Amanda's Story (23 page)

“Lisa, I can go to the grocery store on my own.” Amanda had been back in Colorado Springs for two weeks, and Greg, Lisa, and Emily had taken turns making sure that she stayed within their collective sight. It was Emily's final night in Colorado, and before she flew back home the Flynns insisted on a memorable send-off.

“I know you can, but I need to pick up a few things as well,” Lisa said. She and Greg were as much of an open book as Emily had proven to be, and Amanda easily sensed the white lie. “Besides, it will be good for us to have some alone time.”

Spending two weeks in close quarters with her three surviving family members had been difficult on many levels. The Flynns didn't have a big house; it had three bedrooms and two baths, one of which Amanda shared with Aunt Emily, who demanded a degree of cleanliness that would put most operating rooms to shame. The proximity also made it difficult for Greg, a lifelong Democrat, and Emily, a staunch conservative, to maintain a respectable distance while the news was on, or after the newspaper was delivered. Amanda could deal with the cramped quarters, her aunt cleaning up after her, and the occasional loud “discussions” between Emily and Greg; what she couldn't deal with was the three of them constantly in her mind. At Tellis there were places that offered a degree of isolation and mental rest, something not available in a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot house occupied by three other adults. Slowly, she had been learning how to turn down their mental volume, but sometimes despite her best efforts the volume knob got stuck on eleven.

It wasn't entirely bad. The proximity allowed her to amass a good deal more information about the inner workings of the human mind, and Amanda came away surprised that sanity was so prevalent. The maelstrom of sublimated thoughts and dark desires that Amanda had witnessed in William Bennett seemed to be the norm. An individual was defined by how well they insulated themselves from these universal base instincts, and not by their simple presence. Everyone, including Lisa, the most virtuous person Amanda had ever known, carried them.

Fifteen minutes later Lisa was behind the wheel of her Ford Explorer, with Amanda strapped in the passenger seat and braced for the inevitable onslaught. “Have you been thinking about what we talked about earlier?”

No, but you have
, Amanda's darkside answered. Two weeks in a loving environment had allowed it to mature a degree. No longer a child with impulse control issues, it had grown into a rather temperamental adolescent that required attention periodically, otherwise it would manifest itself in some creative ways. “I don't need to talk to anyone, Lisa.”

Apparently Lisa didn't like Amanda's answer, as she abruptly pulled the Explorer into the parking lot of an antique store. “I don't think these guys sell butter, Lisa.”

Lisa shoved the transmission into park and took a deep breath before turning to Amanda. “Something happened to you down there; everyone but you can see that.”

Not true, her mind answered. I see it quite well.

“Even Emily, a charter member of the ‘pack-up-all-your-troubles-in-your-own-kit-bag' club, thinks you need some help.”

“I don't think that's how it goes, Lisa.” Amanda smiled, but Lisa wasn't going to be put off with a little charm and levity.

“What's the harm in talking with someone?”

“It makes me uncomfortable,” Amanda said.
And angry, and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry,
her mental adolescent added.

“I understand that, but a lot of things make people uncomfortable, and they still do them because they are necessary.”

“I think you've been around Aunt Emily a little too much.” Amanda's voice had taken on an overly playful tone, courtesy of her dark friend.

“I don't think this is funny.” Lisa had become serious as a tax audit.

“Boy, now you really sound like her,” Amanda said, laughing as her mental controls slipped into the darkness.

“This is the very thing we're all worried about. You aren't yourself. You're not even somebody I recognize.” The pain in Lisa's voice brought Amanda back into the light.

“I think you're overstating the issue,” she said, knowing that if Lisa knew just how close she had come to the truth they would be on their way to a hospital, or a mental institution. Amanda had become somebody that even she had a hard time recognizing. Her id was roaming freely in the guise of an adolescent voice that whispered—but more often yelled—from the dark recesses of her mind, and like a permissive parent Amanda rarely challenged it. She had tested the limits of her old personality and found them unnecessarily restricting, choosing instead to be loud, forceful, and often profane. For the first time in her life she was indulging her own desires and needs and questioning anything that threatened to contain them.

