Eileen (23 page)

“Please,” said Mrs. Polk. “What do you want from me?”

“An explanation.” Rebecca puffed her chest out, put her hands on her hips. “We know it wasn't easy for you, Rita, married to a man who likes little boys. We understand that you've been suffering alone in this house with your guilty conscience. It's obvious you're having a hard time. Just tell us why you helped your husband do what he did—why you gave Lee the enemas. Why didn't you tell anybody what was going on? Tell us. Get it off your chest.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Mrs. Polk asserted, averting her eyes. “I'd never do anything to hurt Lee. He's my son. My flesh and blood. I'm his mother for Christ's sake.”

“Eileen,” Rebecca said. I started at my name. “Do something.”

Holding the gun out, I approached Mrs. Polk. She let out an odd warbling scream, then yelled out again and again for help. A dog started barking somewhere aboveground and the sound echoed around the cellar between the woman's cries. Rebecca covered her ears with her hands.

“Quiet,” I said. But Mrs. Polk's screeching was too loud for
her to hear me. “Screaming won't help you,” I yelled, amplifying my voice in a way I'd never had to before. “Shut up!” She stopped screaming and looked at me, sucking in quick short breaths, her mouth sputtering with saliva. I took a step closer, the gun aimed straight at her face. I tried to think of what my father would say and do in my situation. “Don't think I won't pull the trigger,” I began. “Who would miss you? You could rot here forever. We could bury you right here,” I stamped my foot on the hard dirt floor, “and nobody would come digging because nobody cares if you live or die.” I can only say that given my home and professional life, I'd had years to learn how to speak in a way that made a person feel she had no option but to obey. In fact, I was uniquely prepared and qualified by experience to wrench the disgusting truth from this woman, I thought. I looked at Rebecca. She seemed to be deeply impressed by my performance. She took a step back, her mouth slightly open, and fluttered her hand as though to tell me to keep going. It was exciting. I adjusted the scarf over my nose and bent down to Mrs. Polk. Her face was wet with tears, red as a roasting pig.

“Death would be a blessing for someone like you,” I continued. “Admit it. You've got too much pride to own up to what you did to your son. You'd rather die than confess that you've done anything wrong. Pathetic,” I said, kicking at her feet. “Little piggy,” I added. My voice bounced off the walls with a strange quick echo. Mrs. Polk turned away, her face tense with fear, eyes pinched shut but cracking open to glance at the gun every now and then as I spoke. She whimpered. “You want to
die?” I rushed toward her suddenly, bringing the gun just an inch from her face. I looked up at Rebecca. She stood in the swirling shadows, wide-eyed and smiling. “Admit it!” I screamed at Mrs. Polk, my voice louder than it had ever been. I felt so buoyed by my convincing display of rage, I actually began to feel enraged. My heart pounded. The basement seemed to go black but for Mrs. Polk's blubbery body vibrating on the floor. As though I were drunk, I came at her violently again. I squatted down and tried to hit her with the gun across the top of her skull, but I barely grazed her. The butt of my fist just mussed her hair. Still, the gesture had her panting and crying even harder.

Rebecca stepped up. “I can't protect you unless you confess,” she said. “Eileen has killed before,” she added.

“That's right,” I said. It was a ridiculous scene, two girls making things up as they went along. If I had to do it again, I would have calmly pressed the barrel of the gun to the woman's heart and let Rebecca do all the talking. I wouldn't have lost my temper the way I did. Looking back, it still embarrasses me. But however silly I looked waving it around, the gun was having its effect on Mrs. Polk. Her face had lost its arrogant pout and when she opened her eyes, they were terrified and ready. “Tell us what happened in this house,” I said viciously. I put the gun to her temple.

“Please, don't hurt me,” she whimpered, shaking.

“I won't have to hurt you if you talk,” I agreed. But still, she just howled and sobbed. My arm got tired after a few minutes and I lowered the gun. Each time Mrs. Polk opened her eyes, I would raise it again. Finally she lifted her chin, grit her teeth.

“All right,” she said. “You win.”

“Are you ready to talk?” I asked her, my voice raised unnecessarily.

“Oh good,” said Rebecca, clasping her hands. “Thank God.”

