands the cleaner the phone.

*

She is half aware of Lenise, arm hooking through hers, the overbearing citrusy smell of her perfume, walking Jennifer to the car, strapping her into the seat, pushing the nib of the water bottle into Jennifer's mouth which Jennifer bats away because it hurts too much to drink, and now there's a splash on Lenise's linen skirt, and they are driving on the road, then getting out and going through automatic doors to some sort of clinic that is not her own, she can smell the antiseptic and there are children donging Fisher Price toys and skating matchbox cars down a tiny plastic slide and women studying
People
magazines and an elderly man in a wheel chair with a colostomy bag peeking out from beneath a crocheted blanket. Two seats over, there's a boy on his mother's lap, leaning against her breast, staring at Jennifer with his cold little eyes.

Then she is sitting alone, like an outcast. Even Lenise is far away talking to someone at the counter, and no wants to come near because of the darkness, it encircles her like some sort of modern day plague.

She wishes this pain would go away. Maybe this was her punishment – disintegrating vocal cords, fire breath, she may never speak again.

She hears her name and looks up to find herself in a different office, the doctor coming at her with a tongue depressor.
Say Arghhh
. He tuts then declares
Strep throat. Maybe some infected tonsils thrown in for good measure. High dose antibiotics. Needs complete rest
. And Lenise nodding,
of course, doctor
.

Then she's home, being chauffeured past a frowning McKenzie, placed into her glorious bed, someone tugging at her shoes.

"I tried to drown my baby."

Then she falls asleep.

35

There's a helicopter in her room, the fan of its blade slicing and whirring above her head in great, heaving whooshes and she sees the President, half bent, holding on to his hat as he exits the Marine One aircraft. Or maybe it's just an opened window and squally wind and blinds batting against the wood, Jennifer can't be sure. Just like she can't be sure there isn't a silhouette framed in the doorway, watching her, like a warden or keeper.

Jennifer tries to ask the keeper's name and where the keeper is from and why the keeper is there but she gets no further than lifting her head from the pillow before she's pulled back under the rolling surf then tossed back out again.

She dreams her fingernails have fallen off and she is lost in the Australian outback and someone has sewn her mouth shut with black cotton. How thirsty she is. She calls for water but no one is there. She will die in this red sand desert.

Then she is in the ground in a grave with roots and stones and bark and pupa and earth-loving arthropods. She is nothing but a rack of ribs, a shoulder blade, an eye socket, home to albino insects that never see the light of day.

*

It begins to change, the heat in her bones. She can feel it slip away, sneaking out the side door like a lover. She almost wants it back. And when Jennifer finally opens her eyes by her bedside is a man – benevolent and competent – ministering to her. But when she looks again, it's Lenise, standing over her, sipping a coffee.

"You look like shit."

Jennifer blinks slowly and licks her lips. She tries to move but can't, she's tucked in tight like a newborn.

"I got the job," says Lenise. "Thanks for asking." Her eyes sparkle at her own joke. "I think it was your lucky blouse. I already told you but you probably forgot."

Jennifer sits up, breaking free from the taut covers.

"Where's McKenzie?" Jennifer's voice does not sound like her own.

Lenise picks up a glass on the nightstand and holds it out. "You should have something to drink."

"Where is she?"

"You worry too much. She's in school. I've been taking good care of her."

"How long have I been out?"

Lenise shrugs, "3-4 days."

Jennifer looks down. She's wearing a nightgown she doesn't recognize.

"I couldn't keep up," says Lenise. "You were sweating so much that you ran out of your own, so I lent you one of mine. It's at the dry-cleaners. I'll drop it off when it's done."

"My nightgown's at the dry cleaners?"

"Your blouse."

"Keep it," says Jennifer.

She puts her feet on the ground and gets ready to lift herself off the bed.

"Oh, no, you need to rest," says Lenise.

"I'm fine Lenise, you can go home now."

Jennifer feels lightheaded but there's no pain and she's hungry.

"You've been sicker than you realize," says Lenise. "I think you should get back into bed."

Jennifer pulls on her robe and goes to the bathroom. Lenise follows her.

"Really, Jenny, this will only set you back."

Jennifer turns around.

"I don't need a bathroom chaperone," she says, firmly closing the door.

*

Jennifer stays in the shower until the water runs cold. When she gets out, she feels better, weak but better. She goes to the kitchen and Lenise is there, putting dishes away in all the wrong places.

"You've lost weight. I'll make you something to eat. Scrambled eggs and sausage?"

"I'm fine."

Lenise fills the kettle with water and spoons coffee into the pot.

"McKenzie has been doing just fine." She looks at the clock. "In fact, she should be home soon."

"I know what time school finishes, Lenise," says Jennifer, putting the empty glass in the dishwasher.

"Why don't you relax in the lounge and I'll bring in the coffee."

Jennifer doesn't have the energy to fight and heads to the living room, stopping short when she reaches the doorway.

"You can't be serious."

"Do you like it?" says Lenise, coming up behind her.

"You rearranged my furniture?"

The sofa now looked out at the pond, the TV was in a different corner and the two bookcases had been switched to the other side of the room.

"A change is always good. Besides, you'll have more space this way."

On the sofa there's a pile of folded blankets, a Harlequin Romance on top of the lamp table beside it, a small overnight bag parked underneath.

"You've been sleeping here?"

"Who else was there to help you?"

Jennifer turns to Lenise. "You must be eager to get back to your own place."

"What are you saying?"

"I can take things from here."

"I see," Lenise looks at Jennifer. "If that's what you really want."

Without another word Lenise packs up her things, snaps the clasps on the bag shut and turns to Jennifer.

"I said I'm much better, Lenise."

"I know. I heard."

"Then what is it?"

"I promised McKenzie I would make everyone a nice dinner, when you got better, over at my house but I suppose that's too much to ask."

Jennifer remains silent.

"I knew you wouldn't be interested," says Lenise. "Well, maybe I've got better things to do."

Jennifer pauses.

"Okay," she says finally.

"Don't look so enthusiastic," says Lenise.

"I said I would come."

"Saturday at 6 o'clock. Don't be late."

*

Jennifer was considering whether she should put the furniture back to the way it was when she hears McKenzie arrive home and head straight upstairs to her bedroom. Jennifer follows and knocks on her door. When there's no answer, she opens it. McKenzie looks up and removes her headphones.

"You're awake," says McKenzie. "I was worried about you, Mom. You were really sick."

That's when Jennifer sees.

"Oh God, what have you done to your hair?"

It's gone. Hacked off. Like someone had been at it with a knife.

"I was sick of having it long," says McKenzie.

It's ugly and
Les Miserables
short and Jennifer can't help herself.

"But your beautiful hair."

McKenzie kicks off her shoes, lies down on her bed and faces the wall. "It's
my
hair."

"If you wanted a change I would have booked you in at the mall."

"Please go away."

Jennifer sees the mirror, the towel covering it. "Talk to me, hon. What's going on?"

"I want to be alone."

"You can't not talk to me forever."

McKenzie pulls a blanket over her head. "You're such a drama queen," she whispers.

Later, when Jennifer opens the bathroom trash to throw away a toilet roll she sees the plastic grocery bag, the bush of hair stuffed inside it, like the corpse of a Pomeranian dog.