The Thirteen (15 page)

She remembered thinking how odd it was that the Chapman murders had happened in Haven Woods, her grandmother’s old stomping grounds. There had been a photo in the newspaper of the place. A two-storey house, white with dark trim. Ordinary, except for the crime that had taken place inside.

The other thing her grandmother used to say to her, along with “Are you a stupid woman?” and “A smart woman gets what she deserves,” was “Are you tired of your poor, poor life? You poor, poor woman.”

are you a smart or stupid woman?

At first Izzy would simply placate her—“I’m smart, Grandma. I’m smart.” But after awhile she began to really listen.

are you tired of your poor, poor life?

She was.

And then one night she got to her parents’ place late. There was no one there but the old woman. The kids had gone out for McDonald’s with her mom and dad. The old woman had been waiting for her.

are you tired of your life yet?

Izzy pulled off the highway into a restaurant parking lot, making sure to park towards the back of the lot with the trunk facing the open field. She bought a double cheeseburger and a water and took it back to the car. She popped the trunk; it opened on silent hydraulic hinges.

The dog, panting, looked up at her, blinking painfully in the light. He was scrawny and dirty, but he wagged his tail when he saw her and drooled at the scent of the burger.

“I brought you something,” Izzy said. The dog rose awkwardly on his skinny legs, cramped and sore from the trip. She screwed the lid off the water bottle, poured some into a cup and held it while he lapped manically. She unwrapped the burger and held it out to him. “Here.”

The dog gobbled it as if he was starving. It occurred to Izzy that he probably was. After he had burrowed into the very fabric of the trunk floor in search of every crumb, he went back to the water in the paper cup. His nose was too large to get at the last few drops, so Izzy tilted the cup and held it for him.

Her expression was troubled, serious. “I’m not a bad person …”

The dog wagged his tail slavishly.

And she really wasn’t cruel. She was dedicated. That was all it was—she wanted to do the right thing for her children. Wasn’t that what mothers were supposed to do? Any means necessary. If that was true in war, why not in child rearing?

She wasn’t mean. She could get very irritated, and perhaps on occasion that had turned ugly, but everyone was guilty sometimes. The girl at the MAC counter—that might have been a little mean. Well,
c’est la vie
. Izzy was only human. Human-ish.

The dog looked up at her, his watery eyes limpid and subservient, his whole posture pathetic. Wagging his tail carefully, he came closer and licked her hand. She yanked it away. “I’m not really a dog person,” she said, and closed the trunk.

She got into the car and drove. About halfway to where she was going, she turned off the AC and rolled down her window. Warm, scented air whirled through the car. This time of year always reminded her of David.

Izzy rested her elbow on the edge of the open window and sped down the highway, trying her best to think of good things. But it was too hard, even for Izzy. All she could smell was dog.

That day she came home late to the house, empty except for the old woman, her grandmother was standing at the door as if waiting for her.

He’s back
she said cryptically. It sounded like
bek
. Her face was animated, not with pleasure but with excitement. She hooked her finger at Izzy.

Come in here
she said. Her gaze bore into Izzy’s with such confidence there was almost a transfer between the two of them.

The old woman said,
Do you know that house where the man killed them?

As the last word dropped, she knew which house the old woman meant.
Yes
, Izzy had said.
I know the house
.

Good. You know this house
.

Everyone does
, Izzy said.

The old woman grinned at her. She pulled open the top drawer of her bureau, and even though she was barely tall enough to see inside, she reached in and pulled out something wrapped in cloth.
Come here girl, and I’ll open you up. And you’ll go. A stupid woman settles. You’re not a stupid woman
.

And when Izzy came close, she cut her with the knife, underneath her left breast. A small slit that hardly even bled at first.

“This,” her grandmother said, “will let him in. And then you’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted.”

It wasn’t late when Izzy got back to Haven Woods. And it was odd, and funny at the same time, that she was happy to leave the city behind, happy to be back with just one more odious task in front of her, and then home.

Just one more thing. Ritual sacrifice. Necessary—like dishes, tidying, laundry. All odious in their own way.

THIRTEEN

R
OWAN HAD FALLEN ASLEEP
on the couch. She woke up with a sore tummy. It hurt really low down, sort of like when you have to go to the bathroom, but different. Tighter. It felt hot. She wanted her mom.

