The Cabin on Souder Hill Page 5

  The recollection was so clear in Michelle’s mind, Cliff filling the hole with water from the garden hose. “As I remember,” she said, “you weren’t content with ruining the yard. You turned the hose on me.”

  Cliff laughed. “God, you were so beautiful that night, standing there dripping wet, your skin showing through the nightgown. When you pulled it over your head, I thought I would lose my mind. We made love on that rickety old chaise lounge on the patio, remember? I was scared the neighbors would hear and you were so drunk you didn’t care. That was a perfect night, Michelle.”

  She sat back on her heels, confused by how clearly they both remembered the same thing. What if Cliff was right, what if there had been an accident? Would it mean she was delusional? Or worse, insane? Surely, she would have some recollection, she thought. But the alternative was even more disturbing. What if she had spoken to Cassie on the phone that night at the cabin? Where was Cassie now? Where was everything she remembered? Michelle felt as though she were being torn in two, stretched to the point of ripping. She threw her head back and drew a sharp breath. The clouds raced across the sky above her, the tiny leaves on the branches were a new, delicate green.

  Michelle felt Cliff’s hands on her shoulders and heard his voice as if he were speaking from the other side of a wall.

  When they returned from the cemetery, Michelle went upstairs for a nap. It surprised her when Cliff slid in behind her and caressed her shoulders. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t gone to the dealership. He never took naps. And after a few years of marriage, anytime he touched her it was only as a prelude to sex. She was almost asleep when he promised to drive her up to the cabin in a few weeks. She ignored his comment, too tired to fight in the moment.

  Even though Cliff seemed like a changed man, Michelle wasn’t convinced his word was any good. Besides, she wasn’t about to wait “a few weeks” to return to Ardenwood.

  *****

  When Michelle woke, she rolled over to see Cliff asleep on top of the spread, still wearing his dress pants and white short-sleeved shirt, his tie slung over the alarm clock on the nightstand. He looked haggard and old. That wasn’t how he’d looked the day they’d driven to the cabin, Cliff shouting orders to his lead salesman over the cell phone, hanging up and complaining about how sluggish sales were. The man lying next to her looked like Cliff’s shed skin—dry and brittle and gray. Even so, something peaceful permeated his features, as if sleep gave him a release he’d never known before. He’d always fought sleep, staying up late to read or sitting out by the pool to nurse a highball, telling her he wasn’t “in the mood to sleep.”

  She leaned over and put her lips to his, surprised by how soft they felt. He even smelled different, she thought, running her fingertips along his cheek. The side of his face was the first thing she’d fallen in love with. He’d been pinning a boy during a wrestling match, his body angled, his jaw frozen with determination. His cheeks were rosy now, the way they were when he wrestled, like he’d been sledding on a cold winter day. It gave him a boyish look that competitors often misjudged for frailty.

  When she combed her fingers through his hair, his eyes opened and, for the first time in years, she desired him. Watching him wrestle, she had wondered what his hands would feel like on her skin, if his palms would be rough and hard, his touch a caress or a grip. After they married, he had been uncertain in bed, almost timid, as if he were discovering her body for the first time. It always excited her.

  They had made love on their first date and almost every day thereafter for a month, as if they had invented sex and were trying to perfect it. It was at the end of their first month together when Cliff asked Michelle to marry him. She was seventeen, with braces, a junior in high school. She said no, and they ended up at a motel, her explaining why she couldn’t, him telling her why they should, then fighting, crying, and making love until morning. When Michelle got home, her parents were waiting in the living room, her father as solemn as a piece of furniture. Her parents grounded her for that stunt, but like she’d told Darcy, it was worth it. Cliff waved a red rose out the window of his Impala every afternoon when he cruised by.

  The only thing Michelle had ever known she wanted was a family. Cliff had used her disclosure as ammunition, insisting they should get married when she graduated from high school, that he made enough money working part-time selling suits at Famous Men’s to support them until he got his business degree. He told her he was going to make tons of money, he was sure of it. “How can I marry you?” she’d said. “My parents are still paying for my braces.”

