Million Dollar Road (16 page)

Emma tried to think that there wasn't any reason to be worried. Sheba would be back for supper.

But as the day drew to a close, Emma's worry was growing, and when the sun dropped behind the tops of the tall pines bordering her farm and Sheba hadn't turned up yet, she knew with a sinking heart that something had to have gone wrong. Maybe very wrong.

“
Sheba
—come, girl!”

Emma was out on the front porch, calling into the gathering dusk. The air was turning cooler as the sun westered in banked clouds of orange, scarlet, and violet-rose. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, shivering, but stayed out on the porch until well after dark. Sheba didn't return and after a tasteless meal that Emma forced herself to prepare and eat, after one last solitary wait outside on the porch under the cold stars, she finally went to bed. She didn't rest well, though, for her dreams were full of a terrifying confusion, of Con and Sheba walking away from her down the gravel road while she called after them.

Come back, come back
.

And contrary to her usual habit, Sarah didn't call the next day, not even once.

Now Emma regretted having quarreled with her friend—but refused to admit that Sarah might have had a point. Lireinne was well on her way, she insisted, unwillingly reliving her argument with the old woman. Sarah would just have to make her peace with that. Instead of driving out to Million Dollar Road where a panic attack was sure to be waiting for her, Emma had a missing dog to find. She needed to get in the truck and go look for her, call the SPCA and the Parish animal shelter. Sheba had to be somewhere.

But after five days of searching, on Thursday, Emma had to face the terrible truth: Sheba was almost certainly lost for good—or dead.

Without the dog, the house had never seemed more threateningly still to her. Now even her garden, a place of hard-won peace, seemed like a shoe-box diorama of a farm complete with cardboard cutouts of trees and papier-mâché chickens. Sheba, Emma's sole companion, was gone and she was truly alone.

Emma gave in to grief then, grieving for the friend who'd never offered her anything but love and a steadfast loyalty, who'd kept her company when she needed it most and then, like everyone else, abandoned her. Unable to look at the reminders, Emma put Sheba's bowls away and threw out the last of the dog food while she sobbed helplessly, blindsided by her unrelenting, profound sorrow. When Emma forced herself to think about it rationally, she knew this tearing pain was out of all proportion to her loss. Sheba was only a stray dog, for God's sake.

But in the house it was just her own echoing footfalls now, the constant stream of classical music—and the emboldened voices. Emma couldn't seem to stop crying, no matter how she tried, until her tears gave way to a numbness almost more frightening than the constant tears had been.

So it was that when Con's car pulled up in front of the house late that Thursday afternoon, Emma found herself letting him in. He came carrying an armful of lilies and a bottle of her favorite wine, a fine old Bordeaux that she remembered tasting of cherries and still, dark earth; of honey, amber, and sunshine.

In the way Con had always possessed, he seemed to know something was wrong right away. Without their having to say very much to each other, Con sat in the kitchen with her while she trimmed the stems of the flowers and arranged them in a cut-crystal vase that had once belonged to her mother, and then he opened the wine. Carrying their glasses, they moved to the front porch and sat in the rocking chairs, looking out across the farm where a light rain had begun to fall. Even in the depths of her sorrow, Emma took the comfort of his understanding gratefully. How right it seemed, Con being there with her now. The quiet between them seemed necessary. It was a gift to her sorrow, a sharing without words.

The bottle was nearly done before Emma could tell Con about losing Sheba. She was weeping again, and so dazed from the unaccustomed alcohol that she poured out much more than she meant to say. He listened to it all, though, really listened in the way that only Con could. Oh, his listening was another loss, one that had haunted her for two years, but wrapped in that perfect attention Emma felt herself finally accepting that Sheba, whom she'd also loved, was never coming back. As Con gave her this safe, quiet space for full acceptance, she abandoned herself to him, dismissing whatever other reason it had been that had brought him to her farm that day. It didn't matter.

And so when Con got out of his chair, crossed the porch, and knelt beside her to take her into his arms, Emma gladly surrendered her mouth to his, drinking him in, as hungry for him as the dry ground hungered for the steady-falling rain.