Paula was having a nap. She’d been acting tired and weird ever since they got back from her friend’s house. She’d made Rowan something to eat and then lain down on the bed. Rowan checked the clock. Her mom had been sleeping ever since and it was almost seven.

Rowan watched TV and tried to eat, but her stomach was aching too much. The PB&J sandwich and glass of milk were still in front of her on the coffee table, half eaten. She needed a Bromo.

When they were living in the crappy house before the crappy apartment, her mom had a job at Walgreens, the overnight shift. It was the scariest of her jobs because she didn’t get home until just before Rowan had to get up for school, so Rowan had to spend all night by herself in that creaky house. She got a lot of stomach aches that year. Her mom would bring home Bromo from the drugstore. Whenever she got a stomach ache, her mom would tell her to take half a cup of Bromo and burp it up.

As far as she knew, Bromo was a popular product. She’d seen a bottle of it in the janitor’s room at school once. Maybe her grandmother had some. Her mom was still sleeping and Ro didn’t want to wake her, so she turned off the television and went snooping.

The bathroom was enormous, not at all like the bathrooms Rowan was used to. The tub was oversized, sloped at one end and had feet, like something out of a magazine. The medicine chest was just as old-fashioned, with a tiny latch midway up the mirrored door.

She wasn’t supposed to go into someone else’s medicine cabinet, of course. That much she understood. She knew all about taking medicines and how if you took the wrong thing you could end up thinking you could fly and jump off a building or something. Her mom had told her lots of times never to take a pill someone else gave her or to go into someone else’s private things. But this was her grandmother’s house. Surely the medicine cabinet wasn’t off limits …

The cramping feeling in her stomach was worse, if anything. Rowan undid the latch and opened the door. There were five shallow shelves, each lined with pretty blue paper. And there were all kinds of pill bottles in different colours: brown, green, blue. It was hard to see what was in them. She took down one of the bigger jars, blue, like the Bromo at home. It was capped with a piece of cork that looked hand-cut. She shook it. Something clunked inside.

She wiggled the cork out and peered inside. The smell hit her first. It wasn’t unpleasant; in fact it smelled a little like a holiday or something. Christmas. Ro brought the bottle closer to her nose and breathed in the nutty smell. It was much stronger up close, and for just a moment Rowan sort of … swooned.

She closed her eyes and lowered the bottle. Her nose and eyes stung and then her head got light and her limbs went kind of loose, as if she was about to fall asleep. She sat down hard on the toilet, which jolted her into alertness.

But just before she went down, she thought she had heard voices, maybe singing

just me and you

I love you

then they were gone. But the voices had shot through her head like bullets from a gun.

Rowan put the jar back. She twisted more bottles around, looking for labels. A few of them were prescription drugs with long, unintelligible names, some of the labels so old they were faded. Her grandmother had obviously reused the bottles. Others had no labels at all or the labels had been peeled off, sticky grey glue remaining. Most of the bottles were half filled and the contents looked like … grass or something.

She turned another little bottle so she could read what it said.

DANG GUI HUA GOA
     
1985 take with

The one next to it was so worn she couldn’t read the date, but the rest of the label said

GRACIE KIMBOL
     
for blood disorder
     
100 c to be taken after dark

and the next said

JUDY KEEL
     
may cause bleeding
     
take with 1988

Bromo looked like salt or sugar. You put it in a glass of water. It fizzed. She wished her mom would wake up.

There was no Bromo in the medicine cabinet. Or anything like it. She crouched down in front of the vanity and opened the door. Typical under-the-sink things, the same stuff they had in their bathroom at home: a package of TP, some toilet-bowl cleaner, a bottle of glass cleaner. There were also some zippered bags, like makeup bags. A couple of them were pretty big and could hold all manner of

(secret treasure)

Bromos and potions and things to make her feel better.

She opened the one closest to her, a pretty bag with circles inside circles of blue and white and lighter blue. Inside was a collection of scissors and files and little tools that she guessed were for manicures. She zippered it and put it back. Behind it was a paper bag with the logo of a drugstore. She reached for that.

Hair. It was a bag of hair.

“Ew,” she said, but she was actually intrigued. A smaller plastic bag rested on top of the hair. She gingerly fished it out. It took her a moment to figure out what it was, then she dropped it back in disgust.

