Page 111 of The Furies

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she replied, as she dropped a pair of his dirty boxers into a laundry bag. “I’m cleaning up after you, like I always do.”

She instantly regretted the barb. There was no cause to goad him. He was perfectly capable of moving from calm to fury without her help.

“No, I mean, what are you doing behind my back?”

It took all of her self-control not to react.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re looking at me. I’m in front of you.”

“Don’t get slick. I saw you and your mother earlier. I was watching you, listening to you. You weren’t acting natural, neither of you. What were you two sly bitches cooking up?”

Melissa continued gathering clothing, progressing from jocks to socks. He hadn’t always been so slovenly, just as he hadn’t always been so paranoid and violent—or an addict, which might have explained a lot. But the deterioration had been gradual, not sudden. It had sneaked up on her, trapping her like briars that surrounded her in a forest because she’d remained in one spot for too long. And the question returned to her, the same one that would be asked if, or when, he finally got around to killing her: Why didn’t she leave him? Well, to hell with that. How about asking why he was the way he was? Why put all the responsibility for her fate on her?

But she had a satisfactory answer to the big question at last. It had come to her earlier, as she sat on the bathroom floor, waiting out the effects of the Spice. She hadn’t left him because she hadn’t been sure that she wouldn’t return to him if she did. Now she was ready. She was done with him. Was it because her mother, by hiring the private detective, had given her an out? She conceded it had acted as a catalyst. A hand had been extended to her at the right time, just as she was finally starting to lose her grip, with a void waiting below. There are times when we need someone to say, “I’m here. The first step is down to you, but once you take that step, you won’t be alone. So how about it?” It was an exercise in trust, like the teamwork exercises for field hockey back at Scarborough High, when you folded your arms across your chest, closed your eyes, and allowed yourself to fall backward. In that moment, a voice in your head screamed that you’d made a terrible mistake, until you fell into the embrace of another.

But she had yet to permit herself to fall, and now Donnie was staring at her, all vacancy gone from him. He understood her. He understood her so well. How could she ever have hoped to escape from this man?

“We were just talking,” she said. “You were there. And don’t call her a bitch, or me either.”

He rolled spit on his tongue. Had her mother been present, he might have expectorated in her face.

“I know she wants you to leave me,” he said.

She detected no trace of self-pity. He wasn’t whining. It was presented solely as a statement of fact. If she retreated, if she tried to disavow it, he’d be on her in an instant. He’d tear her apart.

Melissa dropped the laundry bag.

“Can you blame her?” she said. “Do you even see what this place has become, how it looks, how it stinks? Why wouldn’t she be worried? Why wouldn’t she want me to leave? This isn’t what she wanted for me. Hell, this isn’t what you wanted for yourself. Jesus, Donnie, how did we ever let it get so bad?”

This wasn’t what he had been expecting. She wasn’t sure that he’d even noticed how nimbly she’d sidestepped his suspicions. She picked up the laundry bag and flung it at him—but not hard, not with real anger. He caught it instinctively, and she found it within herself to smile.

“Look, why don’t you help me tidy up some?” she said. “We can open the windows and let some air in before it starts getting too cold.”

She waited. She could see his better self trying to gain the upper hand. When it did, she felt a brief surge of warmth toward him. Without saying anything more, he began clearing the floor of his discarded clothing, adding a couple of empty beer cans along the way.

See? she thought. This is why we stay. This is how they manipulate us.

And this is how we die.

CHAPTER XXXIX

We were already on our way back to Portland. The traffic hadn’t eased any, and progress was slow.

“Is that crosspatch still managing the Braycott?” said Louis.

“Bobby Wadlin?” I said. “Sure, and he will be until he dies. After that they’ll scatter his ashes on the carpets.”

“Someone ought to knock that place down, with him inside, dead or otherwise.”

“Then we’d have to go poking around in dark corners for half the ex-cons in the state anytime we needed to talk to them—us, the police, parole officers, social workers, bail bondsmen, lawyers. Think of all the time that would waste. At least with the Braycott in business, we know where to find them.”

“Probably should have been the first place we went looking for whoever stole the child’s things,” said Angel from the back seat.

“Yeah,” said Louis, “like hiding corpses in a cemetery.”

“Are you sure those names didn’t mean anything to either of you?” I said.

They both shook their heads.

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