Dead Voices (4 page)

“Oh, this bacon’s ruined,” her mother said with a huff as she held up a shriveled, black piece for Elizabeth’s inspection. ‘‘I’ll have to start over.”

Elizabeth shook her head, and, in a voice that sounded frail and watery, said, “That’s okay. Dad can have mine. I wasn’t really hungry, anyway. Toast will be fine.”

Elizabeth got up shakily and went to the refrigerator to pour herself a glass of juice. She sat back down at the table, silently lost in her own thoughts while her mother went to the door and yelled to her husband that it was time to eat. Before long the silence of the house was broken by the sound of heavy feet tromping on the back steps. With a hefty sigh and a solid slamming of the door, KendalI Payne, Elizabeth’s father, walked into the kitchen and slung his jacket onto the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He carried with him the strong odor of the barn.

“Mornin’, Ma ... ‘n’ Liz,” he said, gruffly nodding at Elizabeth as he hurriedly washed his hands at the kitchen sink. He reached for the half-full coffee pot on the counter and poured himself a cup. Without adding either cream or sugar, he took a slurping sip before going over to the table and sitting down. He took one bite of his breakfast, then wrinkled his nose and said, “These eggs’re cold. Should’a called me in sooner.”

As she nibbled on her toast, Elizabeth twisted away from her father, hoping he wouldn’t notice her pale, tear-streaked face; but she knew from having grown up with him that, although he said little at times, he never missed much.

“So, Elizabeth,” Kendall said, turning to her after taking another bite of eggs followed by a sip of coffee. “What’s your plans?”

Leave it to her dad to be so damned blunt and to the point, she thought. After giving her nose another blow into the napkin, she looked at him, not caring how red-rimmed her eyes might be.

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice hitching slightly. She noticed that her mother was slyly watching their interaction over her shoulder as she busied herself washing the frying pan at the sink. “I told you both last night that I just needed to get away. I was hoping I could .stay here awhile ... until I can start pulling things together. “

“I already told you, you can stay with us for as long as you want,” her mother .said quickly, before Kendall could reply in his slow, measured way. Elizabeth looked at her dad and felt thankful when she didn’t see a contradiction in his eyes.

“It’s just that, you know, after Caroline ... and all, and Doug going for a divorce and all, I just felt like my life was ... was — out of control.” She ended with a helpless shrug, painfully conscious that she hadn’t been able to say the word
died
.

Caroline had
DIED!

Her lower lip began to tremble and —
damn it all!
— she could feel the tears burning in her eyes again. Looking down, her gaze landed and stuck on the bottle of prescription tranquilizers on the table in front of her. She hadn’t taken one yet this morning, and although she felt as though she should, she just couldn’t do it now — not with her parents watching.

“You could’ve called ‘fore you come,” her father said. “Seems kind o’strange, you appearin’ on the doorsteps ‘round midnight, tellin’ us you left your husband ‘n’ askin’ if you can stay here awhile.”

“You know what they say about home, Ken; it’s where they have to take you in, no matter what,” Rebecca said mildly.

A tightness took Elizabeth by the throat, but she forced herself to speak. “Last night ... Doug and I had one hell of an argument. It wasn’t the first, but it was the worst. So I just packed and took off, spur of the moment. It wasn’t exactly something I planned or anything.”

“So you don’t know what you’re going t’do?” her father asked.

“I think what Elizabeth should
do
,” her mother said, addressing her husband before Elizabeth could speak, “is take as much time as she wants or needs to decide. Her bedroom’s been empty all these years. We can give it a fresh coat of paint, get some new furniture, and she can live here as long as she wants.”

“No, Ma,” Elizabeth said, glancing back and forth between her parents. “I don’t want to be a burden on either of you.” Her voice was still raspy from her recent crying jag, but she forced it to stay steady.

“You know you won’t be a burden!” Rebecca said sharply. “Will she, Kendall.”

Kendall rubbed the side of his face with the flat of his hand. His stubble of beard made a harsh sandpapery sound. “You ain’t forgot how to milk a cow, have yah?”

“I don’t think so,” Elizabeth said, chuckling faintly.