She knew better, God knew she did, but it was Con at last, it was her husband and she didn't care anymore about the past. After all the years of solitude, for this one moment Emma wasn't alone.

 

Later, much later, as they lay in Emma's bed, Con held her close while the rain pattered overhead on the tin roof. The radio was playing Verdi's
Aida
in the other room: it was opera night at the NPR station.

Con pressed his lips to her forehead, stroking her silver hair in the lamplight. In this so-familiar aftermath, Emma threw a long leg over his and propped herself on one elbow, looking down into Con's beloved face. Her fingertip traced the line of his jaw. He smelled of his Hermès cologne, the smoky incense of his cigars, and their lovemaking.

“I didn't expect this,” Emma murmured with a tremulous half-smile.

“Didn't you?” Con looked up at her, his eyes warm and fond. “Oh, we're forever lovers, Em. You know that.”

Ah, yes. She had known that. Always.

“I guess so . . . yes.” Running her fingers through her hair, Emma sat up in the bed, drawing the sheets to her to cover her breasts. “Yes,” she said again, willing a firmness to her voice. But with Con here now, here again in her bed, she was filled with a thousand sudden questions she couldn't bring herself to ask, not right away. Not just yet. Things were so new between them. Emma pondered, biting her lower lip, until she thought of a question so obvious that it had to be safe.

“By the way,” she said lightly, “I didn't ask before. What brought you out here today, anyway?”

Con frowned, lacing his fingers behind his head on the pillow. He sighed, his expression rueful.

“Oh, Em.” Con turned his eyes away from hers. “God, how can I say it? I came out to see you because I knew that if I called, you'd just blow me off like always. I, uh, wanted you to hear this from me and not from someone else, but then you were so broken up about Sheba, I . . . I forgot everything but you.” He felt for her hand and Emma clutched his, feeling the long bones, his warm, broad palm. She pressed his hand to her lips.

“You know I hate it when you're unhappy, sweetheart. I can't stand it,” Con said. “When you're sad it makes me feel like hell, especially when it's something I can't fix.” His sea-blue eyes were sparkling with unshed tears in the lamplight.

As Con spoke, Emma's breath caught as though her throat had been crushed. She let go of his hand, raising her own to her mouth. It was an echo of a long-dreaded memory, the resonance of annihilation, of betrayal. From a long way away, from the border of Breakdown Country, Emma heard her own voice ask, “What is it, Con?”

He hesitated, his beloved face pleading and almost shamed.

“Lizzie's pregnant.”

Outside the rain continued to fall, but inside her bedroom the voices shrieked all around her, the voices were a monstrous flock of birds, and from the whirling center of that vast, twittering chorus of jeers and blame, Emma could only repeat it, the thing Con had just said.

“Lizzie's . . . pregnant.”

Con reached to stroke her cheek. “Yes.” He sat up next to her in the bed and put his strong arms, his smooth, well-muscled arms that had always made her feel safe—so safe—around her trembling shoulders.

“I know it's a shock,” he said soothingly. “I couldn't think of a better way to say it. God knows I didn't want to hurt you, but this is . . . what it is. You needed to know, sweetheart.”

It was Emma's last, fully realized thought before she slapped him.

And then she couldn't breathe, the light fled the room, and a storm fell like a rain of rocks around her.

 

There wasn't enough Xanax in the medicine cabinet to do the job right, and Emma had a horror of killing herself merely sufficient to render herself brain-damaged instead of genuinely dead. Using the truck's tailpipe was out—she didn't have a garage—and the oven was electric. She'd been meaning to buy a gas range for a while because she preferred to cook with gas, but it was too late for that now. Emma knew she'd never screw up the courage to step off a kitchen chair, her bathrobe belt tied around her neck, and hang herself from the light fixture. It probably wasn't strong enough to support her weight anyway. Thanks to Sheba's hunting, she'd never bothered to keep rat poison on the farm either.