  The recollection vanished when Cliff reached out and pulled her close. He touched her breast, put his lips to hers and was soon inside her. She inhaled the salty wetness of his skin. Cassie’s voice echoed in her head, the voice of a four-year-old screaming out in the darkness from a nightmare, the fifth grader who won her first swim meet, the worried teenager with her first period. There was no way to paste these memories together, no way to parse the reality she knew was real with the one Cliff believed. He lifted himself up to look at her. She turned away, her hair shifting across her face like a curtain.

  “Are you crying?” he asked.

  Michelle pushed Cliff off and left the bed, closing the bathroom door behind her. Her heart was a machine in her chest, her lungs straining as if she were trying to breathe water. She swept her hair back with her hands and leaned against the sink. Everything looked the same, yet nothing was right.

  Michelle opened the door. “Who are you?” she asked, pulling her robe closed.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What is this? What is all this?”

  “I’m confused, Michelle,” Cliff said. “Ever since the weekend at the cabin you’ve seemed different. Not completely, but something’s different about you. Like now, making love. You haven’t let me touch you in over a year. One minute I think you’re getting better, then the next you throw a fit. Then at the cemetery, you handled it all calmly. The last time I took you . . . you went crazy. And then Glenda.”

  “What about Glenda?”

  “You really don’t remember?” he said.

  Michelle pictured Glenda, her eyes glossy with satisfaction, her smile tuned somewhere between business-pleasant and mistress-smug, as though she knew everything about Michelle—what she was like in bed, how she spent her afternoons, maybe even the kind of underwear she preferred—while Michelle knew nothing of Glenda except for her business card from the bank. Cliff hadn’t bothered trying to hide it. Michelle looked at Cliff, amazed and sick once more how stupid she’d been about his affair.

  “So what happened?” Michelle asked.

  Cliff fiddled with the bottom button of his shirt. “A month after the accident, I drove over to her place to end it. You followed me and burst into her place. You started breaking shit, throwing her stuff at me. You messed her place up pretty bad. Luckily you never actually hurt anyone. The police came. She didn’t press charges, I guess because of Cassie and all, but she got a restraining order.” He leaned forward and placed his palms on his knees. “Don’t you remember any of this?”

  She didn’t. And Cliff’s suggestion of Glenda’s altruism over not pressing charges irritated Michelle, as if Cliff thought Glenda had taken the “high road” in the matter. An unfamiliar brand of anger rose inside her, not the smothering, damp-wool feeling she was used to, but a vibrant aggression that burned along her skin like a new sun. But was it really anger? Maybe she didn’t care anymore, about Glenda or Cliff or his lies. Maybe it was some extreme brand of proactive indifference.

  Chapter 7

  Darcy was sitting in her car reading a book when Michelle came out of the pharmacy. Michelle thought her older sister looked gorgeous in her peach tank top, sunlight splashing off her bare shoulders. Darcy knew some of the details about what had happened at the cabin, but not everything. Michelle didn’t want to alienate her—Da
rcy was open-minded, but Michelle’s story would stretch even her boundaries.

  “Want to come to the store?” Darcy asked. “I’ve got a shipment of supplements coming in. I could really use the help stocking them.”

  Michelle had been helping Darcy cut boxes, stock shelves, and work the register all afternoon when she suddenly realized she hadn’t thought about Cliff or the cabin for several hours. Working at Darcy’s store had focused her attention elsewhere, made her feel normal, as if nothing were wrong, as if Cassie were at school.

  When Michelle finished bagging a customer’s groceries, she squatted down and rummaged through the boxes underneath the counter. Darcy was in the stockroom. It took less than a minute for Michelle to find Darcy’s revolver. A gun for protection at a health food store. It seemed ironic to Michelle. The pistol was smaller than she had remembered. She looked at the cylinder and thought she saw bullets. Of course it was loaded. It had to be. What would be the point in keeping an unloaded gun behind the counter?