“Well then, ‘slong’s I get a bit of help out to the barn now ‘n’ then, I don’t spoze you’ll be overburdenin’ us.”

A trace of a smile flickered across Elizabeth’s face. She looked slyly at her father, trying to gauge his true reaction and wishing he would come right out and say something like, You know we love you. But he just sat in his chair, stone-faced, as he ate his breakfast while gazing out at the pasture. His eyes looked lost, unfocused, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he hadn’t even been paying close attention to their conversation.

‘‘I’ll probably just stay here awhile, though,” she said softly. “Just until things get straightened out between me and Doug. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll end up getting a job in town so I can pay my own way —”

“T’ ain’t necessary,” her father said, his eyes still fastened on the view outside the kitchen window.

“Maybe not,” Elizabeth replied, “but I’ve got to do something with my time. You and Ma don’t want me moping around the house all day, now, do you?”

“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” her father said. For just an instant, his eyes flickered over to his daughter, but then his lower jaw tightened. “I’ve got a good mind to give Doug a call and tell him a thing or two ... ‘specially after what he said —”

“Kendall,” Rebecca said, her voice rising threateningly.

“What did he say?” Elizabeth asked, feeling a sudden, dark lurch in her stomach.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go repeatin’ things,” her father said gruffly, “but I’ll tell you som’thing.” His voice lowered with menace. “I never much cared for that man.”

“Ken-dall!” Rebecca snapped.

He flashed her an angry stare but went on undeterred. “No — I promised your ma years ago I’d never come right out ‘n’ say it, but, considerin’ what’s happened lately, I don’t see no harm. I always thought you could’ve done much better than Doug Myers, and I always thought it was wrong for you to drop outta school just so’s you could get married. Truth to tell, I always thought it was a mistake when you ‘n’ Frank Melrose broke up right after high school graduation —”

“Ken-
dall
!” Rebecca said, her voice rising with intensity.

Looking squarely at Elizabeth, he went on. “I told you then I thought it was a mistake. Still do.”

Elizabeth’s face flushed when she heard voiced something she herself, even years after she’d married Doug, had thought often enough to tickle her with guilt. It was almost funny how her father, who seemed at times so detached from what other people thought and felt, could usually get to the point so quickly once he started to speak his mind. When it came to nailing down what was important, leave it to good ole’ dad to do it the quickest and the best.

“No matter what you or anyone else thought at the time,” Elizabeth said weakly, “Frank and I had our differences that we just couldn’t straighten out. And I loved Doug when’ first met him.”

“I always thought you were foolish not to finish college. ‘N’ then to marry a high school history teacher! I worked hard so’s I could send both you and your sister to school, you know.”

“I know you did, dad,” Elizabeth said. “And I appreciate everything you and Mom did for me. But I really did love Doug, and I always intended to go back to school. , just never got a chance to, and then Caroline was born. And things weren’t so bad for us. Sure, we struggled, but you can’t tell me you and Mom haven’t struggled to get by. It’s just that Doug —” Her voice broke off for an instant, and she had the flashing fear that she was going to start crying allover again. “He seemed to-to change ... especially after Caroline died.”

There
! she thought, feeling a small wave of triumph.
I finally said it
!

“‘N’ to think that after everything you’ve been through,” Kendall went on, “to think that he blames you for what happened!”

In spite of herself, Elizabeth stiffened. She clenched her hands into fists in her lap, just to keep them from trembling. Her throat closed off before she could say anything.

“He said jus’ this mornin’ that, far’s he’s concerned,
you
killed Caroline!”

Her father’s words hit her like the full-bore blast of a shotgun. Elizabeth heard her mother’s sharp intake of breath, but all she could do was look at her father through a pained haze. She was unable even to breathe.

Placing his fisted hands on the table in front of him, Kendall took a deep breath and made as if to stand up. Even through the astonishment she felt, it cut Elizabeth to the quick to see the flush of anger on her father’s face.

“He said that ... that I —” she stammered, but that was all she could get out. Stunned, she sat there, watching her own anger and pain reflected in her father’s face.