In the end, then, Emma found herself in a warm bath armed with the sharpest knife she could find.

Con, of course, had left long before.

But then the voices inside the house were gone, too. She was really by herself now, totally alone. Soon to be alone forever.

And in a gift of exquisite, midnight irony,
Madame Butterfly
had followed the Verdi opera on the radio. The soaring notes of Cio-Cio San's final aria seemed far away, floating down the hall in a music that was as liquid and pure as the water lapping Emma's knees, promising an end to pain.

It was time. Probably past time.

Setting her jaw, Emma dug the tip of the knife into her wrist. She dragged the edge upward, but while the blade was keen enough to slice a thin red line up the inside of her arm, when she pressed harder the scratch grew ragged. It hurt. It hurt a
lot
.

For God's sake, Emma thought in weary disgust. She used to be a chef. How could she have let her knives get this dull? But now she was reduced to sawing at her sturdy, traitorous skin, and the pain grew so fierce, so hot, that Emma hissed, reflexively flinging the knife away from her as though it were a snapping rat. The blood-smeared blade fell outside the tub with a clatter on the bathroom floor.

A narrow trail of crimson ran down her arm and swirled in the warm bath like wine mixed with water in a chalice. Emma stared at the red, drifting ribbon.

Who would it be? she wondered dully. Who would discover her after she was dead? Who would have the awful responsibility of calling the police? Would they wait here with her body until the cops and the ambulance arrived? It was hard to muster the energy to care about the answer, but she ran down the short list of who might be the lucky one anyway. It could only be Con or Sarah. There was no one else. Her aunt and uncle had died years ago and she hadn't any other family.

Con would cope—he'd cry, but he'd cope—but the thought of Sarah finding her was a bad one. Emma didn't want her friend to have to deal with this mess, even though Sarah was a self-acknowledged tough old bird. No, this should be Con's job because he'd been the one who drove her to this. She ought to call his cell phone right now before she finished killing herself, leave him a little voice mail of her own. Like, “Hey—I'll be dead when you get this. Thanks for keeping me in the loop, by the way.”

“Right as usual, my friend,” Emma murmured to the memory of Sarah in the garden.

The water was pink-tinged and beginning to cool. Her left arm burned, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. No, Emma knew she wasn't going to call Con. The thought of him standing over her naked body . . .
crying,
was too much for her to bear thinking about. It might even be her last thought. Oh, damn him and his easy tears. It would have to be Sarah, who would be bound to come by any day now. Poor Sarah. Still, it couldn't be helped.

Better get on with it now, this last part.

“Here goes.” With a tired groan, Emma reached out of the tub to find the knife, to pick it up and finish the job, but the knife wasn't under her wet fingers. She peered over the side of the deep bath and didn't see it anywhere.

The knife must have bounced and skidded underneath the old claw-footed tub. Emma was going to have to get out and hunt for it. The unbidden image of herself, bent on suicide and naked on her hands and knees fishing around under the tub for a knife, was so ludicrous that when poor, tragic
Madame Butterfly
ended and the muscular, mountaintop sopranos of Wagner's Valkyries commenced their skirling chorus, she almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Almost.

“Hell.” Emma collapsed against the cool porcelain back of the tub, exhausted. This killing yourself is harder than it looks in the movies, she thought bitterly. So . . . go on. Get your ass out of the bath and look for the knife. Better yet, just go in the kitchen, find the steel, and put a decent edge on another one if you're really hell-bent on this. Make it easy; make it fast.

With an effort, Emma hauled her now-shivering body out of the water and grabbed a towel. The long, ragged scratch on her forearm bled sluggishly, leaving a bright red smear on the white cotton.

She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror and stopped, surveying it with a numb indifference, not giving a damn anymore whether she saw herself or not. Look: there she was, like a ghost. The face looking back at her was ashen, her full-lipped mouth slack with the emptiness of this, her last gesture to the world. Emma noted without much interest the deep hollows above her collarbones, the long thin column of her neck. She should try to eat more, except, except . . . she was killing herself tonight instead.