Fingernail clippings. Why was her grandma saving them? She rolled the bag up and stuck it back in the vanity, deeper than it had been. Disgusting. Gross.

She touched one of the bigger cosmetic bags—even more curious now—intending to see what could possibly be in that one. But when she picked it up, something moved inside.

Startled, she dropped it, falling backwards. She hit her shoulder on the side of the tub, but hardly noticed. She jumped up and slammed the cupboard shut with her foot. There was nothing like Bromo in there.

In the hallway she heard the dog’s nails clicking on the wood floor. He stopped just outside the bathroom door, whining low in his throat.
Grmmmm
.

“It’s okay,” she said to Old Tex. “I hardly touched it. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Rowan slammed the medicine chest door shut and stood up.
Old lady stuff
, she told herself.
Weird old lady stuff
.

As she was leaving the bathroom, bending to give Tex a pat, the phone rang in the kitchen. And then her mother was up, running for it.

Paula picked up and listened for a moment without really hearing the voice on the other end. Her head was foggy with unspent sleep, but when the word
doctor
penetrated her haze, she came wide awake.

“You’re my mother’s doctor? I’m so glad you’ve called.” She could barely keep the annoyance out of her voice. At least he’d called. “Can you tell me what’s wrong with her?”

The doctor cleared his throat. “I can tell you that we are doing some … tests. Your mother is suffering from … exhaustion. And she’s stiff in the joints. There’s also evidence of some … deficiencies.”

Paula frowned. “What kind of deficiencies? Like vitamins? Is her joint pain arthritis, something like that? What’s wrong with her exactly?”

There was an odd cadence to his speech, and she wondered if he stuttered. It was disconcerting. “I won’t know very much until the tests are done. We’re doing them … soon.”

“Right. What kind of tests? Are they painful or difficult? Should I be there?”

“Um,” he said. There was a long pause before he spoke again, and Paula felt her anger rising. Then he said, “I think it’s best that you let us do the tests before you visit again. Okay?”

Okay?
“How long?” she asked.

There was another long pause and she half expected to hear papers shuffling on the other end, as though he were checking schedules, finding dates, times, but there was nothing, just dead air.

“After Friday. You can visit after again on Saturday morning.”

That seemed a long time for tests. But whatever had to be done had to be done. It was just a couple of days. “All right,” she said. “If it’s necessary, I’ll wait. Can you tell her that you spoke to me and that I send my love?”

“Sure,” the doctor said and hung up. It was so abrupt that Paula stood there holding the phone, waiting for something else to happen, until the dial tone sounded. She replaced the handset on the cradle and stood there thinking.

Paula didn’t have a lot of experience with hospitals or doctors, but it felt to her as if the whole conversation had been off somehow, and she was unsatisfied. But it was only a couple of days.

Then she realized that she hadn’t even got his name. She’d missed it. If he’d said it at all.

Doug Moore hung up the phone and looked to his wife for approval. Marla was smiling. “Very good, dear. Thank you.”

He nodded, his expression flat.

“You can go back to work now. Do you have to go back to work?”

He nodded again.

She put her hand on his cheek. “Good. You go back to work and you can forget all about this. Forget all about this …” As she said it she stroked her hand across his face. He closed his eyes and she took her hand away.

“Are you going back to work, honey?” she asked again, her tone suddenly bright.

“Yeah,” he said. “I still have a couple of contracts to go over. I just came home to get my—my—” He frowned.

“—file folder in the den,” she finished for him. “Should I get that for you?”

“Thanks, Marl. And jeez, I wouldn’t mind a sandwich or something. Do you mind?” He opened the fridge and peeked inside.

“You can pick something up on the way back to work,” she said and went and got a file for him. Any file would do.

After Doug left, Marla went into Amy’s bedroom to check on her. She was lying on top of the bedcovers, stiff as a board, staring at the ceiling.

“Amy?”

The child didn’t move. Her little chest rose and fell with her breath, but she was otherwise still.

“Honey, Mommy’s right here. I’m right here.”

Outside there was the steady
foom-pf
of the basketball through the hoop.

It was all about her babies now. She had to protect her babies. But a persistent thought kept popping into her head.
What have we done?

What have we done?