  “Michelle?” Darcy called

  “Yeah, what is it?” Michelle bolted up, wondering if Darcy had seen her with the gun.

  “Can you give me a hand here?” Darcy said.

  Darcy had cut the lid off a box and was arranging plastic containers on the shelf.

  “Maybe I should start taking some of these,” Michelle said, twirling one of the bottles in her hand.

  “You don’t need supplements, Michelle,” Darcy said. “You need real food. You’ve turned into a stick figure.”

  Michelle knew she’d lost weight since returning from the cabin, but she had no appetite.

  When Anna, Darcy’s assistant, came in, Darcy showed her the stock that still needed to be put away. Michelle grabbed her shoulder bag from behind the front counter and walked to the back to wash her hands and brush her hair. The phone on Darcy’s desk rang as Michelle was coming out of the bathroom.

  “Nature’s Plan,” Michelle said, answering the phone.

  “Is Michelle there?” the voice said.

  “Cliff?”

  He let out a breath. “I’ve been calling you all morning. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I’ve been helping Darcy at the store. I told you that. What’s wrong?”

  The long silence on the other end of the phone bothered Michelle.

  “Cliff?” she said. She sat down in Darcy’s desk chair, sliding her purse closer, feeling the hardness of the gun through the soft leather. Her eyes darted around Darcy’s desk in search of extra cartridges, quickly realizing how irrational her thinking was. After all, how many times could she shoot herself?

  “Are you okay,” Cliff said. “Did you get your prescription refilled?”

  “Yes, Darcy took me. But I need a car, Cliff.” She still wasn’t sure why they only had one.

  “Michelle, I told you, you haven’t driven in months. You said you couldn’t focus behind the wheel. I wish you would remember.”

  She’d been trying, but it made no sense. She heard Cliff sniffle. Why was he crying?

  “Michelle? Say something.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. Okay, so maybe I couldn’t focus before, but now I can, and I need a car.”

  “When is Darcy bringing you home?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We’re going shopping at the mall later. And dinner. Probably around ten.”

  “Don’t be real late, okay?” Cliff said.

  “Cliff, you’re hovering. Don’t treat me like a child. I don’t have a fucking curfew. I’ll get home when I get home.”

  Michelle sat at the desk after they hung up, thinking about Cliff crying, picturing the bullets in the gun. Michelle opened the drawer with Darcy’s purse and rummaged through the bag for the keys to her Explorer. Darcy came into the storeroom just as Michelle was sliding the drawer shut.

  “Anna can handle the store. When do you want to leave for the mall?”

  “That was Cliff on the phone,” Michelle said. “He wants to take me out to dinner tonight. Can we go shopping another time?”

  “Sure. How are you getting home? I’ll just drive you.”

  “No . . . actually, Cliff should be here in about fifteen minutes. He’s a fucking mess, Darcy. He’s smothering me.”

  “I think he’s just trying to help, Chelle. Cliff has really changed over the past few months and . . .”

  “Okay,” Michelle said, putting her hand out to her sister. “I don’t want to hear about the Cliff Stage Fan Club.”

  Darcy sighed. “It’s not like that, Michelle. We’re both just trying to help. You’ve been through a lot. You both have.”

  “I want to ask you something,” Michelle said. “What do you really think about all this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About . . . everything. Like, me believing Cassie isn’t dead. Everything I’ve told you about the cabin.”

  Michelle saw Darcy’s expression grow pained. After a moment, she said, “I can’t possibly know what it’s like to lose a daughter, because I’ve never had children. But I know what it would be like to lose you, Chelle, and that would be unbearable.”

  “Then you do believe Cassie’s dead? That means you must believe I’m crazy.”

  Darcy sighed. “I went to her funeral, Chelle. I sat with you and cried my eyes raw. Just like you. I don’t know how to believe anything else.”

  “Then you think I’m crazy, right?”

  Darcy smiled and took her hand. “Not at all. I love you.”

  Michelle tried a smile over her anxiety. “I have to go.”