Finally, she reached the limit of what she could stand. Pushing herself away from the table, she got up and started toward the living room doorway. A whirlpool of panicked confusion threatened to suck her down. She had been hoping that the waves of grief and guilt she still felt whenever she recalled what had happened to Caroline that night a year and a half ago would stop once she was safely home; but now darkness, cold and numbing, swelled even stronger inside her mind. She reached for the wall to support herself, fearing she was about to black out.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” she heard her mother say, sounding as though she were speaking from a great distance.

“Yeah, I — I’m just exhausted from last night and all,” Elizabeth replied, even though the backs of her legs felt like rubber and there was a loud
whooshing
in her ears.

“Maybe you should go back to bed,” her mother said. “I can call you down for lunch.”

“That might not be a bad idea,” Elizabeth said, her voice no more than a whisper. She turned and walked quickly through the living room, up the stairs, and down the hall into her old bedroom. With a shuddering sigh, she collapsed face-first onto the bed, feeling the clean pillow press against her face like a cool, rushing tide. She lay there, trembling as though wracked with fever, for what could have been ten minutes or ten hours. Never really drifting off to sleep, her mind filled with distorted echoes and memories of things she had been through and fears of things that she might yet have to face, and she was filled with the hollow fear that absolutely nothing had changed-except possibly for the worse.

And all the while she lay there, her eyes closed and stinging with tears, a hissing voice whispered in her mind ...

He thinks you killed her! ... Doug thinks you killed Caroline!

4.

Around four o’clock, after spending most of the afternoon cleaning up and rearranging the furniture in her bedroom, and with her mother outside seeing how Kendall was doing overhauling the tractor, Elizabeth took the opportunity to call Dr. Gavreau, her psychiatrist in Laconia, New Hampshire. After briefly explaining to him that she had left Doug and was back home. she asked him what she should do about her ongoing therapy with him.

“Well. we can continue to work together if you don’t mind the commute,” Dr. Gavreau said. “I’d be, what — an hour and a half each way?”

Elizabeth grunted agreement.

“Either that,” Gavreau continued, “or else you can start working with someone local.”

Although she was intimidated by the idea of cutting off her work with Gavreau and starting fresh, Elizabeth was positive she didn’t want to go back to Laconia, where she and Doug had lived ... not for
anything.

“Do you know anyone around here you could recommend?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Dr. Gavreau replied. “Just a few days ago at a conference in Denver I bumped into a colleague of mine, a Dr. Roland Graydon. He lives in ... South Portland, I believe he said. Have you ever heard of him?”

“Uh, no. The name doesn’t ring a bell,” Elizabeth replied, wondering how he could expect her to know anyone in an area she hadn’t lived in for almost twenty years.

“Years ago he and I went to medical school at Duke together,” Dr. Gavreau said. “When he told me he was living in the Portland area, I think I even might have mentioned your name. I knew you were originally from around there ... Bristol Mills is near South Portland, isn’t it?”

“It’s the next town over,” Elizabeth said.

“Well then, I don’t think it would hurt for you to give him a call and set up an appointment to meet him. I’d chance to say you might be able to work quite well with him. His name must be in the phone book.”

“Thanks for the lead,” Elizabeth said. “I feel kind of funny, though, not working with you any more. I’ll follow up on it right away; I promise.”

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Gavreau said. “I won’t take it personally. I know these things happen. My bottom-line concern is for you.”

“Thank you very much,” Elizabeth said, choking up. “I ... really appreciate what you’ve done for me.” As she was talking with Dr. Gavreau, she took the telephone directory from the counter drawer, looked up Graydon’s number, and jotted it down on a piece of paper. As soon as she hung up, she dialed Graydon’s number, before she could chicken out. After four rings, she heard an answering machine click on.

“Damn! I hate these things,” she muttered, when she heard the tape-recorded message begin to play.

“ ... So if you leave your name and phone number, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Wait for the beep.”

Roland Graydon’s voice sounded pleasant enough during the brief recorded message. Actually, Elizabeth thought, it had the mellow tone of a late-night FM disk jockey. As she waited for the beep and mentally phrased her message, she felt herself tensing up, wondering what kind of man this Dr. Graydon might turn out to be.