I backed away from Mrs. Polk and sat down on the cold dirt floor, pulled my knees up toward my chest inside the warmth of my coat. The steam of my breath made my face wet beneath the scarf. I watched the woman catch her breath, collect herself. The gun had warmed in my hand. “We're waiting,” I taunted her. She nodded. I wondered how well my father had known the Polks when he was still a cop, if Mr. Polk and he had shared chitchat over coffee, complained about their wives, their children. I don't remember ever meeting Mr. Polk but if I did, he made no impression on me. I guess that is how those sick people get by. They look like nobodies, but behind closed doors they turn into monsters. Sitting there, I imagined that if Mrs. Polk were to go and confess everything to the police, they'd simply dismiss her as a woman with a sick imagination. The ball and chain concocting some unbelievable story to make her old man look bad. Trashy. That would have been my father's explanation, I'm sure.

“I'll be right back,” whispered Rebecca.

Startled, I raised the gun again. “Where are you going?” I asked, watching her cross the cellar floor. Mrs. Polk wheezed and sniffled, looked around, confused.

“To get something to write on,” Rebecca answered, hushed. “You'll give us a signed confession,” she said louder, to Mrs. Polk. “And we'll agree, you and I, that we won't ever go to the
police about any of this. We'll put it in writing,” she said. Turning, she gestured for me to point the gun at Mrs. Polk, which I did. Then she flitted up the steep cellar stairs, closing the door to the kitchen behind her. I could hear her footsteps through the house, fainter as she walked up to the second floor. I propped the gun on my knees, looked at Mrs. Polk.

“I really don't care what you did,” I told her. “Just confess and she'll let you go, and you'll never see us again.” I figured the struggle was over. Mrs. Polk had surrendered. I expected Rebecca to come back and untie her, rub the woman's back while she scribbled and sobbed, begged God to forgive her. I aimed the gun in her direction, expecting more fearful shrieks. But she just looked at me, frowning.

“I tell you things, and then what?” she asked. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I don't know,” I said honestly. “Run away?” She cried some more, quietly, her face slick with snot.

“There's nowhere to run to,” she said. “I don't have any money. I don't have anyplace else to go.”

I shrugged. I thought of my stash of cash in the attic back home. Would I give my money to Mrs. Polk, forfeit my own escape to set her free and keep the authorities out of our hair—Rebecca's and mine? The thought crossed my mind. Upstairs I heard Rebecca clanking around, floorboards creaking. I yearned for her to return, to heap praise on me, to thank me from the bottom of her heart, tell me I was her hero, an angel, a saint. Then we could take off together. In New York, people were kissing under mistletoe, dancing and pouring champagne and
falling in love. And where was I? I was alone in a basement with a woman tied to a pipe. I didn't want to watch Mrs. Polk cry anymore. I had played my part well, I thought. I stood up, dusted the dirt off my backside and gestured with the gun up at the ceiling. “She just wants to help,” I said. I could go to jail, I realized, if something went wrong. Still, I wasn't afraid. I put the gun back down.