  “Cliff’s not here yet.”

  “He asked if I would meet him out by the edge of the parking lot. He’s probably out there waiting.” She hugged Darcy. “You know how he gets. Can I call you later?”

  Darcy kissed her. “Of course.”

  Michelle smiled and rushed out the door, hating that she’d lied to her sister.

  Chapter 8

  Deceit was a unique kind of magic, Mattie thought. Sometimes it worked perfectly, reaping the user untold fortunes. At other times it brought only disaster. One thing Mattie knew with certainty: dishonesty was a brand of magic that could never be predicted or controlled.

  “Well, Mama,” Pink said again. “Do you think you can conjure me up something?”

  “How about more pudding?” Mattie said as she watched Pink scrape the edge of the spoon along the inside of the glass goblet. Pink gathered every trace of pudding on the spoon then put it between his lips and smacked it clean.

  “Business’s been off,” he said, the spoon tinkling when he dropped it inside the glass. “Folks ain’t listing, and they ain’t buying. Not from me. I’m going broke while the rest of the damn agents are selling real estate faster than mice fuck.”

  “Pink, do you have to talk like that?”

  He looked up at her. “Can’t you throw a little spell together, get me out of the mud, so to speak, so I don’t lose my house?”

  “You’re not going to lose your house, Pink,” Mattie said, removing the goblet to the sink.

  “Well, maybe not,” Pink said. “But I may have to lay off Clarence and Lulu till things pick up. You love Lulu, remember, Mama? I mean, where would she get another job at her age?”

  “Have you set up an altar?” Mattie asked. “I’ll give you everything you need to perform a ritual yourself—green candles, patchouli oil, Lo John. You know how to cast a circle. It’s not that difficult.” She wanted him to take an interest in rituals, knowing it would focus his energies in more positive directions, put him in touch with deities, connect him with something more important than himself.

  Pink wrinkled up his face and scratched his neck. “Mama, you know how Isabelle feels about all that stuff. Besides, I ain’t much good at not moving. Now for you on the other hand, it’s natural as breathing, Mama, all that
praying and sitting still and picturing the moon and planets and whatever it is you think about when you’re working magic. Me, I start thinking about lasagna and reruns of Baywatch.”

  She wanted to say, No, Pink, I won’t help you. You’re having problems because you’ve built your life on lies. But she would never say that to him, she couldn’t, not without feeling like a hypocrite. Everything about the way Pink came into her life was rooted in deception, even though it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Nothing unusual happened when Ida handed her the baby. There had been no beam of sunlight vanishing suddenly beneath a black cloud, no dreadful cawing of crows in a distant field. It was one moment like any other. Ida had looked up, her face bubbled with sweat, her eyes red from crying and pushing, and placed her new baby in Mattie’s arms. Mattie had smiled at the child, amazed at how light he felt, no more weight than a rooster. His slender arms rustled like windblown branches, his fingers curling and uncurling, like breathing. His face was red, his head slightly lopsided and cute, his legs already kicking at the new space around him, making room for a new person in the world. His hair, like his mama’s, was damp and stringy, stuck to his forehead. Mattie had smoothed the hairs from his brow. His eyes had been puckered like rosebuds and he could only open them to slits. Mattie had smiled over at Ida then handed the baby back, but Ida shook her head, trying to sit up.

  “No, Mattie,” she’d said, almost pleading. “You keep him. He’s yours.”

  “What?”

  “He’s yours, Mattie. You and Buck.”

  “But, Ida, he’s your son! You can’t give up your own flesh and blood!”

  “Don’t judge me, Mattie.” Ida pushed her gown down between her legs, trying to sit up. “Do you want him or not?”

  “Folks will know,” Mattie said. “They’ll wonder where this child came from.”

  “Folks won’t know a damn thing lessen you tell them,” Ida said, wiping her face with the bottom of her dress. “Besides, you and Buck live so far out here in the sticks you could have ten little ’uns and nobody’d be the wiser.”