“It terrifies me to think of you on your own,” Lisa continued.

“You know I can't stay with you forever, Lisa.” This was their other point of contention. Greg and Lisa insisted that Amanda take more time before getting on with her life. Even Emily had offered her home for more recuperation.

“Two weeks is hardly enough time to regain your perspective after everything that's happened.” Lisa was reciting her carefully chosen and practiced words cautiously. Amanda couldn't shield herself from Lisa's mental anguish, which was far more persuading than her argument. For now, her bond with Lisa, Greg, and Emily remained strong despite the steady unbraiding of societal bonds, but given time and continued proximity she knew that they too would begin to unravel.

“Two weeks is not a lot of time,” Amanda agreed and then paused as she scooted her adolescent companion into a dark recess. With full control over her thoughts and emotions, she took a moment to revisit her greatest dilemma: whether to confide in Lisa or to continue the façade of near-normalcy. From the moment she had met Lisa, almost six years earlier, she knew that she could share anything with her, but this strange and wonderful truth would permanently change that. Their relationship had always been more akin to mother and daughter as opposed to in-laws, resulting in an inherent but subtle inequality. It was a comfortable relationship that even her petulant adolescent didn't want to see altered. “Please don't take offense, Lisa, but staying longer will ultimately make things harder for me.”

It was a rare moment as manipulation and truth merged. “No one wants that,” Lisa said with a downturned chin. “We just want you to be safe, and happy.” She turned towards Amanda and locked eyes. “I want to see joy back in your eyes, not this wild, reckless light that frankly terrifies me.”

Amanda tried to hold Lisa's gaze but immediately felt the now-familiar sense of falling as her consciousness tried to merge with Lisa's. The last few weeks had brought a degree of control, but not enough to withstand the powerful emotions that Lisa was experiencing. They would quickly engulf her, and she wouldn't be able to control her struggling mind, putting Lisa in real danger. “Are you afraid for me or others?” she finally asked.

“Both,” Lisa answered with a tear rolling down her cheek. “I get the sense that something fundamental in you has changed, that you …” Lisa trailed off.

“Go on,” Amanda said, a little too forcefully. Her dark friend was listening.

Lisa shot a quick and disapproving look at her daughter-in-law. “That you don't value life anymore. Yours or others,” she said with a mixture of pain, anger, and fear.

Amanda watched as Lisa fiddled with her jacket's zipper. “I haven't told this to anyone, but when I was down in Honduras I killed four men.” Amanda continued, despite hearing Lisa's gasp and feeling her emotional start. “Honduran soldiers—they were part of the platoon that was sent to protect us. They were going to kill me, just like they had killed the man next to me. They started shooting and the next thing I know I've got a smoking rifle in my hand and I'm standing over four bodies. Over the past month I've thought about that moment a lot. I think it was then that I realized that I had been nothing more than a spectator in my own life.” Amanda noticed that Lisa had stopped playing with her zipper and that her hands were now clenched. Amanda reached over and covered Lisa's fists; her skin tingled and the contact sharpened her empathetic awareness. “I do value life, Lisa, especially my own, maybe now more than ever. I think that for the first time in a long time I'm finally trying to live it, instead of it just allowing it to happen. I might bounce against the walls now and then, but in time I'll find my way.”

“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked, steering the conversation into less turbulent waters.

“I'm not going back to Dallas, or the Red Cross.” She let go of Lisa's hands and absently rubbed her own.

“Good; they were of no help,” Lisa said bitterly.

“I was thinking about maybe going back to school.”

“You've given up on nursing?”

“I don't think so. I just want to do something more.” Amanda sensed Lisa's relief and noted the return of her characteristic smile. “Feeling better?”