“She's right, you know,” Mrs. Polk began. “That lady. Your friend?” Her voice was high and monotonous and clicked with phlegm as she spoke. “My boy wasn't lying about his father. Mitch, my husband, he had bad habits. You know, strange tastes. I thought some men were just like that. I never got used to it, but you have to understand. I couldn't just leave. You take an oath when you get married to honor and obey your husband. That's what I did. Where was I supposed to go?” Her eyes glittered in the weak light. She swallowed, looked up at the ceiling and cleared her throat. Where was Rebecca? “At first I thought Mitch was just checking on him in his sleep, like a good father would,” Mrs. Polk went on. “Like he just wanted to be sure his son was safe and sound in bed. We all do that. But he'd spend a while. Bit by bit, longer each time, I guess. I don't know how often. Sometimes I'd feel him getting out of bed. Sometimes I'd just feel him when he'd come back, and he'd kiss me or hold me, and you know. We hadn't really been together since Lee'd been born. I'd lost interest. We'd lost interest. But suddenly Mitch wanted to be with me again. I was flattered. But I started getting these infections down there. Oh God,” she sighed, “in my private parts. The doctors said I had
to wash more. I figured it was my fault. And then I wondered if Mitch had brought something home from a trip he took one summer to visit his brother in Toronto, or so he said. The clap? I don't know what I was thinking. But I kept getting these infections. Then one night I got up in the middle of the night and went and looked and I saw Mitch in Lee's bed. At first I had no clue what they were doing, and I just went back to bed. It didn't dawn on me right away, I swear to you. You don't expect your husband's going to do a thing like that. It's a hard thing to believe. But as time went on, I came to accept it. It couldn't have hurt that much, I said to myself. Couldn't be that bad, I thought. And Lee never said anything, so I figured it was OK. Maybe I'd been confused all along about men, I thought. Maybe all men do this with their sons. You start thinking that. It could be true. What did I know? And Lee seemed fine. Quiet kid, good kid, decent grades, sweet boy. Barely said a word, played nice with the neighbors, nothing out of order. So I got used to it. And then I figured, if he was clean, it would be better for all of us. Maybe I wouldn't get those infections. They hurt, you know, when Mitch and I were together. Lee wasn't a big eater anyway, and I got to know what foods ran through him which ways,” she said, “to make the enemas easier. It sounds funny, I know. I knew what I was doing wasn't quite right. But Lee was such a sweet kid, brave, you know, he didn't question it. He always just wanted to make everybody happy. He'd say, ‘I just don't want anybody to be mad at me.' Made me all kinds of pretty cards at school for Christmas and Valentine's. Good boy, back then, I thought. So I put on a
happy face. What else could I do? They don't tell you about these things. They don't prepare you for problems like that.”

“They?” I asked.

Mrs. Polk didn't answer. She just bent forward, shook her head back and forth, stunned, it seemed, by her own words. I heard Rebecca's footsteps through the house again, even-tempoed but slow. Mrs. Polk looked up toward the ceiling, huffed, fighting back more tears. “Who do you tell? I wasn't going to tell anyone. You do the best you can. You know what happens when you have children? Your husband never looks at you the same. I blamed myself, you know. I ate too much. And Mitch didn't find me attractive anymore. We hadn't been together in years before that started, with Lee. Then it just became habit, the way things went. I was alone all day, you know. I was a housewife. I had nobody else, you understand. Mitch didn't talk to me, just came home, ate his dinner, drank, and I was just a stranger in the room, a nuisance. He could barely stand me. But after he went to bed with Lee, he'd come to me. And it was like a big burden had been lifted. He was relaxed. And it felt good, how he'd hold me. He loved me then. He was tender. I knew he loved me. He would show it. He'd whisper and kiss me and say nice things. It was the way it had been before, when we were young and happy and in love, and it felt good to me. Is that so wrong? To want to feel that way? I even got pregnant once, but I lost it. I didn't care. I had my husband back. You wouldn't understand,” she said, looking up at me. “You're young. You haven't had your heart broken.”

But I understood her perfectly. Of course I did. Who wouldn't?

She began to cry again, solemnly this time.

“There, there,” I said, the first time in my life I had ever sincerely tried to comfort anyone. We sat in silence for a moment. Then we heard the door open, footsteps. We both turned to watch Rebecca float down the stairs, carrying a pad of paper and a pen.

“Will you untie me now?” Mrs. Polk looked at me. “I've said everything.”

Rebecca looked at me suspiciously. I nodded. “It's true,” I said, all my rage now gone. Mrs. Polk's eyes darted nervously from Rebecca's face to mine, then down at the gun on the floor.

“We'll untie you once you agree to our terms,” Rebecca said. “And sign a contract. Eileen,” she looked at me incredulously. “What did she say?” I wasn't going to repeat to Rebecca what Mrs. Polk had said. There was no polite way to phrase it. Rebecca grunted in frustration. “Eileen,” she whined. To Mrs. Polk she said, “You'll have to write it all down, or else our deal is off.”

“What deal?” Mrs. Polk was now clear-eyed, flushed more with anger than fear.

“The deal is you admit what you've done and we don't kill you.” Rebecca was angry now, too, at Mrs. Polk and at me, it seemed. “Hand me the gun, Eileen,” Rebecca said gruffly. I did as I was told. I didn't want her to turn against me. She stood back looking down at Mrs. Polk, as I had done earlier. “Tell me
what you told her,” she insisted, holding the gun awkwardly, her elbows bent outward, her fingers closed over the barrel. Mrs. Polk looked at me, as though I could save her.