The Murderer's Daughters (36 page)

Beer, wine, bourbon; thoughts of alcohol suffused me as I rode the train home. I got off the Green Line at Boston University, then trudged across the bridge connecting Boston to Cambridge. The coat I’d needed that morning now just served to hold my sweat-dampened blouse closer to my body.

I went to the nearby Whole Foods and grabbed a chicken salad sandwich, thick with mayo, a near-copy of my lunch. Anything healthier meant going to the counter, and talking to anyone was more effort than I could afford. I chose the cheapest bottle of wine Whole Foods carried and checked out.

Drew’s and the girls’ shrieks traveled around the corner as I reached my front door, their shouts indicating the fun, games, and all that other wonderful family shit they had next door. I quietly searched the pit of my overstuffed purse for my keys, not interested in saying hello.

After throwing the sandwich in the refrigerator, I uncorked the wine and poured myself a generous glass. I looked in the mirror and toasted my supper companion.

“Happy loser day.” I leaned in closer to see how much I’d aged since the morning. Dry skin flakes collected in the edges of my nose. Mean little lines grew before my eyes until my face resembled crazed porcelain. My humid-wild curls appeared too young and long for my old, wrinkled face. I made nasty eyes at the crumpled-wrinkled-dry-faced loser in the mirror. I didn’t even own a fricking car.

No wonder Michael had rejected me.

I hadn’t found the guts to call him. Instead, I’d sent an e-mail, which I’d
written and rewritten until I captured what I’d hoped was a breezy, off-the-cuff tone.

Michael,

 

(No “Dear.” The salutation seemed too formal, too desperate.)

 

Too late to apologize for being an absolute horror in NYC? Can I offer an act of contrition dinner? I’ll cook and provide the wine, with or without legs. All best, Merry

 

Michael had responded twenty minutes later:

 

Dear Merry,

Thanks for your kind invitation, but best we leave things where they are. You’re lovely, but at this point in my life, I don’t want emotional swings, nor can I build up the interpretation skills a relationship with you seems to require. Warm regards, Michael

Warm regards, indeed. Desperately seeking comfort, however cold, I parsed “lovely.” Beautiful or sweet? I supposed he meant beautiful, if not beautiful enough to override an “emotional swing.” Sweet, I hadn’t been.

Screw him.

I poured a third wine and picked at my sandwich, putting it down between bites to grab the remote. I drained my glass and got the phone. I knew what I needed.

The last time I’d slept with Quinn had been many months ago, when we’d gone to a motel so far up the coast we could have walked to Canada if we so desired. He’d made the trip sound romantic, but when we arrived, I saw the only atmosphere offered was anonymity. We stayed two nights, screwing repeatedly in the frantic way we pretended meant passion.

Now here he was, back in my bed. I supposed I should feel proud of myself; I had my married man thing down to maybe three times a year.

Quinn climbed on top of me, pulling down the straps of my black camisole. My breasts touched his chest as he banged into me. I wound my legs around him, barely feeling him through my wine-induced numbness. He ground down to a finish, coming in a hot pulse. Air washed against my cheek as he let loose with an almost inaudible groan. Emotional cripples. Both of us.

“Need anything?” he asked a few moments later, burying the words in my neck.

He meant had I come. “I’m fine.”

Quinn took me at face value. He’d never worry about my so-called emotional swings. He lifted himself on his arms and fell off me so he could stare at the ceiling. He placed an arm over his eyes in his after-sex-ostrich manner. If he couldn’t see me, he hadn’t wronged his wife. Quinn’s modus operandi.

“Not bad for an old man, eh?” he asked.

“If you need compliments afterward, perhaps you should work harder.” I leaned over him and took my glass from the night table.

“If you want orgasms, perhaps you shouldn’t drink so much.”

I drank the few remaining sips of wine. “That never used to be a barrier. Perhaps you’re getting too old.”

“Perhaps you are. Turn to me, let me see.” He pulled me over on my side. Quinn still had his football strength. He ran a rough thumb in the hollows under my eyes. “Is this thinning skin? Are these lines?”

I pushed him away. “Is this softening?” I poked at his stomach. “Can you feel the approach of Viagra in your future?”

“And Botox in yours?” He leaned back and put his arm out for me, waiting for me to conform to his body. “Am I the only one who knows the bitch you really are under those Kewpie doll looks?”

“Kewpie doll? Old man, old man,” not wanting him to see how his words hurt.

“Face it, Merry. They say when you get older you have the face you deserve. Maybe that’s not true. Look at us, still beautiful, still handsome. Maybe in the end, you have the person you deserve.”

A week later, certain I’d let Quinn into my bed for the last time, I cleansed my apartment of even the slight traces he’d left in my life. The few photos of us, I shredded. The cheap locket he’d given me, I tossed. The glass vase in which I’d placed the flowers he’d brought, I recycled to Goodwill.

I gave up men. Married men, fat men, thin men, men of muscle, men of steel, sensitive, smart, fools, and fops; I’d finished with them all. I furthered my purification journey by cutting out alcohol and M&M’s. I joined a women-only gym, ready to become physically strong and emotionally sound. I left for work looking forward to saving souls and returned high on the wise advice I’d dispensed all day.