“Better? A little.” She looked over at Amanda, the turmoil in her mind beginning to settle. “I think more importantly I understand.”

Amanda smiled back and a part of her felt horrible. The half-truth she had told was much closer to a lie, something she had never done to Lisa, and it had come all too easily. And just as worrisome, she did it convincingly. Her dark adolescent friend was pleased.

“No matter how you look at it, we screwed up,” Assistant District Attorney Randi Garner told a sullen Greg Flynn.

“So everything is out?” Normally an even-tempered man and slow to anger, his voice was raised enough that the ADA took a step back.

“Anything from the storage locker and everything that flowed from it was obtained illegally and is ‘fruit of the poison tree.'” Garner was almost as tall as Greg, and even though she had been a prosecuting attorney for less than ten years she had the highest conviction rate in the state. She knew her business and was one of only a handful of people Greg trusted completely. “I can argue the point, but we'll lose, and it's likely that the judge will attach jeopardy.”

“Which means that no matter what we find in the future, he can't be prosecuted again.” He was as close to cursing as he had ever been. Garner nodded. “I'm sorry, Randi; I really made a mess of this.”

“You got played by some experienced operators.”

“So what happens now?”

“What happens now is that John Eden goes home with our sincerest apologies, and you get back to work. Find another way into that storage locker, or flip his wife. I don't see any other way to salvage this.”

“Four months work, and we're back to square one.” He ruefully shook his head.

“Just remember: beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” She patted his shoulder and walked off.

Greg stood in the center of the courthouse annex with clenched fists, seething. It was early evening, well past the work day, and the few stragglers that were left in the large hall streamed towards the exits. He turned towards the door and found a couple of security guards openly eyeing Garner as she headed past them. She was an attractive woman and routinely turned heads. It was an innocent and natural thing, but today it was an offense, and he was filled with a rage better directed at himself, his detectives, and Mr. and Mrs. John Eden. He stomped towards the guards, and their smiles retreated the instant they caught sight of him. He reached their desk and suddenly didn't know what to say.

“Inappropriate,” was all he could come up with.

“Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.

Thirty seconds later he was on the courthouse steps breathing the clean mountain air, something that John Eden would be doing in a matter of hours. He let the wave of anger flow through him without catching a ride. He had to begin the process of leaving work at work. He slowly walked to his car while shoving all the filth, violence, and human waste that filled his days into a giant mental closet. He didn't want any of that in his house or near his family. The closet was getting pretty full after twenty-three years of being a detective for the Colorado Springs Police Department. It also wasn't airtight and had begun to emit a foul-smelling miasma that had begun to subtly color Greg's thoughts and behavior, and this latest episode would certainly add to the stench.

He reached his car and started it. It was a short ride home, and he had to paint a smile on his face. Amanda's aunt Emily was flying back to Oklahoma in the morning and the women in his life had decided that they were going to have a party to send her off in style. On any other day he would be looking forward to a houseful of people and a night of good humor, but at the moment he could only see himself acting the part.

Nine minutes later he made a right-hand turn into a cul-de-sac and watched Joseph Thomas, his lead detective, take a grocery bag from Lisa. She caught sight of him and waved and suddenly all his cares were gone. Even after thirty years of marriage, she still made him breathe a little faster and made his heart beat a little stronger. Together they had conceived and raised a son; together they watched as he went off to war and then returned broken in body but not in spirit; together they stood by him as he married the woman who he loved, and then they in turn gave them a perfect grandson; together, with broken hearts that still beat as one, they buried their son and grandson in a single grave and adopted Amanda for their own. Together Greg and Lisa could overcome anything, do anything, and tonight they were going to have a party.

“Well, hello,” he said in a lecherous tone. “I'm looking for the lady of the house.” He batted his eyebrows as he gave her cheek a kiss.

“Hello yourself, stranger. But I'm afraid there are no ladies in this house.” She batted her eyebrows back at him.