Before heading upstairs, I checked my mail. A letter marked with the familiar words “Richmond County Prison” glowed toxic from among my cable and Visa bills. I allowed my automatic response, pouring a Jack Daniel’s, to wash through me without acting on it and marched up to my
refrigerator for a V8, reminding myself how much better my skin seemed since I’d replaced alcohol with vegetable juice. I considered smearing the blood-red liquid on my skin until I’d look twenty.

I crouched in front of the fridge, holding off on the letter until I had some food as a shield. On the bottom shelf, I found a bowl of tomatoes shrinking in a pool of oil, vinegar, and wilted cilantro leaves. After sniffing the sad mixture, I took a forkful, hoping vinegar acted as a natural enemy of food-borne bacteria.

Then I opened my father’s letter.

Dear Merry,

Too busy to visit your old man these days? Got a new boyfriend? Not only have I not seen you since you visited in October, I’ve only gotten that one card from you. Not even a letter, just a store-bought card. I haven’t seen a picture of the girls in ages, and at their age, they grow like weeds.

 

My father, the expert on the stages of childhood.

 

Well, never mind. Here’s some good news. It won’t be long before I can see those girls in person. Guess what? I’m getting out in March!!!!

I know you thought it would never happen, but my years of good behavior are finally paying off. The prisons are getting too crowded, so they’re moving out the old guys like me (ha ha!) to make more room for gangbangers and drug dealers. This place is crawling with scum. These young kids have no respect. Well, too bad for them. Their loss, my gain, right?

 

I gulped another glass of V8.

 

So, even though my sentence isn’t up for eight years, I’m getting out. I need you to come up right away. I’ve called you plenty of times (even though I have to wait in a line of idiots for an hour to make the calls), but you’re never home and I didn’t want to leave this news on your answering machine.

We need to make plans, Tootsie. I don’t even know how big your apartment is. And I got to make things right with Lulu. You have to make her come up here. You come here this weekend so we can start talking about all
this. Also, find out about optician places in Boston, because I need to have them transfer my parole to Massachusetts (you can help, right?) and I need a list of where I can look for a job. Plus other stuff.

With your connections, this should go easy.

Fear overtook my body one inch at a time, moving like Novocain through my veins, paralyzing me in some merciful way.

I had no one to call and no one to tell. Lulu would need managing, and Drew, the only other person in the entire world I could tell—his loyalty had to be to Lulu. Drew would be my partner in taking care of Lulu; he couldn’t help me.

I raked my finger up and down my chest. I stumbled into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, looking for rescue. Finally, behind the aspirin and Pepto-Bismol, I found half a bottle of Vicodin left from a root canal the previous year. I carried the bottle into the kitchen and swallowed two tablets with V8.

What in the name of God could I do?

I went to my bedroom and fell on my neatly quilted bed. I lay facedown and thought of my mother. Spectral pictures wrapped my memories. Each year, Mama’s image morphed into the Virgin Mary a little more, until now my recollections of her resembled the Holy Mother oil paintings lining Duffy’s hall.

Memories of my childhood rushed past the Vicodin and V8. I imagined the white pills eroding in my stomach as they soaked in the red liquid. I prayed for the drugs to decompose and numb me fast.

Mama had screamed and screamed while I’d lain frozen on her bed. I’d ripped pieces of my mother’s chenille bedspread as my father tore my skin. Wetness followed searing pain. Daddy tried to hold me with his blood-soaked hands. Then darkness came and I had no other memories until Lulu came to the huge hospital where I’d lain alone forever, and gave me a tiny doll.

Lulu.

How could I tell her?

I took her to eat at Delfino restaurant on Friday, just the two of us having a sisters’ night out.

Lulu tipped her head toward my wineglass. “What happened to purification?”

“Anything can become extreme, even temperance. Ready to order?”

“You’re so jumpy. What’s wrong? You’ve been like this for days.” Candlelight cast shadows on Lulu’s wine-softened features. She bit off the end of a breadstick.

I brought my menu closer. “I’m just hungry. Let’s order, then we can talk.”

Lulu smirked with knowing. “See. I knew we had something to talk about.” She put on her reading glasses, smiling with the pleasure of having uncovered the truth.

I caught the waiter’s eye and raised a finger toward my empty wineglass. Lulu, she of the still-half-full glass, noticed and widened her eyes. “Two drinks before dinner?”

“Just figure out what you want, okay?”

“Fine, fine. You’re a big girl.” Lulu picked up her menu, looked for a moment, and then placed it down. “But it’s been wonderful seeing you so healthy.”

I almost slammed my hand on the glass table, imagining the shattering, the blood running. Instead, I smiled. “The manicotti here is great.”

The small restaurant invited intimacy. I’d brought my sister here as a man might bring a date, jumpy with wanting her love. I’d hoped the candles, the red walls, and the glass tables covered with sheer lace clothes would make Lulu yearn for our twoness. Lulu and Merry against the world; no one came between us. Please, God.